April 27

Better Than News

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  Dial H for High Noon is a 1954 American crime thriller film about a small town Marshal (Gary Gooper) who wants to have his wealthy wife (Grace Kelly) murdered so he can get his hands on her cattle ranch. When he discovers her branding cattle with another man (Robert Cummings), he comes up with the perfect plan to kill her.

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  Happy Trails Gilmore is an American Western sports comedy film directed by Dennis Dugan, starring Adam Sandler, Dale Evans, and Roy Rogers.

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  Monumental Barkitecture is a canine modern dance company famed for their imitations of monuments, ziggurats, and other large-scale sculptural works.

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  Terminators in Love is an erotic science fiction fantasy film about two robot assassins who give up killing and elope to a distant planet.

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  Diamonds Only Live Forever is a spy film starring Charles Gray as two enemy agents locked in a deadly game of wits.

Are You Sure

• ... that painter and inventor Samuel Morse (1791–1872) met artist and pioneering photographer Louis Daguerre in 1839 while visiting Paris, and that Morse become interested in the daguerreotype (the first practical means of photography), writing a letter to the New York Observer describing the invention; and that Mathew Brady, one of the earliest photographers in American history, famous for his depictions of the American Civil War, studied under Morse and later took photographs of him?

• ... that mathematician Paul Gordan (1837–1912) encouraged fellow mathematician David Hilbert and used Hilbert's results and methods, and the widespread story that Gordon opposed David Hilbert's work on invariant theory is a myth, although Gordon did correctly point out in a referee's report that some of the reasoning in Hilbert's paper was incomplete; and that Gordon is famously quoted (or misquoted — it is not clear if Gordan really said this, nor is it clear whether the quote was intended as criticism, or praise, or a subtle joke) as saying of Hilbert's proof of Hilbert's basis theorem: "This is not mathematics; this is theology."?

• ... that the Fugu squash is a genetically engineered hybrid of the fugu fish and any of various types of squash, and that it was created as a vegan delicacy for high-end sushi restaurants?

• ... that author, mathematician, scientist, political activist, and educator Irving Adler (1913–2012) turned his attention, in the late 1970s, to the question of phyllotaxis, specifically to the arrangement of plant spirals according to the Fibonacci sequence, and that his papers in the Journal of Theoretical Biology stimulated a revival of interest in the subject?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

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  1791: Painter and inventor Samuel Morse born. He will co-invent the Morse code.

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  1837: Mathematician Paul Albert Gordan born. Gordon was known as "the king of invariant theory".

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  1913: Mathematician, author, activist, and academic Irving Adler born. He will be a plaintiff in the McCarthy-era case Adler vs. Board of Education.

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  1938: Mathematician and philosopher Edmund Husserl dies. He argued that transcendental consciousness sets the limits of all possible knowledge.

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  1978: Former United States President Nixon aide John D. Ehrlichman is released from an Arizona prison after serving 18 months for Watergate-related crimes.

Topic of the Day

Beverages

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  Simply Slugs is a brand of beverages made primarily from slugs.

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  Postum Scorchin BBQ is a barbeque-flavored version of the instant coffee substitute Postum.

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  Intravenous clam juice drip is a means of ingesting clam juice without tasting it.

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  Steeping Beauty is a classic fairy tale about a princess who is cursed by an evil fairy to sleep until a cup of tea is fully steeped.

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  Goodbye, Mr. Pibb is a 1969 soft drink comedy film starring Peter O'Toole, Petula Clark, and Dr. Pepper.

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  I'd Have a Beer With Richard Dawson is a game show which challenges players to have a beer with actor, comedian, and game-show host Richard Dawson.

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  F5 is an artificial beverage derived from illegal mathematical functions.