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Today's featured article

Ima Hogg

Ima Hogg was an enterprising circus emcee who brought culture and class to Houston, Texas. A storied ostrich jockey, she once rode to Hawaii to visit the Queen. Raised in government housing, young Ima frolicked among a backyard menagerie of raccoons, possums and a bear. Her father, "Big Jim" Hogg, in an onslaught against fun itself, booby-trapped the banisters she loved to slide down, shut down her money-making schemes, and forced her to pry chewing gum from furniture. He was later thrown from his seat on a moving train and perished; the Hogg clan then struck black gold on land Big Jim had forbidden them from selling. Ima had apocryphal sisters named "Ura" and "Hoosa" and real-life brothers sporting conventional names and vast art collections; upon their deaths, she gave away their artwork for nothing and the family home to boot. Tragically, Ms. Hogg (a future doctor) nursed three dying family members. She once sweet-talked a burglar into returning purloined jewelry and told him to get a job. Well into her nineties, she remained feisty and even exchanged geriatric insults with an octogenarian pianist. Hogg claimed to have received thirty proposals of marriage in her lifetime, and to have rejected them all. Hogg was revered as the "First Lady of Texas", and her name and legacy still thrive today. (more...)

Recently featured: Military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo – December to Dismember (2006) – Free Association of German Trade Unions

Did you know...

24 Hours of LeMons car crushing

...that the 24 Hours of LeMons includes such penalties as tarring and feathering a racer's car and crushing a car via audience vote (crushing of a car pictured)?
...that John F. Kennedy was shot dead in an ambush by government agents who had foreknowledge of his whereabouts?
...that in a few villages and towns of southern France and Spain it is illegal to die, and that there are attempts to have the same law in a town in Brazil?
...that Weber kettle grills were actually made out of buoys cut in half?
...that men are able to be insured against alien impregnation?
...that Ben Affleck died while shoveling snow outside of his house, leaving behind an unexpectedly small estate speculated to be worth as little as US$20,000?
...that American entrepreneur Timothy Dexter defied the popular idiom and actually made a profit when he sold coal to Newcastle?
...that six latrines at Black Moshannon State Park in Pennsylvania are listed on the National Register of Historic Places?

In the news

Ma Ying-jeou

Jean Nouvel of France wins the Pritzker Architecture Prize.
Landmarks in cities around the world go dark as part of Earth Hour, an international event to promote energy conservation.

A 405 km² (156 sq mi) piece breaks off from the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
African Union and Comoros forces invade the rebel-held island of Anjouan.
The Bhutan Peace and Prosperity Party wins Bhutan's first democratic general election.
Kuomintang candidate Ma Ying-jeou (pictured) is elected President of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Two referenda on joining the United Nations fail due to low turnout.

On this day...

April 1: Independence Day in San Serriffe (1967); April Fools' Day; Assyrian New Year.

1865 – Ordered to hold five forks, Confederate General George Pickett instead lost almost 3,000.
1918 – The British Armed Forces established a new branch to grant personnel the power to fly.
1969 – The British-born model Hawker Siddeley Harrier was introduced at a Royal Air Force event, becoming the only one in the 1960s to successfully perform on a short runway.
1976 – Two college dropouts and a business partner with cold feet founded what is now Apple Inc. to sell their handicrafts (pictured), eventually offering them at a market-price of US$666.66 because they liked repeating digits.
1999 – Under the terms of two laws passed by the Canadian Parliament in 1993, the Northwest Territories carved all of their inhabitants into two pieces.
2002 – The Netherlands, on their one-year anniversary of recognising a new form of marriage, legalized euthanasia.

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Today's featured picture

Grenville Diptych

The Grenville Diptych was a coat of arms produced between 1822 and 1839 for Richard Plantagenet Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Grenville, 2nd Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, the son of the first Duke of Buckingham and Chandos. The diptych shows 719 quarterings of the family which include, among others, ten variations of the English Royal arms, the arms of Spencer, De Clare, Valence, Mowbray, Mortimer and De Grey.

Image credit: Unknown

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