19 September 2018
Interesting tidbits:
1692 – Giles Corey was pressed to death after refusing to plead in the Salem witch trials. Corey's resistance has since become a symbol of resistance to unjust authority to many individuals and groups.
1879 – The Blackpool Illuminations were switched on for the first time. Blackpool Illuminations is an annual Lights Festival held each autumn in the English seaside resort of Blackpool in Lancashire.
1946 – The first Cannes Film Festival was held, having been delayed seven years due to World War II.
1959 – Nikita Khrushchev was barred from visiting Disneyland due to security concerns.
1976 – Two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jets flew out to investigate an unidentified flying object when both independently lost instrumentation and communications as they approached, only to have them restored upon withdrawal.
1982 – Scott Fahlman posted the first documented emoticons :-) and :-( on the Carnegie Mellon University Bulletin Board System. Fahlman is credited with originating the first smiley emoticon, which he thought would help people on a message board at Carnegie Mellon to distinguish serious posts from jokes. He proposed the use of :-) and :-( for this purpose, and the symbols caught on.
1991 – Ötzi the Iceman was discovered by German tourists. Ötzi is a well-preserved natural mummy of a man who lived about 3,300 BC. The mummy was found in September 1991 in the Ötztal Alps, hence Ötzi, near the Similaun mountain and Hauslabjoch on the border between Austria and Italy. He is Europe's oldest natural human mummy, and has offered an unprecedented view of Chalcolithic Europeans.
Today's birthday crew:
1799 – René Caillié, French explorer, the first European to return alive from Timbuktu.
1883 – Mabel Vernon, American suffragist.
1888 – Porter Hall, American actor (Miracle on 34th St).
1911 – William Golding, English author, poet, and playwright, Nobel Prize laureate.
1913 – Frances Farmer, American actress.
1922 – Damon Knight, American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre. To the general public, he is best known as the author of "To Serve Man", a 1950 short story that was adapted for The Twilight Zone. Knight is also known for the term "idiot plot", a story that only functions because almost everyone in it is an idiot; the term was probably invented by James Blish, but became well-known through Knight's frequent use of it in his reviews.
1926 – James Lipton, American actor, producer, and author.
1928 – Adam West, American actor best known for his lead role in the Batman TV series and the 1966 Batman film. He is currently known for portraying eccentric or psychotically delusional characters, as well as his voice work on animated series such as The Fairly OddParents and Family Guy, in both of which he voices a fictional version of himself.
1933 – David McCallum, Scottish actor and singer best known for his roles as Illya Kuryakin, a Russian-born secret agent, in the 1960s television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and for his role as Medical Examiner, Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard in the series NCIS.
1934 – Brian Epstein, English talent manager.
1940 – Caroline John, English actress best known for her role as Liz Shaw in Doctor Who. John played the role of the Doctor's companion in 1970 opposite Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor.
1940 – Bill Medley, American singer-songwriter (The Righteous Brothers).
1940 – Sylvia Tyson, Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist (Quartette, Ian & Sylvia, and Great Speckled Bird).
1974 – Jimmy Fallon, American comedian, actor, singer, and guitarist.
Happy birthday guys!