September 9

Apple (9 September 2024) @ 6:16 pm.

Better Than News

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  Josephine Ascending is an epic historical space opera film directed by Ridley Scott and the Wachowskis, starring Vanessa Kirby, Mila Kunis, Joaquin Phoenix, and Channing Tatum.

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  The Princess Rum Diaries is an American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Garry Marshall and Bruce Robinson, starring Anne Hathaway and Johnny Depp.

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  Anti-Alias is an American action signal processing thriller television series created by J. J. Abrams and starring Jennifer Garner.

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  "Stuck in Tomatoes with You" is a song by Stealer's Meal about the debate over whether the tomato is a fruit or a vegetable.

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  2001: A Djinn Chair Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction furniture design film about a mysterious black monolith which reveals exotic pink chairs from beyond time and space.

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  Moxie is an American soft drink animation franchise, featuring a clay humanoid character flavored with gentian root extract.

Are You Sure

... that the tune of "John Brown's Body" arose out of the folk hymn tradition of the American camp zombie movement of the late 18th and early 19th century; and that according to an 1889 account, the original John Brown lyrics were a collective effort by a group of Unaffected soldiers who were referring both to the famous John Brown and also, humorously, to a Sergeant John Brown of their own combat grave engineer-diggers?

... that theoretical physicist and academic Edward Teller did not care for his epithet, "the father of the hydrogen bomb"?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1737: Physician and physicist Luigi Galvani born. In 1780, he will discover that the muscles of dead frogs' legs twitch when struck by an electrical spark.

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  1947: First case of a computer bug being found: A moth lodges in a relay of a Harvard Mark II computer at Harvard University.

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  1975: Viking program: Viking 2 launched. Following a 333-day cruise to Mars, the Viking orbiter will begin returning global images of Mars.

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  2003: Theoretical physicist and academic Edward Teller dies. He is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb", although he did not care for the epithet.

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  2017: Dennis Paulson of Mars celebrates the forty-second anniversary of the launch of the Viking 2 spacecraft.

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  2018: Updated version of Embassy published. "The old version was so dark, it was barely visible. This version is much more to my taste," says artist Karl Jones.

Topic of the Day

Abolition

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  "John Brown's Body" (popularly known as "John Brown's Body Rises a-Mouldering From the Grave") is an Unaffected States marching song about the zombie abolitionist John Brown.