February 9
Better Than News
Where Krakens Dare is a 1968 British-American action adventure war horror spy film directed by Brian G. Hutton and starring Richard Burton, Clint Eastwood and Mary Ure. It follows a Special Operations Executive team of men attempting to recover an ancient Greek artifact from the fictional Schloß Adler fortress, except the mission turns out not to be as it seems.
X-Men: Cordyceps is an American science fiction superhero horror film about a parasitic fungus which takes control of mutant superheroes.
Rear Gambrel is a 1954 American mystery thriller film about a recuperating news photographer (James Stewart) who believes he has witnessed a building code violation.
NFT, the Wrath of God is a 1972 epic historical drama film about Spanish soldier Lope de Aguirre, who leads a group of NFT investors down the Amazon River in South America in search of the legendary city of apes, El No Fungiblo.
Hummer is a 1981 American science fiction ornithology film about a giant mutant hummingbird with hypnotic power over people.
Sogum is a cosmic hygiene adventure film based on the novel Counter-Clock World by American sociologist Philip K. Dick 1.1.
Goldplunger is a 1964 spy film starring Sean Connery as James Bond, a British secret sewage agent who uncovers plumbing mogul Auric Goldplunger's plans to back up all of the toilet drains in America during the Superbowl.
Are You Sure
• ... that the American home improvement comedy romance television seriesThe Courtship of Eddie's Carpenter is based on the 1963 "Courtship Carpentry" fad of the same name?
• ... that printer and publisher Christian Egenolff was sued in 1533 by publisher Johann Schott for infringement of copyright on Herbarium Vivae Icones, and that Egenolff argued in his defense that nature could not be copyrighted and that plants stood as communal models for any artist?
• ... that physician and philosopher Lucilio Vanini was among the first modern thinkers who viewed the universe as an entity governed by natural laws, and the first literate proponent of the thesis that humans evolved from apes, and that on this day in 1619 the Parliament of Toulouse found Vanini guilty of atheism and blasphemy, cut out his tongue, strangled him, and burned his body?
• ... that electrical engineer and physicist Dennis Gabor's 1963 book Inventing the Future discusses the three major threats Gabor saw to modern society: war, overpopulation, and the Age of Leisure, and that the book contains the now well-known expression that "the future cannot be predicted, but futures can be invented"?
• ... that The Woke and the Furious is a 2021 political action film about an undercover liberal who is tasked with discovering the identities of a group of insurrectionists led by Donald Trump?
On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction
1555: Christian Egenolff dies. He was the first important printer and publisher operating from Frankfurt-am-Main.
1619: Physician and philosopher Lucilio Vanini is put to death after being found guilty of atheism and blasphemy. He was the first literate proponent of the thesis that humans evolved from apes.
1737: Thomas Paine born. He will author the two most influential pamphlets at the start of the American Revolution, and inspire the rebels in 1776 to declare independence from Britain.
1907: Mathematician and academic Harold Scott MacDonald Coxeter born. He will become of the greatest geometers of the 20th century.
1913: A group of meteors is visible across much of the eastern seaboard of North and South America, leading astronomers to conclude the source had been a small, short-lived natural satellite of the Earth.
1927: Computer scientist and academic David Wheeler born. He will contribute to the development of the Electronic delay storage automatic calculator (EDSAC) and the Burrows–Wheeler transform (BWT); help develop the subroutine; and gave the first explanation of how to design software libraries.
1969: Premiere of The Courtship of Eddie's Carpenter, an American home improvement comedy romance television series based on the 1963 "Courtship Carpentry" fad of the same name.
1979: Physicist and engineer Dennis Gabor dies. He invented holography, for which he received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Physics.
2010: Businessman Walter Frederick Morrison dies. Morrison invented the Frisbee. The first version, a cake pan purchased for a nickle and sold for a quarter, was known as the Flyin' Cake Pan.
Topic of the Day
Bears
"Bears and Poison Ivy Don't Mix" is a public-service advertising campaign which educates the general public on the perils of bear attack, which may also result in poison ivy contact.
Bearfly is a 1987 American buddy comedy film about a down-on-his-luck writer (Mickey Rourke) who befriends an alcoholic bear (Paddington).
Alien vs. Pooh— Piglet and Eeyore are caught in the crossfire of an ancient battle between Winnie-the-Pooh and aliens as they attempt to entertain children long enough for their parents to have some overdue sex.