Daily Almanac for Sunday August 25, 2024

By Michelle Dumas

Actress Rachel Bilson turns 43 today. Here she is in 2017. By Anjaagnieszka – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https commons.wikimedia.org

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Rachel Sarah Bilson (born August 25, 1981) is an American actress. Born to a Californian show-business family, Bilson made her television debut in 2003, and then landed the role of Summer Roberts on the prime-time drama series The O.C. Bilson then made her film debut in The Last Kiss (2006) and later starred in the science-fictionaction film Jumper (2008). From 2011 to 2015, she starred as Dr. Zoe Hart on The CW series Hart of Dixie.

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

Cumulonimbus cloud

Large, dark, vertical cloud with bulging top that brings showers, thunder, and lightning.

Puzzle of the Day

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

Montana

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.– 

 

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