Yeah, yeah, I know, it's National Drink Wine Day every day in my home. Hey, I make wine disappear. What’s your superpower?
February 18, 1938 -
If only he had his intercostal clavicle ...
Katharine Hepburn loved to talk, which caused problems for Howard Hawks when he needed to shoot scenes. When she ignored the assistant director's repeated cries of "Quiet," Hawks just motioned the rest of the crew to stop what they were doing until she realized she was the only one talking. She asked, "What's the matter?" and Hawks said, "You're acting a good part of a parrot, and if you're going to keep on doing it, we'll just sit here and watch you." At that, she took Hawks aside and told him not to talk to her like that because she had a lot of friends working on the film. Hawks called to an electrician on a scaffold overhead and said, "If you had a choice of dropping a lamp on Miss Hepburn or me, who would you drop it on?" The man told Hawks to get out of the way, and Hepburn just said, "I guess I'm wrong," and never misbehaved again.
February 18, 1939 -
Universal Studios released the WC Fields' comedy You Can't Cheat an Honest Man, also starring Edgar Bergen, on this date.
Legend has it that on the set of this film a stagehand was cleaning out W.C. Fields' dressing room and accidentally bumped into a table on which Fields had placed a bottle of whiskey. He caught the bottle before it hit the floor, but the cork had popped out and he couldn't find it. He placed the bottle back on the table and left. Later Fields came back to the dressing room, and a few minutes afterwards stormed out, roaring "Who took the cork out of my lunch?" Whether this story is apocryphal or not, Fields actually uses that line at one point in the film.
February 18, 1983 -
Martin Scorsese's black comedy, The King of Comedy, starring Robert De Niro, Jerry Lewis and Sandra Bernhard premiered in the US on this date.
Martin Scorsese said later that making this film was an "unsettling" experience, in part because of the embarrassing, bitter material of the script. Scorsese said that he and Robert De Niro may have not worked together again for seven years because making the film was so emotionally gruelling.
February 18, 1998 -
In the tradition of Godzilla Vs. Rodan battling it out over Tokyo, The Cure's Robert Smith beats Barbra Streisand on an episode of South Park on this date.
The episode was seen by 5.4 million viewers, a record high viewership for a South Park episode at the time. There was no real reason to note this but I thought you might want to see the clip.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
February 18, 1268 -
On this date, the Livonian Brothers of the Sword are defeated by Dovmont of Pskov in the Battle of Rakovor.
February 18, 1405 -
Timur Lenk, (also known as Timur the Lame, Tamerlane, Tamerlaine or Mr. Tambourine man,) caught a cold and died on an expedition to China on this date.
He was the inspiration for many a poet and playwright and known as The Scourge of God, Timur didn't listen to his mother and button his jacket while outside. Let this be a lesson to us all.
February 18, 1564 -
Michelangelo (Buonarotti), Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer died on this date.
He may have gotten the last laugh as he thought about the number of penises he got to paint on the ceiling of any church.
February 18, 1856 -
The American Party (Know-Nothings) convenes in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on this date to nominate its first Presidential candidate, former President Millard Fillmore.
Elm Farm Ollie (known as "Nellie Jay" and post-flight as "Sky Queen") was the first cow to fly in an airplane, doing so on February 18, 1930, as part of the International Air Exposition held in St. Louis, Missouri.
On the same trip, which covered 72 miles from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis, she also became the first cow milked in flight. (Does that mean that she was the first cow to join the mile high club?) This was done ostensibly to allow scientists to observe midair effects on animals, as well as for publicity purposes. And somehow Charles Lindbergh was involved.
A St. Louis newspaper trumpeted her mission as being "to blaze a trail for the transportation of livestock by air."
Your life is better for knowing this.
February 18, 1930 -
Clyde Tombaugh liked to look at French Postcards. He like to look into his neighbors' windows. When he got tired of that, he started studying photos of the night sky where astronomers predicted a "Planet X" would show up.
Tombaugh ended up discovering the dwarf planet Pluto on this date. He also discovered more than 800 asteroids during his search for "Planet X."
February 18, 1933 -
Yoko Ono was born on this date.
February 18, 1967 -
J. Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, died on this date.
His children never even send him flowers.
February 18, 1979 -
Snow fell in Sahara Desert, in Southern Algeria during a storm which lasts about half an hour on this date.
February 18, 2001 -
Race car driver Dale Earnhardt crashed into the wall at the Daytona 500, killing him instantly. His widow files a lawsuit to force the autopsy photos to be sealed, and a Florida law is subsequently passed to prevent them from ever being released.
Earnhardt was the most well known and most successful driver in the history of the sport.
And so it goes.
Also, on a personal note - Happy Birthday Matt.
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