William McKendree Carleton (October 21, 1845–December 18, 1912) was an American poet from Michigan.  Carleton's poems were most often about his rural life.   In 1869, he graduated from Hillsdale College, (where he was a member of Delta Tau Delta fraternity) and delivered on that occasion the poem, "Rifts in the Cloud".   After graduating from college in 1869, Carleton first worked as a newspaper journalist in Hillsdale.  He had been in the habit of writing poetry as a youngster.  His first significant work published was "Betsey and I Are Out", a humorous verse about a divorce that was first printed in the Toledo Blade, and reprinted by Harper's Weekly.  Carleton wrote this poem at the age of 25, when he worked as editor of the Detroit Weekly Tribune.   In 1872 he published "Over the Hill to the Poor House" exploring the plight of the aged and those with indifferent families.  This piece captured national attention and catapulted Carleton into literary prominence—a position he held the rest of his life as he continued to write and to lecture from coast to coast".   In 1878, Carleton moved to Boston, an important literary and publishing center.  There he married Anne Goodell.  They moved to New York City in 1882.  Carleton remained active in his college fraternity and served as the New York City Delta Tau Delta alumni chapter's president.  In 1907, he returned to Hudson as a renowned poet. Carleton's quotes became well known in the US during his lifetime.   With the Public Act 51 of 1919, the Michigan legislature required teachers to teach at least one of his poems to their students, and October 21 was officially named as Will Carleton Day in Michigan.  Schools in Michigan named for him include Will Carleton Academy in Hillsdale, and Will Carleton Middle School in Sterling Heights.  A section of the M-99 in Hillsdale is dubbed Will Carleton Road.  The village of Carleton in Monroe County, Michigan, is named for him, and the road on Carleton's northern border, separating Monroe and Wayne counties, is Will Carleton Road.  On June 24, 2007, it was reported that "the neglected burial plot of the family of rural Michigan poet, Will Carleton, whose 1872 work, Over the Hill to the Poor House, thrust him into national prominence, is getting a makeover".  Musician Van Dyke Parks is his grand-nephew.  He took the title for his album Clang of the Yankee Reaper from one of Carleton's poems.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Carleton    

The first evidence we have of zero is from the Sumerian culture in Mesopotamia, some 5,000 years ago.  There, a slanted double wedge was inserted between cuneiform symbols for numbers, written positionally, to indicate the absence of a number in a place (as we would write 102, the '0' indicating no digit in the tens column).   The symbol changed over time as positional notation (for which zero was crucial), made its way to the Babylonian empire and from there to India, via the Greeks (in whose own culture zero made a late and only occasional appearance; the Romans had no trace of it at all).  Arab merchants brought the zero they found in India to the West.  After many adventures and much opposition, the symbol we use was accepted and the concept flourished, as zero took on much more than a positional meaning. 

The Babylonians displayed zero with two angled wedges.

The Mayans used an eyelike character to denote zero.

The Chinese started writing the open circle we now use for zero.

The Hindus depicted zero as a dot. 

The word cipher was once used as another name for zero.  Sometimes, the term goose egg is used as an informal way to refer to zero, especially in the context of a score.  Zero is commonly used in a general way to mean none or nothing.  Synonyms for this sense of the word include nil, naught, nought, and aught.  More informal synonyms for zero in the sense of nothing include zip, zippo, zilch, nada (the Spanish word for “nothing”), diddly, and diddly-squat.  The word zero can also be used as a verb meaning “to reduce to zero.”  The verb phrase zero out is more commonly used, as in Zero out these totals.  The concept of zero is ancient, with recorded use dating back to ancient Mesopotamia.  The word zero has been used in English since at least the 16th century.  It comes from Italian, from the Medieval Latin word ​​zephirum, from the Arabic sifr, meaning “empty” or “zero.”  The word cipher comes from this same Arabic root, which is a translation of the Sanskrit word śūnyā, meaning “empty.”  Zero can be used as a noun, an adjective, and even a verb.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_the_number_0_in_English   

The first performance of the oratorio Messiah by George Frideric Handel took place in Dublin on April 13, 1742.  Wikipedia 

April 15 is the day Italian Renaissance polymath Leonardo da Vinci was born in 1452, declared by the International Association of Art to be World Art Day to celebrate the fine arts.  Wiktionary    

April 15, 2026