Veterans Day gives Americans the opportunity to celebrate the bravery and sacrifice of all U.S. veterans. However, many Americans confuse this holiday with Memorial Day.
A Brief History of Veterans Day
Veterans Day, formerly known as Armistice Day, was originally set as a U.S. legal holiday to honor the end of World War I, which officially took place on November 11, 1918. In legislation that was passed in 1938, November 11 was “dedicated to the cause of world peace and to be hereafter celebrated and known as ‘Armistice Day.'” As such, this new legal holiday honored World War I veterans.
In 1954, after having been through both World War II and the Korean War, the 83rd U.S. Congress — at the urging of the veterans service organizations — amended the Act of 1938 by striking out the word “Armistice” and inserting the word “Veterans.” With the approval of this legislation on June 1, 1954, Nov. 11 became a day to honor American veterans of all wars.
In 1968, the Uniform Holiday Act ensured three-day weekends for federal employees by celebrating four national holidays on Mondays: Washington’s Birthday, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, and Columbus Day. Under this bill, Veterans Day was moved to the fourth Monday of October. Many states did not agree with this decision and continued to celebrate the holiday on its original date. The first Veterans Day under the new law was observed with much confusion on Oct. 25, 1971.
Finally on September 20, 1975, President Gerald R. Ford signed a law which returned the annual observance of Veterans Day to its original date of Nov. 11, beginning in 1978. Since then, the Veterans Day holiday has been observed on Nov. 11.
Must read. These never-ending kangaroo court house proceedings are dangerous to our country, no matter what political party you align with. If every future election can be negated by one political party via majority fiat, we’re done for.
Redwood logging in 1946. Dangerous work. [Found here.]
Hypnotizing art “installations.”
Maxim Zhestkov (b.1985, Russia) is a media artist and director whose practice centres around the influence of digital media on shifting the boundaries of visual language.
He grew up in a small town on the Volga river named Ulyanovsk. From childhood, Maxim was fascinated by art, physics and computers which led him to university, where he studied architecture and fine art.
I’m kinda in an odd mood, change of the seasons, sun angles and all, so let’s roll with it.
“Psychotic Reaction” by The Count Five, peaked at No. 5 in 1966 on the Billboard Hot 100. Classic garage band / early psychedelic rock. Since then it’s been covered by a number of indy/punk/rock bands, including this one by The Cramps in 1983:
Meh. I can do without that, but this one’s not too bad:
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers probably did the best cover of ‘”Psychotic Reaction” in 1991, preserved the soul of the original.
The intro is cool, song starts at 2:20.
Have a great weekend, folks. Be back here tomorrow for more stuff and stuff.
Wow. That’s one sterile classroom.
Apparently cheating is prevalent in India, so here’s their solution. Now the proctor can’t tell who is whispering the answers.
Pure awesome. Made me feel like preteen girl again.
“Barry, 44, boyfriend – whatever you want to call him, we love, adore and miss the man who ran the greatest country in the free world. This is our homage to his charm, wit, brain and dazzling smile. This 2020, 12-month wall calendar measures 12″ x 12″ and includes thirteen, I-love-Barack, collages combined with the monthly calendar grids and a bonus 4-month view of January 2021 – April 2021. Printed on premium gloss paper.”
THIS is what your bread does in the breadmaker when you’re not watching [via].
“It’s a bunch of privileged sanctimonious poshtwats lecturing working class people on why their living standards should be reduced even further.” Paul Joseph Watson is spot on. Watch the entire clip.
Seven British *ahem* tourists were apprehended and detained by ICE at the U.S. Border. Horrible, ya? Check out the rest of the story.
“Dear Lady Twist” made it to No. 9 in 1962, and was perhaps the first ska song to hit the U.S. charts, unless you count “My Boy Lollipop.”
The original song, “My Girl Lollypop”, was written by Robert Spencer of the doo-wop group The Cadillacs. Notorious record company executive Morris Levy agreed to purchase the song from Spencer. Although not involved in writing the song, Levy and alleged gangster Johnny Roberts listed themselves as the song’s authors. In an effort to avoid sharing any royalties with Spencer, Levy removed Spencer’s name from the original writing credits. Levy even claimed that Robert Spencer was his pseudonym.
A Humble Request. She’s improving, but probably won’t be able to live on her own without assistance 24/7. Thanks to all who contribute – every little bit helps.
THIS democrat candidate for POTUS points out a truth.
Witness: “…during a class discussion, another student asked the girl if she could kill five people in the class, who would they be? In response, the girl allegedly pointed her finger pistol.”
The 12 year old was handcuffed and arrested, charged with a felony for possessing an unloaded index finger.
From the “I Was Just Holding Them For A Friend” Department:
A 27-year-old Florida woman who’d built more than 24 pipe bombs was arrested Thursday, after her parents stumbled across the incendiary devices and called police.
Self-taught John Harrison spent 43 years overcoming engineering challenges to develop the first marine chronometer. Harrison won a British competition to resolve deep sea navigation problems, but it took him several years to win the full prize.
In 1714, the British government offered a longitude prize for a method of determining longitude at sea, with the awards ranging from £10,000 to £20,000 (£2 million to £4 million in 2019 terms) depending on accuracy. John Harrison, a Yorkshire carpenter, submitted a project in 1730, and in 1735 completed a clock based on a pair of counter-oscillating weighted beams connected by springs whose motion was not influenced by gravity or the motion of a ship. His first two sea timepieces H1 and H2 (completed in 1741) used this system, but he realized that they had a fundamental sensitivity to centrifugal force, which meant that they could never be accurate enough at sea. Construction of his third machine, designated H3, in 1759 included novel circular balances and the invention of the bi-metallic strip and caged roller bearings, inventions which are still widely used. However, H3’s circular balances still proved too inaccurate and he eventually abandoned the large machines.
Harrison solved the precision problems with his much smaller H4 chronometer design in 1761. H4 looked much like a large five-inch (12 cm) diameter pocket watch. In 1761, Harrison submitted H4 for the £20,000 longitude prize. His design used a fast-beating balance wheel controlled by a temperature-compensated spiral spring. These features remained in use until stable electronic oscillators allowed very accurate portable timepieces to be made at affordable cost.
£20,000 in 1714 = ±£3,837,000 in 2018 = ±$4,733,000 USD.
$110k/year is not a bad payoff for a 45 year-long side project. Harrison began as a 21 year-old, and was 66 when he resolved the problem and received the full amount of the prize. He died 17 years later in 1776.
