ON THIS DAY

On this date in 1789, Ben Franklin wrote in a letter than "nothing is certain but death and taxes."

In 1875, football players in the Harvard/Yale game were the first wear uniforms.
On this date in 1942,the minimum draft age was lowered from 21 to 18.

On this date in 1972, the Holland Tunnel opened up between New York and New Jersey.

It's "Friday the 13th, consider yourself warned -- It's bad luck to:

• Begin a new job or a trip
• Cut off both ends of a loaf of bread
• Flip your mattress
• Put new shoes on the table
• Leave your hat on the bed
• Walk under a ladder
• Pour water on a windowsill
• Plant potatoes
• Lean a broom on a bed
• Open an umbrella indoors
• Do housework
• Wear new clothes
• Cut your hair
• Sneeze to your left side
• Have a black cat cross your path

It's good luck to:

• Cut your finger nails on a Friday to avoid a toothache during the month.
• Take candy to a friend during your first visit of the New Year.
• Pick the first violets of spring.
• When you set the table, place the salt down first.
• If you drop a spoon, expect friends to drop by soon.
• If your left hand itches, money will come to you.
• When you move to a new house, take a broom and a loaf of bread with you.
• Put a red bow on a newborn baby.
• Don't sweep dust out the front door or you'll sweep away good luck.
• Make a wish when you see the first robin of spring. If it doesn't fly away before you finish wishing it'll come true.

Whoopi Goldberg turns the big 6-0 today. 

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW

• Michael Jackson wanted to build a clone of himself, apparently undergoing several three dimensional scans in 1996 so that a virtual reality "robotic" twin could be produced.
• Kellie Pickler has dyed her blonde hair red, revealing the change a few weeks ago on her Twitter page. Kellie told Access Hollywood's Nancy O'Dell, "I wanted to try something new. We got a lot of blondes in country music, so I thought I'm gonna give Reba some company."
• Lindsay Lohan's mom says the actress has been cutting herself.
• Disgraced and dethroned Miss California USA, Carrie Prejean is says that an erotic video, shot when she was just 17, is not a sex tape because she is all alone in the video. Yeah, right.
• If you like to keep up on these things, Kellie Pickler is now a redhead.
• As bizarre as it sounds, police in Connecticut say they have seen a rash of chewing gum thefts this year.
• Fox has canceled "Dollhouse" and ABC has bumped Kelsey Gramma's "Hank" out of their hot Wednesday night comedy lineup.
• Joe Perry said Monday that Steven Tyler was done with Aerosmith. Tyler popped in during a performance of Joe's side-band Wednesday night and announced that he was not leaving. Oh, for Pete's sake...
• Hot Julianne Hough and boyfriend Chuck Wicks have split, reports People.
• Jon & Kate Gosselin say they'll bury the hatchet for at least one day and will do Christmas together with the kids.
• Wal-Mart says it's going to stay open 24 hours on "Black Friday," the day after Thanksgiving, to help handle the glut of shoppers.
• Mike Tyson was arrested at the L.A. airport after punching out a paparazzi who was taking pictures of him.
• "The Office" star Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt were married on November 2.
• Tiffani Thiessen and her husband, artist and actor Brady Smith, are expecting their first baby next May.

According to a study from the Pew Research Center, 13% of all men and 16% of women are divorced in Nevada, while in Maine, 12% of men and 15% of women are divorced. That makes Nevada and Maine the top two states with the largest share of currently divorced residents. Want more?

• Half of all men who live in New York, Rhode Island and Massachusetts were over 30 when they got married.
• Nationally, the median age for a first marriage is 28 for men and 26 for women, meaning half are younger and half are older when they wed. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 52% of men and 48% of women are married.
• Half of first-time brides in Arkansas and Oklahoma are 24 or younger, the youngest of all the states. For men in those states, the average age to marry is 26.
• Maybe lovers in Arkansas and Oklahoma should wait longer to get married. In these two states, about 10% of the population has been married at least three times, the most of all 50 states. Compare this to New York and Massachusetts, where they marry much later, but just 2% of the population has walked down the aisle at least three times.
• Among married Americans, the median duration of their marriage in 2008 was 18 years. Among men, 9% are divorced, while 12% of women are divorced.

So much for flex appeal. It's your choppers the ladies are checking out, according to a recent University of North Carolina study. Males with perfectly aligned pearly whites are associated with qualities such as dominance, strength, and social competence. To brighten your teeth, see your dentists about a set of custom fitted or moldable whitening trays and a hydrogen peroxide whitener. If your teeth are crooked, think about porcelain veneers.

Being fat causes your brain to shrink, say University of Pittsburgh researchers. Scans of 94 older people revealed that the brains of the overweight were 4 percent smaller than those of healthy weight people; in the obese, they were 8 percent smaller. Excess weight restricts blood vessels and lung capacity, depriving the brain of oxygen, says study author Paul Thompson, Ph.D. The result is prematurely aged brain. (Men's Health)

Meanwhile, your fit friends could be hurting your weight loss efforts: Researchers at the University of British Columbia found that if you watch a skinny person order a lot of food, you eat more, too. When 95 study participants watched a movie with a skinny person who took 5 heaping tablespoons of M&M's, they ate three times as much candy as when they snacked alone. Lead author Brent McFerran, Ph.D., says seeing a skinny person eat a lot "gives you license to eat more because you assume you can also stay thin by eating the same amount." Conversely, seeing a heavy person eat a lot can inhibit your eating McFerran's advice: Dine with healthful eaters a separate trial showed that you'll order less around people who are careful about what they eat. (Men's Health)