Saturday’s smiles

Martha had a parrot called Magnus who talked.

He was good company but he had a propensity for cursing at inopportune moments.

Martha was having her in-laws over for Thanksgiving, and so she needed to train Brutus quickly not to swear.

The morning the guests were Magnus let out a string of obscenities so Martha but him in the freezer for a minute to literally cool off.

When she opened the door to let the parrot out she also got out a frozen turkey.

‘And have you learned your lesson about bad language?’ Martha asked the parrot.

Magnus took one look at the dead turkey and said: ‘Oh yes, definitely. But now I have a I have a question – what did the turkey do?’

Word of the day

Thanksgiving –  the act of giving thanks; a prayer of gratitude; a public acknowledement or celebration of divine goodness; a celebration in Canada and the United States, generally observed as an expression of gratitude on the fourth Thursday of November in the U.S. and in Canada on the second Monday of October.

December 18 in history

On December 18:

1271  Kublai Khan renamed his empire “Yuan” (元 yuán), officially marking the start of the Yuan Dynasty of Mongolia and China.

1620 – The Mayflower landed in present-day Plymouth, Massachusetts with 102 Pilgrims on board.

Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor by William Halsall (1882)

1642  Abel Tasman and his men had the first known European encounter with Maori.

1707 Charles Wesley, English Methodist hymnist, was born.

1777 The United States celebrated its first Thanksgiving, marking the recent victory by the Americans over General John Burgoyne in the Battle of Saratoga in October.

1778 Joseph Grimaldi, English clown, was born.

1849 Henrietta Edwards, Canadian women’s rights activist, was born.

1863 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, was born.

1878 Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union, was born.

1888 – Richard Wetherill and his brother in-law discovered the ancient Indian ruins of Mesa Verde.

1890  Edwin Armstrong, American inventor (FM radio) was born.

1898  Gaston de Chasseloup-Laubat set the new land speed record going 39.245 mph (63.159 km/h), in a Jeantaud electric car. This is the first recognized land speed record.

1900 The Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook Narrow-gauge (2 ft 6 in or 762 mm) Railway (now the Puffing Billy Railway) in Victoria, Australia opened.

 The Monbulk Creek Trestle Bridge.

1905 – Irving Kahn, American financial analyst and investor, was born.

1908  Celia Johnson, English actress, was born.

1910 – Eric Tindill, New Zealand cricketer and rugby player, was born.

1912 The Piltdown Man, later discovered to be a hoax, was found in the Piltdown Gravel Pit, by Charles Dawson.

 

1913 Willy Brandt, Chancellor of Germany, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, was born.

1916  Betty Grable, American actress, was born.

1935  Jacques Pépin, French chef, was born.

1938 Chas Chandler, English musician (The Animals), was born.

1943  Keith Richards, English guitarist (The Rolling Stones), was born.

1946  Steve Biko, South African anti-apartheid activist, was born.

1946 – Steven Spielberg, American film director, was born.

 

1963 Brad Pitt, American actor, was born.

1966 Saturn‘s moon Epimetheus is discovered by Richard L. Walker.

1969  Home Secretary James Callaghan‘s motion to make permanent the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act 1965, which had temporarily suspended capital punishment in England, Wales and Scotland for murder (but not for all crimes) for a period of five years, was carried by both the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

1973 Soyuz 13, crewed by cosmonauts Valentin Lebedev and Pyotr Klimuk, was launched from Baikonur in the Soviet Union.

1987  Larry Wall released the first version of the Perl programming language.

1997  HTML 4.0 was published by the World Wide Web Consortium.

1999 NASA launched into orbit the Terra platform carrying five Earth Observation instruments, including ASTER, CERES, MISR, MODIS and MOPITT.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.

December 4 in history

On December 4:

1619 38 colonists from Berkeley Parish in England disembarked in Virginia and gave thanks to God (this is considered by many to be the first Thanksgiving in the Americas).

The First Thanksgiving, painting by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris (1863–1930)

1745  Charles Edward Stuart’s army reached Derby, its furthest point during the second Jacobite rising.

1791 The first edition of The Observer, the world’s first Sunday newspaper, was published.

1795  Thomas Carlyle, Scottish writer and historian, was born.

1835  Samuel Butler, English writer, was born.

1872 The crewless American ship Mary Celeste was found by the British brig Dei Gratia (the ship had been abandoned for 9 days but was only slightly damaged).

1881 The first edition of the Los Angeles Times was published.

1892  Francisco Franco, dictator of Spain, was born.

1918  U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sailed for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.

1930 Ronnie Corbett, Scottish actor, was born.

1949 Pamela Stephenson, New Zealand-born actress, was born.

1952 Great Smog of 1952: A cold fog descended upon London, combining with air pollution and killing at least 12,000 in the following months.

Nelson’s Column during the Great Smog of 1952

1954 The first Burger King opened in Miami, Florida.

1971 The Montreux Casino in Switzerland was set ablaze by someone wielding a flare gun during a Frank Zappa concert; the incident would be noted in the Deep Purple song “Smoke on the Water“.

1978  Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco, California’s first female mayor.

1966 The state monopoly on commercial radio broadcasting was challenged by the pirate station Radio Hauraki’s first scheduled transmission from the vessel Tiri in the Colville Channel.

1980  English rock group Led Zeppelin officially disbandsed following the death of drummer John Bonham on September 25th.

Led Zeppelin in 1968. From left to right: John Bonham, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones

1991 Journalist Terry A. Anderson was released after 7 years in captivity as a hostage in Beirut.

1991 Captain Mark Pyle piloted Clipper Goodwill, a Pan American World Airways Boeing 727-221ADV, to Miami International Airport ending 64 years of Pan Am operations.

Sourced from NZ History Online & Wikipedia.