Thursday, May 6, 2010

Happy Birthday Siggy

May 6, 1856 -
Sigmund Freud, cigar smoking Austrian, cocaine sniffing, father of psychoanalysis, was born on this date.



Even though Freud claimed he took his cigar out of his mouth every now and then, he battled cancer of the jaw from 1923 until his death in 1939 in London (from doctor assisted suicide.)


May 6, 1950 -
Elizabeth Taylor gets married for the first time to Conrad Hilton Jr.

While that marriage barely lasted a year, Ms. Taylor liked to get married and married and married and married (twice) and married and married again and never got carried away.


Today is International No Diet Day (INDD). It's set aside as a day of relief from the stress of dieting. Instead, there is an opportunity for purposeful body image acceptance.



Kids, it fun to go off your diet now and then but for heaven sakes don't be like Mr. Creosote.

Say no to the last thin mint.


Today in History
May 6, 1915 -
Orson Welles, magician, director, writer, actor and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television, and radio, was born on this date.



Considered washed up by age 28, Welles had to struggle the rest of his life to complete some of film history's most complex films.

It must have sucked to be Orson Welles.


May 6, 1937 -
At 7:25 pm, the German dirigible The Hindenburg (Pride of the Nazi Zeppelin fleet) burned while landing at the naval air station at Lakehurst, NJ. On board were 6l crew and 36 passengers. The landing approach seemed normal, when suddenly a tongue of flame appeared near the stern. Fire spread rapidly through the 7 million cubic feet of hydrogen that filled the balloon.



Within a few seconds the zeppelin exploded in a huge ball of fire. The ship fell tail first with flames shooting out the nose. It crashed into the ground 32 seconds after the flame was first spotted; 36 people died. Captain Ernst Lehmann survived the crash but died the next day. He muttered 'I can't understand it,'

The cause remains the subject of debate even today.


May 6, 1961 -
George Clooney, award-winning actor, director, producer, screenwriter and humanitarian, was born on this date.



He was also named People's 2006 Sexiest Man.

It must totally suck to be George Clooney.


May 6, 1962 -
The first US nuclear warhead fired from a Polaris submarine was launched. The submerged USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608) test-fired a Polaris A-2 missile with a live nuclear warhead across the Pacific Ocean toward Christmas Island, 1,700 miles (2,700 km) away.



The test, code-named Frigate Bird, was the only one the US ever conducted of any nuclear ballistic missile from launch through detonation. After a 12.5-minute, 1,200-mile (1,900 km) flight, the warhead exploded in the air between 10,000 and 15,000-ft (3,000 and 4,600-m) high with a yield of 600 kilotons.



And so it goes.

No comments: