No, it's you that are getting smaller

When you woke up this morning, you were as tall as you were going to be this day.



That’s because at night when you’re lying down, the spine stretches and decompresses. But throughout the day, the soft cartilage between your bones gets squashed and compressed. Don't concern yourself too much, it will start all over again tomorrow.


November 9, 1935 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Billboard Frolics, directed by Friz Freleng was released on this date.



Eddie Cantor is parodied early on. Some actual products spoofed are Old Maid (Old Dutch) cleanser, Ivory Soap (which purportedly floated as it was so pure), Wiggles gum (Wrigley), Old Cold cigarettes (Old Gold), and Police Chief gasoline (Texaco Fire Chief). The Russian rye bit had a sly jab at the USSR with the allusion to a five-year plan.


November 9, 1940 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Wacky Wild Life, directed by Tex Avery was released on this date.



The lobby cards list the title of the short as "Wacky Wildlife". The same title was used when the cartoon was reissued.


November 9, 1946 -

Another classic, yet surprisingly controversial Bugs Bunny outing, Rhapsody Rabbit, directed by Friz Freleng, premiered on this date (We'll talk about the controversy later.)



Franz Liszt's 2nd Hungarian Rhapsody music was first used in 1941's Rhapsody in Rivets. A long-standing controversy exists between the previous cartoon and the Tom and Jerry short, The Cat Concerto.



Both MGM and Warner Bros. accused each other of plagiarism, after both films were shown in the 1947 Academy Awards Ceremony. Technicolor was accused of sending a print of either cartoon to a competing studio, who then plagiarized their rival's work. This remains uncertain to this day, though Rhapsody Rabbit has an earlier MPAA copyright number and release date. The massive similarities could be coincidental, and are considered as such by those who don't believe that there was any plagiarism to start. Since the animators at Warner Bros. and MGM were experienced in making cartoons, it could be likely that they all thought of similar concepts and expanded them, not knowing that similar situations resulted in each cartoon (as is the case with a lot of creative works regardless of genre and medium).


November 9, 1951 -
The zenith of Hollywood Musical film making (I'll let you argue about whether this or Singing in the Rain is better), An American in Paris, opened in California on this date.



Despite the objections of Gene Kelly, who wanted to shoot on location in Paris, the movie was shot at MGM Studios in California on 44 sets built for the film. It was reportedly difficult for the studio to secure travel arrangements or locations for shooting. Two shots in the picture are from Paris, but they don't involve Kelly.


November 9, 1963 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Claws in the Lease , directed by Bob McKimson, starring Sylvester the Cat and Sylvester Jr., was released on this date.



That scene where the lady of the house takes a shower using Sylvester for a back brush somehow got past the censors.


November 9, 1964 -
Another under-appreciated film that you should see, The Pumpkin Eater, opened in the US on this date.



Patricia Neal was offered the lead, but when it was not 100% confirmed that she would get the role, she opted--to her later regret--to make Psyche 59 instead, since it was an official offer.


November 9, 1967 -
The under-rated sci-fi film, Quatermass and the Pit (AKA Five Million Years to Earth,) directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Andrew Keir, James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover, was released in the US, on this date.



Of the three Hammer Quatermass films produced, this is the only one their creator Nigel Kneale liked, largely due to his being happier with Andrew Keir's performance as the title character than Brian Donlevy's in The Quatermass Xperiment and Quatermass 2. Kneale described Donlevy as "a former Hollywood heavy gone to seed" and claimed that he was drunk during much of the shooting of the latter film, a statement its director Val Guest repudiated.


November 9, 1972 -
The adaptation of the hit Broadway musical, 1776, starring William Daniels, Howard Da Silva, John Cullum, Ken Howard and Blythe Danner, premiered in NYC on this date



While it is generally accepted that John Hancock was the only one who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4th, Sherman Edwards and Peter Stone chose to have the congressional delegates sign the document on that date in the musical for dramatic effect.


November 9, 1973 -
Billy Joel releases his second album, Piano Man, on this date.



The album and title track (based on his nights performing at a piano bar in Los Angeles called The Executive Room,) became Joel's breakthrough album, which he released after signing with Columbia Records. His first album was released by Family Records in 1971, and the contract Joel signed to get that deal came back to haunt him. As is often the case with young musicians, Joel did not understand the contract, and it bound him "for life" to the label. Joel was forced to pay royalties to Family for years after breaking the deal and signing with Columbia.


November 9, 1974 -
Bachman Turner Overdrive become just the second Canadian band to go to No.1 on the Billboard chart with You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet, on this date. (The first to do it was another Randy Bachman band: The Guess Who, who topped the chart with American Woman in 1970.)



Randy Bachman stuttered through the lyrics of the demo recording as a private joke about his brother Gary, who had a speech impediment. The record company liked that take better than the non-stammering version and released it.


November 9, 1984 -
Wes Craven's iconic horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street, starring Heather Langenkamp, John Saxon, Ronee Blakley, Robert Englund and Johnny Depp, opened in limited release in the US, on this date.



The inspiration for the character of Freddy came from several sources in Wes Craven's childhood. Fred Krueger was a schoolmate of his, with whom he had shared a paper route and who had bullied him for several years. In The Last House on the Left, Craven also used this experience as inspiration, calling the villain Krug. Freddy's burns came from a man with severe burn scars by whom Craven had once been terrified as a child, and Freddy's attire (especially the dirty clothes and hat) was inspired by an alcoholic hobo that Craven saw staring at him through his window one day when he was 10 years old.


November 9, 2006 -
The world record for the most swear words in a television program is 201 in the first episode of the comedy Strutter, which aired on MTV on this date. (I no longer worked there at the time - so don't blame me.)



Bunkies, really this program is chockablock with filthy language and has more swearing per minute than record holder - South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut - don't watch it. You've been warned.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
November 9, 1731 -
Benjamin Banneker was born in Maryland to free black slaves on this date. From his farm near Baltimore, Banneker spent much of his time studying the stars. Although he lacked much of a formal education, he taught himself with borrowed books and became a noted mathematician, astronomer and inventor. Carving its gears with a pocket knife, he built a wooden clock in 1770 that was believed to have been the first built in America.



Banneker was appointed to the District of Columbia Commission in 1789 to help survey the new capital city of Washington, D.C. Banneker began publishing scientific almanacs in 1791 after accurately predicting a solar eclipse. Banneker sent a copy of his almanac to the then Virginia Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson and began a correspondence with him about his views against slavery. Banneker died in 1806.


In Germany so many significant events in history have happened on November 9,

that historians have called the date Schicksalstag (Fateful Day).



It was the day that Robert Blum was executed in 1848,



After Germany's defeat in the First World War, the emperor Wilhelm II lost the support of the German army. He abdicated on November 9, 1918,



Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch in 1923,



the Nazi German diplomat Ernst vom Rath died from gunshot wounds by Herschel Grynszpan, an act which the Nazis used as an excuse to instigate Kristallnacht — the Night of Broken Glass, on November 9, 1938,



Communist-controlled East Germany opened checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany on this date in 1989. The Berlin Wall was subsequently destroyed by a euphoric public over a period of several weeks, and its fall was the first step toward German reunification, which was formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

The French are still casting a leery eye at their reunified neighbor.


November 9, 1906 -
Teddy Roosevelt went against more than a century of tradition and became the first American president ever to leave the country while in office, on this date. He went to view the construction site of the Panama Canal.



Before Roosevelt, it was assumed that a President of the United States couldn't oversee the country effectively if he traveled abroad. It would take too long for him to communicate with government officials back home. But with the invention of the telegraph and then the telephone, high speed communication had grown much more feasible.



So on this day in 1906, Roosevelt and his wife climbed aboard the U.S.S. Louisiana and sailed south. The journey to Panama made Roosevelt happier than he'd been in a long while. He strolled the decks with his wife, read a stack of books he'd brought with him, including Tacitus and Milton, and the captain even let him steer the ship at one point. When he got to Panama itself, he was so impressed by the jungle and the tropical wildlife that he didn't even mind the torrential rains.



The chief engineer had the incredibly difficult task of accompanying Roosevelt everywhere he went. He said, "I have blisters on both feet and am worn out - Scaling a hill with Roosevelt is like taking a fort by storm." They took a train to the construction site, but when Roosevelt saw the first 95-ton steam shovel, he ordered that the train be stopped so that he could hike through the mud to see the steam shovel up close. It was a new invention at the time, and Roosevelt spent a half an hour asking about its operation. He then took a turn at the controls.

Although, King Louis (Mel Brooks) said, "It's good to be the king", it must have been a blast to be Teddy.

Bully, bully.


November 9, 1934-
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.





Carl Edward Sagan scientist, author, and observer of billions and billions stars was born in Brooklyn, New York, on this date.


November 9, 1953 -

Dylan Thomas finally accomplished his goal of drinking himself to death (having had 18 straight whiskies at the White Horse Tavern, in Greenwich Village, several days previously) on this date.



Sometimes it is not good to be a drunken Welsh poet.


November 9, 1965 -
The Northeast Blackout of 1965 was a major power outage affecting parts of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, New Jersey in the United States and portions of Canada on this date.



Around 25 million people and 80,000 square miles were left without electricity for up to twelve hours. Although the blackout was ultimately blamed on a sophisticated power system that was ironically built to ensure electricity would be available in an emergency, there is another theory that UFO's visiting the Northeast were to blame.

That explains so much.


November 9, 1967 -
The first issue of Rolling Stone Magazine is published in San Francisco in newspaper format. It sells for 35¢, which is about $2.48 today.

The cover features a photo of John Lennon and the lead article is on the Monterey Pop Festival. The first issue also conveniently includes a free roach clip.


November 9, 2346 -
Romulans commit an atrocity now known as the Khitomer Massacre, slaughtering over 4,000 Klingons on an agricultural colony on this date.



Worf and Kahlest are the only two to survive.


Before you go - It's that time of year that we like to check out the Christmas adverts that our cousins across the pond are seeing this year, (it seems to be early this year, but I always say that.) First out of the gate is Debenhams (a department store that is big in the UK.) has released a Christmas four-minute romcom set in a village hall.



It was very sweet but I guess it would be more meaningful if I knew who any of these people are

And so it goes

Unique New York

Today is International Tongue Twister Day. (Or at least I think it is, there seems to be some controversy on the date.) Tongue twisters have technically been around since as early as the 19th century when John Harris published Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation, which included a twisty tongue tango for every letter of the alphabet. And while the book was meant to help children learn the fundamentals of speech mechanics, its titular twister garnered quite the attention and inspired a lot of lore about its namesake.



Try saying - Rory the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural brewery..


I'm so sorry, I nearly forgot that today is Diwali, , one of the biggest and brightest of all the Hindu celebrations.

An ancient festival celebrating the triumph of light over dark and good over evil; the day is also significant in other religions including Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.



Diwali is derived from the Sanskrit word, “deepawali”, meaning “row of lights”. The day is also the beginning of the Hindu New Year.


November 8, 1934 -
The Looney Tunes short, Buddy's Circus, directed by Jack King and starring Buddy, was released on this date.



It was the 50th film in the Looney Tunes series and the twelfth cartoon to feature Buddy.


November 8, 1941 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Saddle Silly, directed by Chuck Jones was released on this date.



The Pony Express was an American express mail delivery service using a relay of horses between Missouri and California.


November 8, 1949 -
Robert Rossen's adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer winning novel, All The King's Men, starring Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, and Joanne Dru, premiered in New York City on this date.



To prepare for the role of Willie Stark, Broderick Crawford watched newsreels of Huey Long, the former Louisiana senator and governor on whose life the novel was loosely based. But, according to Broderick Crawford, "During the filming, we never mentioned the name of Huey Long on the set. That was the unspoken law at the studio."


November 8, 1962 -
Lewis Milestone's second major Hollywood telling of the Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard and Richard Harris, premiered on this date.



Richard Harris agreed to take a third-billed role in this film purely to work with Marlon Brando. However, Brando's on-set behavior soured his adoration of the star. Harris would later describe the production as "nightmarish" and "a total fucking disaster".


November 8, 1964 -
Judy Garland and her daughter, Liza Minnelli appeared together at the London Palladium on this date. The program was broadcasted in the UK and U.S. on December 1, 1964; and the album Live at the London Palladium became a classic on Capitol Records.



The show marked Judy Garland's final public appearance, and her only live appearance with daughter Liza Minnelli.


November 8, 1964 –
A stalwart of the 4:30 Movie slot, Fate is the Hunter, directed by Ralph Nelson, and starring Glenn Ford, Nancy Kwan, Suzanne Pleshette and Rod Taylor, was released on this date.



The fictional airliner in this movie is a DC-7, substantially altered to look like a contemporary jet airliner, but not resemble any that actually existed. Because of the plot, no airline or aircraft manufacturer would have anything to do with the movie, and any resemblance to an actual aircraft would invite litigation.


November 8, 1971 -
Led Zeppelin released their untitled fourth album, on this date.



And kids remember, according to the Consumer Protection and Toxic Materials Committee of the California State Assembly, if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards, you can hear:



So, don't play you albums backwards (some of of you younger bunkies have no idea what albums are.)


November 8, 1975 -

David Bowie makes his US television debut on the CBS variety show Cher, on this date.



Bowie performed both on his own as well as with Cher, which included an odd and interesting six and a half minute duet medley.


November 8, 1978 -
Richard Attenborough's masterful adaptation of William Goldman's thriller, Magic, starring Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, and Burgess Meredith premiered in the US on this date.



Gene Wilder was the original choice for Corky, and director Richard Attenborough and writer William Goldman wanted him, but producer Joseph E. Levine refused, on the grounds he wanted no comedians in the movie to distract from the serious nature of the story.


November 8, 1979 -
The program, The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The show was planned to be temporary, but it evolved into Nightline in March of 1980.


November 8, 1989 -
Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, Henry V, starring Kenneth Branagh, Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Alec McCowen, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane, Brian Blessed, and Christian Bale, premiered on this date.



Kenneth Branagh was the last actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for his role in a Shakespearean film until Denzel Washington was nominated for his performance in The Tragedy of Macbeth, 32 years later. Branagh and Washington worked together on Much Ado About Nothing, another Shakespearean film.


Another album from the discount bin at the The ACME Record Shoppe


Today in History:
November 8, 1431 -
Vlad III the Impaler (Vlad Dracula), Transylvanian prince, inspiring the name of the vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, was probably born on this date.



People had better things to do back then (like find something to eat or keep warm) than keep track of the birth date of some sadistic royal person.


November 8, 1519 -
The Aztecs and their leader, Moctezuma, foolishly welcomed Hernando Cortez and about 300 Spanish soldiers, 18 horses and thousands of Mexico's native inhabitants who had grown resentful of Aztec rule marched unmolested into Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztec empire, on this date.




The Aztec ruler Moctezuma, believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of these strange visitors with courtesy--at least until it became clear that the Spaniards were all too human and bent on conquest.

Oops.


November 8, 1789 -
Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, from Georgetown, Kentucky, distilled the first sour-mash whiskey for public sale on this date.

His customers from the surrounding area called his product Bourbon County Whiskey - after the county of its origin.


November 8th, 1895 -
Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays on this date, when he discovered treated cardboard he was using in routine experiments glowed in certain situations – the result of radiation hitting the surface.



During subsequent experiments he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate.


November 8, 1917 -
And now another episode of That Wacky Russia Revolution!

In late autumn 1917 The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky started the November Revolution (in October), overthrew the provisional government and announced that Russia was a socialist country.



On this date in order to celebrate that the November Revolution was firmed ensconced in November, Lenin was chosen as President of Russia, the world's first communist leader. One of his first acts as its leader was to sign a peace treaty with Germany that ended Russia's participation in the First World War.


November 8, 1923 -
Adolf Schicklgruber, failed artist and World War I veteran, launched his first attempt to seize power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch. He proclaimed himself chancellor and General Erich Ludendorff dictator.



No one really taken him too seriously at the time. Unfortunately, he wasn't joking.


November 8, 1949 -

It is still a surprise when people tell me that I've had an influence on them, particularly when it's someone I really respect.







Bonnie Raitt, American blues singer, guitarist, songwriter, was born on this date.


November 8, 1950 -
The world’s first battle in which a jet plane shoots down another jet plane took place on this date, early in the Korean War during a raid near the Yalu River, which separates Korea and China. A group of about ten Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters approach the American bombers and were confronted by the four U.S. fighter jets escorting the bombers, Lockheed F-80 “Shooting Stars.”



Within about five minutes one MiG was destroyed, another was damaged, and the rest were in retreat. None of the U.S. jets were damaged. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Robert Brown was credited with being the first pilot to take down another jet fighter.


November 8, 1954 -

I like words. Words are places, rooms, distant airs, thin and tropical. They make us feel and imagine we are more than our bodies.







Rickie Lee Jones, The Duchess of Coolsville, two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist, musician, songwriter and producer, was born on this date.


November 8, 1957 -
Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb, called Operation: Grapple X, over Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, on this date. (The U.K. had become an actual thermonuclear power with the detonation of Grapple X.)



It was a bit more powerful than they expected and caused infrastructure damage and destroyed some buildings on the island. I'm guessing this finally answers the question for me: No, I do not wish to spend Christmas (or any time for that matter) on Christmas Island.


November 8, 1994 -
Sometimes you have to be cruel... in order to be even crueler..



Michael O'Donoghue writer for National Lampoon magazine and the first head writer for Saturday Night Live, died on this date, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 54, after a long history of what were thought to be chronic migraine headaches.

And so it goes

You must have some place better to be

This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree arrived in New York City this morning.

The 76-foot Norway Spruce from West Edmeston, New York was cut down Thursday morning and loaded on a truck. The spruce made the 243-mile trip from Rebecca Decker family home to Manhattan on the back of a flatbed truck. The official lighting ceremony with be on December 2 - avoid the area at all cost.


Today is a celebration of Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds

November 7, 1932 -
The Buck Rogers in the 25th Century radio show, notable as the first science-fiction program on radio, first hit the airwaves as a 15-minute broadcast on CBS Radio on this date.



The show related the story of Anthony Buck Rogers finding himself in waking up in the 25th century, after having been held in suspended animation for almost 500 years.


November 1, 1936 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Don't Look Now , directed by Tex Avery was released on this date.



This is the first Warner Bros. cartoon in which you hear Tex Avery's actual voice .


November 7, 1951 -
The under-rated British film-noir (based on a Graham Greene novel and screenplay written by Graham Greene,) directed by John Boulting, Brighton Rock, starring Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, and William Hartnell opened in the US on this date.



Filming actually took place in Brighton using hidden cameras in amongst the real-life crowds. This was mainly because the Brighton authorities objected to the way their town was being depicted as a haven for gangsters.


November 7, 1955 -
The neo-realist film classic, Umberto D., was released in the US on this date.



This is the first and only film for non-actor Carlo Battisti, who plays the leading role in the film. His real occupation was that of a Professor of Linguistics at the Università degli Studi di Firenze.


November 7, 1956 -
An early masterpiece from Fellini, I Vitelloni, was released in the US on this date.



The part for Sergio Natali was originally offered to the great Italian director, Vittorio de Sica. He politely declined as he was concerned that the character's homosexuality might mark the director himself as a homosexual.


November 7, 1963 -
The comedy that features one of the largest collections of American comedians ever brought together, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, premiered on this date. (Family lore has it that my father laughed so hard while watching this movie in the theatre that he fell out of his seat.)



For the intermission of the premiere engagement at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, the filmmakers recorded messages supposedly sent over police radios describing what was happening to various characters. These messages were played not only in the auditorium during the intermission but at the concession stand and even in the bathrooms.


November 7, 1969 -
The opening track from Led Zeppelin II, Whole Lotta Love, was released as a single on this date. It was the first single the band released. The B-side of the single was, Living Loving Maid. It became their highest chart topper, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Charts.



When this song became a hit in America, the UK division of the band's label, Atlantic Records, pressed copies of a shortened version of the song to release there, but Jimmy Page quashed that idea when he heard the 3:12 truncated edit ("I played it once, hated it and never listened to the short version again," he told the Wall Street Journal). The band issued a press release stating: "Led Zeppelin have no intention of issuing 'Whole Lotta Love' as a single as they feel it was written as part of their concept of the album." The American single is the same version as found on the album.


November 7, 1970 -
The live action/ animation film, The Phantom Tollbooth, directed by Chuck Jones, Abe Levitow, and Dave Monahan, and starring Butch Patrick and the voice talents of Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, Candy Candido, Hans Conried, June Foray, Patti Gilbert, Shepard Menken, Cliff Norton, Larry Thor, and Les Tremayne, was released on this date.



This film was made in 1967-68, but it wasn't heavily promoted due to MGM's financial problems and frequent management changes. When it was finally released in 1970, the studio only showed it for two weeks, as a weekend matinee. It was not a box-office success.


November 7, 1975 –
The pilot for the series Wonder Woman, The New Original Wonder Woman TV movie starring Lynda Carter premiered on ABC-TV, on this date.



Lynda Carter received a standing ovation from the cast and crew the very first time she walked onto the set wearing the Wonder Woman costume.


November 7, 1979 -
Loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin, the film, The Rose, starring Bette Midler, was released on this date.



Mark Rydell would only agree to direct if he could cast Bette Midler in the lead. Before that, Midler had only appeared in bit parts, and was known primarily as a nightclub singer.


November 7, 1997 -
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment released the comedy Bean, directed by Mel Smith and starring Rowan Atkinson, Peter MacNicol, Pamela Reed, Harris Yulin, Sandra Oh and Burt Reynolds, on this date.



The producers were initially looking for an unknown actor to play General Newton. But being a fan of the series, Mr. Bean, Burt Reynolds asked for a role, and was then cast to appear as Newton.

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


Today in History:
Maria Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867. Poland was controlled by Russia at the time, so Maria was referred to as Manya, causing her mother to die. This left Manya and her four older siblings in care of their father, who was caught teaching Polish and therefore prohibited from earning money.

To help support her father, Manya began tutoring a family in the country outside Warsaw. Her sister Bronya moved to Paris to study medicine and become a famous doctor, so Manya sent money to her, also. This allowed Bronya to marry another medical student and begin practicing medicine in Paris.

Bronya and her husband invited Manya to live with them in Paris and study at the Sorbonne, where she could call herself Marie. This appealed to the young woman, who quickly earned master's degrees in physics and mathematics. She enjoyed Paris so much she couldn't bear to return to Poland and to understand her attraction to Paris she began a study of magnetism.

To conduct her magnetism research she needed a larger lab, however, so she married a Frenchman named Pierre and used his. One of Pierre's friends had been experimenting with Uranium, which piqued Marie's curiosity. She began experimenting with it herself, and ultimately discovered something she called "radio-activity." This eventually led to her discovery of Radium, for which she received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911.



Marie Curie's research would eventually culminate in the development of the atomic bomb, but unfortunately she died before having the opportunity to see the full flowering of her hard work.


November 7, 1872 -
The cargo ship Mary Celeste sailing from New York, never reached Genoa. Four weeks later it is found completely abandoned, whereabouts of the ten man crew unknown.



The ship's cargo was alcohol, so you decide.


November 7, 1874 -
The famous political cartoonist Thomas Nast (a staunch Republican) first used an elephant to symbol for the Republican Party on this date.

He choice the elephant because of the animal's great size, intelligence, strength, and dignity.


November 7, 1885 -
Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the first transcontinental railroad across Canada, was completed with the driving of the "last spike" by CPR railroad financier Donald Smith in Craigellachie, British Columbia on this date.



Despite rising costs, a political scandal that toppled Sir John A. Macdonald’s government and the death of at least 600 Chinese railway workers, the CPR — linking Eastern and Western Canada - was completed 5 years ahead of schedule.


November 7, 1916 -
Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to hold a high government office in the United States when on this date she was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the state of Montana.



A lifelong pacifist, she was the only legislator to vote against American involvement in both World War I and World War II.


November 7, 1940 -
The newly completed Tacoma Narrows Bridge, opened barely four months before, swayed and collapsed in a 42 mile-per-hour wind on this date.



There were no casualties except a dog trapped in a car stranded on the bridge. A rescue was attempted (by the man with the pipe), but the frightened animal would not leave the car.


November 7, 1943 -
Roberta Joan Joni Mitchell, Canadian singer-songwriter and painter, one of the most influential female musicians of the late 20th century, was born on this date.



Her many hit songs include Both Sides Now, Chelsea Morning, Big Yellow Taxi, River, Help Me, and Free Man in Paris were all recorded before she was 32.


November 7, 1962 -
Richard M. Nixon, 49, who had been in politics for 16 years, failed in a bid to become governor of California, held what he called his last press conference, telling reporters, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore," on this date.



Nixon was able to come back from his defeat and be elected president of the United States just six years.


November 7, 1965 -
The Pillsbury Doughboy made its first appearance on this date.



You may refer to the creature as IT; marketing may call it a Doughboy but there is no evidence of genitalia.


November 7, 1983 -
An anonymous phone called notified the White House authorities that a bomb had been placed close to the Senate chamber by the "Armed Resistance Unit" and was set to explode. The Senate chamber was empty at the time, and nobody was injured.



The bomb did, however, cause about $250,000 in damage. Six Resistance Conspiracy members were arrested for the bombing five years later.

A portrait of Daniel Webster, received the explosion’s full force. The blast tore away Webster’s face and left it scattered across the Minton tiles in one-inch canvas shards. Quick thinking Senate curators rescued the fragments from debris-filled trash bins. Over the coming months, a capable conservator painstakingly restored the painting to a credible, if somewhat diminished, version of the original.


November 7, 2000 -
Hillary Clinton ran and won the election to become the junior senator from New York (although she had never lived in the state previously,) on this date, becoming the first First Lady in US history to seek and win a political office.



She was re-elected to the Senate in 2006. And oh yeah, she ran for president a couple of times.


November 7, 2000 -
The US Presidential election of the "hanging chad" occurred. The controversial Presidential election decision between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush ended up being addressed by the US Supreme Court in December in the Bush v. Gore case.



The issue surrounded voting irregularities in Florida and how the 25 electoral votes from that state would be decided. One of the more memorable issues had to do either with voter errors or machine errors that left the paper ballots with "hanging chads" that weren't punched through, making it difficult to ascertain the voter's true intention. Bush won the election, which was the closest race since the election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. This election also made Bush the fourth president in US history to win the electorate vote without winning the popular vote.


Go check to see if you need to clean the table linens

And so it goes