Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance.

As usual, the last week of September has been designated as Banned Book Week!



If you are ever in need of something to read, banned book lists can be a great resource.


Google is celebrating it's 'official' 23rd birthday, despite the the fact that it has listed six other dates for it's start.

The interesting fact is that September 27 isn't the search giant's birthday. The selection of September 27 as Google's birthday seems to be a one of convenience than the actual date when the company was founded. Google celebrated September 7 (the day when the company was incorporated) as its birthday till 2005.


September 27, 1947 - Delmer Daves' stylish noir-thriller, Dark Passage, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, opened on this date.



Humphrey Bogart's complete uncovered face is not seen clearly until 62 minutes into the movie, when his character finally removes his bandages and looks into a mirror. All previous scenes with the character are either shown from his point of view or have his face obscured with shadows or bandages. Warner Brothers studio head Jack L. Warner was not pleased to discover that the face of one of his biggest stars, was not seen for the first half of the movie. But by the time Warner knew this, the film was too far along to be changed.


September 27, 1954 -
Steve Allen sat down at his piano and the Tonight Show premiered nationally on NBC on this date.



The show began in 1953 as a local show on WNBT-TV, the NBC station in New York City. Tonight! began in 1954 when Sylvester L. Weaver Jr., the president of NBC, decided to expand the network's programming past the 11:00 p.m. local news. Weaver wanted his night-time entry to be something along the lines of Today : some news and light features with interviews.


September 27, 1964 -
The Beach Boys appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time on this date.



They also performed the song I Get Around that evening. The song was released as a double A-side single in May 1964 with Don't Worry Baby. It is considered one of the best ever single releases along with Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles and Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog by Elvis Presley.


September 27, 1975 -
The documentary film by Albert and David Maysles, Grey Gardens, premiered in the New York Film Festival on this date.



The film was something of an accident, in the sense that Albert Maysles and David Maysles came across Edith Bouvier Beale and Edith 'Little Edie' Bouvier Beale when involved in another project--a movie about (Jacqueline Kennedy's sister) Lee Radziwill's childhood. As part of research, the Maysles brothers were introduced to the Beales, and were captivated by their world. Deciding not to make the Radzwill film, they turned instead to the Beales, and a year after first meeting the two women, began filming.


September 27, 1980 -
Kurtis Blow becomes the first rapper to perform on national television when he does The Breaks on Soul Train.



Host Don Cornelius was confused. "It doesn't make sense to old guys like me," he tells Kurtis in the interview segment.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
September 27, 1854 -
The first great disaster involving an ocean liner in the Atlantic occurred when the steamship Arctic sank in foggy weather after colliding with the iron bow of the Vesta on this date. When Captain Luce of the Arctic orders women and children into the lifeboats, the crewmen rebel and take the boats for themselves.

Of 435 on board, only 85 survived -- and none of them women or children. It is the first major ocean liner disaster in the Atlantic. The Arctic disaster shattered high Victorian notions of how men were supposed to respond under duress.


Today is the 116th anniversary of the completion by Albert Einstein of his paper, Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?, introducing the equation E=MC², on this date.



Before this, E equaled just about anything you wanted it to equal. Just think what the atomic bomb would have been like if E = grapes seeds or the real content of Schrödinger's box.


September 27, 1938 -
RMS Queen Elizabeth was launched by Queen Elizabeth (after a couple of G and T's) at the John Brown and Company yard in Clydebank, Scotland.



She (the ship and not her majesty) was the largest passenger liner ever built and named to honor Queen Elizabeth, wife of King George VI of England and mother to Queen Elizabeth II.


September 27, 1940 -
Japan, Germany and Italy, signed the Tripartite Pact in Berlin on this date. The pact saw the formation of the World War II Axis powers, an opponent group against the Allies.



The Axis alliance bizarrely hoped to persuade the US against joining the Allies during the war, but failed. In 1940, Hungary was forced by Germany to became the fourth country to sign the Pact, allying themselves with the Axis powers.


September 27, 1951 -
Marvin Lee Aday, singer songwriter was born on this date.



Despite his famous moniker, Marvin doesn't like to eat meatloaf.


September 27, 1959 -
Typhoon Vera, otherwise known as the Isewan Typhoon, killed 4,464 people on the Japanese island of Honshu and injured 40,000 more. 1.5 million were made homeless.



The severe storm conditions of Typhoon Vera caused the most of destruction and loss of life of any tropical cyclone in Japanese history.


September 27, 2008 -
Chinese astronaut, Zhai Zhigang, aboard Shenzhou 7, became the first person from China to walk in space on this date.



Zhia would immediately return to his space craft when he realized that he could not get a good wi-fi connection in space.



And so it goes