Thursday
Aug. 8, 1996
From Blossoms
Today's Reading:"From Blossoms" by Li-Young Lee from ROSE, published by Boa Editions, Ltd.
The Iowa State Fair opens today in Des Moines, celebrating the state's 150th anniversary.
The 96th National Hobo Convention starts today in Britt, Iowa.
The Scandinavian Festival starts today in Junction City, Oregon.
It was on this day in 1974 that President Richard Milhouse Nixon announced in a television address to the nation that he would resign from the presidency the following day.
Journalist Randy Shilts (AND THE BAND PLAYED ON) was born on this day in Davenport, Iowa, in 1951. He was one of the first reporters to recognize the significance of the AIDS epidemic and to begin reporting on it. He developed AIDS and died in 1992.
It's the birthday of mathematician Sir Roger Penrose in Colchester, England,1931, who along with Stephen Hawking proved that all matter in a black hole collapses into a "singularity," a point in space where mass is compressed to infinite density and zero volume.
It was on this day in 1930 that Edmund Wilson advised F. Scott Fitzgerald that as "hard as America can be to live in, it is a mistake for American writers to live abroad."
Blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon ("Ain't Nobody's Business") was born today in Gurdon, Arkansas, in 1923.
Jazz saxophonist Benny Carter was born on this day in New York City in 1907.
It's the birthday of physicist Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a particle accelerator, was born in Canton, South Dakota, in 1901.
Poet Sara Teasdale was born on this day in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1884.
It's the birthday of America's first professional architect, Charles Bulfinch, born in Boston in 1763. He redesigned the U.S. Capitol in Washington and the Massachusetts State House in Boston.
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.®