Daily Calendar for Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Question of the Day

What was the first export of produce made by the first American settlers, and for whom was it made?
Merchantable timber was the first product exported by the settlers. As early as 1640 beams, masts, spars, and planks for shipbuilding, and all sizes of lumber were sawed and split in huge quantities, shipped mainly to Britain, but also to far distant ports.

Advice of the Day

Robins arrive now with this advice: “Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up.”

Home Hint of the Day

You can mix concrete by hand in a wheelbarrow, but be careful to mix it well. If you’re planning to mix more than a few wheeelbarrows of concrete, you’re better off renting a small gas-powered cement mixer from a rental company.

Word of the Day

Elongation
The difference in degrees between the celestial longitudes of a planet and the Sun. Greatest Elongation (Gr. Elong.): The greatest apparent distance of a planet from the Sun, as seen from Earth.

Puzzle of the Day

How did the man feel when he got his bill from the electric company?
He was shocked!

Died

  • Pope Benedict VIII
  • Frank Lloyd Wright (architect)
  • Harry Babbitt (sang with the Kay Kyser big band on such hits as The White Cliffs of Dover” and voiced the laugh of Woody Woodpecker”)

Born

  • Theobald Boehm (inventor and musician, who perfected the modern flute)
  • Eadweard Muybridge (photographer, motion picture pioneer)
  • Hugh Hefner (editor & publisher)
  • Carl Perkins (musician)
  • Dennis Quaid (actor)
  • Seve Ballesteros (golfer)
  • Cynthia Nixon (actress)
  • Keshia Knight Pulliam (actress)
  • Jesse McCartney (actor & singer)
  • Kristen Stewart (actress)
  • Elle Fanning (actress)

Events

  • Great Britain’s King Henry I was reprimanded in church for his long hair
  • Explorer La Salle claimed the Mississippi basin for France, calling it Louisiana
  • First tax-supported U.S. public library founded, Peterborough, New Hampshire
  • Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union general Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia
  • Jumbo the circus elephant arrived in the U.S.
  • Aerial Ferry Bridge opened in Duluth, Minnesota
  • The Boston Red Sox played Harvard University in the first official baseball game at Fenway Park. (The Sox won 2-0.)
  • Battle of Vimy Ridge (WWI) began in France
  • The Boston Celtics became the first NBA team to sweep an NBA championship series
  • NASA introduced first seven astronauts to press
  • Golfer Arnold Palmer won his third Masters Tournament
  • Sir Winston Churchill proclaimed an honorary U.S. citizen
  • First baseball game in indoor stadium, Houston, Texas
  • Nature magazine published the longest known scientific name, which was about 207,000 letters
  • Prince Charles married Camilla Parker Bowles
  • Rare Bactrian camel born at Budapest Zoo.

Weather

  • Dust storm in Colorado and Wyoming
  • F5 tornado hit Glazier and Higgins, Texas, and Woodward, Oklahoma
  • Texas experienced a bad dust storm
  • Sixteen inches of snow fell in Eastport, Maine