Mayflower came to anchor in Plymouth harbor on December 21, 1620

The Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England, bound for the New World: With 102 passengers on September 16, 1620. The ship was headed for Virginia, where the colonists–half religious dissenters and half entrepreneurs–had been authorized to settle by the British crown. However, stormy weather and navigational errors forced the Mayflower off course, and on November 21 the “Pilgrims&rd reached Massachusetts, where they founded the first permanent European settlement in New England in late December.

Thirty-five of the Pilgrims were members of the radical English Separatist Church, who traveled to America to escape the jurisdiction of the Church of England, which they found corrupt. Ten years earlier, English persecution had led a group of Separatists to flee to Holland in search of religious freedom. However, many were dissatisfied with economic opportunities in the Netherlands, and under the direction of William Bradford they decided to immigrate to Virginia, where an English colony had been founded at Jamestown in 1607.

In a difficult Atlantic crossing, the 90-foot Mayflower encountered rough seas and storms and was blown more than 500 miles off course. Along the way, the settlers formulated and signed the Mayflower Compact, an agreement that bound the signatories into a “civil body politic.” Because it established constitutional law and the rule of the majority, the compact is regarded as an important precursor to American democracy. After a 66-day voyage, the ship landed on November 21 on the tip of Cape Cod at what is now Provincetown, Massachusetts.

After coming to anchor in Provincetown harbor, a party of armed men under the command of Captain Myles Standish was sent out to explore the area and find a location suitable for settlement. While they were gone, Susanna White gave birth to a son, Peregrine, aboard the Mayflower. He was the first English child born in New England. In mid-December, the explorers went ashore at a location across Cape Cod Bay where they found cleared fields and plentiful running water and named the site Plymouth.

The expedition returned to Provincetown, and on December 21 the Mayflower came to anchor in Plymouth harbor. Just after Christmas, the pilgrims began work on dwellings that would shelter them through their difficult first winter in America.

In the first year of settlement, half the colonists died of disease. In 1621, the health and economic condition of the colonists improved, and that autumn Governor William Bradford invited neighboring Indians to Plymouth to celebrate the bounty of that year’s harvest season. Plymouth soon secured treaties with most local Indian tribes, and the economy steadily grew, and more colonists were attracted to the settlement. By the mid 1640s, Plymouth’s population numbered 3,000 people, but by then the settlement had been overshadowed by the larger Massachusetts Bay Colony to the north, settled by Puritans in 1629.

History Channel / Apollo 17 - Eugene A. Cernan, Commander NASA / Wikipedia / Encyclopedia Britannica / Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.edu / Space.com / Apollo program: Eugene Cernan is the last person to walk on the moon on December 14, 1972 (YouTube)”

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiers in Hollywood on December 21, 1937

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs premiers in Hollywood:

Based on the famous fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm, Snow White opened with the Wicked Queen asking her magic mirror the question “Who is the fairest one of all?” The mirror gives its fateful answer: Snow White, the queen’s young stepdaughter. Ordered by the queen to kill the young princess, a sympathetic woodsman instead urges Snow White to hide in the forest; there she encounters a host of friendly animals, who lead her to a cottage inhabited by the Seven Dwarfs: Sleepy, Dopey, Doc, Sneezy, Grumpy, Bashful and Happy. Eventually, in the classic happy ending viewers would come to expect as a Disney trademark, love conquers all as the dwarfs defeat the villainous queen and Snow White finds love with a handsome prince.

Walt Disney’s decision to make Snow White, which was the first animated feature to be produced in English and in Technicolor, flew in the face of the popular wisdom at the time. Naysayers, including his wife Lillian, warned him that audiences, especially adults, wouldn’t sit through a feature-length cartoon fantasy about dwarfs. But Disney put his future on the line, borrowing most of the $1.5 million that he used to make the film. Snow White premiered in Hollywood on December 21, 1937, earning a standing ovation from the star-studded crowd. When it was released to the public the following February, the film quickly grossed $8 million, a staggering sum during the Great Depression and the most made by any film up to that time.

Critics were virtually unanimous in their admiration for Snow White. Charlie Chaplin, who attended the Hollywood premiere, told the Los Angeles Times that the film“even surpassed our high expectations. In Dwarf Dopey, Disney has created one of the greatest comedians of all time.” The movie’s innovative use of story, color, animation, sound, direction and background, among other elements, later inspired directors like Federico Fellini and Orson Welles. In fact, Welles’ Citizen Kane features an opening shot of a castle at night with one lighted window that is strikingly similar to the first shot of the Wicked Queen’s castle in Snow White.

Disney won an honorary Academy Award for his pioneering achievement, while the music for the film, featuring Snow White’s famous ballad, “Some Day My Prince Will Come” and other songs by Frank Churchill, Larry Morey, Paul J. Smith and Leigh Harline, was also nominated for an Oscar. The studio re-released Snow White for the first time in 1944, during World War II; thereafter, it was released repeatedly every decade or so, a pattern that became a tradition for Disney’s animated films. For its 50th anniversary in 1987, Snow White was restored, but cropped into a wide-screen format, a choice that irked some critics. Disney released a more complete digital restoration of the film in 1993. Its power continues to endure: In June 2008, more than 60 years after its U.S. release, the American Film Institute chose Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs as the No. 1 animated film of all time in its listing of ‘America’s 10 Greatest Films in 10 Classic Genres”.

History Channel / Wikipedia / Encyclopedia Britannica / Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs 1937 (YouTube)”

Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland on December 21, 1988

Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland: On this day in 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 from London to New York explodes in midair over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members aboard, as well as 11 Lockerbie residents on the ground. A bomb hidden inside an audio cassette player detonated in the cargo area when the plane was at an altitude of 31,000 feet. The disaster, which became the subject of Britain’s largest criminal investigation, was believed to be an attack against the United States. One hundred eighty nine of the victims were American.

Islamic terrorists were accused of planting the bomb on the plane while it was at the airport in Frankfurt, Germany. Authorities suspected the attack was in retaliation for either the 1986 U.S. air strikes against Libya, in which leader Muammar al-Qaddafi’s young daughter was killed along with dozens of other people, or a 1988 incident, in which the U.S. mistakenly shot down an Iran Air commercial flight over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people.

Sixteen days before the explosion over Lockerbie, the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, received a call warning that a bomb would be placed on a Pan Am flight out of Frankfurt. There is controversy over how seriously the U.S. took the threat and whether travelers should have been alerted, but officials later said that the connection between the call and the bomb was coincidental.

In 1991, following a joint investigation by the British authorities and the F.B.I., Libyan intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah were indicted for murder; however, Libya refused to hand over the suspects to the U.S. Finally, in 1999, in an effort to ease United Nations sanctions against his country, Qaddafi agreed to turn over the two men to Scotland for trial in the Netherlands using Scottish law and prosecutors. In early 2001, al-Megrahi was convicted and sentenced to life in prison and Fhimah was acquitted. Over the U.S. government’s objections, Al-Megrahi was freed and returned to Libya in August 2009 after doctors determined that he had only months to live.

In 2003, Libya accepted responsibility for the bombing, but didn’t express remorse. The U.N. and U.S. lifted sanctions against Libya and Libya agreed to pay each victim’s family approximately $8 million in restitution. In 2004, Libya’s prime minister said that the deal was the “price for peace,” implying that his country only took responsibility to get the sanctions lifted, a statement that infuriated the victims’ families. Pan Am Airlines, which went bankrupt three years after the bombing, sued Libya and later received a $30 million settlement.

History Channel / Wikipedia / Encyclopedia Britannica / Arlington National Cemetery.mil / Pan Am Flight 103 explodes over Scotland on December 21, 1988 (YouTube)”

Understanding Military Terminology - Moored mine

(DOD) A contact or influence-operated mine of positive buoyancy held below the surface by a mooring attached to a sinker or anchor on the bottom. See also mine.

Joint Publications (JP 3-15) Barriers, Obstacles, and Mine. Warfare for Joint Operations.

The Old Salt’s Corner

Christmas at Sea

The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand;

The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand;

The wind was a nor'wester, blowing squally off the sea;

And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.

They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day;

But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay.

We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout,

And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.

All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North;

All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth;

All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread,

For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.

We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide race roared;

But every tack we made we brought the North Head close aboard:

So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high,

And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.

The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam;

The good red fires were burning bright in every 'long-shore home;v

The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out;

And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.

The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer;

For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year)

This day of our adversity was blessèd Christmas morn,

And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.

O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there,

My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair;

And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves,

Go dancing round the china plates that stand upon the shelves.

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,

Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;

And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,

To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessèd Christmas Day.

They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall.

'All hands to loose top gallant sails,' I heard the captain call.

'By the Lord, she'll never stand it,' our first mate, Jackson, cried.

… 'It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson,' he replied.

She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good,

And the ship smelt up to windward just as though she understood.

As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night,

We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.

And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me,

As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea;

But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold,

Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.

~ Robert Louis Stevenson.

“I’m Just Sayin”

“Consult not your fears

but your hopes and your dreams.

Think not about your frustrations,

but about your unfulfilled potential.

Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in,

but with what it is still possible for you to do.”

~ Pope John XXIII

“Thought for the Day”

“In wine there is wisdom,

In beer there is freedom,

In water there is bacteria.”

~ Benjamin Franklin

“What I Learned”

“People who wonder

if the glass is half empty

or half full miss the point.

The glass is refillable.”

~ Anonymous

Bizarre News (we couldn’t make up stuff this good – real news story)

Massive spider web engulfs Greek lake

Unseasonally warm weather prompted hundreds of thousands of tiny spiders to make Lake Vistonida in northern Greece their home.

Lake Vistonida in northern Greece has become an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare after it was cloaked recently by massive webs spun by hundreds of thousands of small spiders.

Biologists say the recent phenomenon, though rare, is not unheard of and is caused by unseasonally warm weather prompting an increase in the local population of mosquitoes and gnats.

“It’s caused by an overpopulation of spiders…there is an abundance of food available”, local environmental park biologist Euterpe Patetsini told Alpha TV.

Draped over roadside bushes, fences and small trees, the webs have a combined length of about 1,000 metres.

“Weather conditions are ideal for them to multiply”, she said.

The spiders are from the genus Tetragnatha, known as stretch spiders due to their elongated bodies. They are known to build webs near watery habitats, with some species even said to be able to walk on water.

A similar case was noted in the western Greek coastal town of Aetoliko last month.

The webs are expected to recede as temperatures drop and heavier rainfall sets in.

The webs currently span about a kilometer or 0.6 of a mile, according to Quartz. Photos show the webs blanketing plants, as well as manmade structures like fences and small religious shrines.

Alpha TV, per Agence France-Presse (10/20/2018)

Mr. Answer Man Please Tell Us: What Happens When You Send a Letter to Santa Claus?

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

And the Postal Service™ can help you prove it when Santa replies to your child’s letter to Santa — complete with the North Pole Postmark! The Letters from Santa program adds to the excitement of Christmas and is ideal for interesting youngsters in letter writing, stamps and penmanship.

Here's how:

1. Have the child write a letter to Santa and place it in an envelope addressed to: Santa Claus, North Pole.

2. Write a personalized response to the child's letter and sign it “From Santa”. See sample responses from Santa.

3. Insert both letters into an envelope, and address it to the child.

4. Add the return address: SANTA, NORTH POLE, to the envelope.

5. Ensure a First-Class Mail stamp is affixed to the envelope.

6. Place the complete envelope into a larger envelope, with appropriate postage, and address it to:

NORTH POLE POSTMARK POSTMASTER

4141 POSTMARK DR

NANCHORAGE AK 99530-9998

Letters from Santa must be received by the Anchorage, AK,

Postmaster no later than December 15. Santa’s helpers in

Anchorage, AK, will take care of the rest!

Be sure to share the experience on social media using #LettersFromSanta.

Tips:

• To save paper, write on the back of your child’s letter. If you keep them together, your child will also be able to recall what he or she wrote.

• When responding as Santa, make the response as personal as possible by highlighting your child’s accomplishments over the past year. For example, helping around the house, receiving good grades in a particular subject at school or participating in community service activities.

• This is a great activity for Thanksgiving that the whole family can enjoy, including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other caregivers.

Library of Congress • Mentalfloss • Quara • Smithsonian • Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus - Wikipedia • USPS • What Happens When You Send a Letter to Santa Claus? (YouTube Search)

NEXT WEEK: How Much Weight Would Santa Gain From Eating Milk and Cookies at Every House He Visits?

NAVSPEAK aka U.S. Navy Slang

Benny: A treat or reward, derived from “Benefit”.

Benny Suggs: The Navy's Beneficial Suggestions program, a method where DON employees, and Navy and Marine personnel can make suggestions to improve various programs and operations.

B.D.N.W.W.: Broke Dick No Worky-worky. See Broke Dick.

Bent Shitcan:

1. Someone below Naval standards.

2. An angry or particularly unpleasant attitude, such as one might have if their only job onboard was to collect and retain everyone else's refuse, and then on top of that some asshole got mad and kicked him, leaving a big, ugly dent in his side. “We got a new XO and he had an attitude like a Bent Shitcan.”

Big Chicken Dinner: Slang for a Bad Conduct Discharge, a punishment awarded to a sailor who has committed a serious infraction of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Just for you MARINE

Belay: To cancel an order; to stop; to firmly secure a line.

Below Decks: Area below the surface (deck) of a ship.

Naval Aviation Squadron Nicknames

Patrol Squadron Twenty Six (VP-26) - nicknamed the “Tridents”

United States Navy - Naval Air Station, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Jacksonville, Florida - Established September, 1 1948.

Where Did That Saying Come From?

“Scot free:”  Meaning: Without incurring payment; or escaping without punishment.

History: Dred Scott was a black slave born in Virginia, USA in 1799. In several celebrated court cases, right up to the USA Supreme Court in 1857, he attempted to gain his freedom. These cases all failed but Scott was later made a free man by his so-called owners, the Blow family. Knowing this, we might feel that we don't need to look further for the origin of 'scott free'. Many people, especially in the USA, are convinced that the phrase originated with the story of Dred Scott.

The etymology of this phrase shows the danger of trying to prove a case on circumstantial evidence alone. In fact, the phrase isn't 'scott free', it is 'scot free' and it has nothing to do with Mr. Scott.

Given the reputation of Scotsmen as being careful with their money we might look to Scotland for the origin of 'scot free'. Wrong again, but at least we are in the right part of the world now. 'Skat' is a Scandinavian word for tax or payment and the word migrated to Britain and mutated into 'scot' as the name of a redistributive taxation, levied as early the 10th century as a form of municipal poor relief.

'Scot' as a term for tax has been used since then in various forms - Church scot, Rome scot, Soul scot and so on. Whatever the tax, the phrase 'getting off scot free' simply refers to not paying one's taxes.

No one likes paying tax and people have been getting off scot free since at least the 11th century. The first reference in print to 'scot free' is in a forged copy of the Writ of Edward the Confessor. We don't have a precise date for the forges version of the writ but Edward died in 1066 and the copy was made sometime in the 13th century. Either way ie was a long time before Dred Scott got his freedom.

The use of the figurative version of the phrase, that is, one where no actual scot tax was paid but in which someone escapes custody, began in the 16th century, as in this example from John Maplet's natural history Green Forest, 1567:

“Daniell scaped scotchfree by Gods prouidence.”

'Scotchfree' was a variant based on a mishearing. An example of the currently used form, that is, 'scot free', comes a few years later, in the English author Robert Greene's The Historie of Dorastus and Fawnia, 1588:

“These and the like considerations something daunted Pandosto his courage, so that hee was content rather to put up a manifest injurie with peace, then hunt after revenge, dishonor and losse; determining since Egistus had escaped scot-free.”

So, the first people to go scot free weren't from the 19th century but the 16th, and not American or Scottish, but English.

Phrases.org UK

Science & Technology

How American Space Launch Left Europe in the Dust • The U.S. Doesn’t Want a No-Fly Zone Over the Korean DMZ. Here’s Why. • The CIA Gave U-2 Pilots a Special Diet So They Wouldn't Have To Poop • The Best Oscillating Tools: Put to the Test (Heavy-duty oscillating multitools can take on nearly anything - sanding, removing grout, and making quick cuts in awkward spaces) • Five Digital Distance Tools That'll Replace Your Tape Measure • Unlucky Man Had BMW Crushed While He Was Getting Surgery

http://www.popularmechanics.com/" target="_blank" rel="external nofollow">Popular Mechanics

The Strange, Mysterious or Downright Weird

China May Soon Have a Second (Artificial) Moon

Moonlit skies over the Chinese city of Chengdu may soon get a boost from a second moon.

City officials recently announced plans to build an artificial moon, launching it to hang over Sichuan province's capital city by 2020, Chinese news site People's Daily Online (PDO) reported.

The illuminated orb is intended to complement the light of Earth's existing moon, and will be eight times brighter than the natural satellite, Wu Chunfeng, chairman of Chengdu Aerospace Science and Technology Microelectronics System Research Institute Co. Ltd. (CASC) — the primary contractor for the Chinese space program — told PDO. [Photos: Mysterious Objects Spotted on the Moon]

In fact, light from the artificial moon is expected to save the city money by doing away with the need for streetlights, Chunfeng added. The new moon will be capable of illuminating an area of up to 50 miles (80 kilometers) in diameter, according to PDO.

Though the human-made moon will light up only Chengdu, the glowing ball will be visible across China and even overseas, Asia Times reported. The real moon, of course, can usually be seen from anywhere on Earth. But little is known about the height, size and true brightness of the proposed artificial moon - all of which are factors that could affect its visibility to distant observers.

It is also unknown if the project has secured official support from the city of Chengdu or the federal government, The Guardian reported.

This isn't the first time that a country has tried to outshine the moon. A similar project was unveiled by Russia in the 1990s, with the launch of a solar reflecting system - a “space mirror” - intended to produce light “equivalent to three to five full moons” covering an area approximately 3 miles (5 kilometers) in diameter, the New York Times reported in 1993.

Another Russian attempt to launch a space mirror in 1999 fizzled before it got off the ground, according to The Guardian.

“A dusk-like glow”

Regarding concerns about the Chinese artificial moon interfering with astronomical observations or disrupting animals that are active at night, Kang Weimin, the director of the Institute of Optics of the Harbin Institute of Technology in China, said that the light would amount to only a “dusk-like glow”, PDO reported.

However, research has shown that many animals are highly sensitive to the light and phases of the moon. For example, nocturnal eagle owls communicate with each other through the display of white throat feathers, and scientists have found this activity increases during the full moon, when moonlight is brightest.

And in Australia's Great Barrier Reef, hundreds of coral species simultaneously release their eggs and sperm in an annual mass spawning event linked to the level of moonlight.

The size and illumination technology of Chengdu's artificial moon are not yet available, so it remains unclear if the brightness of the proposed artificial satellite would indeed be intense enough to interfere with the routines of local wildlife. In addition, while the company is calling it a “satellite”, which suggests that it will be launched into geostationary orbit - in which the orb circles the Earth above the equator - no details have been released about how the company plans to deploy the “artificial moon”.

Live Science (10/18/2018)