Happy Anniversary!
Happy Anniversary! was Originally Posted on May 20, 2010 by lavarock
1982 seems so far back in history. I visited Wikipedia to gather the following data.
High ranking Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie is arrested in Bolivia.
Björn Borg retires from tennis after winning 5 consecutive Wimbledon championships.
The final episode of M*A*S*H is aired and the record of most watched episode is broken.
Pioneer 10 becomes the first man-made object to leave the solar system.
STS-7: Sally Ride becomes the first American woman in space, on the Space Shuttle Challenger.
The Nintendo Entertainment System goes on sale in Japan.
America West Airlines begins operations out of Phoenix, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Hurricane Alicia hits the Texas coast, killing 22 and causing over US$3.8 billion (2005 dollars) in damage.
Ronald Reagan announced that the Global Positioning System (GPS) would be made available for civilian use.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day: At the White House Rose Garden, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signs a bill creating a federal holiday on the third Monday of every January to honor American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
Kellogg’s introduces Crispix cereal.
McDonald’s introduces the McNugget.
The De Lorean Motor Company ceases production.
Chrysler starts production on the first minivans: the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager.
Carrie Underwood, American singer born.
Auther Godfrey, broadcaster, died.
Dennis Wilson, musician (Beach Boys) died.
January 1,1983 was just 10,000 days ago!
It marked one of the key milestones of the Internet: On that day about 400 computers connected to the ARPAnet (a network sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense) were made to communicate with each other using a set of protocols called TCP/IP. We still use TCP/IP, but imagine, only 400 computers on what would become the Internet.
10,000 days ago, Kilauea, a volcano on the Big island of Hawaii, erupted and has been going strong ever since!
I often talk about living in Hawaii, the good and the bad. It’s mostly good though. We do get a bit of volcano-related smog (we call it vog), yet for most people on the island, it is not a very big problem. Howevere, I have known people who moved because the smoke bothered them.
The weather and location makes it easy to grow things (including giant weeds) and many of us spend more time killing weeds than fertilizing things.
Speaking of things dying, we host more endangered plants and animals then most other places on earth.
We range from snow to tropics, have a desert and rainforest, all of the same island!
I often see people smiling, moreso than I did on the manland. People pull over when an ambulance aproaches, and the ambulance often does not sound its siren BECAUSE people pull over.
We have crime, but it is usually not violent; it’s mostly theft.
Still, in the back of your mind is that volcano, the flowing lava and the earthquakes (some you feel, some you don’t). I think that many of these items help us appreciate where we live. Many recent residents must feel that if the volcano has been spewing lava for 10,000 days and not hurt anyone, we can probably make it another 10,000 days!
I wonder how many computers will be on the internet by then? Gosh, maybe we will hit 1,000!