Posts Tagged ‘xkcd’
Remembrance of Things Past…
xkcd
(…where Randall Munroe observes that “an ‘American Tradition’ is anything that happened to a Boomer twice.”)
As we wax nostalgic, we might might spare a thought for musician, composer, arranger, and bandleader Glenn Miller; he died on this date in 1944. By the early 40s, Miller and his band had become huge stars: In 1939, Time noted: “Of the twelve to 24 discs in each of today’s 300,000 U.S. jukeboxes, from two to six are usually Glenn Miller.” His recording of “Tuxedo Junction” smashed records (pun intended) when it sold 115,000 copies in its first week; in 1942, Miller received the very first Gold Record (for “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”).
When the U.S. entered World War II, Miller was 38, too old to be drafted. But he persuaded the U.S. Army to accept him so that he could, in his own words, “be placed in charge of a modernized Army band.” Miller played a number of musical roles in the service, ultimately forming the 50-piece Army Air Force Band, which he took to England in the summer of 1944, where he gave 800 performances, and recorded (at Abbey Road Studios) material that was broadcast both as a morale boost of far-flung troops and as propaganda. On December 15, 1944, Miller boarded a small plane to fly from Bedford, outside of London, to Paris, to play a Christmas concert for soldiers there. His plane went down over the Channel; he is still officially listed as “missing in action.”
Well, it’s true that they both react poorly to showers…
Randall Munroe (xkcd) riffs on the same chatbot-to-chatbot conversation featured here some days ago…
As we celebrate our essential humanity, we might recall that it was on this date in 1900 that Jesse Lazear, a then-34-year-old physician working in Cuba to understand the transmission of yellow fever, experimented on himself, allowing himself to be bitten by infected mosquitoes. His death two weeks later confirmed that mosquitoes are in fact the carriers of the disease.
Correlation = Causality?…
As we think not, we might recall that it was on this date in 356 BCE that the Temple of Artemis (AKA the Temple of Diana) in Ephesus– reputedly the first Greek temple built of marble, sponsored by Croesus, and one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World– was destroyed by a fire set in its roof beams.
Model of Temple of Artemis, Miniatürk Park, Istanbul (source)
Site in Ephesus today (source)
In lieu of a graduation address…
… from xkcd:
As we avoid looking too closely at the faces of our watches, we might recall that it was on this date in 1921 at the White House that President Warren G. Harding presented Marie Curie with a gram of radium (worth $100,000 at the time). Curie died in 1934 of aplastic anemia contracted from exposure to radiation. Her laboratory is preserved at the Musée Curie. But because of their levels of radioactivity, her papers are considered too dangerous to handle, and are kept in lead-lined boxes; those who wish to consult them must wear protective clothing.
Curie, with Harding at the White House (source)
Boo! (It’s that time again…)
…from the always-amusing xkcd. (The last panel? The Banach-Tarski Paradox: explained here; illustrated here. The “Axiom of Choice”– of which the the B-T Paradox is a case– is explained here.)
As we gird ourselves for the season of horrors, we might recall that it was on this date in 1483 that Tomás de Torquemada was appointed Inquisitor General of Spain (at the behest of Queen Isabella, whose confessor he had been). Called “the hammer of heretics, the light of Spain, the saviour of his country, the honor of his order” by Spanish chronicler Sebastián de Olmedo, Torquemada was a key advocate for the Alhambra Decree (Ferdinand’s and Isabella’s expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492) and a zealous prosecutor of “crypto-Jews” and “crypto-Muslims.” While the precise number of deaths on his watch is a matter of debate, there is a general agreement that, between 1480 and 1530, about 2000 people burned in the autos-de-fé of the Spanish Inquisition.
You must be logged in to post a comment.