The F Bomb was devised as a refuge for community members left stranded when JanF decided to retire J Town in order to :::cough cough::: spend more time with her, um... clients.
So join me down below the cheesy poof. If you are new to these posts, hover your mouse over any pictures.
On This Day
In 1775, the United States Marine Corps is said to have been founded at Philadelphia’s Tun Tavern by innkeeper Samuel Nicholas, who had been commissioned by the First Continental Congress to raise two battalions of Marines in Philadelphia. Recruiting at taverns… now there’s an idea!
In 1951, direct-dial coast-to-coast telephone service started in the United States. So this explains why all the people in old movies always have to get an operator first and those funny looking old phones don’t have dials on them? Speaking of dials, who remembers them?
In 1958, the Hope Diamond was donated to the Smithsonian Institution by famed jeweler Harry Winston, who probably just wanted to unload its purported bad luck upon the people of the United States. Gee, thanks, Harry!
In 1969, National Educational Television (the predecessor to the Public Broadcasting Service) debuted the children's television program Sesame Street. Congratulations, Big Bird, you outlasted Mitt Romney!
Born on This Day
1483 – Martin Luther, German Protestant reformer (d. 1546)
1566 – Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, English politician (d. 1601)
1697 – William Hogarth, English artist (d. 1764) who did both realistic paintings and satirical political drawings. Later drawings by others in a similar style were said to be “Hogarthian.”
1810 – George Jennings, English sanitary engineer who invented the first public flush toilets. (d. 1882)
1871 – Winston Churchill, an American novelist who wrote many best-sellers at the turn of the 19th/20th century, and was much more famous than the other man bearing the same name for quite some time (they knew each other, but were apparently not related). (d. 1947)
1889 – Claude Rains, English actor (d. 1967) who played both good guys and bad guys with equal skill.
1896 – Olga Grey, Hungarian-born American silent film actress (d. 1973) who later became an accomplished attorney under her real name, Anna Zacsek. She was one of the defense attorneys in the Sleepy Lagoon Trial (post Zoot Suit Riot), another famous trial of the 20th Century.
1907 – Jane Froman, American actor and singer and former Ziegfeld girl. (d. 1980) She was in a plane crash while on a USO tour in 1943, suffering severe injuries to both legs that nearly required amputation. She had 39 surgeries afterward, but went back to entertaining the troops in 1945. She was played by Susan Hayward in the film, “With a Song in My Heart.”
1920 – Jennifer Holt, American actress (d. 1997)
1924 – Russell Johnson, American actor (Gilligan's Island)
1925 – Richard Burton, Welsh actor (d. 1984)
1939 – Russell Means, Native American activist (d. 2012)
1944 – Sir Tim Rice, English lyricist
1947 – Greg Lake, British musician (Emerson, Lake & Palmer)
1948 – Aaron Brown, American broadcast journalist who was last seen on CNN during Katrina
1960 – Neil Gaiman, English writer (not embeddable, but here he contemplates what is obviously a binder full of women: http://www.flickr.com/...)
Died on This Day
1891 – Arthur Rimbaud, French poet, (b. 1854)
1971 – Walter Van Tilburg Clark, American author (b. 1909)
1981 – Abel Gance, French film director, producer, and actor (b. 1889)
1982 – Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (b. 1906)
1994 – Carmen McRae, American singer (b. 1920)
2001 – Ken Kesey, American author (b. 1935)
2006 – Jack Palance, American actor (b. 1919)
2007 – Laraine Day, American actress (b. 1920)
2007 – Norman Mailer, American author (b. 1923)
2008 – Miriam Makeba, South African singer and anti-apartheid activist (b. 1932)
Today is
Lung Cancer Awareness Day
National Forget-Me-Not Day
USMC Day
National Vanilla Cupcake Day
International Accounting Day