Truly the coolest man on TV
To those readers who celebrate today's Festival of Lights,
Happy Diwali!
In North India, the lamps are lit to remind people of Lord Rama's return from fourteen years in exile to his kingdom of Ayodhya after conquering the tyrant Ravana, who had abducted his wife Sita and held her in his island fortress of Lanka.
Rama's heroic deeds are set out in the Hindu epic Ramayana and Diwali celebrates the victory of virtue over vice.
November 5, 1938 -
A very funny (but very un PC) B & W Looney Tunes, Porky in Egypt, premiered on this date.
The camel has all of the good lines in this cartoon.
November 5, 1956 -
The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV on this date. The Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by an African-American.
In the 1956 season, the show had a 15-minute running time. It was expanded to a 30-minute segment in 1957. The show originally aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; it was assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge.Unfortunately, none did. Cole famously said of the doomed series, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."
November 5, 1964 -
An unsung minor masterpiece, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, premiered in the US on this date.
Kim Stanley should have won the Oscar for her performance in this film.
Today's Birthdays -
Joel McCrea (1905)
Roy Rogers (1911)
Ike Turner (1931)
Art Garfunkel (1941)
Bryan Adams (1959)
Today in History -
November 5, 1605 -
The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, was a failed attempt by Guy Fawkes and a group of provincial English Catholics to kill King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on this date.
The conspirators had also planned to abduct the royal children, (who were surprisingly Protestant, as well) not present in Parliament, and incite a revolt in the Midlands. the conspirators were captured before the plot could take place. They were all drawn and quartered.
On November 5th each year, people in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and regions celebrate the failure of the plot on what is known as Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, Cracker Night or Plot Night by getting drunk and setting things on fire.November 5, 1895 -
George B. Selden was a lawyer and inventor who was granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile, which he invented in 1877.
The idea of a horseless carriage was in the air during George's youth, but its practicality was uncertain. In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden, a prominent Republican attorney, moved to Rochester, New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester before dropping out to enlist in the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, Union Army. This was not to the liking of his father who after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale. George did not do well at Yale in his law studies, preferring the technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific School, but did manage to finish his course of study and pass the New York bar 1871 and joined his father's practice. He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, by whom he had 4 children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine.
Selden's father, Henry Selden, was chosen by Abraham Lincoln to be Vice President, but he turned it down (and in light of Lincoln's assassination, Henry Selden would have otherwise been the next American President).
He defended Susan B. Anthony in her 1873 trial for unlawfully voting as a woman (had she only voted as a badger, there would have been no problem.)Who knew?
And so it goes
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