732 - At the Battle of Tours near Poitiers, France, Frankish leader Charles Martel, a Christian, defeats a large army of Spanish Moors, halting the Muslim advance into Western Europe. Abd-ar-Rahman, the Muslim governor of Córdoba, was killed in the fighting, and the Moors retreated from Gaul, never to return in such force

1663 - The French King approves the 'dîme' law, whereby the Habitants of New France are obliged to pay one-thirteenth of their harvest to the seigneur

1814 - Kingston Navy Dockyard launches big three-deck warship 'St. Lawrence,' but too late for action; largest wooden ship ever built on fresh water

1845 - The Naval School (now called US Naval Academy) opens at Annapolis, Maryland

1846 - Neptune's moon Triton discovered by William Lassell

1848 - Manitoba's first public library founded at Fort Garry

1864 - Opening of Quebec Conference; 33 delegates start drafting 72 Resolutions as an outline to the proposed union, which will form the core of the British North America Act

1865 - John Hyatts patents the billiard ball

1903 - Henry Ford starts production at Walkerville, Ontario; makes 117 cars in first year

1911 - Sun Yat-sen's revolutionaries overthrow the Manchus - Taiwan National Day

1913 - The Panama Canal, an American-built waterway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is completed with the explosion of the Gamboa Dike and the mixing of Atlantic and Pacific ocean waters

1920 - Indian's Bill Wambsganns makes first unassisted World Series triple play

1920 - Indian's Elmer Smith hits the first World Series grand slam

1939 - The real Eleanor Rigby dies in Liverpool

1958 - "77 Sunset Strip" (with Edd Byrnes as "Kookie") debuts on ABC-TV

1960 - Ottawa Rough Rider Ron Stewart rushes for 287 yards against Montreal Alouettes, to set a single game CFL record

1960 �?Ray Charles releases Georgia On My Mind

1962 - Britain's BBC bans Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash"

1964 �?Honeycombs release Have I The Right?

1964 �?Supremes release Baby Love

1970 - Fiji gains independence from Britain - National Day

1970 - Quebec Labour Minister Pierre Laporte is kidnapped by FLQ cell while playing football with his son outside his suburban home in St-Hubert

1973 - Pierre Elliott Trudeau starts six-day visit to China, where he meets with Chairman Mao Tse-Tung; first visit by a Canadian Prime Minister

1976 - Greece's 98 year-old Dimitrion Yordanidis, is oldest man to compete in a marathon; he finishes in 7hr 33 min

1978 - Female pages hired for the House of Commons for the first time

1979 �?Quebec Nordiques' Real Cloutier sets NHL record of a hat trick in his first game

1981 �?The Police release Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic

1985 - Actor Orson Welles dies of a heart attack at age 70

1985 - The hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro reaches a dramatic climax when U.S. Navy F-14 fighters intercept an Egyptian airliner attempting to fly the Palestinian hijackers to freedom and force the jet to land at a NATO base in Sigonella, Sicily

1987 �?Belinda Carlisle releases Heaven Is A Place On Earth

2000 - The Evening Post reports from Wellington, New Zealand, that forty-four years after it was thrown from a ship into the Indian Ocean, a bottle with a message has turned up in New Zealand not far from the home of the author, Austrian Hans Schwarz who had since moved to New Zealand

2002 - Baby Oryx, recently born in Kenya's Samburu National Reserve, starved to death separated from its mother after becoming the fifth newborn oryx kidnapped by lioness Kamuniak (“blessed one�?in the local Samburu language), who then eats its corpse. Kamuniak has been very motherly and protective toward her adopted baby oryxes, fending off other animals. But although on occasion she did let mother oryxes nurse their babies for brief periods, this was not enough to prevent starvation. Kamuniak was starving herself too, as she did not take enough time off for hunting while she was protecting a baby oryx. Animal behaviorists believe Kamuniak suffers from a mental illness.  Kamuniak kidnapped her first baby oryx on 22 December 2001 and let its mother nurse it enough, at least, to keep alive. On 07 January 2002, a male lion killed this oryx while the lioness slept. On 14 February 2002 Kamuniak kidnapped a second baby oryx, but rangers soon took it away to the Nairobi animal orphanage, because it seemed too young and weak to survive away from its mother.  On 31 March 2002, Kamuniak kidnapped a third baby oryx, but after several days of peaceful companionship, the oryx calf took off on its own. On 23 May 2002, Kamuniak kidnapped a fourth baby oryx, about 8 days old, at the foot of Koitogor Hills, several hundred meters from Larsens Camp. This baby oryx was rescued by its mother early the next day while the lioness went hunting

 

 

Birthdays

1731 - Henry Cavendish, Nice, France - English physicist/chemist - discovered hydrogen; measured the density and mass of the Earth
1813 - Giuseppe Verdi, Roncole Italy - opera composer: Rigoletto, Aida, Otello, La Traviata
1819 - Charles Stanley, Viscount Monck, Templemore, Ireland - first Governor-General of Canada
1863 - Louis Cyr, St-Cyprien-de-Napierville, Quebec - the strongman of Quebec; P. T. Barnum hired him as a strongman, and in Boston in 1895, Cyr hoisted the heaviest weight ever lifted by a human being - a platform with 19 fat men weighing a total of 1967 kg
1900 - Helen Hayes [Brown] Washington DC - actress: Cesar & Cleopatra, Happy Birthday, A Farewell to Arms
1918 - Thelonious Monk, Rocky Mount, North Carolina - jazz pianist: Monk's Dream, 'Round Midnight
1924 - James Clavell, Sydney, Australia - author: Tai Pan, Shogun, Noble House
1926 - Richard Jaeckel, NY City - actor: 3:10 to Yuma, Sands of Iwo Jima
1930 - Harold Pinter, London, England - playwright: Homecoming, Servant, The Pumpkin Eaters
1941 - Peter Coyote - actor: E.T. , Sphere
1946 - Ben Vereen, Miami Florida - actor/dancer: Pippin, Roots, Webster
1946 - Peter Mahovlich - NHL player: Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings
1955 - David Lee Roth - singer: Van Halen �?Jump
1956 - Martina Navratilova, Prague, Czechoslovakia - tennis player
1958 - Tanya Tucker, Seminole Texas - singer/actress: What Do I Do With Me, Follow that Car
1959 - Chris Lowe - singer: Pet Shop Boys - Left to My Own Devices
1960 - Al Connelly - guitarist - Glass Tiger
1961 - Martin Kemp - singer: Spandau Ballet �?True
1965 - Christopher Penn, Los Angeles - actor: Reservoir Dogs; Footloose; younger brother of actor Sean Penn
1966 - Karen Percy - skier: at the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics, Percy became the first Canadian skier in 20 years to win two Olympic medals in the same games
1969 - Brett Favre - NFL quarterback: Greenbay Packers

 

 

 

Ain't It The Truth

 

Grandchildren are God's reward for not killing your children.

 

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like nailing Jell-O to a tree.

 

There is only one pretty child in the world and every mother has it.

 

Chinese Proverb. Mothers of teens know why animals eat their young.

 

I asked Mom if I was a gifted child...she said they certainly wouldn't have paid for me.

 

Children are natural mimics, who act like their parents despite every effort to teach them good manners.

 

Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said.

 

The main purpose of holding children's parties is to remind yourself that there are children more awful than your own.

 

We child proofed our home 3 years ago but they're still getting in!

 

Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home.