01.03.08
J.R.R. Tolkien – Life and Works
In Bloemfontein, South Africa, on January 3, 1892, John Ronald Reuel (J.R.R.) Tolkien was born. His father, Arthur Reuel Tolkien was an English banker and had moved to Bloemfontein with his wife Mabel as part of his job. By the time Tolkien was 13 both of his parents had died, first his father in 1896 and after moving back to England his mother in 1904. During his life Tolkien was noted as an expert in Middle English Literature holding professorships at Leeds and Oxford. But he is perhaps best known as the author of The Lord of the Rings.
The Lord of the Rings was first published as three volumes; The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King on 21 July 21, 1954, on 11 November 11, 1954 and on 20 October 20, 1955 respectively in the United Kingdom. The book was created as a single volume and was broken up into sections by the publisher. When The Fellowship of the Ring was published, a index was promised. However that complete Index and Appendices were not complete until the 1966 revised edition was printed. These Appendices gave a view of the World of Middle-Earth and it’s three Ages that Tolkien began in 1917.
Tolkien was an English Army soldier during World War One and served with the 11th Battalion in France. In October of 1916 he contracted Trench Fever. During his recovery in 1917 he started work on a tale he called The Fall of Gondolin part of a larger project he would call The Book of Lost Tales.
It was also during this recovery period that while walking with his wife Edith that inspired The Tale of Beren and Luthien. It is a tale of the immortal Elf-maiden Luthien who fell in love with the mortal man Beren. To Tolkien, Edith was Luthien with him self being Beren. On their grave stone, he had Luthien inscribed along with her name. Edith Tolkien died on November 29, 1971. When he died nearly two years later the name Beren was added with his name.
The Tolkien’s had four children, John Francis Reuel (November 17, 1917 – January 22, 2003), Michael Hilary Reuel (October 22, 1920 – February 27, 1984), Christopher John Reuel (born November, 21 1924) and Priscilla Mary Anne Reuel (born June, 18 1929). While his children were young he began telling them a fairy tale of a Hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins who lived in a hole in the ground.
With the encouragement of his friend C.S. Lewis, (Lewis would later create his own children tales The Chronicles of Narnia), Tolkien finished The Hobbit tale in 1933. In 1936 the manuscript was shown by a family friend of publisher Stanley Unwin. The Hobbit was published in 1937. The Lord of the Rings was begun as its sequel in 1937 and took until 1953 to complete. Tolkien was exacting in the writing of his tales and would work his Middle-Earth mythology his entire life, with The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit being the only major works of this mythology published during his life.
12.27.07
Jeanne Carmen
1) Jeanne Laverne Carmen was born on August 4, 1930 in Paragould, Arkansas. She died on December 20, 2007.
2) She has often been called the “little country girl” who ran away from home when she was 13 to pursue stardom in New York.
3) Her start on Broadway came in 1948 as part of the chorus line of Bert Lahr’s “Burlesque”.
4) Carmen is said to have picked up skills as a trick golfer from trick shot master Jack Redmond and claims she used her golfing skills to hustle pro golfers with Las Vegas mobster Johnny Roselli.
5) Her platinum blonde hair and hourglass 36-26-36 measurements gained her entry into photo shoots for then-risqué girlie magazines. These led to roles in low-budget flicks. She has been given the title of “Queen of the B Movies.”
6) Her son Brandon James wrote her biography, Jeanne Carmen: MY WILD, WILD LIFE as a New York Pin Up Queen. A movie is reportedly in the works, with starlets such as Scarlett Johansson and Kate Bosworth rumored to be in line to play the lead role.
12.07.07
Pearl Harbor
The Japanese bomb the American Bases on Hawaii 66 years ago on December 7th.
1) It was a quiet Sunday morning when the Japanese launched 2 waves of attacks. The first wave reached the Island at 7:54 am local time with the second arriving about 15 minutes later. The raids lasted until 9:45 am.
2) The first attack targeted airfields and battleships. The second wave targeted other ships and shipyard facilities. After the dust had cleared eight battleships were damaged, with five sunk. Three light cruisers, three destroyers and three smaller vessels were lost along with 188 aircraft.
The Japanese lost 29 planes and five midget submarines which attempted to penetrate the inner harbor.
3) The casualty list numbered 2,335 servicemen and 68 civilians killed, with another 1,178 wounded. Nearly 1/2 of those killed were on the Battleship USS Arizona with 1,104 men killed. The Japanese lost 65 men.
4) This attack was one of multiple attacks by the Japanese. During a two day period they also launched attacks in the Pacific against Malaya, Hong Kong, Guam, the Philippine Islands, Wake Island and Midway Island.
5) The aircraft carriers Lexington, Enterprise and Saratoga, part of the Japanese targets, were not in port that day. Also escaping damage were the fuel storage, maintenance, and dry dock facilities.
5) On December 8, President Roosevelt delivered his famous speech to congress requesting a Declaration of War.
Yesterday, 7 December 1941-a date which will live in infamy-the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.
The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.
It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government had deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.
The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives were lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.
Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Wake Island.
This morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.
Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our nation.
As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.
Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.
No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.
I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.
Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.
With confidence in our armed forces-with the unbounded determination of our people-we will gain the inevitable triumph-so help us God.
I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, 7 December, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.
11.27.07
J. Allen Hynek
1) Josef Allen Hynek was born on May 1, 1910 in Chicago, Ill. He died on April 27, 1986 at the age of 75 from a malignant brain tumor at Memorial Hospital in Scottsdale, Arizona
2) His education includes a B.S. from the University of Chicago received in 1931 and completed his in astrophysics at Yerkes Observatory in 1935.
3) He joined the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Ohio State University in 1936. He specialized in the study of stellar evolution and in the identification of spectroscopic binaries. By 1950 he had risen to become a full professor.
4) He is best remembered with research into unidentified flying objects. In 1949 he was invited by the US Air Force to become the astronomical consultant to Project Grudge, based at nearby Wright Field (later Wright-Patterson AFB), in Dayton, Ohio. He continued in this position with the subsequent and much longer Project Blue Book.
5) By the time that the US Government discontinued Project Blue Book in 1970 he had changed his opinion from having some skepticism to one in which he believed that UFOs represent “an aspect or domain of the natural world not yet explored by science.” In 1973, four years after the cancellation of Project Blue Book, Hynek founded the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS), based in Chicago.
6) He created a 6 point classification scheme for UFO’s.
| Type of UFO sighting | Description |
| Nocturnal lights | Bright lights seen at night |
| Daylight disks | Usually oval or disklike |
| Radar-visual | Those detected by radar |
| Close encounters of the 1st kind | Visual sightings of an unidentified object |
| Close encounters of the 2nd kind | Visual sightings plus physical effects on animate and inanimate objects |
| Close encounters of the 3rd kind | Sightings of occupants in or around the UFO |
11.16.07
Diana Krall
1) Diana Krall was born on November 16, 1964 to Jim and Adella Krall.
2) At the age of 4 she began learning the piano. By high school she was playing in a jazz group. At 15 she started playing regularly in several Nanaimo restaurants. At age 17 she won a scholarship from the Vancouver International Jazz Festival to study at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and completed three terms.
3) In 1990 with the encouragement of bass player Ray Brown she moved to New York releasing her first album in 1993.
4) Perhaps the saddest day in Diana Krall’s life occurred on May 26, 2002. It was on that day that her mother at the age of 60 lost her battle with cancer.
5) Diana Krall married Elvis Costello on December 5, 2003 at Elton John’s estate outside London. It was the first marriage for Krall and Costello’s second. Their first children together, twin sons Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James, were born on their third wedding anniversary.
6) On September 18, 2007 The Very Best of Diana Krall was released as her 11th album. The Album includes 3 new songs the Frank Sinatra classic “Only the Lonely,” the standard “You Go to My Head,” popularized by Sinatra and Billie Holiday, and areworking of Tom Waits’ “The Heart of Saturday Night.
11.10.07
About the Edmund Fitzgerald
1) On November 9, 1975 under Captain Ernest M. McSorley the SS Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior Wisconsin en route to the steel mill on Zug Island, near Detroit, Michigan. The ship was loaded with a cargo of 26,116 tons of taconite pellets.
They were crossing Lake Superior at about 13 knots with the freighter Arthur M. Anderson, following behind when they encountered a winter storm with winds in excess of 50 knots (90 km/h) and waves as high as 35 feet.
On the afternoon of November 10 the Fitzgerald reported to the Anderson that a minor list was developing along with some top-side damage. The Anderson discovered rogue waves heading in the direction of the Fitzgerald and notified them. That was the last that was heard from the Edmund Fitzgerald before it suddenly sank.
None of the crew of 29 survived. The sinking of the Fitzgerald was very rapid and it is likely they did not know the seriousness of their condition. After the wreck a severely damaged life boat was found, and only part of the second. It would appear that no attempts were made to leave the ship and no distress signals were ever issued.
2) The ship SS Edmund Fitzgerald was christened and launched on June 8, 1958. The vessel had a capacity of 26,600 tons. She was built by the Great Lakes Engineering Works (GLEW), for the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company of Milwaukee and named for their President and Chairman of the Board, Edmund Fitzgerald.
3) The Edmund Fitzgerald is not alone on the bottom of the Great Lakes. Nearly 6,000 shipwrecks have occurred since 1878. Fewer than half have been discovered with some of the boats and crews simply vanishing in storms.
4) The Edmund Fitzgerald lies on the bottom of Lake Superior in 530 feet of water, 17 miles from Whitefish Point. The vessel is in two huge sections on the lake’s floor, the metal torn and twisted from the force of the impact.
5) There are three theories on why she sank although there has never been a definitive report on the cause. One, a Coast Guard report suggesting that the hatches had not been closed properly, has been rejected by most.
Another speculation is that the hull scraped bottom over shoals whose depth was misreported on navigational charts at the time.
Others believe that towering rolling waves caused it to break in two.
6) At the request of the family members surviving the Fitzgerald’s crew, the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society recovered the ship’s 200 lb. bronze bell on July 4, 1995. A memorial bell was sent to the wreck to take its place. The bell is now on display in the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum as a memorial to her lost crew.
11.07.07
Thomas Nast
1) Thomas Nast was a 19th century caricaturist and editorial cartoonist. He is considered to be the father of the political cartoon. Nast was German born and came to America when he was 6. Nash drew for Harper’s Weekly from 1859 to 1886, with a break from 1861 when he worked in Italy for the The Illustrated London News. (Some mistakenly think his name was Thomas Nash).
2) His greatest fame came from his political cartoon. In general his cartoons supported American Indians, Chinese Americans and advocated abolition of slavery. Nast also dealt with segregation and the violence of the Ku Klux Klan. One of his more famous cartoons called “Worse than Slavery”, showed a despondent black family having their house destroyed by arson, with members of the Ku Klux Klan and White League are shaking hands in their mutually destructive work against black Americans.
3) Nast created the image of the Democrat Donkey in a cartoon he published on January 14, 1870. The cartoon was titled ‘ A live Jackass Kicking a Dead Lion’. The Dead Lion referred to Edwin Stanton, Lincoln’s Secretary of War.
4) Four years later in 1874 he drew a cartoon with an Elephant to represent the Republican Party.
5) While Nast wasn’t the first, nor the last, to draw the character Uncle Sam he did help evolve Uncle Sam to what we know today. He drew many cartoon featuring Uncle Sam, but one published on November 24, 1876 features Uncle Sam with striped pants, a long overcoat, and a top hat.
6) Nast drew a series of cartoon of Santa Claus. His vision had him living at the North Pole with a workshop for building toys and a large book filled with the names of children who had been naughty or nice.
10.12.07
Christopher Columbus
1. Christopher Columbus is thought to have been born between August and October 1451 in Genoa, Italy. Little is known about his youth, although it is thought that he had a brother, Bartolomeo who may have worked in a cartography workshop in Lisbon. He did claim that he began his life at sea at the age of 10.
2. Columbus never sat for an authentic portrait. Writings have described him as having reddish hair, which turned to white early in his life. He was a lighter skinned person and with too much sun exposure his face had turned red.
3. At the time of his 1492 voyage it was a common belief, especially of seagoing men, that the earth was a sphere. Europe had begun trade with china, but the overland route was rough and the sea route around the southern tip of Africa was long. Columbus held a theory, that the earth’s circumference was 25,255 kilometers. The accepted theory at the time was that the earth’s circumference was greater, which in actuality is correct.
4. In 1485, Columbus presented to the King John of Portugal a proposal that the king should equip three sturdy ships to Columbus and in one year’s time he would sail out into the Atlantic, search for a western route to Orient, and then return home. Columbus also requested he be made “Great Admiral of the Ocean”, be granted governor of any and all lands he discovered, and given one-tenth of all revenue from those lands discovered. The king submitted the proposal to his experts. They who rejected it with an opinion that Columbus’ proposed route of 2,400 miles was far too short.
5. After being rejected by Portugal he presented the same plan to the newly married Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, who ruled the combined lands of Spain. Even though they had similar reports as Portugal about Columbus’s estimates being too short, they didn’t want him to take his plan elsewhere. They gave him a gave him an annual annuity of 12,000 maravedis ($840) and in 1489 furnished him with a letter ordering all Spanish cities and towns to provide him food and lodging at no cost. Finally in 1492 the cash starved Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to fund 1/2 of his expedition. He had already lined up the the other half from private investors.
6. On the evening of August 3, 1492, Columbus departed from Palos with three ships; the larger of the ships was the Santa María, nicknamed Gallega and two smaller caravels, Pinta and Santa Clara, nicknamed Niña . Columbus first sailed to the Canary Islands, , where he restocked the provisions and made repairs, and on September 6, started what turned out to be a five-week voyage across the ocean. Land was sighted at 2 a.m. on October 12, 1492, Columbus called the island (in what is now The Bahamas) San Salvador.
10.09.07
They Would Have Been 100 in 2007
1. John Wayne. Born on May 26. Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison and was one of the most famous stars of American movies. His began his career in silent movies in the 1920s becoming a major star at the end of the 1930’s remaining one to his death on June 11, 1979.
2. Barbara Standwyck. Born July 19. Stanwyck starred in almost a hundred films during and received four Academy Award nominations. Many may remember her as the mother on the 1960’s TV series The Big Valley.
3. Fay Wray. Born September 15. She played the damsel in the original King Kong.
4. Laurence Olivier. Born May 22. British star of Stage and Screen. His career as a spanned more than six decades and included a wide variety of roles, from Shakespeare’s Othello to the sadistic Nazi dentist Christian Szell in Marathon Man.
5. Gene Autry. Born September 29. The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television. His best known recording was Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. Also know as the long time owner of the baseball team Angels.
6 . Katharine Hepburn. Born May 12. Considered by many as the greatest American screen actress. She won four Best Actress Oscars from twelve nominations. She had a long time romance with one of her favorite co-stars, Spencer Tracy.
08.28.07
Bill Cullen
1. William Lawrence Cullen was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 18th, 1920. His eyesight was poor causing him to wear thick glasses, which would become his trademark.
2. Cullen’s broadcasting career began in his hometown of Pittsburgh. He worked at WWSW radio beginning as a frequent, though unpaid guest on an overnight program called 1500 Club and eventually becoming asalaried announcer. He was well known for his puckish sense of humor and for playing pranks on his fellow announcers while they were on the air.
3. In 1944 Cullen moved New York and one of his first jobs was writing for the Easy Ace radio show. In 1946 he got his first big break filling in as the host of the radio quiz Winner Take All.
4. He was the host of Cullen 23 different game shows between the years 1952, with Winner Takes All to 1986, with his last – Joker’s Wild. This makes him the host of more game shows than anyone in television history. He had hosted the original The Price is Right in the 1960’s and when it was slated for a revival in the early 70’s he was considered for the job. However, the producers felt it would be too strenuous for him and the show was given to Bob Barker who hosted it for 35 years until his retirement in 2007.
5. Cullen, who was a lifelong smoker, developed lung cancer in early 1990 and died from it on July 7th.
6. The Game Show Congress, a nonprofit association that seeks to promote the game show industry, annual award to performers with distinguished game show careers is called the Bill Cullen Career Achievement Award. Cullen was awarded the first award posthumously in 2004.
