February 15 - El Capitán

El Capitán

Overheard

The other day at breakfast:

Daddy: [something about a friend being somebody's mommy]

Elanor: (to M) You're a mommy. You're a person!

(to D) You're a man.

Daddy: I'm a person, too.

Elanor: Daddy's not a person. He's a man.

 This Day In History

1493

While on board the Niña, Christopher Columbus writes an open letter (widely distributed upon his return to Portugal) describing his discoveries and the unexpected items he came across in the New World.

1879

American President Rutherford B. Hayes signs a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.

1946

ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, is formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

1949

Gerald Lankester Harding and Roland de Vaux begin excavations at Cave 1 of the Qumran Caves, where they will eventually discover the first seven Dead Sea Scrolls.

1972

José María Velasco Ibarra, serving as President of Ecuador for the fifth time, is overthrown by the military for the fourth time.

2001

First draft of the complete human genome is published in Nature.

Famous Birthdays

1564

Galileo Galilei, Italian astronomer and physicist (d. 1642)

1809

Cyrus McCormick, American inventor (d. 1884)

1812

Charles Lewis Tiffany, American jeweler (d. 1902)

1820

Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist (d. 1906)

1874

Sir Ernest Shackleton, Irish Antarctic explorer (d. 1922)

1883

Sax Rohmer, English author (d. 1959)

1935

Roger Chaffee, astronaut (d. 1967)

1951

Jane Seymour, British actress

1954

Matt Groening, American cartoonist

1958

Matthew Ward, American singer, (Second Chapter of Acts), songwriter and author

1971

Renée O'Connor, American actress and director