Category Archives: Anniversary

Vincent Price Performs Thriller!

Posted on October 22, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Vincent Price Performs Thriller!

On Friday the 13th in February in 1987, the legendary Vincent Price showed up as a guest on the Late Show starring Joan Rivers. While on the show, Price performed his classic segment from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Music, The Little Screen (Television)

Propane Pumpkins

Posted on October 21, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Propane Pumpkins

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Humor

Anniversary of the Alaska Purchase

Posted on October 18, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of the Alaska Purchase

On this day, October 18th, in 1867, the U.S. formally takes possession of Alaska after purchasing the territory from Russia for $7.2 million, or less than two cents an acre. The Alaska purchase comprised 586,412 square miles, about twice the size of Texas

Posted in Anniversary, Events

The Mysterious Origin of Halloween

Posted on October 17, 2024 by James| Comments Off on The Mysterious Origin of Halloween

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can

Anniversary of Yeager Breaking the Sound Barrier

Posted on October 14, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of Yeager Breaking the Sound Barrier
yeager_glamorous_glennis

U.S. Air Force Captain Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to fly faster than the speed of sound.

Yeager, born in Myra, West Virginia, in 1923, was a combat fighter during World War II and flew 64 missions over Europe. He shot down 13 German planes and was himself shot down over France, but he escaped capture with the assistance of the French Underground. After the war, he was among several volunteers chosen to test-fly the experimental X-1 rocket plane, built by the Bell Aircraft Company to explore the possibility of supersonic flight.

For years, many aviators believed that man was not meant to fly faster than the speed of sound, theorizing that transonic drag rise would tear any aircraft apart. All that changed on October 14, 1947, when Yeager flew the X-1 over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude). The rocket plane, nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis,” was designed with thin, unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a .50-caliber bullet.

Because of the secrecy of the project, Bell and Yeager’s achievement was not announced until June 1948. Yeager continued to serve as a test pilot, and in 1953 he flew 1,650 miles per hour in an X-1A rocket plane. He retired from the U.S. Air Force in 1975 with the rank of brigadier general.

Posted in Anniversary, On This Day, Planes Trains and Automobiles

70th Anniversary of White Christmas

Posted on October 14, 2024 by James| Comments Off on 70th Anniversary of White Christmas
White Christmas
The film was released in theaters October 14, 1954.

White Christmas is a 1954 movie starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye that featured the songs of Irving Berlin, including the titular White Christmas.

Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

October 06, 1866: First U.S. train robbery

Posted on October 6, 2024 by James| Comments Off on October 06, 1866: First U.S. train robbery

On this day in 1866, the Reno gang carries out the first robbery of a moving train in the U.S., making off with over $10,000 from an Ohio & Mississippi train in Jackson County, Indiana. Prior to this innovation in crime, holdups had taken place only on trains sitting at stations or freight yards.

Posted in Anniversary, On This Day

Anniversary of Dr. No

Posted on October 5, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of Dr. No

On October 5, 1962, the 1st James Bond film, Dr. No, premiered in London (it would arrive in the US the 8th of May of 1963).

Dr. No poster

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Big Screen

The Andy Griffith show premiered

Posted on October 3, 2024 by James| Comments Off on The Andy Griffith show premiered

On October 3, 1960, The Andy Griffith Show premiered. It ran until April 1, 1968.

Posted in Anniversary, Humor, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

Good Morning, Captain (Kangaroo)

Posted on October 3, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Good Morning, Captain (Kangaroo)

Captain Kangaroo ran from October 3, 1955 – December 8, 1984.

From Wikipedia:

Captain Kangaroo was an American children’s television series that aired weekday mornings on the American television network CBS for 29 years, from 1955 to 1984, making it the longest-running nationally broadcast children’s television program of its day. In 1986, the American Program Service (now American Public Television, Boston) integrated some newly produced segments into reruns of past episodes, distributing the newer version of the series to PBS and independent public stations until 1993.

The show was conceived by Bob Keeshan, who also played the title character “Captain Kangaroo”, and who based the show on “the warm relationship between grandparents and children”. Keeshan had portrayed the original Clarabell the Clown on NBC’s The Howdy Doody Show during the network’s early years.

Captain Kangaroo had a loose structure, built around life in the “Treasure House” where the Captain (the name “kangaroo” came from the big pockets in his coat) would tell stories, meet guests, and indulge in silly stunts with regular characters, both humans and puppets. Keeshan performed as the Captain more than 9,000 times over the nearly 30-year run of the show.

Wikipedia Article

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, The Little Screen (Television)

Anniversary of The Flintstones

Posted on September 30, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of The Flintstones

The Flintstones was an animated American television sitcom that ran from September 30, 1960 to April 1, 1966 on ABC. Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, The Flintstones is about a working class Stone Age man’s life with his family and his next door neighbor and best friend. It has since been re-released on both DVD and VHS.

Critics and fans alike agree that the show was an animated imitation of The Honeymooners with rock puns thrown in. William Hanna admitted that “At that time “The Honeymooners” was the most popular show on the air, and for my bill, it was the funniest show on the air. The characters, I thought, were terrific. Now, that influenced greatly what we did with “The Flintstones”… “The Honeymooners” was there, and we used that as a kind of basis for the concept.” However Joseph Barbera disavowed these claims in a separate interview, stating that “I don’t remember mentioning “The Honeymooners” when I sold the show, but if people want to compare “The Flintstones” to “The Honeymooners,” then great. It’s a total compliment. “The Honeymooners” was one of the greatest shows ever written.” Its popularity rested heavily on its juxtaposition of modern-day concerns in the Stone Age setting.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

September 30, 1954: USS Nautilus commissioned

Posted on September 30, 2024 by James| Comments Off on September 30, 1954: USS Nautilus commissioned

The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine, is commissioned by the U.S. Navy.

The Nautilus was constructed under the direction of U.S. Navy Captain Hyman G. Rickover, a brilliant Russian-born engineer who joined the U.S. atomic program in 1946. In 1947, he was put in charge of the navy’s nuclear-propulsion program and began work on an atomic submarine. Regarded as a fanatic by his detractors, Rickover succeeded in developing and delivering the world’s first nuclear submarine years ahead of schedule. In 1952, theNautilus‘ keel was laid by President Harry S. Truman, and on January 21, 1954, first lady Mamie Eisenhower broke a bottle of champagne across its bow as it was launched into the Thames River at Groton, Connecticut. Commissioned on September 30, 1954, it first ran under nuclear power on the morning of January 17, 1955.

Posted in Anniversary, On This Day

Anniversary of the Camaro

Posted on September 29, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of the Camaro

On this day (September 29) in 1966, the Camaro went on sale for the 1967 model year.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Planes Trains and Automobiles

RIP Kris Kristofferson

Posted on September 28, 2024 by James| Comments Off on RIP Kris Kristofferson
Kris Kristofferson June 22, 1936 – September 28, 2024

Kristoffer Kristofferson was an American country music singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a pioneering figure in the outlaw country movement of the 1970s, moving away from the polished Nashville sound and toward a more raw, introspective style. He was a three-time Grammy Award winner, out of 13 total nominations.

He was 88.

Wikipedia Article

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Music, News, The Big Screen, The Little Screen (Television)

Abbey Road

Posted on September 26, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Abbey Road
Minecraft Abbey Road
Minecraft Abbey Road
Beatles Abbey Road
Beatles Abbey Road

Abbey Road is the eleventh studio album by the English rock band the Beatles, released on September 26, 1969 in the United Kingdom and on October 1, 1969 in the United States. The recording sessions for the album were the last in which all four Beatles participated. Although Let It Be was the final album that the Beatles completed before the band’s dissolution in April 1970, most of that album had been recorded before the Abbey Road sessions began.

Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Music

Anniversary of the first Android phone

Posted on September 23, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of the first Android phone

Released on September 23, 2008, the world’s first Android phone had one mission: to challenge the iPhone. And in that goal, it succeeded. It was chunky (17mm), had a low-resolution display (320×480), and didn’t have a virtual keyboard, thus forcing users to bang away on the tiny pop-out keyboard. It also utilized a quirky trackball and physical buttons for navigation. Still, T-Mobile sold more than a million G1s in its first six months of availability.

Read all about it over on PCWorld.

Posted in Anniversary, Gadgets

Anniversary of The Jetsons

Posted on September 23, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Anniversary of The Jetsons
Jetsons

On September 23, 1962, the Jetsons premiered on ABC.

The Jetsons is a prime-time animated American sitcom that was produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing from 1962–63 and again from 1985–87. It was Hanna-Barbera’s Space Age counterpart to The Flintstones, a half-hour family sitcom projecting contemporary American culture and lifestyle into another time period. While the Flintstones live in a world with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons live in a futuristic utopia in the year 2062 of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions.

The original incarnation of the series aired Sunday nights on ABC from September 23, 1962, to March 3, 1963. It comprised 24 episodes, and was re-run on Saturday morning for decades. At the time of its debut, it was the first program ever to be broadcast in color on ABC-TV (as The Flintstones, while always produced in color, was broadcast in black-and-white for its first two seasons). Its continuing popularity led to further episodes being produced for syndication between 1985 and 1987.

 Wikipedia Link

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, On This Day, The Little Screen (Television)

Happy Birthday, “The Hobbit”

Posted on September 21, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Happy Birthday, “The Hobbit”

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

The Hobbit is a novel written by J. R. R. Tolkien in the tradition of the fairy tale. It was first published on September 21, 1937. While it also stands in its own right, it is often seen as a prelude to Tolkien’s monumental fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings (published in 1954 and 1955).

The story, subtitled There and Back Again, follows the adventures of the hobbit Bilbo Baggins as he travels across the lands of Middle-earth with a band of dwarves and a wizard named Gandalf on a quest to restore a dwarven kingdom and a great treasure stolen by the dragon, Smaug.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Literary, On This Day

45th Anniversary of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

Posted on September 20, 2024 by James| Comments Off on 45th Anniversary of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century
The 45th Anniversary Of “Buck Rogers In The 25th Century! (1979-2024)

Thank you Gil Girard, Erin Gray, Felix Silla, and, of course, Mel Blanc.

Wikipedia Article

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, The Little Screen (Television)

Happy Birthday, Emoticon :-)

Posted on September 19, 2024 by James| Comments Off on Happy Birthday, Emoticon :-)
emoticon smile

An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word of the English words emotion and icon. In web forums, instant messengers and online games, text emoticons are often automatically replaced with small corresponding images, which came to be called emoticons as well. Certain complex character combinations can only be accomplished in a double-byte language, giving rise to especially complex forms, sometimes known by their romanized Japanese name of kaomoji.

The use of emoticons can be traced back to the 19th century, and they were commonly used in casual and/or humorous writing. Digital forms of emoticons on the Internet were included in a proposal by Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a message on September 19, 1982.

Posted in Anniversary, Because I Can, Humor, Literary, On This Day