In the US most people associate "nickel" with five cents, forgetting completely that it's a metal with a strong silver color. It's impressive that with three times as much of the red copper as there is the silver-hued nickel the coin shows no red tint. The first five-cent nickel coin followed nickel-alloy pennies, the first of the "small" pennies, and displaced a silver coin of the same value - on both counts the nickels were suspect.
Who discovered North America? Ignoring the tribes that came from Asia on the Bering Land Bridge, there are at least two claims before Columbus. Today is the feast day of the Irish abbot that may have been first, beating Leif Ericson by a half millennium and Columbus by over 900 years.
In 1993 Robert Fulghum wrote a delightful book called "All I Ever Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." And how did he happen to have a kindergarten to learn these things in? Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, in today's birthday list, introduced that didactic experience in 1860.
1770 - The Dauphin, age 16 but soon to become King Louis XVI of France, marries Marie Antoinette, age 15, the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa of Austria.
1866 - US Congress authorizes a five-cent coin made of 75% copper and 25% nickel. The "Shield Nickel" is designed by James B. Longacre, weighed 5 grams, and was coined at Philadelphia. One and three cent coins had been struck in nickel alloys (and called nickels), the nickel five-cent piece replaced the silver half-dime which was minted through 1873.
1920 - Joan of Arc is canonized in a grand and solemn ceremony in Saint Peter's Basilica. She had been nominated by the Bishop of Orleans in 1869, but France lost a war and nothing was done until 1894 when Pope Leo XIII, in a diplomatic gesture to the Socialist government of France, began the formal process. In 1909 Pope Pius X, in another diplomatic gesture, certified her miracles, again a war intervened, delaying it for Benedict XV to make it official, 490 years after her death.
Feast of Saint Brendan the Navigator, Patron saint of sailors, and first European with a claim to discovering North America. The Irish abbot lived from about 486 to 577, and left a manuscript of a seven year voyage including building a leather-skinned currach and credible landfalls on the Hebrides and Faroe Islands, Iceland, and Newfoundland. We don't know for sure, but the trip was made (one way) in a boat made from Brendan's description in 1976 and 1977.
1804 - Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, US educator, publisher, writer - Born in Billerica, Massachusetts, educated at home by mother who happened to run a girls' school there, opened her first school in Lancaster, Massachusetts 1820. Began writing 1832, cofounded Transcendentalist Club in 1837, opened bookstore with printing press 1839; she was first woman book publisher in US, store served as club for intellectual Boston. Closed shop and promoted education issues starting 1850, opened first US kindergarten 1860. Died at Jamaica Plain (since part of Boston) on 3 January 1894.
1832 - Philip Danforth Armour, US industrialist - Born in Stockbridge, New York, spent 1854 - 1856 in California gold fields, went into meatpacking. Sold pork futures at $40 per barrel near end of Civil War, covered at $18 when Confederacy collapsed, profit was about $2 million. Built Armour and Company into efficient system, using "everything but the squeal," but was hurt by the meat-packing scandals of 1898 and 1899. When another packer pioneered the first refrigerated rail car, the railroads resisted with high rates, Armour could afford it and the small packers couldn't, so industry consolidated. Endowed Armour Institute, now Illinois Institute of Technology, in 1890. Died 6 January 1901.
The allurement that women hold out to men is precisely the allurement
that Cape Hatteras holds out to sailors: They are enormously dangerous
and hence enormously fascinating.
- H. L. Mencken
Vegetables are interesting but lack a sense of purpose when unaccompanied
by a good cut of meat.
- Fran Lebowitz
Red meat is NOT bad for you. Now, blue-green meat, THAT'S bad for you!
- Tommy Smothers
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only
you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other
people spend it for you.
- Carl Sandburg
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