Quote of the Day: “Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.” – John Boyle O’Reilly
Photo by: Karl Magnuson
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
70 years ago today, a Swedish housewife in her mid-30s, Astrid Lindgren, sprained her ankle so badly that she was confined to bed and finally put pen to paper transcribing the bedtime stories she’d been telling her 10-year-old daughter Karin for years. Pippi Longstocking, the red-haired, freckled character, became a “new role model for female assertiveness” and the chapter books were translated into 76 languages from Arabic to Zulu. READ more… (1944)
In the continuing saga of NASA’s presence on the Red Planet, they just reported locating the broken rotor blade lost by the stricken Mars helicopter.
They say a large portion of the blade has been spotted lying on the dune-like surface, about 50 feet to the west of the small aircraft.
Ingenuity performed 72 flights, but the rotor mishap left it stranded in the Jezero Crater location.
The Remote Microscopic Imager (RMI) camera aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took zoomed-in images of the scene on February 24—the 1,072nd Martian day of the mission.
A mosaic of these pictures shows the helicopter to the right of the blade, standing at an angle near the apex of a sand ripple.
The Ingenuity team is considering a theory that the blade detached after the rotorcraft impacted the Martian surface at the conclusion of the helicopter’s 72nd and final flight on 18 January.
“Able to spot a softball from nearly a mile away, the RMI allows scientists to take images of details from a long distance. It also provides fine details of nearby targets zapped by SuperCam’s laser,” reported NASA.
The space agency announced the end of the mission for Ingenuity on January 25, stating the “history-making Ingenuity Mars Helicopter has ended its mission at the Red Planet after surpassing expectations and making dozens more flights than planned.”
Originally designed as a technology demonstration to perform up to five experimental test flights over 30 days, the first aircraft on another world operated from the Martian surface for almost three years.
Ingenuity flew more than 14 times farther than planned while logging more than two hours of total flight time.
A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life. The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache the Martian rock and dust.
Subsequent NASA missions, in cooperation with ESA (the European Space Agency), would send spacecraft to Mars to collect these sealed samples from the surface and return them to Earth for in-depth analysis.
The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission is part of NASA’s Moon to Mars exploration approach, which includes Artemis missions to the Moon that will help prepare for human exploration of the Red Planet.
While most Americans will think of asparagus as a tasty compliment to a fish dinner, or alternatively as an inedibly, mushy, misery stick to be substituted for potatoes in every occasion, Down Under it is an entirely different situation.
The asparagus fern is one of the most serially invasive plants on the continent, and one Australian man has gone as far as to declare war on them, armed with a clever weapon of mass de-weeding he invented himself.
In the northern state of Queensland, Ron Gooch took his battery electric drill and modified the hole saw attachment with a section of sewer piping to create “The Asparagus Assassin” which he has used for years to clear the invasive basket asparagus fern.
“There’s a lot of bush between us and the beach and it was full of weeds,” Mr. Gooch, a resident of Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, told ABC News Australia. “It became a passion to get rid of the weeds and asparagus was one of the major ones.”
Australia has spent half a century trying to eliminate invasive species, as the isolated continent was overwhelmed by species that quickly filled unoccupied niches in the landscape. Some of the most famous culprits are foxes, feral cats, and cane toads, but prickly pear cactus had become the tyrant pest of the vegetable kingdom.
It was eventually eradicated from Australia with the help of a tiny insect, but the basket asparagus fern has only human enemies like Gooch at the moment. The plant was brought as an ornamental that eventually spread out of control.
But there are reasons to be sunny about the situation on the Sunshine Coast, as a local group of “bushcare” volunteers found that Gooch’s Asparagus Assassin was so effective that they needed more, and secured a grant for five more.
With extensive underground root systems, pulling the basket asparagus fern out of the ground isn’t enough. The assassin is used to tunnel down to the crown of the roots, encircle it, and then saw away all the connecting roots, ensuring it can’t grow back.
Gooch isn’t planning on monetizing the tool because he doesn’t want to manage the production, but hopes others will use his design to combat weeds in their environs.
In a video on ABC, Gooch demonstrates the difference between using a folding hand saw to remove the crown and using his assassin, and the job is done in about a quarter of the time.
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Two Russian schoolboys, working as cloakroom attendants when the recent terrorist attack occurred at Moscow’s Crocus City Hall, have been hailed as heroes for assisting in the rescue of hundreds of fleeing concertgoers.
Islam Khalilov, 15, and Artyom Donskoy, 14 were awarded medals for bravery in a ceremony by Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights.
On March 22nd, gunmen stormed the Crocus and began firing on those attending a rock concert and setting fire to the theater.
Khalilov—an immigrant from the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, told reporters he thought that some workers were doing “noisy” repair work in the hall, but realized something was wrong when people came running.
He and Donskoy helped lead the fleeing attendees away from dead-end hallways and locked maintenance doors and out through the exits.
“I understood that if I didn’t react, many people including me would lose their lives,” Islam said, according to the BBC. He added that he was the last to exit the venue, “so that I didn’t leave anyone behind”.
The attack is believed to have been perpetrated by four men from the majority-Muslim country of Tajikistan.
The Grand Mufti of Russia, an important Islamic religious leader named Ravil Gaynutdin, said young Khalilov, who is also a Muslim, would be presented with the Medal of Muslims of Russia during Friday prayers this week.
A reward was also forthcoming to the young man from the popular Russian Rapper Morgenshtern, who said he would send the boy 1 million roubles ($10,900) to say thank you.
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Quote of the Day: “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without.” – James Baldwin
Photo by: Polina Kovaleva
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
76 years ago today, a mere 11 days after being released from prison, jazz singer Billie Holiday played in front of a sold-out crowd at Carnegie Hall, NYC. Holiday was supposed to have hesitated when her manager suggested a comeback performance at the famous hall, unsure if audiences would accept her after the arrest. She gave in and agreed to appear. Two thousand seven hundred tickets were sold in advance, a record at the time for the venue. READ about her trial, arrest, and shocking performance… (1948)
Oregon is now the new home of the world’s 19th dark sky sanctuary, offering pristine views of the night sky across over 3,800 square miles, making it the largest of its kind.
The certification, issued by DarkSky International, involved a years-long effort by federal, state, and local officials, community members, and several legal jurisdictions.
The first zone of the total amount of area submitted for certification comprises 2.5 million acres in Lake County, southeastern Oregon. The certified area is about one-half the size of New Jersey in a region frequently referred to as the “Oregon Outback,” considered a paradise for stargazers.
If completed, the full Oregon Outback International Dark Sky Sanctuary (OOIDSS) will encompass over 11.4 million acres of voluntarily protected night skies.
“As the population of Oregon and the trend of light pollution continue to rise, the unparalleled scale and quality of the Outback’s dark skies will long serve as a starry refuge for people and wildlife alike,” said DarkSky Delegate Dawn Nilson, who organized Oregon’s application.
Founded in 2001, the International Dark Sky Places Program is a non-regulatory and voluntary program to encourage communities, parks, and protected areas around the world to preserve and protect dark sites through effective lighting policies, environmentally responsible outdoor lighting, and public education. Their work has created a network of Dark Sky places, sanctuaries, and parks encompassing over 160,000 square kilometers in 22 countries worldwide.
The Oregon Outback is situated in the northern extent of the Basin and Range Province of the Western United States. It’s sparsely populated, very remote, and primarily comprises public lands. It’s a high desert area characterized by sage scrub and abrupt changes in topography that’s home to a variety of iconic American wildlife such as the bighorn sheep and greater sage grouse.
Public officials and a variety of other stakeholders participated in night sky monitoring, lighting inventories, lighting improvements (i.e. decommissioned 14 lights and retrofitted 60 lights on public and private land), and public outreach to bring the nomination together.
Phase 2 of the OOIDSS application includes portions of Harney and Malheur counties to the east of Lake County. Only a few lighting retrofits, and local approvals are outstanding in the Phase 2 area which would need to be addressed for the full application to go through.
Other famous Dark Sky Parks in the US include all the National Parks in Utah, Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida, and Big Bend National Park in Texas.
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Here’s a hypothetical: You want to give away $640 million, but you want to give it away to many different groups. How do you find the groups? How do you process value judgments between charities and non-profit organizations and decide who to uplift and who to ignore?
Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott has figured it out, as part of her commitment to relinquish all the money she received in her divorce settlement with Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
She had already given away billions, but wanted to hone the process in time for her next distribution.
An organization set up to help her navigate this problem, Yield Giving, recently completed an open call process for a grant money giveaway wherein Scott donated double the millions she originally earmarked—in the end, helping 361 charities and nonprofits with grants of one to two million dollars each.
Yield Giving conducted investigations into the processes, transparency, and effectiveness of all the orgs that applied for a grant through the open call process alongside an organizer called Levers for Change.
The evaluation was done through “careful analysis of criteria specific to their size, geography, and mission for indicators of high potential for sustained positive impact, including stable finances, multi-year track records, measurement and evidence of outcomes, and experienced leadership representative of the community served,” Yield wrote on their website.
“The 279 nonprofits that received top scores from an external review panel were awarded $2 million, while 82 organizations in a second tier received $1 million each,” AP News reported.
In a blog post on Yield Giving, Ms. Scott explained the process that saw Levers for Change whittle through a pool of over 6,000 applicants.
“Each of these 361 community-led non-profits was elevated… for their outstanding work advancing the voices and opportunities of individuals and families of meager or modest means, and groups who have met with discrimination and other systemic obstacles,” she wrote.
A scroll through the total list of recipients shows that many of the donations went to human-centered work: improving opportunities for disadvantaged youth, aiding those unfairly battered by the criminal justice system, connecting victims of trauma and violence with people and groups who can help them, or securing stability for the homeless or immigrants, just to name a few.
Many of the organizations released statements upon receiving the gift, which came along with a letter from Scott explaining her appreciation for their work.
Able SC is a disability-led organization seeking transformational changes in systems and communities to better support disabled people.
“Able South Carolina is thrilled and overjoyed to be selected not only to receive this gift from Yield Giving but also as one of the top-rated organizations in the nation,” said Able SC President and CEO Kimberly Tissot.
“This gift brings our vision closer to reality. With $2 million, we will invest this towards our big goals of developing a nationally recognized disability-led initiative.”
Avenues for Justice has diverted thousands of NYC youth from incarceration since 1979.
“By providing the youth of New York City a second chance to fulfill their potential and reach for their dreams, Avenues for Justice attempts to meet those goals every day,” said AFJ Board Chair, Alanna Rutherford. “We thank Yield Giving Open Call for the opportunity to expand our education, mentorship, job training, and other services that we provide our clients.”
The Colorado Fiscal Institute uses research, advocacy, strategic communications, and statewide education to promote responsible, people-centered, fiscal, and economic policies that advance equity and widespread prosperity in Colorado.
“We’re deeply grateful to receive this generous gift from MacKenzie Scott. It’s a testament to the efforts of our incredible staff, current and former board of directors, amazing local funders and supporters who’ve been with us all this time… with whom we’ve been working toward our shared vision of a state where our fiscal and economic policies support equity and widespread prosperity,” said CFI Executive Director Kathy White.
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24 years ago, a fledging Good News Network reported on a vote in Congress to restore the Florida Everglades.
Rep. Clay Shaw, (R – FL) who left office in 2007, and who passed away a decade ago, called the plan “the biggest environmental restoration project in the history of the world” at the time, which aimed to undo the Army Corps of Engineers “Drain the Everglades” project which started in 1949.
Today, that plan is now in full effect, with over 60 infrastructure projects earmarked for $20 billion that will perform ecosystem-wide “heart bypass surgery.” The Florida fiscal year 2024 budget alone included $740 million for this kind of work, which the Everglades Foundation applauded.
As featured in CBS Mornings, the Drain the Everglades project disconnected Lake Okeechobee from feeding the Everglades ecosystem. This large lake gradually fed the 300-mile-wide river of grass that is the Everglades, and when it was removed, the water quality and quantity declined precipitously.
As wet as it is, South Florida has experienced a catalogue of environmental problems stemming from the loss of water from Lake Okeechobee, including seagrass die-offs, exacerbation of red tide, wildfires in the Everglades ecosystem, and blue-green algae blooms.
Reconnecting the “beating heart,” or the lake, to the millions of acres its water helps refresh is the aim of the modern-day restoration effort.
The first step was to build a large reservoir south of the lake, which has been partially completed already. The next will be to raise up the Tamiami Road, an east-west byway that cuts significant water flow off to the southern Everglades.
Florida sugar plantations are also an impediment to the restoration work. Runoff from the agricultural fields would otherwise contaminate the Everglades, and the state has responded by building the largest man-made wetland on Earth (63,000 acres) to capture the runoff.
The construction was paid for upfront by the state, with polluters footing the financing in the form of a pollution tax, levied particularly hard on the large sugar plantations, CBS reports.
It’s estimated the reservoir will be finished by 2036, and restoration participants believe it won’t be for another 15 years that the landscape and the people of South Florida really begin to experience the benefits of these projects.
But these are all small incremental steps in a project that might not intend to move heaven, but certainly the earth, to give South Florida’s wildlife, wetlands, and people back the healthy river of grass that has no equal in size and complexity anywhere in the world.
WATCH the story below with CBS Morning’s Jeff Glor…
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A solar eclipse is coming on April 8th, 2024, and unlike when it drifts across the Indian Ocean or somewhere equally remote, this year’s event is going right across North America.
Occurring when the moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, eclipses are one of the most exciting phenomena for people who like to look up at the heavenly vault.
A total solar eclipse like this one only occurs every year or two, and there’s no guarantee for it to happen in places where no people live. The total solar eclipse on April 8th will be visible across Mexico, the United States, and Canada. That’s why some people are calling it “The Great North American Eclipse.”
Nearly everyone in North America will be able to see the Moon cover part of the Sun. That forms a partial eclipse, where crescents of the Sun remain visible. This time, and like the 2017 eclipse that passed over North America, millions of people will be in the “path of totality.” That means they will be able to see the sky turn to dusk in the middle of the day
The total solar eclipse begins in Mexico on the morning of April 8th. It will then cross into Texas in the United States. After that, it will pass Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Parts of Tennessee and Michigan can see it too. Then the total solar eclipse will reach Canada. The town of Maberly will be the last place on land to see it.
The total eclipse, the kind that noticeably drops the light and temperature, only lasts for a couple of minutes. But it takes about three hours for the Moon to completely move over the Sun.
The Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon. However, the Moon is about 400 times closer to the Earth. That’s why they appear roughly the same size from our planet
Whatever your view, partial or total, never look directly at the Sun because it can burn parts of your eye or cause blindness. Even a short while is enough to cause permanent damage. The only time it is safe to look at a solar eclipse is when the Moon covers the Sun completely.
But Amazon sells a variety of special eclipse glasses and solar viewers that not only allow you to look directly at the Sun, but see even more of the Sun’s activity behind the moon, such as coronal mass ejections.
Quote of the Day: “Memory is part of the present. It builds us up inside and keeps us who we are.” – Gregory Maguire
Photo by: Felipe Galvan
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
49 years ago today, the Biological Weapons Convention, (BWC) entered into force. It’s considered to have established a strong global norm against biological weapons reflected in the treaty’s preamble, which states that the use of biological weapons would be “repugnant to the conscience of mankind”. It is also demonstrated by the fact that not a single state today declares to possess or seek biological weapons, or asserts that their use in war is legitimate, and today, only Israel, Chad, Eritrea, and 5 small island nations have not signed the agreement. READ more about the BWC… (1979)
Less than three months after U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin and her colleagues launched an investigation into the four major American manufacturers of inhalers, three of the companies have relented, making commitments to cap costs for their inhalers at $35 for patients who now pay much more.
25 million Americans have asthma and 16 million Americans have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), meaning over 40 million Americans rely on inhalers to breathe.
Inhalers have been available since the 1950s, and most of the drugs they use have been on the market for more than 25 years.
According to a statement from the Wisconsin Senator’s office, inhaler manufacturers sell the exact same products at a much lower costs in other countries. One of AstraZeneca’s inhalers, Breztri Aerosphere, costs $645 in the U.S.—but just $49 in the UK. Inhalers made by Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, and Teva have similar disparities.
Baldwin and her Democratic colleagues—New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders—pressured the companies to lower their prices by writing letters to GSK, Boehringer Ingelheim, Teva, and AstraZeneca requesting a variety of documents that show why such higher prices are charged in America compared to Europe.
As a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, Baldwin recently announced that as a result of the letters they had secured commitments from three of the four to lower the out-of-pocket costs of inhalers to a fixed $35.00 rate.
“For the millions of Americans who rely on inhalers to breathe, this news is a major step in the right direction as we work to lower costs and hold big drug companies accountable,” said Senator Baldwin.
It’s the second time in the last year that pharmaceutical companies were forced to provide reasonable prices—after the cost of insulin was similarly capped successfully at $35 per month thanks to Congressional actions led by the White House.
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Bumblebees can teach others new behaviors too complex for them to learn alone, suggests a paper published in Nature that essentially posits humans and bees share knowledge in exactly the same way.
In the study, a bee taught to solve a puzzle for a sugary reward was able to train other bees to complete the task, providing evidence that bees can socially learn some behaviors at a level of complexity previously thought to be unique to humans and our ancestors.
Culture is a word that’s thrown around quite a lot, but at the root of it is the designation of a particular behavior that is socially learned and persists over time.
Increasing evidence suggests that, like human culture, animal culture can be cumulative, with sequential behaviors building on previous ones. Human cumulative culture involves behaviors so complex that they lie beyond the capacity of any individual to independently discover during their lifetime.
However, this behavior has not yet been demonstrated in an invertebrate species, generally considered at the bottom of the barrel of intelligent life.
“You and I are both, biologically speaking, African apes, but I am writing this on a laptop in Cornwall, and you might be reading it in Colombo, Caracas, or Canberra,” writes co-author of the study Alex Thorton. “This reflects one of the most remarkable attributes of the human species—the progressive improvement of skills and technologies as innovations spread and are built on.”
Bumblebees, however, are extremely social insects that have proven themselves capable of acquiring non-natural behaviors, such as string-pulling and ball-rolling, via social learning in order to gain rewards.
Alice Bridges, Lars Chittka, Alex Thorton, and their colleagues set up a difficult task to investigate whether bumblebees are capable of learning more complex behaviors from others in the colony.
They designed a two-step puzzle box in which the bees first must move an obstacle to allow a rotating lid to be opened, revealing a sucrose reward. Members from three separate colonies were given 24 days (a sizeable chunk of a bee’s life) to work this out, but not a single one succeeded independently through trial and error.
Indeed, it took around two days to train demonstrator bees to complete the task, often requiring a reward at the first step.
“Imagine you dropped some children on a deserted island, they might with a bit of luck survive,” said Dr. Chittka, a professor of sensory and behavioral ecology. “But they would never know how to read or to write because this requires learning from previous generations.”
However, untrained bees quickly learned to open the two-step box from these demonstrators without needing a reward after the first step. The findings provide evidence that bumblebees are capable of social learning and possibly cultural transmission.
WATCH the bees in action below…
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Covering almost 5,000 years of history, a team of maritime archaeologists from Greece have located a series of shipwrecks off the coast of the island of Kasos.
Dating from as far back as (3,000 BCE), and through the Classical period (460 BCE), the Hellenistic Age (100 BCE to 100 CE) and Roman times, all the way up to the Byzantine period (800 to 900 CE), the medieval, and Ottoman periods, they are like a barnacle-encrusted history of Hellas and her neighbors.
Since 2019, the research team of the National Hellenic Research Foundation in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture has utilized sources, testimonies, and references, from Homer’s Iliad until modern times, to locate the wrecks, according to the Ministry.
In the epic, Homer writes that the people of Kasos sent ships to fight in the wars with Ilium (Troy).
The findings were recorded and documented with modern scientific methods, while sample recoveries of archaeological objects were carried out, the study of which offers new information and archaeological data, aspects of the history of Kasos, and the rich cultural heritage of the Mediterranean.
Sunken remains of ancient ships with merchandise from Spain, Italy, Africa, and the coast of Asia Minor were brought to light by an interdisciplinary team of Greek and foreign researchers that included divers, geologists, and others.
Among some of the objects discovered were amphorae stamped with a seal from Spain in 170 CE, as well as drinking vessels and flasks from Roman North Africa. A stone anchor was identified from the period in the aftermath of the Trojan wars.
The Kasos maritime project was documented with underwater footage for an 11-minute film called Diving into Aegean History
WATCH the film below…
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The Yurok will be the first Tribal nation to co-manage land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed on Tuesday by the tribe, Redwood national and state parks, and the non-profit Save the Redwoods League, according to news reports.
The Yurok tribe has seen a wave of successes in recent years, successfully campaigning for the removal of a series of dams on the Klamath River, where salmon once ran up to their territory, and with the signing of a new memorandum of understanding, the Yurok are set to reclaim more of what was theirs.
Save the Redwoods League bought a property containing these remarkable trees in 2013, and began working with the tribe to restore it, planting 50,000 native plants in the process. The location was within lands the Yurok once owned but were taken during the Gold Rush period.
Centuries passed, and by the time it was purchased it had been used as a lumber operation for 50 years, and the nearby Prairie Creek where the Yurok once harvested salmon had been buried.
Currently located on the fringe of Redwoods National and State Parks which receive over 1 million visitors every year and is a UNESCO Natural Heritage Site, the property has been renamed ‘O Rew, a Yurok word for the area.
“Today we acknowledge and celebrate the opportunity to return Indigenous guardianship to ‘O Rew and reimagine how millions of visitors from around the world experience the redwoods,” said Sam Hodder, president and CEO of Save the Redwoods League.
Having restored Prarie Creek and filled it with chinook and coho salmon, red-legged frogs, northwestern salamanders, waterfowl, and other species, the tribe has said they will build a traditional village site to showcase their culture, including redwood-plank huts, a sweat house, and a museum to contain many of the tribal artifacts they’ve recovered from museum collections.
Believing the giant trees sacred, they only use fallen trees to build their lodges.
“As the original stewards of this land, we look forward to working together with the Redwood national and state parks to manage it,” said Rosie Clayburn, the tribe’s cultural resources director.
It will add an additional mile of trails to the park system, and connect them with popular redwood groves as well as new interactive exhibits.
“This is a first-of-its-kind arrangement, where Tribal land is co-stewarded with a national park as its gateway to millions of visitors. This action will deepen the relationship between Tribes and the National Park Service,” said Redwoods National Park Superintendent Steve Mietz, adding that it would “heal the land while healing the relationships among all the people who inhabit this magnificent forest.”
Quote of the Day: “We need 4 hugs a day for survival. We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance. We need 12 hugs a day for growth.” – Virginia Satir (renowned as the ‘Mother of Family Therapy’)
Photo by: Anastasia Vityukova
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quotes page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
65 years ago today, Elvis Presley performed live at Pearl Harbor’s Bloch Arena in a benefit for the USS Arizona Memorial. The concert was sold out. Even the opening acts before Elvis took the stage (such as Minnie Pearl) had to buy their tickets. It was Elvis’s return to performing after a stint in the army and there was no better cause one could imagine. READ how much was raised… (1959)