FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

The National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum is a history museum and hall of fame in Cooperstown, New York, operated by private interests. It serves as the central point of the history of baseball in the United States and displays baseball-related artifacts and exhibits, honoring those who have excelled in playing, managing, and serving the sport. The Hall’s motto is “Preserving History, Honoring Excellence, Connecting Generations”. Cooperstown is often used as shorthand (or a metonym) for the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, similar to “Canton” for the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio.

The Hall of Fame was established in 1939 by Stephen Carlton Clark, an heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. Clark sought to bring tourists to a city hurt by the Great Depression, which reduced the local tourist trade, and Prohibition, which devastated the local hops industry. Clark constructed the Hall of Fame’s building, and it was dedicated on June 12, 1939. (His granddaughter, Jane Forbes Clark, is the current chairman of the board of directors.) The erroneous claim that Civil War hero Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown was instrumental in the early marketing of the Hall.

An expanded library and research facility opened in 1994. Dale Petroskey became the organization’s president in 1999. In 2002, the Hall launched Baseball as America, a traveling exhibit that toured ten American museums over six years. The Hall of Fame has since also sponsored educational programming on the Internet to bring the Hall of Fame to schoolchildren who might not visit. The Hall and Museum completed a series of renovations in spring 2005. The Hall of Fame also presents an annual exhibit at FanFest at the Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

I hear a lot about the Gulf Stream, but what exactly is it?The Gulf Stream is an ocean current — like a river flowing through the sea rather than on land. The Gulf Stream moves northward along the east coast of the United States, across the North Atlantic Ocean, and then to northwestern Europe.

Advice of the Day

All glory comes from daring to begin.

Home Hint of the Day

Always keep your work area well ventilated when you are using solvents. Their strong odors can be dangerous unless accompanied by plenty of fresh air.

Word of the Day

EvaporimeterAn instrument that measures the loss of water by evaporation.

Puzzle of the Day

At what time of day was Adam created?A little before Eve.

Born

• Thomas Paine (patriot) – 1737
• William McKinley (25th U.S. president) – 1843
• Anton Chekhov (author) – 1860
• Whitney Warren (architect) – 1864
• Vincente Blasco Ibanez (novelist) – 1867
• W.C. Fields (actor) – 1880
• Barnett Newman (painter) – 1905
• Victor Mature (actor) – 1916
• Katharine Ross (actress) – 1943
• Tom Selleck (actor) – 1945
• Ann Jillian (actress) – 1951
• Oprah Winfrey (television host) – 1954
• Judy Norton-Taylor (actress) – 1958
• Heather Graham (actress) – 1970
• Sara Gilbert (actress) – 1975
• Justin Hartley (actor) – 1977
• Adam Lambert (singer) – 1982

Died

• Robert Frost (poet) – 1963
• Jimmy Durante (actor) – 1980
• Dick Night Train” Lane” (football player) – 2002
• Harold Russell (received two Oscars for portrayal of wounded veteran in The Best Years of Our Lives, after losing both his hands in WW II) – 2002
• Joshua Miner (Outward Bound USA founder) – 2002
• Mary-Ellis Bunim (producer who helped bring television into the age of reality with The Real World and Road Rules) – 2004
• Larry L. McGraw (founder of Home Orchard Society) – 2005
• Rod McKuen (poet) – 2015

Events

• Geologist William Edmond Logan became first Canadian-born knight– 1856
• Kansas was admitted to the Union as the 34th state– 1861
• Charles Steinmetz patented a system of distribution by alternating current.– 1895
• U.S. physician Emil H. Grube became the first to use X-ray treatment for breast cancer– 1896
• American Baseball League formed in Chicago– 1900
• Carl Taylor’s ice cream cone-rolling machine patented– 1924
• The Baseball Hall of Fame elected its first members– 1936
• Actor Paul Newman married actress Joanne Woodward– 1958
• Emily H. Warner became the first female pilot of a U.S. commercial airline– 1973
• 21-pound 8-ounce bowfin caught in Forest Lake, South Carolina– 1980
• Julio Cesar Chavez suffered the first defeat of his pro boxing career, losing his WBC super lightweight crown on a split decision to 32 year-old Frankie Randall in Las Vegas– 1994

Weather

• The “Great Olympic Blowdown” windstorm struck the Washington coast, with winds up to 113 mph. Eight billion board feet of timber was destroyed in North Head, Washington.– 1921
• 62 degrees in Nampa, Idaho– 1954
• Fields full of snow rollers were sighted in Weld County, Colorado.– 2001

COURTESY www.almanac.com