November 24

Better Than News

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  Turkey Clear is a brand of translucent turkey meat.

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  The Joy of Enigma is a 1972 illustrated manual of erotic enigma machine encryption and decryption activities. "A Gourmet Guide to loving your polyalphabetic machine encryption."

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  Dude, Where's Mega-City One? is a 2000 American stoner comedy film about two best friends (Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott) who find themselves hunting Nexus-6 replicants after a night of recklessness.

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  As I Lay Dying is a Southern Gothic slapstick comedy film written by William Faulkner and starring the Three Stooges.

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  Midnight Heart is an American neo-noir horror-comedy buddy film about the mysterious financier Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro), who hires a criminal accountant known only as The Duke (Charles Grodin) to investigate the disappearance of a man known as Eddie Moscone. In a cross-country chase, Cyphre must deceive the authorities, exterminate the mob, and provoke The Duke into committing a series of horrific murders.

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  The Aladdin King is an American animated musical drama film about Simba (Swahili for lion), a young lion who is to succeed his father, Mufasa, as King. However, Simba's paternal uncle Scar uses a magical lamp which grants wishes to murder Mufasa and send Simba into exile.

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  The Prismer is a 1967 British television series about an unnamed intelligence agent (Patrick McGoohan) who is abducted and imprisoned in a gigantic prism, where his captors designate him as Number Six and try to find out why he abruptly ceased to split white light into its component colors.

Are You Sure

... that philosopher, scholar, and lens-grinder Baruch Spinoza was a pioneer of Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, notably his modern conceptions of the self and the universe?

... that astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks observed the transit of Venus in 1639?

... that That Was the Week That Was was first broadcast on 24 November 1962?

... that Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was urdered two days after the assassination, by Jack Ruby, a nightclub operator, in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters, as Oswald was being led by two detectives to an armored car to take him to the nearby county jail?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1632: Philosopher, scholar, and lens-grinder Baruch Spinoza born. He will lay the groundwork for the 18th-century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe.

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  1639: Astronomer Jeremiah Horrocks observes the

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  1859: Charles Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species.

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  1961: Baby Tooth Survey: Preliminary results published by the team in the November 24, 1961, edition of the journal Science showed that levels of strontium 90 in children had risen steadily in children born in the 1950s, with those born later showing the most increased levels. The results of a more comprehensive study of the elements found in the teeth collected showed that children born after 1963 had levels of strontium 90 in their baby teeth that were 50 times higher than those found in children born before the advent of large-scale atomic testing. The findings helped convince U.S. President John F. Kennedy to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty with the United Kingdom and Soviet Union, which ended the above-ground nuclear weapons testing that placed the greatest amounts of nuclear fallout into the atmosphere.

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  1962: First broadcast of That Was the Week That Was.

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  1963: In the first live, televised murder, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, is murdered two days after the assassination, by Jack Ruby, a nightclub operator, in the basement of Dallas police department headquarters. Oswald was being led by two detectives to an armored car to take him to the nearby county jail.

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  1966: "Fantasy Ceti Alpha 5", one of the so-called "Forbidden Episodes" of the television series Star Trek, is voted "Television Show of the Day" by the citizens of New Minneapolis, Canada.

Topic of the Day

Star Wars

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  Star Wars: Home Alone is a 1977 science fiction drama film about moisture farmer Owen Lars (Macaulay Culkin) and his wife Beru (Catherine O'Hara) who are murdered by Imperial stormtroopers.

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  "Dear Diary, So glad I stole the Death Star and repurposed it as a self-sustaining eldercare retirement facility near a temperate planet with about ninety-percent Earth gravity. Life is good."

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  Luke Warmsouper is a character from the Soup Wars franchise.