The date was reportedly chosen to coincide with the first Star Wars film, Episode IV: A New Hope, which was released on May 25, 1977. The day also marks Towel Day, which is celebrated by fans of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams. Fans carry a towel in his honor. Lastly, the day also marks The Glorious 25th of May, which fans of author Terry Pratchett's Discworld celebrate, often with a sprig of lilac.
As we mentioned, today is also Towel Day.
Towel Day is celebrated every May 25th as a tribute by fans of the late author Douglas Adams. On this day, fans carry a towel with them to demonstrate their love for the books and the author, as referenced in Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
(So keep that in mind with your intergalactic travels this summer)
So don't panic.
May 25, 1934 -
The classic 30s detective film, based on the Dashiell Hammett novel, The Thin Man, starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, premiered on this date.
William Powell spoke of how much he loved working with Myrna Loy because of her naturalness, her professionalism, and her lack of any kind of "diva" temperament. "When we did a scene together, we forgot about technique, camera angles, and microphones. We weren't acting. We were just two people in perfect harmony," he said. "Myrna, unlike some actresses who think only of themselves, has the happy faculty of being able to listen while the other fellow says his lines. She has the give and take of acting that brings out the best."
May 25, 1953 -
Universal-International released their first 3-D feature film, It Came from Outer Space, directed by Jack Arnold (and based on a story written by Ray Bradbury,) starring Richard Carlson, Barbara Rush, and Charles Drake in the US, on this date.
The Universal-International make-up department submitted two alien designs for consideration by the studio executives. The design that was rejected was saved and then later used as the Mutant in Universal-International's This Island Earth.
May 25, 1966 -
Norman Jewison's Cold War comedy, The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming, premiered on this date.
Unable to borrow a real submarine from the US Navy, and unable to bring a Soviet submarine to the United States, the art department built the Russian sub. It is powered by four motors underneath the hull, each driving a section of the "sub", and if you watch carefully, you can see it flexing where the four sections are joined.
May 25, 1966 -
Robert Bresson's classic, Au Hasard Balthazar, starring Anne Wiazemsky, and François Lafarge, was released in France on this date.
In an interview, Bresson said he was inspired to make the story after reading a passage in Dostoyevsky's novel The Idiot, in which the main character the Prince mentions his special fondness among animals for the lowly donkey.
May 25, 1977 -
Even Satan took pity and released them from their eternal damnation when ABC TV aired the last episode of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour aired on this date.
Maureen McCormick (Marcia) had become bulimic and developed addictions to cocaine and Quaaludes, which caused mysterious bruises on her arms and legs and made her behavior erratic. She began calling in sick, arriving late to rehearsals, refusing to come out of her dressing room, showed up for work at the end of a 72-hour bender, and once completely missed the taping of the majority of an episode. Gradually, Geri Reischl (Jan) began having to learn McCormick's part in addition to her own so she could take over a scene if McCormick didn't show up.
May 25, 1977 -
In a time long ago and in a galaxy far, far away, George Lucas began legally printing money with the release of the first Star Wars movie, which for reasons only know to George was titled - Stars Wars IV: A New Hope.
George realized that he did not have enough money so he released Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi on this date in 1983.
The Emperor's chair was mechanized so that it could rotate when the scene called for it. However, the mechanism never worked properly, so Ian McDiarmid had to make it move by shuffling his feet. A piece of tape on the floor told him when to stop so it would not be visible to the camera.
May 25, 1979 -
Twentieth Century Fox released the science fiction film Alien, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Yaphet Kotto, and John Hurt, on this date.
According to Yaphet Kotto, Ridley Scott told him to annoy Sigourney Weaver off-camera, so that there would be tension between their characters. Kotto regrets this, because he really liked Weaver.
May 25, 1985 -
Wham!'s single, Everything She Wants, hits the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Charts in the US, on this date. The single made them the first group since the Bee Gees to have three #1 hits from the same album.
While George Michael dismissed much of Wham's material once he began his solo career, he remained proud of this song. Along with I'm Your Man, it was one of two songs from Wham's repertoire that he continued to perform on solo tours. He later referred to it as his favorite Wham! song.
May 25, 1999 -
The final episode of Home Improvement, The Long And Winding Road aired on ABC-TV on this date.
The character Wilson was based on Tim Allen's childhood memories of when he was too short to see over a fence, and was therefore unable to see his neighbor.
May 25, 2017 -
Patty Jenkins' film, the first superhero film directed by a woman - Wonder Woman, starring Gal Gadot and Chris Pine, premiered in Los Angeles, on this date.
Gal Gadot got her part shortly after she decided to give up on acting, being unsuccessful at landing roles and tired of regularly taking 15-hour plane rides back to Israel. However, when she was invited for a screen test, she was not told what the film was about and she agreed as a kind of final fling before she quit. The screen test consisted largely of reading relatively anonymous dialogue and she left afterward to return to Israel. However, she received a call-back and only then was she told that she was short-listed to play Wonder Woman. Gadot was floored at the idea of playing the iconic superhero and she eagerly agreed to participate further.
Today in History:
May 25, 528BCE - (How anyone knows this precise date is way above my pay scale.)
Let the earth witness my achievement
Under a Bodhi tree, Siddhartha Gautama defeated the demon Mara, and attained nirvana (the “blowing out” of the fires of ego-centered attachment which are the source of suffering,) becoming the Buddha (the Awakened One), on this date.
But what the hell do you care?
May 25, 1521 -
Charles V, a Holy Roman Emperor (Who was neither holy or a Roman - he was just a German King) issues the Diet of Worms edict (which neither comprised of non-arthropod invertebrates nor helps you lose weight,) on this date.
Martin Luther, German monk and all around killjoy, couldn't stomach this diet (as it declaring him an outlaw for not eating worms, banning his writings, and requiring his arrest) and goes off to start the Protestant Reformation.
May 25, 1793 -
The first Catholic priest, Father Stephen Theodore Badin, was ordained in the United States and sent on a mission in Kentucky, on this date.
May 25, 1803 -
Ralph Waldo Emerson was born on this date. Emerson whose original profession, a Unitarian minister but secret calling was as, an amateur plumber, left the ministry to pursue a career in writing and public speaking.
Emerson became one of America's best known and best loved 19th century figures, writing such works as Trust Thyself and carry a self-threading snake and Bacchus on the chamber pot.
May 25, 1895 -
Lax laundry standards in Victorian England helped convict British playwright and novelist Oscar Wilde of "committing acts of gross indecency with other male persons," to wit: buggering some rent boys. Some of the evident against Wilde was presented by a hotel housekeeper who stated that she had seen young men in Wilde’s bed and noticed that there were fecal stains on his bed sheets.
For his crime, Wilde was sentenced to two years of hard labor in Reading jail. Perhaps, he should have taken up forgery instead.
May 25, 1925 -
John Scopes was indicted for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, on this date, which prohibits the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in Tennessee public schools. Evolution was a theory put forth by Charles Darwin, whose boat was named "the Beagle." People objected to this theory, which put forth the proposition that mankind had evolved from life forms with hairy red asses.
This resulted in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, in which Spencer Tracy gave a long monologue that changed everyone's minds even though it was so darn hot in the courtroom.
May 25, 1950 -
The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel, the longest-continuous, underwater-vehicular tunnel (measuring 1.7 miles long between portals) in North America, opened in NYC, on this date.
A parade of dignitaries led by Mayor William O’Dwyer and Robert Moses, head of the newly created Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, traveled by motorcade through the tunnel where they were welcomed by a cheering crowd on the Manhattan side.
May 25, 1961 -
President John F. Kennedy proposed to Congress on this date, a goal for the U.S., "before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth."
The USSR had become the first country to send a man into space the month before, and Congress embraced Kennedy's plan.
May 25, 1986 -
Ken Kragen, part of the USA for Africa charity group, organized Hands Across America, a more or less unbroken human chain queued up from Southern California to New York, linking up nearly seven million people through seventeen states. Where the line stretched over depopulated land, it was symbolized by yellow tape, and everywhere else people linked up arms to sing We Are the World, on this date. Many participants donated $10 each to reserve their place in line. The proceeds were donated to local charities to fight hunger and homelessness and help those in poverty.
As a fundraiser, Hands Across America was not a great success: it cost $17 million to put together and fell short of its target of $50 million (raising only $15 million), despite generous donations for several corporate sponsors.
May 25, 1996 -
The body of Bradley Nowell was discovered in his room at San Francisco's Ocean View Motel on this date.
Nowell, lead singer for radio trio Sublime, was killed by an accidental smack overdose.
Oops.
May 25, 2001 -
Erik Weihenmayer was the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on this date. He also completed the Seven Summits in September 2002. His story was covered in a Time article in June 2001 titled Blind Faith.
He is author of Touch the Top of the World: A Blind Man's Journey to Climb Farther Than the Eye can See, his autobiography.
And so it goes.
No comments:
Post a Comment