Today is...National Tooth Fairy Day

Today is National Tooth Fairy Day. Who/what is your favorite make-believe character?

The Tooth Fairy has very few details as to its origin. The myth seems to come from Europe with the tradition to bury baby teeth that fell out. On the 6th tooth, the parents would leave a gift or money.

In northern Europe, there was a tooth fee that was paid when a child lost their first tooth.

The current average amount children receive in the US is $2.60 per tooth (When I was a kid, I got $.50).

In a 1984 study, 74% of people thought that the tooth fairy was female, while 7% thought the tooth fairy could be male or female.

There is a related myth in Spanish and Hispanic American cultures, originating in Madrid in 1894, that when a child looses a tooth, the Ratoncito Perez (Perez Mouse) will exchange it for a gift.

There is a tradition in Asian countries to through teeth onto the roof if the tooth came from the lower jaw, or beneath the floor if it came from the upper jaw. While doing so, it is traditional to give a prayer  for the tooth to be replaced with a mouse.

Relatedly, Finland has a tooth troll, Hammaspeikko, which is used to explain tooth decay to children.

Today is...Inconvenience Yourself Day

Today is Inconvenience Yourself Day. What will you go out of your way to do today?

A smattering of random fun facts for your day!

The Immortal jellyfish lives forever. After having sex, it can turn back into a child, regenerating its cells. Immortal Jellyfish can only die by being eaten or by disease.

6% of Americans and 25% of Britons do not believe the moon landing actually happened. Buzz Aldrin once punched someone for saying that. 12 people have walked on the moon.

As a commodity, the whole human body is worth approximately $635,000, including all the organs and trace metals.

The brain is 80% water.

A hagfish can turn 20 liters of water into slime in one minute. It can also tie itself into a knot.

Tomatoes eat insects. Tomato plants trap insects in the furry layer of their stems until they die and fall off. As the insect dissolves into the soil, the plant will absorb the nutrients.

A vampire bat is most likely to bite your big toe.

Termites create the most methane in the world.

The first animals to be herded for food were snails in the year 10,700 BC.

Mercury was once used to cure syphilis, though if it is used, it turns your teeth green (and poisons you).

A Blue Whale cannot swallow anything bigger than a grapefruit.

Today is...National Personal Chef Day

Today is National Personal Chef Day. What are you hungry for?

The word "chef" is from the term "chef de cuisine" meaning director or head of a kitchen. The French word comes from the Latin caput, which is chief in English.

A personal chef is a chef who is hired by different clients and prepares meals in the clients' home kitchen.

This is different than a private chef, which refers to a chef who is employed exclusively by one client.

The idea of a "chef" in England came about with Haute cuisine, in the 19th century. Haute cuisine refers to gourmet restaurants and meticulously prepared and presented food.

The first cookbook to go beyond medieval recipes and the first to present haute cuisine was written by Lancelot de Casteau.

Medieval cuisine was relatively unchanged from the 5th to the 16th century, focusing on the staple of cereal.

Food Network was founded on April 19, 1993 and launched on November 23, 1993. Emeril Lagasse was one of the original line-up, with Mario Batali and Bobby Flay joining the network in 1995.

Today is...The Snow Moon

Today is the Snow Moon: February Full Moon. When do you think it will start to get warm again?

A Snow Moon is the traditional name for a full moon that occurs in February.

The other names for the full moon in February are Storm moon, Hunger moon, Little Famine moon, and Full Bony moon.

The other months are as follows:

January - Wolf moon
March - Sap moon
April - Growing moon
May - Flower moon
June - Strawberry moon
July - Hay moon
August - Corn moon
September - Harvest moon
October - Hunter's moon
November - Beaver moon
December - Winter moon

Today is...the 85th Academy Awards Ceremony

Today is the 85th Academy Awards ceremony. What film do you think deserves to win best picture this year?

To celebrate, here are some Academy Award firsts/records:

First non-Caucasian to win a directing award - Ang Lee for Brokeback Mountain in 2005
First woman to win Best Director - Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker in 2008
First animated film to be nominated for Best Picture - Beauty and the Beast in 1991
First X-rated film to win (and to be nominated) for Best Picture - Midnight Cowboy in 1969

Youngest winner for acting - Tatum O'Neal, age 10 for Paper Moon in 1973
Youngest winner for Best Director - Norman Taurog, age 32 for Skippy in 1931
Oldest winner for Best Director - Clint Eastwood, age 74 for Million Dollar Baby in 2004
Oldest winner for an acting award - Christopher Plummer, age 82 for Beginners in 2011

Most Oscars won without winning Best Picture - Cabaret with 8 in 1972
Most nominations without a Best Picture nomination - They Shoot Horses, Don't They with 9 in 1969
Most nominations without any wins - The Turning Point in 1977 and The Color Purple in 1985, both with 11
Highest "perfect score" - Mark Berger, nominated and won 4 Oscars for sound editing
Lowest grossing film to win Best Picture - The Hurt Locker
Longest film to win Best Picture - Gone with the Wind

Today is...World Sword Swallowers Day

Today is World Sword Swallowers Day. What daring or dangerous thing would you like to learn to do?

Sword swallowing originated at some point before 2000 BC in India. It isn't swallowing as much as repressing swallowing to put a sword through the mouth, down the esophagus, and into the stomach.

Sword swallowing was sometimes used as a demonstration of divine power. But then was transformed into a theatre act.

In the 1900s, sword swallowing was most often seen as part of circus sideshow acts, which also included fire eating, knife throwing, body piercing, and lying on a bed of nails.

Rasputin's daughter Maria worked as a dancer and tiger and lion trainer for the Ringling Brothers Circus. She was mauled by a bear in Peru, Indiana, but stayed with the circus.

Peru, Indiana is the Circus Capital of the World due to being the winter headquarters for several famous circuses, including Ringling Brothers, Hagenbeck-Wallace, and Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

Today is the anniversary of the release of It Happened One Night

On this day in 1934, It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, was released. The romantic comedy was the first film to sweep all major Academy Awards. What is your favorite Academy Award winning movie for Best Picture?

It Happened One Night won Best Picture, Best Director for Frank Capra, Best Actor for Clark Gable, Best Actress for Claudette Colbert, and Best Screenplay for Robert Riskin.

The other two pictures that have swept the main categories are One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in 1975 and Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

No actor has won Best Lead Actor more than twice. If Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor are combined both Walter Brennan and Jack Nicholson have won 3 times (Nicholson 2 Best Actor, 1 Best Supporting Actor; Brennan, 3 Best Support Actor).

Spencer Tracy and Laurence Olivier were both nominated for 9 Best Actor Oscars; Jack Nicholson was nominated for 12 Best Actor or Best Supporting Actor Oscars.

Adrien Brody is the youngest Best Lead Actor winner, winning at 29.

Katharine Hepburn won the most Best Lead Actress Oscars with 4.

Meryl Streep has been nominated for 14 separate Best Lead Actress awards and 3 Best Supporting Actress Oscars.

Marlee Matlin is the youngest Best Lead Actress winner, winning at 21.

John Ford has won the most Best Director Oscars with 4; William Wyler was nominated the most number of times, at 12, with 3 wins.

Ben-Hur, Titanic, and The Return of the King have all won 11 Academy Awards, the most of any movie.

The Return of the King is the only film to win in every category it was nominated for.

Walt Disney won 22 Oscars, the most of any man; Disney also won the most in one year, with 4.

Today is...the anniversary of the publication of the New Yorker magazine

Today is the anniversary of the publication of the New Yorker magazine. What is your favorite magazine?

The New Yorker's first issue was released on February 21, 1925.

It was founded by Harold Ross, who wanted to create a sophisticated humor magazine.

Though continuing on its path of humor, The New Yorker also started establishing itself as a forum for serious fiction literature and journalism. Some of the respected writers that have been published include Roald Dahl, Haruki Murakami, J.D. Salinger, John Updike, E.B. White, and Shirley Jackson.

Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" drew more mail than any other story in the magazine's history.

"The Lottery" was published on June 26, 1948 and is today ranked as one of the most famous short stories in the history of American literature.

Response to the story was extremely negative, causing readers to cancel subscriptions and send hate mail. It was banned in South Africa.

The most reprinted cartoon for The New Yorker was by Peter Steiner's 1993 cartoon of "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog".

The total circulation of The New Yorker as of 2012 was 1,043, 792.

Today is...the anniversary of the closest a comet as approached Earth

On this day in 1491, an unnamed comet made the closest ever approach to Earth, coming within 860,000 miles. If given the chance what would you have named the comet?

In 1997, 39 members of the Heaven's Gate cult committed suicide in order to reach what they believed was an alien space craft following the Hale-Bopp comet.

The Heaven's Gate members believed that the Earth was about to be "recycled" and that they needed to leave it immediately if they wanted to survive.

They believed the human body was just a vehicle to help them on their journey.

The leaders, Applewhite and Nettles, adopted the idea of ancient astronauts who populated current humanity. Supposedly the aliens had come to reap the harvest of their work, choosing people to join the ranks of flying saucer crews.

The group asserted that a mass suicide was the only way to evacuate Earth, claiming that a space ship was trailing Hale-Bopp. A few months prior to the suicide, the group purchased alien abduction insurance to cover up to 50 members.

The members took phenobarbital, an anti-seizure medicine, mixed with pineapple, washed down with vodka. They also secured plastic bags around their heads to induce asphyxiation.

Each body had a five-dollar bill and three quarters in their pockets, which was for the interplanetary toll.

The brother of Nichelle Nichols, best known for playing Lieutenant Uhura in the original Star Trek series, was among the dead. Possibly related, the Heaven's Gate cult used numerous Star Trek references, including arm bands that read "Heaven's Gate Away Team".

Today is...the birth anniversary of Nicolaus Copernicus

Today is the birth anniversary of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543). How do you want to leave your mark on the world?

Nicolaus Copernicus was born on February 19, 1473 in Torun in Royal Prussia, part of the Kingdom of Poland.

Copernicus is most remembered for his astronomical model, which put the Sun near the center of the Universe, with the planets rotating around it.

Though Copernicus is most well known for a heliocentric system, there were astronomical models with the Sun in the center from as far back as Philolaus in approximately 400 BCE.

Johannes Kepler proposed an alternative model to the Copernican one but making the planetary orbit ellipses instead of circles. 

The immediate response from the Catholic Church to Copernicus was mild controversy. Galileo was suspected of heresy and put on house arrest for the last decade of his life for following the position of Copernicus.

Part of why Copernicus probably did not stir as much controversy with the church is that he died prior to the publication of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres). He was presented with an advance copy the day he died.

Today is...Presidents Day

Today is Presidents Day. Who is your favorite president?

President's Day is a federal holiday that celebrates George Washington's birthday. It is celebrated the third Monday of February.

It started as a federal holiday honoring Washington in 1879 in the government offices and expanded to all federal offices in 1885.

The first attempt to change Washington's Birthday to Presidents Day was in 1951.

George Washington's date of birth is either February 22 or Feburary 11, depending on if you use the New Style or Old Style dates.

New Style dates use the Gregorian calendar that we currently use. Old Style dates use the Julian calendar start date, which many historical documents are dated as.

George Washington is the only president to receive 100 percent of the electoral votes. He won unanimously in 1789 and 1792.

Today is...Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Birthday

Today is Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s birthday. He was born on February 17, 1981 in Los Angeles, California.

Some highlights from Joseph Gordon-Levitt's career include:

3rd Rock from the Sun
10 Things I Hate About You
Treasure Planet
Brick
Havoc
Stop-Loss
(500) Days of Summer
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
Inception
50/50
The Dark Knight Rises
Looper
Lincoln

What is your favorite Joseph Gordon-Levitt film?

(My personal favorite JGL movie is 10 Things I Hate About You)

Today is...LeVar Burton's Birthday

Today is LeVar Burton’s birthday. Burton is best known for his roles in Roots and Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as hosting Reading Rainbow. What is your favorite educational program?

LeVar Burton was born on February 16, 1957 in Landstuhl, West Germany, but was raised in Sacramento, California.

Burton rose to fame by playing Kunta Kinte in the 1997 drama series Roots. He earned a Best Actor in a Drama Emmy nomination for it.

Starting in 1983, Burton was the host and executive producer for Reading Rainbow on PBS. It ran for 23 seasons, all of which Burton hosted.

Reading Rainbow has won a Peabody Award and 26 Emmy Awards.

LeVar Burton is on the board of directors for the Directors Guild of America. He has directed episode of shows such as Charmed, JAG, and Las Vegas, along with Disney Channel movie Smart House and indie film Blizzard, which earned Best of Fest at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival.

Today is...The Simpson’s creator Matt Groening’s birthday

Today is The Simpson’s creator Matt Groening’s birthday. What is your favorite cartoon?

Matt Groening was born on February 15, 1954, in Portland, Oregon.

Groening's first professional cartoon was Life in Hell. It was launched in 1977 and ran until 2012.

In 1985, he was discovered by James L. Book, who was a producer on the Tracy Ullman show. He hired Groening to create shorts.

Marge, Homer, Lisa, and Maggie are named after Groening's family, but Bart is just an anagram of brat.

The Simpsons premiered as an individual show on December 17, 1989.

Today is...Valentine's Day

Today is Saint Valentine’s Day. What will you do for your valentine today?

There are two Saint Valentines who are honored on February 14, Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni.

Saint Valentine's Day did not have any romantic connotations until Chaucer's poem about Valentines in the 14th century.

The earliest surviving valentine is a 15th century poem by Charles, Duke of Orleans to his wife.

The modern cliche of "Roses are red, violets are blue" can be tracked back to 1784 in a collection of nursey rhymes called Gammer Gurton's Garland.

The U.S. Greeting Card Association estimates that approximately 190 million valentines are sent each year.

Valentine's Day also marks the anniversary of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, the conflict in 1929 between Al Capone's South Side Italians and Bugs Moran's North Side Irish that resulted in the death of 7.

The massacre was meant to take out Moran, though Moran was not one of the victims. It is alleged that Albert Weinschenk, an occasional employee of Moran looked similar to Moran, which started the massacre before Moran arrived.

The massacre really took an even worse turn for Capone, in that the public outrage marked the beginning of the end of Capone's influence in Chicago.

Today is...the birth anniversary of Darwin and Lincoln

Today is the birth anniversaries of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln. What historical figure do you most admire?

Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809 in Shropshire, England.

Charles was the grandson of Josiah Wedgwood, the creator of Josiah Wedgwood and Sons pottery.

Darwin married his first cousin, another of Wedgwood's grandchildren, Emma. Before deciding to marry her, Darwin made a pro/con list. Pros included companion in old age and better than a dog; Cons included terrible loss of time and less money for books.

Abraham Lincoln was also born on February 12, 1809. He was born in Hodgenville, Kentucky.

Prior to marrying Lincoln, Mary Todd was courted by Stephen Douglass, the Democratic nominee to the 1860 Presidential election. The election Lincoln won.

Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, an actor who was also a Confederate sympathizer.

Booth was subsequently shot by Boston Corbett, a Union Army soldier and part of the New York Cavalry Regiment that was sent to apprehend Booth. Corbett was arrested for disobeying orders to take Booth alive, though the charges were later dropped.

Today is...Satisfied Staying Single Day

Today is Satisfied Staying Single Day. What are the perks of the single life?

On the shelf: from 1800s, of women, without prospects of marrying

Bachelor: an unmarried man of marriageable age

Bachelor woman: also bachelor-girl or bachelor-lady, an unmarried woman who has her own income and lives independently.

Spinster: originally to denote the occupation of one who spins yard, became the proper legal designation of one still unmarried; a woman still unmarried, especially if beyond the usual age for marriage.

Single: unmarried, celibate, bachelor, spinster, in some cases prostitute; used to denote unwedded persons in 1303.

Today is...Chinese New Year

Today is Chinese New Year: Year of the Snake. What is your Chinese Zodiac?

Chinese New Year is the first day of the year according to the Chinese calendar, a lunisolar calendar.

A Lunisolar calendar is a Lunar calendar that adds an extra month when needed to realign the months with the seasons.

Lunar calendars, with out the leap-month of the Lunisolar calendar, are based solely on the lunar phase cycle, causing the months to drift off season.

The calendar that is most commonly used is the solar calendar, which includes the Gregorian and Julian calendars.

The Gregorian calendar is the de facto international standard calendar.

Islamic calendars are lunar calendars that are used to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic holy days and festivals.

Likewise, the Hebrew calendar is used to Jews worldwide for religious and culture affairs.

The hardest holiday to figure out on the Gregorian calendar is Easter Sunday, as it is based on the full moon cycle and can be anywhere from March 22 to April 25 in Western culture.

Today is...Laugh and Get Rich Day

Today is Laugh and Get Rich Day. What makes you laugh?

The study of humor and laughter, and its psychological and physiological effects on the human body is called gelotology.

An average baby laughs 300 times a day; an average adult laughs 20 times a day.

Death by Laughter, usually from cardiac arrest or asphyxiation, has been recorded as far back as Ancient Greece.

Paradoxical laughter is an exaggerated expression of humor that is unwarranted by the events. It is associated with altered mental states or mental illness, such as mania, hypomania or schizophrenia.

The Han Dynasty of Chinese used tickle torture as a punishment for nobility because it left no marks and victims recovered quickly. Tickle Torture has also been used in Europe throughout the years, including in Flossenburg concentration camp.

Nitrous oxide is known as laughing gas due to the euphoric effects of inhaling it.

Nitrous oxide was first synthesized by English chemist Joseph Priestley in 1772.

Dentist Horace Wells was the first to use laughing gas as an anesthetic drug, in 1844.

Humphrey Davy hosted nitrous oxide parties where he and friends would inhale nitrous oxide for recreational purposes (not a recommended activity). He also wrote a book all about nitrous oxide, which includes personal accounts of what it feels like to inhale nitrous oxide, from the friends who attended the parties. It includes accounts from Davy, Peter Roget (of Roget's Thesaurus fame), Josiah Wedgwood (of Wedgwood pottery), poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and poet Robert Southey.

Today is...the Birth Anniversary of Charles Dickens

Today is the birth anniversary of Charles Dickens. What is your favorite Dickens work?

Charles Dickens was born on February 7, 1812 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England.

There have only been 4 years when snow was on the ground in London on Christmas in the 20th century, 1927, 1938, 1970, and 1981. However, everyone always thinks of London at Christmas to be snowy. Why is that?

As it happens, it is due to Charles Dickens. The first 8 years of his life, there was a White Christmas every year. As a result, in his books, he describes Christmases as snowy, even though it usually was not snowy at that time in London.

Between 1550 and 1850, Britain was in the grip of a "Little Ice Age", which included cold enough temperatures to freeze the River Thames. When the Thames froze, the people of London would have frost fairs on the frozen river. The last frost fair was held in the winter of 1813/1814.

The frost fairs included ice skating, food stands, bon fires, puppet plays, etc. (everything you would see at a fair) all on the ice. Yes, even the bon fires were on the ice.

While Dickens would not have remembered frost fairs, the Little Ice Age was still in effect enough to cause snow at Christmas.

Today is...National Girls and Women in Sports Day

Today is National Girls and Women in Sports Day. Who is your favorite female athlete?

The 1900 Olympics was the first to include female competitors.

Edith Cummings, a golfer, was the first woman athlete to appear on the cover of Time magazine.

In 1973 Billy Jean King played former number 1 male tennis player Bobby Riggs in a Battle of the Sexes tennis match after Riggs made states claiming that the women's game was inferior to the men's game. King beat Riggs 6-4, 6-3, 6-3.

Janet Gurthrie was the first woman to compete in both the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500.

Liz Heaston was the first female athlete to play and score in a college football game, in 1997.

Dara Torres is the first and only swimmer from the US to compete in five Olypmic Games. She is also the oldest swimmer ever to earn a place on the US Olympic team.

The 2012 Summer Olympics was the first time the American team has more female than male athletes.

Fanny Durack was the first Australian woman to win an Olympic gold metal in a swimming event, in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. She and Mina Wylie had to pay their own expenses to be allowed to go to the games.

Helene de Pourtales was the first female Olympic champion for sailing. She won as part of a team with her husband and nephew.

Charlotte Cooper was the first woman to win as an individual in the Olympics, winning tennis singles. She also won mixed doubles.

Today is...the anniversary of the launch of Facebook

On this day in 2004, Facebook was launched. What is your favorite and least favorite thing about Facebook?

In honor of Facebook, let's play 6-degrees of separation from the movie Facebook.

For those who don't know, 6-degrees of Kevin Bacon is a game played where you have to connect any actor to Kevin Bacon in 6 moves of less. For example, Kevin Bacon was in Footloose with John Lithgow. John Lithgow was in 3rd Rock from the Sun with Jane Curtain. Jane Curtain is 2 degrees separated from Kevin Bacon.

Facebook was directed by David Fincher.

David Fincher directed Fight Club.

Fight Club stars Brad Pitt.

Brad Pitt stars in Inglorious Basterds.

Inglorious Basterds also stars Michael Fassbender.

Michael Fassbender is in X-Men First Class with Kevin Bacon.

Another option:

Facebook starred Rooney Mara, who was also in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo with Stellan Skarsgard.

Skarsgard was in Angels & Demons with Ewan McGregor.

McGregor starred in Trainspotting with Robert Carlyle, who was in Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School, which also featured Marisa Tomei.

Tomei was in Crazy, Stupid, Love with Kevin Bacon.

The possibilities are endless!

Today is...Groundhog Day

Today is Groundhog Day. What would you like to rename Punxsutawney Phil?

Groundhog Day has its origins in Candlemas day, which is the celebration of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.

According to a diary entry, dated February 4, 1841, the Germans started the tradition of watching the groundhog to see if he would see his shadow.

The largest Groundhog Day celebration is in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where up to 40,000 people have gathered to celebrate the holiday each early going back as early as at least 1886.

Most people know quite a bit about Groundhog Day because of the 1993 movie by the same name, starting Bill Murray.

Regardless of what Punxsutawney Phil says, Groundhog Day is almost seven weeks prior to the official first day of spring, so no matter what the groundhog does, the Vernal Equinox still occurs at the same time.