Five Facts

List five facts about you
1) I have been writing since I was 14 and have been professionally published in numerous ways for more than 20 years.
2) I'm a licensed and practicing Real Estate Agent in Texas.
3) I am a mother of two special needs children. My 11-year-old daughter has dyslexia and early-onset schizophrenia, my (step)son has Autism & ADHD.
4) I was born in upstate New York but grew up in Florida. I've only been to New York once to visit my relatives who still live there.
5) I've lived in Texas for nearly nine years now.

List five facts about a fellow Writing.com member.
This one is a bit harder!
Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈
1) He is a professor of Mathematics.
2) He has published several books and has an online blog at maxgriffin.net
3) He's very passionate about short stories, as evidenced here http://maxgriffin.net/LongMusings.shtml
4) He is extremely well read and educated, which is very obvious in his writing.
5) He's an active participant of Writing.com and has been since 2007.

List five historical facts in your own words; blurbs for each should be no more than 500 words. Keep rating no higher than 18+.

1) On December 12, 1913, the Mona Lisa was recovered after being stolen from the Louvre by an Italian waiter. Interestingly enough, a few short weeks later, on December 23, the Federal Reserve Act created the FDIC system, allowing for the manufacturing of the US dollar.
2) December 12, 1944 was one of the largest bombings of Germany during WWII, using 1,000 bombers and 800 fighters. In the week before, multiple US ships were sunk by Japanese kamikaze attack, including the USS Reid (Dec 11), William S. Ladd (Dec 10), Antoine Saugrain (Dec 5), and USS Cooper (Dec 3). (Bonus fact - On December 21 (which is my birthday) 1944, The Three Cabelleros by Walt Disney premiered in Mexico City. I was born 35 years later.)
3) December 12, 1962 saw the development of Iceland's military base, which has been crucial ever since WWII. Iceland's governent is over 1,032 years old as well.
4) December 12, 2000 is the date of the first official vote recount in Florida after the election of George Bush. Florida became known for hanging chads - little left over bits of paper from the punch card ballots. It was one of the first presidential elections I ever voted in and ironically I lived in Florida at the time. It made national and international news and recounting ballots has become a bit of a tradition for Florida ever since.
5) On December 12, 1980, the Da Vinci notebook sells for over $5 million. It was sold in order to pay estate taxes (and the sale amount wasn't enough to cover them.) In 1994, Bill Gates bought it for more than $30 million. It was originally written around 1508 and covers several topics including theories about the movement of water and is regularly loaned to museums for display. He also had them scanned into digital image files.