Interesting January Events

Start your year with some amazing facts to impress your family, friends, and neighbors.
January 2, 1975 - The U.S. Patent Office was renamed "U.S. Patent and Trademark Office" to incorporate its new function as a trademarking center.
January 3, 1967 - Harry Thomason received a patent for an apparatus for cooling and heating a house using solar energy.
January 5, 1965 - "Home of the Whopper" was trademarked by Burger King.

January 7, 1913 - Patent was granted to William Burton for the manufacture of gasoline.

January 9, 1906 - Campbell's soup was trademark registered.

January 13, 1930 - The first Mickey Mouse cartoon appeared in U.S.

January 17, 1882 - Leroy Firman received a patent for the telephone switchboard.

January 20, 1929 - "In Old Arizona," the first outdoor feature-length talking motion picture, was made.
January 21, 1954 - The first atomic submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched.

January 24, 1935 - The first canned beer, "Krueger Cream Ale," was sold by the Kruger Brewing Company of Richmond, VA.

January 26, 1875 - The first electric dental drill was patented by George Green.

January 27, 1880 - Patent was granted to Thomas A. Edison for "an electric lamp for giving light by incandescence."

January 28, 1807 - London's Pall Mall became the first street lit by gaslight.

National Trivia Day

January 4 each year is National Trivia Day. Over time, the word “trivia” has come to refer to obscure and arcane bits of dry knowledge as well as nostalgic remembrances of pop culture. You can celebrate by getting together with friends and play Trivial Pursuit. You can call friends and family and enlighten them with some trivia. More fun is to stop random people and start a conversation with “did you know...?” You may even make some new friends. You can also pick up one or more of my books and spend the day filling your brain with more exciting, interesting, and random trivia.

Keeping Cooked Chicken

According to food expert Janilyn Hutchings, StateFoodSafety food scientist and Certified Professional in Food Safety, cooked chicken will last in the refrigerator for three to four days.

According to the USDA, chicken should be refrigerated within two hours of it being cooked and one hour if the temperature of the environment is 90 degrees or over. The USDA also advises to reheat leftovers to 165 degrees.

If you know you will not get around to eating it before it is time to toss, another option is to put it in the freezer and it will stay good for up to six months. The USDA suggests that if you are freezing chicken, make sure it is wrapped tightly with a freezer-safe covering.

Canary Island Facts

The Canary Islands were named after canary birds, but the location was actually named after dogs. Although it is off the coast of northwestern Africa, the archipelago is part of Spain. In Spanish, the area's name is Islas Canarias, which comes from the Latin phrase Canariae Insulae for "island of dogs."

2020 Quirk

Because of a quirk in our calendar, which began on January 1 at year 1 (1AD) we have some question about when a specific named decade begins and ends. Since there was no year 0, between year 1 BC and year 1 AD, it can be confusing.

A decade, by definition is ten years, regardless when you begin counting, but decade names begin in the “1” year, not the “0” year. The 2020s will begin in 2020, but the next named decade will begin in 2021. When the year is 2021, 2020 years would have passed since the beginning of our calendar at year one.

2020 is also a leap year, so we get to enjoy an additional day of fun next year.
Incidentally, Chronométrophilia, the Swiss Association for the History of Timekeeping, pointed out a practical shortcut applies to the century system. "The 20th [Century] started with 1901, ended with 2000, so the two first digits of the last year of any century give it its name."

Year ending in 1 is named decade and year ending in 0 is century.

Explode vs. Implode

Take a plastic bottle. Fill it with water until it is full. Continue filling it with water - plastic will expand, stretch, and eventually burst. This is an explosion, an outward expansion.

Now take same bottle, and suck air out of it. Keep sucking air out, creating vacuum, and pulling sides of the bottle inside. The bottle is experiencing an implosion, an inward expansion.

To add to this - if you EXplode a building, debris ends up everywhere - spread out for many yards/meters. If you IMplode a building, 99% of the debris falls into the footprint of the building.

Two Way Mirror Tricks

Move up to the mirror and place your fingertip or nail against it. If the reflection of your finger directly touches your finger, it is a two-way mirror. If there is about 1 centimeter of distance between your finger and the reflection, it is not.
Another way is turn the lights off in the room, then place a bright flashlight against the mirror surface. If there is a hidden chamber behind the mirror, the flashlight will illuminate it, and since you are in a darkened room, you will see the hidden room. Of course, any mirror hung in front of a wall will be a mirror and pane of glass installed into the wall, like any other window, will have window framing.


The recommended lighting ratio for surveillance purposes is 10:1, with the subject side being ten times brighter than the observer side.

Man on the Moon

There is one human whose ashes are on the moon. Eugene Shoemaker is often credited with inventing the field of planetary science and after a career filled with stellar accomplishments, he spent his days traveling around the world to study impact craters. He trained the astronauts headed to the Moon and named many of the craters, valleys, and mountains on the Moon.

When he passed away in 1997 his wife sent his ashes to the moon in a metal cylinder that was inscribed with a quote from Romeo and Juliet: "And, when he shall die/Take him and cut him out in little stars/And he will make the face of heaven so fine/That all the world will be in love with night/And pay no worship to the garish sun."

Since his ashes were interred on the Moon, Shoemaker has remained the only person ever buried on an extraterrestrial surface.

Compost Your Remains

A new Washington State law was the first-in-the-nation, to legalize the practice of “natural organic reduction” of human remains. A Seattle-based company named Recompose opens in 2021, offering $5,500 services that turn a human body into one cubic yard of soil during the course of 30 days. Families of the deceased can take as much soil as they like and any remainder goes to sustaining conservation land in the Puget Sound region. It claims the (not-so-cheap) service is a more eco-friendly way to go.

Largest Libraries

The British Library with 170 to 200 million items is the largest library in the world.


The US Library of Congress is the second largest library in the world with more than 168 million items in 450 languages, followed by the Library and Archives Canada with 55 million items, the New York Public Library with 54 million items, Shanghai Library with 50 million items, and the Russian State Library with 47 million items.

What's in a Name, FISA

Many headlines have used FISA during the past few years, but a good number of people do not really know what it is. It is a United States federal law that establishes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" suspected of espionage or terrorism. The Act created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to oversee requests for surveillance warrants by federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) permits the National Security Agency (NSA) to collect massive amounts of internet communications and associated data. NSA was founded in 1952 and is a member of the Defense Department and an Intelligence Community agency. Its goals are to discover adversaries' secrets, protect U.S. secrets, and outmaneuver our adversaries in cyberspace while at the same time protecting the privacy rights of the American people.

Happy Friday

"We cannot really love anybody with whom we never laugh." ~ Agnes Repplier

Every day is good to have a hearty laugh, especially on a Happy Friday!

Winter Solstice

Winter solstice 2019 in Northern Hemisphere will be on Saturday, December 21. It is officially the shortest day of the year. The first full day of winter, a full moon will shine like a beacon on the long dark night. The December full moon, also known as the Cold Moon or Long Night’s Moon, arrives less than a day after the solstice, on December 22.


Yea! From now on days will be getting longer and that means more sunshine and that means warmer weather is coming.

Reindeer Sex

Here is something appropriate for the season. Both male and female reindeer grow antlers, and despite the depiction of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, Blitzen, and Rudolph as males in media; they are most likely females.

Most male reindeer lose their horns in the winter when Christmas occurs. Females lose their antlers during the warm summer months. Males are much less nourished and fattened than the females at this time of year. Santa’s reindeer must be big and strong enough to pull a sleigh full of toys and would need to be in peak physical condition. Hmmm!