Category: Criticality

The Thing About Today – March 4

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

March 4, 2020
Day 64 of 366

 

March 4th is the sixty-fourth day of the year. It is St. Casimir’s Fair, also known as Kaziuko mugė, a large annual folk arts and crafts fair in Vilnius, Lithuania.

In the United States, today is “celebrated” as National Grammar Day, National Hug a G.I. Day, Marching Music Day, National Pound Cake Day, and National Sons Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1628, the Massachusetts Bay Colony was granted a Royal charter.
  • In 1678, Italian violinist and composer Antonio Vivaldi was born.
  • In 1681, William Penn was granted a land charter for the area that later became Pennsylvania.
  • In 1789, the first Congress of the United States convened in New York City and put the United States Constitution into effect. The United States Bill of Rights was written and proposed to Congress.
  • In 1790, France was divided into 83 départements, cutting across the former provinces in an attempt to dislodge regional loyalties based on ownership of land by the nobility.
  • In 1791, the Constitutional Act of 1791 was introduced by the British House of Commons in London. This envisaged the separation of Canada into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario).
  • Also in 1791, the State of Vermont was admitted to the United States as the fourteenth in the Union.
  • In 1794, The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution was passed by Congress. This amendment restricts the ability of individuals to bring suit against the states in federal court.
  • In 1797, John Adams was inaugurated as the second President of the United States, thus becoming the first President to begin his term on March 4th.
  • In 1837, the city of Chicago was incorporated.
  • In 1861, the first national flag of the Confederate States of America – the so-called “Stars and Bars” – was adopted.
  • In 1865, the third and final national flag of the Confederate States of America – the so-called “Blood-Stained Banner” – was adopted. This replaced the “Stainless Banner”, also known as “The White Man’s Flag”. The Confederacy would surrender and begin dissolution two months later.
  • In 1882, Britain’s first electric trams began running in east London.
  • In 1922, Nosferatu premiered at the Berlin Zoological Garden in Germany. An adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, this was the first vampire film.
  • In 1933, Frances Perkins became the United States Secretary of Labor. She was the first female member of the United States Cabinet.
  • In 1954, actress Catherine O’Hara was born.
  • In 1957, The S&P 500 stock market index was introduced and replaced the S&P 90.
  • In 1958, actress Patricia Heaton was born.
  • In 1974, People magazine was published for the first time, debuting under the title People Weekly.
  • In 1985, the Food and Drug Administration approved a blood test for AIDS infection. It has been used since for screening all blood donations in the United States.
  • In 1998, The Supreme Court of the United States decided on Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., ruling that federal laws banning on-the-job sexual harassment also apply when both parties are the same sex.

 

In 1849, President-Elect Zachary Taylor and Vice President-Elect Millard Fillmore did not take their respective Oaths of Office, leading to the theory that outgoing President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate David Rice Atchison assumed the role of Acting President of the United States for one day.

The idea has been dismissed by nearly all historians, scholars, and biographers, but it is a fascinating piece of United States trivia.

The crux of the matter was that Inauguration Day in 1849 fell on a Sunday, so President-elect Zachary Taylor did not take the presidential oath of office until the next day. Legally, the term of the outgoing president, James K. Polk, ended at noon on March 4th. So, technically, there was no President of the United States for a single day.

Adding complications to the matter, outgoing Vice President George M. Dallas relinquished his position as President of the Senate on March 2nd, at which time Atchison was elected President pro tempore. In 1849, according to the Presidential Succession Act of 1792, the Senate President pro tempore immediately followed the Vice President in the Presidential line of succession. Since Dallas’s term as Vice President also ended at noon on the 4th, and as neither Taylor nor Vice President-elect Millard Fillmore had taken their respective Oaths of Office, Atchison could have been the Acting President of the United States.

Historians, constitutional scholars, and biographers point out that Atchison’s Senate term had ended on March 3. When the Senate of the new Congress convened on March 5 to allow new senators and the new vice president to take the oath of office, the secretary of the Senate called members to order, as the Senate had no President pro tempore. Furthermore, the Constitution doesn’t require the President-elect to take the oath of office to hold the office, just to execute the powers.

Additionally, Atchison never swore the Presidential Oath, so he could not have acted in the office.

It all depends on how one legally views the office: Does the President-elect immediately assume office (but not execute any powers) as soon as the outgoing President’s term expires?

David Rice Atchison addressed this with a reporter for the Plattsburg Lever:

It was in this way: Polk went out of office on March 3, 1849, on Saturday at 12 noon. The next day, the 4th, occurring on Sunday, Gen. Taylor was not inaugurated. He was not inaugurated till Monday, the 5th, at 12 noon. It was then canvassed among Senators whether there was an interregnum (a time during which a country lacks a government). It was plain that there was either an interregnum or I was the President of the United States being chairman of the Senate, having succeeded Judge Mangum of North Carolina. The judge waked me up at 3 o’clock in the morning and said jocularly that as I was President of the United States he wanted me to appoint him as secretary of state. I made no pretense to the office, but if I was entitled in it I had one boast to make, that not a woman or a child shed a tear on account of my removing any one from office during my incumbency of the place. A great many such questions are liable to arise under our form of government.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – March 3

Michael Falkner1 Comment

March 3, 2020
Day 63 of 366

 

March 3rd is the sixty-third day of the year. It is World Wildlife Day, a United Nations day of celebration and awareness of the world’s wild fauna and flora. In its adoption of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) in 1973, the United Nations General Assembly reaffirmed the intrinsic value of wildlife and its various contributions, including ecological, genetic, social, economic, scientific, educational, cultural, recreational and aesthetic, to sustainable development and human well-being.

In the United States, today is “celebrated” as National Anthem Day, National Cold Cuts Day, National I Want You to be Happy Day, National Mulled Wine Day, and Soup It Forward Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1776, the first amphibious landing of the United States Marine Corps begins the Battle of Nassau.
  • In 1845, Florida was admitted as the 27th U.S. state. It is unknown how soon Florida Man arrived on the scene.
  • In 1847, Alexander Graham Bell was born. He was the Scottish-American engineer and academic who invented the telephone.
  • In 1873, the United States Congress enacted the Comstock Laws, making it illegal to send any “obscene, lewd, or lascivious” books through the mail. This included obscenity, contraceptives, abortifacients, sex toys, personal letters with any sexual content or information, or any information regarding such restricted items. Many of the Comstock Laws have since been declared unconstitutional.
  • In 1875, Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris.
  • In 1882, Charles Ponzi was born. He was an Italian businessman whose corrupt practices gave birth to the term “Ponzi scheme”.
  • In 1891, Shoshone National Forest was established as the first national forest in the United States and the world.
  • In 1904, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany became the first person to make a sound recording of a political document. He used Thomas Edison’s phonograph cylinder for the task.
  • In 1913, thousands of women marched in a suffrage parade in Washington, D.C.
  • In 1920, James Doohan was born. A Canadian-American actor and soldier, he portrayed Montgomery “Scotty” Scott on Star Trek.
  • In 1923, TIME magazine was published for the first time.
  • In 1939, Mohandas Gandhi began a hunger strike in Bombay to protest the autocratic rule in British India.
  • In 1962, American heptathlete and long jumper Jackie Joyner-Kersee was born.
  • In 1968, physicist Brian Cox was born.
  • In 1969, Apollo 9 was launched on a mission to test the lunar module. Astronauts James A. McDivitt, David R. Scott, and Russell L. Schweickart completed the mission over ten days.
  • In 1980, The USS Nautilus was decommissioned and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register.
  • In 1991, an amateur video captures the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers.
  • In 2005, Margaret Wilson was elected as Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives. This began a period lasting until August 23, 2006 where all the highest political offices (including Queen Elizabeth II as Head of State), were occupied by women. New Zealand the first country for this to occur.

 

In 1931, the United States adopted The Star-Spangled Banner as its national anthem.

Before 1931, other songs served as the hymns of the United States, including “Hail, Columbia” for most of the 19th century. “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”, which is melodically identical to “God Save the Queen” (the United Kingdom’s anthem) also served the purpose. Following the War of 1812 and subsequent conflicts, other songs emerged to compete for popularity including “America the Beautiful”.

The lyrics of The Star-Spangled Banner come from the “Defence of Fort M’Henry”, a poem written on September 14, 1814, by Francis Scott Key. He was a 35-year old lawyer who was inspired after witnessing the bombardment of Fort McHenry by British ships in Baltimore Harbor during the War of 1812. It was the large American flag, with 15 stars and 15 stripes, flying triumphantly above the fort during the United States victory that caught his eye.

The poem was set to the tune of a popular British song, “To Anacreon in Heaven”, written by John Stafford Smith for a men’s social club in London. Renamed “The Star-Spangled Banner”, the song took off as a patriotic song, despite being very difficult to sing with its range of 19 semitones.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” was recognized for official use by the United States Navy in 1889, and by United States President Woodrow Wilson in 1916. It was finally confirmed as the official national anthem by a congressional resolution (46 Stat. 1508, codified at 36 U.S.C. § 301) and President Herbert Hoover in 1931.

The poem has four stanzas, but only the first is commonly performed.

O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

A couple of alternative versions have popped up over the years. Eighteen years after Francis Scott Key’s death, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. added a fifth stanza to the song in indignation over the start of the American Civil War. Written in 1861, it was published in songbooks of the era.

When our land is illumined with Liberty’s smile,
If a foe from within strike a blow at her glory,
Down, down with the traitor that dares to defile
The flag of her stars and the page of her story!
By the millions unchained, who our birthright have gained,
We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained!
And the Star-Spangled Banner in triumph shall wave
While the land of the free is the home of the brave.

For the 1986 rededication of the Statue of Liberty, Christian recording artist Sandi Patty wrote her version of an additional verse. The revision of the anthem brought her national acclaim.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – March 2

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

March 2, 2020
Day 62 of 366

 

March 2nd is the sixty-second day of the year. It is Texas Independence Day, commemorating the creation of the Republic of Texas on this day in 1836.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as World Teen Mental Wellness Day, National Banana Cream Pie Day, National Old Stuff Day, and National Read Across America Day (Dr. Seuss Day). If that last one falls on a weekend, it is typically observed on the closest school day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1484, the College of Arms was formally incorporated by Royal Charter signed by King Richard III of England.
  • In 1797, the Bank of England issued the first one-pound and two-pound banknotes.
  • In 1807, the United States Congress passed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves, thereby disallowing the importation of new slaves into the country.
  • In 1859, the two-day so-called Great Slave Auction, the largest such auction in United States history, began.
  • In 1867, the United States Congress passed the first Reconstruction Act.
  • In 1877, the United States Congress declared Rutherford B. Hayes the winner of the 1876 Presidential Election. Settled only four days before inauguration, the decision was made despite Samuel J. Tilden winning the popular vote because the Electoral College was tied.
  • In 1901, United States Steel Corporation was founded as a result of a merger between Carnegie Steel Company and Federal Steel Company. This resulted in the first corporation in the world with a market capital over $1 billion.
  • In 1903, the Martha Washington Hotel opened in New York City, becoming the first hotel exclusively for women.
  • In 1917, Cuban-American actor, singer, and producer Desi Arnaz was born.
  • In 1933, King Kong opened at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.
  • In 1935, Porky Pig made his debut with “I Haven’t Got a Hat”.
  • In 1937, the Steel Workers Organizing Committee signed a collective bargaining agreement with U.S. Steel, thus leading to unionization of the United States steel industry.
  • In 1949, Captain James Gallagher landed his B-50 Superfortress Lucky Lady II in Fort Worth, Texas. This completed the first non-stop around-the-world airplane flight in 94 hours and one minute.
  • Also in 1949, actress and choreographer Gates McFadden was born.
  • In 1962, Wilt Chamberlain set the single-game scoring record in the National Basketball Association by scoring 100 points.
  • In 1965, The Sound of Music premiered.
  • In 1968, actor and producer Daniel Craig was born.
  • In 1969, the first test flight of the Concorde was conducted in Toulouse, France.
  • In 1972, the Pioneer 10 space probe was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets. The last contact with the probe was made in 2003.
  • In 1976, Walt Disney World logged its 50 millionth guest after opening in October 1971.
  • In 1981, actress and filmmaker Bryce Dallas Howard was born.
  • In 1983, compact discs and players were released for the first time in the United States and other markets. They had previously been available only in Japan.
  • In 1995, researchers at Fermilab announced the discovery of the top quark.

 

In 1904, Dr. Seuss was born.

Theodor Seuss Geisel was an American children’s book writer, poet, animator, screenwriter, and illustrator. He wrote and illustrated for more than sixty books, including many of the most popular children’s books of all time.

He adopted the “Dr. Seuss” pen name in college and began his career at Vanity Fair and Life magazines. He published his first children’s book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street, in 1937 but took a break to illustrate political cartoons and make films for the United States Army during World War II. It was during his service to the Army that he won the 1947 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for Design for Death.

After the war, Geisel returned to writing children’s books. He wrote classics like If I Ran the Zoo (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1955), If I Ran the Circus (1956), The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957), and Green Eggs and Ham (1960). All told, he published over 60 books during his career. Those works have spawned numerous adaptations, including 11 television specials, five feature films, a Broadway musical, and four television series.

He died of cancer on September 24, 1991, at the age of 87.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – March 1

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

March 1, 2020
Day 61 of 366

 

March 1st is the sixty-first day of the year. It is Beer Day in Iceland, which celebrates the end of a 74-year prohibition on beer in 1989.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Dadgum That’s Good Day, National Fruit Compote Day, National Horse Protection Day, National Minnesota Day, National Peanut Butter Lover’s Day, National Pig Day, Self-Injury Awareness Day, and Finisher’s Medal Day. That last one is typically observed on the first Sunday in March.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 293, Emperors Diocletian and Maximian appointed Constantius Chlorus and Galerius as Caesars. This is considered the beginning of the Tetrarchy, also known as the Quattuor Principes Mundi (“Four Rulers of the World”).
  • In 1565, the city of Rio de Janeiro was founded in what would become Brazil.
  • In 1642, Georgeana, Massachusetts became the first incorporated city in the United States. It is now known as York, Maine.
  • In 1781, the Articles of Confederation went into effect in the United States. They would be replaced in twelve years by the current Constitution of the United States.
  • In 1790, the first United States census was authorized.
  • In 1810, Polish pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin was born.
  • In 1872, Yellowstone National Park was established as the world’s first national park.
  • In 1893, Nikola Tesla gave the first public demonstration of radio in St. Louis, Missouri.
  • In 1896, Henri Becquerel discovered the phenomenon of radioactive decay.
  • In 1910, actor and soldier David Niven was born.
  • In 1918, actor Roger Delgado was born. He first portrayed the Master on Doctor Who.
  • In 1924, astronaut Deke Slayton was born.
  • In 1927, actor and singer-songwriter Harry Belafonte was born.
  • In 1945, actor Dirk Benedict was born.
  • In 1946, the Bank of England was nationalized.
  • In 1947, the International Monetary Fund began operations.
  • In 1954, the Castle Bravo 15-megaton hydrogen bomb was detonated on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. The event resulted in the worst radioactive contamination ever caused by the United States.
  • Also in 1954, actress Catherine Bach was born.
  • Also in 1954, actor, director, and producer Ron Howard was born.
  • In 1961, United States President John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps.
  • In 1966, the Venera 3 space probe crashed on Venus. Launched by the Soviet Union, it was the first spacecraft to land on another planet’s surface.
  • In 1969, Spanish actor and producer Javier Bardem was born.
  • In 1975, color television transmissions began in Australia.
  • In 1983, Mexican-Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o was born.
  • In 1998, Titanic became the first film to gross over $1 billion worldwide.
  • In 2005, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Roper v. Simmons. This case established that the execution of juveniles found guilty of murder is unconstitutional.

 

In 1941, Captain America was first published.

Cap was created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby and first appeared in Captain America Comics #1 from Timely Comics, a predecessor to Marvel. He was designed as a patriotic supersoldier who fought against the Axis powers in World War II. While the character was very popular in the wartime period, the book was discontinued when interest in superheroes diminished after the war ended.

Marvel Comics revived the character in 1964 and Cap has remained in publication ever since.

The character’s story revolves around being turned into a supersoldier (courtesy of a special serum) and eventually frozen in ice until the modern day. With his nearly indestructible shield, Captain America struggles to maintain his ideals as a man out of time. He was the first Marvel Comics character to appear in media outside comics with the release of 1944’s Captain America serial. He has since been in various films and television series, including the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is where I grew to love the character thanks to actor Chris Evans and the creative team behind those movies.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 29

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 29, 2020
Day 60 of 366

 

February 29th is the sixtieth day of the year. Happy Leap Day!

It is Bachelor’s Day in Ireland, an old tradition on Leap Day where women take the lead in initiating dances and proposing marriage. If the proposal was refused the man was expected to buy the woman a silk gown, a fur coat, or (in the United Kingdom) a new pair of gloves on Easter Day. The tradition supposedly originates from a deal that Saint Bridget struck with Saint Patrick.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Time Refund Day and Rare Disease Day. That last one is typically observed on the last day of February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1720, Ulrika Eleonora, Queen of Sweden abdicated in favor of her husband, who became King Frederick I less than a month later.
  • In 1796, the Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain began ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.
  • In 1892, St. Petersburg, Florida was incorporated.
  • In 1904, bandleader Jimmy Dorsey was born.
  • In 1916, South Carolina raised the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers from twelve to fourteen years old.
  • Also in 1916, singer and actress Dinah Shore was born.
  • In 1940, Hattie McDaniel became the first African American to win an Academy Award. It was for her role as “Mammy” in Gone With the Wind.
  • In 1964, Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser set a new world record in the 100-meter freestyle swimming competition of 58.9 seconds.
  • In 1968, author and illustrator Howard Tayler was born.
  • In 1996, the Seige of Sarajevo ended. It was the longest siege of a capital city in history, spanning three years, 10 months, three weeks and three days. That’s three times longer than the Battle of Stalingrad and more than a year longer than the Siege of Leningrad.

 

Leap Day is added to solar calendars in most years that are divisible by four. In the Gregorian calendar, years that are divisible by 100, but not by 400, do not contain a leap day.

Lunisolar calendars, whose months are based on the phases of the Moon, use leap (intercalary) month instead. In the Chinese calendar, this day will only occur in years of the monkey, dragon, and rat.

The purpose of the leap day is to compensate for the Earth’s period of orbital revolution around the Sun. We use the shorthand of one year equating to 365 days, but the orbital period is really 365 days and six hours long. The leap compensates for this lag since otherwise, seasons would occur later than intended in the calendar year.

The Julian calendar added a leap day every four years, but because of how that calendar was structured, that added too many days. This addition of approximately 3 days every 400 years shifted equinoxes and solstices shift to earlier dates. The Gregorian calendar was introduced both to shift these dates back by omitting several days, and to reduce the number of leap years via the “century rule” to keep the equinoxes more or less fixed and the date of Easter consistently close to the vernal equinox.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

Culture on My Mind – Staying Curious

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

Culture on My Mind
Staying Curious
February 28, 2020

This week’s “can’t let it go” is in memory of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson.

“You see, if you lose your curiosity, then you stop learning.”

From Reaching for the Moon: The Autobiography of NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson

Katherine Johnson, NASA

Katherine Johnson slipped the surly bonds of Earth on February 24th at the age of 101. She was critical to the success of manned spaceflight in this country during her 35 years at NASA, including calculations of trajectories, launch windows, and emergency return paths for Project Mercury. She worked on the Apollo Program, the Space Shuttle Program, and plans for a Mars mission. She was also a co-author on 26 scientific papers.

She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015.

You can learn more about her in her autobiography and the 2016 biopic Hidden Figures (based on the non-fiction book of the same name by Margot Lee Shetterly).

Her ethos is one of the reasons that I do what I do. I’m not in it for money or fame. I just want to have fun, stay curious, and keep learning.
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Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

The Thing About Today – February 28

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 28, 2020
Day 59 of 366

 

February 28th is the fifty-ninth day of the year. It is National Science Day in India.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Chocolate Souffle Day, National Floral Design Day, National Public Sleeping Day, Tartar Sauce Day, National Tooth Fairy Day, and Skip the Straw Day. That last one is typically observed on the fourth Friday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1700, February 28 was followed by March 1, thus creating the Swedish Calendar. It was used only by Sweden until February 30, 1712, when it was abandoned for a return to the Julian calendar. Sweden transitioned to the Gregorian calendar in 1753, one year after England and its colonies.
  • In 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was incorporated, becoming the first railroad in America offering commercial transportation of both people and freight.
  • In 1849, regular steamship service from the east to the west coast of the United States began with the arrival of the SS California in San Francisco Bay, four months and 22 days after leaving New York Harbor.
  • In 1850, the University of Utah was established. It was originally called the University of Deseret, as established by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret. It closed in 1853, reopened in 1867, and gained its current name in 1892.
  • In 1867, seventy years of Holy See-United States relations are ended by a Congressional ban on federal funding of diplomatic envoys to the Vatican. The ban was not lifted until January 10, 1984.
  • In 1893, the USS Indiana (BB-1) was launched. She was the lead ship of her class and the first battleship in the United States Navy comparable to foreign battleships of the time.
  • In 1935, DuPont scientist Wallace Carothers invented nylon.
  • In 1940, the Andretti brothers were born. Aldo and Mario were both famous in the car racing industry, though Aldo quit racing due to severe accidents. Mario had a long career, from 1968 to 1982, with 109 wins on major circuits.
  • In 1944, actress and dancer Kelly Bishop was born.
  • In 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick announced to a gathering of friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA. A formal announcement was made on April 25th following the April 2nd publication in Nature.
  • In 1954, the first color television sets using the NTSC standard were offered for sale to the general public.
  • In 1955, comedian and actor Gilbert Gottfried was born.
  • In 1969, actor Robert Sean Leonard was born.
  • In 1976, actress Ali Larter was born.
  • In 1991, the first Gulf War ended. The nearly seven months that included Operation Desert Shield and Operation Desert Storm was a very tense time period in my household since it kept my father, then a United States Air Force reservist, on packed bags and ready to deploy.
  • In 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents raided the Branch Davidian church in Waco, Texas with a warrant to arrest the group’s leader David Koresh. The initial altercation killed four ATF agents and six Davidians before starting a 51-day standoff.
  • In 1997, a highly luminous flash of gamma rays classified as GRB 970228 struck the Earth for 80 seconds. This provided early evidence that gamma-ray bursts occur well beyond the Milky Way.

 

In 1983, the final episode of M*A*S*H aired. The episode premiere was seen by almost 125 million viewers, a record for the highest viewership of a season finale that still stands today.

The finale was a two-and-a-half-hour episode, closing out eleven seasons and 256 episodes of television. The series was so popular that, despite the 14 hour time difference, the United States Army set up special television sets in parking lots, auditoriums, and day rooms so that servicemembers in Korea could watch live. the episode was written by eight collaborators, including series star Alan Alda, who also directed.

“Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” chronicles the final days of the Korean War at the 4077th MASH. It features the war’s effects on the individuals at the unit and closes each of their stories. As the ceasefire goes into effect, the members of the 4077th throw a party before taking down the camp for the last time. Tear-filled goodbyes lead to each of the main characters going their separate ways.

Interest was unprecedented for the time, inspiring the CBS network to sell commercial airtime for $450,000 per 30-second block. That equates to nearly $1.2 million dollars today, and was more expensive than that year’s Super Bowl. It is still ranked as one of the most unforgettable television finales of all time, including the final iconic scene. Interesting bits of trivia include that it wasn’t the final episode filmed – the final scene was the time capsule gathering in “As Time Goes By” – and that it wasn’t originally included in the syndication package. It finally entered syndication on its tenth anniversary.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 27

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 27, 2020
Day 58 of 366

 

February 27th is the fifty-eighth day of the year. It is Independence Day in the Dominican Republic.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as Anosmia Awareness Day, National Kahlua Day, National Retro Day, National Strawberry Day, National Polar Bear Day, National Chili Day, and National Toast Day.

National Chili Day is typically observed on the fourth Thursday in February, and National Toast Day is typically observed on the last Thursday of February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 380, the Edict of Thessalonica was issued by Emperors Theodosius I, Gratian, and Valentinian II. It declared their wish that all Roman citizens convert to trinitarian Christianity.
  • In 1782, the House of Commons of Great Britain votes against further war during the American Revolutionary War.
  • In 1801, Washington, D.C. was placed under the jurisdiction of the United States Congress pursuant to the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1801.
  • In 1807, poet and educator Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born.
  • In 1902, journalist, author, and Nobel Prize laureate John Steinbeck was born.
  • In 1922, the Supreme Court of the United States decided in the case of Leser v. Garnett. This was a challenge to the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, allowing women the right to vote, and the Court determined that the amendment was constitutionally sound.
  • In 1932, actress and humanitarian Elizabeth Taylor was born.
  • In 1933, the Reichstag fire occurred. The Reichstag was Germany’s parliament building in Berlin, and Marinus van der Lubbe, a young Dutch Communist, claimed responsibility. The Nazis used the fire to solidify their power and eliminate the communists as political rivals.
  • In 1940, Martin Kamen and Sam Ruben discovered carbon-14.
  • In 1951, The Twenty-Second Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. This limited United States Presidents to two terms in office.
  • In 1966, actor Donal Logue was born.
  • In 1968, CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite delivered his famous scathing editorial on America’s chances of winning the Vietnam War.
  • In 1983, actress Kate Mara was born.

 

In 1964, the Government of Italy asked for help to keep the Leaning Tower of Pisa from toppling over.

The Tower of Pisa, a freestanding bell tower of Pisa’s cathedral, is the third oldest structure in the city’s Cathedral Square. It was built in three stages over 199 years from 1173 to 1372, but began to sink shortly after work had progressed to the second floor in 1178. This was due to the foundation (only three meters thick) sinking into the weak and unstable soil. Construction was halted for nearly a century while the Republic of Pisa was almost continually engaged in battles with Genoa, Lucca, and Florence, which allowed time for the soil to settle.

In an attempt to compensate for further tilting, the engineers built the upper floors with one side taller than the other, resulting in a curved tower. Numerous attempts were made over the centuries to prevent the tower from toppling, but most of them either failed or further endangered the tower. In 1964, Italy requested help and welcomed a multinational task force of engineers, mathematicians, and historians to tackle the project. Finally, in May 2008, engineers announced that the tower was stabilized such that it has stopped moving for the first time in history. It is expected to remain stable for the next 200 years.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.

 

 

Timestamp #TW26: Exit Wounds

Michael Falkner12 Comments

Torchwood: Exit Wounds
(1 episode, s02e13, 2008)

 

Gray’s revenge tears Torchwood at the seams.

Picking up right where we left off, Tosh detects severe Rift activity St. Helen’s Hospital, the Cardiff Police Station, and the Central IT Server Building. With their SUV missing, the team piles into Rhys’s car and heads to their respective assignments.

Jack returns to the Hub and finds John Hart. Hart shows his love by unloading two machine guns into Jack’s chest. Captain Harkness wakes up chained to the wall and subject to the disappointment of an apparently lonely Time Agent. Hart fires up the rift manipulator, takes his captive to a nice vantage point, and pages the rest of Torchwood Three.

Gwen and Rhys head to the police station to find PC Andy Davidson supervising bloody corpses and the Weevils that caused them. The Weevils apparently targeted the four most senior officers on the force. Convenient, that.

Ianto and Tosh arrive at the Central Server Building to find three cloaked figures wielding scythes. The menace is easily dispatched with a little gunplay.

Owen finds a Hoix at the hospital and takes care of it with a sedative and a pack of cigarettes.

When John Hart pages their comms, he orders the team to their respective roofs. Once there, they watch helplessly as Hart detonates explosives in fifteen locations around the city. Hart then whisks Jack away from Cardiff Castle into the past.

The city, meanwhile, is crippled.

Jack finds himself in 27 AD. John Hart refuses to take Jack back to the present, revealing that he is a walking bomb and that his vortex manipulator is fused to his arm. Jack’s brother Gray arrives and Jack apologizes for abandoning him. Gray doesn’t accept the apology, preferring to stab Jack in the chest with a large knife. Gray is furious that he was left to suffer unspeakable torture for years, and he wants Jack to suffer as he did.

Gray throws Jack into a grave, destined to die from asphyxiation and resurrect thousands of times over the next 2000 years. Hart protests, but relents to Gray’s wishes as he throws a ring to Jack and fills the grave. Gray travels to the Hub in the present and releases Weevils into the streets.

Gwen takes command of the local police, dispatching them into the city to deal with the crisis. Tosh and Ianto are reassigned to the Turnmill Nuclear Power Station where a potential meltdown looms, but the Weevils block their path.

When Tosh detects Gray and Hart’s arrival in the present, Gwen returns to the Hub and finds the captain. Hart explains things to Gwen, especially Gray’s story. The vortex manipulator releases from his arm as Gray promised and Hart uses that as evidence that he is telling the truth. He tells Tosh of a tracker – the ring – that he left with Jack as the only means to save him, but the signal is nowhere to be found. Tosh and Ianto return to the Hub and help wrangle the Weevils still in Torchwood HQ, but Gray traps Ianto, Hart, and Gwen in the vaults.

Meanwhile, Owen uses his status as “King of the Weevils” to navigate the streets to the nuclear plant. He finds Nira Docherty, a scientist trying to singlehandedly prevent the meltdown, and convinces her to leave with a can of Weevil repellent. Owen establishes comms with Tosh and they set to work, but Tosh is interrupted by a gunshot.

She has been fatally shot in the stomach by Gray. As he looms over her, a pounding echoes through the Hub. Gray tracks the sound leaving Tosh to drag herself to the autopsy room and inject herself with a massive load of painkillers.

The pounding was coming from the morgue. Gray finds Jack in a drawer, and Jack tells his brother that he forgives him. The Torchwood Institute team from 1901 found Jack, who has at that point crossed his own timeline, and fulfilled his request to be frozen until the present day. Jack uses chloroform to incapacitate Gray.

In the vaults, Hart rigs a recall command for the Weevils. Jack finds the captives and releases them.

Tosh re-establishes comms with Owen and walks him through the recovery process, but the core is too far gone. The only option is to vent the coolant through the containment building, for which Owen will need to set up a delay to avoid being destroyed. Unfortunately, a power surge triggers and emergency lockdown, trapping Owen in the room.

A hopeless Owen falls apart, but Tosh asks him to stop before he breaks her heart. The two talk as they each prepare to die, although Owen is unaware of Tosh’s condition and Owen realizes that he will die by watching himself dissolve. They also talk about that one time that Tosh had to cover for Owen just after he was hired… that one time with the space pig.

Owen apologizes for the two of them missing each other and never getting that date. The coolant begins to fill the room, and Owen tells Tosh that everything is okay. His last words are, “Oh, God.”

Jack, Gwen, Ianto, and Hart find Tosh. She tells them about Owen before dying in Jack’s arms.

The next morning, Rhys and Gwen watch the news. Rhys holds Gwen as she mourns. At the Hub, Jack prepares to freeze Gray, unprepared to add more death to that which has already torn at the team. John bids Jack farewell with his condolences and a kiss.

Jack and Gwen pack up Owen’s and Tosh’s belongings as Ianto logs them out of the system for the final time. The team gathers around Tosh’s terminal as a message pops up.

It’s her farewell.

She thanks Jack, admits her love for Owen, and hopes that her death meant something. As she fades from the screen, Jack resolves that they should carry on. The end is where they start from.

 

I knew it was coming and I still cried. This story does what Torchwood does best by mixing action and drama and ensuring that the stakes are kept high. Doctor Who often pulls out the last-minute save and keeps the tone (mostly) hopeful and light, but Torchwood doesn’t pull punches. Everyone there is living on borrowed time.

It’s the last time that we will see the Torchwood Three team that we met in Day One together. It’s a milestone for the series.

 

 

Rating: 5/5 – “Fantastic!”

 

UP NEXT – Torchwood: Series Two Summary

 

 

The Timestamps Project is an adventure through the televised universe of Doctor Who, story by story, from the beginning of the franchise. For more reviews like this one, please visit the project’s page at Creative Criticality.

 

 

The Thing About Today – February 26

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 26, 2020
Day 57 of 366

 

February 26th is the fifty-seventh day of the year. It is Liberation Day in Kuwait.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Pistachio Day and National Tell a Fairy Tale Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1616, Galileo Galilei was formally banned by the Roman Catholic Church for teaching and defending his view that the Earth orbits the sun.
  • In 1802, Victor Hugo was born. He was the French author, poet, and playwright, his most famous works are the novels Les Misérables (1862) and The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831).
  • In 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte escaped from Elba.
  • In 1829, Levi Strauss was born. The German-American fashion designer founded Levi Strauss & Co.
  • In 1908, animator, producer, and voice actor Tex Avery was born.
  • In 1909, Kinemacolor was debuted to the general public at the Palace Theatre in London. It was the first successful color motion picture process.
  • In 1916, comedian Jackie Gleason was born.
  • In 1918, author, critic, and Star Trek alum Theodore Sturgeon was born.
  • In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson signed an act of Congress to establish the Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona.
  • In 1928, singer-songwriter and pianist Fats Domino was born.
  • In 1929, President Calvin Coolidge signed an executive order to establish the 96,000 acre Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming.
  • In 1932, singer-songwriter, guitarist, and actor Johnny Cash was born.
  • In 1963, actress, singer, and activist Chase Masterson was born.
  • In 1966, AS-201 was launched. It was the first uncrewed test flight of an entire production Block I Apollo command and service module and the Saturn IB launch vehicle.
  • In 1993, a truck bomb parked below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City exploded, killing six and injuring over a thousand people.

 

This year, February 26th is Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season of penitence in the liturgical year. I’m not a member of a religion that observes the season, but I have several friends that are and I have been interested in what it means. There is obviously so much more to it than I can write in this short segment.

It is a Christian holy day of prayer and fasting, traditionally observed by Western Christians including Anglicans, Latin Rite Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Methodists, Moravians, Nazarenes, Independent Catholics, and many from the Reformed faith. The name derives from the placing of repentance ashes on the foreheads of participants, often to the dictum, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Those ashes are prepared by burning palm leaves from the previous year’s Palm Sunday celebrations.

The First Council of Nicæa spoke of Lent as a period of fasting for forty days, in preparation for Eastertide. In some denominations, the holiday is observed though observed fasting, abstinence from meat, and repentance as the observer contemplates their transgressions. The United Methodist Church states that the fast comes from a biblical basis since Jesus, as part of his spiritual preparation in their Gospels, fasted for 40 days and nights in the wilderness.

The abstinence from mammal and fowl meat is observed on every Friday of the Lenten period, which this year runs until Thursday, April 9th.

 

The Thing About Today is an effort to look at each day of 2020 with respect to its historical context.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.