It's a red letter day for comic strips

January 7, 1929 –
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D. , illustrated by Dick Calkins, appeared in newspaper comics on this date; (the same date that Tarzan of the Apes, illustrated by Hal Foster, appeared in newspapers, as well.).

The main character, Anthony Rogers, appeared in the in the Sci-Fi magazine, Amazing Stories, six months earlier, in August, as a short novel Armageddon 2419 A.D, by writer Philip Francis Nowlan. His name was changed to the snappier Buck Rogers for the comic strip.


January 7, 1934 –
Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comic strip debuted in newspapers across the United States.

In addition to the comic strip, Flash has also starred in a live-action serial, a radio show, novels, comic books, animated cartoons, and he even appeared on his own U.S. postage stamp.


January 7, 1961 -
The Pilot episode of The Avengers - Hot Snow, starring Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee premiered in the UK on this date.



The vast majority of the first series of The Avengers is missing from TV archives and likely lost forever - only the first 15 minutes of this first episode and three complete later episodes, The Avengers: Girl on the Trapeze (which incidentally does not feature the character of Steed), The Avengers: The Frighteners, and The Avengers: Tunnel of Fear have been recovered and preserved.


January 7, 1967 -
The Newlywed Game premiered on ABC TV on this date (the show began airing in 1966 as a local afternoon show in some areas.)



(This is the earlier episode I could find) I know your thinking about it - where was the most unusual place you and your husband made whoopee?


January 7, 1994 –
Possibly, one of the worst movies made with such a talented cast, Cabin Boy, starring Chris Elliott, Andy Richter, David Letterman, Mike Starr, Brian Doyle-Murray, Russ Tamblyn, and Bob Elliott premiered on this date.



David Letterman appears as the "Old Salt in the Fishing Village", but the credits list him as "Earl Hofert". This is an inside joke for Letterman fans, as he also referred to himself as "Hofert" in some skits back at his old program Late Night with David Letterman on NBC. In real life, Hofert is an uncle of Letterman's on his mother's side.


January 7, 2012 –
The group LMFAO 's hit Sexy and I Know It reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was LMFAO's second consecutive #1 single on the Hot 100 following Party Rock Anthem. In doing so, Redfoo and SkyBlu became the first duo to achieve back-to-back chart-toppers since OutKast made the list with Hey Ya! and The Way You Move, in late 2003 and early 2004.


Word of the day


Today in History:
January 7, 1325 -
King Afonso IV ascended the Portuguese throne, upon the death of his father, King Denis, on this date.

So now you know.


January 7, 1714 –
The world’s first patent (#395) for a “Machine for Transcribing Letters” was granted in England by Queen Anne to Henry Mill.

This first planned typewriter was never actually produced.


January 7, 1789 -

January 7, 1800 -
Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States, was born on this date. (Often cited as one of the 10 worse Presidents because he backed the Compromise of 1850 that delayed the Southern secession by allowing slavery to spread.)



And no, he didn't install the first bathtub in the White House, that was a hoax by Henry Louis Mencken.


January 7, 1894 -
William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for the first practical celluloid film and decided on 35 mm for the size, a standard still used.



The earliest surviving copyrighted motion picture, the Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze is a short film made by W. K. L. Dickson on January 7, 1894 for advertising purposes. Often referred to as Fred Ott's Sneeze, this is is one of the world's earliest motion pictures and America's best known early film production. The star is Fred Ott, an Edison employee known to his fellow workers in the laboratory for his comic sneezing and other gags.


January 7, 1912 -
Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly.



Charles Addams, cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters, was spawned on this date.


January 7, 1943 -
The world's greatest inventor, Nikola Tesla, died alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, of heart failure on this date in history.



Despite having sold his AC electricity patents, Tesla died with significant debts on the books.


January 7, 1953 -
Lame duck President Harry Truman, rattling around the White House, packing up empty liquor bottles and other assorted crap, announced that the US had detonated the first hydrogen bomb months earlier.



The development of the bomb came almost in direct response to the news that the USSR had exploded an atomic bomb three years earlier. It was one of the first instances of the technological and military one-upmanship that characterized the Cold War.


January 7, 1957 -
I feel like a human pinata. The disappointing thing is, no candy is going to spill out.



Katherine Anne Couric, TV news host and colonoscopy spokes model, was born on this date.


January 7, 1999 –
This is not a great day for Bubba - The impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton began on this date.



It was only the second impeachment of a President in American history, following the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868.


January 7, 2015 -
Two gunmen killed twelve people in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication based in Paris, then killed a police officer outside, (eleven others were wounded in the assault,) on this date.

Please take a moment out of your day to remember the victims.


And so it goes


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