On This Day
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From: Reference.com On This Day
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Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 3:00 AM
Subject: Tuesday May 12, 2009: Reference.com On This Day
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On This Day:
Tuesday May 12, 2009
This is the 132nd day of the year, with 233 days remaining in 2009.
Fact of the Day: Odometer and Speedometer
An odometer registers the distance traveled by a vehicle. An odometer
consists of a train of gears (with a gear ratio of 1,000:1) that causes a drum,
graduated in 10ths of a mile, to make one turn per mile. A series, commonly of
six, such drums is arranged in such a way that one of the numerals on each drum
is visible in a rectangular window. The drums are coupled so that 10
revolutions of the first cause 1 revolution of the second, and so forth; the
numbers appearing in the window represent the vehicle's accumulated mileage. A
speedometer is an instrument that indicates the speed of a vehicle. The
speed-indicating mechanism of the speedometer is run by a circular permanent
magnet that is rotated 1,000 revolutions per mile of vehicle travel by a
flexible shaft driven by gears at the rear of the transmission. The magnet
turns within a movable metal cup that is attached to the shaft carrying the
indicator. As the magnet rotates, it exerts a magnetic drag on the cup that
turns i t against a spiral spring. The faster the magnet rotates, the greater
the pull on the cup and the pointer. Thomas Jefferson was the first to use the
word odometer in writing in 1791; speedometer did not appear in writing until
1904.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Dominic of the Causeway, St. John Stone, St. Ethelhard,
St. Fremund, Saints Nereus and Achilleus, St. Pancras of Rome, St. Epiphanius
of Salamis, St. Germanus of Constantinople, St.. Modoaldus, and St Rictrudis.
Events
1847 - William Clayton invented the odometer.
1870 - Manitoba became a Canadian province.
1881 - Tunisia, in North Africa, became a French protectorate.
1926 - Roald Amundsen reached the North Pole in a dirigible.
1935 - Alcoholics Anonymous was founded in Akron, Ohio by "Bill W.," a
stockbroker, and "Dr. Bob S.," a medical doctor.
1937 - King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey upon the
abdication of his brother, Edward VIII. He was later succeeded by his daughter,
Elizabeth II.
1941 - Hitler backs Iraq's Rashid Ali al-Gailani in his fight against
Britain.
1943 - Axis forces in North Africa surrendered.
1949 - The Soviet Union lifted its 11-month land blockade against West
Berlin, which was an early crisis of the Cold War.
1957 - Texan A.J. Foyt won his first major race, a midget car race, in
Kansas City, Missouri.
1978 - The U.S. Commerce Department said hurricanes would no longer be
given only female names.
1992 - Four suspects were arrested in the beating of truck driver
Reginald Oliver Denny at the start of the Los Angeles riots.
2002 - Jimmy Carter became the first present or former U.S. president to
visit Cuba since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959.
Births
1820 - Florence Nightingale, English nurse, born in Florence, Italy, who
was the founder of modern nursing.
1828 - Dante Rossetti, English poet.
1850 - Henry Cabot Lodge, Republican statesman and noted historian, first
student at Harvard to graduate with a PhD in political science.
1907 - Katharine Hepburn, American Academy Award-winning actress.
1915 - Mary Kay Ash, American, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics.
1925 - Yogi Berra (Lawrence Peter Berra), American baseball player and
coach.
1937 - George Carlin, American stand-up comedian, actor, and author.
1948 - Steve Winwood, English musician.
1968 - Tony Hawk, professional American skateboarder.
Deaths
1957 - Erich von Stroheim, Austrian-born American silent-film actor and
director.
1999 - Saul Steinberg, Romanian-born American cartoonist.
2000 - Adam Petty, American race car driver, and first fourth-generation
driver in NASCAR history.
2001 - Perry Como (born Pierino Ronald Como), American singer.
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