When was the last time you spoke to grandpa?

 (An un-edited version of this post appeared for several hours before I could fix it. Sorry for any confusion.)

Other things to occupy your mind with other that COVID-19 -  is most likely to happen during a period of strong magnetic disturbance.



No one knows how or why a person seemingly ignites without any external fuel, leaving behind little more than a heap of ashes, an uncharred limb, and a pungent blue smoke hanging in the air.


March 26, 1942 -
Up in the sky, look! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!



The Bulleteers, part of the Fleischer Superman animated series, was released on this date


March 26,  1953 -
One of Martin Scorsese's favorite films, Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (the original title, Ugetsu Monogatari,) starring Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo and Kinuyo Tanaka, premiered in Japan on this date.



The stories of Akinari Ueda were not the only literary sources that the movie's scriptwriters drew upon. They also was inspired by the comic story How He Got the Legion of Honor by Guy de Maupassant for the subplot involving Tôbee's fanatical desire to become a samurai.


March 26, 1971 -
Balding, middle-aged, and portly (hey I better watch out, that's starting to describe me) - the Cannon pilot with William Conrad premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Frank Cannon was originally a policeman, but he quit the force after the tragic death of his wife and infant son in an automobile accident. The tragedy drove Cannon to become a top private investigator.


March 26, 1977 -
Less Than Zero, the debut single from Elvis Costello, was released by the newly formed Stiff Records in London, England on this date.



When Costello appeared on Saturday Night Live in 1977 (filling in for the Sex Pistols, who were denied entry into the US), it was decided that he would perform this song. Elvis, however, had other ideas. After playing some of Less Than Zero, he halted the performance and played the unreleased Radio Radio instead, earning him a ban from the show that lasted until 1989, when he returned as musical guest.


March 26, 1989 -
The science fiction series, Quantum Leap, starring Scott Bakula and Dean Stockwell, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Scott Bakula was the first actor cast, and thus was asked to read with actors under consideration for the role of Al Calavicci. Bakula immediately felt a connection with Dean Stockwell during his audition, and lobbied the producers to cast him as Al Calavicci.


A special PSA from ACME


Today in History:
March 26, 1199 -
All seemed right with the Medieval world. Richard the Lionheart was taking an evening stroll around the castle perimeter without his chain mail, investigating the progress of soldiers trying to destroy the fortress in which he was seeking refuge. Arrows were occasionally fired from the castle walls, but these were given little attention.

One defender in particular was of great amusement to the King - a man standing on the walls, cross bow in one hand, the other clutching a frying pan which he had been using all day as a shield to beat off missiles (this is what passed for amusement in 1199). He deliberately aimed an arrow at the King, which the King applauded. However, another arrow then struck him in the left shoulder near the neck. He tried to pull this out in the privacy of his tent, but failed; a surgeon, called a 'butcher' by Roger of Hoveden, (a 12th-century English chronicler,) removed it, 'carelessly mangling' the King's arm in the process. However, the wound swiftly became gangrenous.

Accordingly, Richard asked to have the cross bowman brought before him - the man proved a boy. This boy claimed that Richard had slain the boy's father and two brothers, and that he had slain Richard in vengeance. The boy expected to be slain; Richard, as a last act of mercy, forgave the boy his crime, saying, "Live on, and by my bounty behold the light of day," before ordering the boy to be freed and sent away with 100 shillings. Richard then set his affairs in order, bequeathing all his territory to his brother John and his jewels to his nephew Otto.



Richard died on Tuesday, April 6, 1199 in the arms of his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine; it was later said that "As the day was closing, he ended his earthly day." His death was later referred to as 'the Lion [that] by the Ant was slain'. His last act of chivalry proved pointless: as soon as Richard was dead, his most infamous mercenary captain Mercadier had the boy who fired the fatal arrow flayed alive and then hanged.

So much for pardons.


March 26, 1812 –
A political cartoon in the Boston Gazette, created by Elkanah Tisdale, coined the term “gerrymander” (named after Governor Elbridge Gerry) to describe oddly shaped electoral districts designed to help incumbents win re-election.

On February 11, 1812, Gerry, governor of Massachusetts, signed legislation that created an oddly shaped voting district with its southern tip in Chelsea, then heading east to Marblehead, and north along the Merrimack River towns to Salisbury. In March, artist Gilbert Stuart stopped by the office of the Boston Gazette and noticed the new map of the new Essex district hanging on the office wall. He was struck by its peculiar shape, and turned to editor Benjamin Russel, an ardent Federalist, he said “There, that will do for a Salamander.” “Better say a Gerrymander” replied the editor Benjamin Russel, punning on the name of Governor Gerry.


March 26, 1827 -
German composer Ludwig Van Beethoven died in Vienna on this date. He had been deaf for the later part of his life, but said on his death bed "I shall hear in heaven."



I wonder what the first thing that he heard in heaven?


March 26, 1830 -
Joseph Smith published The Book of Mormon on this date, after translating it from golden plates turned over by the angel Moroni.



Smith maintained that the text contained in the tablets were written in Reformed Egyptian which he read by means of two magic stones from the Old Testament, the Urim and Thummim.


March 26,1920 -
I regretted my lost youth when I only envy the delights of losing it. Youth is like having a big plate of candy. Sentimentalists think they want to be in the pure, simple state they were in before they ate the candy. They don't. They just want the fun of eating it all over again. The matron doesn't want to repeat her girlhood—she wants to repeat her honeymoon. I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again. - F. Scott Fitzgerald

I don't know why I bother bringing this up but F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel was published on this date, bringing his talents into the spotlight.



The novel This Side of Paradise immediately launching 23-year-old F. Scott Fitzgerald to fame and fortune.

But what do you care, you don't read anything, anyway.


March 26, 1931 -
As if some cosmic force far greater than any of us can understand,



Leonard Nimoy was born four day after William Shatner.


March 26, 1953 -
Dr. Jonas Salk announced he had a vaccine for polio, on this date. Following Salk's discovery, a nationwide inoculation campaign began in 1955.



By 1957, the number of new polio cases dropped from 58 thousand to under six thousand.


March 26, 2233 - (There is some controversy surrounding this date)
James Tiberius Kirk will be born to Winona and George Samuel Kirk, Sr. in a small farming community in Riverside, Iowa. As the Captain will be quoted in the future, "I'm from Iowa, I only work in outer space."



Although born on Earth, he was apparently raised, at least for a time, on Tarsus IV, where he was one of only nine surviving witnesses to the massacre of 4,000 colonists because of utilitarian extermination by Kodos the Executioner so that the colony could survive a devastating famine.



And so it goes.


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