Some days it doesn't pay to get out of bed

It's the third day of The Lunar New Year, In Chinese folklore, Chigou, or the "Red Dog," is the deity of blazing wrath and fire. His presence defines the third day of the Lunar New Year (Chigou Day), making it one of the few days of the 15-day festival considered inauspicious

Traditionally, it is unlucky to visit friends or relatives on this day. Encountering the Red Dog is believed to bring misfortune, specifically poverty and intense arguments. Therefore, the Red Dog day is a good excuse for people who need a rest.



While Chigou represents a day of caution, the third day is also celebrated as the Mice Wedding Day.



They said that people should turn off the light and go to bed early, because the night is the Mice's Wedding and one shouldn't disturb them. The other reason people should turn out the lights, so the mice can’t see their wedding, which would slow down mice breeding. In the old farmer society, people would leave a few grains of rice or cake crumbs in the corner of a room for the mice at night.


February 19, 1912 -
Prizes were inserted into a Cracker Jack box for the first time on this date.



In ensuing decades, over seventeen billion prizes have been "awarded" to Cracker Jack purchasers. Among the numerous Cracker Jack prizes offered across the years are miniature plates, puzzles, books, bookmarks, pinball games, plastic figurines, and self-adhesive stickers.

Robert Rueckheim, grandson of F.W. Rueckheim (the driving force behind the Cracker Jack brand,) served as the model for Sailor Jack, whose image first appeared in advertisements in 1916 and was printed on every Cracker Jack box beginning in 1918. Sadly, Robert died of pneumonia at the age of 8, but Sailor Jack lives on today alongside his dog, Bingo, who was said to be modeled after a stray belonging to Henry Gottlieb Eckstein, developer of the "waxed sealed package," Cracker Jack is sealed in.


February 19, 1968 -
Everyone's favorite adult, Fred Rogers began telling everyone that It's a beautiful year in the neighborhood when the national broadcast of his program, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood premiered on this date.





Guests on the show were often surprised to find that although Rogers was just as gentle and patient in life as he was on television, he was nevertheless a perfectionist who did not allow "shoddy" ad-libbing. He believed that children were thoughtful people who deserved programming as good as anything produced for adults on television.


(Sorry for this Earworm) -
Badfinger was a British pop band signed to the Beatles' label, Apple. One of their best songs, Without You, appeared on their second album, No Dice, and was released as a single on November 9, 1970. Paul McCartney once famously described the ballad as "the killer song of all time."



Harry Nilsson started a four-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard charts with his cover of the Badfinger song Without You on this date in 1972. Nilsson first came across the song at a Laurel Canyon party in 1971 and initially thought it was a Beatles track. Badfinger was signed to Apple Records, the Beatles' label, and their original version was produced by Beatles associates Geoff Emerick and Mal Evans.



Nilsson's version added an orchestra and a more dramatic production. When he first recorded it, he played the song slow and dark, accompanied only by a piano. Producer Richard Perry recalled to Mojo magazine in April 2008 that he had to persuade an unwilling Nilsson to record it as a big ballad: "I had to force him to take a shot with the rhythm section. Even while we were doing it, he'd be saying to the musicians, 'This song's awful.'" (The track went on to become a staple of middle school dances in the early '70s.)



In a very odd piece of trivia, Mariah Carey also had her first UK No. 1 with her version of Without You on this same date in 1994. Her version was released on January 24, just over a week after Nilsson died following a heart attack. As the song's writers, Pete Ham and Tom Evans should have been set for life, but Badfinger's label, Apple Records, collapsed in 1973 and they never received their full due. Tragically, both Ham (in 1975) and Evans (in 1983) committed suicide following an ongoing battle to receive their royalties.


February 19, 1974 -
KISS appeared on Dick Clark's IN CONCERT! on this date. This marks their first time on national television.



One of the songs they preformed for the show was Nothin' to Lose. How KISS got a song about anal sex on national TV back in 1974 passed the censors is amazing.


February 19, 1977 -
Manfred Mann's Earth Band's cover of Bruce Springsteen's Blinded By The Light hits #1 on the Billboard Charts in America, on this date.



Manfred Mann's version replaces the line "cut loose like a deuce" with "revved up like a deuce." In their version, "Deuce" was commonly misheard as "Douche." Springsteen's original line makes a lot more sense - a deuce is a 1932 Ford hot rod. On his Storytellers special, Springsteen said (in a jesting manner): "I have a feeling that is why the song skyrocketed to #1."


February 19, 1982 -
The Wes Craven film Swamp Thing, starring Louis Jourdan, Adrienne Barbeau, Ray Wise and Dick Durock, was released on this date.



This was the second time Dick Durock played a green, monstrous, mutated version of a "normal" man in a comic book adaptation, after the two-part Incredible Hulk episode The First.


February 18, 1983 -
The Patti Austin and James Ingram duet Baby, Come To Me hits #1 on the Billboard Charts in America, on this date.



Quincy Jones produced this track. Both Austin and Ingram had worked with Jones in the past and signed to his record label, Qwest. Austin had another connection with Jones as well: He's her godfather.


February 19, 1995 -
The mini series A Woman of Independent Means, starring Sally Fields, Ron Silver, Tony Goldwyn, Jack Thompson, Sheila McCarthy, Brenda Fricker, and Charles Durning premiered on NBC TV on this date.



Sally Field is 14 years older than Tony Goldwyn, the man that plays her husband. She was 49 and he was 35 during filming.


February 19, 2010 -
The animated series, The Ricky Gervais Show, starring Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and Karl Pilkington debuted on HBO on this date.



This television show was basically the podcast set to new animation. The podcasts were edited down to fit into the half-hour format and additional sound effects and music were added for comic effect.


Another little known Monopoly card.


Today in History:
February 19, 1329 -
(Antipope) Nicholas V presided at a bizarre ceremony in the Duomo of Pisa, at which a straw puppet representing his rival, Pope John XXII and dressed in pontifical robes was formally condemned, degraded, and handed over to the secular arm (to be "executed").

John XXII had the last laugh when he excommunicated Nicholas V in April 1329

and had him imprisoned until his death in August 1333.

Oh those wacky Antipopes.


February 19, 1473 -
Nicolaus Copernicus (or Mikolaj Kopernik or Nicolaus Koppernigk - apparently he was running some sort of ponzi scheme at an early age and was giving different names to different people) was born in Poland on this date.



He stated an early theory that the Earth and the planets move around the Sun that led the way to our understanding of planetary movement.


In the presidential election of 1800, Aaron Burr and Thomas Jefferson drew to a tie. The House of Representatives broke the tie by throwing their weight behind Jefferson, making him president, on February 17, 1801. Burr was given the vice-presidency as either a consolation prize or a practical joke.



Like many other people, Vice-President Burr was often irritated by Alexander Hamilton. Unlike most other people, he shot and killed him. Although it had been a fair duel, the vice-president was indicted for murder. He was never actually arrested for the shooting, nor was he removed from office, because there was no controlling legal authority in place to prevent a vice-president from shooting Alexander Hamilton.



Instead of reviving Burr's political career, the duel helped to end it. Burr was charged with two counts of murder. After his term as vice president ended, he would never hold elective office again. And his next plot to gain power would end with charges of treason.

Civilized political discourse?

(A subsequent constitutional amendment that would have made it illegal for members of the executive branch to shoot Alexander Hamilton was defeated on the grounds of its limited usefulness to the deceased.) After serving out his term as VP, Mr. Burr moved to the southwest and decided to establish his own empire. Fortunately there were controlling legal authorities that prohibited the establishment of empires. President Jefferson had him arrested on February 19, 1807.



Burr was ultimately acquitted. (His descendant Raymond Burr would go on to restore a bit of luster to the family name as Perry Mason and as spokesmodel for Raymond Burr Nipple Rouge - one of our favorite corporate sponsors - but that's for another day.)


February 19, 1910 -
Another unimportant moment in history:



Remember, take human bites!


February 19, 1960 -
The cartoon-strip The Family Circus by Bil Keane debuted in newspapers on this date.

For several months prior, it had been called The Family Circle.


February 19, 1986 -
The Soviets launched the first part of space station Mir, (the orbiting laboratory–the main module that included the crew quarters, with airlocks for docking and more,) and with it, a new phase in space exploration, on this date.



Mir, which means both peace and world in Russian, would provide the home base for a permanently manned international complex orbiting the Earth– and was occupied for 10 years of its 15 in orbit.


February 19 is also notable for the 1995 marriage of Pamela Anderson to rocker Tommy Lee. Their marriage is best remembered for having produced the most widely-distributed honeymoon pictures in the history of the world.

Sorry folks, you're going to have to find the link to the video yourself.


February 19, 1997 -
Supreme Chinese leader and one time replacement for Diana Ross, Deng Xiaoping died on this date.



Dying took the shine off of being Supreme.



And so it goes.

If you're not covered in dog hair, your life is empty

Today is the second day of the Lunar New Year. In Chinese mythology, this day is believed to be the birthday of all dogs, so it is a common custom to treat pets and stray dogs with extra kindness and good food. .



The God of Wealth presides over a vast bureaucracy with many minor deities under his authority. A majestic figure robed in exquisite silks, he is often pictured riding a black tiger; a golden yuanbao (an ancient ingot used for currency) is always close to him. Legend says that every Lunar New Year, Tsai Shen descends from heaven to inspect his followers.

People eat dumplings to honor the god because they are thought to resemble the yuanbao. Tsai Shen returns to heaven on the second day of the Lunar New Year to report on who should receive good fortune in the coming year.



Traditionally, this is the time for married women to visit their parents. In ancient China, women rarely visited their natal homes once they were married. Today, people continue the tradition of visiting their birth parents on the second day of the Lunar New Year. (Remember, these holiday commercials are sometimes real tearjerkers!)


I don't need the calendar to remember that today is Ash Wednesday,

please don't try to wipe the the smudge mark off your friend's forehead.



Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori! -



(Anyway, did you find the coin in the King Cake? )



So begins forty days (remember that the six Sundays between today and Easter don't count as part of the 40 days) of prayer, fasting, contemplation and community service and not the Lentil season, which is marked by forty days of legume eating and gas passing (but that's another story.)


Today is National Drink Wine Day, (this is opposed to National Wine Day, which is May 25th.) Stop yourself - before you make the joke, I know, it's National Drink Wine Day every day in my home.

I can make wine disappear. What’s your superpower?

While, I can't find the basis for the holiday, I have my suspicions: George, the English Duke of Clarence, was convicted of treason against his brother King Edward IV and murdered in the Tower of London on February 18, 1478.



The legend arose that he had been drowned in a barrel of Malmsey wine.


February 18, 1938 -
Bob Hope's film The Big Broadcast of 1938 debuted in New York on this date.



The movie introduced Hope's signature song, Thanks For The Memory.


February 18, 1938 -
If only he had his intercostal clavicle ... ...

The greatest screwball comedy, directed by Howard Hawks, Bringing Up Baby, starring Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant was released on this date.



Katharine Hepburn loved to talk, which caused problems for Howard Hawks when he needed to shoot scenes. When she ignored the assistant director's repeated cries of "Quiet," Hawks just motioned the rest of the crew to stop what they were doing until she realized she was the only one talking. She asked, "What's the matter?" and Hawks said, "You're acting a good part of a parrot, and if you're going to keep on doing it, we'll just sit here and watch you." At that, she took Hawks aside and told him not to talk to her like that because she had a lot of friends working on the film. Hawks called to an electrician on a scaffold overhead and said, "If you had a choice of dropping a lamp on Miss Hepburn or me, who would you drop it on?" The man told Hawks to get out of the way, and Hepburn just said, "I guess I'm wrong," and never misbehaved again.


February 18, 1939 -
Universal Studios released the WC Fields' comedy You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, also starring Edgar Bergen, on this date.



Legend has it that on the set of this film a stagehand was cleaning out W.C. Fields' dressing room and accidentally bumped into a table on which Fields had placed a bottle of whiskey. He caught the bottle before it hit the floor, but the cork had popped out and he couldn't find it. He placed the bottle back on the table and left. Later Fields came back to the dressing room, and a few minutes afterwards stormed out, roaring "Who took the cork out of my lunch?" Whether this story is apocryphal or not, Fields actually uses that line at one point in the film.


February 18, 1962 -
On weekend leave from marine training, The Everly Brothers appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, in full uniform and with regulation cropped hair, singing their new single, Crying In The Rain, on this date.



The song was recorded shortly before Don and Phil Everly were inducted into the Marine Corps Reserves on November 25, 1961. On March 3, the song reached its peak of #6 on the US charts. Don and Phil got out of the Corps on May 24, after six months of service. It was the only Everly Brothers song released during their time in the military.


February 18, 1967 -
The Buckinghams' song Kind of a Drag hits #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Kind of a Drag was written by Jim Holvay, who was a friend of the band's from Chicago. It is The Buckingham's only #1 hit, although they peeked into the Top 10 twice more and charted a couple more times after that. Holvay went on to write Don't You Care, Susan and Hey Baby They're Playing Our Song for The Buckinghams.


February 18, 1983 -
Martin Scorsese's black comedy, The King of Comedy, starring Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis and Sandra Bernhard premiered in the US on this date.



Martin Scorsese said later that making this film was an "unsettling" experience, in part because of the embarrassing, bitter material of the script. Scorsese said that he and Robert De Niro may have not worked together again for seven years because making The King of Comedy was so emotionally gruelling.


February 18, 1998 -
In the tradition of Godzilla Vs. Rodan battling it out over Tokyo, The Cure's Robert Smith beats Barbra Streisand on an episode of South Park on this date.



The episode was seen by 5.4 million viewers, a record high viewership for a South Park episode at the time. There was no real reason to note this but I thought you might want to see the clip.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
February 18, 1268 -
On this date, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword are defeated by Dovmont of Pskov in the Battle of Rakovor.

If you hurry, I believe you can still send flowers or candy to friends and family to commemorate the event.


February 18, 1405 -
Timur Lenk, (also known as Timur the Lame, Tamerlane, Tamerlaine or Mr. Tambourine man,) caught a cold and died on an expedition to China on this date.



While he was the inspiration for many a poet and playwright and known as The Scourge of God, Timur didn't listen to his mother and button his jacket while outside.

Let this be a lesson to us all.


February 18, 1564 -
Michelangelo (Buonarotti), Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer died on this date.



He may have gotten the last laugh as he thought about the number of penises he got to paint on the ceiling of any church.


February 18, 1856 -
The American Party (Know-Nothings) convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on this date to nominate its first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.

And yes, he does look exactly like Alec Baldwin; thanks for noticing.


February 18, 1930 -
Elm Farm Ollie (known as "Nellie Jay" and post-flight as "Sky Queen") was the first cow to fly in an airplane, doing so on this date, as part of the International Air Exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri.

On the same trip, which covered 72 miles from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis, she also became the first cow milked in flight. (Does that mean that she was the first cow to join the mile high club?) This was done ostensibly to allow scientists to observe midair effects on animals, as well as for publicity purposes. And somehow Charles Lindbergh was involved.



A St. Louis newspaper trumpeted her mission as being "to blaze a trail for the transportation of livestock by air."



Your life is better for knowing this.


February 18, 1930 -
Clyde Tombaugh liked to look at French Postcards. He like to look into his neighbors' windows. When he got tired of that, he started studying photos of the night sky where astronomers predicted a "Planet X" would show up.



Tombaugh ended up discovering the dwarf planet Pluto on this date. He also discovered more than 800 asteroids during his search for "Planet X."

Our Alien Overlords were very wily avoiding Clyde.


February 18, 1933 -
Yoko Ono was born on this date.

What else is there to say?


February 18, 1967 -
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, died on this date.



His children never even send him flowers.


February 18, 1979 -
Snow fell in Sahara Desert, in Southern Algeria during a storm which lasts about half an hour on this date.

It didn't snow again until January 18, 2012. Perhaps, some of you may wish to move there now.


February 18, 1977 -
The first experimental orbiter of the Space Shuttle System, Enterprise, was a high-altitude glider, launched from the back of a specially modified Boeing 747, on this date.



The first orbiter was originally planned to be named Constitution, but a massive write-in campaign from fans of Star Trek convinced the White House to change its name to Enterprise.


February 18, 2001 -
Race car driver Dale Earnhardt crashed into the wall at the Daytona 500, killing him instantly. His widow files a lawsuit to force the autopsy photos to be sealed, and a Florida law is subsequently passed to prevent them from ever being released.



Earnhardt was the most well known and most successful driver in the history of the sport.


And so it goes.


Also, on a personal note - Happy Birthday Matt.

And so it goes.

Strap in - we have a lot to celebrate

Happy Lunar New Year! The Lunar New Year begins today, and it is the Year of the Horse — but which one?



The Lunar New Year is often celebrated with parades, family gatherings, red envelopes, and (sometimes enthusiastically) the lighting of firecrackers for days afterward. Both the animal sign and the element of your birth year are said to influence your personality and destiny. This year’s elemental sign is Fire — so we are celebrating the Year of the Fire Horse.

It’s also worth noting that many people in China and throughout Asia refer to the holiday as Lunar New Year rather than “Chinese New Year,” since several countries celebrate it, including Vietnam and Korea.



According to a Chinese legend, Nüwa is the goddess who created the world. She created certain animals on different days, hence each day is considered the birthday of the corresponding animal.

Legend also has it that in ancient times, Gautama Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on New Year’s Day. Twelve arrived, and he named a year after each one. He declared that people born in each animal’s year would share some of that animal’s traits. This year is the Year of the Horse. Those born in Horse years are said to be energetic, optimistic, perceptive, witty, talented, and warm-hearted. Notable people born in the Year of the Horse include Nelson Mandela, Margot Robbie, Aretha Franklin, John Legend, Warren Buffett, and President Theodore Roosevelt.



The spirit of the Horse is often associated with vitality and perseverance — qualities long admired in Chinese culture. The Horse symbolizes energy, intelligence, and an outgoing nature. Extremely animated, Horses thrive when they are the center of attention. Always in search of a good time, they keep crowds entertained with humor and quick wit.



In traditional Chinese culture, an especially talented person might be described as a “Qianli Ma” — literally, a horse that can travel a thousand li in a single day. (One li equals roughly 500 meters.) It’s high praise indeed.


Bon temps roulez, mes amis - It's Mardi Gras!









No one needs to disrobe, it's much too cold, we've got plenty of beads, (unless you like to disrobe in public and then, it's between you and your maker.)

Today is also know as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day, which heralds the beginning of fasting in Lent. On this day (so the historians say) there were feasts of pancakes to use up the supplies of fat, butter and eggs... foods that were forbidden during austere Lent. The word 'shrove' is the past tense of the English verb 'shrive' which means to obtain absolution for one's sins by way of confession and doing penance.



In England there are several celebrations on this day but perhaps the best known one is the Pancake Day Race at Olney in Buckinghamshire which has been held since 1445.



The race came about when a woman cooking pancakes heard the shriving bell summoning her to confession. She ran to church wearing her apron and still holding her frying pan, and thus without knowing it, started a tradition that has lasted for over five hundred years.

Keep flipping them pancakes!


Today is Random Acts of Kindness Day, the name of an unofficial holiday increasingly celebrated around the world by localities or organizations, or nationwide, in order to encourage acts of kindness.

All you need to do is something a simple as hold the door open for someone or say 'good morning' to the counter person giving you your morning cup of coffee.

Then immediately go back to your usually ornery self.


February 17, 1965 -
You are going to be a star.



Joan Rivers made her first guest appearances on The Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson on NBC-TV on this date.


February 17, 1967 -
The Beatles released Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever on this date.





These songs were intended for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but Capitol Records decided to release the two songs as a single, partly to regain popularity from John Lennon's "The Beatles are bigger than Jesus" comment.


February 17, 1971 -
On this day, Boston native James Taylor made his primetime television debut on the Johnny Cash Show.



Other guest on the show that evening included Neil Young and Linda Ronstadt.


February 17, 1984 -
The Herb Ross musical drama Footloose, starring Kevin Bacon (the guy everyone is six degrees seperated from,) Lori Singer, Dianne Wiest, and John Lithgow, premiered in the US on this date.



During the filming of 3rd Rock from the Sun: Dr. Solomon's Traveling Alien Show, one of the characters playing a circus strongman took John Lithgow aside to share a personal story with him. He confided that he was from a small town in Louisiana where his own father, a Baptist minister, would not allow the kids dance or listen to rock 'n' roll music. When he saw Footloose he explained that Lithgow's 'reverend' was the epitome of his own father. After he brought his father to see the film, without any warning of its plot, his father was so touched by Lithgow's performance, the man said that he was the first of 6 children that were permitted to attend their high school prom.


February 17, 1989 -
The cinematic masterpiece Bill And Ted's Excellent Adventure starring Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter opened in theaters on this date.



In the film, Bill and Ted claim that they need Edward Van Halen in their band to make it better. After the film was released, he jokingly said he would have joined their band if they had asked.


February 17, 1990 -
We are all not worthy - Aerosmith appeared on Saturday Night Live on this date.



They performed the Wayne's World theme song while appearing in the skit as themselves.


February 17, 1995 -
Paramount Pictures heard America cry out that they needed to see The Brady Bunch Movie, directed by Betty Thomas and starring Shelley Long, Gary Cole and Michael McKean and released it in the US on this date.



As he heads off to his business meeting, Carol Brady tells her husband, Mike, to "Go get 'em, Tiger", and then wonders to herself "Tiger, Tiger: what ever happened to that dog?" This is one of many inside jokes about the show. Tiger was the name of the Bradys' dog in the TV series. But, after the first two seasons, the dog simply disappeared without explanation. The original Tiger was actually killed by a truck off-set during the first season. A trained look-a-like dog was brought in to replace him but he had a poor temperament and could not remain focused. Tiger was written off the show after appearing in just eleven episodes and no mention was ever made of what happened to him. However, his dog house was left in the back yard for the remainder of the series.


February 17, 2011 -
Welcome our new computer overlords - IBM's Watson computer beats Jeopardy's best contestants ever, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, on this date.



The researchers acknowledged that Watson had benefited from something they called the “buzzer factor.” Both Mr. Jennings and Mr. Rutter are accomplished at anticipating the light that signals it is possible to “buzz in,” and can sometimes get in with virtually zero lag time. The danger is to buzz too early, in which case the contestant is penalized and “locked out” for roughly a quarter of a second. Watson, on the other hand, does not anticipate the light, but has a weighted scheme that allows it, when it is highly confident, to hit the buzzer in as little as 10 milliseconds, making it very hard for humans to beat. When it was less confident, it took longer to buzz in. In the second round, Watson beat the others to the buzzer in 24 out of 30 Double Jeopardy questions.


February 17, 1997 -
Mike Nesmith directed himself and the other original Monkees in Hey, Hey, It's the Monkees, a one-hour comedy special which premiered on ABC, on this date.



The special assumes the Monkees have been living in their beach house all the years since the series ended and have continued having adventures. This one is episode number 781 - A Lizard Sunning Itself On A Rock.


Today's moment of Zen


February 17, 1600 -
Roman philosopher and mathematician Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake at Campo di Fiore in Rome, likely because of his advocating the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun.



His death at the hands of Roman Inquisition is thought to have convinced Galileo to recant his own theory of a moving Earth. The people living around the Palatine Hills always expected the Roman Inquisition.


Celebrated French dramatist and comedian Moliere collapsed on stage and died on February 17, 1673. It is said that he was wearing green, and because of that, there is a superstition that green brings bad luck to actors. As an actor, he was not allowed by the laws of the time to be buried in the sacred ground of a cemetery.



His wife Armande asked the King Louis XIV to allow a "normal" funeral celebrated at night. The king agreed, and Moliere was buried in a part of the cemetery reserved for unbaptized infants. In some accounts of his death, it is said that over 800 people attended his "secret" funeral.


February 17, 1869 –
The dream that changed the world - Dmitri Mendeleev began creating what we now call The Periodic Table.



On the night of February 16, 1869, it is said, Dmitri Mendeleev, Russian Chemist and owner of the wildest beard east of Vienna, had a dream in which he saw almost all of the 65 known elements arrayed in a grand table. The following morning, he set to work organizing the elements on blank cards.



He carried on for three days and nights, continually arranging and rearranging the cards in various sequences until he noticed a pattern in the elements in order of increasing atomic mass; their properties were repeated. Because the properties repeated themselves regularly, or periodically, on his chart, the system became known as the periodic table.


A bomb exploded in the dining room of St. Petersburg's Winter Palace on February 17, 1880. Tsar Alexander II survived. Being late for supper, the Tsar was not harmed, although 67 other people were killed or wounded. The dining room floor was also heavily damaged.

While it is often said that promptness is the politeness of kings; sometimes being a tad tardy can save you.


February 17, 1904 -
The original two-act version Madama Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, premiered on this date.



It did not go so well, lasting just one performance. One critic refereed to the performance as a "diabetic opera, the result of an automobile accident." Puccini revised the opera, splitting the second act into two acts and making other changes. On May 28, 1904, the new version was performed in Brescia and was a huge success.


February 17, 1933 -
The first issue of the weekly news magazine, Newsweek, was published on this date.

The issue, all 32 pages of it, could be purchased for a dime, but you could get it discounted for a year's subscription at $4.


February 17, 1958 -
Pope Pius XII declared Saint Clare of Assisi (1193 - 1253), the patron saint of television, on this date.

Given that the meager pittance I have called a salary that has come from my work in television, having a saint to intervene for you comes in handy.


February 17, 1994 -
The decomposing corpse of Zviad Gamsakhurdia, first president of the Republic of Georgia, was exhumed from a temporary grave in Djikhaskari on this date. His wife refused an autopsy, but western journalists noted a bullet wound in the side of Zviad's head. Officially listed as suicide, the wife also claims he was murdered. Another government minister oddly states the death was by cancer with the head shot administered post-mortem.

Note to self: don't seek cancer treatment in the Republic of Georgia or the state of Georgia, for that matter.

Avoid getting cancer, if at all possible.



And so it goes