Politics and brain damage.
It's National Mr. Potato Head Day!
KGB Report provides observations by and for the vaguely disenchanted. You’ll get a smile or two, maybe something outrageous, but always deep background about today’s date: information, essential and otherwise, for the day ahead.
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Knee Deep in the Hoopla
The Trump/Musk firehose of folly continues, and it’s impossible to review all but the most egregious outrages here. The Associated Press, NBC, Aljazeera, and The Guardian are my picks for keeping up to date. Check out one or two, take a look, and come back here when you’ve had enough.
Scientists uncover links between brain damage and how intensely people engage in politics.
Sugar substitute may harm brain, blood vessel health. Erythritol, a sugar substitute marketed as “healthy,” may impair blood vessel health by disrupting the brain’s ability to produce nitrous oxide.
Gravity may be a clue that the universe is a giant computer, and we’re all computational constructs.
Empty shelves could be coming by next month and a recession will arrive this summer, according to an economist. “Expect ships to sit offshore, orders to be canceled, and well-run generational retailers to file for bankruptcy.”
Trump’s fury at bad polls boils over as allies rush to calm him down. As his anger over his terrible polling numbers grows, Trump’s advisers are now actively deluding him about his disastrous reign.
Trump’s first 100 days, in ten charts. (Washington Post gift article.)
Florida man accused of touching as many as a dozen Realtors' feet during open house showings.
Florida woman hits bear with bag of cookies after close encounter.
Shirt of the day (click on image)
KGB Quote of the Day:
"The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn't have a space program. And if we become extinct because we don't have a space program, it'll serve us right!"
--Larry Niven (Wikipedia link)
(More Larry Niven quotes from the KGB Quotations Database)
Among other things, today is- in no particular order of importance-
KGB REPORT STUFF! (Click on link) On This Day:
1492 – Spain gave Christopher Columbus his commission of exploration. He was named admiral of the ocean sea, viceroy and governor of any territory he discovered.
1598 – The first known theatrical performance within the boundaries of what would become the United States was performed on land just north of the Rio Grande near today’s El Paso, Texas.
1789 – On the balcony of Federal Hall on Wall Street in New York City, George Washington took the oath of office to become the first President of the United States.
1798 – The United States Department of the Navy was established by an act of Congress.
1803 – Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France for $15 million, more than doubling the size of the country.
1812 – The Territory of Orleans became the 18th U.S. state under the name Louisiana.
1859 – The first of 31 installments of Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities” was published in Dickens's literary periodical titled All the Year Round.
1897 – J. J. Thomson of the Cavendish Laboratory announced his discovery of the electron as a subatomic particle,
1900 – Casey Jones died heroically in a train wreck at Vaughn, Mississippi, while driving Engine No. 382, known as "Cannonball". (Video) He was immortalized in the song "The Ballad of Casey Jones". (Video)
1904 – The edible ice cream cone made its debut at St. Louis World's Fair invented by Ernest A. Hamwi (independently of other claimant Italo Marchiony in NY). (Video)
1905 – Albert Einstein completed his doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich.
1927 – The Federal Industrial Institute for Women opened in Alderson, West Virginia, as the first women's federal prison in the United States.
1939 – The 1939–40 New York World's Fair opened. (Video)
1939 – Lou Gehrig set a major league baseball record, playing his 2,130th consecutive and final game for the New York Yankees.
1939 – The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) inaugurated its regularly scheduled television service in New York City, broadcasting President Franklin D. Roosevelt's N.Y. World's Fair opening day ceremonial address. (Video)
1945 – Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun committed suicide after being married for less than 40 hours.
1947 – Boulder Dam was renamed Hoover Dam in honor of Herbert Hoover.
1948 – The original Land Rover all-terrain vehicle debuted at an auto show in Amsterdam. (Video)
1952 – Mr. Potato Head became the first toy advertised on television. (Video)
1961 – K-19, the first Soviet nuclear submarine equipped with nuclear missiles, was commissioned.
1966 – Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco, California
1970 – President Richard Nixon announced the movement of US troops into Cambodia.
1973 – Watergate scandal: U.S. President Richard Nixon fired White House Counsel John Dean; other top aides, most notably H. R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, resign.
1975 – Fall of Saigon: Communist forces gained control of Saigon. The Vietnam War formally ended with the unconditional surrender of South Vietnamese president Dương Văn Minh.
1992 – The final episode of "The Cosby Show" aired on NBC-TV. (Video)
1993 – Four years after publishing a proposal for “an idea of linked information systems,” computer scientist and CERN Fellow Tim Berners-Lee released into the public domain his source code for the world’s first web browser and editor.
1997 – Controversial “coming out” episode of “Ellen” aired. (Video)
1997 – At exactly 12:11 pm, London's iconic Big Ben clock stopped ticking. For 43 minutes, the most famous clock in the world failed to keep time.
2016 – The world's oldest known spider, a wild female trapdoor known as #16, died after being killed by a parasitic wasp sting in Western Australia. She lived an estimated 43 years and became the longest-lived spider on record, beating a 28-year-old tarantula who previously held the title
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Check out the KGB Quotation Database: over 52,500 searchable quotations!
Quotes by or about persons born on this date (Click on link after name for quotes):
1908 – Eve Arden, American actress (d. 1990) (Video)
1916 – Claude Shannon, American mathematician and engineer (d. 2001) (Video)
1982 – Kirsten Dunst, American actress
Other birthdays:
1877 – Alice B. Toklas, American memoirist (d. 1967)
1921 – Roger L. Easton, American scientist, co-invented GPS (d. 2014)
1926 – Cloris Leachman, American actress and comedian (d. 2021) (Video)
1975 – Johnny Galecki, American actor
1981 – Kunal Nayyar, British-Indian actor
1985 – Gal Gadot, Israeli actress and model
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