Interesting tidbits: 1620 - The first merry-go-round, powered by horses, appeared at a fair in Philippapolis, Turkey. 1803 - John Hawkins & Richard French patent the Reaping Machine. 1845 - Rubber band patented. 1883 - Buffalo Bill Codys 1st wild west show premieres in Omaha. 1899 - Victoria & Albert Museum foundation laid, London, England. 1902 – Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was recovered from the Antikythera wreck, but its significance and complexity were not understood until a century later. The construction has been dated to the early 1st century BCE. Technological artifacts approaching its complexity and workmanship did not appear again until the 14th century CE, when mechanical astronomical clocks began to be built in Western Europe. 1943 - The United States Army contracts with the University of Pennsylvanias Moore School to develop the ENIAC. Todays birthday crew: 1682 – Bartholomew Roberts, Welsh pirate who raided ships off the Americas and West Africa between 1719 and 1722. He was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy, taking over 470 prizes in his career. He is also known as Black Bart, not to be confused with Black Bart of the American West. 1889 – Dorothy Gibson, American actress and survivor of RMS Titanic. In 1909 Gibson began posing for famous commercial artist Harrison Fisher, becoming one of his favorite models. Her image appeared regularly on posters, postcards, book illustrations, and magazine covers. Gibson entered movies in early 1911, becomming an instant hit with audiences and one of the first actresses in the new medium of film to be promoted as a star. One of Gibsons most famous screen roles was that of herself in Saved From the Titanic (1912), based on her experiences in the legendary disaster. After a six-week vacation in Italy, she and her mother were returning aboard the Titanic. After arriving in New York on the rescue ship Carpathia, Gibson was persuaded by her manager to appear in a film based on the sinking. She not only starred in the one-reel drama but also wrote the scenario. She even appeared in the very same clothing she had worn aboard the Titanic that night — a white silk evening dress topped with a cardigan and polo coat. Gibson was the highest paid movie actress in the world at the time of her retirement in May 1912. After retiring she moved to Paris to escape a failed love affair. An alleged intelligence operative during WWII, Gibson was arrested in Italy as an anti-Fascist agitator and jailed in the Milan prison of San Vittore, from which she escaped with two other prisoners, journalist Indro Montanelli and General Bartolo Zambon. Living in France in 1946, Gibson died of a heart attack in her apartment at the Hôtel Ritz Paris at the age of 56. Her estate was divided between her lover, Emilio Antonio Ramos, press attaché for the Spanish Embassy in Paris, and her mother. 1911 – Maureen OSullivan, Irish actress best known for playing Jane in the Tarzan series of films starring Johnny Weissmüller, and for starring with William Powell and Myrna Loy in The Thin Man (1934). 1946 – F. Paul Wilson, American novelist made his first sales in 1970 to Analog while still in medical school, and continued to write science fiction throughout the seventies. In 1981, he ventured into the horror genre with the international bestseller, The Keep, and helped define the field throughout the rest of the decade. In the 1990s, he became a true genre hopper, moving from science fiction to horror to medical thrillers and branching into interactive scripting for Disney Interactive and other multimedia companies. He, along with Matthew J. Costello, created and scripted FTL Newsfeed, which ran daily on the Sci-Fi Channel from 1992-1996. Among Wilsons best-known characters is the anti-hero Repairman Jack, an urban mercenary introduced in the 1984 New York Times bestseller, The Tomb. He has also written vampire fiction (the retro Midnight Mass) and even a New Age thriller (The Fifth Harmonic). Current books sales are around six million. Wilson is a noted fan of H. P. Lovecraft. 1958 – Paul Whitehouse, Welsh actor, writer and comedian known for his role as Sir Cadogan in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004). Happy birthday guys!
Posted on: Sat, 17 May 2014 10:30:05 +0000
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