In Chinese astrology, each year is associated with a Chinese zodiac animal sign and one the Five Elements: Gold (Metal), Water, Wood, Fire, or Earth. Both the sign and element of your birth year are said to affect your personality and destiny. This year’s elemental sign is Metal - so we are celebrating Golden Ox.
Legend has it that in ancient times, Buddha asked all the animals to meet him on the Lunar New Year. Twelve came, and Buddha named a year after each one. The Rat tricked the Ox into giving him a ride. Then, just as they arrived at the finish line, Rat jumped down and landed ahead of Ox, becoming first. He announced that the people born in each animal's year would have some of that animal's personality.
It is also believed that the Ox is most compatible with the Rat, the Snake, and the Rooster, but least compatible with the Horse, the Goat and the Dog.
The world’s largest annual human migration is now well underway as 2.8 billion trips are made across China in what is known as Chunyun, when students, migrant workers and office employees living away from home will make the journey back to celebrate with their families. Complicating matters, of course is the lingering effects of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic.
February 12, 1914 -
The first feature length film shot in Hollywood, The Squaw Man, directed by Cecil B. DeMille and Oscar Apfel, premiered in the US, on this date.
The original studio facilities for Paramount Pictures grew out of a barn on the corner of Selma and Vine streets. When Paramount moved to its current site in 1926 (further east, off of Melrose Avenue), it brought the barn with them.
February 12, 1924 -
George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue premiered at Carnegie Hall in New York on this date.
It has become one of the most popular American concert works.
On this day in 1940, Superman appeared on a radio station (a Mutual Radio station WOR in New York City) for the first time, the first time in a non-print medium. It was the debut of the radio show called The Adventures of Superman and the episode was called The Baby From Krypton.
We don't get to hear Superman speak though until the second episode: Clark Kent, Reporter (February 14, 1940.)
February 12, 1943 -
Much of the cast of Citizen Kane/ The Magnificent Ambersons was reunited for the Action/ Thriller, Journey Into Fear, directed by Norman Foster and starring Joseph Cotten, Dolores del Rio, Ruth Warrick, Agnes Moorehead, and Orson Welles, opened in NYC on this date.
When production on Journey Into Fear began, co-stars Orson Welles and Dolores del Rio had been having an affair for several years. Del Rio ended the relationship shortly after the film's release.
February 12, 1955 -
Another in the series of Westerns director Anthony Mann collaborated with Jimmy Stewart, The Far Country, opened in NYC on this date.
The Athabasca Glacier seen early on the start of the trip to Dawson is actually in Jasper National Park near Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta.
February 12, 1972 -
The Rev. Al Green's song, Let's Stay Together, hit no. 1 on this date.
You do not have to place your hands upon the screen when listening to the good reverend; just hearing his voice will send the healing power directly to your nether regions.
Another unimportant moment in history
Today In History:
February 12, 1294 -
... Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
Kublai Khan, the conqueror of Asia, died at the age of 80.
On February 12, 1554, The sixteen year old Lady Jane Grey, puppet Queen of England for nine days, was beheaded in the Tower of London, on this date.
Questions arose as to where to bury this semi-queen, until it was decided to place her among the beheaded former wives of Henry VIII.
Adolf Frederick was King of Sweden until he died of digestion problems on February 12, 1771 after having consumed a meal consisting of lobster, caviar, sour cabbage, smoked herring and champagne, which was topped off with 14 servings of his favorite dessert: semla (a hot cross bun filled with cream) served in a bowl of hot milk.
He is thus remembered by Swedish schoolchildren as the king who ate himself to death.
Kids remember - push away from the dessert tray.
February 12, 1789 -
Ethan Allen died in a drunken sleigh accident while crossing the frozen Lake Champlain, reminiscing with friends and rye. Much of the circumstance remains a mystery.
Immanuel Kant, a real pissant, died on February 12, 1804. His last words were reportedly "It is good."
This is hard to believe, since Kant did not speak English.
It's the 212th birthday of both Abraham Lincoln, a man with only a years' worth of formal education and still became our 16th President
and Charles Darwin, the man who tried to ride a dog to the tropics and the uncle of most monkeys.
Go try preserving a union and question people's fundamental religious beliefs in their honor.
On February 12, 1894, Hans von Bulow died, (yes, Klaus is related to him).
Emperor Pu Yi of China's Manchu dynasty abdicated on February 12, 1912, allowing the establishment of a provisional republic under Sun Yat-sen, eventually causing Red China.
And the making of a fine movie.
February 12, 1912 -
With pilot Frank Coffyn flying the plane, American Press Association photographer Adrian C. Duff, shot the first ever film of New York City from overhead on this date.
By doing so, this made Duff the very first airplane passenger over New York Harbor. Mr Duff spent the next 10 years getting a full body cavity search from the TSA.
February 12, 1935 -
The 785-foot USS Macon, the last US Navy dirigible (ZRS-5), crashed on its 55th flight off the coast of California. After takeoff from Point Sur, California, a gust of wind tore off the ship's upper fin, deflating its gas cells and causing the ship to fall into the sea. Two of Macon 's 83 crewmen died in the accident.
The U.S. Navy lost the airships Shenandoah in 1925 and Akron in 1933. Some considered airships too dangerous for the program to continue at that point, and work on them in the United States was halted temporarily.
February 12, 1967 -
Police in London arrested Keith Richards, Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull on this date, after they discover amphetamine pills, cannabis resin, and Marianne scandalously naked but for a fur rug. (There has been rumors for years that either Paul McCarthy or George Harrison were at the party and were allowed to leave before the arrest were made - they were MBE's and it would have been awkward to arrest them at the time.)
Questions still persist - where exactly was that Mars Bar anyway?
February 12, 1976 -
Sal Mineo, film and theater actor, was stabbed to death in Los Angeles while coming home from a play rehearsal on this date.
A pizza deliveryman, Lionel Ray Williams, was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 57 years in prison for killing Mineo and for committing 10 robberies in the same area.
February 12, 2004 -
After 43 years together, Barbie and Ken, shocked the nation when they announced that they were breaking up on this date.
The couple had met on the set of their first television commercial together in 1961.
And so it goes
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