I hope you have great expectations for today, because it’s a pip. Even if your house seems bleak in the winter weather, you can always read a tale or two to take your mind out of the city. And as you’ve already guessed (from all those clever hints), it’s the birthday of Charles John Huffam… Continue reading

Before Samuel Morse, Alexander Graham Bell, and Thomas Edison, there was Charles Wheatstone. He was born February 6, 1802 in Gloucestershire, England, and if there was anything to be invented during the Victorian era, he was the guy.  He was something of a child prodigy, and read widely even as a young boy. He saved… Continue reading

On February 5, 1914, William Seward Burroughs II was born in Missouri in the US. He was born into a wealthy family, thanks to his grandfather (William Seward Burroughs I) having invented an early adding machine and founded the Burroughs Corporation. He attended Harvard, and enrolled in medical school in Vienna. World War II intervened,… Continue reading

First of all, Happy Groundhog Day! A “groundhog” is a large rodent native to North America. It’s primarily known for two things: a long list of alternative names, from woodchuck to whistlepig to thickwood badger to red monk. And quite a few more. They live in burrows, which leads to the other thing they’re known… Continue reading

One of the most popular genres in print is the comic. Comic strips and graphic novels are available throughout the world. There were invented — or perhaps “pioneered” — by Rudolphe Töpffer, who was born this day in 1799 in Geneva. He’s known as both “the father of comic strips” and the “first comic artist… Continue reading

Right now you’re probably using a mouse with your computer, which has a graphical user interface seen on a bitmapped display. You use the interface to follow hypertext links thanks to your computer being connected to others on a network. All of that stuff comes from “The Mother of All Demos” in 1968. And it… Continue reading

Anton Chekhov was born January 29, 1860 in the Russian Empire. His father had been a serf, in the medieval sense, but ran a grocery store by the time Anton was born. The family spoke Ukranian as well as Russian at home, and Anton’s mother was said to be an excellent storyteller who entertained all… Continue reading

If you like movies, but you’re daunted by the sheer number of films available to watch, you might consult the Internet Movie Database, better known as IMDb. It has records of over ten million titles — television episodes as well as movies. The odds are pretty good that you’ve visited it at least once; it’s… Continue reading

If you ever have fun tossing around a flying disc, or play Ultimate Frisbee or Frisbee Golf, you’ll be glad to know that today is the day that Walter Morrison was born in the US in 1920. In 1937, Morrison and his girlfriend Lucile were tossing back and forth a metal lid from a large… Continue reading

On this day in 1907, Clyde Groce Corrigan was born in Texas in the US. When he was a child, the family moved house several times, and his parents finally divorced — after that he lived with his mother, sister, and brother in Los Angeles. He quit school without graduating, and worked in construction. When… Continue reading