Today's installment of useless trivia

Analog TVs use radio waves to transmit information, and some of that static is your television interpreting microwaves from the Big Bang.



NASA describes it as: Turn your television to an “in between” channel, and part of the static you'll see is the afterglow of the big bang.


November 17, 1933 -
...Well, that covers a lot of ground. Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself. You better beat it - I hear they're going to tear you down and put up an office building where you're standing. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a huff. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute and a huff. You know, you haven't stopped talking since I came here? You must have been vaccinated with a phonograph needle....

Unbelievable, but, a box office flop (at the time), The Marx Brothers' Duck Soup opened on this date. (This film marks the last appearance of Zeppo Marx in a Marx Brothers film.)



Shortly before this film premiered, the city of Fredonia, New York, complained about the use of its name with an additional "e". The Marx Brothers' response was, "Change the name of your town, it's hurting our picture."


November 17, 1942 -
Martin Scorsese, Academy Award-winning American film director, writer, producer, actor, film historian, former drug addict and asthmatic was born on this date.



Go watch a movie (any movie) in his honor. He won't mind (except maybe don't tell him you're watching a Marvel film.)


November 17, 1951 -
... Slight pause while I adjust my accoutrements.

Another in the series of Daffy and Porky buddy flicks, Drip-Along Daffy, opened on this date.



The cartoon includes an original song (sung by Porky) The Flower of Gower Gulch, a parody of sentimental cowboy-style love songs, Gower Gulch being an intersection in Hollywood known as a gathering spot for would-be actors in early Westerns.


November 17, 1978 -
The two-hour Star Wars Holiday Special aired for the first and only time on CBS on this date. (I must strongly warn readers not to attempt to watch the entire special in one seating - stronger men have been driven to drink and drugs for less.)



George Lucas famously tried (and failed) to buy up all master copies to make sure it was never broadcast again.


November 17, 1980 -
Today is the anniversary of the release of the seventh and final studio album from John Lennon during his lifetime, Double Fantasy.



Double Fantasy was released on David Geffen's record label, DGC. Many labels were competing for the album, but Geffen impressed Lennon when he wrote directly to Yoko and agreed to release it without hearing it first. All of Lennon's previous albums were released on The Beatles' label, Apple.


November 17, 1989 -
Jim Jarmusch's fourth feature, Mystery Train, opened on this date.



The hotel where the three stories converge is no longer standing, so many fans of the movie have made pilgrimages to the site only to find that it no longer exists. It can, however, be seen in the background of the scene in Great Balls of Fire! where Alec Baldwin is preaching from his broken-down car.


November 17, 1997 -
An all-star rendition of Lou Reed's 1972 song Perfect Day featuring Reed, Elton John, David Bowie, Tammy Wynette, Joan Armatrading and several other stars, is released as a single in the UK, with proceeds going to the BBC's Children In Need charity.



The effort was organized by the BBC, which put together a video for the song tagged with a message promoting their diverse music coverage: "Whatever your musical taste, it is catered for by BBC radio and television. This is only possible thanks to the unique way the BBC is paid for by you." Released as a single, it went to #1 in the UK for three weeks and earned over £2,100,000 for the charity. Versions with just the male vocalists and just the female vocalists are included on the single.


November 17, 2006 -
Daniel Craig stepped into the role of James Bond for the first time with the third adaptation of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale premiered in the U.S. on this date. This was the 21st Bond film (in the official canon.)



Daniel Craig gained twenty pounds of muscle for the role by adhering to eating mostly proteins, minimizing his carbohydrates intake, training five days a week, only doing cardio exercises on weekends


Another failed ACME Product


Today in History:
More things you probably didn't need to know
November 17, 375 -
Valentinian I, the Emperor of the West, enraged by the rudeness of barbarian envoys,

died of apoplexy in present day Hungary on this date.


November 17, 1558 -
The re-establishment of Roman Catholicism in England came to an end when Mary I died on this date, at St. James's Palace, during an influenza epidemic, of ovarian cancer. Co-incidentially, the Elizabethan age began when Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne on this date, following the death of her half sister Mary.



Elizabeth was told the news of her accession to the throne whilst sitting under an oak tree in the Hatfield Palace gardens. She reacted by getting on her knees and quoting Psalm 118 “This is the Lord’s day. It is marvelous in our eyes.” She is best known for her imperfect application of the cosmetic sciences, a flaw that is strikingly evident in all her portraits but that courtiers were apparently reluctant to address the issue.


November 17, 1796 -
Russia's Catherine The Great died in St Petersburg of a stroke, straining to overcome constipation, whilst sitting on her night stool in her palace and not while astride her steed (or something like that) on this date.



So dammit, stop making those jokes.


November 17, 1869 -
French engineers started building the Suez Canal in Egypt, linking the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, on April 25, 1859. It took ten years to build the 100-mile route devised by Ferdinand de Lesseps and more than 1.5 million people were employed. The Suez Canal was inaugurated in an elaborate ceremony, on this date. The 100 mile canal eliminated a 4000-mile trip around Africa.



Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, together with Ferdinand de Lesseps, chief architect of the canal, led the first file of ships from on board the French imperial yacht Aigle.


November 17, 1871 -
George Wood Wingate and William Conant Church established the National Rifle Association in New York on this date.

Today, the group has more than 5.5 million members (as of January 2018,) - but the truth of those numbers is a matter of much heated debate.


November 17, 1903 -
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's stubbornness split his Russian Social Democratic Labor Party into two factions: the slim majority who sided with him, and the vast minority who opposed him, on this date.



The Russian terms for majority and minority are Bolshevik and Menshevik, respectively, and so these factions took their names. Later the Mensheviks became the majority party, meaning that the Mensheviks had become Bolsheviks and the Bolsheviks Mensheviks.

This was confusing. If you asked someone what they were and they said "Bolshevik," you'd have no way of knowing whether they meant Bolshevik (Menshevik) or Menshevik (Bolshevik.) This state of affairs quickly became intolerable. All sorts of remedies were suggested placards, ID bracelets, hats, tattoos but it was impossible to arrive at a consensus until Lenin clarified matters by having all the Mensheviks shot.

It was easy after that.


November 17, 1917 -
The world famous 77 year old French Sculptor Auguste Rodin froze to death in an unheated attic in Meudon, France on this date. He had applied to the government for quarters as warm as those wherein his statues were stored, but the government turned him down.



His case was so desperate that he asked to be permitted to have a room in the museum the Hotel Biron, formerly his own studio. The official in charge of the museum refused. Other officials and friends promised coal but never sent it, though his situation at Meudon (ill, and freezing to death,) was apparently well known to all of them.


November 17, 1941 -
U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew cabled the US State Department that he has heard that Japan has 'planned, in the event of trouble with the United States, to attempt a surprise mass attack at Pearl Harbor.' His warning was ignored by the Office of Naval Intelligence.

His diplomatic relations with Japan were cordial until the late 1930s, when Japanese expansionism became openly aggressive toward Asian neighbors like China. The US increased economic pressures on Japan until, in late 1939, Grew had been predicting that the situation will soon come to a head. He told President Roosevelt in October 1939 that 'if we start sanctions against Japan we must see them through to the end, and the end may conceivably be 'war.'

Oops.


November 17, 1968 -
NBC preempted the final 1:05 from a very close Jets-Raiders NFL football game with the TV movie Heidi. Two touchdowns were scored during this missing time.



Sports fans everywhere applaud and understand the network's decision.



Oops!


November 17, 1970 -
Douglas Engelbart receives a patent (US No. 3,541,541) for the first computer mouse on this date.



The patent, titled “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System,” is a simple hollowed-out wooden block, with a single push button on top.


November 17, 1970 -
Things that didn't teach you in school: the Lunokhod 1 moonrover was released by the Soviet Union's orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft. It succeeded in landing on the Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains), on this date.



Lunokhod was the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another celestial body.


November 17, 1973 -
People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook.



President Richard Nixon spoke to more than 400 editors from the Associated Press at a gathering in Orlando, Florida, at Walt Disney World on this date.

I guess that means Disney World isn't the happiest place on Earth for everybody.


Before you go - T K Maxx, (apparently our British cousins can save even more money by not using the J) has a warm holiday commercial about a nervous young boy at his local Christmas pageant.



So the take away is, if you want to give a rocking performance at the school show - play an Aerosmith song and wear really ugly shoes?.

And so it goes