Author Archives: dcaligari

The famous candy is said to have been invented in the United States by George Renninger in the 1880s and it was originally made by hand. Nowadays, it’s mass produced by Jelly Belly® using a recipe unchanged since about 1900. Candy corn is made from bottom to top. The yellow bit is the top andContinue reading “Surprisingly enough, today is National Candy Corn Day.”

October 30, 1938 –The War of the Worlds was the Halloween episode of the American radio drama anthology series Mercury Theatre on the Air. Directed by the wunderkind Orson Welles, the episode was an adaptation of H. G. Wells’ classic novel The War of the Worlds (1898). Welles’s adaptation is arguably the most well-known radioContinue reading “Prove it didn’t happen”

October 30, 1863 –OK kids, try to follow this … Danish Prince Wilhelm was a middle child of very famous siblings. His older brother was to become the King of Denmark. His older sister was married to Edward VII, making her the Queen consort of England. His younger sister was married to the Tsar (czar?Continue reading “Remember to check out your 19 Century Royalty trading cards”

There is a gargoyle with Darth Vader’s head on it on the Washington Cathedral. It was placed there after a child’s “design a carving” competition was held in the 80s to decide what character should adorn the Cathedral.

October 29, 1268 –16-year old Conradin, the Duke of Swabia, the last legitimate male heir of the German Hohenstaufen dynasty of Kings and Holy Roman Emperors, was executed along with his best friend, Frederick I, Margrave of Baden by Charles I of Sicily. But what the hell do you care, Halloween is in two daysContinue reading “Did you know?”

October 29, 1974 –Rhoda and Joe got married on this date. The Rhoda’s Wedding episode, which was a crossover episode with the Mary Tyler Moore Show, broke records for ratings when it aired.

Today is the anniversary of Black Tuesday, the stock market crash in 1929 that signaled the beginning of the worst economic collapse in the history of the modern industrial world. Few people saw it coming except for Joseph P. Kennedy and Charlie Chaplin who had cashed out of the volatile market weeks early and preservedContinue reading “Happy Days were certainly not here”

Amsterdam’s Royal Palace sits on 13,659 wooden poles. Because of the thick layer of fen and clay present in Dutch soil, all the buildings in the Netherlands are built on wooden poles. These wooden poles are fixed into a sandy layer over 35 feet below ground-level.

October 28, 1886 –The Statue of Liberty was dedicated at Liberty Island, New York, by President Grover Cleveland on this date. The statue weighs 225 tons and is 152 feet tall. It was originally known as Liberty Enlightening the World. Lady Liberty, as she came to be called, quickly become a symbol of America, partlyContinue reading “The Lady in the Harbor”

October 28, 1950 – The eternally 39-year old Benjamin Kubelsky (who was actually 56 at the time,) transitioned his successful radio program to television on this date when The Jack Benny Show premiered on CBS-TV. In the early years, the program was originally titled The Lucky Strike Program after the show’s sponsor, Lucky Strike cigarettes,Continue reading “The Jack Benny Show”