Author Archives: dcaligari

August 24, 1853 –It is believed that the original potato chip recipe was created by chef George Crum, at Moon’s Lake House near Saratoga Springs, New York, on this date. He was fed up with a customer (the popular myth wrongly identifies him as Cornelius Vanderbilt) who continued to send his fried potatoes back, claimingContinue reading “Betcha can’t eat just one!”

August 24, 1814 –The White House and other public buildings in the District of Columbia were torched by the invading British army on this date. The President’s wife, Dolley Madison and Paul Jennings, her husband’s enslaved manservant, are torn away from Mrs. Madison’s ice cream and candy making duties to save a couple of chairs,Continue reading “The burning of Washington D.C.”

August 24, 1979 –NBC-TV introduced the girls of Eastland School, an all-girls boarding school in Peekskill, New York, to audiences when The Facts of Life premiered on this date. The pilot Rough Housing may have been the very first children’s program on network television to discuss gender confusion and sexual identity crises among youth; asContinue reading “The Facts of Life premiered”

August 23, 1968 –The Youth International Party designated Pigasus as their choice of candidate for U.S. President on this date. The boar hog was introduced at a press conference outside the Chicago Civic Center, with the slogan “They nominate a President and he eats the people. We nominate a President and the people eat him.“Continue reading “We could always have him for breakfast”

August 23, 1985 –The Toho Studio and New World Pictures released the heavily re-edited American version of The Return of Godzilla (a sequel of the original Gojira movie), Godzilla 1985 (a sequel of the American Godzilla, King of the Monsters) starring the great Raymond Burr, Ken Tanaka, and Yasuko Sawaguchi, on this date. Raymond BurrContinue reading “Godzilla 1985 premiered”

August 22, 1972 – The movie that introduced Monty Python and its seminal brand of comedy to American audiences, And Now for Something Completely Different, premiered in the U.S. on this date. This movie was filmed between the first and second seasons of Monty Python’s Flying Circus. It contains several sketches that had been writtenContinue reading “And Now for Something Completely Different premiered”

August 22, 1893 –Tell him I was too fucking busy– or vice versa. Dorothy Parker was born in New York City, to Henry and Eliza Rothschild (… My God, no, dear! We’d never even heard of those Rothschilds ….) on this date. Her birth was two months premature, allowing her to say that it wasContinue reading “Dorothy Parker”

August 22, 1986 –Rob Reiner adaptation of the novella by Stephen King, Stand By Me, starring Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O’Connell, and Kiefer Sutherland premiered in US Theatres on this date. River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Wil Wheaton and Jerry O’Connell got into a lot of mischief in the hotel they were stayingContinue reading “Stand By Me premiered”

August 22, 1946 – The last of Alfred Hitchcock’s wartime thrillers, Notorious, premiered on this date. After filming had ended, Cary Grant kept the famous UNICA key. A few years later he gave the key to his great friend and co-star Ingrid Bergman, saying that the key had given him luck and hoped it wouldContinue reading “Notorious premiered”

August 21, 1911 –Pablo Picasso was having a very bad day. His so called friend, French poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who had once called for the Louvre to be “burnt down,” came under suspicion when the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Lourve on this day; he was arrested and put in jail. Apollinaire, as allContinue reading “Answer to yesterday’s quiz”