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Today in History:
Happy World Emoji Day!
In 2014, Jeremy Burge, the founder of Emojipedia, brought forth the creation of World Emoji Day, a joyous occasion dedicated to celebrating the widespread use of emojis. These small pictorial icons have become an integral part of our text communications, providing visual representations of emotions and cues. Burge deliberately selected July 17th as the official date for this festive day, inspired by Apple’s calendar emoji that displays July 17, which commemorates the day Steve Jobs initially introduced Apple’s iCal software.
World Emoji Day has garnered immense popularity over the years, exerting its influence even on the design of calendar emojis across different platforms. Prior to this celebratory day, various companies used different dates on their calendar emojis, leading to confusion among users. However, as World Emoji Day gained traction, a consensus was reached. Today, as of the time of writing this article in 2023, most major platforms have adopted July 17 as the standardized date on their calendar emojis, signifying the significance and impact of this special occasion. Notable exceptions to this standardization are Microsoft and Facebook.
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Also of interest on July 17th
· 1901 – Liner Deutschland sets east to west transatlantic record of five days, eleven hours and five minutes.
· 1902 – Willis Carrier creates the first air conditioner in Buffalo, New York .
· 1938 – Douglas Corrigan takes off from Brooklyn to fly the “wrong way” to Ireland and becomes known as “Wrong Way” Corrigan.
· 1955 – Disneyland is dedicated and opened by Walt Disney in Anaheim, California .
· 1962 – Nuclear weapons testing : The “Small Boy” test shot Little Feller I becomes the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada National Security Site .
· 1984 – The national drinking age in the United States was changed from 18 to 21.
· 1985 – Founding of the EUREKA Network by former head of states François Mitterrand (France) and Helmut Kohl (Germany).
· 1989 – First flight of the B-2 Spirit Stealth Bomber.
· 2001 – Concorde is brought back into service nearly a year after the July 2000 crash.
· 2018 – Scott S. Sheppard announces that his team has discovered a dozen irregular moons of Jupiter .
Births on This Day
· 1917 – Phyllis Diller , American actress, comedian, and voice artist (d. 2012)
· 1920 – Gordon Gould , American physicist and academic, invented the laser (d. 2005)
· 1923 – John Cooper , English car designer, co-founded the Cooper Car Company (d. 2000)
· 1935 – Donald Sutherland , Canadian actor and producer
· 1947 – Mick Tucker , English rock drummer ( Sweet ) (d. 2002)
· 1952 – David Hasselhoff , American actor, singer, and producer
· 1976 – Luke Bryan , American singer-songwriter and guitarist
Deaths on This Day
· 1918 – Victims of the Shooting of the Romanov family
o Nicholas II of Russia (b. 1868)
o Alexandra Fyodorovna of Russia (b. 1872)
o Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1895)
o Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1897)
o Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1899)
o Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia (b. 1901)
o Alexei Nikolaevich, Tsarevich of Russia (b. 1904)
o Anna Demidova (b. 1878)
o Ivan Kharitonov (b. 1872)
o Alexei Trupp (b. 1858)
o Yevgeny Botkin (b. 1865)
· 1959 – Billie Holiday , American singer (b. 1915)
· 1961 – Ty Cobb , American baseball player and manager (b. 1886)
· 1967 – John Coltrane , American saxophonist and composer (b. 1926)
· 1974 – Dizzy Dean , American baseball player and sportscaster (b. 1910)
· 2006 – Mickey Spillane , American crime novelist (b. 1918)
· 2009 – Walter Cronkite , American journalist and actor (b. 1916)
· 2014 – Henry Hartsfield , American colonel, pilot, and astronaut (b. 1933)
H****olidays Today
July 17 Holidays & National Days | 2023 Calendar (nationaltoday.com)
The Funnies:
AI Contribution of the Day:
BingChat Prompt: create an image full of emojis
Quote of the Day:
Comic of the Day:
Crimes Against Hugh’s Manatees (tumblr.com)
Inspirobot Always Controversial, Occasionally Inspirational Quote of the Day:
In Case you missed Friday’s better late than never Spark! you can catch it here .
What I am listening to today: https://youtu.be/NM6I-pmV0RA
