January 30, 2023 Ridley's Believe It Or Not

 

Brock Purdy aka Mr. Irrelevant for being picked last in the draft showed how relevant he was in the NFC Championship Game after he was injured and replaced by veteran backup and ineffective Johnson who was later removed by a concussion with Purdy forced to return but limited due to elbow injury to short passes as the 49’ers went down to defeat 31-7. In the AFC Championship the Chiefs topped the Bengals 23-20  following a 29 yard run back in which a block in the back was not called and a vicious hit on a barely hobbling Mahone out of bounds put the Chiefs in easy field goal range for the Chiefs to return the favor of losing last year to a closing seconds Bengal field goal. In good news for Stanford alums, the Stanford women basketball team ended their sweep of the Oregon schools, beating Oregon State 63-60 and Oregon 64-52 with Brink getting a triple double of 16 points, 11 rebounds and a Stanford game record of 10 blocks. 1000’s of protestors this weekend over the death of Tyre Nichols but to the relief of many not accompanied by the level of rioting and looting we witnessed after the death of George Floyd (could it be the cold weather or the fact that cops beating him were all black?). I hope you enjoy today’s Ridley's Believe It Or Not  and find it worthy to read and if not reply “Unsubscribe” to be removed.  
Ridley’s Believe It Or Not January 30, 2023
          Noted Holidays: School Day of Non-Violence and Peace, created Majorca in 1964 and celebrated on this day which is the anniversary of the death by assassination of Mahatma Gandhi  by the Spanish poet Llorenc Vidal to promote and support pacifying and non-violent education, as the first step in an educational path to build  a permanent character based on the principles of tolerance, harmony, solidarity, respect for human rights, peace, and non-violence.
          Word of the Day: The word of the day is “aerophobia” which means a fear of flying or drafts which covers both the fear of crashing and the fear of being couped up in seat in coach with no leg room.
          Number 1 Song of the Day: The number 1 song on this day in 1973 was “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder on a run of 1 week to share with 26 other acts achieving number 1 status, while 14 acts achieved their first number 1 song with Jim Croce being the third person to receive his posthumously.  Here is a recording of Stevie Wonder performing “Superstition”:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CFuCYNx-1g 
          Noted Birthdays: Khaleed "Khleo" Leon Thomas, born on this day 1989 in Anchorage, Alaska who started appearing in commercials at the age of 6 after his family moved to Southern California. Ironically his first big break in acting came being casted in “Holes” a comedy set in the dessert and since then has roles in 21 movies, 15 TV roles and touring with rappers such as Snoop Dog and Ice Cube.
          Notable Events that occurred on January 30:
          1.     1835—In the first attempt of assassination of a U.S. President, Richard Lawrence tried and failed to shoot President Andrew Jackson but but guns misfired to damp powder which caused Jackson to attack him with his cane and bystanders including Representative Davy Crocket to subdue him. Lawrence was found to be insane unfit for trial and confined to a mental institution for the rest of his life, dying June 13, 1861 at the supposed age of 61.
          2.     1920—The Japanese car company Mazda was founded as a cork producing company.
          3.     1959—In a back to the drawing boards moment the MV Hans Tedtoft, a Danish freighter designed to operate in iceberg infected waters on her maiden voyage with 55 passengers and 40 crew hit an iceberg off the coast of Western Greenland to have the dubious distinction of having no survivors and the only evidence of its existence was a buoy washed ashore days later. The ship is the last known ship sunk by an iceberg.
          4.     1968—After being assured by the likes of General Westmorland that we were winning the Vietnam War, to the surprise of the American and South Vietnamese Military, the Viet Cong and NVA troops launched launched the Tet Offensive across the nation attacking 100 village and towns, including 36 of 44 provincial capitals and Saigon, where American viewers were horrified to see the American Embassy under attack. Although the Viet Cong and NVA were decisively defeated, the Tet Offensive signified the beginning of the end for American support of the Vietnam War and resulted in LBJ not running for a second term.
          5.     2020—The World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 pandemic to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
          Quotes of the Day: Walter Cronkite, noted and respected CBS News Anchor February 1968 :"To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. To suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion. On the off chance that military and political analysts are right, in the next few months we must test the enemy’s intentions in case this is indeed his last gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honourable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.”
Tran Van Tra, Viet Cong general who led the attacks on Saigon during the Tet Offensive, writing in 1978: “[The Tet Offensive] failed because we underestimated our enemies and overestimated ourselves. We set goals which we realistically could not achieve.”
 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
www.alaskanpoet.blogspot.com
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