A fresh-faced lad on the eve of his wedding night asks his mother, "Mom, why are wedding dresses white?"
The mother looks at her son and replies, "Son, this shows the town that your bride is pure."
The son thanks his mom, and then seeks his father opinion, "Dad, why are wedding dresses white?"
The father looks at his son in surprise and says, "Son, all household appliances come in white."
Thomas HendersonDied 23 Nov 1844 at age 45 (born 28 Dec 1798).Scottish astronomer, the first Scottish Astronomer Royal (1834), who was first to measure the parallax of a star (Alpha Centauri, observed at the Cape of Good Hope) in 1831-33, but delayed publication of his results until Jan 1839. By then, a few months earlier, both Friedrich Bessel and Friedrich Struve had been recognized as first for their measurements of stellar parallaxes. Alpha Centauri can be observed from the Cape, though not from Britain. It is now known to be the nearest star to the Sun, but is still so distant that its light takes 4.5 years to reach us. As Scottish Astronomer Royal in 1834, he worked diligently at the Edinburgh observatory for ten years, making over 60,000 observations of star positions before his death in 1844.«[Image: Memorial tablet at the City Observatory, Edinburgh. No proper portrait of him exists] |
