The Beast at Kings Island in Ohio opened 40 years ago today. Still the longest wood roller coaster in the world.
Still my favorite.
Apollo 13 splashdown. April 17, 1970. Whoever posted these from the CBS live coverage broke it into 10-minute segments. The first sighting of the parachutes comes right near the end of this segment.
The day without news - April 18, 1930
on 18 April 1930, the BBC’s news announcer had nothing to communicate. “There is no news,” was the script of the 20:45 news bulletin, before piano music was played for the rest of the 15-minute segment.
April 18, 1942 - 16 B-25 bombers led by Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle took off from the USS Hornet for the first United States raid on the Japanese home islands by American forces in WWII.
Although the raid cause negligible damage, it was a propaganda victory for the U.S. It also contributed to the Japanese decision to mount another operation to destroy the U.S. Pacific fleet, leading to the decisive American victory at the Battle of Midway in June, 1942.
Lt. Col. Richard Cole, the last surviving Doolittle raider, passed away last week at the age of 103. (Third from left in the front row – next to Jimmy Doolittle – in this photo)
This is the first video ever uploaded to youtube, on this day in 2005.
April 23, 1985: the launch of one of the great marketing blunders of all time – New Coke
Original Hubble view:
I kid, I kid.
The Frank-Hertz experiment was first presented in public on April 24, 1914. It clearly showed the quantum nature of electrons in orbitals.
Today is the anniversary of the 1st Bugs Bunny cartoon, or not - depending on how you define Bugs Bunny. This rabbit wasn’t named Bugs yet, but the short was directed by “Bugs” Hardaway, and a future iteration got named Bugs’ Bunny. The first properly real Bugs cartoon was Tex Avery’s A Wild Hare.
Mousing changed forever with affordable optical mice:
I don’t miss cleaning mice rollers and balls at all!
Amen! I remember having to scrape crud off those little rollers with tweezers, what a pain.
I had a Genius [ed. may have been some other generic brand] mouse that had two little angled wheels/rollers on the bottom instead of a ball. It was way smoother and more accurate than a ball mouse, and required little cleaning. I don’t understand why everyone didn’t have one! I will try to look up an example.
As an IT consultant I sometimes was gifted old HDDs and mice.
You want that? Why.
I collect the magnets and the plates. And the balls.
I have a large metal can of mouse balls, labeled surprise, Mouse Balls.
Do certain mice have bigger balls than others? Which mice have the biggest balls?
Careful what you ask for.
Anniversary (1840) of the introduction of the first postage stamp with adhesive. Can we start a movement to have May 1 named Moist von Lipwig Day?
