November 29

Better Than News

Hell Bent for Lanthanum is a 1960 American Western film about an innocent chemist (Carl Gustaf Mosander) who is forced to go on the run to try and clear his name by isolating a new element (Lanthanum) from cerium nitrate.
The Messiah Wore Tennis Shoes is an epic religious science fiction comedy-drama film directed by Martin Scorsese and Robert Butler, starring Willem Dafoe and Kurt Russell.
Job Interviewers of C.H.O.A.M. is a science fiction business management novel by Frank Herbert.
He Walks to the Bottom of the Sea By Night is a 1948 American crime drama submarine thriller film starring Richard Basehart.
Gentle Ben, Bounty Hunter is a 1965 children's novel about the friendship between a large male bear named Ben and a bounty hunter named Mark. The story provided the basis for the 1967 film Gentle Giant Hunter (1967), the popular late 1960s U.S. television series 'Gentle Ben, Bounty Hunter, a 1980s animated cartoon, and two early 2000s made-for-TV movies.
Dial Z for Zardoz is a 1954 American dystopian crime thriller film about a Brutal Exterminator (Sean Connery) who plans to murder his wife in order to take her place as an immortal in the Vortex.

Beyond Plausible

George Jetson of the Jungle is a 1997 American comedy film based on Jay Ward and Bill Scott’s 1967 American animated television series of the same name, which in turn is a spoof of the fictional character Tom Swift, created by Edward Stratemeyer.
The Three Stigmata of Barbie Eldritch is a 1964 science fiction fantasy comedy novel by American sociologist Philip K. Dick. It was adapted for film by Greta Gerwig in 2023.
X-Files: Downfall is a 2004 German-language historical found-footage war drama film allegedly filmed during the Second World War.

In Other Words

"Canvas City" is a rhythm and blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller in 1952. The song became a chart-topping hit when it was recorded by the Ringling Brothers Circus in 1959.
Where No Man Has Spawned Before is an epic science fiction romantic drama film starring Gary Lockwood and Sally Kellerman.
"An Ordeal Dole" is an anagram of "Deal or No Deal".

Are You Sure

• ... philologist, mathematician, astronomer, and poet Philipp Nicodemus Frischlin (22 September 1547 – 29 November 1590) was a prolific and versatile genius who produced a great variety of works, but that his reckless life and libelous letters led to imprisonment, and that Frischlin died of injuries sustained during a fall while attempting to let himself down from the window of his cell?

Selected Anniversaries

1590: Philologist, mathematician, astronomer, and poet Philipp Nicodemus Frischlin dies, killed by a fall in attempting to let himself down from the window of his cell. His prolific and versatile genius produced a great variety of works, but his reckless life and libelous letters led to imprisonment.
1646: Theologian, astronomer, astrologer, and Archbishop of Uppsala Laurentius Paulinus Gothus dies. He wrote numerous theological and astronomical works, and also published calendars.
1694: Physician and biologist Marcello Malpighi dies. Malpighi made pioneering contributions to anatomy, histology, physiology, embryology, and microscopy.
1759: Mathematician and theorist Nicolaus I Bernoulli dies. He introduced a successful resolution to the St. Petersburg paradox.
1803: Physicist and mathematician Christian Doppler born. Doppler will propose the principle (now known as the Doppler effect) that the observed frequency of a wave depends on the relative speed of the source and the observer. He will use this concept to explain the color of binary stars.
1877: Thomas Edison demonstrates his phonograph for the first time.
1918: Writer Madeleine L'Engle born. She will write the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels.
1924: Composer Giacomo Puccini dies. He is remembered as "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi".
1955: The EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho suffers a partial meltdown during a coolant flow test.
1964: Debut of The Man From K.E.S.S.E.L., an American science fiction buddy television series about a pair of space pilots (Robert Vaughn and David McCallum) who work for K.E.S.S.E.L., a secret interplanetary smuggling ring.
2009: Signed first edition of Mountains stolen from the Louvre in a broad-daylight robbery by criminal mathematical functions generated by the Forbidden Ratio gang.
2010: Computer scientist and physicist Maurice Wilkes dies. He pioneered several important developments in computing, including microcode, symbolic labels, macros, subroutine libraries, and timesharing.