May 7- Sports

If you follow sports particularly close (don't worry, I don't either) you might know that drafting is going on in the NFL. One of my favorite sports to watch, if not the favorite, is football. One of my favorite parts about the sport to watch are the suspenseful plays, particularly field goals. It's crazy to watch how accurate the kicks can be, especially since I can't kick at all (which you might already know because I'm a blogger :) So, for my question of the day, I ask: Who kicked the longest field goal and how long was it?





Trick Question! Two people share the title for the regular season: Tom Dempsey in 1970 and Jason Elam in 1998. The distance was 63 yards.

May 6- Geography

I was flipping through an atlas today, and was looking at some of the smaller country names. At this point, I was thinking of demonyms. A demonym is what you call a person from where they live. For example, I am from America, so I am an American. Someone from Spain would be a Spaniard, and so on. Anyway, one of the countries I noticed was Monaco. Monaco is a very tiny country that is entirely city and is on the Mediterranean Sea. And though I knew all of that, I didn't know what you called a person from Monaco, which brings me to my question of the day: What do you call a person from Monaco?





You call someone from Monaco a Monégasque or Monagasque.
If you would like to learn more about Monaco, visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monaco

May 5- Science

Recently, I was looking at the periodic table of the elements (I have a poster of it) and was looking at the pattern. How the lightest elements elements are at the top and the heavy in the middle, and the strip of medium ones on the bottom. One thing I noticed was that on most standard periodic tables, the element Lawrencium (Lr) is ALWAYS on the bottom right. This got me interested... because frankly, Lawrencium is strangely named. It doesn't have a normal name, like Hydrogen or Carbon or Lithium, but at the same time, it isn't clearly named after anything, like Americium; you know what that element was named after. Anyway, this brings me to my question of the day: For whom or what is Lawrencium named after?





First off, it was named after Ernest Lawrence (1901-1958) who invented the machine (cyclotron) that created Lawrencium. Lawrencium itself is Californium bombarded with Boron.

For more info (and to get all the fancy stuff) visit: http://homepage.mac.com/dtrapp/people/Lawrencium.html

May 4- History

For most of the 1800's, trouble had been brewing in America. Two distinct regions of the nation started growing apart, the North and the South. Ever since early colonization, these different regions were in for trouble. The Compromise of 1820 did little to offset the tension, neither did the compromise of 1850 or the Kansas- Nebraska act. New territories joining the union all the time didn't help it's problems either. And eventually, it came to war when the first Southern state seceded. Which brings me to my question of the day: Which was the first state to secede?





The first state to secede was South Carolina on December 20, 1860.

May 3- Presidents

Throughout U.S. history, many presidents have been related to other presidents. Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were 5th cousins. John Adams and John Quincy Adams were father and son, same with George Bush Sr. and George W. Bush. And, on the nation's 100th birthday, there was a president in office who was a grandson to one of our founding fathers (If not a bit of an obscure one), and a former president himself. So now, with all this presidential lineage, I give you my question of the day: Who are the only Grandfather-Grandson pair in U.S. history?





The Grandfather was William Henry Harrison and the Grandson was Benjamin Harrison.

May 2- Random

So today, after participating in town green-up day, the volunteers all gathered and had a big lunch. One of the things I enjoyed was a nice big sandwich with salami on it, a delicious meat with the shape of a sausage and fermented in bacteria. Anyway, it was pretty good. But after it, I began to wonder about the history of this noble meat. As it turns out, salami has a long and proud history, (It could only be made by the finest meat artists) starting in the Mediterranean area and working its way into the hearts and stomachs of the whole world. And all this salami history brings me to my question of the day: When and where was the worlds longest salami made, and how long was it?





The longest salami on record was 500 feet long, (200 longer than the Statue of Liberty). It was made in Denmark in 2003.

May 1- Music

The music of bluegrass. Coming from the state of Kentucky, The Blue Grass State, bluegrass music is a mixture of country, jazz, and blues. It also claims the deep roots of Irish, English, Scottish and Welsh traditional music (People from those countries were the first Europeans to pioneer the "backwoods", or west of the Appalachian). Incorporating many stringed instruments, bluegrass is quite a thing to listen to if you haven't before. Anyway, this all brings me to my question of the day: Who is often considered the "Father of Bluegrass"?




The artist Bill Monroe (1911-1996) is often referred to as the "Father of Bluegrass". He is most known for his band The Blue Grass Boys.