Good morning, Whitewater
Whitewater’s
2009 Relay for Life begins today, with their website listing events, and offering a link for donations.
Wired‘s This Day in Tech column reports that today is the day, centuries ago, that the Chinese reportedly invented the toothbrush, in a story entitled, “June 26, 1498: A Brush With History” —
The emperor of China patents the toothbrush: hogback bristles set into a piece of bone or bamboo. Dental hygiene takes a step up.
How — or if — you cleaned your teeth before this time depended on culture and class. The chew stick, or chewing stick or toothstick, was a piece of twig. One could chew one end of the stick until it was quite frayed and then use the frayed end to brush and scrape one’s teeth.
If you had a knife handy, you could carve the other end of the stick to a sharp point to pick at the larger specks of oral detritus. And if the twig came from an aromatic tree or shrub, all the better, because you got some breath freshener in the bargain….
Here’s today’s almanac —
| Almanac | ||
|---|---|---|
| Friday, June 26, 2009 | Sunrise | Sunset |
| Official Time | 05:17 AM | 08:37 PM |
| Civil Twilight | 04:42 AM | 09:12 PM |
| Tomorrow | 05:18 AM | 08:37 PM |
| Tomorrow will be: | 1 minute shorter | |
| Amount of sunlight: | 15h 20m | |
| Amount of daylight: | 16h 30m | |
| Moon phase: | Waxing crescent | |