June 6
Better Than News
When You're Smiley is a 2018 spy novel by John le Carré. Plot: spymaster George Smiley is called out of retirement to investigate the death of Louis Armstrong. Smiley learns that Armstrong had discovered information that will lead to a final confrontation with their mutual nemesis, the Soviet intelligence officer Karla.
Hollywood Shuffle is a drama buddy film about two aging actors who hope to make one last film together.
Soprano Todd: The Barber-Surgeon of Fleet Street is a 2007 American barbershop quartet medical slasher film starring Johnny Depp.
Athenian Empire is a board game based on the Delian League (circa 478 BC to 404 BC).
Cetacea Grand Hotel is an underwater hotel owned and operated by whales for human guests.
The Physics Fair is an annual physics education event emphasizing entertainment and social activities.
Beyond Plausible
"Skull's Out" is a lost song by Alice Cooper.
Under the Natural Born Skinners is a science fiction crime horror film starring Scarlett Johansson, Woody Harrellson, and Juliette Lewis. Director: Jonathan Glazer and Oliver Stone.
In Other Words
Citizen Cocaine is a 1941 American drama film directed by, produced by, and starring Orson Welles.
Are You Sure
... that mathematician, astronomer, and bishop Johann Regiomontanus was instrumental in the development of Copernican heliocentrism in the decades following Copernicus' death?
Selected Anniversaries
1436: Mathematician, astronomer, and bishop Johann Regiomontanus born. His contributions will be instrumental in the development of Copernican heliocentrism in the decades following his death.
1844: The Glaciarium, the world's first mechanically frozen ice rink, opens in London.
1857: Mathematician and physicist Aleksandr Lyapunov born. Lyapunov will contribute to several fields, including differential equations, potential theory, dynamical systems and probability theory. His main preoccupations will be the stability of equilibria and the motion of mechanical systems, and the study of particles under the influence of gravity.
1943: Chemist and academic Richard Smalley born. Along with colleagues Robert Curl and Harold Kroto, he will win the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene, also known as buckyballs.
2017: In a press statement, Pin Man says he was "constructed by Colonel Zersetzung from the flayed skin of a notorious data thief."
Topic of the Day
Sparta
Full Metal 300 is a historical war drama film written and directed by Stanley Kubrick and Zach Snyder.
The Phantom of Sparta is an epic musical historical action romance film directed by Zack Snyder and Joel Schumacher which tells the story of Erik of Sparta (Gerard Butler), a masked, reclusive warlord.
The Madness of Leonidas is a revisionist historical drama film starring Gerard Butler which conflates Leonidas I of Sparta with his predecessor, Cleomenes I.