Wine Day - May 25, 2020

DIANE'S CORNER ... Celebrate Wine Day

Sweet or dry, red or white, fizzy or flat, let’s raise a glass to one of the most loved and historical alcoholic tipples there is – the sophisticated and often sassy glass of wine.

For centuries and centuries, wine has been a firm favorite of cultures across the world. Whether it’s for helping creativity, religious ceremony, or simply livening up a gathering, there’s no doubt that this fruity fixture of the alcoholic drink repertoire well deserves its own day of observance.

On the 25th of May, it’s time to celebrate everything that makes a wine great. And everything that makes a wine great is, of course, everything about it.

History of Wine Day

You may think every day has the potential to be a Wine Day depending on how hard the day at work has been, but for when your boss hasn’t been getting on your nerves there’s Wine Day.

Unlike Drink Wine Day, which is in February, Wine Day is more about celebrating the beverage itself rather than the act of drinking it – although of course, that isn’t stopping you from enjoying a tipple or two!

Wine has been around for donkey’s years. The oldest evidence of wine that we have dates way back to 7000 BC China. Many ancient civilizations celebrated the effects of wine and often used it for religious observance.

Today, wine is one of the most widely produced and consumed drinks in the world. Chardonnay, Merlot, Riesling, Syrah – there are so many types to choose from. And it’s not just grapes which make up the bottles – you can also get hold of fruit, flower and even vegetable wines!

Fun and fascinating facts about wine

• Back in the day, women could be killed for drinking wine! Yes, in the early Roman times, a husband was at liberty to kill his wife if he found her drinking wine. It was a forbidden drink for women. 
• Speyer, Germany, is home to the oldest bottle of wine in the world. It is on display at the historical museum in the town, and it dates back to an impressive AD 325. 
• Have you ever toasted to everyone’s health? This is something that comes from Ancient Greek tradition. The host of the dinner would have the first sip of wine to assure his guests that the drink was not poisoned. 
• In order to get the exact quantity of antioxidants you get in wine, you would have to drink seven glass of orange juice or if you prefer apple juice, you would need 20 glasses!
• The oldest known wine cellar is actually on the famous ship, Titanic. We know what you’re thinking; the Titanic sunk! However, when divers when down to the wreckage, they were surprised to see that most of the wine bottles were still intact. 
• Surprisingly, there are some people who are actually scared of wine! It is known as oenophobia. 

thanks, Bev

Joke of the Day

thanks, Agnes

What did the grape say when it was crushed?  Nothing, it just let out a little wine.

Me: “I love you.”
You: “Is that you or the wine talking?”
Me: “It’s me talking to the wine.”

My friend fell asleep in the bar, so I poured my ale on him to wake him up. It was a brewed awakening.

Wine improves with age. I improve with wine.

Learn Wine First Aid! Open the bottle to allow it to breathe. If it doesn’t look like it’s breathing, give it mouth-to-mouth.

Word of the Day

heterochromatic

MEANING:

adjective: Having many different colors.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek hetero- (different) + chrom- (color). Earliest documented use: 1895.

USAGE:

“Emma’s heterochromatic eyes -- one brown and one nearly black -- shone with excitement.”
Sonali Dev; Pride, Prejudice, and Other Flavors; William Morrow; 2019.

Idiom of the Day

34. Once bitten, twice shy

Meaning: From experience, we learn to avoid situation causing trouble or distress.

This Day in History

1844 - The gasoline engine was patented by Stuart Perry.

1925 - John Scopes was indicted for teaching the Darwinian theory in school.

1935 - Babe Ruth hit his final homerun, his 714th, and set a record that would stand for 39 years.

1968 - The Gateway Arch, part of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, MO, was dedicated.

1981 - Daredevil Daniel Goodwin scaled Chicago's Sears Tower, while wearing a "Spiderman" costume, in 7 1/2 hours.

1986 - Approximately 7 million Americans participated in "Hands Across America."

1992 - Jay Leno debuted as the new permanent host of NBC's "Tonight Show."


1996 - In Nimes, France, Christina Sanchez became the first woman to achieve the rank of matadore in Europe.


2001 - Sherman Bull, 64, of New Canaan, CT, became the oldest climber to reach the summit of Mount Everest.


2008 - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander landed in the arctic plains of Mars.



DAILY SQU-EEK

If You Were Born Today, May 25

You are a witty, humorous, talkative person. Under the chatty or sociable surface, you are a lot more serious than you appear. In fact, you never take anything at face value. You consider yourself unusual, and most people agree! You are highly imaginative with fantastical dreams and ideas. Famous people born today: 

1803 Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist and philosopher (Concord Hymn), born in Boston, Massachusetts (d. 1882)

1878 Bill Robinson "Bojangles", American actor and tap dancer (Stormy Weather, The Little Colonel), born in Richmond, Virginia (d. 1949)

1889 Igor Sikorsky, Russian-American pioneer of aviation in both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, born in Kiev, Ukraine (d. 1972)

1939 Sir Ian McKellen, English film and theatre actor (Lord of the Rings, X-Men), born in Burnley Lancashire

1969 Anne Heche, American actress (Donnie Brasco, Juror, Volcano), born in Aurora, Ohio

thanks, Julia

READERS INFO

1.

(Not So) Totally Useless Facts of The Day:

There was a time in baseball history when the “New York Yankees” were called the “New York Highlanders”. They had no World Championships and Babe Ruth was just eight years old when the team played their first game. Not only did the
New York Highlanders have a losing record for many years, but the team’s home field was also a mess: it was located near a swamp, the outfield had no grass, and the ballpark sat mostly unfinished. In 1913, The Highlanders changed their
name to the Yankees, moved their stadium to the Bronx, and went on to become one of the most successful sports franchise in the world.

The red and white Coca-Cola logo is recognized by 94% of the world's population. Coca-Cola has also reported that its name is the second-most recognized term in the world, behind "okay."

A “moment” technically means 90 seconds.

2.

1726 -

TODAY: In 1726, poet and bookseller Allan Ramsay rents books from his shop in Edinburgh, Scotland, becoming Britain's first circulating library.

3. 

thanks for the Offbeat Holiday, Patty

MAY 25: TOWEL DAY

To honor author Douglas Adams, fans carry around a towel all day. The tradition is a nod to a passage in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about the importance of towels: "A towel, [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy] says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have." Good enough for us.

4.

Coronavirus Style by Sylvia, CAN DO Correspondent

Some great ideas to keep you busy, so if you need a break from a week at work or developing your professional skills, here’s some fun, creative ideas to suit any age:

FutureLearn: Online Courses and Degrees from Top Universities

Pictures of the day

The Japanese pygmy woodpecker (Yungipicus kizuki) is a  species of woodpecker native to coniferous and deciduous  forests in Russia, China, North Korea, South Korea and Japan. With a length of about 140 mm (5.5 in), its plumage is a dark  greyish-brown, barred and blotched with white, with pale brown, streaked underparts. The male has a small red mark on the side  of its nape, which the female lacks. It usually occurs in pairs or mixed-species foraging flocks, searching on trees for invertebrates,  such as spiders, caterpillars, ants and aphids, and berries. Breeding  takes place in the spring, with the nest being in a hole excavated in  a dead branch. This picture shows a Japanese pygmy woodpecker  photographed in Sakai, in Osaka Prefecture, Japan.

Mexico

Monarch butterflies at El Rosario sanctuary near Ocampo. 

knit ... Father's Day
thanks, Marilyn

Fitbit charge cover pattern by Janine Steingasser

knit

thanks, Connie

Due South

knit

Lace tie front shrug

knit

Chair Pads

knit

Summer Vacation Knit Top

Knit Pattern of the Day: 

thanks, Valerie, Canadian Correspondent

Google Translate

Fountain by Berroco

crochet

thanks, Helen

FAN-tastical Lace Vest

crochet ... Father's Day
thanks, Doris

Mustache Cozy

crochet

Cookie, the Amigurumi Girl

crochet

Amalfi Skirt

crochet

Quarantine Cooking Recipes

thanks, Debbie

Sausage Egg Casserole

RECIPE

Apparently IKEA released their own recipe to help us get through 2020 with happy bellies.

CROCKPOT RECIPE

thanks. Amy

Slow Cooker Mango BBQ Chicken Bowls

SWEETS

thanks, Shelley, New York Food Correspondent

Maple Syrup Pudding Cake

ADULT COLORING

thanks, Valerie, Canadian Correspondent

FUN

This one is pretty impossible, but use the facts you know about English to get on track. First, think of words with double vowels. And you must know this is probably going to be a compound word. The first and last letters of those combined words will form one set of double letters. Now, just wrack your brain!

answer:

Bookkeeper

CRAFTS ... sewing

Face Mask Easy Sew

CHILDREN'S CORNER ... crafts

thanks, Joanne

Create Your Own Decorated Tennis Shoes

PUZZLE

Dog Wet Towel Jigsaw Puzzle



WORD SEARCH

anger ankle blackboard blouse burial cable close clutch

contain corner current doubt entry

fear financial four frame hands hinder incite intense

nails office opinion prohibit pure sear silo surrender

threat today touch tough trial upheld video world

SUDOKU ... easy

solution:

QUOTE

CLEVER 

Memorial Day Facts You Probably Didn't Know

townandcountrymag

1. Multiple cities claim to be the birthplace of Memorial Day.

According to the Library of Congress, President Lyndon Johnson declared Waterloo, New York, to be the "Birthplace of Memorial Day," referencing a celebration the town had in 1866. However, other places are known to have celebrated the holiday earlier, and exactly where the first celebration took place remains in dispute.

2. It was originally called Decoration Day.

The holiday was celebrated by “decorating” the graves of fallen soldiers with flowers, flags, and more, hence the name “Decoration Day.” Over time, it became known as Memorial Day.

3. Union General John A. Logan founded the holiday.

Although people were already decorating graves of fallen Civil War soldiers in an unofficial way, General Logan codified the holiday. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he famously said.

4. Memorial Day wasn’t celebrated on the “last Monday in May” until relatively recently.

When General Logan officially launched the holiday, he called for it to be observed on May 30. After the Uniform Monday Holiday Act took effect in 1971, however, it was moved to the final Monday in May.

5. Logan may have chosen May 30 an interesting reason.

The date was selected because it wasn’t the anniversary of any battle in particular—well, according to legend, that is.

6. It’s customary for the U.S. president or vice president to give a speech.

And traditionally, that speech is delivered at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. Ahead of Memorial Day weekend, the 3rd U.S. Infantry also place American flags in front of Arlington’s over 260,000 graves and niches

7. Originally, only soldiers who had died in the Civil War were honored.

After WWI, though, the holiday began to encompass members of the American armed forces who had fallen in any conflict.

thanks, Heide

EYE OPENER 

thanks, Debbie

The British Museum

The British Museum is the oldest national public museum in the world, and has been free to visit for ‘all studious and curious persons’ since 1759. They’ve welcomed 350,404,179 visitors to the Museum over the last 260 years. There are a staggering 8,000,000 objects in the collection

These chopping tools are among the oldest objects in the collection, made by early humans around 2,000,000 years ago and found in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. They represent the world’s first technological innovation and could be used in multiple ways – chopping branches, cutting meat and smashing bones.

The Museum’s newly acquired suit of Samurai armour took 260 painstaking hours of conservation work to get it ready for display in our recently refurbished galleries. It’s a complex object made of many different materials, so it presented a unique challenge for our conservation teams. 

This stunning Anglo-Saxon buckle was made in the early 7th century AD.
At 413 grammes it’s quite weighty – roughly the same as a can of baked beans! It was found as part of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial in the east of England – one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made. The intricate designs contain 13 creatures – can you spot them?

In the early 1880s, it took 394 trips by horse and cart over 97 days to transport the zoological specimens from Bloomsbury to their new home in South Kensington at the then new ‘British Museum (Natural History)’. 

Over 2,600 years ago, Ashurbanipal collected a library of 30,000 tablets inscribed with cuneiform script – an ancient type of writing made up of wedge-shaped marks. The tablets in the Library cover all kinds of topics, from magic to medicine, politics to palaces.

Between the 1970s and 1990s the Museum had between 4 and 7 cats, depending on the year, which were kept to deter mice and rats. There was even a ‘Cats’ Welfare Society’, set up to help look after the feline population.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common -- this is my symphony. -William Henry Channing, clergyman and reformer (25 May 1810-1884)

OPTICAL ILLUSION

In this demonstration the observer focuses at the flickering green dot in the middle. After about 10 seconds, the observer sees one, two or all three of the static yellow dots arranged at the corners of an imaginary equilateral triangle disappear and then reappear. 

These disappearances and reappearances continue pseudo-randomly for as long as the observer cares to look.

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