On This Day:
Tuesday August 30, 2011
This is the 242nd day of the year, with 123 days
remaining in 2011.
Fact of the Day: Hoyle
Edmond Hoyle was from London and he collected instructions
for playing games; he may have been the first technical
writer on card games. His "Short Treatise on the Game of
Whist" was published in 1742 and it became the model guide
to the rules of the game. Hoyle's name became synonymous
with the idea of "correct" play according to the rules and
the phrase "according to Hoyle" was first recorded in 1906
(OED). The Hoyle codification of the laws and strategy of
backgammon (1743) is still largely in force. He also wrote
treatises on chess (1761) and other games. Familiar with the
laws of probability, he appended to one of his books a life
table for annuities. He died at the age of 97.
Holidays
Feast Day of Saints Felix and Audauctus, St. Fantinus, St.
Pammachius, St. Margaret Ward, and St. Ruan or Rumon.
Peru:
Saint Rose of Lima Day.
Turkey:
Victory Day.
Events
1862
- Union forces were defeated by the Confederates at the Second
Battle of Bull Run in Manassas,
Virginia.
1881
- The first stereo system, for a telephonic broadcasting
service, was patented in Germany
by Clement
Adler.
1901
- Scottish inventor Hubert
Cecil Booth patented the vacuum cleaner.
1963
- The hot-line communications link between Washington,
D.C. and Moscow
went into operation.
1991
- Azerbaijan
declared independence.
1999
- Residents of East
Timor voted for independence from Indonesia
in a United
Nations-sponsored ballot.
2005
- A day after Hurricane
Katrina hit, floodwaters covered 80 percent of New
Orleans - rescuers in helicopters and boats picked up
hundreds of stranded people.
Births
1797
- Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley, British novelist.
1870
- Maria
Montessori, Italian educator.
1871
- Ernest
Rutherford, New
Zealand-born English physicist.
1898
- Shirley
Booth, American actress.
1908
- Fred
MacMurray, American film and television actor.
1918
- Ted
Williams (born Theodore Samuel Williams), American
baseball player.
1930
- Warren
Buffett, American investor,
businessman,
and philanthropist.
1937
- Bruce
McLaren, a New Zealand race-car designer, driver,
engineer, and inventor.
1943
- Robert
Crumb, American cartoonist.
1946
- Queen
Anne-Marie of Greece, the wife of King
Constantine II of Greece.
1972
- Cameron
Diaz, an American actress and former fashion
model.
Deaths
30
B.C.E. - Cleopatra,
Queen of Egypt,
by suicide.
1483
- Louis
XI, King of France.
1938
- Max
Factor, make-up artist and cosmetic manufacturer.
2004
- Fred
Lawrence Whipple, American astronomer.
2004
- Indian
Larry (born Larry
Desmedt), American motorcycle builder and stuntman.
2006
- Glenn
Ford (born Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford), Canadian-born
actor.
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