07 April 2018 Interesting tidbits:
07 April 2018
Interesting tidbits:
1724 – Premiere performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St John Passion BWV 245 at St. Nicholas Church, Leipzig.
1795 - France adopts the metre as the basic measure of length.
1805 - Premiere of Beethoven's "Eroica" (conducted by himself).
1827 - John Walker, an English chemist, sold the first friction match that he had invented the previous year. This is one of those many little inventions from the 1800s that changed the world way out of proportion to its seeming minor importance. Without matches starting steam engines would have been an exhausting process.
1891 - Nebraska introduces 8 hour work day
1906 – Mount Vesuvius erupts and devastates Naples.
1922 - Warren G. Harding's Interior Secretary, Albert B. Fall, leases the Teapot Dome oil reserves to Harry Sinclair, setting in motion what came to be known over the next two years as the Teapot Dome scandals.
1923 - 1st brain tumor operation under local anesthetic performed (Beth Israel Hospital in NYC) by Dr K Winfield Ney.
1927 – First distance public television broadcast (from Washington, D.C., to New York City, displaying the image of Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover).
1933 - 'National Beer Day" Cullen-Harrison act comes into effect legalising sale of low alcohol beer. The "noble experiment" of Prohibition finally comes to an end.
1959 - Radar 1st bounced off Sun, Stanford Calif.
1964 – IBM announces the System/360.
1968 – Luna 14 Launch (Soviet Moon Orbiter Mission) .
1969 – The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.
1983 – During STS-6, astronauts Story Musgrave and Don Peterson perform the first space shuttle spacewalk.
2001 – Mars Odyssey is launched.
Today's birthday crew:
1860 – Will Keith Kellogg, American industrialist and food manufacturer, founder of the Kellogg's Company.
1895 – Margarete Schön, German actress. It was in the 1924 release of Fritz Lang's two-part fantasy serial Die Nibelungen that Margarete would achieve international recognition as an actress. Co-written by director Fritz Lang's then-wife Thea von Harbou, the films were based on the epic poem Nibelungenlied written around AD 1200. Schön had a starring role as the vengeful Kriemhild, opposite actor Paul Richter's role as the epic hero Siegfried.
1897 – Walter Winchell, American broadcaster and journalist.
1915 – Stanley Adams is perhaps best known for playing Cyrano Jones in the Star Trek episode "The Trouble With Tribbles". During the following season he co-wrote the Star Trek episode "The Mark of Gideon". He appeared at a number of Star Trek conventions in the 1970s and reprised (as a voice actor) his role of Cyrano Jones in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode "More Tribbles, More Troubles". Archive footage of Adams was used in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Trials and Tribble-ations". His other roles on TV shows include a time travelling scientist (opposite Buster Keaton) and a bartender on The Twilight Zone, and "Tybo" the carrot leader of the vegetable rebellion on Lost In Space. He appeared in two episodes of the second season of the 1960s television show Batman ("Catwoman Goes to College"/"Batman Displays his Knowledge") as "Captain Courageous".
1915 – Billie Holiday, American singer and songwriter.
1915 – Henry Kuttner, American author of science fiction, fantasy and horror. As a young man he worked for the literary agency of his uncle, Laurence D'Orsay, in Los Angeles before selling his first story, "The Graveyard Rats", to Weird Tales in early 1936. Kuttner was known for his literary prose and worked in close collaboration with his wife, C.L. Moore. They met through their association with the "Lovecraft Circle", a group of writers and fans who corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft. Their work together spanned the 1940s and 1950s and most of the work was credited to pseudonyms, mainly Lewis Padgett and Lawrence O'Donnell.
1920 – Ravi Shankar, Indian musician and composer.
1922 – Mongo Santamaria, Cuban jazz musician (mentioned in Blazing Saddles).
1927 – Babatunde Olatunji, Nigerian drummer, educator, and activist.
1928 – James Garner, American actor (Maverick).
1931 – Daniel Ellsberg, American military analyst.
1933 – Wayne Rogers, American actor (Trapper John).
1934 – Ian Richardson, Scottish actor (Hogfather).
1938 – Jerry Brown, American politician.
1939 – Francis Ford Coppola, American director.
1939 – David Frost, English broadcaster and television host.
1954 – Jackie Chan, Chinese actor, director, producer, and martial artist.
1964 – Russell Crowe, New Zealand-Australian actor.
1988 – Ed Speleers, English actor best known for playing the title role in the 2006 film Eragon, as well as starring in Golden Globe and Emmy-award winning TV show Downton Abbey.
Happy birthday guys!