Today is...

[IceWizard]

Friday 30 Dec 2016

International Bacon Day



There’s nothing in this world that doesn’t taste better with Bacon.

Whether it’s chocolate covered bacon from the confectioners shop, bacon cheeseburgers, bacon wrapped tater tots, or even bacon covered chapstick, you can’t deny that it’s a delicious tasty treat that’s truly gotten it’s fingers in everywhere.

History of Bacon Day

The origins of Bacon stretches back into the middle ages, with the name originating in Middle English from the word “Bacoun”. Following it back you find it in France as Bako, Germany as Bakko, and old Teutonic as Backe.

All of these words mean “back”, and what’s that tell us about Bacon?

Piggy got back.

But that’s not even the earliest example of bacon, the first bacon was known to come from the Romans, and was known as ‘Petaso’.

Bacon has been a popular method of preserving meat and adding a delicious flavor to it by soaking it in a specialized brine. There were even certain breeds that were specially bred for their copious back meat, and those were the Yorkshire and Tamworth.

But it wasn’t always just the back meat that was referred to as Bacon, at one time it referenced any kind of preserved pork, but that usage fell out of practice in the 17th Century.



And



Bicarbonate of Soda Day



It comes by many names, Baking Soda, Sodium Bicarbonate, or my personal favorite Bicarbonate of Soda, because it never hurts to use more words to say things.

It’s become a fairly integral part of our society, being used in everything from tackling the most difficult cleaning jobs to making our cookies and cakes come out nice and fluffy.

Bicarbonate of Soda Day reminds us just how much a part this simple little salt plays in our lives, and encourages us to take a look at its origins.

History of Bicarbonate of Soda Day

Bicarbonate of Soda is an interesting little substance, and almost all of us had our first experiences with making volcanos in science class. A measure of this grainy white powder, a bit of food coloring, and a splash of lemon juice and suddenly you had a bubbling flow of magma rolling down the sides of your paper mache volcano!

But this is hardly the most common use of the substance, and it has found its way into everything.

So where did it come from?

Well, aside from being a result of a chemical process known as the “Solvay Process” where sodium chloride, ammonia, and carbon dioxide are mixed in water to produce sodium carbonate, and happens to produce sodium bicarbonate as a byproduct (thank you to Ernest Solvay for discovering this process in the 1860’s), sodium bicarbonate was first discovered by a French Chemist by the name of Nicolas Leblanc.

He discovered it at approximately the same time he discovered sodium carbonate, otherwise known as soda ash.

Since then it has come into use in a surprising number of industries, including cooking, pest control, paint and corrosion removal, disinfectants, personal hygiene, even in cattle food supplements, just to name a few.

This simple discover has turned out to be an incredibly useful little substance, and that’s why it gets a day of its very own.

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December 30 Birthdays


Patti Smith - 70



Bo Diddley - (1928 - 2008)



LeBron James - 32



Tiger Woods - 41



Laila Ali - 39



Matt Lauer - 59



Meredith Vieira - 63



Michael Nesmith - 74



Sandy Koufax - 81



Sean Hannity - 55






December 30th

1999: George Harrison was stabbed by an intruder who broke into his home in the U.K. His wife Olivia hit the intruder over the head with a lamp and son Dhani detained him until police arrived. Harrison suffered a collapsed lung, but eventually recovered.

1999: Dire Straits singer and guitarist Mark Knopfler was awarded Order of the British Empire status by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to music.

1992: ZZ Top filed a $115 million lawsuit against Mitsubishi Motor Sales, and Gray Advertising, alleging copyright infringement over use of their song “La Grange” for a series of TV commercials in the U.S. which ran in 1990 and 1991.

1991: Bruce Springsteen’s wife, bandmate Patti Scialfa gave birth to their second child, a daughter named Jessica Rae.

1989: Nirvana bassist Krist Novoselic married longtime girlfriend Shelli Dilley in Tacoma, WA. The couple would divorce in 1999.

1980: Cheap Trick received a Gold record for their fifth studio album All Shook Up which was produced by Beatles producer George Martin.

1978: Emerson, Lake and Palmer announced that they were splitting up. They would later reunite in 1992 before splitting up again in 1998.

1972: At the Ohio Theatre in Columbus, Bruce Springsteen opened for Brownsville Station and Sha Na Na.

1967: The Beatles reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 Singles Chart for the first of three weeks with “Hello, Goodbye”.



Birthdays:

Bo Diddley born in 1928

Felix Pappalardi - Bassist for Mountain born in 1939

Patti Smith born in 1946

Jeff Lynne - Singer and guitarist for Electric Light Orchestra born in 1947