Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Happy Alaska Day!!

October 18, 1867: The USA took possession of Alaska after buying it from Russia for just two cents an acre at $7.2 million in gold ($126.4 billion on today’s value) from Tsar Alexander II. This day is now celebrated annually as Alaska Day.

One primary reason America got Alaska so cheap is because Russia knew they wouldn't have the resources to defend that much land after they learned of the ever expanding American railway and the Hudson's Bay Company was pushing inexorably west.


USS Alaska (CB-1) was the first of a class of large cruisers designed as a compromise to achieve a fast cruiser with a heavy main battery. Commissioned in 1944, Alaska was awarded three battle star during WWII. She was decommissioned in 1947 and scrapped in 1960.



October 18, 1922: British Broadcasting Company (BBC) is founded by a group of leading wireless manufacturers, including the Italian radio inventor, Guglielmo Marconi. The British Broadcasting Company was formed using a blueprint that the United States Navy and the General Electric Company had attempted to institute in the USA. Daily broadcasting by the BBC began in Marconi’s London studio "2LO" radio station at 857 kHz on 14 November 1922. The first news bulletin is read by Arthur Burrows, the company's founding Director of Programmes. Later reformed and called British Broadcasting Corporation in 1927.


History of Marconi House where 2LO first broadcast

Early in World War I, all of the ship-to-shore and transatlantic radio stations controlled by a US subsidiary company of Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company, Limited in Chelmsford, England, were seized and handed to the US Navy for the duration of the War. After the War, the US Congress forced the US Navy to divest itself of the stations and they turned to the General Electric Company which in 1919 formed a subsidiary called the Radio Corporation of America. With the US Navy on its board, RCA then absorbed the former Marconi stations. In 1926 RCA created the National Broadcasting Company, the first network in the United States. Peaking in the 1930s, there were unsuccessful attempts to bring all radio communications in America back under single monopoly control by using the patent laws.

Interesting to note that RCA worked on a secret project during WWII for the US Navy that was ABOVE the Manhattan project in cloaked secrecy.

History of the BBC

Daily broadcasting by the BBC began in Marconi's London studio, 2LO, in the Strand, on November 14, 1922. John Reith, a 33-year-old Scottish engineer, was appointed General Manager of the BBC at the end of 1922.

November 1922 - 2LO launched

Following the closure of numerous amateur stations, the BBC started its first daily radio service in London – 2LO.

After much argument, news was supplied by an agency, and music drama and 'talks' filled the airwaves for only a few hours a day. It wasn't long before radio could be heard across the nation.

London Calling... 2LO Calling

Broadcast entertainment really began in the USA in 1920. There, many hundreds of stations were soon in operation, swamping the airwaves. In Britain, the approach was more cautious. Experimental stations were tried at the Marconi site at Chelmsford, Essex, in 1920 and in 1922 at Writtle, a village nearby. The Writtle transmitter had the call sign 2MT.

Another Marconi station was licensed in 1922, based at the company head office, Marconi House in the Strand, London. Its call sign was 2LO. The transmitter was located in an attic room and the aerials were strung between towers on the roof. The building is now the Marconi Wing of Citibank House, and is close to Bush House, home of the BBC’s World Service.

The 2LO transmitter was designed by Henry Round and Charles Franklin of Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company, and brought into use in May 1922. It remained in its original configuration for only a very short time; within weeks it was rebuilt to take advantage of new regulations allowing increased transmitting power.

October 18, 1926: Chuck Berry "Father of Rock and Roll" was born.
Carrying his guitar in a gunny sack... ever deeper into space, aboard Voyager 1 and 2.


The Golden Record  | Music from Earth  | Current location of Voyager 1 and 2


October 18, 1962: President John F. Kennedy met with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko (seated closest to JFK) in the Oval Office.


“Could you sit through a two-hour meeting with a man who was lying to your face without letting on that you knew he was lying?”


Andrei Gromyko Lies to JFK (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Three)


UK #1 on this day in 1979: The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star. Also, the very first song/video aired on the debut of MTV, August 1, 1981.





Damn, 10 year-olds? Returning to the old penal colony? Once again stupid politicians not addressing the root cause. Even 14 year old is way too young, imo. They need to all look into the mirror.


Australian territory resumes jailing 10-year-olds


Other than, about damn time I'm not sure what to make of it. Why now?
Aristocrat blood has been poisoned now looking for new blood?


Hereditary nobles have sat in Britain’s Parliament for centuries. Their time might be up


TIME Black "X" for 1945; Red "X" for 1945, 2003, 2006, May 20th 2011 (RARE), 2020, 2024.


The History Behind TIME’s Use of a Red ‘X’ on Its Cover



Clint Hill Secret Service Agent from 1958 - 1975.


It's going to happen again...




Words for the Weekend...


Oxford Word of the Year


Friday night mash-up...



Music used in this mashup:
Guns N' Roses - Rocket Queen
Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive
Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Dancing
White Zombie - Thunder Kiss '65
Jimi Hendrix - Crosstown Traffic
Boston - Foreplay/Long Time