AFM | Thursday, 10/18/2018 | #33
From the founding era. In 2018 this went out every weekday as a card, not an essay — so there is no narrative to publish here, and none has been invented. What follows is the edition itself, reconstructed from the two spreadsheets that recorded it.
Today is
- National Chocolate Cupcake Day
- Jesse Pipeline Explosion in Nigeria Kills Over 200 The oil pipeline, which was owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, was situated just outside the city of Lagos. Over 200 people died in the resulting fire that raged for 6 days before it could be put out.
- 1998
- Jean-Claude Van Damme
- Velgian Martial Artsit, actor, director, lover of Tostitos
- 1960
- National No Beard Day
- Pierre Trudeau
- Canadian Politician, 15th PM of Canada
- 1919
- Alaska Becomes a Part of the United States US had purchased the large and sparsely populated territory of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. The purchase was not seen as a positive acquirement by many American citizens who believed that adding Alaska to the US’s territory was a waste of taxpayers’ money. Many called the act, Seward's folly after Secretary of State William H. Seward, who was responsible for making the purchase. Alaska was admitted to the Union as a state in 1959. October 18 is annually celebrated as Alaska Day in Alaska.
- 1867
This day in history
- First Space Probe to Enter the Atmosphere of Another Planet The Soviet Probe Venera 4 entered Venus’ atmosphere and sent back information to Earth for about 90 minutes before it lost contact. When Venera 7 landed on Venus a few years later, it became the first probe to land on another planet.
- 1967
- Moby Dick is Published for the First Time The epic written by American novelist, Herman Melville, is about a sailor's obsession with tracking down and killing an elusive whale that took his leg in a previous encounter. The book was published as The Whale in London for the first time and then a month later as Moby Dick in the United States. It is thought to be one of the best works of fiction written in modern times.
- 1851
Born on this day
- Zac Efron — American Actor, Singer (1987)
- Lindsey Vonn — American Skier (1984)
- Jessse Helms — American politician (1921)
Died on this day
- Leo Strauss — German/American Philosopher (1973)
- Thomas Edison — American businesman, inventor of light bulb, phonograph (1931)
- Charles Babbage — English mathematician, engineer, invented the difference engine (1871)
All it takes to make a difference is the courage to stop proving I was right in being unable to make a difference…to stop assigning cause for my inability to the circumstances outside of myself and to be willing to have been that way, and to see that the fear of being a failure is a lot less important than the unique opportunity I have to make a difference.— Werner Erhard
The answer
second place
The riddle itself wasn't kept. The index recorded the answer for every edition and the question for only some — this is one it didn't.
Aloha Friday Motivation
· Edition #33 · 10/18/2018 ·