Today, The Grandma have received great news of her friends Joseph de Ca'th Lon and Claire Fontaine, who are travelling from Sankt Pölten in Austria to Trnava in Slovakia. They continue scouting young football players, and enjoying formative football matches in this part of Europe.
After talking with her friends, TheGrandma has been reading about the Cardiff Giant, one of the most popular American hoaxes of all time, that was discovered on a day like today in 1869.
The Cardiff Giant was one of the most famous archaeological hoaxes in American history. It was a 3.0 m purported petrified man, uncovered on October 16, 1869, by workers digging a well behind the barn of William C. "Stub" Newell, in Cardiff, New York. He covered the giant with a tent and it soon became an attraction site. Both it and an unauthorized copy made by P. T. Barnum are still being displayed.
The giant was the creation of a New York tobacconist named George Hull. He was deeply attracted to science and especially to the theory of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. Hull got into an argument with Reverend Turk and his supporters at a Methodist revival meeting about Genesis 6:4, which states that there were giants who once lived on Earth. Hull, a skeptic, being the minority party, lost the argument. Angered by his defeat and the credulity of people, Hull wanted to prove how easily he could fool people with a fake giant.
The idea of a petrified man did not originate with Hull, however. During 1858, the newspaper Alta California had published a fake letter claiming that a prospector had been petrified when he had drunk a liquid within a geode. Other newspapers had also published stories of supposedly petrified people.
In 1868, Hull, accompanied by a man named H. B. Martin, hired men to quarry out a 3.2 m block of gypsum in Fort Dodge, Iowa, telling them it was intended for a monument to Abraham Lincoln in New York. He shipped the block to Edward Burkhardt in Chicago, a German stonecutter. Burkhardt hired two sculptors named Henry Salle and Fred Mohrmann to create the giant. While it is not clear if Burkhardt was aware of Hull's intentions, it is reported that they took steps to cover up their work during the carving, putting up quilts to lessen the sound of carving.
The giant was designed to imitate the form of Hull himself. Hull consulted a geologist and learned that hairs would not be petrified, so he removed the hair and beard from the giant. The length of the giant was 3.162 m and it weighed 1,360 kg. Various stains and acids were used to make the giant appear to be old and weathered. In order for the giant to look ancient, Hull first wiped the giant using a sponge soaked with sand and water. The giant's surface was beaten with steel knitting needles embedded in a board to simulate pores. The giant was also rubbed with sulphuric acid to create a deeper, vintage-like color. During November 1868, Hull transported the giant by railroad to the farm of his cousin, William Newell. By then, he had spent US$2,600 for the hoax.
On a night in late November 1868, the giant was buried in a hole in Newell's farm. Nearly a year later, Newell hired Gideon Emmons and Henry Nichols, ostensibly to dig a well, and on October 16, 1869, they found the giant. One of the men reportedly exclaimed, I declare, some old Indian has been buried here!
which usually means art is absent, too -hoaxes regularly substitute claims of reality for imagination, facts for form, acting as if artifice is the antithesis of art.
Wir sind zum Mond geflogen Hab'n Pyramiden gebaut Hab'n nie die Neugier verlor'n Und sind durch Meere getaucht Wir haben Tränen vergossen Wir haben gelacht und geweint Wir haben Frieden geschlossen Und uns wieder vereint
Doch all diese Dinge sind so klein Denn das Größte, was wir könn'n, ist Mensch zu sein
Und wir gehen den Weg von hier Seite an Seite ein Leben lang, für immer Denn wir gehen den Weg von hier Weiter und weiter ein Leben lang, für immer
Wir haben Welten entdeckt Die wir vorher nicht kannten Wir haben sprechen gelernt Und uns Liebe gestanden Wir haben Lieder geschrieben Wir haben getanzt und gesungen Wir haben Geister gerufen Und Dämonen bezwungen
Es ist nicht immer einfach zu verzeih'n Doch das Größte, was wir können, ist Mensch zu sein
Und wir gehen den Weg von hier Seite an Seite ein Leben lang, für immer Denn wir gehen den Weg von hier Weiter und weiter ein Leben lang, für immer
Wir sind sicher nicht perfekt Doch wer will das schon sein? Wir haben alle kleine Fehler Und sind damit nicht allein, nicht allein, nicht allein
Und wir gehen den Weg von hier Seite an Seite ein Leben lang, für immer
Und wir gehen den Weg von hier Seite an Seite ein Leben lang, für immer Denn wir gehen den Weg von hier Weiter und weiter ein Leben lang, für immer Und wir gehen den Weg von hier Seite an Seite ein Leben lang, für immer Denn wir gehen den Weg von hier Weiter und weiter ein Leben lang, für immer Und wir gehen den Weg von hier Seite an Seite ein Leben lang, für immer
We have flown to the moon, Have built Pyramids, Never lost curiosity, And dived into seas. We've shed tears, We've laughed and cried, We've made peace and reunited.
But all these things are so small, Because the biggest thing we can do is be Human.
And we're on the way from here, Side-by-side, a lifetime forever. Because we're on the way from here, On-and-on, a lifetime forever.
We've discovered worlds, Which we didn't know before We've learnt to speak And confessed our love. We've written songs, We have danced and sung, We've called spirits And conquered Demons.
It is not always easy to forgive, But the biggest thing we can do is be Human.
And we're on the way from here, Side-by-side, a lifetime forever. Because we're on the way from here, On-and-on, a lifetime forever.
We're surely not perfect, But who really wants to be? We all have little errors and are (with them) not alone, not alone, not alone
And we're on the way from here, Side-by-side, a lifetime forever.
And we're on the way from here, Side-by-side, a lifetime forever. Because we're on the way from here, On-and-on, a lifetime forever. And we're on the way from here, Side-by-side, a lifetime forever. Because we're on the On-and-on, a lifetime forever. And we're on the way from here, Side-by-side, a lifetime forever.
Doch all diese Dinge sind so klein Denn das Größte, was wir könn'n,
ist Mensch zu sein
But all these things are so small, Because the biggest thing we can do
Today, The Grandma has received some news of her friends Claire Fontaine and Joseph de Ca'th Lon, who have just arrived to Sankt Pölten, the beautiful Austrian city, where they are going to spend three days visiting it and enjoying an amazing football match.
Claire loves photography and cinema and she has been talking with The Grandma about Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince, the French artist who filmed the first motion picture, RoundhayGarden Scene, on a day like today in 1888.
Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince (28 August 1841-disappeared 16 September 1890; declared dead 16 September 1897) was a French artist and the inventor of an early motion-picture camera, and director of Roundhay Garden Scene. He was possibly the first person to shoot a moving picture sequence using a single lens camera and a strip of (paper) film. He has been credited as the Father of Cinematography but, due to his disappearance in 1890, his work did not influence the commercial development of cinema.
Le Prince was born on 28 August 1841 in Metz.
In October 1888, Le Prince filmed moving-picture sequences of family members in Leeds, in the 1888 short film Roundhay Garden, and of his son Louis playing the accordion, using his single-lens camera and Eastman's paper negative film. In the next eighteen months, he also made a film of Leeds Bridge. His work appears to precede the inventions of his contemporaries, such as Friese-Greene and Donisthorpe as well as being years ahead of the Lumière brothers and Dickson (who did the moving image work for Thomas Edison).
Le Prince disappeared on 16 September 1890. Numerous conspiracy theories emerged about his disappearance, including murder, disappearance in order to start a new life, and suicide. However, no conclusive evidence was found for any of these theories.
In early 1890, Edison workers had begun experimenting with celluloid film to capture moving images. The first public results of these experiments were shown in May 1891. Le Prince's widow and son, Adolphe, were keen to advance Louis's cause as the inventor of cinematography.
In 1898, Adolphe appeared as a witness for the defence in a court case brought by Thomas Edison against the American Mutoscope Company, in which Edison claimed to be the first and sole inventor of cinematography, and thus entitled to royalties for the use of the process. Film shot with cameras built according to Le Prince's patent were presented. Eventually, the court ruled in Edison's favour, however, a year later that ruling was overturned, but Edison reissued his patents and succeeded in controlling the US film industry for many years.
Seven years after his disappearance, Le Prince was declared dead on 16 September 1897.
In September 1890, Le Prince was preparing for a trip to the United States, supposedly to publicly premiere his work and join his wife and children. Before this journey, he decided to return to France to visit his brother in Dijon. Then, on 16 September, he took a train to Paris, but having taken a later train than planned, his friends in Paris discovered that he was not on board. He was never seen again by his family or friends, nor was the luggage he was traveling with ever found. The last person to see Le Prince at the Dijon station was his brother. The French police, Scotland Yard and the family undertook exhaustive searches, but never found him. Le Prince was officially declared dead in 1897. A number of mostly unsubstantiated theories have been proposed.
On 10 January 1888, Le Prince was granted an American patent on a 16-lens device that he claimed could serve as both motion picture camera (which he termed the receiver or photo-camera) and a projector (which he called the deliverer or stereopticon). That same day he took out a near-identical provisional patent for the same devices in Great Britain, proposing a system of preferably 3, 4, 8, 9, 16 or more lenses. Shortly before the final version was submitted he added a sentence which described a single-lens system, but this was neither fully explained nor illustrated, unlike the several pages of description of the multi-lens system, meaning the single-lens camera was not legally covered by patent.
This addendum was submitted on 10 October 1888 and, on 14 October, Le Prince used his single-lens camera to film Roundhay Garden Scene.During the period 1889-1890 he worked with the mechanic James Longley on various deliverers (projectors) with one, two, three and sixteen lenses. The images were to be separated, printed and mounted individually, sometimes on a flexible band, moved by metal eyelets.
The single lens projector used individual pictures mounted in wooden frames. His assistant, James Longley, claimed the three-lens version was the most successful. Those close to Le Prince have testified to him projecting his first films in his workshop as tests, but they were never presented to anyone outside his immediate circle of family and associates and the nature of the projector is unknown.
In 1889, he took French-American dual citizenship in order to establish himself with his family in New York City and to follow up his research. However, he was never able to perform his planned public exhibition at the Morris-Jumel Mansion in Manhattan, in September 1890, due to his disappearance.
In France, an appreciation society was created as L'Association des Amis de Le Prince (Association of Le Prince's Friends), which still exists in Lyon.
Roundhay Garden Scene is a short silent motion picture filmed by French inventor Louis Le Prince at Oakwood Grange in Roundhay, Leeds, inYorkshire, England on 14 October 1888.
It is believed to be the oldest surviving film. The camera used was patented in the United Kingdom on 16 November 1888.
According to Le Prince's son, Adolphe, RoundhayGarden Scene was made at Oakwood Grange, the home of Joseph and Sarah Whitley, in Roundhay, Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire, on 14 October 1888.
The footage features Adolphe, the Whitleys, and Annie Hartley leisurely walking around the garden of Oakwood Grange. Sarah is seen walking -or dancing- backward as she turns around, and Joseph's coattails fly as he turns also. Joseph (1817-1891) and Sarah (née Robinson, 1816-1888) were the parents of Elizabeth, Louis Le Prince's wife, and Hartley is believed to have been a friend of the LePrinces. Sarah Whitley died ten days after the scene was filmed.
Oakwood Grange was demolished in 1972 and replaced with modern housing; the only remnants of it are the garden walls at the end of Oakwood Grange Lane. The adjacent stately home, Oakwood Hall, still stands, and is now a nursing home.
Roundhay Garden Scene was recorded on Eastman Kodak paper base photographic film using Le Prince's single-lens camera.
In the 1930s, the Science Museum in London produced a photographic glass plate copy of 20 surviving frames from the original negative before it was lost. The copied frames were later printed on 35 mm film. Adolphe Le Prince stated that the film was shot at 12 frames per second (fps), but analysis suggests that it was shot at 7 fps.
The First Film, a 2015 documentary about Louis Le Prince, shows it at 7 fps.
In conclusion, I would say that Mr. Le Prince was in many ways a very extraordinary man, apart from his inventive genius, which was undoubtedly great. He stood 6ft. 3in. or 4in. in his stockings, well built in proportion, and he was most gentle and considerate and, though an inventor, of an extremely placid disposition which nothing appeared to ruffle.
Today, The Grandma has continued enjoying time with her friend Joseph de Ca'thLon. They have been talking about the Magellanspacecraft,the robotic space probe, that burnt up in the atmosphere of Venus on a day like today in 1994.
The Magellan spacecraft was a 1,035-kilogram robotic space probe launched by NASA on May 4, 1989. Its mission objectives were to map the surface of Venus by using synthetic-aperture radar and to measure the planetary gravitational field.
The Magellan probe was the first interplanetary mission to be launched from the Space Shuttle, the first one to use the Inertial Upper Stage booster, and the first spacecraft to test aerobraking as a method for circularizing its orbit. Magellan was the fifth successful NASA mission to Venus, and it ended an eleven-year gap in U.S. interplanetary probe launches.
Beginning in the late 1970s, scientists advocated for a radar mapping mission to Venus. They first sought to construct a spacecraft named the Venus Orbiting Imaging Radar (VOIR), but it became clear that the mission would be beyond the budget constraints during the ensuing years. The VOIR mission was canceled in 1982.
A simplified radar mission proposal was recommended by the Solar System Exploration Committee, and this one was submitted and accepted as the Venus Radar Mapper program in 1983. The proposal included a limited focus and a single primary scientific instrument. In 1985, the mission was renamed Magellan, in honor of the sixteenth-century Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, known for his exploration, mapping, and circumnavigation of the Earth.
The objectives of the mission included:
-Obtain near-global radar images of the Venusian surface with a resolution equivalent to optical imaging of 1.0 kilometre per line pair.
-Obtain a near-global topographic map with 50 kilometres spatial and 100 metres vertical resolution.
-Obtain near-global gravity field data with 700 kilometres resolution and two to three milligals of accuracy.
-Develop an understanding of the geological structure of the planet, including its density distribution and dynamics.
Magellan returned data to perform three so called experiments:
-Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), already covered above while discussion the RDRS instrument;
-Gravimetry, consisting on detailed measurements of the Venus gravitational field, with the principal investigator being Georges Balmino from Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales;
-Magellan Radio Science Occultation Experiment (ROCC), consisting on measurements of the atmospheric density and radio occultation data on the atmospheric profile. The principal investigator was Jon M. Jenkins from NASA Ames Research Center.
Magellan was launched on May 4, 1989, at 18:46:59 UTC by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from KSC Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, aboard Space Shuttle Atlantis during mission STS-30. Once in orbit, the Magellan and its attached Inertial Upper Stage booster were deployed from Atlantis and launched on May 5, 1989 01:06:00 UTC, sending the spacecraft into a Type IV heliocentric orbit where it would circle the Sun 1.5 times, before reaching Venus 15 months later on August 10, 1990.
On September 9, 1994, a press release outlined the termination of the Magellan mission. Due to the degradation of the power output from the solar arrays and onboard components, and having completed all objectives successfully, the mission was to end in mid-October. The termination sequence began in late August 1994, with a series of orbital trim maneuvers which lowered the spacecraft into the outermost layers of the Venusian atmosphere to allow the Windmill experiment to begin on September 6, 1994. The experiment lasted for two weeks and was followed by subsequent orbital trim maneuvers, further lowering the altitude of the spacecraft for the final termination phase.
On October 11, 1994, moving at a velocity of 7 kilometers/second, the final orbital trim maneuver was performed, placing the spacecraft 139.7 kilometers above the surface, well within the atmosphere. At this altitude the spacecraft encountered sufficient ram pressure to raise temperatures on the solar arrays to 126 °C.
On October 13, 1994 at 10:05:00 UTC, communication was lost when thespacecraft entered radio occultation behind Venus. The team continued to listen for another signal from the spacecraft until 18:00:00 UTC, when the mission was determined to have concluded. Although much of Magellan was expected to vaporize due to atmospheric stresses, some amount of wreckage is thought have hit the surface by 20:00:00 UTC.
Venus and Mars are our next of kin: they are the two most Earth-like planets that we know about. They're the only two other very Earth-like planets in our solar system, meaning they orbit close to the sun; they have rocky surfaces and thin atmospheres.
Sad news comes to us from the USA. DianeKeaton, one of the best actresses in the history of cinema, has said goodbye to us and we do not have enough words to express our sadness for the news and our admiration for a person who played unforgettable characters who will continue to be present in our memories.
May the earth be light for you, Diane.
Diane Hall Keaton (born January 5, 1946) is an American actress and filmmaker.
Known for her idiosyncratic personality and dressing style, Keaton has received an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and the AFI Life Achievement Award.
Keaton began her career on stage and made her screen debut as an extra in Lovers and Other Strangers (1970). She rose to prominence with her first major film role as Kay Adams-Corleone in The Godfather (1972), a role she reprised in its sequels The Godfather Part II (1974) and The Godfather Part III (1990). But the films that most shaped her career were those with director and co-star Woody Allen, beginning with Play It Again, Sam (1972). Her next two films with Allen, Sleeper (1973) and Love and Death (1975), established her as a comic actor. Her fourth, the romantic comedy Annie Hall (1977), won her the Academy Award for Best Actress.
To avoid being typecast as her Annie Hall persona, Keaton became an accomplished dramatic performer, starring in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and Interiors (1978), and received three more Academy Award nominations for playing feminist activist Louise Bryant in Reds (1981), a woman with leukemia in Marvin's Room (1996), and a dramatist in Something's Gotta Give (2003).
Keaton's other popular films include Manhattan (1979), Baby Boom (1987), Father of the Bride Part I (1991) and Part II (1995), Manhattan Murder Mystery (1993), The First Wives Club (1996), The Family Stone (2005), Morning Glory (2010), Finding Dory (2016) and Book Club (2018).
Diane Keaton was born Diane Hall in Los Angeles, California.
Her mother, Dorothy Deanne (née Keaton; 1921–2008), was a homemaker and
amateur photographer; her father, John Newton Ignatius Jack Hall (1922–1990), was a real estate broker and civil engineer. Keaton was raised a Free Methodist by her mother.
Her mother won the Mrs. Los Angeles pageant for homemakers; Keaton
has said that the theatricality of the event inspired her first impulse
to be an actress, and led to her wanting to work on stage. She has also
credited Katharine Hepburn, whom she admires for playing strong and
independent women, as one of her inspirations.
Keaton
is a 1964 graduate of Santa Ana High School in Santa Ana, California.
During her time there, she participated in singing and acting clubs at
school, and starred as Blanche DuBois in a school production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
After
graduation, she attended Santa Ana College, and later Orange Coast
College as an acting student, but dropped out after a year to pursue an
entertainment career in Manhattan. Upon joining the Actors' Equity
Association, she changed her surname to Keaton, her mother's maiden name, as there was already an actress registered under the name of Diane Hall.
For a brief time she also moonlighted at nightclubs with a singing act. She revisited her nightclub act in Annie Hall (1977), And So It Goes (2014), and a cameo in Radio Days (1987).
Keaton
began studying acting at the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York City.
She initially studied acting under the Meisner technique, an ensemble
acting technique first evolved in the 1930s by Sanford Meisner, a New
York stage actor/acting coach/director who had been a member of The
Group Theater (1931–1940).
Keaton said she produced her 1987 documentary Heaven because I was always pretty religious as a kid... I was primarily interested in religion because I wanted to go to heaven. When she grew up, she became agnostic.
As an actress, I'm drawn to emotion and expressing the human condition in all its forms, and I'm fortunate to have thoughts and feelings at my fingertips.
Today, The Grandma has been watchong some classic films interpreted by ChicoMarx, one of the MarxBrothers,who dies on a day like today in 1961.
Leonard 'Chico' Marx (March 22, 1887-October 11, 1961) was an Americancomedian, actor, andpianist. He was the oldest brother in the MarxBrothers comedy troupe, alongside his brothers Arthur ('Harpo'), Julius ('Groucho'), Milton ('Gummo'), and Herbert ('Zeppo'). His persona in the act was that of a charming, uneducated but crafty con artist, seemingly of rural Italian origin, who wore shabby clothes and sported a curly-haired wig and Tyrolean hat. On screen, Chico is often in alliance with Harpo, usually as partners in crime, and is also frequently seen trying to con or outfox Groucho.
Leonard was the oldest of the Marx Brothers to live past early childhood, the first-born being Manfred Marx who died in infancy. In addition to his work as a performer, he played an important role in the management and development of the act in its early years.
Marx was born in Manhattan, New York City, on March 22, 1887. His mother Miene ('Minnie') Marx (née Schoenberg) was from Dornum in East Frisia. Around 1880, the family emigrated to New York City. His father, Samuel ('Sam' or 'Frenchy'; born Simon) Marx, was a native of Mertzwiller, a small Alsatian village, and worked as a tailor. Minnie and Sam married on January 18, 1885. Their first child, Manfred, died of tuberculosis; Leonard was their second, and was followed in turn by Arthur, Julius, Milton, and Herbert.
By the age of nine, Leonard was a gambler, and by the age of eleven, he would stay out all night hustling pool. He lost his first job, in 1899, for playing craps on premises, and, in other jobs, would routinely gamble his money away on payday. In his mid-teens, with pressure from his parents to stop gambling, he left home, supporting himself by playing piano in nickelodeons and whorehouses. He also briefly toured with a circus as a wrestler, and later, a flyweight boxer.
By 1907, Chico was working at music publishing firm Shapiro, Bernstein & Co.. When the founder of that company, Maurice Shapiro, died in 1911, Chico quit immediately, convincing a young tenor, Aaron Gordon, to tour with him in vaudeville. At the time, there was a successful vaudeville act called The Two Funny Germans, starring Bill Gordon and Nick Marx; with Minnie's encouragement, Aaron Gordon and Chico Marx adopted Italian accents (Chico's reputedly based on that of his barber) and toured as Marx and Gordon. Gordon, who later said that he never saw a salary because Chico gambled away their earnings, left the act in the fall of that year.
It was during Chico's time in vaudeville that he acquired his nickname (during a card game). During Groucho's live performance at Carnegie Hall in 1972, he states that his brother got the name Chico because he was a chicken-chaser (early 20th century slang for womanizer). Chico's nickname was originally spelled Chicko. A typesetter accidentally omitted the k, so his name became Chico.
While the Marxes typically pronounced Chico as Chick-oh, others sometimes mistakenly pronounced it Cheek-oh. Numerous radio recordings from the 1940s exist in which announcers and fellow actors mispronounce the nickname, but Chico does not correct them. As late as the 1950s, Groucho used the wrong pronunciation for comedic effect. A guest on You Bet Your Life told the quizmaster she grew up around Chico, California, which is pronounced Cheek-oh. Groucho responded, I grew up around Chico myself. You aren't Gummo, are you? In most interviews, Groucho is heard correctly pronouncing it Chicko, as in an episode of The Dick Cavett Show with Groucho talking to Dan Rowan.
When they later made films, as manager, Chico negotiated with the studios to get the brothers a percentage of a film's gross receipts -the first deal of its kind in Hollywood which has become common practice today.
The Marx Brothers' film, A Night in Casablanca (1946), was produced after the team had officially retired and was made largely for Chico's financial benefit. Chico had filed for bankruptcy a few years prior. At around this time, the rest of the Marx brothers, finally aware of Chico's out-of-control gambling, took full control over his finances; they took all money away from Chico as he earned it and put him on an allowance to curb his constant betting and gambling. Chico stayed on the allowance until his death.
Through the 1950s, Chico occasionally appeared on a variety of television anthology shows and some television commercials, most notably with Harpo (and a cameo appearance by Groucho) in The Incredible Jewelry Robbery, a pantomime episode of General Electric Theater in 1959. This was the final appearance of the three Marx Brothers. Chico's last public appearance was in 1960, playing cards on the television show Championship Bridge. He and his partner lost the game.
As well as being a compulsive womanizer, Chico had a lifelong addiction to gambling. His favorite gambling pursuits were card games, horse racing, dog racing, and various sports betting. His addiction cost him millions of dollars by his own account.
Chico died at the age of 74 on October 11, 1961, at his Hollywood home. He was the eldest brother and the first to die and is entombed in the mausoleum at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
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