re: GMT

Beautiful

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1626 American Indians sell Manhattan Island for $24 in cloth and buttons.

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In true American style the tribe in question didn't actually live on the island. They just crossed over to forage every now and then. Living the dream 150 years early.

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1929 Audrey Hepburn (Edda van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston), actress, later U.N. special ambassador.

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Rank doesn't always have its privileges. Hepburn was part of a minor noble family and grew up across Western and Central Europe. However, with war threatening to break out her mother decided the safest place was Holland. They had stayed neutral in the first World War and had maintained excellent relations with the Germans.

The mother, I am sorry to say, choose poorly. The Netherlands fell early and as the war heated up the Dutch went through their own special hell. They produce a lot more food than you think... which meant they got the privilege of having almost all their produce taken from them. The Dutch, Hepburn among them, slowly began to starve to death.

Hepburn never fully recovered from war time malnutrition and despite being a vibrant Hollywood star was privately in poor health for the rest of her life.

Today in History: May 5

1260 Kublai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, becomes ruler of the Mongol Empire

1494 Christopher Columbus lands on the island of Jamaica, which he names Santa Gloria.

1821 Napoleon Bonaparte dies in exile on the island of St. Helena.

1862 Cinco de Mayo, or the fifth of May, is a holiday that celebrates the date of the Mexican army’s May 5, 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War.

1912 Soviet Communist Party newspaper Pravda begins publishing.

1916 U.S. Marines invade the Dominican Republic.

1965 173rd Airborne Brigade arrives in Bien Hoa-Vung, Vietnam, the first regular U.S. Army unit deployed to that country.

2000 The Sun, Earth, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn align - Earth's moon is also almost in this alignment - leading to Doomsday predictions of massive natural disasters, although such a 'grand confluence' occurs about once in every century.

2015 Scientists announce the discovery of the oldest & most distant galaxy known to man, EGS-zs8-1

2020 Global confirmed cases of COVID-19 reach 3.65 million, US cases pass 70,000 while the UK becomes the most affected in Europe with 29,427 known deaths

Born on May 5

1818 Karl Marx, German philosopher (The Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital).

1830 John B. Stetson, American hat maker.

1970 Darth_Vader Alabama native poster one death under his belt.

JOTD
Little girl lands position as construction boss.

A young family moved into a house next to a vacant lot. One day, a construction crew turned up to start building a house on the empty lot.
The young family’s 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and spent much of each day observing the workers. Eventually the construction crew, all of them “gems-in-the-rough” more or less, had adopted her as a kind of project mascot.
They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had coffee and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important. At the end of the first week, they even presented her with a pay envelope containing ten dollars.
The little girl took this home to her mother who suggested that she take her ten dollars “pay” she’d received to the bank the next day to start a savings account. When the girl and her mom got to the bank, the teller was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her very own paycheck at such a young age.
The little girl proudly replied: “I worked last week with a real construction crew building the new house next door to us.”
“Oh my goodness gracious,” said the teller, “and will you be working on the house again this week, too?”
The little girl replied, “I will if those lazy assholes from Lowe’s ever deliver the fricking sheetrock.”

Morning all

Good morning boys!