Today is...

[IceWizard]

Tuesday 27 Dec 2016

Visit The Zoo Day



If animals are your passion then Visit the Zoo Day gives you a great opportunity to really get close to some of the most intriguing and engaging species on the planet.

No matter where you live, your usually not far from a zoo, so why not go for a visit and find out more?

Some people think of zoos only as cruel prisons where countless animals are kept, bored to death, from the moment they’re born till the moment they die. But these days zoos are at the forefront of much of the research which goes on into animal behaviour and how best to protect vulnerable animals from extinction.

Many zoos have breeding programmes running, where they work with other facilities around the world to increase the numbers of endangered populations. In most of the better zoos around the globe, the enclosures the animals are kept in are relatively roomy and attempt to mirror an animal’s natural environment as closely as possible.

Some zoos house indigenous species as well as or rather than those from further away. All in all, zos are fascinating (and often smelly) places where we can get a lot closer to nature than we would ever have the chance to otherwise, and that’s definitely worth trying at least once or twice in life.

The History of Visit The Zoo Day

The idea of having exotic animals confined to a certain area for other people to view or observe is not new at all. The earliest such enclosure , called a “menagerie” discovered by excavators in Egypt and is believed to date back to about 3500 B.C.

King Solomon of Israel was a known ancient animal collector, as were King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia and Alexander the Great.

Wild animals were also collected to be used in the arenas during the Roman Games, though most of those died violent deaths after being pitted against each other for the amusement of the crowd.

Later, British kings kept wild animals in the Tower of London, with the price of viewing them being a small dog or cat that could be used to feed them.

The first actual zoo, created not to stroke the ego of a monarch, but rather to educate and entertain, was opened in London in 1828.



And



National Fruitcake Day



Fruitcakes, we’ve all seen them in the movies or in grandma’s kitchen. The heavy and dark cake that looks like it went through seven stages of baking and sounds like a fist thumping against a wooden table when set down on a surface.

Yet, there is a day made for it. That’s right, this day is called Fruitcake Day and it’s made for the celebration of the cake that we all seem to find synonymous with a brick.

History of Fruitcake Day

While none of us know the true creator of the fruitcake, many historians believe that fruitcakes originated from Rome, and one of the earliest recipes known comes from ancient Rome listing pomegranate seeds, pine nuts and raisins that were mixed into a barley mash.

Then there are records from the Middle Ages documenting that they added honey, spices, and preserved fruits into the original mix.

Starting in the 16th century, sugar from the American Colonies along with the discovery that high concentrations of the sugar could preserve fruits, ended up creating an enormous excess of candied fruits, thus resulting in making fruit cakes more affordable and popular in regions around the world.

Fruitcakes have an incredible shelf life, they can remain on the shelves for many, many years and still be edible and non-harmful to the human body.

An example of this is in a 2003 episode of The Tonight Show, where Jay Leno sampled a piece of a fruitcake baked in 1878 which was kept as an heirloom by a family in Michigan.

For years now, the fruitcake has been a joke in American culture, being ridiculed for its name and how it appears. A recurring example of this can be found in a variety of television shows and movies, where the fruitcake will fall on a person’s body and they will complain about it being as hard as a brick.

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December 27 Birthdays


Mick Jones - 72



Larry Byrom - 68



David Knopfler - 64



Chyna - (1970-2016)



Bill Goldberg - 50



Louis Pasteur - (1822-1895)



John Amos - 77



Charmian Carr - (1942-2016)



Eva LaRue - 50






December 27th

2008: The Georgia home of The Allman Brothers Band’s singer and organist Gregg Allman was burglarized. Thieves stole a pistol, silver dollar collection and unreleased live recordings. The two burglars were charged two days later and all property except for the pistol was recovered.

2004: Hank Garland, guitarist for Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and The Everly Brothers died of staph infection in Orange Park, FL. He was 74 years old.

1989: A former cook at Chuck Berry’s Southern Air restaurant filed a civil suit against Berry alleging that hidden video cameras were installed in the women’s restrooms. 200 other women also took action against Berry in a collective class action suit.

1986: Bruce Springsteen peaked at number eight on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart with his cover of Edwin Starr’s “War” which was Springsteen’s ninth top ten single in the U.S.

1976: Blues guitarist Freddie King died of a heart attack and complications from bleeding ulcers and pancreatitis in Dallas. He was 42 years old.

1975: Queen reached number one on the U.K. Album Chart for the first time with A Night at the Opera which spent two non-consecutive weeks on top of the chart.

1969: Led Zeppelin reached number one on the Billboard 200 Album Chart for the first time as Led Zeppelin II began a seven non-consecutive week run on top.

1967: Bob Dylan released his eighth studio album John Wesley Harding which marked a return to Dylan’s traditional roots and acoustic music.

1960: The Beatles performed a homecoming concert at the Litherland Town Hall Ballroom in Liverpool after their stint in Hamburg. Stuart Sutcliffe was still in Germany at the time of this concert.



Birthdays:

Mick Jones - Guitarist for Foreigner born in 1944

Larry Byrom - Guitarist for Steppenwolf, Neil Young and Steve Winwood born in 1948

David Knopfler - Guitarist for Dire Straits born in 1952