Pearl Harbor survivor back for 1st time since war
By AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press Writer
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii (AP) – Retired firefighter Ed Johann was a teenage apprentice seaman on Dec. 7, 1941, when he spotted Japanese planes coming in over Pearl Harbor.
He thought they were U.S. aircraft conducting drills until explosions and flames erupted from stricken [...]

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Maybe I am naive but I was amazed at the information contained under the “USS Wilmette” section.  Or rather, I was amazed that there IS a USS Wilmette section in the Wikipedia entry about this historic disaster, which I learned about today.
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The S.S. Eastland was a passenger ship based in Chicago and used for tours. [...]

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It was a very good year, at least for producing world-famous personages:
January 4 – Louis Braille, French teacher, inventor of the Braille writing system for the blind (d. 1852)
January 19 – Edgar Allan Poe, American writer and poet (d. 1849)
February 3 – Felix Mendelssohn, German composer (d. 1847)
Today, February 12 – Happy Brithday to Abraham [...]

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It’s impossible to think of one this week, without thinking of the other.

Obama – Luther King by *BenHeine on deviantART

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I wonder how long it will take them to sell out.  Ten minutes maybe?
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Inaugural Parade Bleacher Tickets on Sale Today Tickets go on sale at 1 p.m.
Updated 7:00 AM EST, Fri, Jan 9, 2009

Bleacher seat tickets for President-elect Barack Obama’s inaugural parade go on sale Friday at 1 p.m.
There will be 5,000 tickets for sale.  They cost [...]

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Don Wildman is the kind of guy a girl likes to daydream that he’s her boyfriend.  He’s rugged looking, a little scruffy, brave and adventurous in that Indiania Jones way that just makes you heart flutter a bit.  Only you probably wouldn’t really want him for a boyfriend unless you plan on admiring him from [...]

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On December 9th, 1968, Douglas Engelbart presented a 90-minute live public demonstration at the Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park, CA which featured all of the following:

The mouse
WYSIWYG  – “What you see is what you get”, referencing the way data looks on screen and the way it will look if printed.
Slides – ala Powerpoint
text [...]

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Normally, we talk about how terrible this event was, how many died, etc.
Talk is cheap.  Look at the photos.

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By Richard Allen Greene
CNN
(CNN) — Archaeologists in Russia have discovered an “extraordinary” group of Stone Age artworks which appear to have been carefully buried in pits and covered with mammoth bones, the researchers announced this week in a newly published paper.

Archaeologists uncovered these Stone Age figures buried in pits southeast of Moscow.

At least [...]

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Below is a video by Nickleback which I like mostly because of the information they include about amazing people who decided to take action and did amazing things to better this world.

If you can see the video above, go HERE.
See a list of Nobel Peace Laureates

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Being ill and hearing the name Typhoid Mary today, I got curious about the whole Typhoid Mary story, and it’s an interesting one.  Here are some links if you’re interested:
Wikipedia Typhoid Mary – Mary Mallon entry

Essay – The Board of Health’s Exile of Mary Mallon: Was it Justifiable?
Mary Mallon bio – this has some snipets [...]

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OOH RAH!!

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World’s Oldest Temple Discovered In Turkey, Archaeologist Claims (PHOTOS)
Huffington Post
A German archaeologist by the name of Klaus Schmidt has claimed discovery in Turkey of the world’s oldest temple. Called Gobekli Tepe, it predates Stonehenge by six thousand years, and Smithsonian magazine writes that “the find upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization:”
Six miles [...]

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In 2009 the NAACP will celebrate it’s 100th anniversary and the first black president of these United States will be inaugurated.  The NAACP was given birth to after a horrible riot in Springfield, Illinois and now, the Senator for Illinois will lead us.

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