FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (20 June 1909 – 14 October 1959) was an Australian-American actor who achieved worldwide fame during the Golden Age of Hollywood. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles, frequent partnerships with Olivia de Havilland, and reputation for his womanising and hedonistic personal life. His most notable roles include the eponymous hero in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), which was later named by the American Film Institute as the 18th greatest hero in American film history, the lead role in Captain Blood (1935), Major Geoffrey Vickers in The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and the hero in a number of Westerns such as Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and San Antonio (1945).
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Why is a nautical mile different from a land mile?
The mile was originally a Roman linear measure of 1,000 paces — about 1,618 yards. (Its length has varied considerably at different periods and in different localities; the legal mile is now 1,760 yards, or 5,280 feet.) Such a linear measurement cannot be used at sea, so the nautical mile is based on the length of one minute of arc (or 1/60 of a degree) of a great circle of Earth. Owing to the fact that Earth is not a true sphere, the mile as thus defined varies considerably. Therefore, the British assigned it a standard value of 6,080 feet.
Advice of the Day
Bigger is not necessarily better and going faster is not necessarily progress.
Home Hint of the Day
A square of asphalt shingles will cover 100 square feet of surface. Three bundles of asphalt shingles (each containing twenty-two 3-foot-long shingles) make up a square.
Word of the Day
Whangdoodle
An imaginary creature, or an undefined character.
Puzzle of the Day
Why should you never tell a joke to an egg?
Because it might crack up.
Died
- Captain William Kidd (hanged in London) – 1701
- John D. Rockerfeller (entrepreneur) – 1937
- Sam Snead (golfer) – 2002
- Anne Meara (actress) – 2015
- Eric Carle (children’s book author, most notably The Very Hungry Caterpillar) – 2021
Born
- Carolus Linnaeus (botanist) – 1707
- Douglas Fairbanks (actor) – 1883
- John Bardeen (physicist) – 1908
- Artie Shaw (bandleader) – 1910
- Rosemary Clooney (singer) – 1928
- Barbara Barrie (actress) – 1931
- Joan Collins (actress) – 1933
- Robert Moog (inventor) – 1934
- Drew Carey (actor; host of The Price is Right) – 1958
- Mitch Albom (author) – 1958
- Ken Jennings (won 74 straight games on Jeopardy! game show in 2004) – 1974
- Jewel (musician) – 1974
Events
- Benjamin Franklin created his own pair of bifocals– 1785
- South Carolina was admitted to the Union as the 8th state– 1788
- Explorer William Clark: “Water freeses [sic] on the oars” in what is now Montana.– 1805
- North-West Mounted Police formed (now Royal Canadian Mounted Police)– 1873
- New York Public Library in New York City is established– 1895
- Townsend-Purnell Plant Patent Act became the first in the United States to grant patent protection to plant breeders– 1930
- Actor Errol Flynn appeared on the cover of LIFE Magazine– 1938
- Queen Juliana of the Netherlands laid the cornerstone of the tower housing the Netherlands Centennial Carillon in Victoria, British Columbia– 1967
- Five people were killed, when a large part of the roof of a new terminal collapsed at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport in France– 2004
- Hugh Laurie was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace– 2007
Weather
- Folks were sleighing in Farmington, Maine– 1858
- Late season snowstorm blanketed eastern Iowa with 4 to 6 inches of snow– 1882
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