WARD’S DAILY WORLD ALMANAC

Share the love and share the music – listen to samples of W.B. Ward’s music and don’t forget to order a copy for yourself (or even as a gift for someone else).  The CDs are available through Amazon.com, but you can see the entire collection and even play samples by going to http://www.wbward.com. 

Special note:  Even though we are reasonably certain this information is accurate, there may be some errors.  Do not use this information as absolute gospel; it is presented here for entertainment purposes only.

December 31

This is Make Up Your Mind Day.

Thought For the Day

To do carefully and constantly and kindly many little things is not a little thing
- Author Unknown

Today’s Poor Prediction

"Before man reaches the moon your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail."
- Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General under Eisenhower in 1959.

From the "I'll Be Darned" file.

The human body has over 600 muscles, 40% of the body's weight.

Born today

1880 George Marshall; U.S. Secretary of State

1924 Rex Allen; rodeo star, singer, songwriter  

1937 Sir Anthony Hopkins; Academy Award-winning actor

1938 Rosalind Cash; Actress

1941 Sarah Miles; actress

1942 Andy Summers [Somers]; musician, guitarist, singer

1943 John Denver [Deutschendorf Jr]; songwriter, singer  

1943 Ben Kingsley [Krishna Bhanji]; Academy Award-winning actor

1943 Pete Quaife; musician, bassist

1945 Diane von Furstenberg; fashion designer

1946 Cliff Richey; tennis

1946 Patti Smith; songwriter, singer

1947 Burton Cummings, Jr.; singer

1947 Tim Matheson; actor

1948 Donna Summer [LaDonna Gaines]; Grammy Award-winning singer

1950 Golden [John] Richards; football

1951 Barbara Carrera; actress

1951 Tom Hamilton; musician, bassist

1953 James Remar; actor

1959 Val Kilmer; actor

1973 Joe McIntyre; singer

Today in History

1600 - Queen Elizabeth I granted a charter to the "company of merchants of London trading to the East Indies" -- the East India Company.

1841 - The State of Alabama enacted the first dental legislation in the United States.

1877 - President Rutherford B. Hayes became the first U.S. President to celebrate his silver wedding anniversary in the White House.

1879 - Thomas Edison delighted an audience in Menlo Park, New Jersey. He gave his first public demonstration of incandescent lighting.

1904 – The first New Year's Eve celebration was held in Times Square (then known as Longacre Square) in New York, New York.

1911 - Marie Sklodowska Curie received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for her isolation of the element of metallic radium and other discoveries in the field of chemistry.

1923 - In London, the BBC broadcast the chimes of the clock Big Ben for the first time.

1929 - Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians played "Auld Lang Syne" as a New Year’s Eve song for the first time.

1938 - Dr. R.N. Harger's "drunkometer," the first breath test for car drivers, was officially introduced in Indianapolis.

1947 - Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were married.

1967 - Playing in a wind chill of 40 degrees below zero, the Green Bay Packers won the National Football League championship game by defeating Tom Landry’s Dallas Cowboys, 21-17. The game, played at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin was called the Ice Bowl. During the game, the whistles of the referees actually froze to their lips. It turned out to be the coldest championship game ever.

1971 - President Richard Nixon signed the National Air Quality Control Act, which called for a 90 percent reduction in automobile emissions by 1975.

1973 - A three-day workweek was introduced in Britain to conserve energy during a miners' strike.

1986 - The State of Florida passed Illinois to become the fifth most populous state in the country. In the lead: California, New York, Texas, and Pennsylvania.

1986 – Ninety-seven people were killed when fire broke out in the Dupont Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Three hotel employees later pleaded guilty to charges in connection with the blaze.

1995 - American tanks and troops rolled into Bosnia to keep the peace after U.S. army engineers beat the Balkan winter and completed a pontoon bridge over the river Sava.

1997 - Michael Kennedy, the 39-year-old son of late Senator Robert F. Kennedy, was killed in a skiing accident on Aspen Mountain in Colorado.

1997 - Actors Will Smith and Jada Pinkett were married in a top-secret ceremony in a Baltimore suburb. They were expecting their first child.

1999 – Boris Yeltsin resigned as President of Russia, leaving Prime Minister Vladimir Putin as the acting President.

1999 – Five hijackers, who had been holding 155 hostages on an Indian Airlines plane, left the plane with two Islamic clerics that they had demanded be freed.

1999 – The United States Government handed control of the Panama Canal (as well all the adjacent land to the canal known as the Panama Canal Zone) to Panama. This act complied with the signing of the 1977 Torrijos-Carter Treaties.

2004 – This was the official opening of Taipei 101, the tallest skyscraper in the world at the time, standing at a height of 509 metres (1,670 ft).

2007 – Seven people were injured when a fire resulted in the explosions of several fireworks stores in the municipality of Bocaue, Bulacan, Philippines.

2007 – The massive Big Dig construction project in Boston, Massachusetts ends.