It's a party today

The seventh day of the first lunar month is known as Ren Ri, also called “People’s Day” or the “Birthday of Mankind.” It is celebrated as a key part of the Lunar New Year festivities and is traditionally regarded as the day when everyone grows one year older, effectively serving as a shared birthday for all humanity.

According to Chinese mythology, the mother goddess Nüwa created human beings on the seventh day.

Legend has it that Nüwa created mankind because she felt lonely. She molded humans from clay into different shapes and sizes. Handmaking humans became tiring, so Nüwa taught them about marriage, allowing them to reproduce on their own.



Many communities consume a dish made of seven different vegetables - such as mustard greens, celery, and leeks - each representing a specific blessing, such as wisdom or wealth. Eating long noodles on this day also symbolizes a wish for a long and healthy life. Because it is considered the “birthday” of various animals on the preceding days, people may avoid killing animals or punishing prisoners on Ren Ri as a show of respect for life.


Today is Curling Is Cool Day. I'm not sure how many millions of dollars will be lost with the number of people are taking the day off from work.

Do not make a rookie mistake; just encourage all those involved - Celebrate Responsibly.


February 23, 1940 -
The second animated feature film produced by Walt Disney Productions, Pinocchio, premiered in the US on this date.



During the musical number When You Wish Upon a Star, when a spotlight is seen on Jiminy Cricket, one is able to see two books to the left of the screen, which are Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. Walt Disney started developing these two stories for the big screen at the time of this film's release, and they would be released respectively in 1953 and 1951.


February 23, 1945 -
The Merrie Melodies cartoon, The Unruly Hare, directed by Frank Tashlin and starring Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd, debuted on this date.



This was the final cartoon in which Frank Tashlin received onscreen credit; he was uncredited in his final four cartoons Behind the Meat-Ball, Tale of Two Mice, Nasty Quacks and Hare Remover, which were released following his official departure from the Warner Bros. Cartoons studio.


February 23, 1950 -
A nearly forgotten Alfred Hitchcock film, Stage Fright starring Marlene Dietrich, Jane Wyman, Richard Todd, and Michael Wilding, premiered in New York City on this date.



In an extraordinary move for the normally controlling director,  Alfred Hitchcock provided Marlene Dietrich an exceptional amount of creative control for this movie, particularly in how she chose to light her scenes. Hitchcock knew that Dietrich had learned a great deal of the art of cinematography from Josef von Sternberg and Günther Rittau, and allowed her to work with Cinematographer Wilkie Cooper to light and set her scenes the way that she wished.


February 23, 1952 -
The Looney Tunes cartoon, Mouse-Warming, directed by Chuck Jones and featuring Claude Cat debuted on this date.



The rodent moving team bears a slight resemblance to the popular comedy sketch characters of Ralph and Ed from what would become the TV sitcom The Honeymooners a few years later.


February 23, 1964 -
The Beatles appear for the third consecutive appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on this date. They performed Twist and Shout and Please Please Me and closed the show once again with I Want to Hold Your Hand.



The third broadcast, February 23, showed a performance taped earlier in the day of the original February 9th appearance.


February 23, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode A Taste of Armageddon first airs on NBC, on this date. In it, the Enterprise visits a planet fighting a war with its neighboring planet via computers.



In his memoir, Beam Me Up, Scotty, James Doohan described Gene Lyons (Ambassador Robert Fox) as being "out of his element" and "completely discombobulated" during filming. He added that it took Lyons many takes to get his lines right and that they finally "went to having him speak off-screen." Doohan speculates that Lyons, who was an experienced actor, may have been thrown off by the science fiction element as such shows were relatively rare at the time.


February 23, 1969 -
The BBC2 documentary series, Civilisation, hosted by Kenneth Clark, guided us through the history of Western art, architecture and philosophy, debuted on this date.



While popular at the time of its release, the Civilisation series has been criticized over the decades for presenting a 19th-century worldview of history being shaped by relatively few "highly influential and unique individuals" with extraordinary abilities. This historical theory had originally been proposed by Thomas Carlyle in the 1840s, and remained fashionable until the 1920s. Both the original theory and the documentary series have been criticized for largely ignoring the impact of social history, economic history, and political history on art and art movements. The program also minimized the role of female writers and artists within the art movements covered in the show, because they did not fit in its main writer's "traditional choice" of great artists, a group which he viewed as exclusively male.


February 23, 1980 –
The Queen's song Crazy Little Thing Called Love hit the No. #1 spot on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was the first song on which Freddie Mercury played rhythm guitar. He was keen to keep the song minimal, despite his limited guitar knowledge, and producer Mack claimed that he rushed into the studio to record it "before Brian could get there!"


February 23, 1985 -
The Smiths scored their first UK No.1 album with Meat Is Murder on this date. The album's sleeve uses a 1967 photograph of Marine Cpl. Michael Wynn in the Vietnam War, though with the wording on his helmet changed from "Make War Not Love" to "Meat Is Murder".



The Smiths produced Meat Is Murder themselves, assisted only by engineer Stephen Street, whom they had first met on the session for Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now.


February 23, 1991 -
Oliver Stone's bio-pix about Jim Morrison and his group, The Doors, starring Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan, Kyle MacLachlan, Frank Whaley, Kevin Dillon, and Kathleen Quinlan premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



The surviving members of The Doors claim that Val Kilmer did such a good job playing and singing as Jim Morrison that they could not distinguish his voice from the real Jim Morrison.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
February 23, 303 -
Roman Emperor Diocletian issues an edict to suppress Christianity, "to tear down the churches to the foundations and to destroy the Sacred Scriptures by fire". Further edicts require that church officials engage in animal sacrifice to appease traditional Roman gods.



One can only weep that they did not have the lubricant concessions given the kind of orgies that when on that night.


February 23, 1821 -
English poet John Keats died in Rome on this date. Mr. Keats was Romantic and therefore wrote an Ode to a Nightingale, an Ode to Psyche, and even an Ode to a Grecian Urn.



None of them would have him, so the poor man died alone.


February 23, 1861 -
President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington D.C. to take office after an assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore on this date. Allan Pinkerton, founder of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, may have saved Lincoln’s life by uncovering the plot to assassinate the president-elect in Baltimore, Md.



At the detective’s suggestion, Lincoln avoided the threat by secretly slipping through the city at night.


February 23, 1836 -
The Siege of the Alamo began on this date. It was quite an adventure. For years afterward people would sigh, Remember the Alamo?



And they'd kind of nod and smile, but eventually they forgot.


February 23, 1885 -
The British hangman at Exeter Gaol tried three times on this date, to hang John Lee of Devonshire, for the murder of Emma Keyse. The trap refused to open.



His sentence was commuted to life, and he was eventually released.


February 23, 1896 -
The Tootsie Roll was introduced by Leo Hirshfield an Austrian immigrant, in his small candy shop located in New York City on this date.



He was America's first candy maker to individually wrap penny candy. Current production is over 49 million pieces a day. For many, this day should be a Federal holiday.


February 23, 1903 -
Tomás Estrada Palma, the first president of Cuba, leased Guantanamo Bay to the US in perpetuity on this date. Guantanamo Bay was the only US military base in a country with which the US did not have diplomatic relations, until a few years ago.

Guantanamo Bay is also home to Cuba's first and only McDonald's restaurant. I'm guessing it's McDonald's fault that we're still in Gitmo.


February 23, 1915 -
Nevada enacts a law reducing the quickie divorce residency requirements down to six months,



a figure further reduced in 1931 to six weeks.


February 23, 1945 -
U. S. Marines raised the flag on Mt. Suribachi (Battle of Iwo Jima) on this date.



The photograph of the event was extremely popular, being reprinted in thousands of publications. Later, it became the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in the same year as its publication, and ultimately came to be regarded as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war, and possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time.


February 23, 1954 -
The students of Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania participated in the first mass vaccination of children against polio with the vaccine (using the dead virus to induce immunization) developed by Jonas Salk, on this date.



Poliomyelitis is a viral attack of the central nervous system and can cause paralysis and death by asphyxiation (I have nothing else to say.)


February 23, 1996 -
The Freeway Killer William G Bonin was executed at San Quentin on this date. He was the first person to be executed by lethal injection in the history of California.

For his last meal, Bonin requested two large pepperoni and sausage pizzas, three pints of coffee ice cream and three six-packs of regular Coca Cola.

That kind of diet will kill you.



And so it goes.

Once again - take the forecast seriously

Just because it hasn't started snowing yet, doesn't mean things can't rapidly deterorate -

If you have to, run out now. Then stay in and catch up on some of our past blog posts


Today is the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, and the garbage from the first five days of celebrating is piling up. The rubbish from the first to the fourth day of the Lunar New Year is considered “wealth,” but after the fifth day, that garbage becomes a sign of “poverty.” So, on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year, families participate in a traditional ritual called “Sending Away Poverty” (Song Qiong). This day marks a symbolic transition from the festive restrictions of the New Year to the resumption of normal life and work. The God of Poverty is believed to visit each household.

According to Chinese folklore, the God of Poverty was the son of the ancient Emperor Zhuanxu, one of the legendary rulers among the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors of ancient China.

He was said to be short and weak, fond of wearing ragged clothes and living on a diet of coarse porridge. Even when people presented him with new clothes, he would not wear them until he had ripped them apart or burned them. Because of this, he was called “the man of poverty,” and over time, he gradually came to be regarded as the ghost of poverty.



In the legend of Nüwa, the sixth day of the Lunar New Year is also the Birthday of the Horse.



The horse is one of the “six domestic animals” (Liu Chu) that were critical to ancient Chinese agriculture and survival. On this day, rituals and beliefs focus on honoring the animal’s contribution to society.

According to tradition, today is also known as “Pouring Out Manure Day” (Yi Fei). Families clean their toilets because the God of Toilets is said to come and inspect the cleanliness of the household.

In an agricultural society, before modern plumbing, Chinese farmers would have someone clean the manure pit every three to five days. The sixth day was designated for this task. (And yes, it always stinks when you have to clean the manure pit.)


It's National Margarita Day. Margarita, in Spanish means Daisy





Remember, because of today's blizzard, you probably don't have work tomorrow - celebrate responsibly.


February 22, 1934 -
Frank Capra's romantic comedy It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, premiered at Radio City Music Hall on this date.



Clark Gable gave the Oscar he won for his performance in this movie to a child who admired it, telling him it was the winning of the statue that had mattered, not owning it. The child returned the Oscar to the Gable family after Clark's death.


February 22, 1935 -
The Fox Film Corporation film, The Little Colonel, starring Shirley Temple, Lionel Barrymore and Bill Robinson, premiered in the US on this date. The film featured the famous stair dance sequence, making Shirley Temple and Bill Robinson Hollywood's first interracial dance couple. This scene was cut when the film played in the southern United States.



Shirley Temple memorized every line of dialogue in this movie, and while filming a scene with Lionel Barrymore, the veteran actor forgot a line. When Temple prompted him, Barrymore flew into a such a rage that one crew member took Temple away for fear that Barrymore might harm her. He later apologized to her, and they remained friends for many years.


February 22, 1956 -
Elvis Presley's song Heartbreak Hotel debuted on the Billboard pop chart at No. 68, on this date.





Mae Axton, a Nashville songwriter who wrote the music for Heartbreak Hotel, was living in Jacksonville when this song was written. She got a local country singer named Glenn Reeves to do the demo for Elvis, who did the demo the way he thought Elvis would do it. Elvis liked it, and did it exactly that way.


February 22, 1956 -
The film widely considered the worst film produced by a major studio in the 50s, The Conqueror, directed by Dick Powell and starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Pedro Armendáriz, premiered in the US on this date.



The film was shot downwind from a nuclear test site and is considered the cause of cancer and death of many of the cast and crew.


February 22, 1977 -
The single New Kid in Town, the first release from the album Hotel California, was the Eagles' first to be certified gold for selling more than 1 million copies on this date.



Glen Frey mentioned in an interview at the time that the song was about Steely Dan whom the band saw as a new and upcoming group that was possibly taking over the spotlight from the Eagles (there has been some dispute as to whether or not Glen Frey was joking.) Given that the two bands shared a manager (Irving Azoff) and that the Eagles proclaimed their admiration for Steely Dan, this was more friendly rivalry than feud.


February 22, 2001 -
Mira Nair's wonderful Monsoon Wedding, opened in both Los Angeles and New York on this date. (if you don't already know it, Ms. Nair is the mother of the mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.)



A large portion of the original footage (including the wedding itself) was ruined by an airport x-ray machine. The scenes had to be re-shot, when additional funds had been raised to do so, some months later.


Another album from the discount bin at The ACME Record Shoppe


Today in History:
Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company - George Washington

Young George Washington was born on February 11, 1731 (or so he thought.)



Unfortunately for him, England had been tenaciously clinging onto the Julian calendar - they wanted none of that Papist Gregorian calendar crap. But England finally wanted to get with the times, so in 1752, Parliament adopted the Gregorian calendar. Many prominent colonists supported the new system; including Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Washington updated his own birthday from the old February 11th to the Gregorian February 22.



But wait, there's more - the calendar switch of 1752 included another significant change. Under the Julian system, the year began on March 25. That means a colonist who went to bed on March 24, 1700, would wake up on March 25, 1701. The new Gregorian rules set the start of the year to January 1st. This created some confusion, since anyone who was born between January 1st and March 25th in the old system would have the wrong birth year in the new one - thus George's new birthday was February 22, 1732.



So you have to wish the Father of Our Country birthday greetings for the third time this month.



Much heavy drinking ensued.


On February 22, 1862, Jefferson Davis was officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia.

He was previously inaugurated as a provisional president on February 18, 1861.

I guess his mother was proud of him.


February 22, 1902 -
Sen. Elizabeth Warren pours herself a cold one somewhere, opining the events that occurred on this date

After years of souring relations between the two Democrats from South Carolina, Sen. John McLaurin took to the Senate floor on this date and claimed that his state’s senior senator, “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, had spread a “willful, malicious and deliberate lie” about him. Tillman, who was standing nearby, then “spun around and punched McLaurin squarely in the jaw,” according to an official write-up of the incident on the Senate webpage.

“The chamber exploded in pandemonium as members struggled to separate both members of the South Carolina delegation,” it continues. The Senate later adopted Rule 19, after voting to censure both South Carolinians over the incident. The obscure rule has so infrequently been invoked that several media sources could only find two previous votes on this question in the history of the Senate -- on January 29, 1915, and April 21, 1952, until the good senator was herself censured on February 8, 2017, for impugned Jeff Session's character.


February 22, 1925 -
I just kind of conjured them up out of my subconscious and put them in order of ascending peculiarity.



The gothic illustrator and professed 'child hater' Edward St. John Gorey was spawned on this date.


February 22, 1974 -
A failed assassination attempt on President Nixon took place on this date. Samuel Joseph Byck, an unemployed tire salesman, attempted to hijack a plane and crash it into the White House to kill President Nixon.



When police stormed the plane, he committed suicide. No one else was injured, and Nixon was unaffected, although he did resign several months later.


February 22, 1980 -
During the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3 on this date.



It is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history (the Miracle on Ice.)


February 22, 1987 -
Andy Warhol died of complications after gallbladder surgery, though the details are hazy. The official cause was listed as cardiac arrhythmia, but speculation includes his fear of hospitals as well as possible Cefoxitin allergy. Mr. Warhol is best known for painting pictures of Campbell's Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe, although never together.



Warhol's death brings him a bonus 15 minutes of fame.



His work can be seen in museums and galleries around the world to this very day.



Campbell's Soup cans can still be found in the canned goods section of your favorite supermarket to this very day.


February 22, 1994 -
CIA agent Aldrich Ames and his wife were charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union on this date.



Somehow by 1989 Ames had acquired the unexplained wealth from his spying and did very little to conceal the spying, he somehow managed to evade being caught for five more years.


February 22, 1997 -
The first cloning of an advanced mammal, a sheep known as Dolly, was announced in the news media, on this date. Dolly, actually born on July 5, 1996, was cloned from a mammary cell -



Dolly was purportedly named after Dolly Parton.

I guess that's a compliment.


February 22, 2002 -
Charles Martin Chuck Jones, director of many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, died on this date.



At 85, Chuck signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. to supervise the animation department. His thoughts on the contract were: "At 85 you can only think ahead for the next 50 years or so."




And so it goes.

Whenever a taboo is broken, something good happens ...

Today is the fifth day of the Lunar New Year celebrations, known as the Festival of Po Wu. The name literally translates to “Breaking the Five,” referring to the pivotal moment when the many strict taboos observed during the first four days of the new year are finally broken or lifted.

According to folklore, the fifth day marks the birthday of Caishen, the Chinese God of Wealth. Caishen is also called Cai Boxing Jun or Po Wu. Many families worship the God of Wealth in the early morning hours. After the ceremony, people usually light firecrackers in an attempt to get the attention of the God of Wealth, thus ensuring his favor and good fortune for the coming year.

(Remember, ACME is the leading maker of illegal fireworks throughout the known world.)



Many stores reopen on this day after the Lunar New Year holiday because it is considered an auspicious day blessed by the God of Wealth. Some store owners place a table in front of their company’s main entrance. They prepare fruit, flowers, candy, tea, candles, and sometimes animal sacrifices as offerings to worship the God of Wealth. Some even invite a lion dance troupe to celebrate the opening ceremony. The mascot of Caishen appears and enters the store.



The store owner then presents the mascot with a red envelope (hongbao) containing a monetary gift.

(As I am now considered elderly, as defined by my insurance company, I will not be insulted by being offered any and all red envelopes that may come my way.)


February 21, 1942 -
The Looney Tunes cartoon, Porky's Cafe, directed by Chuck Jones and co-starring Conrad the Cat, debuted on this date.



This is the last black-and-white Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones.


February 21, 1964 -
The Rolling Stones release their first single in America, a cover of the Buddy Holly song Not Fade Away.



Phil Spector is credited with playing maracas on the record but in fact he was playing an empty cognac bottle with a 50 cent piece.


February 21, 1966 -
The nearly forgotten black comedy, Lord Love a Duck, directed by George Axelrod and starring Roddy McDowall, Tuesday Weld, Ruth Gordon, and Harvey Korman, was released on this date.



This film took nearly eighteen months to get to Britain and was shown (in an abbreviated version) in the lower half of a double-bill with A Fistful Of Dollars. It was not press-shown or given much publicity, but the popularity of the Clint Eastwood film meant that it was widely seen, and it gradually built up a cult following. It was eventually televised in its full version.


February 21, 1967 -
One Million Years B.C., starring Raquel Welch, her pre-historic brassière and a bunch of dinosaur puppets, premiered in the US on this date.



As I've mentioned in the past, folks going to the Creation Museum, this is NOT a documentary.


February 21, 1970 -
The Jackson 5, led by 11-year old Michael Jackson, introduced themselves to America with their TV debut on American Bandstand.



The performances showed not only that the group were amazing performers, but that Michael was a superstar in the making.


February 21, 1981 -
Charles Rocket, first in the long line of performers on Saturday Night Live to drop the f-bomb, cursed live at the end of the episode in response to a question about how it felt being shot during a skit.



Due partially to the violation of broadcast standards, along with Saturday Night Live's low ratings, Rocket and most of that seasons cast and writers were fired shortly thereafter.



Few remembered that same evening, Prince appeared, unbilled, late on the show and performed Party Up. It was his first appearance on the show.


February 21, 1996 -
The feature-length directorial debut of Wes Anderson, Bottle Rocket, starring Owen Wilson, Luke Wilson, Andrew Wilson, Robert Musgrave, Lumi Cavazos, and James Caan, and produced by James L. Brooks, was released on this date



James L. Brooks insisted that major work needed to be done on the originally submitted script, so he had Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson (the screenwriters,) flown to Los Angeles and set up in an office on one hundred dollars a day. Having never flown first class in his life, Wilson tried to exchange his prearranged first class plane ticket for a coach ticket, hoping to pocket the difference in cash instead. When the airline told him the money would just go back to the credit card of who bought the ticket, he gave in and flew first class for the first time.


February 21, 2008 -
Paul Mawhinney's collection of 3 million vinyl records, amassed over 40 years while he owned a record store in Pittsburgh, was sold on eBay for $3,002,150, on this date. The bid was a sham, it turned out to be an unsuspecting Irishman who said his account had been hacked.



Mawhinney held onto his collection until 2013, when he sold it to the Brazilian collector Zero Freitas.



Mr. Freitas currently now owns over six million records, a collection which he intends to catalogue for public use and transform into a vast listenable archive.

Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today.


Today in History:
(Please feel free to chart the following genealogy, as it may be on the test)
February 21, 1437 -
King James I of Scotland's grandfather, Robert II, had married twice and the awkward circumstances of the first marriage (the one with James's grandmother Elizabeth Mure - he didn't get around to marrying her until several years and children into their relationship) led some to dispute its validity. Conflict broke out between the descendants of the first marriage and the unquestionably legitimate descendants of the second marriage over who had the better right to the Scottish throne.

Matters came to a head on this date, when a group of Scots led by Sir Robert Graham assassinated James at the Friars Preachers Monastery in Perth. He attempted to escape his assailants through a sewer. However, three days previously, he had had the other end of the drain blocked up because of its connection to the tennis court outside, balls habitually got lost in it.



I'm sure the irony was not lost on James while he scrambled around in the sewer.


February 21, 1803 -
Edward Despard and six co-conspirators were executed at Horsemonger Lane Gaol, in front of a crowd of at least 20,000 spectators, for plotting to assassinate England's King George III and to destroy the Bank of England. Despard was originally sentenced, with six of his fellow-conspirators (John Wood and John Francis, both privates in the army, carpenter Thomas Broughton, shoemaker James Sedgwick Wratton, slater Arthur Graham and John Macnamara,) to be hanged, drawn and quartered.

These were the last men to be so sentenced in England, although prior to execution the sentence was commuted to simple hanging and beheading, amid fears that the Draconian punishment might spark public dissent.

This must have been a very pretty sight indeed.


February 21, 1878 -
The first telephone directory was issued with 50 subscribers, by the District Telephone Company of New Haven, Connecticut on this date.

The first prank phone call to a Mr. Lipshitz soon followed.


February 21, 1885 -
America's greatest phallic symbol, the Washington Monument, was dedicated by President Chester A. Arthur on this date. The shaft towers over 555 feet into the air and sports an aluminum foreskin.



The monument was the tallest structure in the world when completed.

Talk about feeling inadequate (and talk about smegma.)


February 21, 1916 -
The Battle of Verdun began today, which in nine months yielded 975,000 casualties and almost no change in the front line.



It is the bloodiest battle in history, and often the one remarked as having the "highest density of dead per square yard."


February 21, 1917 -
The SS Mendi steamship sank after being accidentally rammed in the British Channel by the SS Darro, an empty meat ship bound for Argentina. 607 members of the South African Labour Corps, 9 officers and 33 crew lost their lives.



The crew of the Darro made no attempt to rescue survivors. It has been suggested that this was because most of the men on the SS Mendi were black.


February 21, 1918 -
The last Carolina Parakeet, Incas, died at the Cincinnati Zoo on this date, the only native parrot species in the Eastern US. The species went extinct through a combination of loss of environment and overhunting for their decorative feathers.



Coincidentally, the last Carolina Parakeet died in the same cage in which the last Passenger Pigeon, Martha died.


February 21, 1922 -
The Italian built airship Roma crashed to the ground in Norfolk Virginia after the explosion of the hydrogen caused by the airship coming into contact with power lines turned the dirigible into a blazing inferno causing it to crash 1,000 ft to the ground.



Only 11 passengers and crew survived the crash by jumping from the airship before it hit the power lines.


February 21, 1925 -
101 years ago, the top hatted character Eustace Tilley first appeared on a magazine cover on this date. Eustace Tilley, the mascot of The New Yorker magazine, was based on an engraving of Compte Alfred d'Orsay, interpreted by house cartoonist and art director Rea Irvin.



The first issue of the New Yorker magazine, founded by Harold Ross, hit the newsstands on this date.


February 21, 1931 -
Oh, what a relief it is!...



Miles Laboratories introduced Alka-Seltzer® on this date. (One of our favorite bunkies has Proustian-like memories of living just outside the Elkhart factory site.)


February 21, 1933 -
Did you know that the human voice is the only pure instrument? That it has notes no other instrument has? It's like being between the keys of a piano. The notes are there, you can sing them, but they can't be found on any instrument. That's like me. I live in between this. I live in both worlds, the black and white world.







Singer, songwriter, pianist, arranger, and civil rights activist, Nina Simone (Eunice Kathleen Waymon) was born on this date.


February 21, 1937 -
The first successful flying car made its maiden flight on this date. Developed by Waldo Waterman, the Arrowbile was a hybrid Studebaker-aircraft.



The three-wheeled car was powered by a typical 100-horsepower Studebaker engine. The wings detached for storage. It flew safely but generated little customer interest, and only five were produced.


February 21, 1947 -
Edwin H. Land first demonstrated, the first instant camera, the Polaroid Land camera, during a meeting of the Optical Society of America (OSA) at the Hotel Pennsylvania, in New York City.







The camera produces a black and white photograph in sixty seconds, using development and fixer chemicals sandwiched in pods with the photographic paper and film.


February 21, 1953 -
Francis Crick and James D. Watson came up with a key insight in their discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule on this date. (And yes, they stole information from Rosalind Franklin and James D. Watson is a racist but I'm not going to wade into that thicket.)



At first they were going with a squiggle or smiley face structure until they hit upon the double helix.


February 21, 1965 -
Former Black Muslim leader El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, aka Malcolm X was shot to death on this date, in front of 400 people in New York by assassins identified as Black Muslims.



He was murdered at the Audubon Ballroom in Manhattan. His wife, Betty Sha-bazz, pregnant with twins, was sitting in the audience along with his 4-year-old daughter Quibi-lah at the time. (New information has come to light, exonerating two of the men, Muhammad A. Aziz and Khalil Islam, who each spent more than 20 years in prison.)


February 21, 1972 -
Only Nixon could go to China - old Vulcan proverb



To celebrate the 1848 publication of The Communist Manifesto in London on this date, (written by Karl Marx with the assistance of Friedrich Engels) -



Richard M. Nixon (and St. Pat of the Good Republican Cloth Coat) visited the People's Republic of China to normalize Sino-American relations, becoming the first US president to visit a country not diplomatically recognized by the US.


February 21, 1988 -
Television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart of the Assemblies of God, with tears streaming down his face, confessed sinning with a prostitute (Debra Murphree) in a Louisiana hotel room.



A second scandal with yet another prostitute emerges in 1991, further killed his evangelical career. It may not have anything to do with the situation but Jimmy is related to both Mickey Gilley and Jerry Lee Lewis.


February 21, 1995 -
Steve Fossett, a 50-year-old stock broker from Chicago, became the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon, on this day.



The American businessman, aviator, sailor, and adventurer landed in Saskatchewan, Canada, after taking off from South Korea - and he used the same balloon that successfully carried him across the Atlantic two years earlier. Unfortunately, he was killed in a crash in 2007 while piloting a light aircraft over the Great Basin Desert in California.



And so it goes.