FROM WICKIPEDIA COMMONS

Kathleen Genevieve Ledecky (born March 17, 1997) is an American competitive swimmer. She has won six Olympic individual gold medals and 14 world championship individual gold medals, the most in history for a female swimmer. Ledecky is the world record holder in the women’s 800-, and 1500-meter freestyle (long course) as well as the former world record holder in the women’s 400-meter freestyle (long course). She also holds the fastest-ever times in the women’s 500-, 1000-, and 1650-yard freestyle events. She is widely regarded as one of the greatest Olympians and the greatest female swimmer of all time.

In her international debut at the 2012 London Olympic Games as a 15-year-old, Ledecky unexpectedly won the gold medal in the women’s 800-metre freestyle. Four years later, she left Rio de Janeiro as the most decorated female athlete of the 2016 Olympic Games, with four gold medals, one silver medal, and two world records. At the 2020 Olympic Games, Ledecky also emerged as the most decorated U.S. female athlete and became the first American female swimmer to win an individual event in three straight Olympiads.^[7] In total, she has won 42 medals (34 golds, 7 silvers, and 1 bronze) in major international competitions, spanning the Summer Olympics, World Championships, and Pan Pacific Championships. During her career, she has broken fourteen world records.

Ledecky’s success has earned her Swimming World‘s Female World Swimmer of the Year a record-breaking five times. Ledecky was also named Associated Press Female Athlete of the Year in 2017, international female Champion of Champions by L’Équipe in 2014 and 2017, United States Olympic Committee Female Athlete of the Year in 2013, 2016 and 2017, Sportswoman of the Year by the Women’s Sports Foundation in 2017, and the ESPY Best Female Athlete in 2022.^[8] Ledecky’s six individual gold medals at the Olympics, 14 individual gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships, 19 overall gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships, and 22 overall medals at the World Aquatics Championships are records in women’s swimming‌.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

What is a horse latitude?

A horse latitude is an area of high pressure and low winds that exists at about 30 degrees north latitude and 30 degrees south latitude. Early sailors dreaded these parts of the sea because the winds would become unpredictable, with periods of total calm. Particularly near Bermuda, ships were often stopped in their tracks when the winds gave out. To conserve the crew’s water supply, one survival tactic for a becalmed ship was to abandon any horses on board by letting them die of thirst or tossing them overboard. There were reports that the seas in these areas were “strewn with bodies of horses,” and hence the name “horse latitudes.”

Advice of the Day

Sprinkle baking soda on carpets to deodorize them. Leave it on for an hour and then vacuum.

Home Hint of the Day

When gluing the legs of a chair, fashion a tourniquet clamp by wrapping rope around the legs twice and tying it. Then insert a stick between the 2 rounds of rope and twist to tighten. Lock the stick in place by bracing it against a rung.

Word of the Day

Bilge

The protuberant part of a cask, which is usually in the middle. Also the part of a ship’s hull or bottom which is broadest and most nearly flat.

Puzzle of the Day

The Aloha State.(Name the U.S. state!)

Hawaii

Born

• Carl Ritter (geographer) – 1779
• Rudolf C. Ising (co-creator of Looney Tunes”“) – 1903
• Garrison Keillor (radio host) – 1942
• B. J. Thomas (singer) – 1942
• Wayne Knight (actor) – 1955
• David Duchovny (actor) – 1960
• Charlize Theron (actress) – 1975

Died

• Oliver Hardy (comedian & actor) – 1957
• Mickey Leland (U.S. congressman) – 1989
• Peter Jennings (journalist) – 2005

Events

• La Salle’s Le Griffon, first ship to sail upper Great Lakes, entered Lake Erie– 1679
• George Washington established the Badge of Military Merit for U.S. soldiers injured in action. It later became known as the Purple Heart– 1782
• The United States War Department established– 1789
• Service began at first deaf church in U.S., St. Ann’s Church for Deaf Mutes, N.Y.C.– 1859
• Silver discovered in northern Ontario– 1903
• Peace Bridge opened– 1927
• U.S. satellite Explorer VI launched– 1959
• The Don Messer Show premiered on CBC television– 1959
• Love Canal, N.Y., was declared a disaster area– 1978
• Record-breaking flight around world by single-engine plane completed (6 days, 7 hours, 25 minutes, 47 seconds)– 1982
• President George Bush ordered the military buildup known as Operation Desert Shield in response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait earlier in the month– 1990
• At the Summer Olympics, Katie Ledecky swam the 400m freestyle in 3:56.46, setting a world record– 2016

Weather

• New York City had a low of only 102 degrees F by day and 82 degrees F by night, and Philadelphia reached a record high of 106 degrees F– 1918
• The temperature in Claysville, Pennsylvania, reached 108 degrees F– 1918
• A hailstorm severely damaged a passenger train near Pinneo, Colorado.– 1922
• Waco, Texas, recorded a temperature of 107 degrees F– 1988
• Marquette, Michigan, experienced a high temperature of 88 degrees F– 1988
• The temperature plummeted to 30 degrees F in Martin, South Dakota– 1989
• The temperature plummeted to 37 degrees F in Belcourt, North Dakota– 1989
• The temperature plummeted to 40 degrees F in Valentine, Nebraska– 1989

COURTESY www.almanac.com