Daily Almanac for Friday, August 25, 2023

By Lady Williamson

Today, actor Blair Underwood celebrates his 58th birthday. Here he is at the 41st Emmy Awards, September 1989. Photo by Alan Light, CC, 2.0,https commons.wikimedia.org

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Blair Erwin Underwood (born August 25, 1964) is an American actor. He made his debut in the 1985 musical film Krush Groove and from 1987 to 1994 starred as attorney Jonathan Rollins in the NBC legal drama series L.A. Law.

Underwood has appeared in a number of films during his career, including Just Cause (1995), Set It Off (1996), Deep Impact (1998), Rules of Engagement (2000), Something New (2006), Madea’s Family Reunion (2006), and Juanita (2019). On television, he played a leading role in the 2000 medical drama City of Angels, and also had regular roles in High Incident (1996–97), LAX (2004–05), Dirty Sexy Money (2007–09), In Treatment (2008), The Event (2010–11), Ironside (2013) and Quantico (2016–18). Underwood has received two Golden Globe Award nominations, five NAACP Image Awards, one Daytime Emmy Award, and one Grammy Award.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

Can I use peanut shells as mulch in my garden?

Peanut shells are great for mulching. They are a terrific source of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Add some cottonseed meal to ground or broken-up peanut shells to help them decompose and prevent them from compacting after a rain, then apply as you would any mulch.

Advice of the Day

To dream of a plow indicates a new project.

Home Hint of the Day

To remove a tick attached to a dog, first loosen the tick’s grip by placing a drop of vegetable or mineral oil on it. Then pull gently but steadily on the tick to remove it intact. Just pulling with tweezers often leaves the jaws or head behind.

Word of the Day

Cumulus cloud

Fair-weather cloud with flat base and domeshaped top.

Puzzle of the Day

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

Nebraska

Born

  • Ivan IV of Russia (Ivan the Terrible”“) – 
  • Bret Harte (author) – 
  • Walt Kelly (Pogo cartoonist) – 
  • Mel Ferrer (actor) – 
  • Leonard Bernstein (composer) – 
  • Althea Gibson (first African American female tennis player to compete in U.S. championships in 1950 and in Wimbeldon a year later) – 
  • Sean Connery (actor) – 
  • Tom Skerritt (actor) – 
  • Elvis Costello (musician) – 
  • Tim Burton (film director, producer, screenwriter) – 
  • Blair Underwood (actor) – 
  • Rachael Ray (chef) – 
  • Rachel Bilson (actress) – 
  • Blake Lively (actress) – 
  • Stacey Farber (actress) – 

Died

  • Samatha Smith (an American schoolgirl who received world-wide attention for writing to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov) – 
  • Carl Barks (illustrator of Donald Duck) – 
  • Edward Moore Kennedy (politician) – 
  • Neil Armstrong (astronaut; first to set foot on the Moon) – 
  • John McCain (U.S. senator) – 

Events

  • 3 women die for witchcraft near Exeter, England– 
  • Hundreds of French colonists arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana. This date is considered by some to be when the city was founded. Others historians consider the event to have happened earlier, such as in May.– 
  • Hoax about life on the Moon printed in The New York Sun– 
  • British swimmer Matthew Webb was the first documented person to swim across the English Channel– 
  • President Theodore Roosevelt became the first U.S. president to descend in a submarine– 
  • National Park Service established– 
  • First parachute wedding took place, in New York City– 
  • Paris was liberated. German occupying-officer General Deitrick von Choltitz surrendered to French Major General Jacques Le Clerc– 
  • Baptist missionary and U.S. Army intelligence officer John Birch was executed as a spy by Chinese Communists– 
  • Closest approach to Saturn by Voyager 2– 
  • Closest approach of Voyager-2 to Neptune– 
  • Largest (60 million cubic feet) successfully launched NASA balloon set a world record– 
  • Two passenger jets that flew out of Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport within 40 minutes of each other crashed within three or four minutes of each other, killing nearly 100 people– 
  • An early morning 4.5-magnitude aftershock centered 31 miles east of Charlottesville, struck 2 days after an initial 5.8-magnitude quake in Virginia. The aftershock was felt as far away as Pennsylvania and New York.– 

Weather

  • Madison, Wisconsin, reported a low temperature of 37 degrees F– 
  • Hurricane Harvey, category 4, makes landfall near Corpus Christi, Texas.– 

COURTESY www.almanac.com