Black Friday's come

While you are still digesting last nights meal, you can ponder these Thanksgiving facts.



As most of you know, the Friday after Thanksgiving is the busiest shopping day of the year in the US.



I'm not quite sure you're going to get the best deals in the world today,

so why not sleep in (after you finish reading the blog of course.)


November 24, 1958 -
A precursor episode to the science fiction television series The Twilight Zone, The Time Element aired on this date as part of the Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse anthology series on the CBS-TV.



Though not the pilot episode of Rod Serling's series, The Twilight Zone, it was Rod Serling's production that lead to The Twilight Zone TV series. Because TV viewers at the time were not used to the kind of surprise, twist endings that for which the show ultimately became noted (and which this episode featured), Desi Arnaz appeared on-screen after the episode was finished and offered his "explanation" of what "really happened."


November 24, 1966 -
Captain Pike has an illusion, and you have reality. May you find your way as pleasant.

The Star Trek episode The Menagerie, Part II first aired.



(The whole episode is now behind various pay walls.)

This episode incorporate most of the unseen (at the time) pilot episode of Star Trek, The Cage, featuring Jeffrey Hunter, as Christopher Pike, captain of the USS Enterprise.


I'd be happy with any one of these


Today in History:
November 24, 1740 -
William Duell was hanged for rape and murder on this date. A few hours later, whilst being prepared for dissection by medical students, he awakened.

The authorities took pity on him and commuted his sentence to one of transportation to Australia.

Wow that must have freaked him out.


November 24, 1835 -
The provisional government of Texas authorized the creation of the Texas Rangers (Corps of Rangers) police force.

While it's nice to think so, there's no truth to the rumor that Chuck Norris was there at the beginning.


November 24, 1859 -

Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species 158 years ago today.



And depending on your point of view, either this is a seminal work in scientific literature and arguably the pivotal work in evolutionary biology or,



you're a monkey's uncle.


November 24, 1874  -
Joseph Glidden was granted a patent (US patent no 157,124) for barbed wire on this date.

Glidden designed a simple wire barb that attached to a double-strand wire, as well as a machine to mass-produce the wire.


November 24, 1947 -
The House of Representatives votes 346 to 17 to approve citations of contempt against 10 Hollywood writers, directors, and producers. These men had refused to cooperate at hearings dealing with communism in the movie industry held by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).



The Hollywood 10, as the men were known, are sentenced to one year in jail. The Supreme Court later upheld the contempt charges. The fallout resulted in the famous Hollywood "blacklist," which was a list of movie industry professionals suspected of either being communists themselves or supporting communist activities.


November 24, 1963 -
Extra-terrestrials used mass-hypnosis to persuade the world that someone resembling Jack Ruby had fatally shot someone resembling the person alleged to have been Lee Harvey Oswald on this date. This also became the first actual murder captured on live TV.



The next day, November 25, the flag draped coffin containing the purported remains of the man, many Americans believed to have been John F. Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery. And on November 29, President Lyndon Baines Johnson appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren the head of a commission to investigate the alleged assassination of the person believed to have been John F. Kennedy.



Be grateful the CIA, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, extraterrestrials, and the Children's Television Workshop don't give a damn about you.


November 23, 1966 -
The smoggiest day in the history of New York City occurred on this date, killing about 400 people.



The thick smog settled into the city, causing deaths from heart attacks and respiratory failure.


November 24, 1971 -
On Thanksgiving eve, DB Cooper boarded Flight 305 in Portland, Oregon, and demanded $200,000 with the threat of a bomb. He parachuted from a Northwest Airlines 727 with the money over the Cascade Mountains near Ariel, Washington, and was never seen again.



A packet containing $5,880 of the ransom money was found in 1980 on the north shore of the Columbia River, just west of the Washington city of Vancouver, but he's still is missing.


November 24th, 1991 -
Freddie Mercury (45) the lead singer of Queen died, just one day after he publicly announced he was HIV positive.



In 2013, Gigwise readers named Mercury the best frontman ever.



And so it goes

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