The first U.S. Census was completed August 1, 1790 with a final count of 3,929,214 persons. Included in the count were the original 13 States, plus the districts of Kentucky, Maine, and Vermont, and the Southwest Territory (Tennessee). As comparison, the estimated U.S. population on July 1, 2014 was 318,857,056.

The Panama Canal was opened for business on August 15, 1914. The total cost to Americans was around $375,000,000, including the $10,000,000 paid to Panama and the $40,000,000 paid to the French company. It was the single most expensive construction project in United States history to that time.

The island volcano of Krakatoa in Indonesia erupted on August 27, 1886. It was heard over 3,000 miles away and was one of the biggest natural disasters ever recorded.

A crocodile has the most powerful bite ever measured for any living animal. For example the saltwater crocodile found near Australia can bite nearly three times as hard as a lion or a tiger. Yet, the crocodile's jaw is also incredibly sensitive -- even more sensitive than the human fingertip. The crocodile's jaw is covered with thousands of sense organs. Each of the jaw's nerve endings comes out of a hole in its skull, which protects the nerve fibers, making it possible for it to distinguish between food and debris in its mouth. That is also how a mother crocodile can carry her hatchlings in her mouth without accidentally crushing them.

The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg. Hardcover, 400 pages; published by Random House, Feb. 28, 2011; ISBN-10: 1400069289, ISBN-13: 978-1400069286.

In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg (an award-winning New York Times business reporter) takes us to the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed. With penetrating intelligence and an ability to distill vast amounts of information into engrossing narratives, Duhigg brings to life a whole new understanding of human nature and its potential for transformation.

Along the way we learn why some people and companies struggle to change, despite years of trying, while others seem to remake themselves overnight. We visit laboratories where neuroscientists explore how habits work and where, exactly, they reside in our brains. We discover how the right habits were crucial to the success of Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, and civil-rights hero Martin Luther King, Jr. We go inside Procter & Gamble, Target superstores, Rick Warren's Saddleback Church, NFL locker rooms, and the nation's largest hospitals and see how implementing so-called keystone habits can earn billions and mean the difference between failure and success, life and death.

At its core, The Power of Habit contains an exhilarating argument: The key to exercising regularly, losing weight, raising exceptional children, becoming more productive, building revolutionary companies and social movements, and achieving success is understanding how habits work. Habits aren't destiny. As Charles Duhigg shows, by harnessing this new science, we can transform our businesses, our communities, and our lives.

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.

- Maya Angelou (1928 - 2014)

There was a man who had worked all of his life and saved all of his money. He was a real cheapskate when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, "Now listen, when I die I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me, because I want to take all my money to the after-life." So, he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died she would put all the money in the casket with him.

Then, one day the man died.  He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to their best friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said, "Wait a minute!"

She had a shoebox with her, went over with the box and placed it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket and rolled it away

Her friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that money in there with that stingy old man!"

She said, "Yes, I promised. I'm a good Christian, I can't lie. I promised him that I was to put that money in that casket with him."

"You mean to tell me you put every cent of his money in the casket with him?"

"I sure did!" said the wife. "I got it all together, put it into my bank account, and I wrote him a check!"