Today is September 23 2014

Better Breakfast Month: More

• Checkers Day: More
  Not the game, but the dog.
  Dogs in Politics Day: More
• National Voter Registration Day: More
  Fourth Tuesday in September
• Restless Legs Awareness Day: More

• In 1909, The novel 'The Phantom of the Opera', by Gaston Leroux, is first published.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Phantom of the Opera (French: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra) is a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux. It was first published as a serialisation in Le Gaulois from September 23, 1909, to January 8, 1910. It was published in volume form in late March 1910 by Pierre Lafitte. The novel is partly inspired by historical events at the Paris Opera during the nineteenth century and an apocryphal tale concerning the use of a former ballet pupil's skeleton in Carl Maria von Weber's 1841 production of Der Freischütz. It has been successfully adapted into various stage and film adaptations, most notable of which are the 1925 film depiction featuring Lon Chaney and Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1986 musical.
  
  Opera singer Christine triumphs at the gala on the night of the old managers' retirement. Her old childhood friend, Raoul, hears her sing and recalls his love for Christine. At this time, there are rumors of a phantom living at the Opera and he makes himself known to the managers through letters and malevolent acts. Some time after the gala, the Paris Opera performs Faust, with the prima donna Carlotta playing the lead, against the Phantom's wishes. During the performance, Carlotta loses her voice and the grand chandelier plummets into the audience.
  
  Christine is kidnapped by the phantom and is taken to his home in the cellars of the Opera where he identifies himself as Erik. He plans to keep her there for a few days, hoping she will come to love him. But she causes Erik to change his plans when she unmasks him and, to the horror of both, beholds his noseless, lipless, sunken-eyed face which resembles a skull dried up by the centuries, covered in yellowed dead flesh. Fearing that she will leave him, he decides to keep her with him forever, but when Christine requests release after two weeks, he agrees on condition that she wear his ring and be faithful to him.
  
  On the roof of the opera house, Christine tells Raoul that Erik abducted her. Raoul promises to take Christine away to a place where Erik can never find her. Raoul tells Christine he shall act on his promise the next day, to which Christine agrees. She, however, has pity for Erik and will not go until she has sung a song for him one last time. Neither is aware that Erik has been listening to their conversation and that he has become extremely jealous.
  
  The following night, Erik kidnaps Christine during a production of Faust and tries to force Christine to marry him. He states that if she refuses, he will use explosives (which he has planted in the cellars) to destroy the entire opera house. Christine refuses, until she realizes that Erik learned of Raoul's attempt to rescue her and has trapped Raoul in a hot torture chamber (along with the Persian, an old acquaintance of Erik who was going to help Raoul). To save them and the people above in the Opera, Christine agrees to marry Erik. Erik initially tries to drown Raoul and the Persian, using the water which would have been used to douse the explosives. But Christine begs and offers to be his "living bride", promising him not to kill herself after becoming his bride, as she had both contemplated and attempted earlier in the novel. Erik eventually rescues Raoul and the Persian from his torture chamber. When Erik is alone with Christine, he lifts his mask to kiss her on her forehead, and is given a kiss back. Erik reveals that he has never received a kiss (not even from his own mother) nor has been allowed to give one and is overcome with emotion. He and Christine then cry together and their tears "mingle". Erik later expresses that he has never felt so close to another human being.
  
  Erik allows the Persian and Raoul to escape, though not before making Christine promise that she will visit him on his death day, and return the gold ring he gave her. He also makes the Persian promise that afterwards he will go to the newspaper and report his death, as he will die soon and will die "of love". Indeed, some time later Christine returns to Erik's lair, buries him somewhere he'll never be found (by Erik's request) and returns the gold ring. Afterwards, a local newspaper runs the simple note: "Erik is dead"'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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• In 1846, Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.
  From Wikipedia: 'Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun in the Solar System. In the Solar System, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times the mass of Earth and slightly larger than Neptune. Neptune orbits the Sun once every 164.8 years at an average distance of 30.1 astronomical units (4.50×109 km). It is named after the Roman god of the sea and has the astronomical symbol, a stylised version of the god Neptune's trident.
  
  Some of the earliest recorded observations ever made through a telescope, Galileo's drawings on 28 December 1612 and 27 January 1613, contain plotted points that match up with what is now known to be the position of Neptune. On both occasions, Galileo seems to have mistaken Neptune for a fixed star when it appeared close—in conjunction—to Jupiter in the night sky; hence, he is not credited with Neptune's discovery. At his first observation in December 1612, Neptune was almost stationary in the sky because it had just turned retrograde that day. This apparent backward motion is created when Earth's orbit takes it past an outer planet. Because Neptune was only beginning its yearly retrograde cycle, the motion of the planet was far too slight to be detected with Galileo's small telescope. In July 2009, University of Melbourne physicist David Jamieson announced new evidence suggesting that Galileo was at least aware that the 'star' he had observed had moved relative to the fixed stars.
  
  In 1821, Alexis Bouvard published astronomical tables of the orbit of Neptune's neighbour Uranus. Subsequent observations revealed substantial deviations from the tables, leading Bouvard to hypothesise that an unknown body was perturbing the orbit through gravitational interaction. In 1843, John Couch Adams began work on the orbit of Uranus using the data he had. Via Cambridge Observatory director James Challis, he requested extra data from Sir George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, who supplied it in February 1844. Adams continued to work in 1845–46 and produced several different estimates of a new planet.
  
  In 1845–46, Urbain Le Verrier, independently of Adams, developed his own calculations but aroused no enthusiasm in his compatriots. In June 1846, upon seeing Le Verrier's first published estimate of the planet's longitude and its similarity to Adams's estimate, Airy persuaded Challis to search for the planet. Challis vainly scoured the sky throughout August and September.
  
  Meanwhile, Le Verrier by letter urged Berlin Observatory astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle to search with the observatory's refractor. Heinrich d'Arrest, a student at the observatory, suggested to Galle that they could compare a recently drawn chart of the sky in the region of Le Verrier's predicted location with the current sky to seek the displacement characteristic of a planet, as opposed to a fixed star. On the evening of 23 September 1846, the day Galle received the letter, he discovered Neptune within 1° of where Le Verrier had predicted it to be, about 12° from Adams' prediction. Challis later realised that he had observed the planet twice, on 4 and 12 August, but did not recognise it as a planet because he lacked an up-to-date star map and was distracted by his concurrent work on comet observations.
  
  In the wake of the discovery, there was much nationalistic rivalry between the French and the British over who deserved credit for the discovery. Eventually, an international consensus emerged that both Le Verrier and Adams jointly deserved credit. Since 1966, Dennis Rawlins has questioned the credibility of Adams's claim to co-discovery, and the issue was re-evaluated by historians with the return in 1998 of the "Neptune papers" (historical documents) to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. After reviewing the documents, they suggest that "Adams does not deserve equal credit with Le Verrier for the discovery of Neptune. That credit belongs only to the person who succeeded both in predicting the planet's place and in convincing astronomers to search for it"'.
  - At Wikipedia: More
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• In 1952, Richard Nixon gives his famous 'Checkers speech'.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Checkers speech or Fund speech was an address made on September 23, 1952, by the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States, California Senator Richard Nixon. Nixon had been accused of improprieties relating to a fund established by his backers to reimburse him for his political expenses. With his place on the Republican ticket in doubt, he flew to Los Angeles and delivered a half-hour television address in which he defended himself, attacked his opponents, and urged the audience to contact the Republican National Committee (RNC) to tell it whether he should remain on the ticket. During the speech, he stated that regardless of what anyone said, he intended to keep one gift: a black-and-white dog who had been named Checkers by the Nixon children, thus giving the address its popular name.
  
  Nixon, as he related in his address, came from a family of moderate means, and had spent much of his time after law school either in the military, campaigning for office, or serving in Congress. After his successful 1950 Senate campaign, Nixon's backers continued to raise money to finance his political activities. These contributions went to reimburse him for travel costs, postage for political mailings which he did not have franked, and similar expenses. Such a fund was not illegal at the time, but as Nixon had made a point of attacking government corruption, it exposed him to charges he might be giving special favors to the contributors.
  
  The press became aware of the fund in September 1952, two months after Nixon's selection as General Dwight D. Eisenhower's running mate. Within a few days, the story grew until the controversy threatened Nixon's place on the ticket. In an attempt to turn the tide of public opinion, Nixon broke off a whistle-stop tour of the West Coast to fly to Los Angeles to make a television and radio broadcast to the nation; the $75,000 to buy the television time was raised by the RNC. The idea for the Checkers reference came from Franklin Roosevelt's Fala speech—given eight years to the day before Nixon's address—in which Roosevelt mocked Republican claims that he had sent a destroyer to fetch his dog, Fala, when the dog was supposedly left behind in the Aleutian Islands.
  
  Nixon's speech was seen or heard by about 60 million Americans, including the largest television audience to that time, and led to an outpouring of public support. A huge majority of the millions of telegrams and phone calls received by the RNC and other political offices supported Nixon. He was retained on the ticket, which then swept to victory weeks later in November 1952. The Checkers speech was an early example of a politician using television to appeal directly to the electorate, but has since sometimes been mocked or denigrated. Checkers speech has come more generally to mean any emotional speech by a politician'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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• In The TV series Circus Boy (original release) is released. It starred future Monkey, Micky Dolenz.
  From Wikipedia: 'Circus Boy is an American action/adventure/drama series that aired in prime time on NBC, and then on ABC, from 1956 to 1958. It was then rerun by NBC on Saturday mornings, from 1958 to 1960.
  
  Set in the late 1890s, the title of the series refers to a boy named Corky. After his parents, "The Flying Falcons," were killed in a trapeze accident, young Corky (Micky Dolenz – billed at the time as Mickey Braddock) was adopted by Joey the Clown (Noah Beery, Jr.), and the whole Burke and Walsh Circus family.
  
  The young boy quickly found a role with the circus as water boy to Bimbo, a baby elephant whom Corky would come to consider his pet. Riding Bimbo's back, Corky dealt with adolescent problems, and helped the show's adults including Joey, owner/promoter Big Tim Champion (Robert Lowery). and head canvasman Pete (Guinn Williams), keep the circus successful as the traveling show moved from town to town each week.
  
  Outside of an elephant being the animal companion, the series was similar to popular "boy and his dog" shows of the time, such as Lassie/Jeff's Collie, and The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin'.
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• In 1957,The song, That'll Be the Day, by Buddy Holly and the Crickets reaches #1.
  From Wikipedia: '"That'll Be the Day" is a song written by Buddy Holly and Jerry Allison. It was first recorded by Buddy Holly and the Three Tunes in 1956 and was re-recorded in 1957 by Holly and his new band, the Crickets. The 1957 recording achieved widespread success. Holly's producer, Norman Petty, was credited as a co-writer, although he did not contribute to the composition.
  
  Cover versions have been recorded by various artists. It was the first song recorded (as a demonstration disc) by the Quarrymen, the skiffle group that evolved into the Beatles.
  
  The 1957 recording was certified gold (for over a million US sales) by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 1969. It was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998. It was placed in the National Recording Registry, a list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States", in 2005'.
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• In 1962, The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts opens in New York City.
  From Wikipedia: 'Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a 16.3-acre (6.6-hectare) complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It hosts many notable performing arts organizations, which are nationally and internationally renowned, including the New York Philharmonic, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York City Ballet.
  
  A consortium of civic leaders and others led by, and under the initiative of, John D. Rockefeller III built Lincoln Center as part of the "Lincoln Square Renewal Project" during Robert Moses's program of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. Respected architects were contracted to design the major buildings on the site, and over the next thirty years the previously blighted area around Lincoln Center became a new cultural hub'.
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• In 1962, The comedy TV cartoon 'The Jetsons' premieres on ABC-TV. It was the first color TV show on ABC, It ran for 3 seasons and 75 ep. from September 23, 1962 - March 17, 1965. It was revived in 1985.
  From Wikipedia: 'The Jetsons is an American animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera, originally airing in primetime from September 23, 1962, to March 17, 1963, then later in syndication, with new episodes in 1985 to 1987 as part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera block. It was Hanna-Barbera's Space Age counterpart to The Flintstones. George O'Hanlon, provided the voice of George Jetson
  
  While the Flintstones live in a world with machines powered by birds and dinosaurs, the Jetsons live in a futuristic utopia of elaborate robotic contraptions, aliens, holograms, and whimsical inventions; The original series comprised 24 episodes and aired on Sunday nights on ABC beginning September 23, 1962, with primetime reruns continuing through September 22, 1963. It debuted as the first program broadcast in color on ABC-TV. (Only a handful of ABC-TV stations were capable of broadcasting in color in the early 1960s.) In contrast, The Flintstones, while always produced in color, was broadcast in black-and-white for its first two seasons.
  
  Following its primetime run, the show aired on Saturday mornings for decades, starting on ABC for the 1963–64 season and then on CBS and NBC. New episodes were produced for syndication from 1985 to 1987. No further specials or episodes of the show were produced after 1989 due to the deaths of stars George O'Hanlon and Mel Blanc. The 1990 film Jetsons: The Movie serves as the series finale to the television show'.
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• In 1969, The first broadcast of 'Marcus Welby MD' is on ABC-TV. It ran for 7 seasons for 169 ep. from September 23, 1969 – July 29, 197.
  From Wikipedia: 'Marcus Welby, M.D. was an American medical drama television program that aired Tuesdays at 10:00-11:00 PM (EST) on ABC from September 23, 1969 to July 29, 1976. It starred Robert Young as the title character, a family practitioner with a kind bedside manner, was on a first name basis with many of his patients, (and, who also made house-calls), James Brolin, as "Steve Kiley, M.D," a younger doctor who played his partner, and Elena Verdugo, who played Welby and Kiley's dedicated and loving nurse, and office manager, "Consuelo Lopez." "Marcus Welby, M.D.," was produced by David Victor and David J. O'Connell. The pilot, A Matter of Humanities, had aired as an ABC Movie of the Week on March 26, 1969'.
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• In 1986, Congress selects the rose as US national flower.
  From Wikipedia: 'In a number of countries, plants have been chosen as symbols to represent specific geographic areas. Some countries have a country-wide floral emblem; others in addition have symbols representing subdivisions. Different processes have been used to adopt these symbols – some are conferred by government bodies, whereas others are the result of informal public polls. The term floral emblem, which refers to flowers specifically, is primarily used in Australia and Canada. In the United States, the term state flower is more often used.
  
  United States: In 1986 President Ronald Reagan signed legislation to make the rose the floral emblem of the United States. In the United States, state flowers and trees have been adopted as symbols by state legislatures'.
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• In 1992, Manon Rheaume became the first female to play in the NHL.
  From Wikipedia: 'Manon Rhéaume (born February 24, 1972) is a former Canadian ice hockey goaltender. An Olympic silver medalist, she achieved a number of historic firsts during her career.
  
  In 1992 Rhéaume signed a contract with the Tampa Bay Lightning of the NHL, appearing in preseason exhibition games in 1992 and 1993. She spent five years in professional minor leagues, playing for a total of seven teams and appearing in 24 games. She also played on the Canada women's national ice hockey team, winning Gold Medals at the IIHF Women's World Championship in 1992 and 1994, and the Silver Medal at the 1998 Winter Olympics'.
  - At FamousDaily: More
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• In 2002, The first public version of the web browser Mozilla 'Firefox' ('Phoenix 0.1') is released.
  From Wikipedia: 'Mozilla Firefox (or simply Firefox) is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox is available for Windows, OS X and Linux operating systems, with its mobile versions available for Android, and Firefox OS; where all of these versions use the Gecko layout engine to render web pages, which implements current and anticipated web standards. An additional version, Firefox for iOS, was released in late 2015, but this version doesn't use Gecko due to Apple's restrictions limiting third-party web browsers to the WebKit-based layout engine built into iOS.
  
  Firefox was created in 2002, under the name "Phoenix" by the Mozilla community members who wanted a standalone browser rather than the Mozilla Application Suite bundle. Even during its beta phase, Firefox proved to be popular with its testers and was praised for its speed, security and add-ons compared to Microsoft's then-dominant Internet Explorer 6. Firefox was released in November 2004, and was highly successful with 60 million downloads within nine months, which was the first time that Internet Explorer's dominance was challenged. Firefox is considered the spiritual successor of Netscape Navigator, as the Mozilla community was created by Netscape in 1998 before their acquisition by AOL.
  
  Firefox usage grew to a peak of 32% at the end of 2009, temporarily making version 3.5 the world's most popular browser. Usage then declined in competition with Chrome: As of January 2016, Firefox has between 9% and 16% of worldwide usage as a "desktop" browser, making it the second most popular web browser. Firefox is still the most popular browser in Cuba, Eritrea and Germany, with 85.93% and 79.39% and 38.36%, of the market share, respectively. It is also the most popular desktop browser in many other African countries. According to Mozilla, as of December 2014 there were half a billion Firefox users around the world. With Internet Explorer declining, Firefox reached second place in February 2016, as a desktop browser'.
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After gorging today for 'White Chocolate Day', it is time to come back to the reality of calories and nutrition. I cannot find a specific food holiday for tomorrow, but it will be 'Better Breakfast Month'. So, hide the bacon and get out them oats.

Tomorrow we celebrate the high art of fooling some of the people some of the time. Tomorrow will be 'Checkers Day' (AKA: 'Dogs in Politics Day'). We are not talking about the game. Checkers is a puppy. In 1952 President Nixon gave a speech to try and dispell the increasig concern some had over his improper use of campaign funds. He stated that he had not misused funds and gifts, but did state that he would keep a little puppy, given as a gift, that his childred named Checkers. All was forgiven.

Tomorrow, being the fourth Tuesday in September, it will be 'National Voter Registration Day'.

Tomorrow will also be 'Restless Legs Awareness Day'.

A long, long time ago, lets say September 23 in the past, things look like this:

In 1846, Three astronomers collaborate on the discovery of Neptune.

In 1889 – Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) is founded. No, not a date typo. Their first product was a card game.

In 1909, The Novel 'The Phantom of the Opera' was published as a serial in a periodical. It was not a big hit, as it would later be, in film and live production.

No. 1 song

• The House of the Rising Sun - The Animals: More
  'Where Did Our Love Go' has been displaced by 'The House of the Rising Sun', which will hold the no. 1 spot until September 26 2014, when 'Oh, Pretty Woman', takes over.

Top movie

• Mary Poppins More
  Having displaced 'A Hard Day's Night', it will be there until the weekend box office of October 4 1964 when, 'Cheyenne Autumn', takes over.

• FamousBirthdays.com: September 23 Birthdays More
• FamousDaily.com: September 23 History More
• History.com: Historical Events on 23rd September More
• HistoryOrb.com: Famous Deaths on 23rd September More
• On-This-day.com history 23rd September More
• On-This-day.com music history 23rd September More
• Wikipedia.com: History September 23 More

Baby Safety Month, Better Breakfast Month, Classical Music Month, Fall Hat Month, Hispanic Heritage Month, International Square Dancing Monthk Little League Month, National Biscuit Month, National Blueberry Popsicle Month, National Chicken Month, National Cholesterol Education Month, National Courtesy Month, National Honey Month, National Mushroom Month, National Organic Harvest Month, National Papaya Month, National Piano Month, National Potato Month, National Rice Month, Self Improvement Month

September is:

September origin (from Wikipedia): Originally September (Latin septem, "seven") was the seventh of ten months on the oldest known Roman calendar.
September in the Northern Hemisphere is the seasonal equivalent of March in the Southern Hemisphere.
After the calendar reform that added January and February to the beginning of the year, September became the ninth month, but retained its name. It had 29 days until the Julian reform, which added a day.

September at Wikipedia: More

If you couldn't afford 90 cents for a movie ticket, 50 years ago, or your 45 RPM record player was broke, you might watch one of these shows on TV.
From this Wikipedia article: More

Best selling books of 1964 More

• Astronomy Picture of the Day: More
• NOAA: - National Hurricane Center - Atlantic Graphical Tropical Weather Outlook: More
• Listen to Old Radio Shows: (streaming mp3 with schedule) More
• NASA TV: (video feed) More
  NASA TV schedule: More
• Public Domain eBook Links

  Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More

• Podcast: A Moment of Science. Approximately 1 minute general science facts.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: The Naked Scientists. Current science, medicine, space and other science
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Podcast: Quirks & Quarks. Current science news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Articles and videos: Universe Today. Current space and astronomy news.
  Home page: More
  RSS: More
• Old Picture of the Day - "Each day we bring you one stunning little glimpse of history in the form of a historical photograph."
  Home page: More
  RSS: More

Below, are listed several holiday sites that I reference in addition to other holiday researches.

US Government Holidays

• 2014 Postal Holidays More
• 2014 Official Federal Holidays More

Holidays Worldwide

• List of holidays by country More
• Holidays and Observances around the World More