Category Archives: Uncategorized

First we were Four Then we were three Now we are two. It was a long haul but we got Olivia and Julietta up to school.We still have a bunch of Olivia’s things here at the house, (we’ll have to go back another day with them.) She got settled in and is currently enjoying theContinue reading “We did it!”

August 20, 1941 –William Wyler’s pitch-perfect adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes, starring Bette Davis, premiered on this date. Bette Davis was a contract player for Warner Brothers at the time, earning $3000 a week. When she heard how much Warners was receiving for her services she demanded a share of the payment.

Soft Serve Ice Cream has been around since the 1930s. There are conflicting reports of the origins of the dessert. In 1934, Tom Carvel, the founder of eponymous ice cream brand and franchise, had to sell melting ice cream on a parking lot because his ice cream truck had a flat tire. He noticed thatContinue reading “Today is National Soft Serve Ice Cream Day.”

August 19, 1969 –David Crosby, Steven Stills, Joni Mitchell, and the Jefferson Airplane appeared on the Dick Cavett Show, giving a first-hand account of the Woodstock festival that took place over the weekend. Jefferson Airplane’s performance of We Can Be Together marked the first time the word “fuck” was uttered on live US television.

August 18, 1868 – French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen discovers Helium, while analyzing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipse in Guntur, India, on this date. Because helium was found in the Sun before it was found on Earth, its name comes from the Greek word for Sun, helios. It marksContinue reading “Balloons are filled with some of the primordial universe.”

August 18, 1949 –The first filmed recording of CBS color television was made in Washington D.C. using a U.S. Navy-designed Berndt-Maurer camera on this date. The next week, on August 25, RCA announced their Dot Sequential color system which is the one we used today. CBS was making color with a system that used aContinue reading “First Color TV recording”

August 17, 1979 –Handmade Films released the classic religious satire film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian in the US on this date. When Michael Palin as Pontius Pilate addressed the soldiers daring them to laugh, he was truly daring them. The soldier extras were ordered to stand there and not laugh, but not told whatContinue reading “Monty Python’s Life of Brian”

Each year on August 16th, many people at amusement parks and theme parks across the country participating in National Roller Coaster Day which is celebrated on this date. J.G. Taylor received one of the earliest patents (US patent #128,674) for an inclined railway in 1872. In 1878, Richard Knudsen received a patent (US #198,888) forContinue reading “There are ups; there are downs”

August 16, 1985 –CBS-TV’s adaptation of the Arthur Miller classic Death of A Salesman, directed by Volker Schlöndorff and starring Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich premiered on this date. Author Arthur Miller always pictured Willy Loman as a short, weak man with a booming voice. After nearly forty years, Miller finally got his wish afterContinue reading “Death of A Salesman”

August 15, 1969 – The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair began on this date, on Max Yasger’s farm in upstate New York. The greatest gathering of marketing and advertising professionals in American history, the festival featured the musical artists behind some of today’s hottest commercial jingles. And so it goes