On this Day... August 11

CEBU, Philippines – In 1925, the "Guinness Book of Records twins" were born. Ross and Norris McWhirter were always keen on memorizing facts, and it came in very handy when the idea of the book was first broached to Guinness's managing director, Sir Hugh Beaver. Sir Hugh happened to mention to them that he liked holidaying in Turkey, and Norris immediately replied, "Turkish is the language with the fewest irregular verbs - just one." They got the job and became the authors of the world's best selling title.

.In 1851, the first domestic sewing machine went into production. The maker, Isaac M. Singer, was in fact the third man in 12 years to design the same machine - though his had the refinement of a foot treadle. Another inventor, Walter Hunt, hadn't developed his own machine because he didn't want to put seamstresses out of work. But patent holder Elias Howe had a six-year court battle with Singer, finally winning $25,000 for an infringement of his rights. Singer then proposed America's first patent pool, which gave Howe royalties of $4,000 a week. Singer, who had a genius for promotion, invented installment buying and was the first man to spend $1 million a year on advertising.

- from Today's the Day! By Jeremy Beadle

In Christian history -

. In 1950, Pope Pius XII issued the "Humani Generis" encyclical, which denounces certain modernist intellectual tendencies within Catholic theology, including existentialism, excessive emphasis on scripture to the detraction of reason, contempt for the authority of the Church, distrust of  scholastic philosophy, and denial that Adam existed as a historical person.

- from This Day in Christian History

By William D. Blake

In the Philippines -

. In 1887, the National Library of the Philippines, formerly known as the Museo-Biblioteca de Filipinas (Museum-Library of the Philippines), was established by a royal order of the Spanish government. It opened officially on October 24, 1891 at the Casa de la Moneda in Intramuros, then home of the Philippine Mint, with around 100 volumes, and Julian Romero and Benito Perdiguero as director and archivist-librarian, respectively. Today, the National Library's most-prized possessions include Dr. Jose Rizal's "Noli Me Tangere," "El Filibusterismo" and "Mi Ultimo Adiós." Three of Rizal's unfinished novels and the Philippine Declaration of Independence are kept in a special double-combination vault at the Rare Documents Section of the Filipiniana Division's reading room. The library is accessible since 1998 to the public through online public access catalog (named after Basilio, one of the characters in Rizal's novels), as well as its web site, the library's internet room in 2001, and the birth in 2004 of eLibrary, the Philippines' first digital library.

- www.kahimyang.info

In Cebu -

. In 1655, Fr. Juan Velez, Bishop of Cebu, took formal possession of the diocese of Cebu.

. In 1912, Cebuano composer Domingo (Minggoy) Lopez was born.

- from Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos