Sunday, January 7, 2024

As the days go by

January 7, 1297 - Francois Grimaldi (Francois the Crafty) founded Monaco, on this date.



The House of Grimaldi celebrated its 700th anniversary in 1997.

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.


 
The name "Captain Greybar" is an inside reference to the building where Chris' father, Bob Elliott, and his radio and stage partner Ray Goulding, had their Bob and Ray offices for many years (The well-known Graybar Building in NYC). Bob & Ray also had a company called GEG, which (long story short) had to be changed from Goulding-Elliott-Graybar to the differently spelled Goulding-Elliott-Greybar, under threat from the Graybar Building's lawyers. So, Chris gets the last laugh on those lawyers with the name of the tyrannical captain.
 
 
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.
 

 
Screenwriter David Seidler stammered as a child, and heard King George VI's wartime speech as a child. As an adult, he wrote Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (widow of George VI) and asked for permission to use the King's story to create a movie. The Queen Mother asked him not to make it during her lifetime, saying the memories were too painful. Seidler respected her request.
 
 
January 7, 2012
The group LMFAO 's hit Sexy and I Know It reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.
 

 
The music video was shot in late August 2011 and features Redfoo and some of LMFAO's usual Party Rock crew dancing around town in Speedos in front of some girls. Simon Rex from What I Like About You, Wilmer Valderrama from That 70s Show and porn actor Ron Jeremy all have cameos in the clip.
 
 

Another book from the back shelves of The ACME Library
 
 
Today in History:
January 7, 1325 -
King Afonso IV ascended the Portuguese throne, upon the death of his father, King Denis, on this date.

Should this come up in conversation.


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.


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
 

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