Archive for November, 2009

On this day in 1922, the tomb of King Tut was discovered in Egypt and t-shirts, souveniers and promotional tote bags haven’t been the same since.

The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter of Tutankhamun’s intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun’s burial mask remains the popular face.

If ancient Egypt needs a face, King Tut’s is a good choice.

On this day in 1871, The National Rifle Association was formed. I think our life insurance rate should be adjusted accordingly if we are bona fide gun owners.

The National Rifle Association of America, or NRA, is an American non-partisan, non-profit (501(c)(4)) organization which lists as its goals the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights as well as marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection of hunting and self-defense in the United States. It was established in 1871 in New York by William Conant Church and George Wood Wingate as the American Rifle Association; its first President was former Senator and famous Civil War Union Army General Ambrose Burnside. President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant served as the NRA’s eighth President and General Philip H. Sheridan as its ninth.

On this day in 1835, Henry Burden patented the horseshoe manufacturing machine. I could spend all day looking up patents and other invention information. Using free web directories makes it easy to find some of the more detailed information on these discoveries.

The capacity of these works in the line of horseshoes alone is 60 shoes a minute, or 51,000,000 annually. In boiler bolts, 80 per minute are the work of the twelve rivet machines. In the spacious rolling mill (421 by 96 feet), devoted to merchant iron manufacture, is a splendid Corliss engine. 1400 workmen are employed, to whom $500,000 are annually paid in wages. The fruits of their labor are 600,000 kegs of horseshoes and 42,000 tons of iron, exclusive of pig, annually. Their yearly sales of horseshoes average about $2,000,000. Fifty horses are used, and 90,000 tons of coal expended annually by this establishment

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I’m sure everyone was smoking cigars after this deal.

In 1955, RCA purchased the recording contract of Elvis Presley from Sun Records for the then astronomical sum of $35,000. Elvis would become RCA’s biggest selling recording artist. His first gold record was Heartbreak Hotel, recorded in January 1956.

When I get the chance, I shop for cigars online, because you can never have too many good cigars waiting for those perfect deals.

We should be thankful that Pierre Lallement was an inventor and not some couch potato who played on the xbox 360 all day long.

He filed the earliest and only patent for the pedal-bicycle in April 1866, the patent being awarded on November 20, 1866. His patent drawing shows a machine bearing a great resemblance to the style of dandy-horse built by Denis Johnson of London, with its serpentine frame, the only differences being the addition of the pedals and cranks, and a thin strip of iron above the frame acting as a spring upon which he mounted the saddle, to provide a more comfortable ride.

Meet The Press has been a staple for years now and they cover every topic you could think of. The show includes everything, except kitchen sinks (and the faucets) that go with them.

Meet the Press is a weekly American television news/interview program produced by NBC. It is the longest-running television show in worldwide broadcasting history, having made its television debut on November 6, 1947. It has been hosted by eleven moderators; the current host is David Gregory, who assumed the role in December 2008.

Meet the Press and similar shows specialize in interviewing national leaders on issues of politics, economics, foreign policy and other public affairs. These shows help fulfill the obligations of the networks to provide a public service to the community.

Meet the Press is the highest-rated of the American television Sunday morning talk shows.

One thing I find interesting in the discovery of King Tut’s tomb, is the lack of all of the “normal” stuff they usually find in tombs. No, I am not talking weight loss pills or magnetic bracelets.

The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter of Tutankhamun’s intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamun’s burial mask remains the popular face.

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Some of the treasures in Tutankhamun’s tomb are noted for their apparent departure from traditional depictions of the boy king. Certain cartouches where a king’s name should appear have been altered, as if to reuse the property of a previous pharaoh—as often occurred. However, this instance may simply be the product of “updating” the artifacts to reflect the shift from Tutankhaten to Tutankhamun. Other differences are less easy to explain, such as the older, more angular facial features of the middle coffin and canopic coffinettes. The most widely accepted theory for these latter variations is that the items were originally intended for Smenkhkare, who may or may not be the mysterious KV55 mummy. Said mummy, according to craniological examinations, bears a striking first-order (father-to-son, brother-to-brother) relationship to Tutankhamun.