England, Wales, and Scotland are part of Great Britain; Great Britain and Northern Ireland make up the United Kingdom; the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, and the eight Channel Islands make up the British Islands; and the British Islands plus the Republic of Ireland make up the British Isles.
(This will be on the test.)
I've been celebrating it on the wrong day
We missed celebrating Global Champagne Awareness Day (or International Champagne Day) again - the fourth Friday in October. Most champagne-lovers will already know that, in order for the sparkling nectar to be classified as "champagne", the wine must come from the Champagne province in France.
You may not know that to be termed "champagne" it must also be made by the traditional process of secondary fermentation in the bottle.
Bunkies, please be forewarned: The pressure in a bottle of champagne is 90 pounds per square inch, about three times that in your automobile tire.
Today is International Animation Day. First observed in 2002, the day commemorates the first public performance of Emile Reynaud’s Theatre Optique at the Grevin Museum in Paris in 1892.
So Kids make sure you grab a bowl of the sugary breakfast cereal and watch your favorite cartoons.
October 28, 1947 -
An overlooked yet still powerful film-noir (recently remade), Nightmare Alley, starring Tyrone Power was released on this date.
The film did not initially do well, as the public found it difficult to accept Tyrone Powell as the bad guy. Studio head Darryl F. Zanuck found this movie so generally distasteful that he eventually took it out of circulation, but it was theatrically re-released in 1956-1957, did good business, particularly in the drive-in circuit, and received wide distribution.
October 28, 1950 -
The eternally 39-year old Benjamin Kubelsky (who was actually 56 at the time,) transitioned his successful radio program to television on this date when The Jack Benny Show premiered on CBS-TV.
In the early years, the program was originally titled The Lucky Strike Program after the show's sponsor, Lucky Strike cigarettes, which had also sponsored Jack Benny's radio program.
October 28, 1956 -
Elvis Presley made his second appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show, (Ed Sullivan had sufficient recovered from his near fatal auto accident to resume host the program,) on this date.
On the show besides Love Me Tender, Elvis performed, Don't Be Cruel, Love Me and Hound Dog.
Elvis also received a polio vaccination backstage that evening on the Ed Sullivan Show. This single event is credited with raising immunization levels in the United States from 0.6% to over 80% in just six months.
October, 28, 1957 -
Federico Fellini's Le Notti di Cabiria (Nights of Cabiria) opened in the US on this date. (A good friend of mine named her daughter after Giulietta Masina. )
The American musical, Sweet Charity (choreograped and directed by Bob Fosse) was based upon this film. The ending used in 'Charity' (which parallels this film's ending) was deemed too 'depressing' by the studio, who demanded am upbeat ending, instead. Though it was filmed, test audiences reacted poorly, so the original - 'Cabiria-like' ending which leaves her future unanswered was restored.
October 28, 1962 -
Gerry and Sylvia Anderson third attempt at frightening children with Supermarionation - Fireball XL5 premiered in the UK, on this date. Remember to stick around for the end credits to sing along with the theme!
Although Supercar had been shown in syndication, this was the first Gerry Anderson' Supermarionation series to appear on US network television (NBC, on Saturday mornings, between 1963 and 1965). This was their last black and white puppet TV series.
October 28, 1972 -
Stevie Wonder released his 15th studio album Talking Book on this date.
The album's first track, You Are the Sunshine of My Life, hit No.1 on the Billboard charts, and earned Wonder his first Grammy Award. The album featured a guest appearance of Jeff Beck on the track Superstition.
October 28, 1978 -
The group KISS, may have thought that they had dodged a huge career bullet when they turned down appearing in the disasterous BeeGee's Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band fiasco, due to being contractually obliged to star in another feature. Karma though had other thoughts - The Hanna-Barbera produced KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park premiered on NBC-TV on this date.
All four members of KISS deeply regret that they acted in it. They hate the movie and still despise it being created.
Another unimportant moment in history
Today in History:
October 28, 4004 BC -
You never call, you never write - God.
According to Biblical calculations by our pal, Archbishop James Ussher,
God created Adam and Eve five days after finishing the rest of the universe.
October 28, 1886 -
The Statue of Liberty was dedicated at Liberty Island, New York, by President Grover Cleveland on this date. The statue weighs 225 tons and is 152 feet tall. It was originally known as Liberty Enlightening the World. Lady Liberty, as she came to be called, quickly become a symbol of America, partly because she was such a striking visual symbol of our national reverence for liberty, partly because of the five-dollar hot dogs and ten-dollar plastic replicas sold at her feet.
(Certain former misinformed administrative officials misunderstand exactly for whom the light of liberty shines. May I humbly suggest the light shines directly for certain former administration officials to be shown the entrance to prison.)
Exactly thirty-three years later, in 1919, Congress passed a law prohibiting alcohol (The Volstead Act.)
Ultimately, it resulted in toxic, bootlegged alcohol that killed more people than legal alcohol had. With alcohol outlawed, only outlaws had drinks and the atmosphere fosters Mafia encroachment into legitimate businesses. Fortunately there were an awful lot of them and they overturned the law as soon as they were sober enough to vote.
October 28, 1922 -
King Victor Emmanuel III, with the assistance of the Catholic Church, handed over power to fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, on this date.
Pope Pius XI declared Mussolini is a man sent by divine providence. In return for this endorsement, the silly dictator would go on to sign the Lateran treaty, restoring papal sovereignty over the Vatican.
But at least the trains ran on time.
October 28, 1943 –
The supposed ‘Philadelphia Experiment,’ involving teleportation or invisibility by the US Navy, took place with the destroyer escort ship, the USS Eldridge.
The US Navy maintains that no such experiment occurred and details of the story contradict ‘well-established facts about the Eldridge.’
October 28, 1948 -
The Nobel committee announces that Swiss chemist Paul Müller had won the 1948 chemistry prize on this date.
He discovered the unusual insecticidal properties of 1,1,1-trichloro-2,2- bis(p-chlorophenyl)ethane. Thanks to Mueller, the world embraces the phenomenal bug-killer... until somebody discovers that the hydrocarbon, popularly known as DDT, also excels at causing cancer.
October 28, 1955 -
William Henry Gates III was born in Seattle on this date. With the world uneasiness, Bill's agressive can recycling has helped him deal with his drop from the number four position to number five (as of yesterday) on Forbes' world billionaire list. I believe he is holding his own with the 1%ers.
Benjamin Franklin, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, Henry Ford and Bill Gates had all, at least once during their lives, been the richest man in the world. They shared one thing in common – a father named William.
October 28, 1962 -
The Cuban Missile Crisis officially ended when Nikita Khrushchev formally agreed to dismantle the Soviet missiles and remove them from Cuba. In exchange, the US agreed not to invade Cuba and respect its sovereignty.
The world breathed a sigh of relief as the tense situation that almost caused a nuclear war came to an end.
October 28, 1963 -
A New York DJ, Murray Kaufman, played a song from a little known British group on this date.
October 28, 1965 -
Pope Paul VI issued a decree, Nostra Aetate, which among other things, absolved Jews of collective guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
October 28, 1965 -
The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, the tallest memorial in the US, was completed on this date. The famous arch, designed by architect Eero Saarinen and structural engineer Hannskarl Bandel, is 603 feet (about 184 meters) tall and 630 feet (about 192 meters) wide.
The memorial was built as a monument to Thomas Jefferson and all those pioneers for whom St. Louis was the Gateway to the West.
October 28, 1971 -
Little remembered today but the first British (and only British made and launched) satellite, Prospero, went up this date, (after the announcement of the cancellation of the British Space program just months earlier.)
Britain becomes the sixth nation with its satellite launched into orbit by a Black Arrow rocket from Woomera, Australia. The mission of the Prospero, a Black Knight 1 satellite, is to test solar cells and other technologies experiments.
And on a personal note:
And so it goes
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