May 21

Better Than News

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  Woody Nights is a 1997 American period comedy-drama biographical film about a young pornographic film star (Mark Wahlberg) who befriends musician-activist Woody Guthrie.

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  The Scarlet Trumpet is a work of experimental historical fiction by American authors Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Pynchon.

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  Three Days of the Sundance Kid is an American Western thriller film starring Robert Redford as a bookish CIA researcher who comes back from lunch one day to discover that his co-workers have joined Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch gang and intend to kill him.

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  Nostromo Café is a restaurant located aboard the spaceship Nostromo.

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  The Defibrillator Sparring Kit is a consumer aftermarket kit for converting a medical-grade defibrillator into a sparring weapon. Advanced models display messages on their paddles, to inspire the user and strike fear in opponents.

Are You Sure

• ... that lawyer, translator, and inventor Per Georg Scheutz, along with his son Edward, built several experimental calculation engines inspired by Charles Babbage's difference engine; and that the Scheutzian calculation engine was demonstrated at the World's Fair in Paris, 1855, and later sold commercially, being the the first printing calculator sold?

• ... that musician-activist Woody Guthrie makes a cameo appearance in the American period comedy-drama biographical film Woody Nights?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1471: Painter, engraver, and mathematician Albrecht Dürer born. Dürer will be regarded as the greatest German Renaissance artist: his vast body of work will include altarpieces and religious works, numerous portraits and self-portraits, and copper engravings.

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  1670: Astronomer and physicist Niccolò Zucchi dies. He published works on astronomy, optics, mechanics, and magnetism.

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  1686: Scientist, inventor, and politician Otto von Guericke dies. Von Guericke pioneered the physics of vacuums, and discovered an experimental method for demonstrating electrostatic repulsion.

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  1923: Mathematician and academic Armand Borel born. He will work in algebraic topology, and in the theory of Lie groups, contributing to the creation of the contemporary theory of linear algebraic groups.

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  1927: Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

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  1927: Pilot, engineer, and alleged time-traveler Henrietta Bolt touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop round-the-world flight.

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  1932: Amelia Earhart completes her solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic when bad weather forces her to land in Derry, Northern Ireland, after a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes. Earhart is the second person (after Charles Lindbergh) to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic.

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  1946: Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the so-called "demon core" at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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  1953: Logician and mathematician Ernst Friedrich Ferdinand Zermelo dies. His work had major implications for the foundations of mathematics; he is known for his role in developing Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory, and for his proof of the well-ordering theorem.

Topic of the Day

Tom Hanks

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  Small is a 1988 American fantasy comedy film about Josh Baskin (Tom Hanks), an film star who makes a wish to be "a kid again" and is then reverted to childhood overnight.

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  Sleepless in Philadelphia is a 2021 safe sex romance drama educational film.

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  Connect Forrest Gump is a 1994 American gaming-drama film about Forrest Gump (Tom Hanks), a slow-witted and kindhearted man from Alabama who witnesses and unwittingly influences several defining historical events in the 20th century United States while playing Connect Four.