This Day in History...

August 16, 1513 - King Henry VIII of England and his troops defeated the French in the Battle of the Spurs, at Guinigatte, NW France.



August 16, 1896 - Gold is discovered near the Klondike River in the Yukon Territory of Canada, sparking the last great gold rush. Over the next 2 years as many as 50,000 would-be miners arrived in the area. One of the unsuccessful gold-seekers was 21 year old Jack London, whose experience in the Yukon Territory became the basis for his novels. Large-scale gold mining in the Yukon Territory didn't end until 1966, and by that time the region had yielded some $250 million in gold. Today, some 200 small gold mines still operate in the region. Large-scale gold mining in the Yukon Territory didn't end until 1966, and by that time the region had yielded some $250 million in gold. Today, some 200 small gold mines still operate in the region.

This Day in History...

August 15, 1945 - The Japanese emperor speaks for the first time on radio, telling the Japanese people that the nation has indeed surrendered, offically ending WWII. Although the Japanese had already told the Allies that they agreed to the surrender terms in the Potsdam Conference, the Japanese people refused to believe that they had surrendered until they heard it from the Emperor himself.

August 15, 1969 - Woodstock opens in Bethel, New York.

This Day in History...

August 14, 1040 - King Duncan of Scotland (Donnchad mac Crínáin is the Gaelic version of his name) was murdered by Macbeth (Mac Bethad mac Findláich), who then became king and ruled for 17 years. This murder was the basis for Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth. Unlike the Duncan of Shakespeare's play, the historical Duncan was most likely a young man. Macbeth is recorded as his dux, literally duke, but in the context this suggests that Macbeth was the power behind the throne. In 1040 he led an army north into Moray, generally seen as Macbeth's domain. He was killed there near Pitgaveny.

I love the smell of...

1. Honeysuckle

2. Fresh baked bread

3. My parents' house right before the Thanksgiving meal

4. Fraiser fur Christmas trees

5. Fresh cut grass

6. A summer BBQ

7. A mountain stream

8. Camp fire

9. Magnolias

10. Fresh laundry

11. That smell right before it rains

12. Orange and cloves

13. Fresh vanilla

14. Sugar cookies

15. Pumpkin spice

16. Fall

17. That wonderful, fresh smell up in the mountains

18. Popcorn

19. The top of a little baby's head

20. Lavander

This Day in History...

August 13, 1961 - Shortly after midnight the East German government closes the border with West Berlin and soliders begin building a dividing wall of barbed wire and bricks. The wire was soon replaced by a six-foot-high, 96-mile-long wall of concrete blocks, complete with guard towers, machine gun posts and search lights. Many Berliners woke in the morning cut off from family and friends on the other side of the wall. The height of the Wall was raised to 10 feet in 1970 in an effort to stop escape attempts, which at that time came almost daily. From 1961 to 1989, a total of 5,000 East Germans escaped; many more tried and failed. High profile shootings of some would-be defectors only intensified the Western world's hatred of the Wall.

This Day in History...

Another pretty slow day in history apparently.


August 12, 1990 - Fossil hunter Susan Hendrickson discovers three huge bones jutting out of a cliff near Faith, South Dakota. They turn out to be part of the largest-ever Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered, a 65 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer.

This Day in History...

August 11, 1587 - Walter Raleigh's second expedition to the New World landed in North Carolina.

August 11, 1934 - A group of federal prisoners classified as "most dangerous"
arrives at Alcatraz Island, a 22-acre rocky outcrop situated 1.5 miles offshore in San Francisco Bay. The convicts--the first civilian prisoners to be housed in the new high-security penitentiary--joined a few dozen military prisoners left over from the island's days as a U.S. military prison.

This Day in History...

August 10, 1675 - King Charles II laid the foundation stone of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, London. The observatory was built to provide English navigators with accurate tables of the positions of the moon and stars.

August 10, 1945 - A day after the bombing of Nagasaki, Japan submits its acquiescence to the Potsdam Conference terms of unconditional surrender, as President Harry S. Truman orders a halt to atomic bombing.

This Day in History...

August 9, 1945 - A second atom bomb is dropped on Japan by the United States, at Nagasaki, resulting finally in Japan's unconditional surrender. The devastation wrought at Hiroshima was not sufficient to convince the Japanese War Council to accept the Potsdam Conference's demand for unconditional surrender. The United States had already planned to drop their second atom bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," on August 11 in the event of such recalcitrance, but bad weather expected for that day pushed the date up to August 9th. So at 1:56 a.m., a specially adapted B-29 bomber, called "Bock's Car" took off from Tinian Island. The bomb was dropped at 11:02 a.m., 1,650 feet above the city. The explosion unleashed the equivalent force of 22,000 tons of TNT. The hills that surrounded the city did a better job of containing the destructive force, but the number killed is estimated at anywhere between 60,000 and 80,000 (exact figures are impossible, the blast having obliterated bodies and disintegrated records).

This Day in History...

August 8, 1296 - The Stone of Scone, on which Scottish kings had been crowned for centuries, was seized by King Edward I of England and moved to London. In 1306 at Westminster Abbey he had a special throne, the Coronation Chair, built so that the stone fitted underneath it. This was to be a symbol that the Kings of England were also being crowned King of Scotland. It remained a part of the British Coronation Chair until 1996, when the British government finally sent it back to Scotland. The next British monarch to be crowned will be the first one since the 1300s to be crowned without the Stone in the Chair beneath them.

Things that Irritate the Heck Out of Me...

It was a scorcher today in Georgia and the heat always makes it easy to get irritated. Went through a list of things that irritate me as I was driving home, listening to Sean Hannity.

1. Cling Wrap that will cling to itself wonderfully...until you try to actually cover something with it. It then has the clinging properties of a piece of notebook paper.

2. Folks who wait until you are RIGHT AT THEM to pull out in front of you when there are 25miles of empty road behind you...and then go 20 miles under the speed limit.

3. A President who tells me to shut up because I dare to disagree with him.

4. Folks who let their dog poop in your front yard and don't clean it up. I think I'll take my son over and let him poop in their yard just to return the favor.

5. Parents who can't read (or won't read which ever the case may be) the signs that say this play area is for 3 year olds and younger...and let their 10 year olds romp around with the little toddlers that can hardly walk.

6. Nuts in my bread.

7. When the mailman (or lady) is too lazy to bring the oversized envelope to the front door and somehow manages to shove a 12x12 padded envelope into a little bitty mailbox. I don't know about you...but I love my scrapbook paper to be bent in half.

8. Neighbors who turn their music up so loud it shakes my mirrors at about 8:30 at night...right after my son goes to bed.

9. Democrats who call me a Nazi and a Mobster because I have the gall to speak up and let them know I disagree.

10. People who think that just because I'm a stay at home mom that I'm stupid...maybe I should tatoo my BACHELOR'S DEGREE onto my butt and see if that helps any.

11. Folks that think I'm stupid because I'm from GEORGIA. Again...maybe I'll tatoo that college degree on my forehead, too.

12. News media that always manage to find the most uneducated sounding person around to put on the evening news to talk about what the tornado sounded like.

13. Being ignored at the food line when I'm waiting to give my order....

14. Parents who seem to think the mall is one big day care and that all the workers in all the stores in the mall are paid to keep an eye on their children.

15. Drivers who speed through the yellow light even though the road is blocked ahead of them, thus blocking an entire intersection because they were so impatient. Yeah....they're really making headway sitting in the middle of Hwy 20.

16. Political "correctness." Gimme a break...

17. Everyone being so afraid they may offend someone so store workers can't even say "Merry Christmas" around the holidays. I make it a POINT to say "Merry Christmas" when they try to throw that "Happy Holidays" crap at me.

18. Press 1 for English. Umm...I live in America. Sorry but that's the way I feel. I'd have to learn another language if I moved to another country.

There's more...but I don't want to "OFFEND" more folks than necessary today. Probably already reached my quota for the afternoon.

This Day in History...

August 7, 1782 - General George Washington, the commander in chief of the Continental Army, creates the "Badge for Military Merit," a decoration consisting of a purple, heart-shaped piece of silk, edged with a narrow binding of silver, with the word Merit stitched across the face in silver. The badge was to be presented to soldiers for "any singularly meritorious action" and permitted its wearer to pass guards and sentinels without challenge. The honoree's name and regiment were also to be inscribed in a "Book of Merit."

The "Book of Merit" was lost, and the decoration was largely forgotten until 1927, when General Charles P. Summerall, the U.S. Army chief of staff, sent an unsuccessful draft bill to Congress to "revive the Badge of Military Merit." In 1931, Summerall's successor, General Douglas MacArthur, took up the cause, hoping to reinstate the medal in time for the bicentennial of George Washington's birth. On February 22, 1932, Washington's 200th birthday, the U.S. War Department announced the creation of the "Order of the Purple Heart."

In addition to aspects of Washington's original design, the new Purple Heart also displays a bust of Washington and his coat of arms. The Order of the Purple Heart, the oldest American military decoration for military merit, is awarded to members of the U.S. armed forces who have been killed or wounded in action against an enemy. It is also awarded to soldiers who have suffered maltreatment as prisoners of war.

This Day in History...

August 6, 1623 - Anne Hathaway, William Shakespeare's wife, died in Stratford-upon-Avon.

August 6, 1945 - An atom bomb is dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the US bomber 'Enola Gay'.

Book Giveaway!

While I'm thinking about it, here is a giveaway from Passages to the Past. She is giving away a copy of Anne Easter Smith's The King's Grace which is the third book in her War of the Roses trilogy. Go and check it out! :)

Book Giveaway!

Wonderful Giveaway!!

There is a wonderful Anne Boleyn giveaway over at All Things Royal. Here is the link! Go check it out! She is offering a wonderful gift!

Anne Boleyn Giveaway!

This Day in History...

August 5, 1305 - Scottish rebel William Wallace, who beat Edward I at Stirling Bridge, is captured by the English and taken to London for execution.

For those of you not quite sure who I'm talking about...does Mel Gibson in a kilt ring any bells?

This Day in History...

August 4, 1944 - Acting on tip from a Dutch informer, the Nazi Gestapo captures 15-year-old Jewish diarist Anne Frank and her family in a sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. They were sent to a concentration camp in Holland, and in September Anne and most of the others were shipped to the Auschwitz death camp in Poland. In the fall of 1944, with the Soviet liberation of Poland underway, Anne was moved with her sister Margot to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. Suffering under the deplorable conditions of the camp, the two sisters caught typhus and died in early March 1945. The camp was liberated by the British less than two months later.

Issues with Comments??

Its come to my attention that folks are having issues leaving comments on my posts. I have gone back and reset everything, looked at Blogger help for answers and followed their advice, so if you have tried to leave a comment and it didn't work....give it another shot. If it doesn't work, PLEASE give me a heads up. If it does work...well, I'll know because I'll see your comment. :)

This is my annoyed and irritated look.

This Day in History...

This seems to be a pretty boring day in history. Here's the most interesting tidbit I could find!

August 3, 1846 - An ominous sign of the troubles to come, the Donner party finds a note warning the emigrants that their expected route through the Wasatch mountains ahead is nearly impassable.

(Y'all know the Donner party? Right? The group of immigrants that got stuck in the mountains by snowfall and had to resort to cannibalism?)

This Day in History...

August 2, 1100 - King William II of England, son of William the Conqueror, was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest after allegedly being mistaken for a deer. This was probably an assassination. It has been suggested that his alleged slayer, Walter Tirel, was been acting under orders from his younger brother, Henry, who promptly seized the throne as Henry I.