17 days until Thanksgiving

Begin laying down your supply of booze - you will get through this.


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



Many in the film's cast were new to acting, including Carlo Battisti and Maria Pia Casilio, the two principal actors. Others, including Umberto's cruel landlady, Antonia (Lina Gennari), were established professional actors.


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



At the end of the film, when Moraldo is saying good-bye to the young boy from the train, his "Good-bye, Guido" is actually the dubbed voice of director, Federico Fellini. It is believed that Fellini did this to emphasize the fact that the film was autobiographical.


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.



While I find this films parts are greater that the whole, it holds a special place in my family's heart - my father supposedly laughed so hard watching it that he fell out of his aisle seat in the movie theatre.


Today in History:
Maria Sklodowski 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 sails from New York, never reaching 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, 1965 -
The Pillsbury Doughboy (you may refer to the creature as "it"; marketing may call it a Doughboy



but there is no evidence of genitalia) makes its first appearance.



And so it goes.