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We can trace this historic American Christian tradition to the year 1623. After the harvest crops were gathered in November 1623, Governor William Bradford of the 1620 Pilgrim Colony, "Plymouth Plantation" in Plymouth, Massachusetts proclaimed: "All ye Pilgrims with your wives and little ones, do gather at the Meeting House, on the hill… there to listen to the pastor, and render Thanksgiving to the Almighty God for all His blessings."

Thursday, the 19th day of February, 1795 was thus set aside by George Washington as a National Day of Thanksgiving. Many years later, on October 3, 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, by Act of Congress, an annual National Day of Thanksgiving "on the last Thursday of November, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens." In this Thanksgiving proclamation, our 16th President says that it is…

So it is that on Thanksgiving Day each year, Americans give thanks to Almighty God for all His blessings and mercies toward us throughout the year.

There are more than 1,000 species of bats in the world! They live on every continent of the world, except Antarctica. Bats do not live in areas where it is very hot or very cold, and there are some remote islands that are not home to bats.

Bats are mammals. They account for more than 25 percent of all the mammals on the earth! Bats are the only mammals that can fly.

Mother bats have one baby in their litter. The baby bats are called “pups.” When a pup is born, it usually has no hair and its eyes are closed. It clings to the mother bat and drinks milk from her. When the pup is about four months old, it learns to fly.

The primary fuels now used in automobiles, namely gasoline and diesel, are essentially derived from crude oil (petroleum)

properties as natural gas, coal and other carbonaceous fuels

as Fischer-Tropsch Diesel, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide

n experiments, the cream-based ultra-violet (UV) filters -- used to protect skin from the harmful effects of sun exposure -- caused bleaching of coral reefs even in small quantities, the study found.

But some 60 percent of these reef systems are threatened by a deadly combination of climate change, industrial pollution and excess UV radiation.

The new study, published in U.S. journal Environmental Health Perspectives, has now added sun screens to the list of damaging agents, and estimates that up to 10 percent of the world's reefs are at risk of sunscreen-induced coral bleaching.

Exposure to arsenic can occur from the environment and food consumption

Arsenic contamination of groundwater has led to a massive epidemic of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh[32] and neighbouring countries.

Presently 42 major incidents around the world have been reported on groundwater arsenic contamination. It is estimated that approximately 57 million people are drinking groundwater with arsenic concentrations elevated above the World Health Organization's standard of 10 parts per billion. However, a study of cancer rates in Taiwan [33] suggested that significant increases in cancer mortality appear only at levels above 150 parts per billion. The arsenic in the groundwater is of natural origin, and is released from the sediment into the groundwater due to the anoxic conditions of the subsurface.

The western portion of Prince William Sound was the most heavily oiled in 1989 and oil on some beaches remains a serious concern for residents of the Sound who use these areas.

The remaining 1,100 miles of oiled shoreline were considered to have light to very light oiling. Crews visiting beaches in 1993 found hundreds of sites that contained substantial oil deposits.

A 1992 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) study* estimated that a great majority of the oil evaporated, dispersed into the water column or degraded naturally.

Born on January 4, 1809, Coupvray, France, Braille was accidentally blinded in one eye at the age of three. Within two years, a disease in his other eye left him completely blind.

Captain Charles Barbier invented sonography, or nightwriting, a system of embossed symbols used by soldiers to communicate silently at night on the battlefield. Inspired by a lecture Barbier gave at the Institute a few years later, the fifteen-year-old Braille adapted Barbier's system to replace Haüy's awkward embossed type, which he and his classmates had been obliged to learn.

In his initial study, Braille had experimented with geometric shapes cut from leather as well as with nails and tacks hammered into boards. He finally settled on a fingertip-sized six-dot code, based on the twenty-five letters of the alphabet, which could be recognized with a single contact of one digit. By varying the number and placement of dots, he coded letters, punctuation, numbers, diphthongs, familiar words, scientific symbols, mathematical and musical notation, and capitalization. With the right hand, the reader touched individual dots and, with the left, moved on toward the next line, comprehending as smoothly and rapidly as sighted readers. Using the Braille system, students were also able to take notes and write themes by punching dots into paper with a pointed stylus which was aligned with a metal guide.

Some may be trained to help, but really it's in these beloved companions' nature to save us in ways big and small.

The selfless action of two dogs in Winona, Minn., gripped the nation recently.

Dogs see the best in us

Ader kept working to perfect his airplane, and finally, with the financial backing of the French Army, he built Avion III, a flying machine similar in design to the Eole but with a longer wingspan and two four-blade propellers. On Oct. 14, 1897, Ader tested his Avion at Satory with a military observer team present. Ader claimed that that day he had again flown, but three witnesses disagreed with each other about whether Ader actually took off and flew the Avion before it crashed.

SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY

Langley was soon experimenting with models, the first of which were powered by rubber bands

1. Polar ice caps meltingThe ice caps melting is a four-pronged danger.First, it will raise sea levels. There is 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet. Luckily, that’s not going to happen. But sea levels will rise.Second, melting ice caps will screw up the global ecosystem. The ice caps are fresh water, and when they melt into the ocean, they make it less salty, or desalinize the ocean. The desalinization of the gulf current will screw up, to put it simply, the current. It will cool the area around north-east America and Western Europe. Luckily, that will slow some of the other effects of global warming in that area. But with the stream shutdown, the whole Atlantic ecosystem could be warped.Third, all the animals in the Arctic will be in danger because of a changing habitat.Fourth, global warming will accelerate with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight. Some of that sunlight is reflected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps are melted, only the dark-colored ocean will be there. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.

developed primarily in the United States, although it was certainly influenced by other traditions, such as European forms of empiricism

methodological behaviorism and radical behaviorism

early 19th century

Your goal was to break through in the United States. Do you have the feeling that you have attained it? Tom: Frankly, none of us four expected that there'd be so many fans at our concerts. It has always been sold out and the public was as crazy over there as in Europe. I think, we have fulfilled our contract. The mission is accomplished in a way (laughter). Georg: We all feel to have managed to achieve something great. I don't think that before us a German band has met such hype in the USA.

About Lung Cancer Lung Cancer is a disease that begins in the tissue of the lungs. The lungs are sponge-like organs that are part of the respiratory system. During breathing, air enters the mouth or nasal passage and travels down the trachea. The trachea splits into two sets of bronchial tubes that lead to the left and right lung. The bronchi branch off into smaller and smaller tubes that eventually end in small balloon-like sacs known as alveoli. The alveoli are where oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other substances are exchanged between the lungs and the blood stream.

Tokyo, Japan Current Population: 35.2 million Projected 2025 Population: 36.4 million Annual Growth Rate 2007 to 2025: 0.11%

Tokyo is a major global financial center. Its rail system, the largest in the world, is clean and efficient.

Tokyo's water and electricity capacity is in fine shape for a growing population, experts say