Next, you're going to tell me, Chop Suey isn't Chinese

Other things to occupy your mind with other than COVID-19 - Fortune cookies are an American interpretation of a Japanese treat.



They were invented by Makoto Hagiwara of San Francisco in the 1890s and sold at the Golden Gate Park’s Japanese Tea Garden. Unequivocally not Chinese, the fortune cookie may in fact not even be Chinese American.


Happy Columbus Never Met An Indigenous Person He Didn't Kill or Enslave Day! I can't even imagine how many more indigenous persons Columbus may have murdered if he didn't have the day off.



Columbus Day originated as a celebration of Italian-American heritage and was first held in San Francisco in 1869. The first state-wide celebration was held in Colorado in 1907. Franklin Delano Roosevelt pronounced Columbus Day in 1937, a celebration of the “promise which Columbus’s discovery gave to the world.” Since 1971, it has been celebrated on the second Monday in October. The date on which Columbus arrived in the Americas is also celebrated as the Dia de la Raza (Day of the Race) in Latin America and some Latino communities in the USA. However, it is a controversial holiday in some countries and has been re-named in others. A growing number of people in the US are pushing to change the date into a celebration of Indigenous Peoples' Day.



And for all of this has nothing to do with the fact that it's Canadian Thanksgiving.


Wow, it's also Socktober again (already!)

Each night in the United States, an estimated 600,000 people live on the streets. The folk at SoulPancake and Socks and Soul would like two million people to show that even a small act of love, such as donating a pair of socks, can make a big difference in the lives of our neighbors who are homeless.



So remember to pull up your socks and help those less sock inclined.


Where has the time gone, today is the last day of International Cephalopod Awareness Days, and we are celebrating International Fossil Day (although National Fossil Day is schedule to celebrated on Wednesday October 14, according to the National Park Service website, and they don't appear to have any reason to lie. So I am a tad confused.)



Today is (or should be) Fossil Day, celebrating all the incredible suckers that have gone extinct.


October 12, 1950 -
One of the first comedy series to make the successful transition from radio to television The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



George Burns is regarded as being the first entertainer to step out of character and "break the fourth wall" by directly addressing the television audience. On many occasions, Burns stated he had been inspired by Thornton Wilder's 1938 play Our Town.


October 12, 1966 -
This was a particularly busy date in entertainment history.



Sammy Davis, Jr. makes a cameo appearance on the ABC-TV series Batman, during one of their legendary Batclimbs.


October 12, 1969 -
An almost forgotten film, The Madwoman of Chaillot, directed by Bryan Forbes and starring Katherine Hepburn and an all-star cast, opened in the U.S. on this date.



The Place de Chaillot set, still standing at Studio la Victorine, was reused by François Truffaut as the set on which Meet Pamela, the film-within-a-film in Day for Night, was being shot.


October 12, 1972 -
Motown Productions and Paramount Pictures released the Sidney J. Furie, Billie Holiday bio-pix, Lady Sings The Blues, starring Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, and Scatman Crothers, on this date.



First African-American biopic to be nominated for the Academy Awards, earning five nominations, including Best Actress.


October 12, 1993 -
Touchstone Pictures releases the stop-motion animated feature film The Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick, produced by Tim Burton, on this date.



In 2001, Walt Disney Pictures began to consider producing a sequel, but rather than using stop motion, Disney wanted to use computer animation. Tim Burton convinced Disney to drop the idea. "I was always very protective of [Nightmare] not to do sequels or things of that kind," Burton explained. "You know, 'Jack visits Thanksgiving world' or other kinds of things just because I felt the movie had a purity to it and the people that like it."


October 12, 1994 -
The MTV Unplugged series premiered on this date, the much anticipated Robert Plant and Jimmy Page reunion, Unledded, to promote their stir album No Quarter which would be released two days later on October 14, 1994.



The reunion led to a tour in 1995 and a studio album, Walking Into Clarksdale, in 1998.


October 12, 2007 -
The follow-up to Cate Blanchett's successful 1998 bio-pix Elizabeth, directed by Shekhar Kapur, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, also starring Geoffrey Rush, and Clive Owen, opened in the U.S., on this date.



Director Shekhar Kapur felt that color should reveal a character's internal life. Costume designer Alexandra Byrne did not want to use blue on Elizabeth because it was not a period color. Shekhar felt that blue was the color of yearning and aspiring, and he wanted to portray Elizabeth as yearning to be divine and immortal. Likewise, he conveyed Elizabeth's close relationship with Bess by showing them in similar colors and gown styles. As their relationship deteriorates, their colors contrast or clash.


October 12, 2008 -
The Fox Searchlight Pictures distributed Darren Aronofsky's film, The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke (in an intensely incredible performance,) and Maresi Tomei, closed the New York Film Festival on this date.



Due to the film's modest budget, Axl Rose donated the use of Guns N' Roses' Sweet Child O' Mine free of charge for the final match.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
October 12, 1492 -
Christopher Columbus, not the brightest bulb in the explorers club, reached America, making his first landing in the New World on one of the Bahamas Islands.



Columbus believed he had reached India.



It was discovered that Columbus' ships really landed on the 13th of October, 1492, he was persuaded by Dutch sailor Piet de Stuini (or DeStynie) to change it to the 12th in the logs because he said that the number 13 might frighten sailors and future investors away. An Italian study group called the Colombiani detected this change.


October 12, 1609 -
The children's nursery rhyme Three Blind Mice was published in London on this date.



This is reportedly the earliest known secular song published.


October 12, 1810 -

The first Oktoberfest began on this date as a festival celebrating the marriage of Princess Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen and Prince Louis of Bavaria (later King Ludwig I) in Munich, Germany.



The festival was such a success, the locals decided to hold it annually. (a great little known fact - Albert Einstein, once worked as an electrician and helped to set up one of the beer tents in 1896.)


October 12, 1915 -

British nurse Edith Cavell, was executed by a German firing squad in Brussels for helping Allied soldiers escape from German-occupied Belgium during World War I. The night before her execution she told the Anglican chaplain, Rev. Gahan, who had been allowed to see her, 'Patriotism is not enough, I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone.' These words are inscribed on her statue in St. Martin's Place, near Trafalgar Square in London.



Her final words to the German pastor were recorded as 'Ask Mr. Gahan to tell my loved ones later on that my soul, as I believe, is safe, and that I am glad to die for my country.'

Pretty tough cookie.


October 12, 1960 -
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev disrupted a U.N. General Assembly session by pounding his desk with a shoe during a dispute on this date.



This resulted in the popular stereotype of the Soviet Dictator who pounds his desk with his shoe.

In fact, many Soviet Dictators did not pound their desks with their shoes. They had their deputies do it for them.


October 12, 1964 -
The Soviet Union launched Voskhod 1 with astronauts Boris Yegorov, Konstantin Feoktistov and Vladamir Komarov on board (the first space flight to carry more than one crewman into orbit.)



This was also the first mission flown without space suits.


October 12, 1969 -
The Soyuz 7 spacecraft was launched on this date. The main goals of this mission in the official version was to test spacecraft systems and designs, maneuvering of the space craft with respect to Soyuz 6, which had launched a day earlier.



When it achieves orbit, it marks the first time in history that five people are in space at the same time (the three astronauts aboard Soyuz 7 and the two aboard Soyuz 6.)

Wait for it, there's more to this story.


October 12, 1970 -
During his court martial for the My Lai Massacre, Lt. William Calley testified that Cpt. Ernest Medina had ordered that anybody they couldn't move would be "wasted."

Which is why Calley said he and his men killed 350 Vietnamese, including more than 100 civilian men, women, and children.


October 12, 1973 -
U.S. President Richard Nixon nominated House Minority Leader Gerald Ford for the vice presidency, under the 25th Amendment, to replace Spiro Agnew, who had resigned two days earlier.

As I've mentioned before, Ford was on the Warren Commission investigating the Kennedy assassination. When Nixon resigned, Ford became president. One of his first acts was to pardon Richard Nixon.

I'm not saying that there is a connection but it gives you pause.


October 12, 1997 -
Folk singer John Denver died when the small plane he was piloting crashed into Monterey Bay on the California coast.



Divers later recover most of the body, but not the head. Denver was ultimately identified by his fingerprints.

Perhaps you really didn't want to know that part.


October 12, 2000 -
In the port of Aden in Yemen, a large bomb, carried by two suicide terrorists on a rubber raft, caused heavy damage to the USS Cole, killing 17 sailors and injuring another 39.



This event was the deadliest attack against a U.S. Naval vessel since 1987.



And so it goes


Before you go - there are 45 days until Thanksgiving (here in the US.)



Please pan accordingly (check out our other web site for detailed instructions.)


101