Friday, November 18, 2011

Friday! History, Music, Cinema, Sports, Quotes, More!

On This Date In 1421 Through Novembeer 19 the St. Elizabeth's flood of 1421 was a flooding of an area in what is now the Netherlands. A number of villages were swallowed by the flood and were lost, causing between 2,000 and 10,000 casualties.
On This Date In 1477 William Caxton produced "Dictes or Sayengis of the Philosophres", which was the first book to be printed in England.
On This Date In 1789 Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, inventor of the first practical process of photography, was born near Paris, France.
On This Date In 1820 Captain Nathaniel Palmer became the first American to sight the continent of Antarctica.
On This Date In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln boarded a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, to deliver a short speech at the dedication of a cemetery of soldiers killed during the battle there on July 1 to July 3, 1863. The address Lincoln gave in Gettysburg became one of the most famous speeches in American history.
On This Date In 1867 "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County", an 1867 collection of short stories by Mark Twain, was published. Twain's first book, it collects 27 stories that were previously published in magazines and newspapers.
On This Date In 1883 Four standard time zones for the continental U.S.A. were introduced at the instigation of the railroads. At noon on this day the U.S. Naval Observatory changed its telegraphic signals to correspond to the change. Almost immediately after being implemented, many American cities enacted ordinances, thus resulting in the creation of time "zones." http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/nov18.html
On This Date In 1903 The U.S. and Panama signed a treaty that granted the U.S. rights to build the Panama Canal.
On This Date In 1916 Douglas Haig, commander of the British Expeditionary Force in World War I, called off the Battle of the Somme in France after nearly five months of mass slaughter. ...Although Haig was severely criticized for the costly battle, his willingness to commit massive amounts of men and resources to the stalemate along the western front eventually contributed to the collapse of an exhausted Germany in 1918.
On This Date In 1928 "Steamboat Willie", an American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks, and produced in black-and-white by The Walt Disney Studio, was released by Celebrity Productions. The cartoon is considered the debut of Mickey Mouse, as well as his girlfriend Minnie, even though the characters had both appeared several months earlier in test screenings. Steamboat Willie was the third of Mickey's films to be produced, but was the first to be distributed.
On This Date In 1932 The fifth Academy Awards ceremony was held in the Fiesta Room of the Ambassador Hotel. For the very first time, there was a tie. Since only one vote separated Wallace Beery (The Champ) and Fredric March (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) for best actor, the Academy determined it a tie and both shared the honor. Also notable this year, Walt Disney won best short film for his cartoon Flowers and Trees. Lionel Barrymore hosted the ceremony.
On This Date In 1947 The Ballantyne's Department Store Fire, a holocaust in a Christchurch department store, took the lives of 41 people, mostly employees who had failed to evacuate the second floor workrooms at the time of the fire. It remains the worst fire disaster in New Zealand history.
On This Date In 1947 "Adam's Rib", a film written by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin and directed by George Cukor, was released. It stars Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn and features Judy Holliday in her first substantial film role.
On This Date In 1951 "See It Now" premiered. A television newsmagazine and documentary broadcast by CBS in the 1950s, it was created by Edward R. Murrow and Fred W. Friendly, Murrow being the host of the show. From 1952 to 1957, See It Now won four Emmy Awards and was nominated three times.
On This Date In 1954 "Cattle Queen of Montana", an American Western film starring Barbara Stanwyck and Ronald Reagan, was released. The supporting cast includes Jack Elam, Chubby Johnson, and Morris Ankrum, and the movie was directed by Allan Dwan.
On This Date In 1958 "I Want to Live!", a drama film noir produced by Walter Wanger and directed by Robert Wise, was released. It features Susan Hayward (Academy Award for Best Actress), Simon Oakland, Stafford Repp, and Theodore Bikel. The movie was adapted from articles written by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Montgomery, and based on letters written by Barbara Graham, whose life the movie was based upon.
On This Date In 1959 "Ben-Hur", an epic film directed by William Wyler, and the third film version of Lew Wallace's 1880 novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, premiered at Loew's State Theatre in New York City. The film went on to win a record of eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, a feat equaled only by Titanic and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.
On This Date In 1964 In the largest air assault of the Vietnam War at the time, 116 U.S. and South Vietnamese aircraft flew 1,100 South Vietnamese troops into Binh Duong and Tay Ninh Provinces to attack what was believed to be a major communist stronghold, though only making light contact with the Viet Cong.
On This Date In 1976 The parliament of Spain approved a bill that established a democracy after 37 years of dictatorship.
On This Date In 1978 People's Temple leader Jim Jones lead hundreds of his followers in a mass murder-suicide at their agricultural commune in remote northwestern Guyana. The few cult members who refused to take a cyanide-laced Kool-Aid drink were either forced to do so at gunpoint or shot as they fled. The final death toll was 913, including 276 children.
On This Date In 1978 "52nd Street", the highly anticipated follow-up to singer Billy Joel's 1977 breakthrough album The Stranger, reached #1 on the Billboard pop chart, becoming his first album to do so.
On This Date In 1987 A fire in London's King's Cross subway station killed 30 commuters and injured scores of others. It is the worst fire in the history of the city's underground rail system.
On This Date In 1987 "The Last Emperor", a biopic about the life of Puyi, the last Emperor of China, whose autobiography was the basis for the screenplay written by Mark Peploe and Bernardo Bertolucci (who also directed), was released by Columbia Pictures.
On This Date In 1991 Shiite Muslim kidnappers in Lebanon freed Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite after more than four years of captivity. Waite, looking thinner and his hair grayer, was freed along with American educator Thomas M. Sutherland after intense negotiations by the United Nations.
On This Date In 1992 "Malcolm X", a biographical film directed by Spike Lee about the African-American activist and black nationalist Malcolm X, was released. The story is based on The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley. Denzel Washington was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role as Malcolm X.
On This Date In 1993 The Atari Jaguar, a video game console designed to surpass the Mega Drive/Genesis and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in processing power, was released by Atari Corporation. It was in competition with 3DO and later consoles that made up the Fifth generation of video game consoles. The console was first released in selected U.S. cities in November 1993, and the rest of the country in early 1994.
On This Date In 1997 "ReLoad", the seventh album by American heavy metal band Metallica, was releasedd. The album is a direct sequel or counterpart to the band's previous album, Load. Drummer Lars Ulrich said, "It's the second half of Load. It's just coming out a year-and-a-half later." To date, the album has sold over 4 million copies in the US, and is certified Gold in the UK, having sold over 100,000 copies.
On This Date In 2001 The Nintendo GameCube, Nintendo's fourth home video game console and part of the sixth generation console era, was released. It is the successor to the Nintendo 64 and predecessor to Nintendo's Wii. GameCube is the first Nintendo console to use optical discs as its primary storage medium, after several aborted attempts.
On This Date In 2003 "Blink-182", the sef-titled fifth studio album by the American pop punk band Blink-182, and produced by Jerry Finn, was released through Geffen Records.
On This Date In 2004 Approximately 25,000 guests, including past presidents and heads of state, as well as news outlets from around the world converged in Little Rock for the opening and dedication of The William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Center and Park.
On This Date In 2004 The FDA approved Tarceva (Erlotinib) for the treatment of advanced non-small cell lung cancer, a pill to treat lung cancer. The approval by the FDA came well before the agency's late-January deadline, making it one of the fastest drug approvals ever. Tarceva was approved for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, who have failed to respond to at least one prior round of chemotherapy. http://medicineworld.org/cancer/lead/tarceva-approved.html
On This Date In 2005 "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", a fantasy adventure film, based on J. K. Rowling's novel of the same name, was released. This fourth installment in the Harry Potter film series was directed by Mike Newell and produced by David Heyman, and the script was penned by Steve Kloves. The film stars Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson.
On This Date In 2010 General Motors returned to the stock market with a car show on Wall Street and a congratulatory message from President Obama, but the shares did not deliver a big surge above the price of the initial public offering. Shares in the nation’s biggest automaker closed at $34.19 in heavy trading, a 3.6 percent increase over the $33-a-share price of its offering. Investors had hoped for a larger bounce on the first day of trading for the company, which was rescued in 2009 by a $50 billion government bailout and swift trip through bankruptcy reorganization. http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/g-m-shares-big-day/



Happy Birthday Margaret Atwood (1939), Brenda Vaccaro (1939), Susan Sullivan (1942), Linda Evans (1942), Jameson Parker (1947), Andrea Marcovicci (1948), Delroy Lindo (1952), Kevin Nealon (1953), J.C. Watts (1957), Elizabeth Perkins (1960), Kim Wilde (1960), Rita Cosby (1964), Seth Joyner (1964), Owen Wilson (1968), Gary Sheffield 1968), Peta Wilson (1970), David Ortiz (1975), and Jake Abel (1987).

RIP William Shenstone (1714 – 1763), Carl Maria von Weber (1786 – 1826), Louis Daguerre (1787 – 1851), Phog Allen (1885 – 1974), Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis (1906 – 1988), George Wald (1906 – 1997), Johnny Mercer (1909 – 1976), Pedro Infante (1917 – 1957), Georgia Carroll (1919 – 2011), and Alan Shepard (1923 – 1998).


Quotes

We believe faith and freedom must be our guiding stars, for they show us truth, they make us brave, give us hope, and leave us wiser than we were. Ronald Reagan

How is it they live in such harmony the billions of stars - when most men can barely go a minute without declaring war in their minds about someone they know. Thomas Aquinas

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experiences of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved. Helen Keller

Of all the creatures on earth, only human beings can change their patterns. Man alone is the architect of his destiny... Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. William James


Courtesy YouTube et al

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Topics in today's show:
--According to the OWS website, the demonstrators have scheduled events in New York until October 2025
--Polls now have Newt Gingrich near the top of the field for the GOP nomination
--A man in New York won a bet with his wife by losing nearly 200 pounds
--A new poll finds that in America, conservatives outnumber liberals 2-to-1
--Scientists in Japan have invented a motorcycle that is powered by a toilet

...More!


It's been said God does not ask about our ability, but our availability. May your blessings be many, and may you bring all you are to your life's circles, be an inspiration to all you can, and share in the joys of life and living.

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