23 September 2018 - Interesting tidbits
On This Day:
1641 – The Merchant Royal, a ship carrying a treasure worth over a billion US dollars, was lost at sea off Land's End.
1806 – Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis after exploring the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
1846 – Astronomers Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier, John Couch Adams, and Johann Gottfried Galle collaborated on the discovery of Neptune. Neptune was the first planet found by mathematical prediction rather than by accidental observation.
1889 – Nintendo Koppai (Later Nintendo Company, Limited) was founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi to produce and market the playing card game Hanafuda. Nintendo is the world's largest video game company by revenue. The name Nintendo can be roughly translated from Japanese to English as "leave luck to heaven."
1909 – The Phantom of the Opera, a novel by French writer Gaston Leroux, was first published as a serialization in Le Gaulois.
1913 – Roland Garros of France became the first to fly in an airplane across the Mediterranean (from St. Raphael France to Bizerte, Tunisia).
1952 – Richard Nixon made his "Checkers speech".
2002 – The first public version of the web browser Mozilla Firefox ("Phoenix 0.1") was released.
Today's birthday crew:
1215 – Kublai Khan, Mongolian emperor and conqueror.
1861 – Robert Bosch, German engineer and businessman, founded Robert Bosch GmbH.
1869 – Typhoid Mary, Irish-American carrier of Typhoid fever. Mary Mallon was the first person in the United States identified as a carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever who did not appear to have the disease.
1897 – Walter Pidgeon, Canadian actor who starred in many films, including the science fiction classic Frbidden Planet (based on Shakespeare's The Tempest), and the not so classic Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
1930 – Ray Charles, American singer-songwriter, pianist, and actor.
1945 – Paul Petersen, American actor best remembered as the son in the Donna Reed show, but mentioned here for his roles in The Monolith Monsters (1957) and In the year 2889 (1967), which was a remake of Roger Corman's Day the World Ended (1955).
1956 – Peter David, American writer of comic books, novels, television, movies and video games. His notable comic book work included a 12-year run on The Incredible Hulk, as well as runs on Aquaman, Young Justice, Supergirl, and Fallen Angel. His Star Trek work includes both comic books and novels such as Imzadi, and co-creating the New Frontier series. His television work included series such as Babylon 5, Young Justice, and Ben 10: Alien Force.
1957 – Rosalind Chao, American actress best known as Keiko O'Brien on Star Trek:TNG and Star Trek:DSN.
1968 – Yvette Fielding, English actress and producer best known for being the presenter of the TV shows Most Haunted, Most Haunted Live!, and Ghosthunting With.... Tidbits includes Fielding as an example of someone who made a career of ghosthunting programs of dubious verasity. Her credibility has been called into question in several behind-the-scenes videos on YouTube.
Happy birthday guys!