1460 Córdoba (Spain), Religion: Moses Maimonides published the ‘Mishneh Torah’ codifying Jewish law. We came to Córdoba. (You either get it or you don’t.) We snapped this statue of the great scholar.
1743 London, Music: Georg Handel’s ‘Messiah’ premiered. Kate and Julie have sung this more than once.
1839 Kinderhook (NY), Language: ‘OK’ entered the vernacular. But by 1839 it appeared in print in the ‘Boston Morning Post.’ One story is that incumbent President Martin van Buren’s supporter formed OK Clubs, where OK stood for his home – Old Kinderhook). Members of OK Clubs took the name seriously and attacked supporters of van Buren’s rivals with clubs. There are alternative explanations of the term, but even so, the wiley Van Buren would have made of use of ‘OK.’
1857 Boston, Food: Fannie Farmer published a cookbook with explicit measures carefully stipulated, e.g., a level tablespoon, or 1 ounce. No more dashes, handfuls, or pitches. Likewise the instructions were stir for ten minutes, no more stir until tired or mix until ready. It remains in print to this day.
2001 Nadi (Fiji), Space: Viewed from Fiji, after orbiting for fifteen years, the Russian space station Mir plunged into the water in a controlled re-entry. Those parts that survived re-entry fell into the South Pacific Ocean at 40° South and 160° West. The Russians did a better job of this re-entry than NASA did with SkyLab which fell on West Australian, with the result we have a fragment framed on the wall from Kate’s parents property in Esperance.
Skip to content