Daily TWiP Archives
Something interesting has happened on (just about) every day of the year, and Daily TWiP provides the proof. An offshoot of my local events column The Week in Preview (affectionately known as TWiP), Daily TWiP was published April 2008-Aug. 2011 and is still giving readers reasons to celebrate.More in "Daily TWiP"
- Daily TWiP - Oct. 23: National Mole Day
- Daily TWiP - June 18: International Picnic Day
- Daily TWiP - June 30, 1859: The Great Blondin crosses Niagara Falls on a tightrope
- Daily TWiP - Dec. 1, 1761: Famed wax sculptor Madame Tussaud born
- Daily TWiP - Dec. 4: National Cookie Day
- Daily TWiP - Oct. 8: National Fluffernutter Day
- Daily TWiP - Sept. 7, 1936: "Benjamin," the last thylacine, dies
- Daily TWiP - Nov. 12, 1933: First photograph of the Loch Ness Monster taken
- Daily TWiP - April 1, 1957: The BBC pulls off its infamous spaghetti tree hoax
- Daily TWiP - April 11, 1954: The most boring day of the 20th century
- Daily TWiP - May 3, 1978: The first spam email is sent
- Daily TWiP - Feb. 28, 1939: The non-word “dord” is discovered in Webster’s New International Dictionary
- Daily TWiP - March 3, 1931: "The Star-Spangled Banner," set to the tune of an English drinking song, becomes the U.S. national anthem
- Daily TWiP - May 16, 1777: The American with the most valuable autograph is fatally wounded in a duel
- Daily TWiP - May 25: Towel Day and Geek Pride Day
- Daily TWiP - June 30: National Ice Cream Soda Day
- Daily TWiP - July 22: Spoonerism Day
- Daily TWiP - Aug. 13: International Left-Handers' Day
- Daily TWiP - Aug. 23, 1784: The short-lived state of Franklin declares its independence from North Carolina
- Daily TWiP - Feb. 5, 1897: The Indiana General Assembly unanimously votes to change the value of pi
- Daily TWiP - March 10: International Day of Awesomeness and Chuck Norris' birthday
- Daily TWiP - Jan. 25: National Irish Coffee Day
- Daily TWiP - Nov. 30, 1954: Ann Hodges becomes the first person hit by a meteorite
- Daily TWiP - Oct. 6, 1582 does not happen in certain countries
- Daily TWiP - Sept. 17, 1859: Joshua A. Norton declares himself Emperor of the United States
- Daily TWiP - Sept. 30, 2004: First images of a live giant squid in its natural habitat are taken
- Daily TWiP - Aug. 27, 1896: The shortest war in recorded history is fought
- Daily TWiP - July 30, 1419: Czechs chuck politicians (literally) during the First Defenestration of Prague
- Daily TWiP - July 21, 356 B.C.: Herostratus destroys one of the Seven Wonders of the World to ensure his own fame
- Daily TWiP - May 14: National Dance Like A Chicken Day
- Daily TWiP - Jan. 26, 2004: Dead whale unexpectedly explodes in Tainan, Taiwan
- Daily TWiP - Jan. 8, 1835: U.S. national debt hits zero for the first and only time
Daily TWiP – Nov. 12, 1933: First photograph of the Loch Ness Monster taken
On Nov. 12, 1933, Hugh Gray spied an “object of considerable dimensions – making a big splash with spray on the surface” of Loch Ness in the Highlands of Scotland while he was walking home from church. He just happened to have his camera on hand and snapped the first known photographs of the Loch Ness Monster.
Although legends of lake monsters have circulated since ancient times, the first recorded sighting of the Loch Ness Monster (affectionately known as “Nessie”) occurred July 22, 1933, when George Spicer and his wife witnessed a very strange creature crossing a road near the loch.
The creature passed right in front of their car. They described it as being about 25 feet long with a ten- to 12-foot-long neck. The neck was a little bit thicker than an elephant’s trunk and similarly flexible. It was hard to tell whether or not the creature had legs, due to a dip in the road.
Several other people claimed to see the Loch Ness Monster in the months following the Spicers’ sighting, but Gray was the first to provide photographic evidence. His photo, however, is now thought by many to be a blurred shot of a dog swimming through the water with a stick in its mouth.
Since then, many have pursued the Loch Ness Monster, enlisting everything from sonar to video cameras to Google Earth to prove its existence, but verifiable proof has yet to surface. Skeptics have postulated that those Nessie sightings that have not been outright hoaxes could be anything from eels (which do live in Loch Ness) to the wakes of boats that have been mistaken for signs of the creature.
Until it can be proven that Loch Ness is home to a surviving plesiosaur or tullimonstrum (the creatures Nessie is most commonly thought to be), the Loch Ness Monster remains a member of the cryptid family, sharing the realm of the unexplained-yet-not-impossible with the likes of Bigfoot, the chupacabra and the Abominable Snowman.
– Teresa Santoski
Originally published Nov. 12, 2009.
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