Morning Minutes: Dec. 16

Word of the Day

sotto voce \SAH-toh-VOH-chee\ (adverb or adjective) Spoken low or in an undertone, as not to be overheard; (Music) In very soft tones. Used chiefly as a direction. — Dictionary.com

Website of the Day

Distance to Mars

www.distancetomars.com

Use this clever site to see how far it really is from Earth to Mars by scrolling through the universe. If the Earth is 100 pixels wide and you’re scrolling at 7,000 pixels a second, you’ll see how much longer it takes to reach Mars, which is 428,000 pixels away, than the moon, which is a mere 3,000 pixels away.

Number to Know

1672: The first person to ever calculate the distance to Mars was the astronomer Giovanni Cassini, famous for his observations of Saturn, in the year 1672.

This Day in History

Dec. 16, 1944: The Battle of the Bulge begins with the surprise offensive of three German armies through the Ardennes forest.

Today’s Featured Birthday

Journalist and "60 Minutes" correspondent Lesley Stahl (72)

Daily Quote

"I don't know of anybody's political bias at CBS News. We try very hard to get any opinion that we have out of our stories, and most of our stories are balanced." — Lesley Stahl