In Case You Were Wondering

Here are a few historical events that occurred on my birthday...

0079 - Mount Vesuvius erupted killing approximately 20,000 people. The cities of Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum were buried in volcanic ash.

1456 - The printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed.

1814 - Washington, DC, was invaded by British forces that set fire to the White House and Capitol.

1869 - A patent for the waffle iron was received by Cornelius Swarthout.

1912 - A four-pound limit was set for parcels sent through the U.S. Post Office mail system.

1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the U.S. non-stop. The trip from Los Angeles, CA to Newark, NJ, took about 19 hours.

1959 - Three days after Hawaiian statehood, Hiram L. Fong was sworn in as the first Chinese-American U.S. senator while Daniel K. Inouye was sworn in as the first Japanese-American U.S. representative.

1982 - Angela Lee Shaw was born!!

1990 - Iraqi troops surrounded foreign missions in Kuwait.

1992 - Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida causing 55 deaths in the Bahamas, Florida, and Louisiana.

2005 - The planet Pluto was reclassified as a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Pluto's status was changed due to the IAU's new rules for an object qualifying as a planet. Pluto met two of the three rules because it orbits the sun and is large enough to assume a nearly round shape. However, since Pluto has an oblong orbit and overlaps the orbit of Neptune it disqualified Pluto as a planet.

1982 Fun Facts...

• Super Bowl - San Francisco 49ers
• World Series - St. Louis Cardinals
• NBA Finals - LA Lakers
• diet coke invented
• Oscar winner - Ghandi
• Movies Released - E.T., An Officer And A Gentleman, Tootsie, and Poltergeist
• TV Notables - March of 1982 brings us new television company called Home Box Office (HBO), Late Night with David Letterman premieres in February, The Weather Channel airs on cable television for the first time
• Music - Physical by Olivia Newton-John and "Thriller" by Michael Jackson
• First issue of USA Today hits the news stands
• First CD player sold in Japan
• Prices: average cost of new house $82,200; average cost of new car $7,983; gas per gallon 91 cents; postage stamp 20 cents
• It is believed that the original potato chip recipe was created by Native American chef George Crum at the Moon Lake Lodge in Saratoga Springs, NY, on August 24, 1853. Fed up with a customer who continued to send his fried potatoes back, claiming they were too thick and soggy, Crum decided to slice the potatoes so thinly that they couldn't be eaten with a fork. The customer was delighted, and the chips became a regular item on the lodge's menu.