The Great Geek Manual

1898
Scientists Pierre and Marie Curie discover Radium.

1913
Arthur Wynne published the first crossword puzzle, which he called a “word-cross”, in the New York World.

1937
Walt Disney premieres the first full-length, animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, at the Carthay Circle Theatre in Los Angeles, California. The film is notable for its length, its pioneering use of the multi-plane camera to achieve the illusion of depth, its introduction of human characters modeled on live actors, and its use of larger painted cels. These advances are all the more astonishing for the fact that Snow White is released just twelve years after Walt Disney released the first animation with sound, Steamboat Willie. The film was produced by 750 artists working for three years at the unheard-of cost of US$1.499 million. The cost was so exorbitant that Disney had to mortgage his house to pay for the film’s production. The artists produced one million individual drawings, only a quarter of which were actually used in the final print of the film. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: G Running Time: 1 hr 23 mins

1965
United Artists releases Thunderball, directed by Terence Young and starring Sean Connery as James Bond, Claudine Auger, Adolfo Celi, and Luciana Paluzzi, to US theaters. It is the fourth film in the James Bond series. In it, James Bond heads to The Bahamas to recover two nuclear warheads stolen by SPECTRE agent Emilio Largo in an international extortion scheme. The film was produced on a budget of US$5.6 million. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 2 hrs 9 mins
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Science will be the master of man. The engines he will have invented will be beyond his strength to control. Some day science shall have the existence of mankind in its power, and the human race commit suicide by blowing up the world.

- U.S. Historian Henry Adams in a letter to his brother, April 11, 1862.

1879
Thomas Alva Edison privately demonstrates his incandescent light at Menlo Park, New Jersey. He invented the lamp on October 21, 1879 after thirteen months of experimentation to discover a suitable material for the filament and discovery that carbonized cotton filaments could operate for forty hours in the vacuum of a glass bulb. The first public demonstration of the incandescent light bulb will be given at Menlo Park on December 31 1879.

1907
Physicist Albert Michelson becomes the first US scientist to receive the Nobel Prize. He is awarded the prize “for his optical precision instruments and the spectroscopic and metrological investigations.” Specifically, he designed the highly accurate Michelson interferometer and used it to accurately measure the speed of light, establishing the Michelson Effect, which states that the speed of light is a constant.

1909
Volta Picture Theatre, Ireland’s first cinema, opens in a disused warehouse on Mary Street, in Dublin, under the management of James Joyce.

1910
AT&T acquires control of thirty percent of the Western Union Telegraph Company.

1938
Vladimir Zworykin receives a patent for the iconoscope, an early television camera tube, fifteen years after filing his application.
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Once human beings realize something can be done,
they’re not satisfied until they’ve done it.

- Cease Fire by Frank Herbert, 1958.

1871
Samuel Clemens, better known as the author Mark Twain, receives a patent for “An Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Garment Straps,” later known as suspenders. (US No.121,992)

1914
The Cel overlay animation process is patented by Earl Hurd of Kansas City, Missouri as “Process of and Apparatus for Producing Moving Pictures.” (US No. 1,143,542)

1923
Dr. Vladimir K. Zworykin patents the first all-electronic picture tube.

1930
Amelia Earhart becomes the first autogyro pilot to carry a passenger at Pitcairn Field, in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. Flying a PCA-2 Pitcairn Autogyro, she made trips with various passengers until dark. Just the previous day, December 18, 1930, Earhart made her first solo flight in the same autogyro, becoming the first female to make a solo flight. Two years earlier, on December 19, 1928, Harold F. Pitcairn made the first ever autogyro flight.

1958
The first known radio broadcast from outer space is transmitted from the SCORE (Signal Communications Orbit Relay Equipment) communication satellite, which was launched from Cape Canaveral the previous day. The voice of President Eisenhower issues a Christmas greeting from a pre-recorded tape on a recorder aboard the orbiting space satellite. The battery-operated 132 MHz vacuum tube transmitter had an 8W output. His full message is,

“This is the President of the United States speaking. Through the marvels of scientific advance, my voice is coming to you from a satellite circling in outer space. My message is a simple one. Through this unique means I convey to you and all mankind America’s wish for peace on earth and good will to men everywhere.”

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Comics

• Green Lantern will likely be the next Warner Bros film. I’ve been waiting for this for year, but I have nightmares of an ultra-gay pink-skinned Sinestro ruining everything.

Film

• Bob Orci explains How The New Star Trek Movie Fits With Trek Canon. [SPOILERS]
• Indiana’s Journal Gazette (Is that the stupidest name for a newspaper you’ve ever heard, or is it just me?) complains that Filmmakers recycle fan favorites instead of exploring new frontiers. And you know what? They’re right!
• io9 runs warns you off. If you haven’t seen these 10 Worst Science Fiction Remakes, avoid them at all costs.
• Popular Mechanics helps out this holiday season by compiling a list of 20 Must-Have Blu-ray HD Epics you should buy immediately when you get your new Blu-Ray player for Christmas.
• Unreality runs down a lists a gallery of the Ten of the Baddest Fictional Movie Weapons.

Internet

• What if Water World were a musical? Yes. The world would implode.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Listen to “Framing And Mounting Fairies” by Kevin Anderson at The Dunesteef Podcast.
• The Not a Planet Anymore blog recalls The Top 5 Famous Last Words in Sci-Fi and The Top 10 SF Movie Countdowns.

Television

• The TrekMovie fansite has posted a collection of video compilations of Inconsistencies in the Star Trek Continuum.
• Turns out that Lost Fans Will Get an Uninterrupted Season 5.

Fox has released a new teaser trailer for X-Men Origins: Wolverine on MySpace.com. Disappointingly, it doesn’t look like it’ll be following the Origin: The True Story of Wolverine miniseries, which is too bad, because that was one solid piece of writing. The movie, starring Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber, opens May 1, 2009.

In a sense human flesh is made of stardust. Every atom in the human body, excluding only the primordial hydrogen atoms, was fashioned in stars that formed, grew old and exploded most violently before the Sun and Earth came into being.

- The Key to the Universe: a Report on the New Physics by Nigel Calder, 1977.