On This Day: Tuesday July 25, 2006

This is the 206th day of the year, with 159 days remaining in 2006.

Fact of the Day: sushi

Sushi, the Japanese specialty, consists of rice mixed with a dressing that not only adds flavor but makes the rice shapeable in a mold or by rolling. Additional ingredients include raw or cooked fish or seafood and vegetables. Layers of sushi rice and prepared ingredients are pressed into a mold to form little cakes, or wrapped in a sheet of nori seaweed and served in slices. Dipping sauce, mustard, and pickled ginger are typical accompaniments.

Holidays

Feast day of St. Christopher, Saints Thea, Valentina and Paul, St. James the Greater, and St. Magnericus.
Spain: St. James Day.
Costa Rica: Guanacaste Day.
Puerto Rico: Constitution Day.
Tunisia: Republic Day.

Events

1832 - The first recorded railroad accident in U.S. history occurred, on the Granite Railway near Quincy, Massachusetts.
1866 - Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army, the first officer to hold the rank.
1868 - The U.S. Congress passed an act creating the Wyoming Territory.
1898 - During the Spanish-American War, U.S. forces launched their invasion of Puerto Rico.
1909 - Louis Bleriot first crossed the English Channel in an airplane.
1917 - Margaretha Zelle, the Dutch spy known as Mata Hari, was sentenced to death.
1943 - Benito Mussolini was forced to resign as Dictator of Italy, bringing an end to the Fascist regime.
1952 - Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the United States.
1956 - The Italian liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the Swedish ship Stockholm, 45 miles south of Nantucket Island; 51 people died.
1978 - Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in Oldham, England; she'd been conceived through in-vitro fertilization.
1984 - Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space.
2000 - A New York-bound Air France Concorde crashed outside Paris shortly after takeoff, killing all 109 people on board and four people on the ground.
2004 - Lance Armstrong won a record sixth Tour de France bicycle race, in an amazing comeback after his bout with cancer.

Births

1844 - Thomas Eakins, American painter.
1937 - Colin Renfrew, British archaeologist.
1986 - Dark Horse (aka David), MM's friend from MySpace ^_^

Deaths

1843 - Charles Macintosh, Scottish chemist and inventor.

(no subject)