The Thing About Today – February 28

February 28, 2020February 25, 2020 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 – January 25

January 25, 2020January 14, 2020 Michael FalknerLeave a comment

January 25, 2020
Day 25 of 366

January 25th is the twenty-fifth day of the year. It is Burns Night in Scotland, which is a celebration of poet Robert Burns.

It is also the Lunar New Year based on the Chinese lunisolar calendar. Today marks the beginning of the Year of the Rat.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Florida Day, National Opposite Day, National Irish Coffee Day, and National Seed Swap Day. The last one is typically celebrated on the last Saturday of January.

Historical items of note:

In 1759, Scottish poet and songwriter Robert Burns was born. He brought “Auld Lang Syne” to the world.
In 1783, William Colgate, founder of Colgate-Palmolive, was born.
In 1858, a long-standing tradition was started at the wedding of Victoria (daughter of Queen Victoria) and Friedrich of Prussia: Felix Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was played and became immensely popular as a wedding processional.
In 1881, Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell formed the Oriental Telephone Company.
In 1882, English novelist Virginia Woolf was born.
In 1909, Richard Strauss’s opera Elektra debuted at the Dresden State Opera.
In 1915, Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated the United States transcontinental telephone service by speaking from New York to Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
In 1931, actor Dean Jones was born.
In 1937, The Guiding Light debuted on NBC radio from Chicago. In 1952, it moved to CBS television and ran until September 18, 2009.
In 1943, director and filmmaker Tobe Hooper was born.
In 1945, the Battle of the Bulge ended in the Ardennes. The conflict ran for forty days, was the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in World War II, and was the third deadliest campaign in American history.
In 1947, Thomas Goldsmith Jr. filed a patent for the “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device”. It was the first-ever electronic game.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy delivered the first live presidential television news conference.
In 1971, Charles Manson and three female members of the “Family” were found guilty of the 1969 Tate–LaBianca murders.
In 1981, singer-songwriter Alicia Keys was born.

In 1970, the film version of M*A*S*H premiered. Directed by Robert Altman and written by Ring Lardner Jr., it was based on MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors.

The dark comedy depicts the antics of the 4077th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War, though the subtext was really about the ongoing Vietnam War. The film starred Donald Sutherland, Tom Skerritt, and Elliott Gould, with Sally Kellerman, Robert Duvall, René Auberjonois, Gary Burghoff, Roger Bowen, Michael Murphy, and professional football player Fred Williamson in his film debut.

The film received five Academy Award nominations and won for Best Adapted Screenplay. It also inspired the landmark television series M*A*S*H, which ran from 1972 to 1983. While many of the characters made the leap from film to television, the only actor from the movie to make the transition was Gary Burghoff in his role of Walter “Radar” O’Reilly.

The original novel was written by H. Richard Hornberger (a former military surgeon) and W. C. Heinz (a former World War II war correspondent), under the pseudonym Richard Hooker. Hornberger, writing as Hooker, continued with M*A*S*H Goes to Maine, a novel focused on the post-war lives of the surgical team.

As the television series became increasingly popular, twelve novels were written by William E. Butterworth that took the M*A*S*H team around the world in the comical but unrealistic “M*A*S*H Goes to ______” series. In 1977, a third and final Hooker novel was published (M*A*S*H Mania) that ignored everything published after M*A*S*H Goes to Maine.

The television series ended after eleven seasons, wrapping up with the most-watched final episode in television history. Actors Harry Morgan, Jamie Farr, and William Christopher carried the torch for two seasons in AfterMASH, a series that followed Colonel Potter, Max Klinger, and Father Mulcahy after the war ended. A pilot for W*A*L*T*E*R, a series centered on Radar O’Reilly, was aired but not picked up for a series option.

The most successful spinoff of the franchise was Trapper John, MD, a medical drama centered on the character of Trapper John McIntyre. Even though the pilot episode shows a photograph of Wayne Rogers and Alan Alda, the series is more of a sequel to the film rather than the television series.

The franchise itself maintains immense popularity through continuous reruns and great success in home media sales.

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 – Best Day of Television

June 5, 2015June 20, 2025 Michael Falkner1 Comment

Culture on My Mind
Best Day of Television
June 5, 2015

A meme has been making the rounds on Facebook about getting children into nature, claiming that kids “don’t remember their best day of television.” Thankfully, many of the people in my geeky circles have torn it apart with their best life-changing television memories.

Mine was May 23, 1994. The episode was “All Good Things…”, the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was the first time I had ever seen a television show do what is now considered a proper wrap-up of story lines from the series, and it still ranks up there with “Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen” from M*A*S*H as one of my favorites farewells in television history.

While the Children & Nature Network has a point in unplugging kids and getting them into the world around them – I spent a great deal of time in nature and away from tech in my youth over many years working on my Eagle Scout award and as a volunteer Trail Patrol member at Antelope Island State Park – this meme easily glosses over the effect that good television has on people. Good stories, regardless of medium, transport your imagination away from the burdens of reality and allow you to dream and hope, and fosters creativity.

Yes, even kids can understand the burdens of the real world and create imaginative wonders to solve them. Anecdotally, I know a successful filmmaker and writer who escaped abuse at home through the wonders of Star Wars. A more concrete example is the duo of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the high school teens who created Superman to battle the social injustices of the 1930s.

My love of speculative fiction stems from being introduced to Star Trek and Lost in Space by my father, and the plethora of action, adventure, and science fiction that dominated the 1980s television landscape. My imagination is still fueled by those memories to this day.

In the end, kids will remember their best days so long as those days are spent seeking their bliss. The trick is finding out what fuels their passions while guiding them into the world at large. All things in moderation.

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.

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