In memory of Howard Zinn. Past August 24s: 79: Famous eruption of Mount Vesuvius buries the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum and some 20,000 inhabitants. 1814: The British set fire to the White House and the Capitol when they invade Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. 1853: When a customer keeps complaining that the fried potatoes he wants are not thin enough, Saratoga Spings Chef George Crum responds to the “insult” by slicing them as thin as he can before frying and salting (unintentionally creating the first potato chips). 1978: The Turin shroud, once venerated as the burial cloth of Christ, goes on public display for the first time in 45 years. 1997: Gordon Spence discovers the largest known prime number, 2^2976221 - 1, the 36th known Mersenne prime number. It took his 100-MHz Pentium PC fifteen days to prove it. At 895,932 digits in length, if printed out the number would stretch for 1.4 miles or if spoken 8 hours a day would take 28 days to complete. 2006: The International Astronomical Union declares that Pluto is no longer a planet, demoting it to the status of a “dwarf planet.”
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 01:20:46 +0000