Geez, this is the week for medium birthdays, isn’t it? On this day in 1923, Russian scientist Vladimir Zworykin, working for Westinghouse, filed the patent on his "television system," laying the groundwork for the one of the most powerful cultural forces of the late 20th-century. Didn’t you always suspect television was a Russian plot?
On this day in 1895, the Lumiere Brothers opened the world’s first movie theater at Paris. Their opening night feature is a collection of 46-second shorts, including the riveting verite masterpiece ‘Workers Leaving the Lumiere Factory.’ Gene Shalit raves, calling it one of the best films of the year.
On this day in 1932, the 5,933-seat Radio City Music Hall, a joint effort by John D Rockelfeller, Samuel "Roxy" Rothafel and the Radio Corporation of America, opened in New York City. Rothefal’s dance troupe the Roxyettes change their name to the Rockettes and star in the premiere extravaganza.
December of 1938 saw the arrival of an ad hoc comic strip called Tippy Tacker’s Christmas Adventure, signed by one Robert Pilgrim and distributed to the daily-newspaper trade by the Bell Syndicate. The feature appears to have run its month-long course with little fanfare and only desultory, though complete, documentation of its passage. The microfilm…
Perhaps it is not geekdom to celebrate, but it is geekdom nonetheless and it is to be remarked upon for the path it has set the world on since. Today in 1942, the Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, and his team initiated the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction as part of the Manhattan Project. Why is…
Today marks the anniversary of the first governmentally exploded whale. Yes, you read right: whale explosion. 37 years ago today, in an effort to dispose of a rotting carcass, the Oregon Highway Division set out to blow up a dead sperm whale with a half ton of dynamite. The resulting explosion sent blubber flying and…
Sustained flashback to 1940, and to an early stage of confidence and high promise for Al Capp’s long-running comic strip, Li’l Abner. Conventional wisdom, bolstered by accounts from Capp his ownself, holds that the name Yokum is a combination of “yokel” and “hokum.” That would be Yokum, as in Abner Yokum and his rural Southern…
Boy, when this Mary Jane was threatened by a villian, he wasn’t kidding around. Today in England, 1888, marked the death of Jack the Ripper’s last known victim, Mary Jane Kelly. Like most psychopaths, Jack started off killing his victims a certain way and once he got the taste for it just became more and…
Today in 1605, Sir Thomas Knyvet, a justice of the peace, found Guy Fawkes in a cellar below the English Parliament building, involved in a plot to blow up Parliament itself. The day was later known as "Guy Fawkes Day" and served as an inspiration for Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s graphic novel, V for Vendetta. Yes,…
On this day in 1969, the first ever computer-to-computer link was estapblished on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet. It was developed by a U.S. Governmental team called DARPA, which sounds just a little too close for comfort to the plotline on Lost. But it actually stands for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Nope, that’s…
In the "gosh, nobody tells me anything" category: Dagwood’s is a franchise development and expansion company structured to become one of the fastest growing chains in history, built on the power of a brand that is famous across the world, and is synonymous with all things sandwich. Most of them are down south, so if…
On this day in 1925, the first photoelectric cell was publicly demonstrated by the Westinghouse Electric and Mfg. Co. at the Electrical Show at Grand Central Palace in New York. That palace no longer exists, having been replaced by an office tower, but it seems photoelectrics will always be with us in one way or…
