This day in history

[sreeja]

Re: This day in history

I heard abot june 26 is
1906: First Grand Prix held at Le Mans
1975: Indira Gandhi convicted of election fraud
1990: Europe begins to study ways into financially helping the USSR







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بنات -
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03-01-2008

[b etor]

1877- Crazy Horse fights last battle

[Zkribbler]

Columbus discovers mermaids.

[b]
January 9, 1493
Columbus mistakes manatees for mermaids[/b/

On this day in 1493, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, sailing near the Dominican Republic, sees three "mermaids"--in reality manatees--and describes them as "not half as beautiful as they are painted." Six months earlier, Columbus (1451-1506) set off from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean with the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, hoping to find a western trade route to Asia. Instead, his voyage, the first of four he would make, led him to the Americas, or "New World."

Mermaids, mythical half-female, half-fish creatures, have existed in seafaring cultures at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. Typically depicted as having a woman's head and torso, a fishtail instead of legs and holding a mirror and comb, mermaids live in the ocean and, according to some legends, can take on a human shape and marry mortal men. Mermaids are closely linked to sirens, another folkloric figure, part-woman, part-bird, who live on islands and sing seductive songs to lure sailors to their deaths.

Mermaid sightings by sailors, when they weren't made up, were most likely manatees, dugongs or Steller's sea cows (which became extinct by the 1760s due to over-hunting). Manatees are slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, bulbous faces and paddle-like tails. It is likely that manatees evolved from an ancestor they share with the elephant. The three species of manatee (West Indian, West African and Amazonian) and one species of dugong belong to the Sirenia order. As adults, they're typically 10 to 12 feet long and weigh 800 to 1,200 pounds. They're plant-eaters, have a slow metabolism and can only survive in warm water.

Manatees live an average of 50 to 60 years in the wild and have no natural predators. However, they are an endangered species. In the U.S., the majority of manatees are found in Florida, where scores of them die or are injured each year due to collisions with boats.

[Lord Avalon]

Been a few days...

Jan 15, 1967 - Green Bay Packers beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the first Super Bowl.

1559 - Elizabeth crowned Queen of England.

1909 - Motorized hearse used for first time.

1929 - Martin Luther King, Jr born.

1981 - Cop show "Hill Street Blues" begins its 6-yr run.

1919 - Molasses floods Boston streets

Fiery hot molasses floods the streets of Boston on this day in 1919, killing 21 people and injuring scores of others. The molasses burst from a huge tank at the United States Industrial Alcohol Company building in the heart of the city.

The United States Industrial Alcohol building was located on Commercial Street near North End Park in Boston. It was close to lunch time on January 15 and Boston was experiencing some unseasonably warm weather as workers were loading freight-train cars within the large building. Next to the workers was a 58-foot-high tank filled with 2.5 million gallons of crude molasses.

Suddenly, the bolts holding the bottom of the tank exploded, shooting out like bullets, and the hot molasses rushed out. An eight-foot-high wave of molasses swept away the freight cars and caved in the building’s doors and windows. The few workers in the building’s cellar had no chance as the liquid poured down and overwhelmed them.

The huge quantity of molasses then flowed into the street outside. It literally knocked over the local firehouse and then pushed over the support beams for the elevated train line. The hot and sticky substance then drowned and burned five workers at the Public Works Department. In all, 21 people and dozens of horses were killed in the flood. It took weeks to clean the molasses from the streets of Boston.

This disaster also produced an epic court battle, as more than 100 lawsuits were filed against the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. After a six-investigation that involved 3,000 witnesses and 45,000 pages of testimony, a special auditor finally determined that the company was at fault because the tank used had not been strong enough to hold the molasses. Nearly $1 million was paid in settlement of the claims.

[Zkribbler]

Being molassed to death would be a silly way to go.

[OzzyKP]

Death is never something to laugh at.

But if it were, the great molasses flood of 1919 would surely warrant it.

[Lord Avalon]

January 16, 1919

Prohibition takes effect

The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, prohibiting the "manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors for beverage purposes," is ratified on this day in 1919 and becomes the law of the land.

The movement for the prohibition of alcohol began in the early 19th century, when Americans concerned about the adverse effects of drinking began forming temperance societies. By the late 19th century, these groups had become a powerful political force, campaigning on the state level and calling for total national abstinence. In December 1917, the 18th Amendment, also known as the Prohibition Amendment, was passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification.

Prohibition took effect in January 1919. Nine months later, Congress passed the Volstead Act, or National Prohibition Act, over President Woodrow Wilson's veto. The Volstead Act provided for the enforcement of prohibition, including the creation of a special unit of the Treasury Department. Despite a vigorous effort by law-enforcement agencies, the Volstead Act failed to prevent the large-scale distribution of alcoholic beverages, and organized crime flourished in America. In 1933, the 21st Amendment to the Constitution was passed and ratified, repealing prohibition.

1953 - Corvette introduced in New York

1979 - Shah flees Iran

1991 - Persian Gulf War begins

[Lord Avalon]

Jan 18

1778 - Cook "discovers" Hawaii

1803 - Jefferson requests funds for Lewis & Clark expedition

1912 - Scott reaches South Pole, sees sign saying "Amundsen was here"

1919 - Post WWI peace talks begin in Paris; Bentley Motors established in London

1974 - The Six Million Dollar Man debuts.

Steve Austin, astronaut. A man barely alive.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin will be that man. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.

1990 - Washington DC mayor Marion Barry arrested on drug charges

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by Lord Avalon
1912 - Scott reaches South Pole, sees sign saying "Amundsen was here"

[Zkribbler]

WW III missed by "that much"

January 25, 1995
Near launching of Russian nukes

Russia's early-warning defense radar detects an unexpected missile launch near Norway, and Russian military command estimates the missile to be only minutes from impact on Moscow. Moments later, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, his defense minister, and his chief of staff were informed of the missile launch. The nuclear command systems switched to combat mode, and the nuclear suitcases carried by Yeltsin and his top commander were activated for the first time in the history of the Soviet-made weapons system. Five minutes after the launch detection, Russian command determined that the missile's impact point would be outside Russia's borders. Three more minutes passed, and Yeltsin was informed that the launching was likely not part of a surprise nuclear strike by Western nuclear submarines.

These conclusions came minutes before Yeltsin and his commanders should have ordered a nuclear response based on standard launch on warning protocols. Later, it was revealed that the missile, launched from Spitzbergen, Norway, was actually carrying instruments for scientific measurements. Nine days before, Norway had notified 35 countries, including Russia, of the exact details of the planned launch. The Russian Defense Ministry had received Norway's announcement but had neglected to inform the on-duty personnel at the early-warning center of the imminent launch. The event raised serious concerns about the quality of the former Soviet Union's nuclear systems.

[Zkribbler]

January 28, 1986
Challenger explodes

At 11:38 a.m. EST, on January 28, 1986, the space shuttle Challenger lifts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, and Christa McAuliffe is on her way to becoming the first ordinary U.S. civilian to travel into space. McAuliffe, a 37-year-old high school social studies teacher from New Hampshire, won a competition that earned her a place among the seven-member crew of the Challenger. She underwent months of shuttle training but then, beginning January 23, was forced to wait six long days as the Challenger's launch countdown was repeatedly delayed because of weather and technical problems. Finally, on January 28, the shuttle lifted off.

Seventy-three seconds later, hundreds on the ground, including Christa's family, stared in disbelief as the shuttle exploded in a forking plume of smoke and fire. Millions more watched the wrenching tragedy unfold on live television. There were no survivors.

[Zkribbler]

United Artist is Born.

February 5, 1919
Chaplin, Pickford, Fairbanks and Griffith launch United Artists

On this day in 1919, Hollywood superstars Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and director D.W. Griffith launch the United Artists Corporation, agreeing to share full financial and artistic control. The leading film artists of their era, the partners established the company seeking complete creative freedom in their work. United Artists was the first studio to be controlled by artists, not businessmen.

The company, which produced and distributed films, quickly gained prestige and raked in profits during the silent-film era, releasing films featuring Buster Keaton, Rudolph Valentino, and Gloria Swanson, as well as the company's three famous founders. Chaplin directed as well as acted, and Pickford, a brilliant and shrewd businesswoman, concentrated on producing after she retired from acting in the 1930s.

Significant stockholders Samuel Goldwyn and Alexander Korda pulled out of United Artists in the early 1940s, and the company began to struggle financially, partly because it lacked its own studio. In the 1950s and '60s, however, location shooting became popular, and the company's lack of a shooting studio became an advantage, keeping overhead low.

By the mid-1950s, the original partners had sold their shares of the company, but United Artists continued to thrive, releasing such films as The African Queen (1951), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Some Like It Hot (1959), and the James Bond films. United Artists went public in 1957 and became a subsidiary of the TransAmerica Corporation a decade later. It garnered three consecutive Best Picture Academy Awards in the 1970s, for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Rocky (1976), and Annie Hall (1977). But soon after that, five top executives left the company in a disagreement over the formation of Orion Pictures, and the company took a further blow when it released the big-budget box office flop Heaven's Gate in 1980. In 1981, MGM bought the company, merging with it in 1983 to become MGM/UA Entertainment. In 1992, the French bank Credit Lyonnais acquired the company and changed its name back to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., abandoning the United Artists name altogether.

[b etor]

1875: First indoor game of ice hockey

[Zkribbler]

March 3, 1915
Birth of a Nation opens in New York

Director D.W. Griffith's controversial Civil War epic The Birth of a Nation opens in New York City, a few weeks after its West Coast premiere in Los Angeles. A 40-piece orchestra accompanied the silent film. The movie, at 2 hours and 40 minutes, was unusually long for its day and used revolutionary filmmaking techniques, including editing, multiple camera angles, and close-ups. However, the film, originally entitled The Clansman, was denounced by the NAACP for its negative portrayal of African Americans.

Griffith's pioneering techniques made him one of the most important figures in early film. The son of a Mexican War soldier, Griffith was born in Kentucky in 1875 and grew up in poverty. He became interested in theater, joining Louisville's Meffert Stock Company as a teen and later touring on his own, but found little financial success.

Griffith turned to writing in the early 1900s, penning short stories, poems, and plays. After writing several stories for movie studio Biograph, Griffith became increasingly involved with the studio, eventually producing and directing as well as writing. Realizing that film acting required a different set of skills than stage acting, Griffith assembled a company of young, talented actors and rigorously trained them in a new, subtler performing style that lured huge audiences to showings of his films. His players included such future stars as Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish. In 1910, he brought his troupe to Los Angeles to take advantage of the sunny climate and varied scenery. In 1911, Griffith directed a two-reel film, Enoch Arden; directors had assumed that a two-reel film would exhaust the attention span of an American audience but the film was well-received. When he left Biograph after making more than 450 short films, he began working on The Birth of a Nation, released in 1915.

His next picture, Intolerance (1916), took two years to make and featured a complex, interwoven plot examining racism, prejudice, and injustice throughout history. He used much of his own money to finance the $2.5 million film, and its failure ruined him financially. His career foundered for several years after that.

In 1919, he co-founded United Artists with Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, and Charles Chaplin. In 1935, Griffith won an honorary Oscar for his "lasting contributions to the progress of the motion picture arts." Griffith died in 1948 at the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. Today, the highest honor bestowed by the Directors Guild of America is the D.W. Griffith Award.

This is the film that launched Louis B. Meyer into the big time. His small theater chain obtained the exclusive right to show "Birth of a Nation" in New York. He made a fortune off of it.

[BeBMan]

70 yrs ago, "Anschluss" of Austria