To remember the unimaginable is our duty

On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda hijacked four commercial passenger jet airliners.



Each team of hijackers included a trained pilot. The hijackers crashed two of the airliners into the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in the collapse of both buildings soon afterward.

A third airliner was crashed into the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia.

Passengers and members of the flight crew on the fourth aircraft attempted to retake control of their plane from the hijackers; that plane crashed into a field near the town of Shanksville in rural Somerset County, Pennsylvania. In addition to the 19 hijackers, 2,974 people died; another 23 were missing and presumed dead.

As always, your friends at ACME remind you to hug your friends and family, call or write an old friend you haven't spoken to in awhile, say, "hello" to your neighbors or at least, say "Good Morning" to a stranger on the street.


Let's lighten the mood just a bit:


September 11, 1932 -
MGM released the Edmund Goulding classic Grand Hotel, starring Greta Garbo, John Barrymore and Joan Crawford, on this date.



John Barrymore was so thrilled at the prospect of appearing in the film with Greta Garbo that he accepted a three picture deal with MGM.


September 11, 1937 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Garden, directed by Tex Avery and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



The baby chick eating spinach, therefore growing tall and strong and speaking in a gruff voice, is a reference to Popeye the Sailor


September 11 1943 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Hiss and Make Up, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



As the bird tries to get the dog and cat in trouble by making a mess and imitating their voices, a "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" portrait can be seen on the wall to the right of the green curtains. It appears to be a caricature of Mel Blanc.


September 11, 1948 -
The Looney Tunes short, The Pest That Came to Dinner, directed by Arthur Davis, and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



Sureshot appears to have been inspired by then-popular comic pitchman Sid Stone.


September 11, 1966 -
The Rolling Stones made their fourth appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date.



The audience in the studio really loved the Stones performance and even Ed told the crowd, “You’re yelling much better this year.” There is no word on whether or not Ed Sullivan was drunk at the time.


September 11, 1967 -
The Carol Burnett Show premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



It was revealed years later that each week's show was taped twice in front of different audiences and the best parts from each taping were edited together. It was stated that the first performance had the actors sticking closely to the scripts, but the second was where the actors improvise and ad-lib, which were usually the funnier versions.


September 11, 1971 -
The Jackson 5 cartoon series, called The Jackson 5ive, premiered on ABC on this date.



Each episode shows various adventures with animated versions of the group, along with Michael's pet mice Ray and Charles, and his snake Rosie. The cartoon ran from 1971-1973.


September 11, 1974 -
The TV drama Lucas Tanner starring David Hartman, Rosemary Murphy, Kimberly Beck, John Randolph, and Robbie Rist, premiered ABC-TV on this date.



Lucas Tanner was based on a collection of novels by Richard Posner, who wrote under his own name and under a variety of pseudonyms. He was active from the 1970s to the 1990s, working in the mainstream, crime, and Gothic genres.


September 11, 1982 -
Frank Zappa's song Valley Girl (featuring his daughter Moon Unit Zappa,) reaches its chart peak of #32 on the Billboard Hot 100, on this date.



Frank Zappa released 62 albums in his lifetime (many more appeared after his death), but Valley Girl is his only song to crack the US Top 40. Hearing him on playlists alongside Rick Springfield and Journey was shocking to Zappa fans, who were accustomed to his subversive tunes and caustic attitude toward mainstream music.


September 11, 1992 -
The very successful (at the time) but almost forgotten comedy/ thriller Sneakers, starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn, opened on this date.



The movie deals with the impact of a factoring breakthrough on encryption, a reference to the RSA algorithm, the most popular public-key encryption algorithm in use today. Professor Len Adleman, one of the co-inventors of the RSA algorithm, provided some technical guidance on this movie in exchange for giving his wife a chance to meet Robert Redford.


September 11, 1995 -
The comedy Ned and Stacey, starring Thomas Haden Church and Debra Messing premiered on Fox-TV on this date.



Debra Messing was reportedly pressured to wear enhancements in her bra to make her breasts look bigger for the show. Fresh out of college, Messing felt obliged to wear them as she feared she would lose the role if she refused.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
September 11, 1792 -
During a week-long looting of the crown jewels in September of 1792, The French Blue Diamond, was stolen in Paris on this date. The 45.5-carat Hope diamond is thought to have been cut from the famous French Blue diamond that disappeared after this robbery.



The French Blue never resurfaced, but the Hope Diamond, which is likely one-half of the French Blue, did. It is now displayed in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.


September 11, 1789 -
Alexander Hamilton became the first US Secretary of the Treasury on this date.



President George Washington initially appointed Robert Morris, a senator and Superintendent of Finance, but he refused the appointment.


September 11, 1903 -
The world's oldest automobile race track, The Milwaukee Mile, held its first race on this date.

The Milwaukee Mile opened in West Allis, Wisconsin in 1903; it continues to host auto races every year there since then (except during U.S. involvement in World War II.)


September 11, 1936 -
Franklin D. Roosevelt dedicates Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) by pressing a key in Washington to signal the startup of the dam's first hydroelectric generator in Nevada.





Hoover Dam is 726 feet tall and 660 feet thick at its base. Enough rock is excavated in its construction to build the Great Wall of China. Contrary to urban myths, no workers are buried in the dam's concrete.


September 11, 1951 -
Florence Chadwick, American endurance swimmer, swam English Channel from England to France in 16 hours and 22 minutes, on this date.



This made her the first woman to swim the English Channel in both directions, and set a record for the England-France journey. All told, she swam the English Channel four times.


September 11, 1971 -
Former Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev suffered a fatal heart attack in his provincial exile on this date.



He was the first Soviet leader to die a natural death (Lenin was possibly poisoned by Stalin. Stalin was probably poisoned by Georgy Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Krushchev. Georgy Malenkov and Nikolai Bulganin were premiers before Krushchev but died after him.)


September 11, 1978 -
Medical photographer Janet Parker became the last recorded person to die from smallpox on this date. She often worked above Professor Henry Bedson's laboratory at University of Birmingham Medical School where research on smallpox viruses was being conducted.



A year after smallpox was eradicated worldwide, the virus escaped from the lab infecting Parker. Bedson, who had been working to rid the world of smallpox, killed himself the next day.


September 11, 1980 -
The famous 45-carat diamond, the Marlborough diamond, worth about $640,000, was taken from a jewelry store window display on this date. The robbers, Arthur "The Brain" Rachel and Joseph "The Monk" Scalise, mobsters from Chicago, Illinois staged a daring daytime theft of the jewelry.

They were caught just a few hours later, but the diamond, once one of the Crown jewels, has never been found. Both men were convicted and began serving 15-year prison terms in 1984 and were released in 1993.

In 2010, the duo, both in their 70s were arrested again for yet another jewel heist.


September 11, 1987 -
CBS-TV went dark for six minutes as news anchor Dan Rather walked off the set of The CBS Evening News on this date.



Dan Rather left the set when the network continued showing a tennis tournament that had played into overtime. He walked off because he was angry that the news was cut short to report on sports news.


Before you go - OMG, I nearly forgot, Rosh Hashanah begins this evening, so we here at ACME are wishing our friends L’shanah Tovah.





As you hear the shofar this evening, remember to start writing 5787 on your checks. Also, I hope your sins are not so numerous that you really couldn't cast them upon the water.



And so it goes

You can never be overdressed or overeducated

Today is the start of the 2026-27 school year for the more than 1.1 million NYC public school students (and their teachers.)

There are appx 291 days until the next summer vacation (about 180 days of school) and you know every student is counting every single day until then.


It's Cheap Advice Day, celebrates low cost counselors everywhere, whether they are a professional in the psychiatric industry or that friend who just can’t help but offer their unsolicited advice.

This holiday originates from an episode of Charles M. Shultz’ Peanuts on September 10, 1992 where resident psychiatrist Lucy van Pelt raised her psychiatric fee from 5 cents to 47.


September 10, 1932 -
The Merrie Melodies short, You're Too Careless!, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, was released on this date.



The Dear Old Maestro was probably a reference to conductor/composer/violinist Ben Bernie.


September 10, 1942 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall", directed by Chuck Jones, was released on this date.



Chuck Jones made his first attempt at experimenting with the traditional cartoon format and layout with this cartoon. He later said that Warner Bros. originally refused to release the film and threatened to fire him. Fortunately for him (and for animation history) the studio needed the cartoon to fill release orders for its shorts.


September 10, 1951 -
Jean Renoir underrated classic film (in spectacular Technicolor), The River, was released in the US on this date.



This film was instrumental in launching the careers of Satyajit Ray - an assistant on the film - and Subrata Mitra, who went on to become Ray's cinematographer.


September 10, 1955 -

Gunsmoke premiered on CBS-TV on this date. The television series ran from September 10, 1955 until September 1, 1975 on CBS for 635 episodes. It had the longest run of any scripted series with continuing characters in American primetime television.



William Conrad was the first choice to play Marshall Matt Dillon on TV, having established the role on radio, but his increasing obesity led to more photogenic actors being considered.

Losing the role embittered Conrad for years, though he later starred in another CBS television series, Cannon (1971-1975). Denver Pyle was also considered for the role, as was nipple rouge manufacturer, Raymond Burr who was ultimately seen as too heavy-set for the part.

Rumors that the role was offered to John Wayne have been largely debunked, although he did apparent in an opening promotional video for the program.

Ah, if only Raymond Burr.


September 10, 1965 –
The first National Geographic Special, the 1963 US expedition to Mount Everest, aired on CBS, on this date.



Narrated by Orson Welles, this classic documentary includes the first motion pictures ever taken from Everest's summit by the first Americans to scale the dangerous west ridge.


September 10, 1966 -
The Beatles' Revolver album goes #1 and stays #1 for six weeks, on this date.



Revolver is the only album on which George Harrison wrote three of the songs. On all the others he only has two or less cuts. On The White Album he had four, but it was a double album so he was only allotted his usual one track per-side.


September 10, 1966 -
The Supremes started a two-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Charts with You Can't Hurry Love, their sixth No. 1 single, on this date.



This was written by the prolific songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland. It was based on a gospel song entitled You Can't Hurry God, which was sung by Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes, a gospel group based in Birmingham, Alabama.


September 10, 1985 -
The film adaptation of the David Hare play Plenty, directed by Fred Schepisi, and starring Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, Tracey Ullman, John Gielgud, Sting, Ian McKellen, and Sam Neill premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on this date.



Many critics dismissed this movie as being just a filmed version of David Hare's stage play, even though Hare had rewritten about sixty percent of the material for this movie.


September 10, 1988 -
Home Vision Entertainment released the documentary Comic Book Confidential, directed by Ron Mann and featuring the work of Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, William M. Gaines, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Frank Miller, on this date.



In the introductory credits the artists portrayed in the film are presented by a comic artist who is working on a comic page, filling the frames with the name and a typical comic character of each artist.


September 10, 1990 -
NBC helped Will Smith on the long juggernaut that was his career when they began airing the series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, on this date.



Despite portraying himself as a charismatic, self-confident playboy, Will Smith has said that he was a shy, awkward teen who was very insecure about approaching and dating girls.


September 10, 1993 -
The science fiction television series The X-Files premiered with the episode Pilot on the Fox network on this date



Dana Scully was named after the famous sports journalist Vin Scully. Mulder is the maiden name of Chris Carter's mother.


September 10, 1994 -
The animated parody of a superhero series, The Tick, premieres on FOX TV, on this date.



Townsend Coleman (Tick), Rob Paulsen (Arthur) and Cam Clarke (Die Fledermaus) also voiced three of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michelangelo was voiced by Coleman, Raphael by Paulsen and Leonardo by Clarke. Before becoming animated shows, both The Tick and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series were intended as spoofs. The Tick was parodying superhero comics in general, while TMNT focused on The 1980's era of Marvel Comics Daredevil.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
On September 10, 1419, supporters of the French Dolphin murdered John the Fearless.

John's brothers, Thomas the Prudent and Henry the Wary, lived on into old age.


September 10, 1623 -
A cargo load of lumber and fur became the first exports in history from North America to England on this date.

This ensured the commercial success of the new world, as Europe had long been paralyzed by a shortage of sticks and hair.


September 10, 1898 -
Empress Elisabeth of Austria was not a particularly happy royal. Known as the Princess Diana of her day, she was estranged from her husband, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria (because of the stifling nature of court life) she lost her daughter, Sophie, in 1857, and her favorite cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in a tragic fashion. Her brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by revolutionaries. But most of all, she never was able to get over her most terrible tragedy, the suicide of her son, Rudolph, in 1889.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria was not a particularly happy royal. Known as the Princess Diana of her day, she was estranged from her husband, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria (because of the stifling nature of court life) she lost her daughter, Sophie, in 1857, and her favorite cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in a tragic fashion. Her brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by revolutionaries. But most of all, she never was able to get over her most terrible tragedy, the suicide of her son, Rudolph, in 1889.



The sixty-year old empress was stabbed with a file by a twenty-four year old anarchist, Luigi Lucheni, shortly after noon on September 10, 1898 on the promenade of Lake Geneva as she boarded a steamship for Montreux.



After the incident the Empress still walked for a few minutes. Because she was so strictly corseted, she was unaware how seriously she had been wounded.

Her last words were "What happened to me?"


September 10, 1922 -
Yma Sumac (and not Amy Camus from Brooklyn), noted Peruvian soprano, one of the most famous proponents of exotica music, was born on this date.





She was said to have well over four octave range.


September 10, 1932 -
You must take the A Train to go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem ...



It's the 94th Anniversary of the famed NYC transit line (it was the first city owned line; the other two lines at the time were privately owned.)


Believe it or not, Mike the Headless Chicken (April 1945 – March 1947) was a Wyandotte rooster (cockerel) that lived for 18 months after its head had been cut off. Thought by many to be a hoax, the bird was taken by its owner to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish its authenticity.



On Monday, September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, had his mother-in-law around for supper and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen failed to completely decapitate the five-and-a-half month old bird named Mike. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact. Lloyd wasn't trusted with the knife on the farm after that.



On the first night after the decapitation Mike slept with his severed head under his wing.


September 10, 1953 -
Brothers Gilbert and Clark Swanson contributed to an American food revolution by selling their first TV dinner, for 98 cents, on this date.



It let customers feast on turkey with corn bread stuffing, buttered peas, and sweet potatoes - right in front of their television screens. Americans eating habits and health would never be the same.


September 10, 1972 -
The USA suffered its first loss of an Olympic basketball game on this date, in a disputed match against the Soviet Union at the Munich, Germany Olympic Games.



The Soviets won the game by a single point, making the winning basket as time expired and igniting vociferous American objections questioning the legitimacy of the final play.


September 10, 1977 -
Convicted torture-killer Hamida Djandoubi, an immigrant from Tunisia, becomes the last person executed by France when he was guillotined in Marseilles on this date.

He did not survive his execution and there are no notes as to whether or not Djandoubi was buried with his head under his arm.



And so it goes.

Amazingly, someone thought this would work

In the 1960s, the CIA launched "Operation Acoustic Kitty," an effort to train cats to become foreign spies by implanting microphones in their ears and radio transmitters at the base of their skulls. The hope was to train the cats to sit near foreign officials to capture any private conversations.



The operation came to a halt when they realized that cats aren't really trainable and will do whatever the heck they want.


September 5, 1933 -
The Looney Tunes short, Buddy's Day Out, directed by Tom Palmer and starring Buddy, was released on this date.



The first Warner Bros. cartoon that Leon Schlesinger is served as the head president without Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, who also got fired for signing the contract by losing the rights to its character Bosko and later moved to MGM in 1934.


September 5, 1939 -
The Looney Tunes short, Sioux Me, directed by Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton , was released on this date.



This cartoon has not been shown on American television since the 1980s due to heavy stereotyping of Native Americans.


September 9, 1966 -
The cult favorite series, The Green Hornet, starring Van Williams, Bruce Lee, and William Dozier (as the narrator), premired on ABC-TV on this date.



Van Williams became good friends with Bruce Lee and repeatedly negotiated with the show's producers to give Lee more screen time and lines. Bruce Lee once said that he was selected for the role of Kato because he was the only Asian actor who could properly pronounce "Britt Reid".
Impress your friends with this piece of trivia - Britt Reid is the grand-nephew of John Reid, the Lone Ranger.


September 9, 1966 -
ABC-TV premiered, at the time, the highest budgeted science fiction series, The Time Tunnel, Rendezvous with Yesterday, on this date. The series starred James Darren and Robert Colbert.



Many episodes made extensive use of stock footage from the 20th Century Fox film library, which allowed Irwin Allen to do shows against an "epic" backdrop that could not have been done on a television budget.


September 9, 1967 -
The animated sci-fi series Birdman and the Galaxy Trio produced by Hanna-Barbera debuted on NBC on this date. (An easy bar bet to win: Birdman and the Galaxy Trio never appeared together in any of the episodes.)



In 2000, the Carton Network premiered a series Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, a parody of the Birdman series, featuring cameos by many Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, usually appearing as parody versions of "themselves". For example, one episode featured The Flintstones mixed with elements of The Sopranos.


September 9, 1971 -
Imagine, John Lennon's second solo album and most popular of his solo works, was released on this date.



This song is a strong political message sugarcoated in a beautiful melody. Lennon realized the softer approach would bring the song to a wider audience, who hopefully would listen to his message: If you want peace, first you have to imagine it.


September 9, 1975 -
The sitcom Welcome Back Kotter, starring Gabe Kaplan, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



The original title of the series was to be simply Kotter, but that was before composer John Sebastian had difficulty writing the theme song lyrics. He couldn't find enough rhyming words for the title. Giving up on that tack, he decided to compose lyrics that illustrated the premise of the show in a song called, Welcome Back. The producers were so impressed with the song that they decided to change the series title to Welcome Back, Kotter. The song was also released on a single which went to #1 on the charts.


September 9, 1977 -
David Bowie taped an appearance on Marc Bolan's ITV show, Marc, on this date, singing Heroes as well as a duet with Bolan, Standing Next To You, which was prematurely terminated when Bolan fell from the stage, much to Bowie’s amusement. (The show aired on September 28.)



This song is a strong political message sugarcoated in a beautiful melody. Lennon realized the softer approach would bring the song to a wider audience, who hopefully would listen to his message: If you want peace, first you have to imagine it.


September 9, 1978 -
The Rolling Stones released their hit, Beast of Burden on this date.



While Richards spent much of the '70s insulating himself with drugs, former London School of Economics student Jagger was running the band. However, by the time of Some Girls, Richards wanted to share the workload. Mojo magazine January 2012 asked Richards how much this song was about his relationship with Jagger? He replied; "Mick wrote a lot of it but I laid the general idea on him. At the time Mick was getting used to running the band. Charlie was just the drummer, I was just the other guitar player. I was trying to say, 'OK I'm back, so let's share a bit more of the power, share the weight, brother."


September 9, 1992 -
During a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, Nirvana played Lithium, ending in a grand finale where bassist Krist Novoselic tosses his instrument high into the air. When he tries to catch it, he misses, and the bass whacks him in the head.



Nirvana wanted to play Rape Me at the Video Music Awards but MTV wanted Smells Like Teen Spirit. Kurt Cobain had to check out of rehab to attend the show, and had made comments disparaging MTV in the past. At rehearsals, a standoff ensued where MTV threatened to go nuclear, banning not just Nirvana, but other acts from their label if they didn't fall in line. Lithium was the compromise, but Nirvana made the network sweat, playing a few seconds of Rape Me before going into their agreed-upon song.


September 9, 1995 -
Coolio's classic, Gangsta's Paradise (from the movie Dangerous Minds), featuring L. V. topped the charts on this date.



Gangsta's Paradise was a reworking of Stevie Wonder's 1976 song Pasttime Paradise. Coolio updated the lyrics to make it relevant to life on the streets in the mid-'90s.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Facts


Today in History:
September 9, 1087 -
William the Conqueror died of internal injuries, sustained six weeks prior in a horse riding accident at Mantes-la-Jolie.

The king's funeral did not go well - according to some sources, a fire broke out during the funeral; the original owner of the land on which the church was built claimed he had not been paid yet, demanding 60 shillings, which William's son Henry had to pay on the spot. When the corpulent king was later laid to rest in the foundations of a church, his corpse would not fit in the stone sarcophagus. William's "swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd."



Don't you just wish they had television back then.


September 9, 1890 -
136 years ago today a little boy named Harland was born in Kentucky.



When Harland was six, his father died and his mother was forced to go to work. Little Harland did most of the cooking for his younger siblings. By the age of seven he was a  master of the local cuisine.

There was no stopping the ambitious Harland, who had his own highway service station in Corbin, Kentucky, by the time he was forty.



He began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station. He didn't own a  restaurant, so he served them at his own dining table. Word of his excellent cooking spread  (secret combination of eleven herbs and spices) and soon he moved across the street to a  restaurant that seated 142 people.

His cooking soon became so well known that his state's governor, Ruby Laffoon, made him a  colonel.



In an independent 1976 survey, Colonel Harland Sanders was ranked as the world's second most recognizable figure.


September 9, 1947 -
At the Naval Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia, Grace Murray Hopper records the discovery of the first actual computer “bug” by the computer’s operators at 3:45pm in her log book with the explanation, “First instance of actual computer bug being found.” The bug is literally just that, a moth which had become stuck in Relay #70 on Panel “F” of the Harvard Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator. When they extracted the culprit with tweezers, they taped it into the logbook along with the official report.



Legend has it that Hopper, a naval officer and famous mathematician, was the one who found the bug, but she will state categorically that she wasn’t there at the time. The urban legend will crop up that this was the first-ever use of the word ‘bug’ in this context, but that’s not true. Thomas Edison used the term bug when discussing electrical circuits as early as the 1870s. It is, however, the first time the term “debug” is used. The log book will later be preserved by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.


September 9, 1956 -
Elvis Presley made his first-ever appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, performing four songs for guest host Charles Laughton on this date.



Ed himself had vowed never to have Presley on his show, but Sullivan was at home this evening, recuperating from a severe head injury, from a drunken fall.


September 9, 1971 -
1,300 inmates riot inside the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York state, commandeering the prison and taking 40 guards hostage on this date.



The national guard staged an assault five days later, killing 42 people in the process (10 of them being captives).


September 9, 1976 -
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.

Mao Tse-tung, Chinese Communist party chairman (1949-76) died in Beijing, on this date.



In 1965, he launched the controversial Cultural Revolution, an often-brutal campaign to reform Chinese society. He was later held responsible for over 70 million deaths. Mao Tse- tung’s death triggered a two-year power struggle. The Cultural Revolution's chief architects, Mao’s widow (Jiang Qing) and three others, the so-called Gang of Four, were jailed. Deng Xiaoping returned from disgrace and eventually seized power.


September 9, 2003 -
Edward Teller, the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb" and purported model for Dr. Strangelove (or Dr. Kissinger, take your pick), died at the age of 95 at his home on the Stanford University campus.



His role in the destruction of colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer's career during the McCarthy era resulted in his own ostracism by many of his peers.

And no, he didn't utter, Mein Fuhrer, I can walk just before his death.


September 9, 2015 -
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor-Mountbatten had been the head of her family owned business for more than 23,227 days - surpassing the reign of her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, on this date. (She has been currently working 25,420 days.)



The BBC noted that the Queen did not want a fuss to be made. “It is evidently viewed as bad form for one long-lived queen to be seen in any way to be celebrating the passing of a record set by another long-lived queen.”



Sadly the Queen passed away on the 8th of September, 2022. She had been on the job for 70 years, 7 months and 2 days, Have a good thought for her majesty today.


Before you go -

Christmas is in 107 days



And so it goes.