22 September 2017

Interesting tidbits:

1692 – The last people hanged for witchcraft in England's North American colonies takes place.

1792 – Primidi Vendémiaire of year 1 of the French Republican Calendar as the French First Republic comes into being. The French Republican Calendar was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805, and for 18 days by the Paris Commune in 1871. The new system was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and was part of a larger attempt at decimalisation in France.

1869 – Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold premieres in Munich.

1888 – The first issue of National Geographic Magazine is published.

1896 – Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.

1927 – Jack Dempsey loses the "Long Count" boxing match to Gene Tunney.

1979 – The Vela Incident (also known as the South Atlantic Flash) is observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.

1991 – The Dead Sea Scrolls are made available to the public for the first time by the Huntington Library.

Today is Hobbit Day, the birthday of Frodo and Bilbo Baggins.

Today's birthday crew:

1515 – Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of Henry VIII.

1791 – Michael Faraday, English scientist whose work on electricity and magnatism made him one of the most influential scientists in history.

1892 – Billy West, American actor, director, and producer. In 1917 movie theaters couldn't get enough Charlie Chaplin comedies, and an enterprising producer hired West, who had been doing comic pantomimes on the vaudeville stage, to make imitation-Chaplin subjects to meet the demand. West, wearing the identical "tramp" costume and makeup, copied Chaplin's movements and gestures so accurately that he is often mistaken for the genuine performer. Chaplin himself saw the Billy West company filming on a Hollywood street, and told West, "You're a damned good imitator." Some West comedies were later re-released on the home-movie market as "Charlie Chaplin" pictures.

1904 – Ellen Church, first American flight attendant. Church studied nursing and worked in a San Francisco hospital. She was a pilot and a registered nurse.

1921 – Will Elder, American illustrator and comic book artist who is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Mad magazine in 1952. Elder's signature style, with extra humorous detail added upon humorous detail, is routinely described as "chicken fat," a reference to soup preparation. As Elder told an interviewer, "The term just came out of what we both knew were the parts of the strip that gave it more flavor but did very little to advance the storyline. That's what Chicken Fat does... it advances the flavor of the soup and, as we all know now, too much chicken fat will kill you!" Elder's rampant insertion of background gags set the tone for the comic book, quickly spreading into the panels of his fellow artists and Mad's imitators. Elder also drew for EC's other humor comic, Panic. His illustrated version of Clement Clarke Moore's "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" included several irreverent images, including a "Just Divorced!" sign hanging on the back of Santa Claus' sleigh. As a result, sales of Panic were banned in the state of Massachusetts. Elder included a self-caricature as he is spun around on Santa Claus' hip when Santa "filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk."

1958 – Neil Cavuto, American journalist.

1958 – Joan Jett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actress (The Runaways).

1959 – Saul Perlmutter, American physicist, Nobel Prize Laureate.

1971 – Elizabeth Bear, American author who works primarily in speculative fiction was a winner of the 2005 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the 2008 Hugo Award for Best Short Story for "Tideline," and the 2009 Hugo Award for Best Novelette for "Shoggoths in Bloom." She is one of only five writers who have gone on to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (the others being C. J. Cherryh, Orson Scott Card, Spider Robinson, and Ted Chiang).

1987 – Tom Felton, English actor and singer best known for playing Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series.

Happy birthday guys!