~★~♥~♥~★~ El Morno! ♥~★~★~♥ ~
December 29, 2013

 ★~ Today’s Quote:  Calling a taxi in Texas is like calling a rabbi in Iraq. ~ Fran Lebowitz 

★~ Pepper Pot Soup Day:

According to the legend……….. It was during the Revolutionary war, and the Continental army was camped at Valley Forge.  The winter of 1777-1778, was cold and harsh. Conditions were deplorable. Food was often scarce. George Washington asked his army’s chef to prepare a meal for the army, that would both warm them, and boost their moral. The chef found scraps of tripe, small bits of meat and some peppercorn. He mixed this in with some other ingredients, and created Pepper Pot soup, also known as “Philadelphia Pepper Pot soup”. The hot, and somewhat spicy soup, was well received by the troops. It was called “the soup that won the war”.

Celebrate Pepper Pot Day by making or opening a can of Pepper Pot soup for the family Note: while tripe was a main ingredient of this soup, you can substitute with chicken or beef. You could also make Jamaican Pepperpot soup if you can find 2 pounds of pig tails.

★~ Today in History:

 

♥~ The former Republic of Texas became the 28th state in the Union on December 29th, 1845.

♥~ 1952 – The first transistorized hearing aid was offered for sale by Sonotone Corporation

♥~ 1999 – Three ferrets named Beckham, Posh Spice and Baby Spice were used to lay power cables for a rock concert being held in Greenwich, London, England, (workers were not allowed to dig up the turf at the Royal Park). Organizers found that rods could not push the cables through the tiny tunnels, which frequently bend and dog-leg. The ferrets were eased into tiny nylon harnesses with wires which where then attached to a rope, the animals ran into a series of ducts which were under the stage like rabbit runs, leading the cables with them. The ferrets instinctively make for any hole in the ground and are enticed to the end of the duct by a slab of smelly meat. The New Years Eve concert featured Simply Red, Eurythmics and Bryan Ferry.

★~Born Today:

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♥~ 1800 – Charles Goodyear inventor of vulcanized rubber after he accidentally (after five years of research) dropped some rubber mixed with sulfur on a hot stove.

♥~ 1936 – Mary Tyler Moore Emmy Award-winning actress: The Mary Tyler Moore Show

♥~ 1947 – Ted Danson Emmy Award-winning actor: Cheers

★~ Good to Know….Texas

♥~Texas was admitted into the Union as the 28th state December 29, 1845. All other states except Texas entered the United States by territorial annexation. Only Texas entered by treaty.

♥~The word “Texas” was the Spanish pronunciation “Tejas” of the Hasinai Indian word meaning “allies” or “friends.”  The Texas state motto is “friendship.”

♥~At 268,601 square miles, Texas is the largest state in the contiguous United States and is the second biggest state in the U.S. (only Alaska is bigger). Texas is larger than many nations of the world, including every country in Europe. If it were a country, it would be the 40th largest country in the world, after Chile and Zambia.

♥~Beaumont to El Paso: 742 miles, Beaumont to Chicago: 770 miles

♥~El Paso is closer to California than to Dallas

♥~World’s first rodeo was in Pecos, July 4, 1883.

♥~King Ranch in South Texas is larger than Rhode Island.

♥~The Capitol Dome in Austin is the only dome in the U.S. which is taller than the Capitol Building in Washington DC (by 7 feet)

♥~The State Mascot is the Armadillo (an interesting bit of trivia about the armadillo is they always have four babies. They have one egg, which splits into four, and they either have four males or four females.).

♥~The state’s cattle population is estimated to be near 16 million.

♥~More wool comes from the state of Texas than any other state in the United States.

♥~Texas possesses three of the top ten most populous cities in the United States: Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio.

♥~It is still a hanging offense in Texas to steal cattle or to put graffiti on someone else’s cow. It is also illegal to indecently expose or swear in front of a corpse in Texas. In Galveston, Texas, it is illegal to have a camel run loose on the beach.

♥~The Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) is home to the world’s largest parking lot. The Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport has the third largest runway in the world and is the alternate landing site for the space shuttle. Texas has more airports than any other state in the country.

♥~Texas still owns all of its public lands. If the federal government wants to create a park or cut a stand of timber, it must first ask the state’s permission.

♥~The city of Slaughter, Texas, has never had a homicide.

♥~The largest city in Texas is Houston. It is also the fourth largest city in the United States.

♥~The Tyler Municipal Rose Garden is the world’s largest rose garden. It contains 38,000 rose bushes representing 500 varieties of roses set in a 22-acre garden.

♥~Amarillo has the world’s largest helium well.

♥~The San Jacinto Monument in LaPorte, TX is listed as the tallest stone column memorial structure in the world, 15 feet taller than the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.

♥~Texas’ nickname is the “Lone Star State” as a reminder of its struggle for independence from Mexico and to represent Texas as an independent republic.

♥~Texas experiences the most tornadoes in the United States, with an average of 139 per year. Tornadoes occur most often in North Texas and the Panhandle.

♥~Texas was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845. When it was annexed in 1845, it retained the right to fly its flag at the same height as the national flag.

♥~The letters “G.T.T.” were 19th-century short hand for “Gone to Texas,” a quick way for people to let their families know that they had left for greener grass. Eventually, so many people headed to Texas to escape the law that “G.T.T.” came to mean “on the lam.”

♥~In 1969, Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong called Houston, Texas, from the moon. The first word spoken on the moon in 1969 was “Houston.”

♥~Camels were imported into Texas twice in the 1850s by the U.S. War Department in the belief that they would be handy animals to use during the Indian Wars. They could be seen roaming Texas hills and deserts well into the 1920s.

♥~The Texas flag is called the “Lone Star Flag” and has three colors: red to represent courage, white to represent liberty, and blue to represent loyalty.  The large white star was first used on Texas flags in the 1830s during the battles between Texas and Mexico.

♥~Austin is home to the largest bat colony in North America. Over 1.5 million bats roost beneath the Congress Avenue Bridge over Lady Bird Lake and eat between 10,000- 30,000 lbs. of insects each night.

♥~The largest county in Texas is Brewster. It measures 6,193 square miles, which is roughly the size of Connecticut. Delaware could fit inside Brewster three times.

♥~A $60 million treasure of gold plundered by Coronado is believed to be buried on an 80-acre pasture at the Sems Ranch near Clyde, Texas.

♥~Dr Pepper originated in Texas. Charles Alderton (1857-1941), a Waco pharmacist, first created Dr Pepper in 1885. The oldest working Dr Pepper plant (since 1891) is in Dublin, 94 miles west of Waco. There is also no period after the “Dr” in Dr Pepper.

♥~After the popularity of the song “Luckenbach, Texas,” so many road signs were stolen that the government stopped making them.

♥~Texas is the largest petroleum-producing state in the U.S. and if it were an independent nation, it would rank as the world’s 5th largest petroleum-producing nation. Only 34 of Texas’ 254 counties have no known natural gas within their boundaries. However, no major wells have been discovered for a half-century or more.

♥~John Wayne and Chuck Norris are honorary Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers are the oldest law enforcement agency in North America with statewide jurisdiction.

♥~The Dallas TV drama series ran from 1978 to 1991 and has been dubbed into 67 languages and broadcast into more than 90 countries. It was filmed on location at the Cloyce Box Ranch in Frisco, Texas, outside of Dallas.

♥~There are more than 70,000 miles of highway in Texas, of which 40,985 are paved farm and ranch roads. Along Texas roads, there are more than a million signs and markers. Texas uses 1.6 million gallons of white and yellow paint each year to paint stripes along its highways.

♥~Davy Crockett, who died at the Alamo, once told his Tennessee peers in Congress “Ya’ll can go to hell. I am going to Texas.”

♥~Miriam A. “Ma” Ferguson was the first female governor of Texas and the first woman elected governor of any state.

♥~The world’s largest (and oldest) rattlesnake roundup is held every March in Sweetwater, Texas.

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I lived in Texas a good portion of my life and never knew about the camels -sigh- which is why I am not a fan of school they always live the good parts out of the history lesson.

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