Kids, a lifetime ago there was a very popular TV series featuring two puppets and a very polite lady that ad-libbed the entire show - A version of what ultimately became 'Kukla, Fran and Ollie' premiered on this date.
One episode of the show was broadcast in color in fall 1949, in Washington, D.C., as a demonstration to the FCC of RCA's line-sequential color TV system. The same episode was performed live a second time the same afternoon, for network broadcast in black and white, but using the experimental color cameras.
October 13, 1950 -
Joseph L. Mankiewicz's brilliantly caustic valentine to Broadway, All About Eve premiered in NYC on this date.
Bette Davis' marriage to William Grant Sherry was in the throes of breaking up while she was making the film. Her raspy voice in the film is largely due to the fact that she burst a blood vessel in her throat from screaming at her soon-to-be-ex-husband during one of their many rows. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz liked the croaky quality so he didn't have Davis change it.
(I'm trying to catch up with a few things today so it's going to be an abbreviated posting)
Today in History:
October 13, 54 -
Roman Emperor Claudius I (Derek Jacobi) consumes a favorite mushroom dish prepared by his fourth wife, Agrippina. What he does not know is that the meal is laced with the toxin of the Amanita phalloides mushroom. Feeling ill the next morning, Claudius summons his personal physician. Unfortunately, the doctor happened to be a co-conspirator in the scheme, administering a colocynth enema which killed Claudius instantly.
So remember kids - avoid all doctor prescribed poisoned enemas.
October 13, 1792-
It was on this day in Washington D.C. that the cornerstone was laid for the presidential residence, now known as the White House. The Frenchman, Pierre L'Enfant, who designed Washington, D.C. wanted the residence to look like the palace of Versailles. George Washington thought that was a little too fancy, so he got an Irish architect named James Hoban to reduce the design to one-fifth of its original size. Washington laid the cornerstone and supervised the construction. John Adams was the first president to call it home.
People nicknamed it the White House from the very beginning. There was a coat of whitewash brushed on the sandstone to protect it against winter. Thomas Jefferson was the one who installed flushing toilets. Andrew Jackson got the first shower. Martin Van Buren brought in central heating. Rutherford B. Hayes introduced the telephone. Benjamin Harrison had it wired for electricity. President Truman brought in the first TV set.
October 13, 1959 -
Olive Marie Osmond, actress, singer, doll designer, Nutrisystem junkie and Osmonds family survivor, was born on this date.
Hey let's all cut Marie a break, she's had to carry Donnie's sorry ass her whole life.
October 13, 1972 -
Due to poor visibility, a Uruguayan Air Force plane carrying the Montevideo Old Christians Rugby Club, crashed high in the Chilean Andes. Of the 45 people aboard the flight, only 27 survive the crash and just 16 make it to their rescue 72 days later.
How did they do it? Cannibalism. According to one survivor, "the slight browning of the flesh gave it an immeasurably better flavor, softer than beef but with much the same taste."
So there you go - it doesn't taste just like chicken.
October 13, 1988 -
A report published in the journal Nature declares the Turin Shroud to be a 13th century fake. Although carbon-14 testing places the shroud's fabrication somewhere between 1260 and 1390 AD, true believers spend much of the next several years attempting to explain away the radiocarbon test results.
And yet, a British art historian in 2010, re-opened the whole can of worms again by suggesting that the shroud is in fact the actual burail cloth of a man who underwent a similar execution, much like Christ, around 33 AD.
And so it goes.
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