It is My Birthday

Yes, today is my birthday. Mama Shack now has a 37 year-old bouncing baby boy. I tried to think of some nifty post to write but I don't have a lot of time to come up with too much. So instead I am going to share some of the "on this day in history" crap floating around the web.

May 9

1671 Captain Blood steals crown jewels In London, Thomas Blood, an Irish adventurer better known as "Captain Blood," is captured attempting to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London. Blood, a Parliamentarian during the English Civil War, was deprived of his estate in Ireland with the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660. In 1663, he put himself at the head of a plot to seize Dublin Castle from supporters of King Charles II, but the plot was discovered and his accomplices executed. He escaped capture. In 1671, he hatched a bizarre plan to steal the new Crown Jewels, which had been refashioned by Charles II because most of the original jewels were melted down after Charles I's execution in 1649. On May 9, 1671, Blood, disguised as a priest, managed to convince the Jewel House keeper to hand over his pistols. Blood's three accomplices then emerged from the shadows, and together they forced their way into the Jewel House. However, they were caught in the act when the keeper's son showed up unexpectedly, and an alarm went out to the Tower guard. One man shoved the Royal Orb down his breeches while Blood flattened the Crown with a mallet and tried to run off with it. The Tower guards apprehended and arrested all four of the perpetrators, and Blood was brought before the king. Charles was so impressed with Blood's audacity that, far from punishing him, he restored his estates in Ireland and made him a member of his court with an annual pension. Captain Blood became a colorful celebrity all across the kingdom, and when he died in 1680 his body had to be exhumed in order to persuade the public that he was actually dead.

1926 Byrd flies over the North Pole? According to their claims, polar explorer Richard E. Byrd and co-pilot Floyd Bennett fly over the North Pole on this day in the Josephine Ford, a triple-engine Fokker monoplane. It would have been the first time an aircraft flew over the top of the world. The pair had taken off from Spitsbergen, Norway, and reportedly covered the 1,545-mile trip to the pole and back in 15 hours and 30 minutes. For the achievement, both men were awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and acclaimed as national heroes. The discovery in 1996 of the diary that Byrd had kept on his famous flight seemed to suggest that he and Bennett may have turned back 150 miles short of the pole because of an oil leak. If so, Italian adventurer Umberto Nobile, American Lincoln Ellsworth, and Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen (who was in 1911 the first person to reach the South Pole by land) would receive the credit for their airship flight over the North Pole on May 12, 1926, three days after Fletcher and Byrd's flight. Nevertheless, Byrd's place in polar exploration is firmly set; in 1929, he established a U.S. base in Antarctica and late in the same year, accompanied by aviator Bernt Balchen, he made the undisputed first aircraft flight over the South Pole.

1960 FDA approves the pill The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approves the world's first commercially produced birth-control bill--Enovid-10, made by the G.D. Searle Company of Chicago, Illinois. Development of "the pill," as it became popularly known, was initially commissioned by birth-control pioneer Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katherine McCormick. Sanger, who opened the first birth-control clinic in the United States in 1916, hoped to encourage the development of a more practical and effective alternative to contraceptives that were in use at the time. In the early 1950s, Gregory Pincus, a biochemist at the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology, and John Rock, a gynecologist at Harvard Medical School, began work on a birth-control pill. Clinical tests of the pill, which used synthetic progesterone and estrogen to repress ovulation in women, were initiated in 1954. On May 9, 1960, the FDA approved the pill, granting greater reproductive freedom to American women."

Born on This Day

Sir James Barrie, dramatist and novelist (1860)

John Brown, abolitionist (1800)

José Ortega y Gasset, writer and philosopher (1883)

Candice Bergen, actor (1946)

Billy Joel, singer and songwriter (1949)

Astrological Sign- Taurus

"Taurus (astrology), the second sign of the zodiac, symbolized by the bull. According to astrologers, people whose birthdays occur between April 20 and May 20 are said to be born under the sun sign of Taurus. Taurus, an earth sign, is ruled by the planet Venus, named after the ancient Roman goddess of beauty and love.

Astrologers consider Taureans to be loyal, stable, conservative, and practical. They are also thought to be patient, affectionate, and good-natured people. However, their tempers can erupt dramatically if they are pushed beyond their limits. Astrologers believe Taureans are home-loving and tend to have deep sentimental attachments to people, things, and places. They also can be jealous and possessive. Astrologers do not consider Taureans to be fond of change, making the typical Taurus both reliable and committed, as well as inflexible.

Astrologers consider Taureans to be very attuned to the physical world. They have acute senses and appreciate beauty and pleasure in all forms. Taureans tend to be very aware of the value of things, an ability which can make them skilled handlers of money and good judges of the quality of merchandise. Professions traditionally associated with the sign Taurus include banking and business, especially trade; accounting; clothing or interior design; real estate; singing; farming; and architecture."

That is right. I am a farmer who has incredible fashion sense, a tremendous singing voice and am fabulous with money. Woohoo.