August 9

Better Than News

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  Samurai Kane is an epic samurai drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa and Orson Welles, starring Toshiro Mifune, Orson Welles, and Joseph Cotten.

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  The Wonders of London is a British history musical television series starring Dick van Dyke and Mary Poppins.

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  Starship Recall is an American science fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Denise Richards.

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  The Coriolis Force Modern Dance Company debuts new work "Paleoglacial Sedimentary Particulate Deposit Patterns Reveal Evidence of Planetary Rotational Wobble".

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  Green Lantern Acres is a hit prime-time television show about a successful, high-ranking Green Lantern officer gives up his big-planet career and returns to his home world in search of the simple life.

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  The Six Million Dollar Flan is a science fiction action-cooking television show starring Lee Majors as Steve Austin, a celebrity pastry chef who is horribly scarred in a catastrophic kitchen failure.

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  Better Off Mended Than Ended is a 1985 American comedy home do-it-yourself film about high school student Lane Myer (John Cusack), who becomes suicidal when his girlfriend breaks up with him after he mends all of her clothing, repairing ripped seams and replacing lost buttons.

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  Autobiography of a Wogdon & Barton Flintlock Smoothbore Dueling Pistol is an autobiography of the dueling pistol which killed Alexander Hamilton.

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  They Shoot Zombies, Don't They? is a 1969 American psychological horror film about a group of individuals desperate to escape a Depression-era zombie invasion and an opportunistic emcee who urges them on.

Are You Sure

... that Avalanche is a brand of meat-flavored snuff?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1899: Chemist Edward Frankland dies. He was one of the originators of organometallic chemistry, introducing the concept of combining power or valence.

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  1927: Cognitive scientist and artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky born.

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  1932: Mathematician John Charles Fields dies. He founded the Fields Medal for outstanding achievement in mathematics.

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  1974: As a direct result of the Watergate scandal, Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon becomes the first President of the United States to resign from office. His Vice President, Gerald Ford, becomes president.

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  2006: Physicist and philosopher James Van Allen dies. The Van Allen radiation belts are named after him, following their discovery by his Geiger–Müller tube instruments aboard satellites in 1958.

Topic of the Day

Westworld

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  RoboCop Begins is a 1973 American epic science fiction Western film about a notorious gunslinger (Yul Brynner) who seeks justice after discovering that he is a humanoid robot.

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  "Mama Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Androids" is a country science fiction song by Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Yul Brynner.

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  All in the Family 2 is an American science fiction television sitcom starring Carroll O'Connor, Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers, Rob Reiner, and Yul Brynner.

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  Gwangiworld is an American science fiction Western adventure thriller film directed by A film by Jim O'Connolly and Michael Crichton, and starring James Franciscus, Gila Golan, Richard Benjamin, and James Brolin.

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  Scentworld is a 1973 American science-fiction perfume film about an aromatic amusement park containing lifelike androids that unexpectedly begin to emit strange smells.

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  On Fox, No One Can Hear You Westworld is a psychological warfare television series waged against the United States of America by [REDACTED].