<> Tomorrow's food holidays(s):
* 'National Julienne Fries Day'. . Thin fries, sometimes called shoestring
fries.
- From Wikipedia (Julienning):
'Julienne, or allumette, is a culinary knife cut in which the food item is
cut into long thin strips, similar to matchsticks. Common items to be
julienned are carrots for carrots julienne, celery for céléris remoulade or
potatoes for Julienne Fries.
Trim the ends of the vegetable and the edges to make four straight sides.
This makes it easier to produce a uniform cut. Trimmings can be used for
stocks, soups, purees, etc. The measurement for julienne is 1 to 2 in (3 mm
x 3 mm x 3 to 5 cm). Julienne usually applies to vegetables prepared in
this way but it can also be applied to the preparation of meat or fish,
especially in stir fry techniques. Once julienned, turning the subject 90
degrees and dicing finely (in or 3 mm) will produce brunoise (3 x 3 x 3 mm).
The first known use of the term in print is in François Massialot's Le
Cuisinier Royal et Bourgeois (1722 edition). The origin of the term is
uncertain, but may derive from the proper name Jules or Julien.
The J. R. Simplot Company is credited with successfully commercializing
French fries in frozen form during the 1940s. Subsequently, in 1967, Ray
Kroc of McDonald's contracted the Simplot company to supply them with
frozen fries, replacing fresh-cut potatoes.
In 2004, 29% of the United States' potato crop were used to make frozen
fries – 90% consumed by the food services sector and 10% by retail.
Although French fries were already a popular dish in most British
commonwealth countries, the thin style of French fries has been popularized
worldwide in part by the large American fast-food chains, such as
McDonald's, Burger King, and Wendy's.
French fries contain primarily carbohydrates from the potato (mostly in the
form of starch) and fat absorbed during the deep-frying process. For
example: a large serving of French fries at McDonald's in the United States
is (154 grams) nearly all of the 500 calories per serving derive from the
63 g of carbohydrates and the 25 g of fat a serving also contains 6 g of
protein, plus 350 mg of sodium'.
- From Wikipedia (French fries):
French fries (American English), chips (British English), fries, finger
chips (Indian English), or French-fried potatoes are batonnet or allumette
cut potato that are deep-fried. In the United States and most of Canada,
the term fries refers to any fried elongated pieces of potatoes, while in
the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa, Ireland and New Zealand,
allumette cut fried potatoes are sometimes called shoestring fries to
distinguish them from the batonnet cut chips.
'Thomas Jefferson had * *potatoes served in the French manner at a White
House dinner in 1802.
The expression French Fried Potatoes first occurred in print in English in
the 1856 work Cookery for Maids of All Work by E Warren:
In the early 20th century, the term French fried was being used in the
sense of deep-fried, for other foods such as onion rings or chicken.
It is unlikely that French fried refers to frenching in the sense of
julienning, which is not attested until after French fried potatoes.
Previously, frenching referred only to trimming meat off the shanks of
chops'.
[The Hankster says] Cutting them julienne just makes them easier to eat with your fingers. Fried taters are fried taters and I never met a fried tater, I didn't like.
* 'Kool-Aid Day:'. . A festival on the second weekend in August (12-14, in
20160 in Hastings NE.
- From Wikipedia (Kool-Aid):
'Kool-Aid is a brand of flavored drink mix owned by Kraft Foods.
Kool-Aid was invented by Edwin Perkins in Hastings, Nebraska. All of his
experiments took place in his mother's kitchen. Its predecessor was a
liquid concentrate called Fruit Smack. To reduce shipping costs, in 1927,
Perkins discovered a way to remove the liquid from Fruit Smack, leaving
only a powder. This powder was named Kool-Aid. Perkins moved his production
to Chicago in 1931 and Kool-Aid was sold to General Foods in 1953. Hastings
still celebrates a yearly summer festival called Kool-Aid Days on the
second weekend in August, in honor of their city's claim to fame. Kool-Aid
is known as Nebraska's official soft drink'.
[The Hankster says] It was water, tea, milk or Kool-Aid at my house when I was a kid. A Coke, very seldom.
<> Other holidays / celebrations
* 'National Vinyl Record Day'.
Remembers the media and their cover art.
- From Wikipedia (Gramophone record):
'A gramophone record (phonograph record in American English) or vinyl
record, commonly known as a record, is an analogue sound storage medium in
the form of a flat polyvinyl chloride (previously shellac) disc with an
inscribed, modulated spiral groove. The groove usually starts near the
periphery and ends near the center of the disc. Phonograph records are
generally described by their diameter in inches (12, 10, 7), the rotational
speed in rpm at which they are played (16 2/3, 33 1/3, 45, 78), and their
time capacity, determined by their diameter and speed (LP , 12-inch disc,
33 1/3 rpm SP , 10-inch disc, 78 rpm, or 7-inch disc, 45 rpm EP , 12-inch
disc, 33 1/3 or 45 rpm) their reproductive quality, or level of fidelity
(high-fidelity, orthophonic, full-range, etc.) and the number of audio
channels (mono, stereo, quad, etc.).
The phonograph disc record was the primary medium used for music
reproduction until late in the 20th century, replacing the phonograph
cylinder record—with which it had co-existed from the late 1880s through to
the 1920s—by the late 1920s. Records retained the largest market share even
when new formats such as compact cassette were mass-marketed. By the late
1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger
market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. From the
1990s to the 2010s, records continued to be manufactured and sold on a much
smaller scale, and were especially used by disc jockeys (DJ)s, released by
artists in some genres, and listened to by a niche market of audiophiles.
The phonograph record has made a niche resurgence in the early 21st century
– 9.2 million records were sold in the U.S. in 2014, a 260% increase since
2009. Likewise, in the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014.
Both the microgroove LP 33 1/3 rpm record and the 45 rpm single records are
made from vinyl plastic that is flexible and unbreakable in normal use,
even when they are sent through the mail with care from one place to
another. The vinyl records, however, are easier to scratch or gouge, and
much more prone to warping compared to most 78 rpm records, which were made
of shellac.
In 1931, RCA Victor launched the first commercially available vinyl
long-playing record, marketed as program-transcription discs. These
revolutionary discs were designed for playback at 33 1/3 rpm and pressed on
a 30 cm diameter flexible plastic disc, with a duration of about ten
minutes playing time per side. RCA Victor's early introduction of a
long-play disc was a commercial failure for several reasons including the
lack of affordable, reliable consumer playback equipment and consumer
wariness during the Great Depression. Because of financial hardships that
plagued the recording industry during that period (and RCA's own parched
revenues), Victor's long-playing records were discontinued by early 1933.
Vinyl's lower surface noise level than shellac was not forgotten, nor was
its durability. In the late 1930s, radio commercials and pre-recorded radio
programs being sent to disc jockeys started being stamped in vinyl, so they
would not break in the mail. In the mid-1940s, special DJ copies of records
started being made of vinyl also, for the same reason. These were all 78
rpm. During and after World War II, when shellac supplies were extremely
limited, some 78 rpm records were pressed in vinyl instead of shellac,
particularly the six-minute 12-inch (30 cm) 78 rpm records produced by
V-Disc for distribution to United States troops in World War II. In the
1940s, radio transcriptions, which were usually on 16-inch records, but
sometimes 12-inch, were always made of vinyl, but cut at 33 1/3 rpm.
Shorter transcriptions were often cut at 78 rpm.
Beginning in 1939, Dr. Peter Goldmark and his staff at Columbia Records and
at CBS Laboratories undertook efforts to address problems of recording and
playing back narrow grooves and developing an inexpensive, reliable
consumer playback system. It took about eight years of study, except when
it was suspended because of World War II. Finally, the 12-inch (30 cm) Long
Play (LP) 33 1/3 rpm microgroove record album was introduced by the
Columbia Record Company at a New York press conference on June 18, 1948'.
* 'National Middle Child Day'.
Created by Elizabeth Walker in the 1980s. It concerns the idea that birth
order plays a pivotal role in a child's personality.
- From Wikipedia (Middle child syndrome):
'Middle child syndrome is the feeling of exclusion by middle children
(those with one younger and one older sibling). This effect occurs because
the first child is more prone to receive privileges and responsibilities
(by virtue of being the oldest), while the youngest in the family is
generally considered the baby. The second (or middle child) no longer has
their status as the baby and leaves them with no clear role in the family,
or a feeling of being left out Despite being used to explain a child's
behavior, middle child syndrome is not actually a clinical disorder'.
<> Awareness / Observances:
o Animal and Pet:
* 'World Elephant Day'. Concerns Elephant preservation and protection.
'World Elephant Day is an international annual event on August 12,
dedicated to the preservation and protection of the world's elephants.
Conceived in 2011 by Canadian filmmakers Patricia Sims and Michael Clark of
Canazwest Pictures , and Sivaporn Dardarananda, Secretary-General of the
Elephant Reintroduction Foundation in Thailand, it was officially founded,
supported and launched by Patricia Sims and the Elephant Reintroduction
Foundation on August 12, 2012. Since that time, Patricia Sims continues to
lead and direct World Elephant Day, which is now supported by over 65
wildlife organizations and many individuals in countries across the globe'.
o Other:
* 'International Youth Day'. A U.N. day, established in 1999.
- From Wikipedia (International Youth Day):
'International Youth Day (IYD) is an awareness day designated by the United
Nations. The purpose of the day is to draw attention to a given set of
cultural and legal issues surrounding youth. The first IYD was observed on
12 August, 2000'.
<> Historical events on August 12
* 'In 30 BC, Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of the Egyptian
Ptolemaic dynasty, commits suicide, allegedly by means of an asp bite. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The ancient sources, particularly the Roman ones, are in
general agreement that Cleopatra killed herself by inducing an Egyptian
cobra to bite her. The oldest source is Strabo, who was alive at the time
of the event, and might even have been in Alexandria. He says that there
are two stories: that she applied a toxic ointment, or that she was bitten
by an asp on her breast, but he said in his writings that he was not sure
if Cleopatra poisoned herself or was murdered. Several Roman poets, writing
within ten years of the event, all mention bites by two asps, as does
Florus, a historian, some 150 years later. Velleius, sixty years after the
event, also refers to an asp. Other authors have questioned these
historical accounts, stating that it is possible that Augustus had her
killed. In 2010, the German historian Christoph Schaefer challenged all
other theories, declaring that the queen had actually been poisoned and
died from drinking a mixture of poisons. After studying historical texts
and consulting with toxicologists, the historian concluded that the asp
could not have caused a quick and pain-free death, since the asp (Egyptian
cobra) venom paralyses parts of the body, starting with the eyes, before
causing death. As Cleopatra would have wanted a relatively painless death,
it is quite unlikely that the asp was the cause of her death. Also, the
asp's bite is not always fatal. Schaefer and his toxicologist Dietrich Mebs
decided Cleopatra used a mixture of hemlock, wolfsbane and opium'.
* 'In 1851, Isaac Singer patents sewing machine (improved but not the
first). .
- From Wikipedia: 'Isaac Merritt Singer (October 27, 1811 – July 23, 1875)
was an American inventor, actor, and entrepreneur. He made important
improvements in the design of the sewing machine and was the founder of the
Singer Sewing Machine Company. Many had patented sewing machines before
Singer, but his success was based on the practicality of his machine, the
ease with which it could be adapted to home use, and its availability on an
installment payment basis. Singer fathered at least 24 children with
various wives and mistresses.
In 1839, Singer obtained his first patent, for a machine to drill rock,
selling it for $2,000 (or $44.4 thousand in todays dollars) to the I andM
Canal Building Company. With this financial success, he opted to return to
his career as an actor. He went on tour, forming a troupe known as the
Merritt Players, appearing onstage under the name "Isaac Merritt, with
Mary Ann also appearing onstage, calling herself Mrs. Merritt The tour
lasted about five years.
He developed and patented a machine for carving wood and metal on April 10,
1849.
At 38, with Mary Ann and eight children, he packed up his family and moved
back to New York City, hoping to market his wood-block cutting machine
there. He obtained an advance to build a working prototype, and constructed
one in the shop of A. B. Taylor and Co. Here he met G. B. Zieber, who
became Singer's financier and partner. However, not long after the machine
was built, the steam boiler blew up at the shop, destroying the prototype.
Zieber persuaded Singer to make a new start in Boston, a center of the
printing trade. Singer went to Boston in 1850 to display his invention at
the machine shop of Orson C. Phelps. Orders for Singer's wood cutting
machine were not, however, forthcoming.
Lerow and Blodgett sewing machines were being constructed and repaired in
Phelps' shop. Phelps asked Singer to look at the sewing machines, which
were difficult to use and produce. Singer concluded that the sewing machine
would be more reliable if the shuttle moved in a straight line rather than
a circle, with a straight rather than a curved needle. Singer was able to
obtain US Patent number 8294 for his improvements on August 12, 1851.
Singer's prototype sewing machine became the first to work in a practical
way. It could sew 900 stitches per minute, far better than the 40 of an
accomplished seamstress on simple work.
* 'In 1869, Self-proclaimed Emperor, Emperor Norton of the USA issues edit
abolishing the Democratic and Republican parties .
- From Wikipedia: 'Joshua Abraham Norton (c.1818 – January 8, 1880), known
as Emperor Norton, was a citizen of San Francisco, California, who in 1859
proclaimed himself Norton I, Emperor of the United States and subsequently
Protector of Mexico
Born in England, Norton spent most of his early life in South Africa. After
the death of his mother in 1846 and his father in 1848, he emigrated to San
Francisco with an inheritance from his father's estate, arriving in
November 1849 aboard the Hamburg ship Franzeska with $40,000 (inflation
adjusted to $1.1 million in 2015 US Dollars). Norton initially made a
living as a businessman, but he lost his fortune investing in Peruvian
rice.
After losing a lawsuit in which he tried to void his rice contract,
Norton's public prominence faded. He reemerged in September 1859, laying
claim to the position of Emperor of the United States. Although he had no
political power, and his influence extended only so far as he was humored
by those around him, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and
currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments he
frequented.
Though some considered him insane or eccentric, citizens of San Francisco
celebrated his regal presence and his proclamations, such as his order that
the United States Congress be dissolved by force and his numerous decrees
calling for a bridge crossing connecting San Francisco to Oakland, and a
corresponding tunnel to be built under San Francisco Bay. Similar
structures were built long after his death in the form of the San
Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge and the Transbay Tube, and there have been
campaigns to rename the bridge The Emperor Norton Bridge
On January 8, 1880, Norton collapsed at the corner of California and Dupont
(now Grant) streets and died before he could be given medical treatment. At
his funeral two days later, nearly 30,000 people packed the streets of San
Francisco to pay homage. Norton has been immortalized as the basis of
characters in the literature of writers Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson,
Christopher Moore, Maurice De Bevere, Selma Lagerlöf, and Neil Gaiman'.
* 'In 1865, Joseph Lister first demonstrates use of
antiseptic. His first use was with carbonic acid (Phenol) for surgery. .
- From Wikipedia: 'Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister, OM PC PRS (5 April 1827
– 10 February 1912), known between 1883 and 1897 as Sir Joseph Lister, Bt.,
was a British surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery. By applying
Louis Pasteur's advances in microbiology, he promoted the idea of sterile
portable ports while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Lister
successfully introduced carbolic acid (now known as phenol) to sterilise
surgical instruments and to clean wounds, which led to a reduction in
post-operative infections and made surgery safer for patients,
distinguishing himself as the father of modern surgery
In 1834, Friedlieb Ferdinand Runge discovered phenol, also known as
carbolic acid, which he derived in an impure form from coal tar. At that
time, there was uncertainty between the substance of creosote – a chemical
had been used to treat the wood used for railway ties and ships since it
protected the wood from rotting – and carbolic acid. Upon hearing that
creosote had been used for treating sewage, Lister began to test the
efficacy of carbolic acid when applied directly to wounds. Joseph Lister in
his youth
Therefore, Lister tested the results of spraying instruments, the surgical
incisions, and dressings with a solution of carbolic acid. Lister found
that the solution swabbed on wounds remarkably reduced the incidence of
gangrene. In August 1865, Lister applied a piece of lint dipped in carbolic
acid solution onto the wound of a seven-year-old boy at Glasgow Infirmary,
who had sustained a compound fracture after a cart wheel had passed over
his leg. After four days, he renewed the pad and discovered that no
infection had developed, and after a total of six weeks he was amazed to
discover that the boy's bones had fused back together, without the danger
of suppuration. He subsequently published his results in The Lancet in a
series of six articles, running from March through July 1867.
In 1879, Listerine mouthwash was named after him for his work in
antisepsis. Microorganisms named in his honour include the pathogenic
bacterial genus Listeria named by J. H. H. Pirie, typified by the
food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, as well as the slime mould
genus Listerella, first described by Eduard Adolf Wilhelm Jahn in 1906'.
* 'In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph and made the first sound
recording. .
- From Wikipedia: 'Direct tracings of the vibrations of sound-producing
objects such as tuning forks had been made by English physician Thomas
Young in 1807, but the first known device for recording airborne speech,
music and other sounds is the phonautograph, patented in 1857 by French
typesetter and inventor Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. In this device,
sound waves traveling through the air vibrated a parchment diaphragm which
was linked to a bristle, and the bristle traced a line through a thin
coating of soot on a sheet of paper wrapped around a rotating cylinder. The
sound vibrations were recorded as undulations or other irregularities in
the traced line. Scott's phonautograph was intended purely for the visual
study and analysis of the tracings. Reproduction of the recorded sound was
not possible with the original phonautograph.
Charles Cros, a French poet and amateur scientist, is the first person
known to have made the conceptual leap from recording sound as a traced
line to the theoretical possibility of reproducing the sound from the
tracing and then to devising a definite method for accomplishing the
reproduction. On April 30, 1877, he deposited a sealed envelope containing
a summary of his ideas with the French Academy of Sciences, a standard
procedure used by scientists and inventors to establish priority of
conception of unpublished ideas in the event of any later dispute.
Cros proposed the use of photoengraving, a process already in use to make
metal printing plates from line drawings, to convert an insubstantial
phonautograph tracing in soot into a groove or ridge on a metal disc or
cylinder. This metal surface would then be given the same motion and speed
as the original recording surface. A stylus linked to a diaphragm would be
made to ride in the groove or on the ridge so that the stylus would be
moved back and forth in accordance with the recorded vibrations. It would
transmit these vibrations to the connected diaphragm, and the diaphragm
would transmit them to the air, reproducing the original sound.
Cros was a poet of meager means, not in a position to pay a machinist to
build a working model, and largely content to bequeath his ideas to the
public domain free of charge and let others reduce them to practice, but
after the earliest reports of Edison's presumably independent invention
crossed the Atlantic he had his sealed letter of April 30 opened and read
at the December 3, 1877 meeting of the French Academy of Sciences, claiming
due scientific credit for priority of conception.
Thomas Alva Edison conceived the principle of recording and reproducing
sound between May and July 1877 as a byproduct of his efforts to play back
recorded telegraph messages and to automate speech sounds for transmission
by telephone. He announced his invention of the first phonograph, a device
for recording and replaying sound, on November 21, 1877 (early reports
appear in Scientific American and several newspapers in the beginning of
November, and an even earlier announcement of Edison working on a
'talking-machine' can be found in the Chicago Daily Tribune on May 9), and
he demonstrated the device for the first time on November 29 (it was
patented on February 19, 1878 as US Patent 200,521). In December, 1877, a
young man came into the office of the SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN, and placed
before the editors a small, simple machine about which very few preliminary
remarks were offered. The visitor without any ceremony whatever turned the
crank, and to the astonishment of all present the machine said: Good
morning. How do you do? How do you like the phonograph? The machine thus
spoke for itself, and made known the fact that it was the phonograph...
Edison's early phonographs recorded onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph
cylinder using an up-down (hill-and-dale) motion of the stylus. The tinfoil
sheet was wrapped around a grooved cylinder, and the sound was recorded as
indentations into the foil. Edison's early patents show that he was aware
that sound could be recorded as a spiral on a disc, but Edison concentrated
his efforts on cylinders, since the groove on the outside of a rotating
cylinder provides a constant velocity to the stylus in the groove, which
Edison considered more scientifically correct Edison's patent specified
that the audio recording be embossed, and it was not until 1886 that
vertically modulated engraved recordings using wax coated cylinders was
patented by Chichester Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter. They named their
version the Graphophone.
In 1887, Emile Berliner patented a variant of the phonograph which he named
the Gramophone. Berliner's approach was essentially the same one proposed,
but never implemented, by Charles Cros in 1877. The diaphragm was linked to
the recording stylus in a way that caused it to vibrate laterally (side to
side) as it traced a spiral onto a zinc disc very thinly coated with a
compound of beeswax. The zinc disc was then immersed in a bath of chromic
acid this etched a groove into the disc where the stylus had removed the
coating, after which the recording could be played. With some later
improvements the flat discs of Berliner could be produced in large
quantities at much lower cost than the cylinders of Edison's system.
In May 1889, the first phonograph parlor opened in San Francisco. Customers
would sit at a desk where they could speak through a tube, and order a
selection for one nickel. Through a separate tube connected to a cylinder
phonograph in the room below, the selection would then be played. By the
mid-1890s, most American cities had at least one phonograph parlor. Another
common type of phonograph parlor featured a machine that would start or
would be windable when a coin would be inserted. This jukebox-like
phonograph was invented by Louis T. Glass and William S. Arnold. Many early
machines were of the Edison Class M or Class E type. The Class M had a
battery that would break if it fell or was smashed with another object.
This would cause dangerous battery acid to spill everywhere. The Class E
sold for a lower price and ran on 120V DC'.
* 'In 1898, An Armistice ends the Spanish-American War. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The Spanish–American War (Spanish: Guerra
hispano-estadounidense or Guerra hispano-americana) was a conflict fought
between Spain and the United States in 1898. Hostilities began in the
aftermath of the internal explosion of the USS Maine in Havana harbor
leading to American intervention in the Cuban War of Independence. American
acquisition of Spain's Pacific possessions led to its involvement in the
Philippine Revolution and ultimately in the Philippine–American War.
After the mysterious sinking of the US Navy battleship Maine in Havana
harbor, political pressures from the Democratic Party pushed the
administration of Republican President William McKinley into a war he had
wished to avoid. Spain promised time and again it would reform but never
delivered. The United States sent an ultimatum to Spain demanding it
surrender control of Cuba. First Madrid, then Washington, formally declared
war.
The result was the 1898 Treaty of Paris, negotiated on terms favorable to
the US, which allowed it temporary control of Cuba, and ceded ownership of
Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine islands. The cession of the
Philippines involved payment of $20 million ($568,880,000 today) to Spain
by the US to cover infrastructure owned by Spain'.
* 'In 1914, During WW I, the United Kingdom declares war on Austria-Hungary
and the countries of the British Empire follow suit. .
* 'In 1927, 'Wings', the only silent film to win an Oscar for best picture,
opens. .
- From Wikipedia: 'Wings is a 1927 American silent war film set during the
First World War produced by Lucien Hubbard, directed by William A. Wellman
and released by Paramount Pictures. It stars Clara Bow, Charles Buddy
Rogers, and Richard Arlen, and Gary Cooper appears in a role which helped
launch his career in Hollywood.
The film, a romantic action-war picture, was rewritten by scriptwriters
Hope Loring and Louis D. Lighton from a story by John Monk Saunders to
accommodate Bow, Paramount's biggest star at the time. Wellman was hired as
he was the only director in Hollywood at the time who had World War I
combat pilot experience, although Richard Arlen and John Monk Saunders had
also served in the war as military aviators. The film was shot on location
on a budget of $2 million at Kelly Field in San Antonio, Texas between
September 7, 1926 and April 7, 1927. Hundreds of extras and some 300 pilots
were involved in the filming, including pilots and planes of the United
States Army Air Corps which were brought in for the filming and to provide
assistance and supervision. Wellman extensively rehearsed the scenes for
the Battle of Saint-Mihiel over ten days with some 3500 infantrymen on a
battlefield made for the production on location. Although the cast and crew
had much spare time during the filming because of weather delays, shooting
conditions were intense, and Wellman frequently conflicted with the
military officers brought in to supervise the picture.
Acclaimed for its technical prowess and realism upon release, the film
became the yardstick against which future aviation films were measured,
mainly because of its realistic air-combat sequences. It went on to win the
first Academy Award for Best Picture at the first annual Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences award ceremony in 1929, the only fully silent
film to do so. It also won the Academy Award for Best Engineering Effects
(Roy Pomeroy). Wings was one of the first to show two men kissing (in a
fraternal moment between Rogers and Arlen during the deathbed finale), and
also one of the first widely released films to show nudity. In 1997, Wings
was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry
by the Library of Congress as being culturally, historically, or
aesthetically significant, and the film was re-released to Cinemark
theaters to coincide with the 85th Anniversary for a limited run in May
2012. The Academy Film Archive preserved Wings in 2002'.
* 'In 1936, A temperature of 120øF (49øC) (highest temp record in Texas),
was experienced in Seymour, Texas and again in Monahans Texas in 1949. .
- From Wikipedia: Seymour is a city in and the county seat of Baylor
County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,740 as of the 2010
Census.
'The town calls itself the crossroads of North Texas because it is located
at the junction of five highways: U.S. highways 82, 277, 183 and 283, as
well as State Highway 114.
The Reptiliomorpha order Seymouriamorpha and genus Seymouria are named
after this city. The last seymouriamorph became extinct by the end of the
Permian period.
On August 12, 1936, the temperature at Seymour reached 120 °F (49 °C), the
highest temperature ever recorded in the state of Texas' and the county seat of Baylor
County, Texas, United States. The population was 2,740 as of the 2010
Census.
* 'In 1937, Red Skelton appeared on network radio for the first time on the
Rudy Vallee Show on NBC. .
- From Wikipedia: Richard Bernard Red Skelton (July 18, 1913 – September
17, 1997) was an American entertainer. He was best known for his national
radio and television acts between 1937 and 1971, and as host of the
television program The Red Skelton Show. Skelton, who has stars on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in radio and television, also appeared
in vaudeville, films, nightclubs, and casinos, all while he pursued an
entirely separate career as an artist.
'Performing the Doughnut Dunkers routine led to Skelton's first appearance
on Rudy Vallée's The Fleischmann's Yeast Hour on August 12, 1937. Vallée's
program had a talent show segment and those who were searching for stardom
were eager to be heard on it. Vallée also booked veteran comic and fellow
Indiana native Joe Cook to appear as a guest with Skelton. The two Hoosiers
proceeded to trade jokes about their home towns, with Skelton contending to
Cook, an Evansville native, that the city was a suburb of Vincennes. The
show received enough fan mail after the performance to invite both
comedians back two weeks after Skelton's initial appearance and again in
November of that year.
On October 1, 1938, Skelton replaced Red Foley as the host of Avalon Time
on NBC Edna also joined the show's cast, under her maiden name. She
developed a system for working with the show's writers: selecting material
from them, adding her own and filing the unused bits and lines for future
use the Skeltons worked on Avalon Time until late 1939. Skelton's work in
films led to a new regular radio show offer between films, he promoted
himself and MGM by appearing without charge at Los Angeles area banquets. A
radio advertising agent was a guest at one of his banquet performances and
recommended Skelton to one of his clients.
Skelton went on the air with his own radio show, The Raleigh Cigarette
Program, on October 7, 1941. The bandleader for the show was Ozzie Nelson
his wife, Harriet, who worked under her maiden name of Hilliard, was the
show's vocalist and also worked with Skelton in skits. I dood it!
* 'In 1939, 'The Wizard of Oz' premiered in Oconomowoc, WI. The movie
premiered in Hollywood on August 15th. .
- From Wikipedia: The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical comedy-drama
fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and the most well-known and
commercially successful adaptation based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. The film stars Judy Garland as Dorothy Gale.
The co-stars are Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, Frank Morgan, Billie
Burke, and Margaret Hamilton, with Charley Grapewin, Pat Walshe and Clara
Blandick, Terry the dog (billed as Toto), and the Singer Midgets as the
Munchkins.
Notable for its use of Technicolor, fantasy storytelling, musical score,
and unusual characters, over the years, it has become an icon of American
popular culture. It was nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best
Picture, but lost to Gone with the Wind. It did win in two other
categories, including Best Original Song for Over the Rainbow and Best
Original Score by Herbert Stothart. However, the film was a box office
disappointment on its initial release, earning only $3,017,000 on a
$2,777,000 budget, despite receiving largely positive reviews. It was MGM's
most expensive production at that time, and did not completely recoup the
studio's investment and turn a profit until theatrical re-releases starting
in 1949.
'The film's first sneak preview was held in San Bernardino, California. The
film was previewed in three test markets: on August 11, 1939, at Kenosha,
Wisconsin and Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and at the Strand Theatre in
Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, on August 12.
The Hollywood premiere was on August 15, 1939, at Grauman's Chinese
Theatre. The New York City premiere, held at Loew's Capitol Theatre on
August 17, 1939, was followed by a live performance with Judy Garland and
her frequent film co-star Mickey Rooney. They continued to perform there
after each screening for a week, extended in Rooney's case for a second
week and in Garland's to three (with Oz co-stars Ray Bolger and Bert Lahr
replacing Rooney for the third and final week). The movie opened nationally
on August 25, 1939'.
* 'In 1960, Echo 1A Comm Satellite (world's first communications satellite)
was launched. It was sent up in a rocket, ubt was a short duration Mylar
balloon, coated in reflective paint. It did allow a US East to West coast
transmission. .
- From Wikipedia: 'Project Echo was the first passive communications
satellite experiment. Each of the two American spacecraft, launched in 1960
and 1964, was a metalized balloon satellite acting as a passive reflector
of microwave signals. Communication signals were bounced off them from one
point on Earth to another.
NASA's Echo 1 satellite was built by Gilmore Schjeldahl's G.T. Schjeldahl
Company in Northfield, Minnesota. The balloon satellite functioned as a
reflector, not a transceiver, so after it was placed in a low Earth orbit a
signal could be sent to it, reflected by its surface, and returned to
Earth.
During ground inflation tests, 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of air was needed
to fill the balloon, but while in orbit, several pounds of gas were all
that was required to fill the sphere. At launch the balloon weighed 156.995
pounds (71.212 kg) which included 33.34 pounds (15.12 kg) of sublimating
powders of two types. The first weighing 10 pounds (4.5 kg) with a very
high vapor pressure, the second with a much lower vapor pressure. According
to NASA, To keep the sphere inflated in spite of meteorite punctures and
skin permeability, a make-up gas system using evaporating liquid or
crystals of a subliming solid were incorporated inside the satellite.
It also had 107.9 MHz beacon transmitters for telemetry purposes, powered
by five nickel-cadmium batteries that were charged by 70 solar cells
mounted on the balloon. During the latter portion of its life, the
spacecraft was used to evaluate the technical feasibility of satellite
triangulation. It had a total mass of 180 kilograms (397 lb).
Echo 1A was originally loosely estimated to survive until soon after its
fourth dip into the atmosphere in July 1963 but possibly until 1964 or
beyond but it ended up living much longer than these estimates and
reentered Earth's atmosphere, burning up on May 24, 1968'.
* 'In 1961, Order signed to erect Berlin Wall. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The Berlin Wall (German: Berliner Mauer) was a barrier
that divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989. Constructed by the German Democratic
Republic (GDR, East Germany), starting on 13 August 1961, the Wall
completely cut off (by land) West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and
from East Berlin until government officials opened it in November 1989. Its
demolition officially began on 13 June 1990 and was completed in 1992. The
barrier included guard towers placed along large concrete walls, which
circumscribed a wide area (later known as the death strip) that contained
anti-vehicle trenches, fakir beds and other defenses. The Eastern Bloc
claimed that the Wall was erected to protect its population from fascist
elements conspiring to prevent the will of the people in building a
socialist state in East Germany. In practice, the Wall served to prevent
the massive emigration and defection that had marked East Germany and the
communist Eastern Bloc during the post-World War II period.
Before the Wall's erection, 3.5 million East Germans circumvented Eastern
Bloc emigration restrictions and defected from the GDR, many by crossing
over the border from East Berlin into West Berlin from which they could
then travel to West Germany and other Western European countries. Between
1961 and 1989, the Wall prevented almost all such emigration. During this
period, around 5,000 people attempted to escape over the Wall, with an
estimated death toll ranging from 136 to more than 200 in and around
Berlin.
In 1989, a series of radical political changes occurred in the Eastern
Bloc, associated with the liberalization of the Eastern Bloc's
authoritarian systems and the erosion of political power in the pro-Soviet
governments in nearby Poland and Hungary. After several weeks of civil
unrest, the East German government announced on 9 November 1989 that all
GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin. Crowds of East
Germans crossed and climbed onto the Wall, joined by West Germans on the
other side in a celebratory atmosphere. Over the next few weeks, euphoric
people and souvenir hunters chipped away parts of the Wall the governments
later used industrial equipment to remove most of what was left. Contrary
to popular belief the Wall's actual demolition did not begin until the
summer of 1990 and was not completed until 1992. The fall of the Berlin
Wall paved the way for German reunification, which was formally concluded
on 3 October 1990'.
* 'In 1981, The IBM Personal Computer is introduced. .
- From Wikipedia: 'The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC,
is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware
platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12,
1981. It was created by a team of engineers and designers under the
direction of Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton,
Florida.
The generic term personal computer was in use before 1981, applied as early
as 1972 to the Xerox PARC's Alto, but because of the success of the IBM
Personal Computer, the term PC came to mean more specifically a desktop
microcomputer compatible with IBM's PC products. Within a short time of the
introduction, third-party suppliers of peripheral devices, expansion cards,
and software proliferated the influence of the IBM PC on the personal
computer market was substantial in standardizing a platform for personal
computers. IBM compatible became an important criterion for sales growth
only the Apple Macintosh family kept significant market share without
compatibility with the IBM personal computer'.
No. 1 song
Top movie
Monthly holiday / awareness days in August
Food
National Catfish Month
National Goat Cheese Month
Rye Month
Health
Children's Eye Health and Safety Month
Children's Vision and Learning Month
National Breastfeeding Month
National Immunization Awareness Month
National Minority Donor Awareness Month
National Spinal Muscular Atrophy Awareness Month
Neurosurgery Outreach Month
Psoriasis Awareness Month
Animal / Pets
Other
American Adventures Month
American Artists Appreciation Month
American Indian Heritage Month
American History Essay Contest
Black Business Month
Boomers Making A Difference Month
Bystander Awareness Month
Child Support Awareness Month
Get Ready for Kindergarten Month
Happiness Happens Month
Motor Sports Awareness Month
National Read A Romance Month
National Traffic Awareness Month
National Truancy Prevention Month
National Water Quality Month
Shop Online For Groceries Month
What Will Be Your Legacy Month
XXXI Summer Olympics: 5-21
August is:
August origin (from Wikipedia): Originally named Sextili (Latin), because it was the sixth month in the original ten-month Roman calendar: under Romulus in 753 BC, when March was the first month of the year.
"About 700 BC it became the eighth month when January and February were added to the year before March by King Numa Pompilius, who also gave it 29 days. Julius Caesar added two days when he created the Julian calendar in 45 BC giving it its modern length of 31 days. In 8 BC it was renamed in honor of Augustus
According to a Senatus consultum quoted by Macrobius, he chose this month because it was the time of several of his great triumphs, including the conquest of Egypt.
"
August 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 1966 More
Sites for downloading or reading free Public Domain eBooks. Available in various formats. More