This is hard to believe

Neil Armstrong walked on the moon before the creation of wheeled luggage.

It just seems so strange given how obvious the idea of wheeled suitcases is now, but while the US spent billions on plans for landing on the moon in the early 1960s (not to mention the moon landing in 1969), wheeled cases weren't invented until the early 1970s by Bernie Sadow.

(US patent 3,653,474 for "Rolling Luggage").

The retractable telescoping handle wasn't invented until the late 1980s by Robert Plath.

So now you know


January 7, 1929 –
Buck Rogers in the 25th Century A.D. , illustrated by Dick Calkins, appeared in newspaper comics on this date; (the same date that Tarzan of the Apes, illustrated by Hal Foster, appeared in newspapers, as well.).

The main character, Anthony Rogers, appeared in the in the Sci-Fi magazine, Amazing Stories, six months earlier, in August, as a short novel Armageddon 2419 A.D, by writer Philip Francis Nowlan. His name was changed to the snappier Buck Rogers for the comic strip.


January 7, 1934 –
Alex Raymond’s Flash Gordon comic strip debuted in newspapers across the United States.

In addition to the comic strip, Flash has also starred in a live-action serial, a radio show, novels, comic books, animated cartoons, and he even appeared on his own U.S. postage stamp.


January 7, 1961 -
The pilot episode of The Avengers - Hot Snow, starring Ian Hendry and Patrick Macnee premiered in the UK on this date.



The vast majority of the first series of The Avengers is missing from TV archives and likely lost forever - only the first 15 minutes of this first episode and three complete later episodes, The Avengers: Girl on the Trapeze (which incidentally does not feature the character of Steed), The Avengers: The Frighteners, and The Avengers: Tunnel of Fear have been recovered and preserved.


January 7, 1967 -
The Newlywed Game premiered on ABC TV on this date (the show began airing in 1966 as a local afternoon show in some areas.)



I know your thinking about it - where was the most unusual place you and your husband made whoopee?


January 7, 1972 -
David Bowie released Changes as a single in the UK on this date. The track peaked at No.49 on the UK chart and later at No.41 on the US chart.



According to Bowie, this started out as a parody of a nightclub song - "kind of throwaway" - but people kept chanting for it at concerts and thus it became one of his most popular and enduring songs. Bowie had no idea it was going to become so successful, but the song connected with his young audience who could relate to lyrics like "These children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations, they're quite aware of what they're going through."


January 7, 1994 –
Possibly, one of the worst movies made with such a talented cast, Cabin Boy, starring Chris Elliott, Andy Richter, David Letterman, Mike Starr, Brian Doyle-Murray, Russ Tamblyn, and Bob Elliott premiered on this date.



This is the second film to feature Chris Elliot and Brian Doyle-Murray. The first being Groundhogs Day. The two actors also worked together on the Fox series Get a Life.


January 7, 2011 -
Tom Hopper's historical drama, The King's Speech, starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush, and Helena Bonham Carter, premiered in United Kingdom on this date.



Nine weeks before filming began, Lionel Logue's grandson, Mark Logue, discovered a large box in his attic that contained his grandfather's personal papers. The box held Lionel Logue's diary, his appointment book, notes from his speech therapy sessions with King George VI, and over 100 personal letters to Logue from the King. It also contained what is believed to be the actual copy of the speech used by George VI in his 1939 radio broadcast announcing the declaration of war with Germany. Mark Logue turned his grandfather's papers, letters, and diary over to director Tom Hooper and screenwriter David Seidler, who used them to flesh out the relationship between Logue and the King. Geoffrey Rush and Colin Firth also read through the material for insight into their characters. The exchange in this movie between Logue and King George VI following his radio speech ("You still stammered on the 'W'." / "Well, I had to throw in a few so they knew it was me.") was taken directly from Logue's diary. Firth insisted that it should be included in the movie.


January 7, 2012 –
The group LMFAO 's hit Sexy and I Know It reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was LMFAO's second consecutive #1 single on the Hot 100 following Party Rock Anthem. In doing so, Redfoo and SkyBlu became the first duo to achieve back-to-back chart-toppers since OutKast ruled with Hey Ya! and The Way You Move, in late 2003 and early 2004.


Another unimportant day in history


Today in History:
January 7, 1598 -
Theodorus I, [Feodor Ivanovitch], czar of Russia (1584-98), died on this date.



Boris Godunov seized the Russian throne on February 17 upon the death of Feodor I.

But what do you care?


January 7, 1714 –
The world’s first patent (#395) for a “Machine for Transcribing Letters” was granted in England by Queen Anne to Henry Mill.

This first planned typewriter was never actually produced.


January 7, 1789 -

January 7, 1800 -
Millard Fillmore, 13th President of the United States, was born on this date. (Often cited as one of the 10 worse Presidents because he backed the Compromise of 1850 that delayed the Southern secession by allowing slavery to spread.)



And no, he didn't install the first bathtub in the White House, that was a hoax by Henry Louis Mencken.


January 7, 1851 -
Jean Bernard Léon Foucault first used a pendulum to demonstrate that the Earth rotated on this date. This initial experiment, which is conducted in the cellar of his home using a five kilogram pendulum suspended from a two meter cable, represents the first time the Earth’s rotation has been proven experimentally, rather than through observation.



Foucault went on to give a public demonstration for scientists using an eleven meter wire at the Paris observatory on February 3 and again at the Pantheon in Paris on March 31.

Now you know.


January 7, 1894 -
William Kennedy Dickson receives a patent for the first practical celluloid film and decided on 35 mm for the size, a standard still used.



The earliest surviving copyrighted motion picture, the Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze is a short film made by W. K. L. Dickson on January 7, 1894 for advertising purposes. Often referred to as Fred Ott's Sneeze, this is is one of the world's earliest motion pictures and America's best known early film production. The star is Fred Ott, an Edison employee known to his fellow workers in the laboratory for his comic sneezing and other gags.


January 7, 1912 -
It's hard to say. Sometimes people have had terrible childhoods. And sometimes they just haven't found their special place in life. And sometimes they're dogs from hell and must be destroyed.



Charles Addams, cartoonist known for his particularly black humor and macabre characters, was spawned on this date.


January 7, 1943 -
The world's greatest inventor, Nikola Tesla, died alone in room 3327 of the New Yorker Hotel, of heart failure on this date in history.



Despite having sold his AC electricity patents, Tesla died with significant debts on the books.


January 7, 1953 -
Lame duck President Harry Truman, rattling around the White House, packing up empty liquor bottles and other assorted crap, announced that the US had detonated the first hydrogen bomb months earlier.



The development of the bomb came almost in direct response to the news that the USSR had exploded an atomic bomb three years earlier. It was one of the first instances of the technological and military one-upmanship that characterized the Cold War.


January 7, 1957 -
I feel like a human pinata. The disappointing thing is, no candy is going to spill out.



Katherine Anne Couric, TV news host and colonoscopy spokes model, was born on this date.


January 7, 1999 –
This was not a great day for Bubba - The impeachment trial of President William Jefferson Clinton began on this date.



It was only the second impeachment of a President in American history, following the impeachment of Andrew Johnson in 1868. And the third one occurred recently.


January 7, 2015 -
Two gunmen killed twelve people in the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical publication based in Paris, then killed a police officer outside, (eleven others were wounded in the assault,) on this date.

Please take a moment out of your day to remember the victims.



And so it goes