Friday, November 13, 2015

It's the last one of this century!!!

Today November 11th (11/13/15) is the last date consisting of three sequential odd numbers in the 21st Century.

OK, now that we've all nerded out, back to business.


November 13, 1940 -
Walt Disney's third animated film Fantasia, opened in New York on this date.



Walt Disney had a chance meeting with Leopold Stokowski at Chasen's Restaurant. They agreed to have dinner together. As they talked, Disney told of his plans to do The Sorcerer's Apprentice and other possible projects using classical music with animation. Disney said that he was stunned when Stokowski, then one of the two most famous conductors in the country (the other being Arturo Toscanini), responded by saying, "I would like to conduct that for you." It was an offer he couldn't pass up.


November 13, 1954 -
Looney Tunes first 3D cartoon, Lumber Jack Rabbit, starring Bugs Bunny, premiered on this date.



Chuck Jones left Warner Brothers for four months over the production of this cartoon, which he felt was unsatisfactory. He went to Disney for those months, and worked on Sleeping Beauty, but eventually realized that, although he thought Walt Disney was an excellent producer, the company was not right for him. A famous meeting occurred when Disney told Jones "We can work out something for you" and Jones responded "Well, you have one job here that I want, and that's yours!" to which Disney said "I'm sorry, it's filled." It was the only time Jones left the company in a career that lasted over 25 years, until Jones was "let go" from the animation department in 1962.


November 13, 1955 -
Happy Birthday Caryn



Whoopi Goldberg (Caryn Elaine Johnson) actress, comedienne, and television host, was born on this day.


November 13, 1965 -
Get Off My Cloud by the Rolling Stones topped the charts on this date.



There was some of controversy over this song. Some U.S. radio stations refused to play the song because of the supposed drug references.


November 13, 1971 -
Steven Spielberg's first full- length film, Duel, starring Dennis Weaver, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



When Carey Loftin, playing the truck driver, asked Steven Spielberg what his motivation was for tormenting the car's driver, Spielberg told him, "You're a dirty, rotten, no-good son of a bitch." Loftin replied, "Kid, you hired the right man."


November 13, 1975 -
Morris Albert's song Feelings went gold on this date.



This song made headlines in 1999 when an Indonesian army leader sang it at a formal dinner to describe his position on the unrest in East Timor (A former Portuguese colony that was annexed by Indonesia in 1976. After a quarter century of unrest, East Timor became independent in 2002).

You can blame me later for this ear worm


Today in History:
While it is a particularly uneventful day in history, let us opine these words:

"The students are beyond control and their behavior is disgraceful. They come blustering into the lecture-rooms like a troop of maniacs and upset the orderly arrangements which the master has made in the interest of his pupils. Their recklessness is unbelievable and they often commit outrages which ought to be punishable by law, were it not that custom protects them."



People concerned about the pace of change in human affairs can find solace in knowing that these familiar sentiments were expressed about sixteen centuries ago by St. Augustine, who was born on November 13, 354 AD.



Like many other theological luminaries, Augustine began life as a debauched young man who sought his pleasures in wine, women, and song. Eventually he became old and cranky and declared his youth wasted.



All of the things that occurred during the drunken orgies of his youth recounted in his Confessions do not hold a candle to the crap coming out of the Duggar household.


November 13, 1789 -
Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter to a friend in which he said, "In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."



I would include, "please return your seat in the upright position."


November 13, 1927 -

New York's Holland Tunnel officially opened  today, the first underwater tunnel built in the United States, providing access between New York City and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River, ushering in a massive wave of Dutch immigration (and more fools them - The tunnel was named after its chief engineer, Clifford Milburn Holland, who died of a heart attack on the operating table while undergoing a tonsillectomy, as a posthumous honor, starting the trend for the NY/NJ interstate crossings to have names with no relation to their geographic locations).



Although most of the Dutch returned to Holland after learning that New Amsterdam had become New York.


November 13, 1947 -
The AK-47 assault rifle development by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the Soviet Union was completed on this date.  The rifle was one of the first assault rifles to be created.



Today, it is the most widely-used assault rifle in the world — more AK-47 models have been made than all other assault rifle models put together.


November 13, 1965 -
Appearing on a late night live satire program called BBC3, critic Kenneth Tynan becomes the first man to say “Fuck” on TV.

A national fit of apoplexy follows with one Tory MP suggesting that Tynan should hang!


November 13, 1971 -
The American space probe, Mariner 9, becomes the first space probe to orbit another planet when it enters into orbit around Mars on this date. The probe’s mission was to return photographs that would map seventy percent of the surface while conducting a study of the planet’s atmosphere.



Analysis of the data returned by the probe revealed that the planet is covered in dried river beds. Two Soviet probes achieved the same orbit about a month later.


November 13, 1974 -
Karen Silkwood, a technician and union activist at the Kerr-McGee Cimarron plutonium plant near Crescent, Okla., was killed in a 'car crash' while on her way to meet a reporter on this date.



The Kerr-McGee nuclear fuel plants closed in 1975. The grounds of the Cimarron plant were still being decontaminated 40 years later.



And so it goes.


There are 13 days until Thanksgiving.
There are 42 days until Christmas.

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