Happy International Women’s Day
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Why couldn’t the flower ride its bike?
It lost its petals.
Interesting Fact: The earliest Women’s Day observance was held on February 28, 1909, in New York; it was organized by the Socialist Party of America in remembrance of the 1908 strike of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.[4] There was no specific strike happening on March 8, despite later claims. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Women%27s_Day )
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Griffith Observatory
California Week
How can you go without sleep for seven days and not be tired?
Sleep at night.
Interesting Fact: 3,015 acres (12.20 km2) of land surrounding the observatory was donated to the City of Los Angeles by Colonel Griffith J. Griffith on December 16, 1896.[1] In his will Griffith donated funds to build an observatory, exhibit hall, and planetarium on the donated land. Griffith’s objective was to make astronomy accessible by the public, as opposed to the prevailing idea that observatories should be located on remote mountaintops and restricted to scientists. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffith_Observatory#History )
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Santa Monica Pier
California Week
What did the boat say to the pier?
What’s up, dock?
Interesting Fact: Santa Monica has had several piers over the years; however, the current Santa Monica Pier is actually two adjoining piers that long had separate owners. The long, narrow Municipal Pier opened September 9, 1909,[4] primarily to carry sewer pipes beyond the breakers,[5] and had no amenities. The short, wide adjoining Pleasure Pier to the south, a.k.a. Newcomb Pier, was built in 1916 by Charles I. D. Looff and his son Arthur, amusement park pioneers.[6] Attractions on the Pleasure Pier eventually included the Santa Monica Looff Hippodrome building (which now houses the current carousel and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places), the Blue Streak Racer wooden roller coaster (which was purchased from the defunct Wonderland amusement park in San Diego), the Whip, merry-go-rounds, Wurlitzer organs, and a funhouse. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Monica_Pier#History )
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Day 359 / 365
What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire?
Frostbite.
Interesting Fact: The Christian ecclesiastical calendar contains many remnants of pre-Christian festivals. Christmas includes elements of the Roman feast of the Saturnalia and the birthday of Mithra.[51] The Chronography of 354 AD contains early evidence of the celebration on December 25 of a Christian liturgical feast of the birth of Jesus. This was in Rome, while in Eastern Christianity the birth of Jesus was already celebrated in connection with the Epiphany on January 6.[52][53] The December 25 celebration was imported into the East later: in Antioch by John Chrysostom towards the end of the 4th century,[53] probably in 388, and in Alexandria only in the following century.[54] Even in the West, the January 6 celebration of the nativity of Jesus seems to have continued until after 380.[55] In 245, Origen of Alexandria, writing about Leviticus 12:1–8, commented that Scripture mentions only sinners as celebrating their birthdays, namely Pharaoh, who then had his chief baker hanged (Genesis 40:20–22), and Herod, who then had John the Baptist beheaded (Mark 6:21–27), and mentions saints as cursing the day of their birth, namely Jeremiah (Jeremiah 20:14–15) and Job (Job 3:1–16).[56] In 303, Arnobius ridiculed the idea of celebrating the birthdays of gods, a passage cited as evidence that Arnobius was unaware of any nativity celebration.[57] Since Christmas does not celebrate Christ’s birth “as God” but “as man”, this is not evidence against Christmas being a feast at this time.[8] The fact the Donatists of North Africa celebrated Christmas may indicate that the feast was established by the time that church was created in 311. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas#History )
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Day 357 / 365
It was Christmas and the judge was in a merry mood as he asked the prisoner, ” What are you charged with? ”
“Doing my Christmas shopping early”, replied the defendant.
“That’s no offense”, said the judge. “How early were you doing this shopping?”
“Before the store opened.”
Interesting Fact: The custom of giving gifts to relatives and friends on a special day in winter probably began in ancient Rome and northern Europe. In these regions, people gave each other small presents as part of their year-end celebrations. In the United States and England, children hang stockings on their bedpost or near a fireplace on Christmas Eve, hoping that it will be filled with treats while they sleep. In Scandinavia, similar-minded children leave their shoes on the hearth. This tradition can be traced to legends about Saint Nicholas. One legend tells of three poor sisters who could not marry because they had no money for a dowry. To save them from being sold by their father, St. Nick left each of the three sisters gifts of gold coins. One went down the chimney and landed in a pair of shoes that had been left on the hearth. Another went into a window and into a pair of stockings left hanging by the fire to dry. No one was really in the habit of exchanging elaborate gifts until late in the 1800s. The Santa Claus stories of giving gifts to good children, combined with an amazing retailing phenomenon that has grown since the turn of the century, has made gift giving a central focus of the Christmas tradition. ( http://www.thehistoryofchristmas.com/trivia/gifts.htm )
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Day 356 / 365
A man found a bottle on the beach. He opened it and out popped a genie, who gave the man three wishes. The man wished for a million dollars, and poof! There was a million dollars. Then he wished for a convertible, and poof! There was a convertible. And then, he wished he could be irresistible to all women… Poof! He turned into a box of chocolates.
Interesting Fact: What the Spaniards then called “chocolatl” was said to be a beverage consisting of a chocolate base flavored with vanilla and other spices that was served cold.[6][7] Because sugar was yet to come to the Americas,[4] xocolatl was said to be an acquired taste. The drink tasted spicy and bitter as opposed to sweetened modern hot chocolate.[4] As to when xocolatl was first served hot, sources conflict on when and by whom.[4][7] However, Jose de Acosta, a Spanish Jesuit missionary who lived in Peru and then Mexico in the later 16th century, described xocolatl as: Loathsome to such as are not acquainted with it, having a scum or froth that is very unpleasant taste. Yet it is a drink very much esteemed among the Indians, where with they feast noble men who pass through their country. The Spaniards, both men and women, that are accustomed to the country, are very greedy of this Chocolate. They say they make diverse sorts of it, some hot, some cold, and some temperate, and put therein much of that “chili”; yea, they make paste thereof, the which they say is good for the stomach and against the catarrh. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_chocolate )
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Day 355 / 365
When the inventor of the drawing board messed things up, what did he go back to?
Interesting Fact: In addressing the question of who invented the incandescent lamp, historians Robert Friedel and Paul Israel[9] list 22 inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison. They conclude that Edison’s version was able to outstrip the others because of a combination of three factors: an effective incandescent material, a higher vacuum than others were able to achieve (by use of the Sprengel pump) and a high resistance that made power distribution from a centralized source economically viable. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incandescent_light_bulb#Early_pre-commercial_research )
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Day 352 / 365
How do we really know that Santa is a man?
Because no woman would ever wear the same outfit year after year.
Interesting Fact: The first known electrically illuminated Christmas tree was the creation of Edward H. Johnson, an associate of inventor Thomas Edison. While he was vice president of the Edison Electric Light Company, a predecessor of today’s Con Edison electric utility, he had Christmas tree light bulbs especially made for him. He proudly displayed his Christmas tree, which was hand-wired with 80 red, white and blue electric incandescent light bulbs the size of walnuts, on December 22, 1882 at his home on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Local newspapers ignored the story, seeing it as a publicity stunt. However, it was published by a Detroit newspaper reporter, and Johnson has become widely regarded as the Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights. By 1900, businesses started stringing up Christmas lights behind their windows.[12] Christmas lights were too expensive for the average person; as such, electric Christmas lights did not become the majority replacement for candles until 1930. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_lights#History )
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Day 348 / 365
Teacher: Who answers my next question, can go home.
One boy throws his bag out the window.
Teacher: Who just threw that?
Boy: Me and I’m going home now.
Interesting Fact: He first appeared in 1948, two years before Peanuts started, in a comic strip by Charles M. Schulz called Li’l Folks. He later appears in the first Peanuts comic strip, on October 2, 1950. The strip features Charlie Brown walking by, as the characters Shermy and Patty look at him. Shermy kept on praising him, but then suddenly insults him on the last panel. During the strip’s early years, Charlie Brown was much more playful than he is known, as he often played pranks and jokes on the other characters. On December 21 of the same year, his signature zig-zag T-shirt appeared; previously, he only wore a plain one. On the March 6, 1951 strip, Charlie Brown first appears to play baseball, as he was warming up before telling Shermy that they can start the game; however, he was the catcher, not yet the pitcher. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown#1940s-1950s )
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Day 346 / 365
A guy bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas.
After hearing about this extravagant gift, a friend of his said, “I thought she wanted one of those sporty four-wheel-drive vehicles.”
“She did,” he replied. “But where was I going to find a fake Jeep?”
Interesting Fact: Although the official Christmas tree tradition at Rockefeller Center began in 1933 (the year 30 Rockefeller Plaza opened), the unofficial tradition began during the Depression-era construction of Rockefeller Center, when workers decorated a smaller 20 feet (6.1 m) balsam fir tree with “strings of cranberries, garlands of paper, and even a few tin cans” on Christmas Eve (December 24, 1931), as recounted by Daniel Okrent in his history of Rockefeller Center.[10] One claim is the tree had some gum wrappers and detonator blasting caps as decorations. There was no Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in 1932. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Center_Christmas_Tree#History )
Through Open Lens 