Monday, February 15, 2021

Martin Van Buren liked betting on the outcome of elections.

It's Generic Executive Office Holder of the Government Day.



So let's hear it for all the generic Presidents, just remember that we now have to include Trump in this celebration.


Today, the Fourth day of the Lunar New Year is the day to welcome the kitchen god, the god of fortune and other gods.

Families should stay at home to prepare abundant fruits, burn incense and light candles to welcome the gods, asking to be provided with ample food in the new year.


(this is my kitchen god.)



On this day, the Kitchen God would check the household and therefore people should not leave home.

The old saying "three rams bring bliss" is connected with the fourth day, which says that by making a good beginning, a happy end comes.


It's Nirvana Day (for some people),

no, it's not the day you wear your flannel shirts and listen to grunge music; it's the day Buddha died and achieved bliss (Parinirvana.)


Today is also the ancient Roman feast of Lupercalia.

This was a fertility festival in honor of the pastoral god Lupercus.


Hopefully you had a very nice time yesterday and didn't get any of these gifts:



OK, swipe you nose, wash you face and get back out there.


February 15, 1950 -
Walt Disney's 12th animated feature, Cinderella was premiered in Boston, Massachusetts on this date.



Excluding the initial prologue explaining how the stepmother came into Cinderella's life and the closing wedding scene, the main story of the film takes place over approximately a 24-hour period. Cinderella starts her day with her chores, the prince's ball is that evening and she successfully tries on the lost slipper the following morning.


February 15, 1975
Linda Ronstadt's song You’re No Good went to No. # 1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



This song had been around for a while before Linda Ronstadt took it to the top of the chart. It was originally recorded by Dee Dee Warwick in 1963. Her version was produced by the famous team of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, but it stalled at #117. Betty Everett had more success with her version, which went to #51 in 1964.


February 15, 1985 -
Don't you forget about me -

Universal Pictures released John Hughes' film (and introduced the Brat Pack to an unsuspecting world), The Breakfast Club, starring, Emilio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy on this date.



The scene in which all characters sit in a circle on the floor in the library and tell stories about why they were in detention was not scripted. Writer and director John Hughes told them all to ad-lib.


February 15, 1987 -
Broadcast over the course of seven nights, Amerika, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



ABC executive Brandon Stoddard, with the help of his wife, conceived the idea of a miniseries about America 10 years after a Soviet takeover. The day after he came up with the idea, Stoddard had a meeting with producer David L. Wolper. Wolper told Stoddard that he wanted to make a miniseries for ABC, coincidentally, about America 10 years after a Soviet takeover. Wolper's version was never made.


February 15, 2005 -
The Norah Jones mellow, jazzy album Come Away With Me is certified Diamond for sales of over 10 million in America on this date.



The Come Away With Me album is a rare massive seller with no big hits. The only song to land in the Hot 100 was Don't Know Why, which made #30. The single, Come Away with Me was the third single, released in December 2002 after the album had been out for nine months. By this time, it has already sold millions of copies, but many were just discovering it.


Word of the Day


Today in History -
Galileo Galilei was born on February 15, 1564. He invented a telescope with which he later discovered craters on the moon, the satellites of Jupiter, and every luscious detail of the girl next door's nubile young form. Galileo's astronomical observations seemed to confirm Copernicus' theory that the Earth went around the Sun rather than the other way around. Unfortunately, Copernicus' theory was heresy and therefore not supposed to be confirmed.



The church was in a tough spot. Galileo was every bit as Bad and Heretical as Copernicus had been, but they didn't want to inspire a bunch of angry Germans to start another church, as Martin Luther's followers had not long after the church's previous brush with Astronomy.

High-ranking church officials pleaded with the astronomer: "Come on, Galileo." "Please, Galileo." "Knock it off, Galileo."

But he wouldn't stop talking about the Earth spinning around the Sun. He couldn't even be persuaded to talk about something else, such as sports, the weather, or the girl next door's nubile young form. So they threatened to kill him.



At this point Galileo remembered that the Sun actually did revolve around the Earth, and the church rewarded his improved memory by giving him free room and board for the rest of his life (a level of hospitality sometimes referred to as "house arrest".)


February 15, 1758 -



Mustard was first advertised for sale in America on this date, by Benjamin Jackson who had set up business in Globe Mills, Germantown, Philadelphia, selling mustard packed in glass bottles with his label on them.



In the Philadelphia Chronicle, he claimed to be "the original establisher of the mustard manufactory in American, and ... at present, the only manufacturer on the continent," and that he had brought the art with him from London to America. (And don't worry, I'm sure that clown is long dead by now.)


February 15, 1882 -
Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.



John Barrymore
, noted thespian and alcoholic, was born into the bosom of his famous theatrical clan on this date.


February 15, 1898

The battleship U.S.S. Maine blew up in Havana Harbor on this date, commencing a splendid little war against Spain that ends with Cuba under martial law and the United States owning a colonial empire.



The situation is immortalized in the film Citizen Kane with the lines, "You supply the prose poetry. We'll supply the war."


The first teddy bear is introduced in America by two Russian immigrants, Morris and Rose Michtom, who own a toy and novelty store in Brooklyn, New York on this date in 1903.



While bear hunting in Mississippi in 1902, President Teddy Roosevelt decided to spare the life of a bear cub which had been orphaned during the hunt. The event was the subject of a cartoon in the Washington Post seen by the Michtoms. Inspired by the cartoon, Mrs. Michtom made a toy bear which became enormously popular with the public in short order.

Now you know.


February 15, 1933 -
President-elect Franklin Roosevelt escaped an assassination attempt in Miami on this date. Giuseppe Zangara, an unemployed New Jersey bricklayer from Italy, fired five pistol shots at the back of President-elect Roosevelt's head from only twenty-five feet away.



While all five rounds missed their target, each bullet found a separate victim. One of these was Mayor Anton Cermak of Chicago. Gunman Giuseppe Zangara was executed a little more than four weeks later, on March 20, 1933.


February 15, 1936 -
At a speech in Berlin on this date, Hitler confronts German industry with the challenge of creating the Volkswagen.

Thus Ferdinand Porsche designed the Beetle which is now widely seen as the final solution to fahrvergnugen.


February 15, 1961 -
The U.S. figure skating team is obliterated when Sabena Flight 548 crashes in Belgium on this date.



The crash was the first fatal accident involving a Boeing 707 in regular passenger service.


February 15, 1995 -
Kevin Mitnick, at the time the most wanted computer hacker in history, was arrested in Raleigh, North Carolina for various offenses, one of which was breaking into security specialist Tsutomu Shimomura's computer on this date.

Mitnick now runs Mitnick Security Consulting, a computer security consultancy.

Kids, sometimes, crimes does pay.


February 15, 2005 -
You Tube
, the video-sharing website, was launched by three former PayPal employees on this date. The first video was uploaded on April 23, 2005.



I can't confirm that most videos posted on You Tube are any more interesting than the one posted above.



And so it goes.

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