It is Wednesday MAY 20th
IT HAPPENED TODAY
• 1845: HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, with 134 men under John Franklin, sailed from the River Thames in England, beginning a disastrous expedition to find the Northwest Passage. All perished.
• 1873: Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received a patent for blue jeans with copper rivets.
• 1916: The small town of Codell, Kansas, was struck by a tornado. Incredibly, the same town was also hit in 1917 and 1918 on the exact same date.
• 1927: Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, on the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean, touching down at Le Bourget Field in Paris the next day.
• 1932: Amelia Earhart took off from Newfoundland to begin the world’s first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean by a female pilot. She landed in Ireland the next day.
• 1993: To celebrate the final episode of TV’s Cheers, Jay Leno did The Tonight Show live from the Bull & Finch bar. Most of the Cheers cast seemed to be drunk.
• 2001: Burglars entered a warehouse near Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, disconnected the video security system, and made off with $526,000 worth of extra-strength throat lozenges.
• 2007: In England Christopher Carlton broke into a Rolls Royce dealership and grabbed several of the company’s computers. And since he was in a Rolls dealership, he took one of their expensive cars for his getaway, right? Wrong. For reasons known only to Chris, he chose as his getaway vehicle a large forklift. Not surprisingly that attracted the attention of the police and he was quickly apprehended.
SPECIAL EVENTS
• Employee Health & Fitness Day
• Rescue Dog Day
• World Bee Day
• Quiche Lorraine Day
• Pick Strawberries Day
NUMBER FOR THE DAY
70,000: Health-related searches on Google every minute.
NEWS ATTACK!
The 2021 Oscars could be delayed. [If they wait long enough they could combine them with the Nickelodeon Kids Choice Awards.]
If you have a gift card to Pier 1 Imports, use it after they reopen because they’re going to close all their stores. [Also, dump the friend who gave you the gift card to Pier 1 Imports.]
Pier 1 Imports will close all 540 stores. [Keanu Reeves will star in the story of how Pier 1 was founded. It’ll be titled John Wicker.]
In Houston a woman was struck in the ankle with a dart as part of a gender reveal stunt. [It’s not coronavirus we have to worry about, it’s gender reveals.]
Breaking a 40-year tradition Donald Trump won’t be unveiling former President Barack Obama’s portrait at the White House. [However, he agreed to stay within the lines while coloring in Obama’s picture in the official Presidents of the U.S. Coloring Book.]
A story this week says some Americans are driving to other states to get haircuts because their home state still isn’t allowing them. One guy drove 600 miles to visit a barber. [Because you need to look your best as they hook you up to the respirator.]
Memorial Day is Monday. [Here’s a barbecuing tip for Memorial Day: If the crew of the International Space Station calls your house to see if everybody’s OK, you’ve got too much charcoal in the grill.]
Pringles has a new chip that tastes like corn on the cob. [A potato chip that tastes like corn? This is the worst food invention since carrot sticks.]
WACKY-BUT-TRUE: A bull named Ron was the cause of a power outage in a town in Scotland. The owner of the bull wrote on a local Facebook group: “Our bull Ron would like to apologize to everyone … for causing last night’s power cut. He had [an] itchy bum so [he] scratched it on the electricity pole and knocked the transformer box off.”
WACKY-BUT-TRUE: A concerned Florida citizen called police to let them know about a man who was wrestling with...
