ON THIS DAY

On this date in 55 BC, Roman forces under Julius Caesar invaded Britain.

In 1829, the very first working typewriter was patented in the U.S.

On this date in 1907, while under way, Magician Harry Houdini escaped from a 75-pound ball-and-chain.

In 1920, the 19th amendment to the constitution was passed, giving women the right to vote.

It's Macaulay Culkin's birthday today. OK Kevin, put your hands up to your cheeks and give me that look! You're 29!

Geraldine Ferraro turns 74 today.
Women's Equality Day -- We say forget all that stuff about gender equality. Men and women are different, and new studies show that women have the upper hand. Science proves what you always suspected, women are superior. They have stronger hearts and more robust immune systems. They also have better memories, more sensitive noses, more refined taste buds and they live longer.

• Brain: Certain parts of the female brain linked to language have more nerve cells than a man's, giving women an advantage in reading and speech.
• Ears: A woman's hearing is more sensitive and she uses both ears when listening to a conversation, while guys tend to use only one. Also, men start losing their hearing earlier at age 32 compared to 38 in women.
• Eyes: Color blindness is less of a problem for women because the most common form of the disorder is hereditary and carried only in men.
• Nose: With flatter, smaller noses, women can discern the mere wisp of a smell.
• Mouth: Foods pack more of a wallop for women because female saliva enlivens the taste of sweet or spicy foods.
• Heart: Women's hearts beat faster than men's, 90 times per minute compared to 80 while awake, and 66 to 56 during sleep.
• Armpits: Perfume isn't the only reason women smell better. They perspire less because they have fewer sweat glands.
• Hands: Men are more likely to be left-handed, and that makes their lives more difficult since most tools and appliances are built for right-handers.
• Liver: Women process medication differently, often enhancing the effect. But they're slower to break down alcohol and so they get tipsy quicker.
• Joints: The hormone estrogen heightens the elasticity of women's tissue and joints.
• Lungs: Women don't get the hiccups as often as men, and they breathe slower at nine breaths a minute to a man's 12.
• Hormones: Estrogen boosts the good cholesterol and lowers the bad kind. It also prevents fatty build-up in the arteries and shields a woman's bones, heart and brain.
• Stomach: The female digestive tract works slower, giving the body more time to absorb the nutrients from food.
• Immune system: The hardier immune system of the female battles viruses, bacteria and parasites more successfully.

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Rudy Giuliani is considering a run for the New York governorship next year.
• McAfee says searches for the Jessica Biel 27-year-old actress are more likely to lead to online threats such as spyware and viruses than searches for any other celebrity.
• Meryl Streep says when she was growing up, she wanted to marry Prince Charles.
• Mexico City has taken a big step towards reducing pollution when it comes to plastic grocery bags: they've banned them. All but the bio-degradable type.
• A New York City lawmaker wants a subway station renamed to honor the late Michael Jackson. It's the same station where he made the music video for "Bad."
• By the way, that crypt space above Marilyn Monroe sold on eBay for $4.6 million.
• VH1 says it will not air the reality shows with a contestant who was found dead Sunday of an apparent suicide at a Canadian motel. Two shows featured the contestant sought in the killing of his model ex-wife. Both "Megan Wants a Millionaire" and "I Love Money 3" were shelved.
• For the record, President Obama took along five books to read this week during his vacation on Martha's Vineyard.
• More guest hosts on the way to "The View." Watch for Victoria Beckham September 14th, and LaToya Jackson September 16th and 18th.
• Melanie Griffith has checked into a rehab center to get off a medication she was using for a neck injury.
• After three U.S. English films in a row, Jet Li is returning to China to make a movie in Chinese and without martial arts!
• Paula Abdul announced on Twitter that she's going to be hosting this year's VH1 Divas show on September 17.
• David Letterman's nanny has written a children's book.

Of the 10 biggest U.S. airlines, AirTran came in number one for safety when The Daily Beast analyzed data from airlinesafetyrecords.com. The safest airlines, from best to worst: AirTran, JetBlue, Southwest, US Airways, American, Alaska, Continental, Delta, Northwest and United. Want more?

• There are fewer pilot errors now than in years past.
• The accident rate is consistently lower now than it was in the 1990s.
• Flying in a private jet is greater than four times more dangerous than flying on a big carrier.
• The most dangerous airlines are regional carriers in poor countries where maintenance and training are quite possibly substandard.
• The most dangerous time in the flight is the landing.
• If there is an accident, your chances of dying are far greater during the takeoff and climb. You're more likely to survive an accident during the landing.
• Your chance of dying on an airline flight is around one in 13 million.

It seems the credit crunch makes you fat, reports the journal BMC Public Health. Researchers found that 25% of debt ridden men and women were medically obese. Financial worries made people eat fattening food rather than having a healthier, but more costly, diet. With less money to spend on leisure pursuits, folks were watching TV and snacking more, while exercising less because stress sapped their energy levels. (Globe)

Having e-mail and text capabilities in the palm of your hand is clearly convenient. But when you find yourself competing with a BlackBerry for your dinner date's attention, have pings um, things gone too far? More than half of adults in the United States find texting and typing in the presence of others seriously annoying, according to a recent Intel survey.

Here's cause for alarm a new study shows that you are a pet for your cat, not the other way around. Household felines are able to manipulate you at whim with an urgent sounding, high pitched meow, which is actually a purr mixed with a high pitched cry. While some owners think cats purr when they're happy, some cats make the purr cry when they want to be fed and people find the mixed calls annoying and difficult to ignore. "The embedding of a cry within a call that we normally associate with contentment is quite a subtle means of eliciting a response," explains Karen McComb of the University of Sussex. "Solicitation purring is probably more acceptable to humans than overt meowing, which is more likely to get them ejected from the bedroom. "We think cats learn to dramatically exaggerate this purr cry when it proves effective in generating a response from humans." In other words, cats know people like the back of their paws. (National Examiner)