Pooh Author AA Milne on This Day in History

 

Buy: The Red House Mystery

This Day in History: English writer A. A. Milne died on this day in 1956. He is best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh, though he wrote on many other things, including a locked-room mystery called "The Red House Mystery." In 2003, Winnie the Pooh was listed at number 7 on the BBC's poll The Big Read which determined the UK's "best-loved novels" of all time. In 2006, Winnie the Pooh received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, marking the 80th birthday of Milne's creation. That same year a UK poll saw Winnie the Pooh voted onto the list of icons of England.

Winnie the Pooh is being censored in China after many compared Pooh's looks to President Xi Jinping. Chinese social media users are not allowed to discuss or circulate images of the chubby flat faced bear for fear that the Pooh’s likeness may be used to mock Xi.

Did you know: A Latin translation of Winnie the Pooh is the only Latin book to ever make it on the New York Times bestseller list. "Titled Winnie Ille Pu, the 1960 release translated by Dr. Alexander Lenard stayed on the coveted list for 20 weeks, and ultimately demanded 21 printings, selling 125,000 copies. This accomplishment spoke in part to the book itself, which the Times called ''the greatest book a dead language has ever known.'' But it's also evidence of Pooh's popularity. The adventures of this honey-loving bear have been translated into more than 50 languages, including Afrikaans, Czech, Finnish, and Yiddish." Mental Floss

Kenny Loggins - Return to Pooh Corner

Franklin Delano Roosevelt on This Day in History

FDR was born on this day in 1882

Textbooks galore point out that President Franklin Roosevelt left a permanent stamp on the American economy. But no textbook in print explains how Roosevelt promoted what is probably the greatest economic myth of the twentieth century: the view that capitalism caused the Great Depression.

During the 1932 campaign against Herbert Hoover, Roosevelt repeated in speech after speech his view that free markets had failed America. During that election year, the U.S. economy was in tatters: 25 percent unemployment, a plummeting stock market, and rampant pessimism sapped American morale. To audiences all over the nation, Roosevelt expounded his theory of why capitalism had failed.

The boom of the 1920s had created a maldistribution of wealth, Roosevelt alleged. The rich were getting richer and the poor poorer. "Corporate profit resulting from this period was enormous," Roosevelt argued, but "very little of it went into increased wages; the worker was forgotten."¹

In fact, the poor were getting so poor they could no longer consume enough to support a robust economy, and so naturally it collapsed into depression. The solution, Roosevelt pledged, was New Deal programs for the purpose "of meeting the problem of underconsumption, of adjusting production to consumption, of distributing wealth and products more equitably."² Economists called Roosevelt’s diagnosis the "underconsumption" thesis.

During the campaign Roosevelt often flayed the capitalists, whose power had "become so disproportionate as to dry up purchasing power within any other group. . . . It is a proper concern of the Government to use wise measures of regulation which will bring this purchasing power back to normal."³ In another speech, he said that "if the process of concentration goes on at the same rate, at the end of another century we shall have all American industry controlled by a dozen corporations, and run by perhaps a hundred men. Put plainly, we are steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already."⁴

The underconsumption thesis was not original with Roosevelt, but he acted on it and did more to popularize it than anyone else. But is it valid? Does the evidence support the view that (1) wealth was becoming increasingly concentrated during the 1920s, and (2) that industrial workers were not able to consume adequately because they were receiving a steadily smaller share of corporate earnings during the 1920s?

The economic statistics collected during the 1920s and 1930s give little support to Roosevelt’s ideas. In 1921 the percentage of national income received by the top 5 percent of the population was 25.5. That share remained stable throughout the decade, and by 1929 the top 5 percent received 26.09 percent of the national income.⁵ Does that microscopic increase really suggest, as Roosevelt charged, that we were "steering a steady course toward economic oligarchy, if we are not there already"?

On the second issue of worker earnings, the evidence directly refutes Roosevelt’s charges. The employee share of corporate income did not decline, but instead steadily increased during the 1920s-from under 70 percent in 1920 to well over 70 percent during the last years of the decade.⁶

As Peter Temin, an economist at MIT, concluded, "The ratio of consumption to national income was not falling in the 1920s. An underconsumption view of the 1920s, therefore, is untenable." As of 1976, Temin observed, "the concept of underconsumption has been abandoned in modern discussions of macroeconomics."⁷ In other words, the economic idea that inspired Roosevelt to launch the New Deal was so discredited it was no longer even discussed by economists just one generation after Roosevelt’s death.

Consumption Boost

But the damage was done. To boost consumption, the New Deal had given some kind of government subsidy to farmers, factory workers, veterans, and even silver miners. The era of big government in America was launched.

Why did Roosevelt err? It is tempting to argue that he manipulated data and words to win votes in the short run with an idea that had no resilience in the long run. And, too, many of his Brain Trusters urged him to promote underconsumptionist thinking.

Another possibility is that Roosevelt popularized underconsumptionist ideas because he never understood free markets in particular or economics in general. He came from a wealthy family, and his mother said they never discussed economic ideas at home. When he went off to school he apparently never studied economics seriously or disciplined his mind to study subjects logically. At Groton, the rector, Endicott Peabody, voted for Hoover in 1932, readily conceding that Roosevelt was "not brilliant." At Harvard, Roosevelt was only a C or C-plus student. He showed little interest in his introductory economics course, which he took in his sophomore year.⁸

Afterward, at Columbia Law School, his professor for a public-utilities course, Jackson E. Reynolds, said, "Franklin Roosevelt was no good as a student. He didn’t appear to have any aptitude for law, and made no effort to overcome that handicap by hard work. . . . He passed both of my courses, but he never received a degree because he flunked. Afterwards in offices downtown he made the same kind of records."⁹

Once Roosevelt was president, many of those who worked with him were startled by his undisciplined mind and economic ignorance. In a secret diary Brain Truster Raymond Moley wrote in May 1936 after a discussion with the president: "I was impressed as never before by the utter lack of logic of the man, the scantiness of his precise knowledge of things that he was talking about, by the gross inaccuracies in his statements. . . ."¹⁰

Moley suggests that both economic ignorance and political calculation shaped Roosevelt’s criticism of free markets. In any case, what we can learn from this historical episode is that bad economic ideas, if not effectively challenged, can sweep an ill-prepared man into the presidency, and permanently change the nation’s economic direction.

Burton Folsom, Jr., is historian in residence at the Center for the American Idea in Houston, Texas, and author of The Myth of the Robber Barons. He is currently working on a history of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal.

---

Notes

1. 1. Samuel I. Rosenman, ed., The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt (New York: Random House, 1938), I, p. 650.
2. 2. Ibid., pp. 751-52.
3. 3. Ibid., p. 784.
4. 4. Ibid., p. 751.
5. 5. Bureau of Census, Historical Statistics of the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1975), p. 302.
6. 6. Peter Temin, Did Monetary Forces Cause the Great Depression? (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1976), p. 4. See also Thomas B. Silver, Coolidge and the Historians (Durham, N.C.: Carolina Academic Press, 1982), p. 136.
7. 7. Temin, pp. 4, 32.
8. 8. Geoffrey C. Ward, Before the Trumpet: Young Franklin Roosevelt, 1882-1905 (New York: Harper & Row, 1985), pp. 180, 207, and Daniel R. Fusfeld, The Economic Thought of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Origins of the New Deal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1954), p. 23.
9. 9. Jackson E. Reynolds interview, Columbia Oral History Project, p. 42. I would like to thank Gary Dean Best for calling this interview to my attention.
10. 10. Raymond Moley diary, May 4, 1936, Hoover Institution.

Burton W. Folsom

Burton Folsom, Jr. is a professor of history at Hillsdale College and author (with his wife, Anita) of FDR Goes to War. He is a member of the FEE Faculty Network. 

This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the original article.

Lewis Carroll on This Day in History

This Day in History: English writer Lewis Carroll was born on this day in 1832. Known for writing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll was also a mathematician, photographer, inventor and Anglican deacon. He was such a mathematician he actually wrote 11 books on Arithmetic. In a 2010 op-ed for The New York Times, Melanie Bayley made a compelling case that Alice’s adventures parodied an incipient, conceptual math that featured imaginary numbers and quaternions.

Lewis Carroll was even suspected of being Jack the Ripper. 

The full length 1951 animated Disney movie, Alice in Wonderland, was a financial flop. 

See also Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved

Algebra in Wonderland

The Hidden Math Behind Alice In Wonderland

The Best Victorian Literature, Over 100 Books on DVDrom

Alice in Wonderland 1972 Movie

 

Wayne Gretzky on This Day in History

This Day in History: The Great One, Wayne Gretzky, was born on this day in 1961 in Brantford Ontario. He has been called the greatest hockey player ever by many sportswriters, players, the NHL itself, and by The Hockey News, based on extensive surveys of hockey writers, ex-players, general managers and coaches. Gretzky is the leading goal scorer, leading assist producer and leading point scorer in NHL history, and garnered more assists in his career than any other player scored total points. He is the only NHL player to total over 200 points in one season, a feat he accomplished four times. In addition, Gretzky tallied over 100 points in record 16 professional seasons, 14 of them consecutive, also a record. At the time of his retirement in 1999, he held 61 NHL records: 40 regular season records, 15 playoff records, and 6 All-Star records.

Also, recently, Wayne Gretzky's Rookie Card set a record for a the most expensive hockey card ever sold at $1.29 Million. Gretzky helped revive the sport card collecting industry in 1992 when he and Bruce McNall partnered in an investment to buy a rare Honus Wagner T206 cigarette card for $451,000 US, later selling the card. 

 

Disney's 101 Dalmatians on This Day in History

This Day in History: 101 Dalmatians premiered from Walt Disney Productions on this day 60 years ago in 1961. 101 Dalmatians was released after Sleeping Beauty which was actually a financial flop. It cost 6 million dollars to produce Sleeping Beauty but it only made just over 5 million at the box office. 101 Dalmatians had roughly half the budget and grossed over twice as much, using a new technology: Xerography. Xerographic animation would replace the need to ink each film cell and just use photocopies. 101 Dalmatians became one of the most profitable Disney animated movies of all time. However, this era came to be known as the dark age of Disney animation because of the use of Xerox animation. The Xerox age of Disney animation would dominate the studio between 1961 to 1988. One Disney employee, Don Bluth, did not like this new cheaper process in animation, so he left Disney and ventured out on his own, producing such hits as The Secret of Nimh, The Land Before Time and An American Tail, which outperformed Disney's The Great Mouse Detective in 1986. 

However, this then led to the Disney Renaissance in animation between 1989 and 1999, with the releases of The Little Mermaid, The Rescuers Down Under, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, The Lion King, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, and Tarzan. 

“The Little Mermaid” was released on November 17, 1989, and earned $84.4 million in domestic box office. In his review, film critic Roger Ebert said, “Here at last, once again, is the kind of liberating, original, joyful Disney animation that we all remember from “Snow White,” “Pinocchio” and the other first-generation classics.” In 1990, the movie won Academy Awards and Golden Globes for Best Score and Best Song (“Under the Sea”).

 

German Gothic Horror & Fantasy Author E.T.A. Hoffman On This Day in History

 

This Day in History: German gothic horror and fantasy author E.T.A. Hoffman was born on this day in 1776. While many may not have heard of him, Hoffmann's stories highly influenced 19th-century literature, and he is one of the major authors of the Romantic movement. Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker was based on his novella The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. As a pioneer of the fantasy genre, with a taste for the macabre combined with realism, Hoffman influenced such authors as Edgar Allan Poe, Nikolai Gogol, Charles Dickens, Charles Baudelaire, George MacDonald, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Vernon Lee, Franz Kafka and Alfred Hitchcock. Hoffmann's story Das Fräulein von Scuderi is sometimes cited as the first detective story and a direct influence on Poe's "The Murders in the Rue Morgue".

Grace Isabel Colbron wrote in 1910: "That unique genius E. T. A. Hoffman, whose work undoubtedly influenced Edgar Allan Poe, has given us two or three mystery stories as strong and as characteristic as are all of his writings. Mlle, de Scudery is a thrilling tale of the days of the Great Louis and of the deeds of the great murderer Cardillac. The Deserted House is another wonderful Hoffman story in which a weird house, apparently deserted of normal life but evidently inhabited by something, an uncanny old servitor, a magic mirror, a crazy countess, a gypsy woman, and a beautiful girl, are mingled together in the kaleidoscopic manner which is one of Hoffman's most entrancing qualities. There are snatches and bits of mystery scattered through the many stories signed by Hoffman, but the two above mentioned are most nearly like in form and content to the sort of story we are here discussing."

As Hoffman himself put it: "Perhaps, too, you will then believe that nothing is more wonderful, nothing more fantastic than real life, and that all that a writer can do is to present it as "in a glass, darkly".”

“Why should not a writer be permitted to make use of the levers of fear, terror and horror because some feeble soul here and there finds it more than it can bear? Shall there be no strong meat at table because there happen to be some guests there whose stomachs are weak, or who have spoiled their own digestions?”

Edgar Allan Poe - An Exhumation is available on

 Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

The Deadliest Earthquake in History on This day in 1556

 

This Day in History: The deadliest earthquake in history, the Shaanxi earthquake, hits Shaanxi province, China on this day in 1556. The death toll may have been as high as 830,000. This, along with the the Great Comet of 1556 has led some to believe that this was the sign of the antichrist. 

The Shaanxi earthquake is just one of many deadly earthquakes that have happened over the centuries. One such earthquake happened on October 11, 1138 in Allepo, Syria with a death toll of 230,000. On December 22, 856, a deadly earthquake hit Damghan, Iran, killed 200,000 people. On December 28, 1908 in Messina, Italy, an earthquake and tsunami claimed up to 200,000 lives. Another one in Sicily, Italy killed 60,000 in an estimated 7.4 magnitude earthquake on January 11, 1693. On September 27, 1290, 100,000 people were killed by an earthquake in Chihli, China. Shemakha, Azerbaijan, lost 80,000 people with an earthquake on November 1667. Up to 250,000 died in an earthquake in Tabriz, Iran on April 26, 1721. Lisbon, Portugal lost up to 100,000 with an earthquake that took place on November 1, 1755. Nankaido, Japan lost 31,000 to a 1498 earthquake.

The most recent deadly earthquake was in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on January 12, 2010 with 316,000 deaths, 300,000 injured and 1,000,000 people homeless thanks to poor infrastructure and structurally unsound dwellings. 

Crime Writer Joseph Wambaugh on This Day in History

This Day in History: American writer Joseph Wambaugh was born on this day in 1937. While he has written fiction, I liked him mostly for his non-fiction crime writing in books, such as The Onion Field, Fire Lover: A True Story, and particularly, The Blooding, which chronicles the very first conviction of a murder using DNA evidence.

On 21 November 1983, 15-year-old Lynda Mann took a shortcut on her way home in Narborough (UK) from babysitting instead of taking her normal route home. She did not return and so her parents and neighbors spent the night searching for her. The next morning, she was found raped and strangled on a deserted footpath known locally as the Black Pad. Using forensic science techniques available at the time, police linked a semen sample taken from her body to a person with type A blood and an enzyme profile that matched only 10% of males. With no other leads or evidence, the case was left open.

About 3 years later, a second 15-year-old girl, Dawn Ashworth, left her home to visit a friend's house. Her parents expected her to come home at 9:30 PM; when she failed to do so they called police to report her missing. Two days later, her body was found in a wooded area near a footpath. The modus operandi matched that of the first attack, and semen samples revealed the same blood type.

The prime suspect was Richard Buckland, a local 17-year-old with learning difficulties, who revealed knowledge of Ashworth's body, and admitted to the Ashworth crime under questioning, but denied the first murder.

The previous year at the University of Leicester, a promising new technique had been developed allowing for a unique DNA ‘fingerprint’ to be produced from a DNA sample. 5000 local men were asked to give blood or saliva samples for DNA testing for comparison with the suspect’s DNA profile. After six month and thousands of samples taken, no match had been found. You see, the actual killer paid someone to take the DNA test for him. This person was overheard in a pub bragging about being paid £200 to give a DNA sample for one of his friends. That friend was local baker Colin Pitchfork. Pitchfork was arrested and a DNA sample was taken and matched to the crime scene samples, and he admitted to the rape and murder of the two girls.

Colin Pitchfork Documentary

Soviet Leader Vladimir Lenin on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Head of Soviet Russia from 1917 to 1924, Vladimir Lenin died on this day in 1924. He was not a good man, and he gave Russia a terrible system of governance (Socialism/Communism) that would end up destroying the lives of millions. But the Left does not let a horrific legacy besmirch someone's honor (think Che Guevara). In fact, Lenin was so loved, his body was never laid to rest. You can, to this day, view Lenin's preserved body in a mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square. It cost 13 million rubles a year (about 200,000 dollars) to keep his body preserved this way. Every 18 months, the body is taken to the lab beneath the viewing room for re-embalming. Although all Lenin’s organs have been removed, the team of specialists have preserved his skeleton, muscles and skin. Lenin is not the only dead world leader who's body is on display in a similar fashion. Mao Zedong, Kim Jong Il, Kim Il Sung and Hugo Chávez...all have been preserved, and all of them were bad people. It makes you lose hope in humanity.

Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) on This Day in History

 

Tarzan's Revenge (1938) Movie

This Day in History: Swimmer and actor Johnny Weissmuller died on this day in 1984. While having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century, he is best known for playing Edgar Rice Burroughs' ape man Tarzan in films of the 1930s and 1940s. He is also well known for that distinctive Tarzan Yell: “Aah-eeh-ah-eeh-aaaaaah-eeh-ah-eeh-aaaaah!”

That yell may have actually saved him. "...while playing golf in Cuba in 1958 during the Cuban Revolution, Weissmuller's golf cart was suddenly surrounded by rebel soldiers. Weissmuller was unable to communicate who he was until he got out of the cart and attempted the trademark Tarzan yell. The soldiers then recognized him and shouted '"¡Es Tarzán! ¡Es Tarzán de la Jungla!" Johnny and his companions were not only not kidnapped, but the guerillas gave him an escort to his hotel." Wikipedia

Oh, and Tarzan's Chimpanzee Cheeta actually outlived him.

Tarzan's Yell

The Once Useful ACLU on This Day in History

 

Former ACLU Head Ira Glasser on Why You Can't Ban Hate Speech

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was founded on this day in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". Also, "the ACLU is committed to defending speech rights without regard to whether the views expressed are consistent with or opposed to the ACLU’s core values, priorities and goals." At one time, the ACLU used to defend the KKK and Nazi's, but now they will stand against speech they feel denigrates certain people. “The ACLU stopped standing up for unpopular speech about 15 years ago, and today, they’re on the side of repressing people’s speech.” (Harmeet Dhillon) They seem to have forgotten that free speech is meant to protect the speech we despise, but recently they have morphed into a left-wing pressure group.

"It’s always the case throughout history that the free-speech test cases require the defense of very unpopular people saying very unpopular things … in order to defend free speech, you must believe in the worst things being said. This was the historical ACLU position." David Sacks

"I hope that ACLU will return to its roots and defend civil liberty. The antidote to hateful speech and disinformation is more speech, not censorship. The vast majority of people can think for themselves, despite elites telling us they must suppress information for 'our own good.'"

Perhaps we now have a bolder alternative with FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). They Defend free speech, due process, and academic freedom on college campuses.

However, there still seems to be some light at the ACLU recently as some in the organization came out against the no-fly list and the deplatforming of Parler and Trump.

See also Free Speech IS the Speech You Hate - Quotations on Freedom of Expression

The Boston Strangler on This Day in History

 

Boston Strangler Documentary

This Day in History: Albert DeSalvo, the "Boston Strangler", was convicted of numerous crimes and was sentenced to life imprisonment on this day in 1967. He had killed 13 women. He was never charged for the murder of those women because there was never any physical evidence to link DeSalvo to those crimes at the time. He was however charged with different crimes and sentenced for those. One month after this, DeSalvo and two other inmates escaped from Bridgewater State Hospital. He then disguised himself as a US Navy Petty Officer Third Class, but he actually gave himself up the next day. 

However, some to this day still have problems accepting Albert DeSalvo as the lone Boston Strangler. "One of the problems with the confession that DeSalvo gave was the theory that he would have confessed to just about anything if it gave him enough notoriety. He was an egomaniac who wanted people to believe he was far more vicious and calculating than he was, and criminal profilers have argued that his profile fits exactly with someone who would lie and claim ownership of crimes that they did not commit. Indeed, there was also some confusion over his identification. Gertrude Gruen was the one woman who survived an attack by the Strangler. After his confession, she was brought in to ID him. She did not think DeSalvo was her attacker, but when she saw his cellmate, George Nassar, she felt “something upsetting, something frighteningly familiar about that man.” Could it be that Nassar told DeSalvo about the crimes in detail and then allowed him to confess in his place? Perhaps the last murder of Mary Sullivan was nothing more than a copycat crime, the only one which DeSalvo was responsible for." Rhiannon_D

Top 5 Gruesome Boston Strangler Facts

The Saint Marcellus' Flood on This Day in History

 

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman

This Day in History: The Saint Marcellus' flood killed at least 25,000 people on the shores of the North Sea on this day in 1362. The 1300's was perhaps the worst century in human history. The Great Famine of 1315-1317 killed millions of people in Europe. The Hundred Years' War began in 1337. The 1347–1351 Black Death killed around a third of the population of Europe. The 6.9-magnitude 1348 Friuli earthquake centered in Northern Italy was felt across Europe. The Chinese Battle of Lake Poyang resulted in one of the largest naval battles in history. 1381 saw the Peasants' Revolt in England. Anti-Jewish pogroms spread throughout Spain and Portugal in 1391, and thousands of Jews are massacred.

The 14th century also saw the transition from the Medieval Warm Period to the Little Ice Age, which led to many crop failures.

The Greatest Family in History (Medici) on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Medici family was appointed official banker of the Papacy on this day in 1412. The Medici family has been called by some "The Greatest Family in History." They were a banking family that ruled Florence without actually ruling Florence and their bank was the largest in Europe at the time. "They were clothed with power but were too intelligent to use it upon a people as superior as the Florentines."~Fred DeArmond

During their time, Florence, Italy, was the center of the world. The Medici family claimed to have funded the invention of the piano and opera, financed the construction of Saint Peter's Basilica, and were patrons of Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Machiavelli, Galileo among many others in the arts and sciences. Michelangelo lived with the family. They assisted in the creation of gelato and they even produced four popes and four queens. The roots of the Medici family, according to legend, comes from one of Charlemagne’s knights, Averardo, who slayed a giant that had been terrorizing people.

The Medici - Godfathers of the Renaissance

The Black Dahlia Murder on This Day in History

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This Day in History: The Black Dahlia murder happened on this day in 1947. Elizabeth Short's mutilated body (and bisected at the waist) was found in the Leimert Park neighborhood of Los Angeles. It was found by a mother and her 3 year old daughter out for a stroll. Despite the mutilation, there was no blood at the scene. The LAPD had over 150 suspects (and perhaps 500 confessions) but the murder remains unsolved to this day. Some think it may have been related to the Cleveland Torso Murders a decade earlier.

Short's murder has been described as one of the most brutal and culturally enduring crimes in American history, and Time magazine listed it as one of the most infamous unsolved cases in the world.

I've found gruesome photos of the murder online, and I wish I hadn't.

The Most Watched TV Events on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Elvis Presley's concert Aloha from Hawaii was broadcast live via satellite, and set the record as the most watched broadcast by an individual entertainer in television history, on this day in 1973. There have also been many other mass-viewed TV events, some of which include Baywatch in the 1990's which had a worldwide viewership of one billion people per week (even though it was banned in the Middle East). An estimated 652 million people watched the live global broadcast of the Apollo 11 Moon landing in 1969 (about one fifth of the world's population at the time). Muhammad Ali's boxing matches had a viewership of at least one billion people. Princess Diana's funeral was watched by 2 billion people, making it the most-watched royal event.

Live-Aid in 1985 and Roger Water's 1990 Berlin concert "The Wall" garnered huge audiences as well. TV programs such as Dallas, M*A*S*H, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Friends and The Big Bang Theory have been syndicated in more than 100 countries, as have Game of Thrones, Sherlock and Doctor Who. The FIFA World Cup Soccer and the Summer Olympics have viewerships as high as 3 billion.

Live Aid

Bible Translator Edgar J Goodspeed on This Day in History

 

Buy my published Kindle book on Amazon on Forgotten Bible Versions for only 99 cents

See a local listing for it here

This Day in History: New Testament scholar Edgar J. Goodspeed died on this day in 1962. Professor Jason Beduhn declared that Goodspeed was one of the three greats in Bible Translation history (the other two being James Moffatt and Brooke Foss Westcott), and Goodpeed may have created one of the greatest Bible Translations ever. About 70 years ago, E.C. Colwell created an apparatus to determine the best New Testament, in his book "What Is The Best New Testament" [University of Chicage Press, 1951.] Colwell chose 64 Scriptures in the Gospel of John where there were slight differences between the weaker (later) Greek Text (Textus Receptus) and the better Greek Text based on older manuscripts. For instance, at John 5:2, the weaker texts have "Bethasda" while the texts based on older manuscripts have "Bethzatha." Colwell wanted to determine which Bible was the most faithful to the best Greek text. His conclusion was that Goodspeed's New Testament was the best New Testament, as it translated all 64 verses correctly. I then tested other Bible Versions that came out since then, and I discovered 2 other Bibles that did as well as Goodspeed's: The New World Translation, and the 21st Century New Testament (Vivian Capel). The New International Version scored 51 out of 64, and the English Standard Version got 52 out of 64 correct. Rotherham's Emphasized Bible and Byington's Bible in Living English were quite accurate as well. 

Smith & Goodspeed's An American Translation is no longer in print, but a search on Ebay will usually help you find a copy. 

The Buffalo Ripper on This Day in History

 

On this day in 1969, George Fitzsimmons (31) killed his parents when they tried to make him go to church against his will. After beating his parents to death, Fitzsimmons drove from his home in Amherst, NY, to Rhode Island, but Fitzsimmon was captured soon after the killings. He was dubbed the "Karate Chop Killer" because he told the police that he murdered his parents using his martial arts skills.

George Fitzsimmons was eventually acquitted of the killings and sent to a psychiatric facility. He was released from the Buffalo State Hospital in 1973 after less than three years there. Amazingly, Fitzsimmons was allowed to inherit more than $100,000 from his dead parents' estate, and he used the money to move to Pennsylvania with his new wife, someone he met while in the mental hospital.

However, soon after, Fitzsimmons stabbed his aunt and uncle to death on November 13, 1973, causing the press to call him the "Buffalo Ripper." While he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to the murders, Fitzsimmons was convicted of the killings and given two concurrent life sentences.

See also Notorious Criminals, Crimes & Criminology - 100 Books on DVDrom 

Murder on the Orient Express on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The 2017 film Murder on the Orient Express was given a Critics' Choice Awards for Best Production Design on this day in 2018. While the movie was panned by critics in other areas, I enjoyed it, and it sits rather well in one of my favorite genre of movies: Mysteries & Thrillers set in Winter. There are so many good movies in this rather narrow category, such as: The Grey, A Simple Plan, Cliffhanger, Frozen (not the cartoon), Fargo, the Thing, Blood and Money, Misery, Wind River, Dead of Winter, Whitewash, Hanna, Eye See You, Dark Valley, Smilla's Sense of Snow, The Terror, Transsiberian, Storm of the Century, Braven, Sugar Mountain, Devil's Pass, The Lodge, The Revenant, Alive, The Road, Van Helsing, The River King, Ginger Snaps-The Beginning, to name but a few. Many would add The Shining to that list.

Murder on the Orient Express has had many different adaptations, starting with the 1974 Albert Finney and Lauren Bacall movie, then there is a 2001 version starring Alfred Molina, and a 2006 version with the best Hercules Poirot, David Suchet. There is even a Japanese adaptation that came out in 2015.

Watch the David Suchet Version

The Spindletop Oil Gusher on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The first great Texas oil gusher was discovered at Spindletop in Beaumont, Texas on this day in 1901. This became the hole that changed the world, and came to called the “Lucas Gusher” after Captain Anthony F. Lucas, a mining engineer. The oilfield produced 3.59 million barrels in its first year and 17.4 million barrels the next. 

Spindletop created the modern oil and natural gas industry, changed the future of American industry and transportation, and with it came many new oilfield technologies.

And this is a good thing. Oil and gas fueled automobiles which saved cities from horrible manure pollution. Oil also saved the whales. At one point whales were hunted almost to the point of extinction as whale blubber was at one time the main source of indoor lighting.

How Oil Saves the Whales (and May Save Us All)

The 1859 Project: How The Birth Of The Oil Industry Saved Whales And Propelled Today’s Prosperity

Japan's Drug Laws on This Day in History

This Day in History: Mick Jagger was refused a Japanese visa on this day in 1973 because of a 1969 drug bust. The event halted the Rolling Stones' plan to tour Asia. Japan still has strict drug laws. 

"Under Japan’s Cannabis Control Act, weed possession can lead to up to five years in jail, or seven if there’s a suspected intent to profit, and a potential fine of up to $18,000. Jail sentences for growing, importing and exporting weed are seven years—or up to 10 if there’s intent to profit, and a potential fine of up to $27,000." ~Manisha Krishnan 

The strictness doesn't just stop with illicit drugs. Common over-the-counter medications for sinus and allergy problems are banned, such as inhalers, anything with Pseudoephedrine or Codeine, and nasal-spray bottles. One traveler was detained for carrying Sudafed. Actifed and Vicks inhalers contain stimulants, so they are prohibited as well. 

It could be worse though. If you're caught with drugs in Iran, Thailand, Saudi Arabia and Singapore, you may be executed.

 

Adam Worth, the Napoleon of Crime on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: The Napoleon of Crime, Adam Worth, died on this day in 1902. Adam Worth was a German-born American criminal and crime boss who is widely considered the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional criminal mastermind James Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes series, whom Conan Doyle calls "The Napoleon of Crime".

Worth enlisted in the Union Army during the civil war at age 17. When he was wounded in battle he found out that he was listed as "killed in action" and so he left. After the war, Worth became a pickpocket, and over time he started his own gang of pickpockets, and then began to organize robberies and heists.

"His name was Adam Worth; a dapper, cerebral and ambitious little man, he had come from nowhere--specifically, the mean backstreets of Cambridge, Massachusetts--to become the most successful safecracker and bank robber in the city of New York, which in 1865 boasted 53,000 crimes of violence. Dissatisfied with a mere local notoriety, and seeking to escape the notice of Pinkerton detectives, in 1869 he borrowed or stole the name of Henry J. Raymond, late founder editor of the New York Times, and sailed to England where he transformed himself into an elegant English gentleman, with a flat on Piccadilly, a steam yacht, racehorses and an international syndicate of robbers and forgers. For years he drove the world's police forces to distraction with well planned, bloodlessly executed crimes all the way to Port Elizabeth in South Africa, without ever leaving a bit of incriminating evidence."

Richard Wolkomir

See also 19th Century Crime Boss Adam Worth and the Pinkertons 1905

Nikola Tesla on This Day in History

 

Tesla Movie Trailer

Today in History: Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla died on this day in 1943. He never did as well as his rivals (Westinghouse and Edison) but that's because he was not as ruthless. He gave the world alternating current, the radio, x-rays, the remote control, hydroelectric power and maybe even a death ray. 

Also: "Throughout his life, Tesla displayed a formidable work ethic, keeping a regimented schedule. Some claim he slept only two hours a night. He often took his dinner at the same table at Delmonico’s in New York, and later at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel. He had an all-consuming fear of germs and required a stack of 18 napkins. He was obsessed with the number three, and was prone to carrying out compulsive rituals related to three. When he was young, he would develop a fit at the sight of pearls, and couldn’t bear to touch hair." Mental Floss

His legacy has developed well and there are many things named after him, such as the Tesla and Nikola vehicles, an 80's rock band, a crater on the moon, the Nikola Tesla Museum, a minor planet, and he was played by David Bowie in the 2006 movie The Prestige.

He spent his declining years living out of hotels and tending to pigeons.

Bjorn Lomborg on This Day in History

Today in History: Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg was born on this day in 1965. In 1997, Bjorn Lomborg read an interview with Julian Simon, an American economist who argued that much of our knowledge about the environment was based on preconceptions and poor statistics, and that the doomsday conventional wisdom about the environment was wrong. Lomborg, a one-time Greenpeace member and a vegetarian leftist set out to prove that Julian Simon was wrong. Bjorn Lomborg wrote a 500-page book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist," boasting 70 pages of bibliography and nearly 3,000 notes, wherein he discovers that Julian Simon was mostly right. 

He writes: "in the US, the total number of car miles traveled has more than doubled over the past 30 years… Nevertheless, over the same period emissions have decreased by a third and concentrations much more… air pollution can be---and historically has been---combated and developed in the developed world. There is also good reason to belief that the developing world, following our pattern … will bring down its air pollution.” (Pg. 177)

He observes, “Air pollution has got worse in the developing world, mainly because of the strong economic growth. However, the developing countries are really just making the same tradeoffs as the developed countries made 100-200 years ago… the environment and economic prosperity are not opposing concepts, but rather complementary entities: without adequate environmental protection, growth is undermined, but environmental protection is un-affordable without growth. It is thus reasonable to expect that as the developing countries of the world achieve higher levels of income, they will… opt for and be able to afford an ever cleaner environment.” (Pg. 210)

He has over time pointed out that wildfires are not really increasing, and that climate change is not the devastating emergency many would like for you to think. 

"When thinking about the future, it is fashionable to be pessimistic. Yet the evidence unequivocally belies such pessimism. Over the past centuries, humanity's lot has improved dramatically - in the developed world, where it is rather obvious, but also in the developing world, where life expectancy has more than doubled in the past 100 years."

"Just because there is a problem doesn't mean that we have to solve it, if the cure is going to be more expensive than the original ailment."

"We worry about the seemingly ever-increasing number of natural catastrophes. Yet this is mainly a consequence of CNN - we see many more, but the number is roughly constant, and we manage to deal much better with them over time. Globally, the death rate from catastrophes has dropped about fifty-fold over the past century."

 

The Golden Gate Bridge on This Day in History

 

This Day in History: Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began in San Francisco Bay on this day in 1933. The Frommer's travel guide described the Golden Gate Bridge as "possibly the most beautiful, certainly the most photographed, bridge in the world." The bridge cost more than $35 million [in 1933 dollars] and was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

The Golden Gate Bridge is also the most used suicide site in the world, although the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge in China has a considerable number of suicides as well. Between 1937 and 2012, an estimated 1,400 bodies were recovered from the bridge area. Most die from the impact alone, and if you survived you are usually left with severe organ damage (multiple ruptured organs and necks, pelvises, etc.). The  George Washington Memorial Bridge in Seattle also has a high number of suicides. 

In Canada, the Prince Edward Viaduct in Toronto, Ontario, was ranked as the second most fatal standing structure in North America, after the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Suicides dropped to zero after a barrier was completed in 2003. The High Level Bridge in Edmonton, Alberta, is also considered a suicide bridge.

Apart from bridges, the site with the most suicides is the Aokigahara forest in Japan. 

See also Suicide in Ancient History

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds on This Day in History

 

Today in History: Elton John's cover of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" hit #1 in the US on this day in 1975. The Beatles' original, released in 1967 on the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album, was never actually released as a single. John Lennon played guitar and backing vocals on this cover, he was credited as Dr. Winston. Lennon even admitted that this version was superior to the Beatles original. Elton's cover of "Pinball Wizard" was better than the Who's original as well. 

There are a number of cover songs that are infinitely better than the original. For instance, Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You” was better than Dolly Parton's. Johnny Cash's “Hurt” was better than the Nine Inch Nails original. Janis Joplin did a better job on “Me and Bobby McGee” than Roger Miller. The Byrds did a better version of “Mr. Tambourine Man” than Bob Dylan. Rod Stewart did better versions of two Tom Waits songs (Downtown Train and Waltzing Matilda). Elvis did a better Hound Dog than Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band made a better version of Springsteen's “Blinded by the Light”. Sinead O’Connor improved on Prince's “Nothing Compares 2 U”. Then there's UB40's "Red, Red Wine" which is better than Neil Diamond's version, just as Quiet Riot's version of “Cum On Feel the Noize” was better than Slade's. 

See also LSD on This Day in History

J.R.R. Tolkien on This Day in History

 

J.R.R. Tolkien 4-Book Boxed Set: The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings

Today in History: English writer, poet, philologist, and academic J.R.R. Tolkien was born on this day in 1892. He is best known for writing The Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit books, but he also had a part in translating the book of Jonah in the Catholic Jerusalem Bible, a task for which he learned a considerable amount of Hebrew. 

In life Tolkien despised political power. The Ring in his LOTR series may speak to that. The invisibility that the ring grants its wearer represents state power: "power isn’t simply about the exertion of unjust force. It is about what happens next, after the exertion. Does the perp generally get away with, or not? Systematically getting away with it—or impunity—is where power truly lies. And that is what makes agents of the state different from any other bully. State agents can aggress with reliable impunity because a critical mass of the state’s victims consider the aggression of state agents to be exceptional and legitimate. That is power.

And that is why invisibility is such an apt analogue for state power. The public’s moral vision has a complete blind spot when it comes to the state. It detects acts of theft, enslavement, and murder whenever they are perpetrated by anyone else, but it is blind to the criminality involved whenever the same exact acts are committed by agents of the state. It is blind to state theft, instead seeing 'taxation,' 'fees,' and 'citations.' It is blind to state enslavement, instead seeing 'mandates,' 'prohibitions,' and 'regulations.' And it is blind to state murder, instead seeing 'war in pursuit of the national interest.'"~Dan Sanchez

The Yorkshire Ripper on This Day in History

 

Today in History: English serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, aka Yorkshire Ripper, was arrested on this day in 1981. He was responsible for 13 confirmed deaths and a few other injuries. His was one of the largest and most expensive manhunts in British history and the West Yorkshire Police were criticized for their failure to catch Sutcliffe despite having interviewed him nine times in the course of their five-year investigation. 

There have been quite a few bad men dubbed "Ripper" since the original Jack the Ripper in 1888. There's the Russian Rostov Ripper who killed 52 people between 1978 and 1990. Joel the Ripper (Joel Rifkin) killed 17 people. Then there's the Blackout Ripper who killed 4 women in 1942. Between 2001 and 2008 we had the Hollywood Ripper in Southern California. Greece had the Athens Ripper between 1992 and 1995. Michigan had the Ypsilanti Ripper (Co-ed Killer) between 1967 and 1969. Texas had the Dallas Ripper in the early 90's. Long Island, NY had the Craigslist Ripper recently who may have killed up to 17 women. The Atlanta Ripper terrorized Atlanta in the early 1900's and was never caught. 

Country Music Legend Hank Williams on This Day in History

 

Today in History: Country music legend Hank Williams died on this day in 1953 at the young age of 29 of heart failure brought about by prescription drug abuse and alcoholism. In his short life time he managed to become one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. He recorded 35 singles that reached the Top 10 of the Billboard Country & Western Best Sellers chart, including 11 that ranked number one ("Lovesick Blues", "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", "Why Don't You Love Me", "Moanin' the Blues", "Cold, Cold Heart", "Hey, Good Lookin'", "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)", "I'll Never Get Out of This World Alive", "Kaw-Liga", "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "Take These Chains from My Heart").

Hank's actual first name is Hiram (a name common in Freemasonry). 

More than 25,000 people attended the funeral of Hank Williams on Jan. 4, 1953. He is buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Montgomery Alabama, his home stste.

The car Hank Williams died in (a 1952 Baby Blue Cadillac) is on display at the Hank Williams Museum in Montgomery.

I love this video of Hank Jr sharing a song with his dad. I like seeing generations reach across time to pay tribute, just like Natalie Cole did with her father in "Unforgettable."