On This Day:
Wednesday April 28, 2010
This is the 118th day of the year, with 247 days remaining in
2010.
Fact of the Day: ZIP code
The "ZIP" in ZIP Code stands for the Zone Improvement Plan. In 1963,
with a dramatic increase in mail volume, the United States Post Office
Department (now the United States Postal Service) introduced a
five-digit code to facilitate the sorting and delivery of mail by
taking advantage of new electronic machines. The first number in the
ZIP Code represents a general geographic area of the nation. The second
and third numbers represent regional areas. The fourth and fifth
numbers identify specific post office locations or postal zones. In
1983, with the introduction of even more efficient mail sorting
equipment, a new nine-digit code called the ZIP+4 Code was introduced.
The new code consisted of the original five digits followed by a hyphen
and four more digits. The sixth and seventh numbers identify a delivery
sector, which may consist of several blocks, a group of streets, a
group of post office boxes, several office buildings, a single
high-rise office building, a large apa
rtment building, or a small geographic area. The eighth and ninth
numbers identify a delivery segment, which might be one floor of an
office building, one side of a street between intersecting streets,
specific departments in a firm, or a group of post office boxes.
Holidays
Feast day of St. Louis de Montfort, St. Vitalis, St. Peter Mary Chanel,
St. Cyril of Turov, St. Valeria, St. Pollio, Saints Theodora and
Didymus, St. Pamphilus of Sulmona, and St. Cronan Roscrea.
Afghanistan:
Islamic
State's Victory Day (1992).
Events
1788 - Maryland
became the seventh state to ratify the Constitution
of
the United States of America.
1789 - The mutiny
on the HMS Bounty
occurred, as Fletcher
Christian and the crew of the British ship set Captain William
Bligh and 18 sailors adrift in a small open boat in the South
Pacific.
1896 - The
Addressograph was patented by J.S. Duncan
of Sioux City,
Iowa.
1919 - The League
of
Nations was founded.
1932 - A vaccine
against yellow
fever was announced.
1945 - Italian
dictator Benito
Mussolini and his mistress, Clara
Petacci, were executed as they attempted to flee the country.
1947 - Norwegian
anthropologist Thor
Heyerdahl and five others set out in a balsa wood craft known as Kon Tiki
to prove that Peruvian Indians could have settled in Polynesia.
1952 - The war
with Japan
officially ended as a treaty that had been signed by the United
States and 47 other nations took effect.
1967 - Muhammad
Ali refused induction into the U.S. Army and was
stripped of his boxing title.
1969 - French
President Charles
de
Gaulle resigned.
1987 - For the
first time, a compact
disc of an album was released before its vinyl counterpart: "The
Art of Excellence" by Tony
Bennett.
1989 - The Occupational
Safety
and Health Act was passed.
1990 - The
musical "A Chorus Line" closed after 6137 performances on Broadway.
1994 - Northwestern
University announced the discovery of the gene that controls the "biological
clock" (circadian
rhythm).
2001 - A Russian
rocket took off with the first space tourist, California
businessman Dennis Tito,
taking
him and two cosmonauts to the International
Space
Station.
Births
1442 - Edward IV,
king
of England
(1461-1470, 1471-1483), first king of the House
of York.
1758 - James
Monroe, 5th President of the United
States
of America (1817-1825).
1878 - Lionel
Barrymore, American actor.
1886 - Erich
Salomon, German photographer, founder of photojournalism.
1916 - Ferruccio
Lamborghini, Italian car manufacturer.
1950 - Jay Leno,
American comedian, TV talk show host.
Deaths
1918 - Gavrilo
Princip, Bosnian revolutionary assassin who caused World
War I by killing Archduke
Franz
Ferdinand and his wife.
1945 - Benito
Mussolini, Italian prime minister and fascist dictator.
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