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Today is Hubby’s 50th birthday (contest)!

Amber Kell

Today is my beloved hubby’s 50th birthday. In honor of that event I am holding a contest. (Yes I am getting back to writing, just hang on 🙂

One of the things my hubby loves besides engineering, is history. So to enter the contest today through Friday you need to list one historical fact. It can be of any kind of history you want, and hubby will pick the winner. Only one entry per person please. The winner will be chosen this weekend by the hubster and will win a $50 amazon gift card or any other store of your choice. I usually do amazon because of their good selection but if you are anti amazon I have no problem buying one at a different site (as long as I can buy it online). Have a great day!

Published by Amber Kell

53 thoughts on “Today is Hubby’s 50th birthday (contest)!”

  2. The Mackinaw Bridge between the Upper Peninsula and Lower Peninsula of Michigan took 3 years to build and is 5 miles long.

  3. On this day in 1964 : The first Ford Mustang is manufactured ready for release on April 16th

  4. Happy Birthday!

    Before he became president, Abraham Lincoln was a champion wrestler, taking part in about 300 matches and earning a reputation as a tough fighter

  5. Happy Birthday !!!

    Did you know that the first vibrator,was invented in 1883 to treat “female hysteria” .
    I thought everyone in this group would appreciate that information. (lol)
    Also on this date in 1849 Abraham Lincoln applies for a patent (only US President to do so) for a device to lift a boat over shoals and obstructions.

    Have an Awesome day
    Cathy

    1. Cathy, they made a really funny movie out of it in 2012 called ‘Hysteria.’ It’s definitely worth watching if you get a chance. I watched it on Netflix but not sure if it’s still available on there.

  6. Napoleon Was Once Attacked By a Horde of Bunnies

    Once upon a time, the famous conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte was attacked by…bunnies. The emperor had requested that a rabbit hunt be arranged for himself and his men. His chief of staff set it up and had men round up reportedly 3,000 rabbits for the occasion. When the rabbits were released from their cages, the hunt was ready to go. At least that was the plan! But the bunnies charged toward Bonaparte and his men in a viscous and unstoppable onslaught. And we were taught that Waterloo was the conqueror’s greatest defeat…

  8. What used to be Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia. … Later, the government renamed the country leading to the first official use of Yugoslavia in 1929.

    1. Also, happy birthday Amber Kell’s hubby!!! What a great milestone in life….. although my hubby doesn’t think so he’ll be 50 in June.

  10. On the 10th March 1876 Alexander Graham Bell made the first telephone call to Mr Watson in the next room. Look how far we’ve come!

  14. Seth Wheeler was given the first patent on a perforated toilet paper roll on December 22, 1891. And that the original drawing submitted showed the ‘over the top’ usage.

    S. WHEELER. TOILET PAPER ROLL.
    No. 465,588. Patented Dec. 22, 1891. UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.
    SETH WHEELER, OF ALBANY, NEW YORK.
    TOILET-PAPER ROLL.
    SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 465,588, dated December 22, 1891.
    Application filed June 8, 1891- Serial No. 395.473. (No model.)

  15. A little more than 10 years after Lincoln was laid in the tomb, a group of counterfeiters attempted to steal his remains and hold them for ransom. As the grave robbers began to move the coffin, an undercover Secret Service agent that had infiltrated the gang called in police backup to chase them down and capture them. The date for the grave robbery was set: November 7, 1876. This was an election day, and they figured Oak Ridge Cemetery would be deserted that night as Springfield citizens waited for the votes to be counted.

  16. This is about the Danish Jörgen Jörgensen who did reign in Iceland as a king for few weeks (2 months) in 1809.
    I do not know if there is anything written about this in English or even in Danish. but yes, this danish 29 year old was war-prisoner (born 1780) who was actually in a travel restriction in England…
    https://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jörundur_hundadagakonungur

  18. Happy Birthday Amber’s hubby*
    During Prohibition in the United States, the U.S. government literally poisoned alcohol. When people continued to consume alcohol despite its banning, law officials got frustrated and decided to try a different kind of deterrent—death. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the U.S., which were products regularly stolen bootleggers. By the end of Prohibition in 1933, the federal poisoning program is estimated to have killed at least 10,000 people……

  19. Happy Birthday Amber’s Hubby – Hope it’s full of love, laughter, and lots of presents.
    I decided my historical fact should be about my city. Cardiff has been around in one form or another for over 6000 years and has 4 neolithic burial chambers within 10 miles of the city centre. It’s been inhabited by Silures, Romans, and Vikings.

  20. Happy Birthday to the Hubby! My fact of the day is: In 1839, the U.S. and Canada fought the bloodless “War of Pork and Beans”.

  21. Happy Birthday Amber’s Hubby! As we now live outside of Baltimore a historical fact about the city: Francis Scott Key wrote the National Anthem while watching the bombardment of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.

  23. The change in the fate of Turkeys
    While the turkey is currently America’s favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal, in 300 B.C., these big birds were heralded by the Mayan people as vessels of the gods and were honored as such, so much so that they were domesticated to have roles in religious rites. They were symbols of power and prestige

  24. Um..”Beam Me Up Scotty” was never actually said on the 1960’s Original series. That probably doesn’t count as Historical.

    How about the Aeolipile, the first recorded steam engine (rudimentary though it was) was thought of in first-century Roman Egypt.

  25. Happy birthday Amber’s hubby!

    France began work on the Panama Canal in 1881, but stopped because of engineering problems and a high worker mortality rate. One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken, the United States took over the project in 1904 and opened the canal on August 15, 1914.

    The construction of the Panama Canal is where the expression “Another Day, Another Dollar” comes from, as the workers were rumored to be paid a dollar a day.

  27. North America’s earliest undisputed evidence of human activity, 20,000-year-old stone tools and animal bones have been found in caves on the Bluefish River in northern Yukon.

  28. Happy birthday!

    From the famous photograph “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” that shows the construction of the Rockefeller Center only 3 of the 11 workers has been identified.

  30. I hope you have a very happy birthday, Amber’s Hubby!!!!

    I am a history fan, it doesn’t matter what history, I really hope you enjoy this tidbit about “The Prohibition”:
    It was never actually illegal to drink during The Prohibition. The 18th amendment banned the manufacture, sale and distribution of intoxicating liquors, but not its consumption.

  31. As a math and science nerd, here’s a cool math fact.
    Schoolmaster and amateur mathematician William Shanks (1812–82) spent the greater part of his life working out the value of pi (the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter) to 707 decimal places. More than 60 years after his death, mathematician DF Ferguson, using a mechanical calculator, pointed out that he had got the last 180 of these decimal places wrong.

    In the late 1940s an ENIAC computer took 70 hours to calculate 2,037 digits of Pi. In 1958 an IBM computer did in 40 seconds what Shanks had done in a lifetime. The millionth digit of pi was found in 1973 and the billionth by 1995.

  32. Iron Maidens were concepts made up by writers way after the middle ages, in the late 1700s. A German philosopher by the name of Johann Philipp Siebenkees first wrote about the alleged execution of a coin-forger in 1515 by an iron maiden in the city of Nuremberg. At that time, iron maidens also started to surface in museums around Europe and the United States.

  33. Happy 50th Birthday.
    Your birthday starts with A BANG–ROCKETS that is–On March 10th, 1970, France made its first successful launch of its new 78 feet (24 m) tall, three-stage Diamant-B rocket, and the first satellite launch from its new Guiana Space Centre.
    https://web.archive.org/web/20100527070658/http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/diamant.htm
    And ends with FUN & GAMES–On March 10, 1970, the first Arctic Winter Games [an international biennial celebration of circumpolar sports and Indigenous culture] were held in Yellowknife, Canada, and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was there to open the inaugural 5 day competition for hundreds of athletes from Canada’s Northwest & Yukon Territories, as well as US Alaskan athletes, with sponsorship by the state and territorial governments of the participant areas . The first day, March 10th, 1970, included ice hockey, basketball and cross-country skiing, while on the final day, Saturday, March 14th, was for “Eskimo Games Day” including demonstrations of the following games: ayagaq, ipirautaqturniq, the blanket toss (nalukataq) and harpoon throwing.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1970#March_10,_1970_(Tuesday)
    Unfortunately, The 2020 Arctic Winter Games, scheduled for later this month in Whitehorse, have been cancelled on the recommendation of the Yukon’s acting chief medical officer of health over concerns surrounding coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). So no 50th anniversary celebration for them, so it is up to you to celebrate both your birthday, and these cool events:)

  34. Kennywood Park (Pittsburgh, PA) has 3 out of the 18 oldest wood rollercoasters in the world still operating (the only park with multiple entries) built btwn 1920 & 1927. Hope hubby has a happy bday

  35. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1861 poem about Paul Revere’s ride got many of the facts wrong. For one thing, Revere was not alone on his mission to warn John Hancock, Samuel Adams and other patriots that the British were approaching Lexington on the evening of April 18, 1775. Two other men, William Dawes and Samuel Prescott, rode alongside him, and by the end of the night as many as 40 men on horseback were spreading the word across Boston’s Middlesex County. Revere also never reached Concord, as the poem inaccurately recounts. Overtaken by the British, the three riders split up and headed in different directions. Revere was temporarily detained by the British at Lexington and Dawes lost his way after falling off his horse, leaving Prescott—a young physician who is believed to have died in the war several years later—the task of alerting Concord’s residents.
    Thought these guys could use a shout out😊
    Happy Birthday

  36. Happy Birthday Amber Kell’s Hubby, since it your birthday here’s a fun historical fact: Birthday candles began in ancient Greece when people brought cakes adorned with lit candles to the temple of Artemis, goddess of the hunt. The candles were lit to make them glow like the moon, a symbol associated with Artemis.

  37. The crossaint, while a beloved and iconic pastry of France, actually has its roots in Austria, where the Austrians successfully repelled an invasion by the Ottomans/Turks and bakers made the crossaint in the shape of the crescent moon found on the Turkish flag. Consuming the crossaint was akin to relishing their Victory over the Turks.

  38. Happy Birthday

    The profession we know as engineering today emerged during the 1500’s when specialists began using mathematics to design military fortifications. These special military architects would generally let craftsmen do the actual construction, thus becoming the first true engineers in the modern sense of the word.

    The earliest civil engineer known by name is Imhotep. As one of the officials of the Pharaoh, Djosèr, he probably designed and supervised the construction of the Pyramid of Djoser (the Step Pyramid) at Saqqara in Egypt around 2630–2611 BC. Ancient Greece developed machines in both civilian and military domains.

  39. Happy Birthday!
    Speaking of necessities, residents of ancient Pompeii could go upstairs to pee. Though the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79 destroyed many second stories, pipes left behind reveal traces of fecal matter, and the occasional upstairs toilet still remains in the ruins.

  40. On Mar 10 USS Alliance under Captain Barry fights and wins last naval battle of US Revolutionary War off Cape Canaveral!! Woo Hoo
    Happiest of Birthdays to you, Amber’s Hubby!!

  41. Here is my fun historic fact. On July 31st, 1968, Franklin was introduced to the Peanuts gang, thus making Peanuts an interracial comic.

  42. The Government Literally Poisoned Alcohol During Prohibition – By the end of Prohibition in 1933, the federal poisoning program is estimated to have killed at least 10,000 people. Happy Birthday!!!

  43. Forks used to be considered sacrilegious because they were considered “artificial hands” and as such, they were an offense to God.

  44. Happy Birthday to your husband. And here are 2 obscure historical facts.

    1. The current US 50 star flag was designed by a 17 year old, named Robert G. Heft as a school project. He received a grade of B- on it from his teacher. His teacher also said he would reconsider his grade if Congress accepted the design. In 1959, that’s precisely what happened. The teacher actually changed his grade to an A.

    2. Sir Francis Drake, claimed an area of land on the west coast of North America in 1579. He was the first European to discover the place but the Crown wasn’t much interested in the Pacific side of the New World. By the time of the 20th century, this had been mainly forgotten and achieved legendary status with historians. In 1936 an artifact was discovered in San Francisco Bay that proved Drake’s visit and the British claim on California or New Albion. In October 2012, the US government designated a site on the Point Reyes Peninsula as Drake’s landing place and a historic landmark.

  45. This is a fact we actually stumped a docent at Colonial Williamsburg with. During the American Revolution St. Augustine, Florida was actually a loyal British colony to which many loyalist from the southern rebelling colonies fled to.

    And the Minorcans that were working as indentured servants for the British stayed in Florida when the British left which is why St. Augustine the longest continually occupied city.

    So St. Augustine time line – Spanish (with a side of French), English, Spanish, Territory of the US, USA, Confederate States of America, and back to the USA.

  46. Pope Gregory IV declared war on cats in the 13th Century. He said that black cats were instruments of Satan. Because of this belief, he ordered the extermination of these felines throughout Europe. However, this plan backfired, as it resulted in an increase in the population of plague-carrying rats.

  47. Always found this fact interesting, one of the most successful pirates wa a Chinese woman, quote taken from History.com for factual evidence.
    One of history’s most influential raiders began her career in a Chinese brothel. Cheng I Sao, or the “wife of Cheng,” was a Cantonese former prostitute who married a powerful corsair named Cheng I in 1801. The husband and wife team soon raised one of China’s most formidable pirate armies. Their outfit boasted hundreds of ships and some 50,000 men, and it preyed on the fishing vessels, supply junks and the coastal villages of Southern China with impunity.
    Image placeholder title
    Upon her husband’s death in 1807, Mrs. Cheng elbowed her way into power and partnered with a trusted lieutenant and lover named Chang Pao. Over the next few years, she plundered her way across Southeast Asia and assembled a fleet that rivaled many countries’ navies. She also penned a rigorous code of conduct for her pirates. Rape of female prisoners was punishable by beheading, and deserters had their ears lopped off. Mrs. Cheng’s bloody reign made her public enemy number one of the Chinese government, and in 1810, the British and Portuguese navies were enlisted to bring her to justice. Rather than duking it out at sea, she shrewdly agreed to surrender her fleet and lay down her cutlass in exchange for the right to keep her ill-gotten riches. Mrs. Cheng retired as one of history’s most successful pirates, and went on to run a gambling house until her death in 1844 at the age of 69.

  48. American president Thomas Jefferson didn’t believe in miracles. He believed they were stories made up for children. Therefore, they were considered fairy tales and not scripture.
    He took the new testament from the King James Bible and cut out (with a razor blade) where every single mention of a miracle. If it was even close to sounding like supernatural, it was removed. Horsemen of the apocalypse… Removed. Much of Revelations was removed, walking on water gone. What was left was a stripped down version that was about an extraordinary man, not the all powerful son of God.
    It is called the Jefferson Bible and one of several he created is on display at Monticello, his home /museum.

  49. Happy Birthday to your husband!
    Blond was beautiful to Vikings, so brunette vikings (usually the men) would use soap with high lye content to bleach their hair. This soap also help with killing head lice. Bonus fact, Viking were quite clean and bath more often than others of the time period.

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