Author Archives: dcaligari

March 18, 1965 –Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov performed the first spacewalk on this day. He stayed outside his ship for 12 minutes, held to the ship by a tether. By the time his walk was over, his spacesuit had inflated so much in the vacuum of space that he could barely get back inside the ship.Continue reading “The first space walk”

March 18, 1981 –Stephen J. Cannell’s take on superheroes, The Greatest American Hero, starring William Katt, Robert Culp, and Connie Sellecca, premiered on ABC-TV, on this date. Two years after the show’s cancellation by ABC, NBC picked up the series, and aired its reruns in a Sunday night, post-primetime time slot. This led to speculationContinue reading “The Greatest American Hero premiered”

March 17, 1966 –The Walker Brothers had their second UK No.1 hit (their first being, Make It Easy on Yourself) with the song The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore, on this date. In the UK this is regarded as a death song, supposedly because of an incident in the mid 1960s concerning Ronnie Kray. TheContinue reading “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore premiered”

March 17, 1972 –John Water presented Divine to an unsuspecting world: Pink Flamingos, premiered in Baltimore on this date. (In 2021, this cult classic was inducted into the National Film Registery of important films that need to be preserved.) During filming, Divine was arrested for stealing; in her defense she said she was a methodContinue reading “Pink Flamingos premiered”

The Feast Day of St. Patrick is celebrated on March 17. St. Patrick is considered the father of Celtic Christianity. He founded more than three hundred churches, drove the snakes out of Ireland, invented green beer, and coined the popular slogan, Kiss me, I’m Irish (although, he himself was not.) This year, the Citizenry ofContinue reading “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

Purim starts last night – The festival of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). It commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in aContinue reading “Chag Purim Sameach (again)”

March 16, 1966 –NASA launched the Gemini 8 on this date. It is the twelfth manned American space mission. Shortly after its launch, it will take part in the first physical docking of two spacecraft in orbit when it rendezvous with the Gemini Agena to conduct extravehicular activities six hours and thirty-three minutes after launch.Continue reading “Gemini 8 launched”

March 16 – Today is the celebration of St. Urho’s Day, Patron saint of Finnish vineyard workers. Attributed to him is the miracle of banishing grasshoppers from Finland which he accomplished with a few choice Finnish phrases, thereby saving the season’s grape crop. But in reality a bunch of very drunk people made this upContinue reading “Heinäsirkka, heinäsirkka, mene täältä hiiteen”

March 16, 1967 – The Star Trek episode Errand of Mercy premiered on this date. In it, Kirk and Spock attempt to protect the planet Organia from the Klingon and sway them to the side of the Federation, but they aren’t welcome.. The episode marks the first appearance of Klingons on the series. Popularly knownContinue reading “Star Trek – Errands of Mercy”

Tonight is the start of Purim The global festival of Purim commemorates the defeat of Haman, the advisor to the Persian king, and his plot to massacre the Jewish people, around 2,500 years ago. The name of the festival comes from the Persian word for ‘lot’, as Haman drew lots to see who he’d killContinue reading “Chag Purim Sameach”