Tag: The Thing About Today

The Thing About Today – February 15

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 15, 2020
Day 46 of 366

February 15th is the forty-sixth day of the year. It is National Flag of Canada Day, commemorating the inauguration of the national flag in 1965.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Gumdrop Day, Singles Awareness Day, and National Wisconsin Day.

Historical items of note:

  • In 1564, astronomer, physicist, and mathematician Galileo Galilei was born.
  • In 1835, the first constitutional law in modern Serbia was adopted.
  • In 1870, Stevens Institute of Technology was founded in New Jersey. The school offered the first Bachelor of Engineering degree in Mechanical Engineering.
  • In 1879, President Rutherford B. Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases before the Supreme Court of the United States.
  • In 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded and sank in Havana, Cuba. The event, during which 274 people were killed, prompted the United States to declare war on Spain.
  • In 1907, Cesar Romero was born. He played the Joker in the 1966 Batman series.
  • In 1927, Harvey Korman was born.
  • In 1935, American astronaut Roger B. Chaffee was born.
  • In 1946, ENIAC, the first electronic general-purpose computer, was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
  • In 1950, Disney’s Cinderella premiered in Boston.
  • In 1951, actress Jane Seymour was born.
  • In 1954, Canada and the United States agreed to construct the Distant Early Warning Line, a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic regions of Canada and Alaska.
  • Also in 1954, Matt Groening was born. He was the creator of The Simpsons.
  • In 1971, British coinage completed the decimalization process, thus inspiring Decimal Day.
  • In 1972, sound recordings were granted U.S. federal copyright protection for the first time.
  • In 1992, serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was sentenced to life in prison.
  • In 2001, the first draft of the complete human genome was published in Nature.

In 1820, American suffragist and activist Susan B. Anthony was born.

Susan B. Anthony was an American social reformer and women’s rights activist who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement. Her family was committed to social equality, and even as a teenager she was dedicated to fighting for social justice. At the age of 17, she collected anti-slavery petitions, and by 1856 she was the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Alongside Elizabeth Cady Stanton, her lifelong friend and co-worker in social reform, Anthony fought for women’s rights. Together, the women found the New York Women’s Temperance Society after Anthony was prevented from speaking at a conference because of her gender. They worked together on several other projects and organizations over the following twenty years, fighting for both women’s rights and racial equality.

In 1872, Anthony was arrested for voting in her hometown of Rochester, New York. After being convicted in a very public trial, she refused to pay the fine and the government refused to escalate matters any further. This prompted Anthony and Stanton to present an amendment before Congress to grant women the right to vote. This amendment was ratified as the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920.

The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

When she first began campaigning for women’s rights, Susan B. Anthony was harshly ridiculed. In fact, she was accused of trying to destroy the institution of marriage.

Doesn’t that sound familiar nearly two hundred years later?

Public perception of her changed radically during her lifetime. Her 80th birthday was celebrated at the White House with President William McKinley, and she became the first female citizen depicted on coinage in the United States when her portrait was added to the dollar coin in 1979.

Susan B. Anthony died on March 13, 1906, at the age of 86.

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 14

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 14, 2020
Day 45 of 366

 

February 14th is the forty-fifth day of the year. It is Statehood Day in both Arizona and Oregon. It is also Valentine’s Day.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Cream-Filled Chocolates Day, National Ferris Wheel Day, National Organ Donor Day, and No One Eats Alone Day. That last one changes days every year but is typically observed on a Friday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1349, the Strasbourg Massacre occurred in France. As part of the ongoing Black Death persecutions, several hundred Jews were burned to death by mobs while the remaining Jews were forcibly removed. It was one of the first and worst pogroms in pre-modern history.
  • In 1778, the United States flag was formally recognized by a foreign naval vessel for the first time. French Admiral Toussaint-Guillaume Picquet de la Motte rendered a nine gun salute to USS Ranger, commanded by John Paul Jones.
  • In 1838, Margaret E. Knight was born. Among other things, she invented the flat-bottomed paper bag.
  • In 1847, Anna Howard Shaw was born. She was a physician and one of the first ordained female Methodist ministers in the United States. She was also a leader in the American women’s suffrage movement.
  • In 1849, James Knox Polk became the first serving President of the United States to have his photograph taken. The event occurred in New York City.
  • In 1859, George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. was born. An American engineer, he was the inventor of the Ferris wheel. Hence, National Ferris Wheel Day.
  • In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both applied for a patent for the telephone.
  • In 1899, voting machines were approved by the United States Congress for use in federal elections.
  • In 1903, the United States Department of Commerce and Labor was established. It was later split into the Department of Commerce and the Department of Labor.
  • In 1912, The United States Navy commissioned the E-class submarine, its first class of diesel-powered submarines.
  • In 1921, journalist, game show host, and producer Hugh Downs was born.
  • In 1927, Lois Maxwell was born. She portrayed Miss Moneypenny in the first fourteen Eon-produced James Bond films.
  • In 1929, the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre occurred. Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s gang, were murdered in Chicago.
  • In 1931, Dracula starring Bela Lugosi was released.
  • In 1942, Andrew Robinson was born. He played Garak in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
  • In 1944, journalist Carl Bernstein was born. Along with Bob Woodward, he did much of the original reporting on the Watergate scandal.
  • In 1951, journalist and radio host Terry Gross was born.
  • In 1961, Lawrencium, element 103 on the periodic table, was first synthesized at the University of California. It was later named in honor of Ernest Lawrence, inventor of the cyclotron, a device that was used to discover many artificial radioactive elements.
  • In 1963, actor Zach Galligan was born.
  • In 1970, actor Simon Pegg was born.
  • In 1990, the Voyager 1 spacecraft took the famous Pale Blue Dot photo at a record distance of six billion kilometers.
  • In 1991, Silence of the Lambs was released.
  • In 2005, YouTube was launched by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, each former employees of PayPal. The service was eventually sold to Google for $1.65 billion.

 

February 14th is Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day originated as a Western Christian feast day honoring one or two early saints named Valentinus. Today it is recognized more as a cultural, religious, and commercial celebration of romance and romantic love.

There are many martyrdom stories that connect various Valentines to February 14. One account is that of Saint Valentine of Rome, who was imprisoned for performing forbidden weddings for soldiers and ministering to Christians persecuted under the Roman Empire. According to the legend, Saint Valentine restored sight to the blind daughter of his judge, and he wrote her a letter signed “Your Valentine” as a farewell before execution. In his honor as a martyr, the Feast of Saint Valentine was established by Pope Gelasius I in AD 496 to be celebrated on February 14.

Another is Valentine of Terni, a bishop of Interamna, supposedly martyred during the persecution under Emperor Aurelian in 273.

Romantic love entered the picture courtesy of Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century, a period of courtly love by tradition. In honor the first anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, Chaucer wrote of love birds in Parlement of Foules (1382):

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

The earliest description of February 14 as an annual celebration of love appears in the Charter of the Court of Love. The charter, allegedly issued by Charles VI of France in 1400, describes lavish festivities attended by members of the royal court, including a feast, amorous song, poetry competitions, jousting, and dancing.

Shakespeare mentioned Valentine’s Day in Hamlet (Act IV, Scene 5), circa 1600:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

John Donne was inspired by the legend of the marriage of the birds when he wrote his epithalamion – a poem for the bride as she heads to her marital chamber – celebrating the marriage of Elizabeth, daughter of James I of England, and Frederick V, Elector Palatine.

Hayle Bishop Valentine whose day this is

All the Ayre is thy Diocese
And all the chirping Queristers
And other birds ar thy parishioners
Thou marryest every yeare
The Lyrick Lark, and the graue whispering Doue,
The Sparrow that neglects his life for loue,
The houshold bird with the redd stomacher
Thou makst the Blackbird speede as soone,
As doth the Goldfinch, or the Halcyon
The Husband Cock lookes out and soone is spedd
And meets his wife, which brings her feather-bed.
This day more cheerfully than ever shine

This day which might inflame thy selfe old Valentine.

The roses are red cliché has two strong historical anchors. First, The Faerie Queene (1590) by Edmund Spenser:

She bath’d with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.

Second, Gammer Gurton’s Garland (1784) by Joseph Ritson:

The rose is red, the violet’s blue,

The honey’s sweet, and so are you.
Thou art my love and I am thine;
I drew thee to my Valentine:
The lot was cast and then I drew,

And Fortune said it shou’d be you.

In 18th-century England, the day grew into expressions of love by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (giving birth to the term “valentines”). Handwritten valentines evolved into mass-produced greeting cards.

Today, symbols include heart-shaped outlines, doves, and Cupid. In Europe, Saint Valentine’s Keys are given to lovers as romantic symbols and invitations to unlock the giver’s heart, as well as to children to ward off epilepsy, which is called Saint Valentine’s Malady.

Saint Valentine’s Day is an official feast day in the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran Church. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, it is celebrated on July 6th and July 30th, the former date in honor of Saint Valentine, and the latter in honor of the Bishop of Interamna.

It is currently celebrated in various means and traditions around the world.

 

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 13

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 13, 2020
Day 44 of 366

 

February 13th is the forty-fourth day of the year. It is World Radio Day.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Break Up With Your Carrier Day, National Cheddar Day, National Tortellini Day, and National Giving Hearts Day. The last one is typically observed on the second Thursday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1880, Thomas Edison first observed Thermionic emission. In simpler terms, that is the liberation of electrons from an electrode by virtue of its temperature, such as light emitted by the filament in a light bulb.
  • In 1910, William Shockley Jr. was born. He was the manager of a research group at Bell Labs that included John Bardeen and Walter Brattain. The three scientists were jointly awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics for research on semiconductors and the discovery of the transistor effect.
  • In 1932, actress Susan Oliver was born. She was Vina in the first Star Trek pilot, “The Cage”.
  • In 1933, actress Caroline Blakiston was born. She was Mon Mothma in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.
  • In 1935, a jury in Flemington, New Jersey found Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s son.
  • In 1944, actress Stockard Channing was born.
  • In 1950, English singer-songwriter and musician Peter Gabriel was born.
  • In 1958, actress Pernilla August was born. She portrayed Shmi Skywalker in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
  • In 1960, black college students staged the first of the Nashville sit-ins at three lunch counters in Nashville, Tennessee.
  • In 1966, actor and producer Neal McDonough was born.
  • In 1990, an agreement was reached on a two-stage plan to reunite Germany.
  • In 2004, the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics announced the discovery of the universe’s largest known diamond. It was white dwarf star BPM 37093, christened “Lucy” after “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles.
  • In 2011, the American Indian Umatilla tribe were able to hunt and harvest a bison just outside Yellowstone National Park. This event, the first of its kind in more than 100 years, restored a centuries-old tradition guaranteed by a treaty signed in 1855.

 

In 1923, Chuck Yeager was born. He was the first test pilot to break the sound barrier.

A native of Myra, West Virginia, Yeager enlisted as a private in the U.S. Army Air Forces (USAAF) on September 12, 1941. He was not eligible for flight training due to his age and education, but he served as an aircraft mechanic at George Air Force Base in California. After the attack at Pearl Harbor and the United States entered World War II, the USAAF changed its recruiting standards and Yeager was accepted for flight training.

He received his wings at Luke Field in Arizona. His initial fighter pilot training was on Bell P-39 Airacobras, and he later flew P-51 Mustangs in combat with the 363d Fighter Squadron out of RAF Leiston. He was shot down on March 5, 1944 and escaped to Spain with help from the Maquis French resistance. He was later awarded a Bronze Star for helping B-24 navigator “Pat” Patterson during the escape attempt.

He continued to fly during World War II, being promoted to captain before the end of his tour. He was assigned to Wright Field with his wife where he served as a test pilot. He later transferred to Muroc Army Air Field (now Edwards Air Force Base) where he broke the sound barrier on October 14, 1947, flying the X-1 Glamorous Glennis. That plane is on permanent display at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum.

After breaking several other speed and altitude records, Yeager continued his career, eventually promoting to brigadier general and retiring in 1975. He continued to fly on occasion for the United States Air Force and NASA as a consultant. He was inducted into the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1973 and has several other awards and honors to his name. His legacy in aviation is unmistakable.

His wife Glennis, after whom he named his plane as a good luck charm, died of ovarian cancer in 1990. They had four children together.

 

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 12

Michael Falkner1 Comment

February 12, 2020
Day 43 of 366

 

February 12th is the forty-third day of the year. It is National Freedom to Marry Day in the United States. It is also Red Hand Day, also known as the International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Plum Pudding Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1502, Isabella I issued an edict outlawing Islam in the Crown of Castile in Spain. This forced virtually all of her Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity.
  • In 1809, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was born.
  • In 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded.
  • In 1915, actor Lorne Greene was born.
  • In 1924, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue received its premiere in a concert titled “An Experiment in Modern Music”. The concert was held at Aeolian Hall in New York, with Gershwin playing the piano with Paul Whiteman and his band.
  • In 1938, author and educator Judy Blume was born.
  • In 1945, actress Maud Adams was born.
  • In 1946, African American United States Army veteran Isaac Woodard was severely beaten by a South Carolina police officer. The incident, during which Woodard lost his vision in both eyes, galvanized the civil rights movement and partially inspired the Orson Welles film Touch of Evil.
  • In 1950, actor Michael Ironside was born.
  • In 1953, actress Joanna Kerns was born.
  • In 1963, construction began on the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri.
  • In 2001, the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touched down in the “saddle” region of 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
  • In 2004, the city of San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples in response to a directive from Mayor Gavin Newsom.

 

In 1915, the first stone of the Lincoln Memorial was placed in Washington, D.C. This occurred on the 106th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth.

The architect for the memorial was Henry Bacon and the designer of the interior statue was Daniel Chester French. The statue was carved by the Piccirilli Brothers and the interior murals were painted by Jules Guerin. The overall design echoed a Greek Doric temple and contains inscriptions of the Gettysburg Address and the President’s second inaugural address. It has been the site of several famous speeches, including Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” address.

It wasn’t the first public memorial to President Lincoln. That honor goes to a statue by Lot Flannery erected in front of the District of Columbia City Hall in 1968, three years after Lincoln’s assassination. Public demand for a fitting national memorial, ranging back to the time of Lincoln’s death, finally got traction when Congress took action in 1867. Courtesy of congressional chicanery, the project eventually settled on design and location by 1913.

The location was dedicated on February 12, 1914, and was completed on schedule. The memorial itself was dedicated on May 30, 1922, by William H. Taft, then Chief Justice of the United States, and presented to President Warren Harding. Lincoln’s only surviving son, 78-year-old Robert Todd Lincoln, was in attendance.

The Memorial was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. It is open to the public 24 hours a day and is visited by over seven million people per year.

 

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 11

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 11, 2020
Day 41 of 366

 

February 11th is the forty-second day of the year. It is National Foundation Day in Japan, commemorating the 660 BC foundation by Emperor Jimmu.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk Day, National Inventors’ Day, National Make a Friend Day, National Peppermint Patty Day, National Shut-In Visitation Day, and National White Shirt Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1790, The Religious Society of Friends, also known as Quakers, petitioned the United States Congress for the abolition of slavery.
  • In 1812, Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry was accused of unfair practices after signing a bill that created a partisan Boston district in the shape of a salamander. Thus, the term gerrymandering was born.
  • In 1847, Thomas Edison was born. He developed the lightbulb and the phonograph.
  • In 1936, actor Burt Reynolds was born.
  • In 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower denied all appeals for clemency for Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, the couple convicted of spying on the United States for the Soviet Union.
  • In 1961, actress Carey Lowell was born.
  • In 1969, actress and producer Jennifer Aniston was born.
  • In 1982, actress Natalie Dormer was born.
  • In 1983, “Weird Al” Yankovic completed recording of his first studio album.
  • Also in 1983, actress Nicki Clyne was born.
  • In 2001, a Dutch programmer launched the Anna Kournikova virus. Millions of emails were infected thanks to a trick photo of the tennis star.

 

In 1938, BBC Television produced a thirty-five-minute adaptation of a section of the play R.U.R., making it the world’s first-ever science fiction television program.

R.U.R., sometimes subtitled Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti or “Rossum’s Universal Robots”, was written by Karel Čapek. When it premiered on January 25, 1921, it introduced the word “robot” to the English language and the science fiction genre. In Czech, robota means forced labor, such as that of a serf on a master’s land. It is derived from rab, which translates to slave.

The play partly takes place in a factory that makes artificial people called roboti. These robots are manufactured from synthetic organic matter and are living creatures of artificial flesh and blood rather than the mechanical constructs we consider robots in the modern era. In fact, the roboti are closer to our modern definition of androids or replicants, can easily be mistaken for humans, and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans at first, but a robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race.

Čapek later wrote in the same theme with War with the Newts, in which non-humans become a servant class in human society.

The parallels between Čapek’s work and both versions of Battlestar Galactica are striking.

The play quickly became influential and had been translated into thirty languages by 1923. It was later adapted into a radio play with Patrick Troughton for the BBC in 1941 and had several other adaptations over the years. Its legacy has also spawned several references in popular culture.

In the United States, the original manuscript is in the public domain and has been transcribed for Project Gutenberg.

 

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 10

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 10, 2020
Day 41 of 366

 

February 10th is the forty-first day of the year. It is National Memorial Day of the Exiles and Foibe in Italy. This year, it also coincides with the Jewish holiday of Tu BiShvat.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Cream Cheese Brownie Day, National Home Warranty Day, National Umbrella Day, and National Clean Out Your Computer Day. The last one is typically observed on the second Monday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1939, John Ford’s Stagecoach premiered in Miami.
  • Also in 1939, Peter Purves was born. He played Steven Taylor in Doctor Who.
  • In 1940, Tom and Jerry debuted with the make their debut with the short Puss Gets the Boot.
  • In 1967, the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. It deals with issues related to Presidential succession.
  • Also in 1967, actress, director, and producer Laura Dern was born.
  • In 1974, actress and director Elizabeth Banks was born.
  • In 1996, the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue defeated Garry Kasparov in chess for the first time.

 

In 1929, composer and conductor Jerry Goldsmith was born.

As a child, he studied under Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who also tutored composers and musicians like Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein, André Previn, Marty Paich, and John Williams. At the age of sixteen, Goldsmith saw Spellbound in theaters and was inspired by the music of Miklós Rózsa.

After graduating from the University of Southern California, he started his career at CBS as a clerk typist in the music department. He wrote scores for radio programs like CBS Radio Workshop, Frontier Gentleman, and Romance, later progressing to Climax!, Playhouse 90, and several episodes of the iconic anthology series The Twilight Zone. He also worked on Dr. Kildare and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

He made his film debut on 1957’s Black Patch, and gained widespread recognition after scoring 1962’s Lonely Are the Brave, which came after a recommendation from Alfred Newman.

During the 1960s, Goldsmith nearly fifty titles, including Our Man Flint, Stagecoach, In Like Flint, Planet of the Apes, and The Blue Max. His score for The Blue Max is considered one of the best in his catalog, possibly inspiring later flight music like Supergirl, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Air Force One, and Tora! Tora! Tora!

The 1970s brought Goldsmith to Patton, which used an echoplex to loop “call to war” triplets on the trumpet to reflect the famous general’s belief in reincarnation. The score earned Goldsmith an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score. During the decade, he also scored Papillon, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, The Omen (and two sequels), Logan’s Run, Islands in the Stream, Coma, Capricorn One, The Great Train Robbery, and The Boys from Brazil.

He also scored 1979’s Alien, using the orchestra and atypical instruments to invoke unease and terror. He also was responsible for establishing the musical path forward in the Star Trek franchise with the juggernaut’s first motion picture. This score introduced the thematic title theme that would carry forward from that point, as well as debuting Craig Huxley’s Blaster Beam instrument as a motif for the V’Ger entity. Goldsmith would return to Star Trek for four more films and the title theme for Star Trek: Voyager.

The 1980s continued Goldsmith’s success with Outland, The Secret of NIMH, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Poltergeist (and its sequel), the first three Rambo films, Gremlins, Supergirl, Legend, Hoosiers, Innerspace, Leviathan, and The ‘Burbs. The 1990s added The Russia House, Total Recall, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Sleeping with the Enemy, Forever Young, The Vanishing, Basic Instinct, Rudy, The River Wild, Congo, Powder, Mulan, and so much more.

He also composed a new theme for the Universal Studios opening logos, which debuted with The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

The 2000s brought Goldsmith’s illustrious career to a close with Hollow Man, Along Came a Spider, The Sum of All Fears, and the Soarin’ attractions at the Disney theme parks. His final cinematic score was Looney Tunes: Back in Action, directed by his long-time collaborator Joe Dante.

Jerry Goldsmith has often been considered one of film music history’s most innovative and influential composers, receiving eighteen total Academy Award nominations. Despite being one the most nominated composers in Oscars history, he only won once. That was for The Omen from 1976.

He died in his home on July 21, 2004, from colon cancer at the age of 75.

 

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 9

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 9, 2020
Day 40 of 366

 

February 9th is the fortieth day of the year. It is St. Maroun’s Day in Lebanon.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Bagel and Lox Day, National Pizza Day, and National Toothache Day. One of these things is not like the other…

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1825, the United States House of Representatives elected John Qunicy Adams as the sixth President of the United States. This step was taken after no candidate received a majority of electoral votes in the US presidential election of 1824.
  • In 1870, President Ulysses S. Grant established the U.S. Weather Bureau by signing a joint resolution of Congress.
  • In 1895, William G. Morgan created a game called Mintonette. It was later renamed as volleyball.
  • In 1964, The Beatles made their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, performing before a record audience of 73 million viewers.
  • In 1981, actor Tom Hiddleston was born.
  • In 1997, “The Itchy & Scratchy & Poochie Show” aired during the eighth season of The Simpsons. It was the show’s 167th episode and marked The Simpsons surpassing The Flintstones for the most episodes produced for a prime-time animated series.

 

In 1986, Halley’s Comet completed its most recent appearance in the inner solar system.

Comet Halley, officially 1P/Halley, has been observed and recorded since at least 240BC. Halley’s Comet was the first to be recognized as periodic, also known as short-period comets, which means that their orbital periods around the sun are less than 200 years. Halley’s Comet has a period of approximately 75 years.

This period was calculated in 1705 by Edmond Halley – friend, editor, and publisher to Sir Isaac Newton, who could not reconcile the physics of comets during his 1687 publication of Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica – who used twenty-four cometary observations to determine that multiple sightings over time were really the same comet. He had personally observed the comet in September 1862 but was unable to verify the comet’s return since he died in 1742, sixteen years before the event in 1758.

During the 1986 orbit through the inner solar system, Halley’s Comet became the first comet to be observed in detail by spacecraft. This provided the first observational data on the structure, including the comet’s nucleus and how the coma and tail functioned. Due to the 75-year period between perihelion events, the return was a large pop culture event. I personally have a memento in a commemorative Matchbox Mercury Police Car.

The next predicted perihelion of Halley’s Comet is July 28, 2061.

 

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 8

Michael Falkner2 Comments

February 8, 2020
Day 39 of 366

 

February 8th is the thirty-ninth day of the year. It is Prešeren Day is Slovenia, which commemorates the death of national poet France Prešeren in 1849.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Boy Scouts Day, National Kite Flying Day, National Iowa Day, and Ice Cream for Breakfast Day. The last one is typically observed on the first Saturday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1587, Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed on suspicion of having been involved in the Babington Plot to assassinate her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
  • In 1828, author, poet, and playwright Jules Verne was born.
  • In 1865, the State of Delaware refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Slavery was outlawed in the United States, including Delaware, when the Amendment was ratified in December 1865. The state finally ratified the Amendment on February 12, 1901, the ninety-second anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.
  • In 1879, Sandford Fleming first proposed adoption of Universal Standard Time at a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute.
  • In 1882, Thomas Selfridge was born. As a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, he was the first person to die in an airplane crash and the first active duty member of the U.S. military to die in a crash while on duty. He was killed as a passenger in the Wright Flyer, on a demonstration flight piloted by Orville Wright.
  • In 1910, the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated by William D. Boyce.
  • In 1931, actor James Dean was born. He was the first actor to be posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor.
  • In 1932, composer and musician John Williams was born.
  • In 1940, journalist Ted Koppel was born.
  • In 1955, author John Grisham was born.
  • Also in 1955, Ethan Phillips was born. He played Neelix in Star Trek: Voyager.
  • In 1961, DC Comics animation producer Bruce Timm was born.
  • In 1968, Planet of the Apes premiered in New York City.
  • In 1969, puppeteer and writer Mary Robinette Kowal was born.
  • In 1971, the NASDAQ stock market index opens for the first time. The name was initially an acronym for the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations.
  • In 1974, the crew of Skylab 4 returned to Earth. After completing their 84-day long mission, they were the last crew to visit the American Skylab space station.

 

In 1914, Bill Finger was born. He was the co-creator of Batman.

As an aspiring writer and part-time shoe salesman, he joined Bob Kane’s new studio in 1938 and took a job of ghostwriting Rusty and Clip Carson strips. In response to the success of Superman, the duo conceived the idea for Batman. Finger was responsible for most of the character’s iconic elements, including the cowl, the cape, and the alter ego.

Kane recalls creating the superhero’s vigilante side, but that Finger added the elements of the World’s Greatest Detective. Unfortunately, Bob Kane negotiated the contract to run the character’s stories without including Bill Finger.

Finger wrote many of the early Batman stories, including significant contributions to iconic characters like the Joker, Catwoman, and Robin, as well as elements such as the Batcave, Batmobile, and Gotham City. He also was credited for Ace the Bat-Hound, Bat-Mite, Clayface, Betty Kane (the original Bat-Girl), and so much more.

Finger also made a considerable impact in the worlds of Superman and Green Lantern. He also a screenwriter for both film and television, including the second season live-action Batman episodes “The Clock King’s Crazy Crimes / The Clock King Gets Crowned”, which aired October 12–13, 1966.

Because of the contract that Bob Kane signed nearly thirty years before, those television stories were Bill Finger’s first public credits for a Batman story.

He did not receive official credit on Batman stories or films until 2015, approximately forty years after his death.

He was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry’s Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999. The Bill Finger Award, established by Jerry Robinson in 2005 and presented annually at the San Diego Comic-Con to honor excellence in comic-book writing, is named for him.

He was the subject of a 2017 documentary film on Hulu called Batman & Bill.

 

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 7

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 7, 2020
Day 38 of 366

 

February 7th is the thirty-eighth day of the year. It is National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day in the United States. At some point in their lifetimes, it is estimated that 1 in 16 black men and 1 in 32 black women will be diagnosed with HIV infection.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Fettucine Alfredo Day, National Periodic Table Day, National Send a Card to a Friend Day, Bubble Gum Day, and National Wear Red Day. The last two are typically observed on the first Friday in February.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 1795, the Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution is ratified. It was the first amendment adopted outside of the Bill of Rights and restricts the ability of individuals to bring suit against states in federal court.
  • In 1812, English novelist Charles Dickens was born.
  • In 1867, novelist Laura Ingalls Wilder was born.
  • In 1873, Thomas Andrews was born. He was the Irish shipbuilder who designed the RMS Titanic.
  • In 1885, novelist and Nobel Prize laureate Sinclair Lewis was born.
  • In 1900, a Chinese immigrant in San Francisco fell ill to bubonic plague, marking the first plague epidemic in the continental United States.
  • In 1940, the second full-length animated Walt Disney film, Pinocchio, premiered.
  • In 1955, actor Miguel Ferrer was born.
  • In 1960, actor and produced James Spader was born.
  • In 1962, singer-songwriter Garth Brooks was born.
  • Also in 1962, comedian Eddie Izzard was born.
  • In 1974, Grenada gained independence from the United Kingdom.
  • In 1984, during the STS-41-B mission on Space Shuttle Challenger, astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart made the first untethered spacewalk using the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU).
  • In 1997, NeXT merged with Apple Computer, leading down the path to Mac OS X.
  • In 2013, the U.S. state of Mississippi officially certified the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Mississippi was the last state in the Union to approve the abolition of slavery, approximately 148 years after the amendment was formally adopted.

 

In 1908, swimmer and actor Clarence “Buster” Crabbe was born.

Crabbe attended the University of Southern California where he was the school’s first All-American swimmer in 1931. He competed in the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam where he won the bronze medal for the 1,500 meters freestyle. He returned to the Olympics in the 1932 Summer Games in Los Angeles and won the gold medal for the 400 meters freestyle. He won the medal by a tenth of a second.

He started his career in Hollywood in 1933 with Tarzan the Fearless. Over the span of approximately fifty years he starred in more than a hundred films. He portrayed the typical “jungle man” roles in King of the Jungle in 1933, Jungle Man in 1941, and King of the Congo in 1952. He was the first to portray Flash Gordon, doing so for Universal Pictures from 1936 to 1940. He was also Buck Rogers in the Universal serials.

During World War II, he had a draft deferral since he was a 34-year old married man. During the war, he made Army training films and portrayed Western folk heroes Billy the Kid and Billy Carson in thirty-six films.

After branching into television, Crabbe ventured into a business career during the 1950s and 1960s. He continued working in film from time to time, including a cameo appearance in 1979’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century.

Buster Crabbe died in 1983, at the age of 75, from a heart attack at his Scottsdale, Arizona home.

 

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 6

Michael FalknerLeave a comment

February 6, 2020
Day 37 of 366

 

February 6th is the thirty-seventh day of the year. It is the United Nations-sponsored International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation.

In the United States, it is “celebrated” as National Frozen Yogurt Day and National Lame Duck Day.

 

Historical items of note:

  • In 60 AD, graffiti was left in Pompeii that identified this day as a dies Solis, or a Sunday. Thanks to this historic Banksy, it is the earliest date for which a day of the week is known. In modern parlance, this day would have been a Wednesday.
  • In 1665, Queen Anne of Great Britain was born. She was the last monarch of the House of Stuart.
  • In 1778, as part of the American Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce were signed in Paris by the United States and France. This signaled official recognition of the new republic.
  • In 1815, New Jersey granted the first American railroad charter to John Stevens, the American lawyer, engineer, and inventor who constructed the first U.S. steam locomotive, first steam-powered ferry, and first U.S. commercial ferry service from his estate in Hoboken.
  • In 1838, Sir Henry Irving was born. He was the first actor to be awarded a knighthood, and was one of the inspirations for the title character of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
  • In 1895, American baseball player George Herman “Babe” Ruth Jr. was born. He was one of the first five inaugural members of the Baseball Hall of Fame.
  • In 1918, British women over the age of 30, who met minimum property qualifications, received the right to vote when Representation of the People Act 1918 was passed by Parliament.
  • In 1922, actor Patrick Macnee was born.
  • In 1939, actor and director Mike Farrell was born. He portrayed Captain B.J. Hunnicutt on M*A*S*H.
  • In 1940, journalist Tom Brokaw was born.
  • In 1945, singer-songwriter Bob Marley was born.
  • In 1951, the Canadian Army entered combat in the Korean War.
  • In 1952, Elizabeth II became Queen of the United Kingdom and her other Realms and Territories and Head of the Commonwealth upon the death of her father, George VI. At the exact moment of succession, she was in a treehouse at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya. She is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, as well as the world’s longest-serving female head of state, oldest living monarch, longest-reigning current monarch, and the oldest and longest-serving current head of state.
  • In 1959, Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments filed the first patent for an integrated circuit.
  • In 1966, singer-songwriter Rick Astley was born. He promises to never give you up, never let you down, and never run around and desert you.
  • In 1987, Justice Mary Gaudron became the first woman to be appointed to the High Court of Australia.
  • In 1998, Washington National Airport was renamed Ronald Reagan National Airport. This coincided with the actor and former U.S. President’s 87th birthday.

 

In 2018, SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy, a super heavy-lift launch vehicle, made its maiden flight.

SpaceX, formally the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, is a private American aerospace and space manufacturing company founded by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla. The company’s goal is the reduction of space transportation costs to enable the colonization of Mars.

SpaceX put the first privately funded liquid-propellant rocket, the Falcon 1, in orbit in 2008. They were also the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft (the Dragon in 2010), the first private company to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (the Dragon in 2012), the first propulsive landing for an orbital rocket (the Falcon 9 in 2015), the first reuse of an orbital rocket (the Falcon 9 in 2017), and the first private company to launch an object into orbit around the sun.

That last one was the Falcon Heavy and its payload of a Tesla Roadster. The reusable Falcon Heavy – classified as a super heavy-lift launch vehicle due to its ability to lift more than 110,000 pounds of payload into low Earth orbit – was designed to be able to carry humans into space beyond low Earth orbit. It was unveiled at a news conference in April 2011 with an initial test flight expected for 2013. Partly due to the failure of the SpaceX CRS-7 in 2015, the maiden flight was delayed until February 2018. The goal of the maiden flight was to demonstrate the rocket’s capabilities while gathering telemetry throughout the flight.

The Tesla Roadster was chosen as a payload because it belonged to Elon Musk and had to be “something fun and without irreplaceable sentimental value”. A mannequin (in a SpaceX spacesuit)  named “Starman” sat in the driver’s seat, named in honor of David Bowie. The car’s sound system also played Bowie songs on a loop. The Roadster became the first consumer car sent into space, and it was inserted into a heliocentric orbit.

The mission also carried Arch Mission 1.2 – a crystal disk containing Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series of books – as well as a copy of Douglas Adams’ 1979 novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the glovebox, a towel, a “Don’t Panic!” sign on the dashboard, a Hot Wheels miniature Roadster with a miniature Starman driver, a plaque bearing the names of the employees who worked on the project, and a message on the vehicle’s circuit board that read “Made on Earth by humans”.

A year after the successful demo flight, SpaceX had managed to sign five commercial contracts worth $500 million to $750 million. SpaceX launched the first commercial Falcon Heavy rocket in April 2019, and a third flight a few months later with the recovered side-boosters from the second flight.

SpaceX has flown 18 resupply missions to the International Space Station (ISS) under a partnership with NASA. NASA also awarded SpaceX a further development contract in 2011 to develop and demonstrate a human-rated Dragon spacecraft, which would be used to transport astronauts to the ISS and return them safely to Earth. SpaceX conducted the maiden launch of its Crew Dragon spacecraft on a NASA-required demonstration flight (christened Crew Dragon Demo-1) on March 2, 2019 and is set to launch its first crewed Crew Dragon in March 2020.

SpaceX is also hard at work on the Starship spacecraft, which is designed for use in crewed interplanetary spaceflight.

 

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.