Ambergris is a solid, waxy, flammable substance of a dull grey or blackish colour produced in the digestive system of sperm whales. A core component to making any perfumes due to its pleasant smell and is often found floating in tropical seas.
They're celebrating in Tunisia; it's Evacuation Day. It turns out that Evacuation Day recognizes the important contributions made to the world of science by Tunisian proctologists, (it actually commemorates the 1963 withdrawal of the last French troops from the naval port of Bizerte.)
The less said about the gastroenterological rituals performed on this holiday the better.
Which leads us to the fact that today is Global Handwashing Day. It is a campaign to motivate and mobilize millions around the world to wash their hands with soap, the campaign is dedicated to raising awareness of handwashing with soap as a key approach to disease prevention (now, more important than ever.)
Children suffer disproportionately from diarrheal diseases – with more than 3.5 million children under five dying every year from diarrhea and pneumonia-related diseases. The simple act of washing hands with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhea rates among children under five by almost 50 %, and respiratory infections by nearly 25 %. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends washing for at least 20 seconds and suggests singing “Happy Birthday” twice to allow enough time to remove and rinse off germs.
Remind me not to shake hands with any children, people from Tunisia (or anyone, this year, for that matter.)
October 15, 1940 -
Two of the most famous men in the world, not only had superficially similar looks, most famously their mustaches, but were born only four days apart in April of 1889 and both grew up in relative poverty. One of them decides to take a huge risk and release a film taking advantage of this freakish similarity, The Great Dictator, on this date.
When Charles Chaplin first announced that he was going to make this film, the British government, whose policy at the time was one of appeasement towards Nazi Germany, announced that they would ban it. By the time of the film's release though, Britain was at war with Germany and in the midst of the blitz, so the government's attitude towards the film had completely changed toward a film with such obvious value as propaganda.
October 15, 1951 -
A former starlet convinced the alcoholic, womanizing head of a television network to run the TV version of her somewhat successful radio program.
I Love Lucy, the television situation comedy, starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, also featuring Vivian Vance and William Frawley, went on to run on CBS for 181 episodes (including the "lost" Christmas episode and original pilot).
Then, the show introduced three more seasons, running from 1957 to 1960, known as The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (while Ball and Arnaz go through an acrimonious divorce). I Love Lucy won five Emmy Awards and received numerous nominations. In 2002, it was ranked #2 on TV Guide's top 50 greatest shows of all time, behind Seinfeld and ahead of The Honeymooners. In 2007, it was placed on Time Magazine's (unranked) list of "100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME".
I Love Lucy was the most-watched show in the United States in four of its six seasons, and was the first to end its run at the top of the ratings (to be matched only by The Andy Griffith Show and Seinfeld), although it did not have a formal series finale episode. Episodes of I Love Lucy are still syndicated in dozens of languages across the world.
October 15, 1959 -
(Speaking of Desilu,) The TV show The Untouchables with Robert Stack as Eliot Ness, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.
This series was (very loosely) based on the book Ness co-wrote with journalist Oscar Fraley (who, in turn, confessedly "embellished" Ness' role into the fall of Capone). In spite of Fraley's additions, in the book, Ness and his eleven agents are not reported as doing much more than busting alcohol shipments and depots, yet the series had Ness intervening in dozens of totally fictional events. As a witness of the time put it about the series, "not even two percent of it is true".
October 15, 1965 -
The poker playing version of The Hustler, The Cincinnati Kid, directed by Norman Jewison, and starring Steve McQueen, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld, Edward G. Robinson, Joan Blondell, Rip Torn, and Cab Calloway premiered in New Orleans on this date.
This was Ring Lardner Jr.'s (one of the screen writers) first major studio work since his 1947 blacklisting as one of The Hollywood Ten.
October 15, 1974 -
Tom Waits releases his second album, The Heart of Saturday Night, on this date, written as a tribute to Beat novelist Jack Kerouac.
Speaking before the first-ever performance of the title song, which appeared on radio station KFPK, Waits said it was a tribute to "Kerouacians," meaning fans of American novelist Jack Kerouac. Kerouac's rambling, plain-language style, which sometimes incorporated elements of jazz improvisation, gave a mystical shine to the simplest aspects of American life. Other than Charles Bukowski, no other literary influence is more obvious to Waits' work, especially his earlier stuff.
October 15, 2006 -
Patti Smith closed down the celebrated Manhattan music club CBGB, playing the last show at the venue.
The club closes after an extended dispute between club owner Hilly Kristal and the Bowery Residents Committee. Rock fans try to preserve the building as a historical landmark, but those efforts fail and a men's clothing store moves in.
Another court-ordered ACME PSA
Today in History:
It's the Feast Day of one of my favorite saints - Saint Teresa of Avila (I've mentioned her at least twice this year)
She is also known as the Roving Nun (but should not be confused with the Wandering Nun, the Meandering Nun, or the Hopelessly Disoriented Nun). In case you still don't know who this Saint is - she's the one who was repeatedly pierced by God's golden shaft of light, again and again and again. She is the patron saint not only of Spain, but also bodily ills, headaches, laceworkers, opposition to Church Authorities and people ridiculed for their piety.
She died in the arms of her close friend Anne of Saint Bartholomew, allegedly from Transverberation ("the crossing of verbs"). Her pierced heart is on display at Alba de Tormes, so if you're the kind of person that's interested in 400-year-old pierced human hearts you'll probably want to pay a visit. (You'll probably find it in the "Pierced Internal Organ Room" of the "Three-to-Five Hundred Estactic Orgasm Wing.")
Saint Teresa famously said , "There are more tears shed over answered prayers than over unanswered prayers", (Truman Capote took this quote very seriously.) "God," she famously prayed, "deliver me from sullen saints!"
Friedrich Nietzsche, who was born on this day in 1844, apparently shared her sentiments if not her tactics.
October 15, 1582 -
Finally, with the formal implementation of the Gregorian calendar by Pope Gregory XIII, this day actually exists in Italy, Poland, Portugal and Spain.
The calendar jumped from October 4 directly to October 15. People are generally relieved but never quite get over the feeling that they missed something during those 11 days.
October 15, 1783 -
Frenchman Jean Pilâtre de Rozier made a tethered, captive-balloon ascent, in the gardens of La Muette on this date. The Montgolfier (of Monty Python fame)-made balloon, Aerostat Reveillon, carrying Pilâtre, first man to leave the earth, rose to the end of its 250 ft tether.
October 15, 1893 -
The New York Times declared Coney Island “Sodom-by-the-Sea" for the thrilling rides that let men and women clutch each other.
The Elephantine Colossus, a 200-foot-tall elephant-shaped hotel had a howdah on its back, topped with a gilded crescent was built on Surf Avenue, in 1885. It housed a concert hall and events bazaar in its belly, a museum in what would be its left lung. Its head was an observatory and its eyes were telescopes; you could climb up and peer out at the surrounding city. With 31 rooms and 12 stories, its front legs housed a cigar store and diorama, and its hind legs had spiral staircases leading to the rooms contained above. By 1893, though, tourists got tired of the gimmick, and prostitutes started moving in. It became a giant elephant-shaped brothel. “Seeing the elephant” became local parlance for picking up prostitutes.
October 15, 1917 -
The German spy Mata Hari, a Dutchwoman named Margaretha Geertruida Zelle, was executed by the French on this date. There wasn't much actual evidence of espionage, but she had been seen naked with German officers and the French considered this distasteful enough to kill her.
(I think finally this appears to be the actual date of her execution. Sorry about that, Margaretha.)
October 15, 1924 -
President Calvin Coolidge declared the Statue of Liberty to be a national monument on this date.
October 15, 1928 -
The airship LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin completed its first transatlantic crossing when it arrives in the United States at NAS Lakehurst, New Jersey four days after leaving Friedrichshafen, Germany on this date.
The Naval Air Station Lakehurst, located in Lakehurst, New Jersey, was the western terminus for the commercial transatlantic flights of the German dirigibles Graf Zeppelin and, later, the Hindenburg.
October 15, 1964 -
Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev was too busy pounding his shoe at every official meeting to realize that he was ousted
October 15, 1990 -
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev gave up the practice of shoe banging practices of the Soviet Premier all together
and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on this date.
October 15, 1991 -
Despite sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill, The Senate confirmed Judge Clarence Thomas as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court by a vote of 52-48, the closest confirmation vote in court history (at the time.)
October 15, 2002 -
Former ImClone Chief Executive Officer Samuel Waksal pleaded guilty to insider trading as part of an ongoing investigation into the trading of shares from his biotech company on this date.
And this wasn't a good thing for his friend, home decor diva, Martha Stewart.
And so it goes
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