Welcome back to Fun Fact of the Day "Season 2" everybody! :)

As you know, FFOTD is an email subscription created by myself, Joshua "J.T." Stone, who is a current sophomore at Ithaca High School. Started back in October of 2016, Fun Fact of the Day has been a news-feed outlet in which I send out a daily fun fact on actors, singers, celebrities, new video games and movie releases, popular memes and fundamentally everything and anything relating to the vast world of pop culture! From just sharing various news stories with my friends at school, I have now built up a group of over 430 people to join this email list.

The first email of Season 2 will be a recap of all the most popular, trending and exciting events that took place over this summer. (Part 1)  :D

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        Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017: Monday's "once in a lifetime" total eclipse was visible within a band across the entire contiguous United States, passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts. Being a partial solar eclipse, it was visible on land from Nunavut in northern Canada to as far south as South America. Everyone needed to wear special eclipse glasses when looking directly at the sun that day, whereas here in New York, this eclipse was pretty easy to miss.

       

        Hurricane Harvey: Ending a record 12-year period with no major hurricanes making landfall in the United States, Harvey has devastated Houston, Texas, along with nearby counties, killing at least 45 citizens and having a 3-4 day total rainfall greater than 40 inches. Additionally, after comedian Kevin Hart urged fellow celebrities to donate to the Red Cross via social media, Miley Cyrus, the Kardashian/Jenner family, Beyoncé, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and countless others have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to help this cause.
       

        Violence in Charlottesville: Home to the University of Virginia, a group of neo-Nazis and white nationalists took to the streets of Charlottesville, VA while protesting against the removal of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's statue while carrying bright torches into the night. Counter-protesters soon got into a violent conflict with the neo-Nazis and white nationalists, leading to a man driving into a crowd of counter-protesters and killing a woman by the name of Heather Heyer. In response to these unfortunate events, President Trump later made a controversial statement condemning hatred "on many sides" in a speech he gave speaking out about the rally in Charlottesville.

        Boxing Match between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather: The Saturday night fight against McGregor and Mayweather was an intense, dramatic and strategic one to say the least. Held in Los Angeles, the Irish showman and mixed martial artist Conor McGregor proved that he can also box, but not well enough to overcome the formerly retired professional boxer Floyd Mayweather. It was clear that Mayweather's strategy was to frustrate his reportedly "cocky" challenger long enough to exhaust him, and then finish the job; Mayweather was magnanimous in victory, explaining, "He’s a tough competitor. I think we gave the fans what they wanted to see. He’s a lot better than I thought he was. But I was the better man tonight.” Whereas McGregor ended with the statement: “He’s not that fast, he’s not that powerful, but boy is he composed."

Annual Events & Award Ceremonies

         

           E3 -- The Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017, commonly known as E3, was the 23rd Electronic Entertainment Expo, where several hardware manufacturers, software developers and publishers from the video game industry presented new and upcoming productions to the attendees, primarily retailers and members of the video game press. Since the event followed the release of the Nintendo Switch in March 2017 and the announcement of the hardware refresh of the Xbox One, the Xbox One X, due out in November 2017, there was little of the show devoted to hardware and mostly focused on new titles across the board which are said to be released within 2017 or 2018.   

        YouTube's VidCon  -- Originally conceived by Hank and John Green of the Vlogbrothers' YouTube channel, this multi-genre online video convention, held annually in Southern California since 2010, is the largest of its kind in the whole world, gathering thousands of online video viewers, creators, and industry representatives worldwide. At this year's VidCon, singer and previous America's Got Talent winner Grace VanderWaal performed her new hit "Moonlight", wowing her dedicated fan-base, and during a panel about online bullying, feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian called her detractor, Carl Benjamin aka YouTuber Sargon of Akkad, a "garbage human" after he showed up with other anti-feminist YouTubers by filling the first three rows of the audience while recording the panel on their phones. Indeed, this year's VidCon was filled with all the drama you could imagine!

        The Teen Choice Awards -- The award show that revolves around fan favorite celebrities in music, television, movies and the digital space had its winners, some setbacks, and like always, moments that are simply unforgettable. Firstly, actress Zendaya took the show to another level by speaking out against the injustice in the world, reminding young people to educate themselves and telling people to use their voice when they know something is wrong in society. On a less serious note though, there was a panda bear giving out awards and a closing performance by Louis Tomlinson and Bebe Rexha singing their hit "Back To You". To end off the joyful night, beloved YouTubers Liza Koshy and Logan Paul accepted their surfboard shaped trophies for Choice Web Stars of the year, where Koshy almost dropped her surfboard with excitement, but managed to pull it off in the most charming way possible.  

        2017 MTV Video Music Awards -- Honoring music videos released between June 25, 2016 and June 23, 2017, this year's VMAs were packed with exciting performances, touching speeches, countless "disses" and jabs at other celebs, and unpredictable award winners, all hosted by the talented yet slightly awkward Katy Perry. Rapper Kendrick Lamar opened up the show by performing "DNA" and "HUMBLE", where the stage was literally set on fire and the audience went absolutely nuts. After a few more performances, Katy Perry dropped down from the ceiling to the now fire-free stage, dressed like an astronaut, to give her opening monologue pretending she had been in space for the duration of 2017 -- not aware of any of the nation-wide breaking news stories. After being given a newspaper, the host then asked the crowd how they've been coping with the current state of the world, which was the moment Katy was handed an infamous toy known as a fidget spinner. Other honorable moments from this exciting night include when girl group Fifth Harmony performed their hit "Down" featuring Gucci Mane after winning the Best Pop Video award for it, singer P!nk earning the Michael Jackson Vanguard Award after having a moment to perform a medley of her past and presents songs, followed by giving a self-empowering speech inspired by her young daughter, and performers Logic, Alessia Cara and newcomer Khalid showing love and support on stage while performing their collaboration, "1-800-273-8255", which is the Suicide Prevention Lifeline number. Finally, noticeably with host Katy Perry offstage, the VMAs decided to premiere Taylor Swift's brand new music video for her first song in three years, "Look What You Made Me Do", which will be analyzed in its own fun fact email, but let's just say when I personally saw it, I was skooketh. ;)