I did not know this

Super Bowl XLIX, played on February 1, 2015 and broadcast by NBC in the U.S., was watched by more than 114.4 million viewers in the United States. Approximately 1.5 million people called in 'sick' to work the day after the Super Bowl.



It's relatively safe to conclude that these people had hangovers.


I have found two citations for today's Lunar New Year's celebration -

The Eighth day of the Lunar New Year is believed to be the birthday of millet, an important crop in ancient China. According to the folk proverbs, if this day is bright and clear, then this whole year will be a harvest year; however, if this day is cloudy or even rainy, then the whole year will suffer from poor harvest.

The Eighth Lunar day of the first month is also the birthday of Yen-Lo King, who is fifth king of Legendary Hell in the fifth palace. The fifth palace of the hell is under the northern-east side of the big scorching and burning stone in the sea (location, location, location.) The palace covers an area of 64,000 square miles (cleaning up this place is the work for all those idle hands.) It contains 16 divisions of the small hells.

Yen-Lo King was once in charge of the first palace of the hell. Many times, he sent death people, who died  falsely accused of crimes, back to the human world to have a chance to clear their names. Because of this, he was demoted to the fifth palace of the hell (so literally, there is no rest for the wicked.)


February 4, 1977 -
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album was released 40 years ago on this date - it's hard to believe.



The album shot to the top of Billboard's chart staying there for 31 weeks. More than 17 million copies have been sold in the U.S.

This was another album my sister and I wore the needle on the record player out on.


Today in History:
February 4, 1861 -
State delegates met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a Confederate government on this date.

They elected Jefferson Davis as president of Confederacy.



Do you think Hallmark has a card commemorating this event?


February 4, 1889 -
Harry Longabaugh was released from Sundance Prison in Wyoming, thereby acquiring the famous nickname, The Sundance Kid on this date.



Kids, this was the film Brokeback Mountain during the 60's


February 4, 1902 -
Isolationist, racist, neo-nazi and early environmentalist Charles Lindbergh, first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, was born on this date.



Kind of complicated guy, don't you think.


February 4, 1912 -
Franz Reichelt (alias the flying tailor) designed an overcoat to fly or float its wearer gently to the ground like the modern parachute. To demonstrate his invention he made a jump of 60 meters from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower, at that time the tallest man-made structure in the world.



The parachute failed and Reichelt fell to his death.



The jump was recorded by the cameras of the gathered press. Winner of the 1912 Darwin Award.


February 4, 1913 -
Each person must live their life as a model for others.



Rosa Lee Parks, civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Alabama started the Civil Rights Movement, was born on this date.


February 4, 1918 -
Nobody fucks with Ida Lupino



Ida Lupino, actress, director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers was born on this date.


February 4, 1948 -
Vincent Furnier (Alice Cooper), rocker and avid golfer, was born on this date.



Yes, we're all not worthy.


On February 4, 1972, Senator Strom Thurmond sent a secret memo to William Timmons (in his capacity as an aide to Richard Nixon) and United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell, with an attached file from the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, urging that British musician John Lennon (then living in New York City) be deported from the United States as an undesirable alien, due to Lennon's political views and activism.

The document claimed that Lennon's influence on young people could affect Nixon's chances of re-election, and suggested that terminating Lennon's visa might be "a strategy counter-measure"


February 4, 1974 -
Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it.



Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19 years old, was kidnapped in Berkeley, California, by the Symbionese Liberation Army on this date.


February 4, 1983 -
Karen Carpenter died of anorexia nervosa on this date. She frequently took laxatives and induced vomiting to prevent weight gain.



At the time of her death she was pencil thin. Lead graphite thin.


February 4, 1987 -
Pianist/jewelry wearer Wladziu Valentino died in Palm Springs, California due to complications from AIDS on this date.



Nobody ever suspected the man was gay.


February 4, 1998 -
Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates was assaulted with a direct hit by a fluffy cream pie during a three-pronged attack in Brussels. He was in Belgium attending meetings with industry and government leaders.



Rumor is that the attack was engineered by Noel Godin, infamous for his other pie throwings at government officials.


February 4, 1999 -
In NYC, plainclothes police officers fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, a Bronx street peddler and immigrant from Guinea, who was unarmed in front of his Bronx home. Police were searching for a rapist and Daillo was killed with 19 gunshot wounds.

Officers Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy were later indicted (but ultimately cleared) for 2nd degree murder.


February 4, 2004 -
Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard University student, launched "The facebook", as it was originally known, on this date; the name taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshmen, profiling students and staff.



Within five years of its founding, Facebook had more than 500 million users.


On February 4, 2008, at 00:00 GMT, NASA transmitted the Beatles song Across The Universe in the direction of the star Polaris, 431 light years from Earth. The transmission was made using a 70m antenna in the DSN's Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, located outside of Madrid, Spain. It was done with an "X band" transmitter, radiating into the antenna at 18 kW. (This may be on the test.)



In case our overlords on Nibiru are Elton John fans, here's a tune for them



Now that David Bowie has resettled back to his home, Planet X, he will hopefully plead our case to our overlords, should they come from there.



And so it goes.


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