Thursday, December 17, 2015

7

Today "The Force Awakens", the 7th Star Wars movie comes out.


Monday, December 14, 2015

28

Here are some facts about 28:

28 is a PERFECT NUMBER. A perfect number is a number that is equal to the sum of its proper factors. A proper factor is any number that divides evenly into another number other than the number itself. What numbers divide evenly into 28 other than 28 itself? 1, 2, 4, 7, 14. And if you add them up, what do you get? 28!! The first five perfect numbers are 6, 28, 496, 8128, and 33550336.

28 is a HAPPY NUMBER in base 10. A happy number means that if you square each digit and add the squares, then do the same with the sum, eventually you will get to 1. 2 squared + 8 squared = 68. 6 squared + 8 squared = 100. 1 squared + 0 squared + 0 squared = 1.

People think the moon's cycle is 28 days long, but it is really about 29.5 days.

In Hebrew numerology, the word כח, which means "strength" has a numerical value of 28.

There are 28 letters in the Esperanto alphabet.

Jewish tradition holds that the sun moves in a 28 year cycle. The prayer Birchat HaChama is said one day every 28 years when the sun returns to it's starting point from creation.

And it was 28 years ago today that I gave birth to my daughter. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIDDO!!


Monday, December 7, 2015

52

Today is my 52nd birthday.

There is NO number whose sum of it's proper factors is 52.

There are 52 cards in a deck, not counting jokers.




Wednesday, October 7, 2015

1908

A.  The Cubs won in overtime.

B.  I have no idea who the guy is.

C.  I was going to put this under 107 + 1908, but that gives me 2015 which is just the year it happens to be.

Friday, September 11, 2015

144

144 wedding rings were found among the remains of the World Trade Center.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

31213

The average amount spent on a wedding in the US is $31,213.  (This does not include the honeymoon.)



Saturday, September 5, 2015

11

This is the 43rd anniversary of the murder of 11v members of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich in 1972.




Tuesday, September 1, 2015

190,116 x 3003 x 10^5120 (5129 digits)

190,116 x 3003 x 10^5120 - 1 and 190,116 x 3003 x 10^5120 + 1 [each 5129 digits] is the largest known pair of twin primes, found by Harvey Dubner on October 5, 1995, after a one day search.

Since every pair of twin primes has 1 number between them, the number of the day (in title) is the number between these.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

19

On this day in 1920, the 19th amendment was passed, giving women the right to vote.


Saturday, August 1, 2015

2.75

The cost of a ride on the NYC subway is now $2.75.  This does not include the $1 charge whenever you get a new MetroCard.  However, if you put more than some amount (I'm not sure what) on a card, you get a 10% bonus.


Friday, July 31, 2015

3

3 is the only prime number that is 1 less than a perfect square.


Saturday, July 18, 2015

13

Why is a baker’s dozen 13 and not 12?

There are three main theories for why a baker’s dozen is 13 instead of 12, but most think it has its origins in the fact that many societies throughout history have had extremely strict laws concerning baker’s wares, due to the fact that it is fairly easy for bakers to cheat patrons and sell them less than what they think they are getting.
These societies took this very seriously as bread was a primary food source for many people.  For example, in ancient Egypt, should a baker be found to cheat someone, they would have their ear nailed to the door of their bakery. In Babylon, if a baker was found to have sold a “light loaf” to someone, the baker would have his hand chopped off.
Another example was in Britain in the mid-13th century with the establishment of the Assize of Bread and Ale statute, which was in effect all the way up to the 19th century before being repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1863.  The Assize of Bread and Ale statute set the price of ale and what weight a farthing loaf of bread should be.   Specifically it stated:
By the consent of the whole realm of England, the measure of the king was made; that is to say: that an English penny, called a sterling round, and without any clipping, shall weigh thirty-two wheat corns in the midst of the ear, and twenty-pence do make an ounce, and twelve ounces one pound, and eight pounds do make a gallon of wine, and eight gallons of wine do make a London bushel, which is the eighth part of a quarter.
So basically, in terms of bread, setting the relationship between the price of wheat and what the subsequent price of a loaf of bread from a certain quantity of wheat should be.
Even though this statute was enacted at the request of bakers, it still posed a problem for them.  If they happened to accidentally cheat a customer by giving them less than what they were supposed to as outlined by the statute, they were subject to extremely severe fines and punishment, which varied depending on where the lawbreaker lived, but could include, like the Babylonians’ punishment, losing a hand.
As it wasn’t that hard to accidentally cheat a customer, given making a loaf of bread with exacting attributes is nearly impossible by hand without modern day tools, bakers began giving more than what the statute outlined to make sure they went over and never under.  Specifically, in terms of the “baker’s dozen”, if a vendor or other customer were to order a dozen or several dozen loaves of bread from a baker, the baker would give them 13 for every dozen they ordered.  Likewise, when selling quantities of anything, they’d give 13 measures when only 12 were purchased.
This practice eventually made its way into the Worshipful Company of Bakers (London) guild code.  This guild was actually started in the 12th century and had a large part in formulating the rules on the Assize of Bread and Ale statute.
Though the above is generally thought to be the correct origins for a baker’s dozen, there are two alternate theories put forth that are somewhat plausible, though lacking in hard historical evidence and visible progression.  The first is that bakers would sell 13 loaves to vendors, while only charging them for 12 which allowed the vendor to then sell all 13 at full price; thus, they’d earn a 7.7% profit per loaf.  So in this case, vendors were being given a sort of wholesale price, but without breaking the laws outlined in the Assize of Bread and Ale which had no exceptions for allowing a cheaper price to vendors.  This theory has some holes in it, but is quite plausible on the whole.
Yet another theory is that it was simply a product of the way bakers bake bread.  Baking trays tend to have a 3:2 aspect ratio.  The most efficient two-dimensional arrangement then of loaves/biscuits/whatever on such a tray results in 13 items with a 4+5+4 hexagonal arrangement, which avoids corners.  It was important to avoid the corners because the corners of a baking tray will heat up and cool off faster than the edges and the interior, which would result in not cooking anything on the corner evenly with the rest.  This theory doesn’t explain why they’d sell them in batches 13 for the price of 12, but at least explains why they may have commonly made them in batches of 13 in the first place and is still a possible source, or at least contributor, to the “baker’s dozen” if it was fairly universal that baker’s baked things in groups of 13, as is suggested by the theory.


Friday, July 17, 2015

Thursday, July 16, 2015

350


Ashkenazi Jews descend from 350 people, study finds

‘Bottleneck’ dates back 600 to 800 years, genome analysis shows; researcher says among population ‘everyone is a 30th cousin’

The study, published in the Nature Communications journal Tuesday, was authored by Shai Carmi, a computer science professor at Columbia University, and more than 20 medical researchers from Yale, Columbia, Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and other institutions.

Researchers analyzed the genomes of 128 Ashkenazi Jews and compared them to those of non-Jewish Europeans in order to determine which genetic markers are unique to Ashkenazi Jews. They found that the Ashkenazi Jews’ genetic similarities were so acute that one of the study’s researchers, Columbia professor Itsik Pe’er, told the Live Science website that among Ashkenazi Jews, “everyone is a 30th cousin.”

for more information: 



Saturday, July 4, 2015

56


About the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence:

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War.

What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists.
Eleven were merchants,
nine were farmers and large plantation owners;

men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags.

Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward.

Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton , Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.

At the battle of Yorktown, ThomasNelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt.

Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.

John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished.




Thursday, July 2, 2015

8

Samuel Reshevsky, age 8, defeating several chess masters at once in France, 1920



Wednesday, June 3, 2015

321

The area code for a section of Florida, which includes Cape Canaveral, is 321.  And that is the last 3 consecutive numbers read off for a countdown when rockets are fired there.


Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Monday, June 1, 2015

A number we are not sure about, but is over 180


Farhud (Arabic: الفرهود‎) refers to the pogrom or "violent dispossession" carried out against the Jewish population of Baghdad, Iraq, on June 1–2, 1941, immediately following the British victory in the Anglo-Iraqi War. The riots occurred in a power vacuum following the collapse of the pro-Nazi government of Rashid Ali while the city was in a state of instability. Over 180 Jews were killed and 1,000 injured, and up to 300-400 non-Jewish rioters were killed in the attempt to quell the violence. Looting of Jewish property took place and 900 Jewish homes were destroyed. The violence came immediately after the rapid defeat by the British of Rashid Ali, whose earlier coup had generated a short period of national euphoria, and was charged by allegations that Iraqi Jews had aided the British.

The Farhud took place during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. It has been referred to as a pogrom which was part of the Holocaust, although such comparison has been disputed. It has also been called "the beginning of the end of the Jewish community of Iraq", although a direct connection to the Jewish exodus from Iraq is disputed since many Jews who left Iraq following the Farhud returned to the country shortly thereafter and permanent emigration did not accelerate significantly until 1950-51. According to Hayyim Cohen, the Farhud "was the only [such event] known to the Jews of Iraq, at least during their last hundred years of life there".

For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud


Sunday, May 31, 2015

129

Napoleon and Hitler were born 129 years apart, came to power 129 years apart, declared war on Russia 129 years apart, and were defeated 129 years apart.


Friday, May 29, 2015

55

As of 2010, 55% of the Starbucks in Manhattan (68 out of 124) were within 2 blocks of another Starbucks.


Thursday, May 28, 2015

5

Here are some books with the number 5 in the title:










I didn't want to include any that were from a series where the books all had consecutive numbers in the titles, or anything like "5 stories".


Friday, May 15, 2015

25.1

This past winter, Anchorage received 25.1 inches of snow, This is the lowest amount since they've been keeping records.  The start of the Iditarod had to be moved further north because there was not enough snow in southern Alaska.

Thursday, May 14, 2015

177,147

According to Swedish mathematicians there are 177,147 different ways to tie a tie.





Wednesday, May 13, 2015

937


Today is the anniversary of the day the SS St. Louis set sail from Germany in 1939, with 937 passengers aboard. I will give a synopsis here, but for the whole story, see the movie "Voyage of the Damned".

****

The St. Louis set sail from Hamburg to Cuba on May 13, 1939 under command of Captain Gustav Schröder. Upon the ship's arrival in Cuba, the Cuban government, headed by President Federico Laredo Brú, refused to accept the foreign refugees. Passengers had previously purchased legal visas, but on May 5, 1939, four months before World War II began, Havana abandoned its former pragmatic immigration policy and visas issued before May 5 were invalidated retroactively. None of the passengers were aware that the Cuban government had retroactively invalidated their landing permits.

The journey to Cuba was a joyous affair. Crew members treated the passengers well—Captain Schröder insisted on this. Elegantly clad stewards served foods that by 1939 had been rationed in Germany; there was a full-time nursemaid to care for small children when their parents sat to eat. There were dances and concerts, and the captain allowed passengers to hold Friday evening religious services in the dining room and even permitted them to throw a tablecloth over a plaster bust of Hitler that sat there. Children were given swimming lessons in the on-deck pool.

The ship dropped anchor at 4 A.M. on May 27 at the far end of the Havana harbor and was denied entry to the usual docking areas. The next six days on the harbor were tumultuous times. It was finally announced that passengers arriving on the ship would only be allowed to enter if they had official Cuban visas. Thus, only 22 non-Jewish passengers were allowed to disembark on Cuban shores. After long negotiations, the remaining 915 passengers (mostly Jewish) were forced to return to Europe.

Prohibited from landing in Cuba, Captain Schröder took the ship and its passengers to Florida. America not only refused their entry but even fired a warning shot to keep them away from Florida's shores. ]Legally the refugees could not enter the United States on tourist visas, as they had no return addresses. The U.S. had passed the Immigration Act of 1924 that restricted numbers of immigrants from eastern and southern Europe.

As the St. Louis was turned away from the United States, a group of academics and clergy in Canada tried to persuade the nation's Prime Minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to provide sanctuary to the ship's passengers, as it was only two days from Halifax, Nova Scotia. But, Canadian immigration officials and cabinet ministers hostile to Jewish immigration persuaded the Prime Minister on June 9 not to intervene.

As the situation of the vessel deteriorated, Captain Schröder personally negotiated and schemed to find them a safe haven. At one point he formulated plans to wreck the ship on the British coast to force the passengers to be taken as refugees. He refused to return the ship to Germany until all the passengers had been given entry to some other country. US officials worked with Britain and European nations to find refuge for the travelers in Europe. The ship returned to Europe, docking at Antwerp, Belgium, on June 17, 1939.

The United Kingdom agreed to take 288 of the passengers, who disembarked and traveled to the UK by other steamers. After much negotiation by Schröder, the remaining 619 passengers were allowed to disembark at Antwerp; 224 were accepted by France, 214 by Belgium, and 181 by the Netherlands. Without any passengers, the ship returned to Hamburg. The following year, after the Nazi German invasions of Belgium and France in May 1940, all the Jews in those countries were again at risk.

Research estimates that 254 of them were killed.


Tuesday, May 12, 2015

11.4

The average age of the cars on the road in the US today is 11.4 years old.

Monday, May 11, 2015

83

In Barrow, Alaska, the sun rises this morning (May 11) at 2:36 am, and will set at 2:13 am on August 2nd, 83 days later.

Thursday, May 7, 2015

11593

SEXY PRIMES are prime numbers that vary by 6. The lowest pair is 5 & 11. A few other pairs are 7 & 13, 11 & 17, 101 & 107, 311 & 317.... There are 26 pairs below 200, and 46 pairs below 500. The largest known pair, as of 2008, have 11,593 digits each.

Wednesday, May 6, 2015

9650

Sheriff's office rug with 'In Dog We Trust' typo sells for nearly $10,000



A Florida sheriff's office has turned a $500 mistake into a $9,650 windfall for charity.

The Pinellas County Sheriff's office ordered a new rug,which turned up last week with a typo. The large green rug with the black and yellow Pinellas County Sheriff's Office logo included the phrase "In Dog We Trust" within one of its crests.

It was supposed to read "In God We Trust."

The Sheriff's Office said rug manufacturer, American Floor Mats, would replace it

That could have been the end of the story except Sheriff Bob Gualtieri had an idea.

He decided to auction off the unique item -- the "doggone rug," as he called it -- and donate the proceeds to a local rescue.

"The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office will not sweep anything under the rug," the department said when it put up the item.

Jane Sidwell is the founder of Canine Estates Inc. She figured her shelter would net a few hundred bucks from the sale.

"I knew that the sheriff's office paid $500 for it," she told CNN affiliate Bay News 9 . "So I thought well, that's great. We'll get $500. But we had no idea it would escalate into what it has."

Eighty three bids later, the rug was sold -- for a whopping $9,650!

The money will go mainly toward vet bills, Sidwell said. Last year, the shelter adopted out 186 dogs.

"A lot of these dogs just come in in absolute terrible shape," she told the affiliate.

Wednesday, April 22, 2015

23,320

Today is Memorial Day in Israel. Unlike Memorial day in the US, this is a regular workday.  A 2-minute siren goes off twice, and everyone stops what they are doing ans stands at attention for a moment of silence for those who have fallen in war or in acts of terrorism.

To date, that is 23,320 people.



Tuesday, April 21, 2015

1900

This date (April 21) in history:

in  1506 – The three-day Lisbon Massacre comes to an end with the slaughter of over 1,900 suspected Jews by Portuguese Catholics.

The Lisbon Massacre, alternatively known as the Lisbon Pogrom or the 1506 Easter Slaughter was an incident in April, 1506, in Lisbon, Portugal in which a crowd of Catholics, as well as foreign sailors who were anchored in the Tagus, persecuted, tortured, killed, and burnt at the stake hundreds of people who were accused of being Jews and, thus, guilty of deicide and heresy. This incident took place thirty years before the establishment of the Inquisition in Portugal and nine years after the Jews were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism in 1497, during the reign of King Manuel I.

for more info, go to wikipedia:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisbon_Massacre


Monday, April 20, 2015

420


Why is the number 420 used for pot?

One common belief is that 420 was the California police or penal code for marijuana, but there's no evidence to support those claims.

Another theory is that there are 420 active chemicals in marijuana, hence an obvious connection between the drug and the number. But there are more than 500 active ingredients in marijuana, and only about 70 or so are cannabinoids unique to the plant, according to the Dutch Association for Legal Cannabis and Its Constituents as Medicine.

A less-known explanation comes from the 1939 short story "In the Walls of Eryx" by HP Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling. The story describes "curious mirage-plants" that seemed fairly similar to marijuana and appeared to get the narrator high at, according to his watch, around 4:20. Since the story is from 1939, it's perhaps the earliest written link between marijuana and 420.

Steven Hager, a former editor of the marijuana-focused news outlet High Times, told the New York Times that the holiday came out of a ritual started by a group of high school students in the 1970s. As Hager explained, a group of Californian teenagers ritualistically smoked marijuana every day at 4:20 pm. The ritual spread, and soon 420 became code for smoking marijuana. Eventually 420 was converted into 4/20 for calendar purposes, and the day of celebration was born. Still, there's little evidence to prove Hager's story beyond the claims of a group of Californians who took credit for 420's origin.


Wednesday, April 15, 2015

74

Mt father would have been 74 today.  He died last November.  I miss him.

Saturday, March 14, 2015

pi

THIS OLD PI (Pi day song - sing to the tune of "Knick Knack Patty Wack")

Number pi
Number pi
It's irrational and so am I
With a 3.1415926
Pi Day is for lunatics!

Number pi
Sing out strong
Fifty billion digits long
And there's still no evidence of any rule
Transcendentalness is cool.

Thursday, March 5, 2015

707

Here is a picture of a section of the book of Esther from a scroll 120 years old.  It is the section listing the 10 sons of Haman who were hanged.  All scrolls of the Book of Esther are written this way.


If you look closely, you will see that in the second name the tauf  ת is smaller than the other letters. In the eighth name, the shin שׁ is smaller, and in the tenth name the zayin ז is smaller.

The numerical values of tauf, shin, and zayin are, respectively, 400, 300, and 7, which total 707.  (There is no letter with a value of 700.  400 is the highest they go.)  Jewish years, when written in Hebrew omit the millennium.   So they years 707, 1707, 2707, 3707, 4707, and 5707 were all written as tauf shin zayin  תשׁז   . (The order is switched because Hebrew goes from right to left.)

On October 14, 1946, 10 Nazi criminals were hanged after the Nuremberg Trials.This was in the Jewish year 5707.  Julius Streicher, on his way to the gallows, yelled out "Purim fest 1946!"

Coincidence or prediction?  No one knows any other reason that these letters to be written smaller than the others.  It has just been done that way for the past two millenia.

A few other details:

(1)  The vav ו in the last name is written larger than the other letters.  Why?  The vav has a numerical value of 6.  Could it be that this is to tell us that the other letters refer to the 6th time the year is written with the other letters (since it is in the 6th millennium)?  Or maybe it is unrelated, and was done that way because the letter vav looks like a gallows.

(2)  According to the Talmud, Haman had a daughter.  She committed suicide before her brothers were hanged.  In 1946, Hermann Goring was also supposed to have been hanged, but he committed suicide the night before.  There are rumors that he was a cross-dresser.

Monday, February 16, 2015

Monday, January 19, 2015

100

Kibbutzniks who fled Hitler welcome 100th great-grandchild

Despite the recent stormy and cold weather, a piece of joyous news warmed the hearts of the residents of Kibbutz Lavi in the Lower Galilee this week. The Mittwochs, Michael, 92, and Marion, 90, two of the founders of the kibbutz, celebrated the birth of a new great-grandchild – their 100th.

The Mittwochs were born in Germany, and both fled the country shortly after the Nazis' rise to power. After World War II, Michael, with a degree in chemistry from an English university, moved to Israel and joined the effort to help Holocaust survivors make their way to Israel. He was absorbed onto Kibbutz Kvutzat Yavne and that's where he met Marion, who also spent the war in England and immigrated to Israel under a forged visa. The two moved shortly afterwards to the Lower Galilee and were among the founders of Kibbutz Lavi, and also the first couple to wed at the young kibbutz.

The couple had five children – Hadassah, the widow of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman of Tekoa; a second daughter who lives in Kiryat Shmona; a son, Eli Ori, who lives in Shilo and is the grandfather of the 100th great-grandson; a second son, a professor of astrophysics at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology who lives in Mitzpe Netofa in the Galilee; and a third daughter, who is the principal of a school in Gush Etzion for children with special needs.

On Tuesday, Eli and his wife, Ofra, arrived at the kibbutz with their son, Gadi, his wife, Noa, and their five children to present the 100th great-grandchild to great-grandfather Michael and great-grandmother Marion. The boy was given the name Dagan Raz, after the late Major Dr. Dagan Wertman, 32, a Golani Brigade doctor who was at officers' school with Gadi and was killed during Operation Cast Lead.

Gadi, the happy father and Michael and Marion's grandson, lives with his family in Ofra. "Dagan Raz is our fifth child, and it's amazing that our grandfather has raised such a magnificent family," he said.

"This is our answer to Hitler, damn him," said Michael, the great-grandfather. "He tried to wipe us out and here we have brought the 100th great-grandchild into the Covenant of Abraham."

"It's not just the number," added great-grandmother Marion. "All the children and grandchildren live in Israel and everyone wants to contribute to the country. We feel we have established a really big tribe."

"This is the essence of Zionism," concluded their son, Eli. "Mom and Dad underwent severe hardships early on in their lives. They established a kibbutz and today we are all proud of their 100th great-grandchild."





Sunday, January 18, 2015

700,000

The estimated number of Jews who moved from France to Israel in 2014.


Thursday, January 15, 2015

46,000,000 (forth-six million)

The approximate number of people who were given Starbucks gift cards this past holiday season.

Wednesday, January 14, 2015

292

The movie "The Big Lebowski" has the word "Fuck" 292 times.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

219.5

Time capsule, 219.5 years old, opened today.
Yesterday, after five hours of meticulous work with a small, dental tool-like metal pick and a porcupine quill, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston conservator Pam Hatchfield opened the oldest known time capsule in the country. It was originally buried on July 4, 1795 by Revolutionary War heroes Paul Revere and Samuel Adams, who was then the governor of Massachusetts. On that day, 15 horses—one for each of the states in the relatively new union—pulled the cornerstone for the new State House through the streets of Boston to the building site for a commemorative ground-breaking. Below the cornerstone, the two men placed the capsule, sandwiched between two sheets of lead.
And there it remained—but not without interruption. The capsule was first unearthed back in 1855, when workers discovered it while making repairs to the State House. It was opened at the time and the contents were cleaned (in nitric acid according to "preservation" tactics of the time), cataloged and re-buried along with artifacts from that era in a sturdy, brass box.
One hundred and fifty nine years later, the box is back out of the ground. Last May, historians—concerned about water damage from a nearby leak—decided it was time (again) to open the capsule. In December, Hatchfield spent seven hours carefully extracting the historic box.
Inside were five neatly folded newspapers, a collection of 23 coins dating as far back as 1652, a medal depicting George Washington, a replica of Colonial records, and a silver plate commemorating the erection of the new State House that reads, "This cornerstone of a building intended for the use of the legislative and executive branches of the government of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was laid by his Excellency Samuel Adams, Esquire, governor of the said Commonwealth." Most of the items were already known from the 1855 catalog, but the details are still of tremendous historic value. Accessing this value presents some quandaries for the preservationists, though—like whether or not they should attempt to unfold the delicate newspapers to read what's inside.
Secretary of State William Galvin said the items will likely go on display for a short time and then they will go back into the time capsule and return to the original resting place in the cornerstone of the State House.





Thursday, January 1, 2015

0

The lowest temperature in Anchorage in 2014 was 0 degrees Fahrenheit.  This is the first time this has happened, since we have been recording temperatures.