Meme Scholar with Madness (PhD)

[EndtheMadnessNow]

The "Telephonoscope" — a device imagined in a Punch cartoon from December 1879, predicting the advent of video chat more than 100 years before Skype or Zoom.


The Telephonoscope (1879)


LOL!




Dec 11, 1954: "Golden Age" of TV. Phone Death Threat Penalty: Two Weeks Without TV Set.



I wonder what TV program she was watching. Only about 55–60% of American households even had a TV set and only three networks: NBC, CBS, and (to a lesser extent) the smaller DuMont and ABC networks. The top rated evening/nightly shows airing in December 1954 were:

1. I Love Lucy (CBS)
2. The Jackie Gleason Show (CBS)
3. Dragnet (NBC)
4. You Bet Your Life (NBC)
5. The Toast of the Town / The Ed Sullivan Show (CBS, highest rated show)
6. This Is Your Life (NBC)
7. The Jack Benny Program (CBS)
8. Private Secretary (CBS)
9. Your Hit Parade (NBC, counting down the week’s top songs on Saturday night)
10. The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (CBS)

My bet is she was watching Dragnet.



Dec 11, 1954: the famous Million Dollar display was unveiled inside Binion's Gambling Hall & Hotel, Las Vegas comprised of $10,000 bills. The display was sold in 1959. Benny Binion installed a new one in 1969 where it remained until Dec. 1999. A new version (sans $10k bills) went on display on June 16, 2023 at 128 Fremont St. The breakdown of bills in the display case is as follows: $42,000 in $1 bills, $688,000 in $20 bills and $270,000 in $100 bills totaling exactly $1,000,000. Another interesting fact, the display case weighs a total of 356 pounds: 174 pounds of U.S currency and 182 pounds of plexiglass.


One Million Dollar Horseshoe

History of the famous Las Vegas casino display of $1 million in U.S. currency


Dec 11, 1972: "The Challenger has landed!" Apollo 17 becomes the sixth and final Apollo mission to land on the Moon.


Relive the last moon landing Apollo in Real-Time


Dec 11, 1975: British ornithologist Peter Scott proposed the scientific name Nessiteras rhombopteryx for the Loch Ness Monster (based on a blurred underwater photograph of a supposed fin) so that it could be registered as an endangered species. The name was based on the Ancient Greek for "monster of Ness with diamond-shaped fin", but it was later pointed out by The Daily Telegraph to be an anagram of "Monster hoax by Sir Peter S". Robert H. Rines, who took two supposed pictures of the monster in the 1970s, responded by pointing out that the letters could also be read as an anagram for, "Yes, both pix are monsters, R."


In 1962, he co-founded the Loch Ness Phenomena Investigation Bureau with Conservative MP David James, who had previously been Polar Adviser on the 1948 film Scott of the Antarctic, based on his father's polar expedition. Sir Peter Markham Scott was knighted in 1973 for his work in conservation of wild animals.


Dec 11, 1978: The Lufthansa heist is committed by a group led by Lucchese crime family associate Jimmy Burke ("Jimmy the Gent") who was never convicted. It was the largest cash robbery ever committed on American soil, at that time. An estimated $5.875 million was stolen ($5 million in cash and $875,000 in jewelry) at JFK Airport in an event that became known as The Lufthansa Heist.

To clean up loose ends, mobster Burke ordered the hit jobs on nine other gangsters. #1 was Parnell “Stacks” Edwards, whacked on Dec 18, 1978. #2 was Martin Krugman on Jan 6, 1979. #9 was Paolo LiCastri, associate of the Gambino crime family.

Again, Burke was never convicted of any of those. The cash and jewelry have never been recovered. The heist's magnitude made it one of the longest-investigated crimes in U.S. history; the latest arrest associated with the robbery was made in 2014, which resulted in acquittal. My uncle was one of the lawyers for the Gambino crime family back in the 80s. Everytime he came by for a visit he had a new Cadillac. He ended up doing a ten year stretch when the Feds took down Gambino boss John Gotti.

The heist was planned in Goodfellas, but occurred off screen.


Revisiting the Lufthansa Heist immortalized in ‘Goodfellas’


Dec 11, 2017: Donald Trump signed Space Policy Directive 1 (SPD-1), launching the NASA Artemis program. He later signed the Artemis II hatch, which is scheduled to launch in April 2026 to slingshot around the Moon and back to Earth.

The 10-day mission will carry NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman (Commander), Victor Glover (Pilot), and Christina Koch (Mission Specialist 1), along with Jeremy Hansen (Mission Specialist 2) of the Canadian Space Agency.


Artemis II Map

Artemis II spaceflight boarding pass created by Wikipedia editor Spideog using an online form at the NASA website. Before January 21, 2026, members of the public can enter their names at the website. The names will be stored on a memory card which will be flown around the moon during the Artemis II mission. The website produces a "boarding pass" graphic for downloading bearing the name entered by the website visitor.

To the Moon and “Free” Ride Home

On the remainder of the trip, astronauts will continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s systems, including demonstrating Earth departure and return operations, practicing emergency procedures, and testing the radiation shelter, among other activities.

The Artemis II crew will travel approximately 4,700 miles beyond the far side of the Moon. From this vantage point, they will be able to see the Earth and the Moon from Orion’s windows, with the Moon close in the foreground and the Earth nearly a quarter-million miles in the background.

With a return trip of about four days, the mission is expected to last about 10 days. Instead of requiring propulsion on the return, this fuel-efficient trajectory harnesses the Earth-Moon gravity field, ensuring that—after its trip around the far side of the Moon—Orion will be pulled back naturally by Earth’s gravity for the free return portion of the mission.
Two Missions, Two Different Trajectories

Following Artemis II, Orion and its crew will once again travel to the Moon, this time to make history when the next astronauts walk on the lunar surface during Artemis III.

(March 18, 2025) -- The official Artemis II mission crew patch. The Artemis II test flight begins when a mighty team launches the first crew of the Artemis generation. This patch designates the mission as “AII,” signifying not only the second major flight of the Artemis campaign, but also an endeavor of discovery that seeks to explore for all and by all. Framed in Apollo 8’s famous Earthrise photo, the scene of the Earth and the Moon represents the dual nature of human spaceflight, both equally compelling: The Moon represents our exploration destination, focused on discovery of the unknown. The Earth represents home, focused on the perspective we gain when we look back at our shared planet and learn what it is to be uniquely human. The orbit around Earth highlights the ongoing exploration missions that have enabled Artemis to set sights on a long-term presence on the Moon and soon, Mars.

Gregory Manchess is an American illustrator from Kentucky. His illustrations have appeared in magazines, digital murals, illustrated movie posters, advertising campaigns, and book covers, including sixty covers for Louis L’Amour. His work has appeared on Major League Baseball World Series Programs, Time, Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, Smithsonian and National Geographic.



Part of the nostalgia is the general absence of small special interest magazines today. The Internet made it so everything bled together and then sites like Infowars corporatized conspiracy theories. The Internet used to be fun but one of the cool things it killed is the special interest magazine. UFO Magazine had some of the coolest cover art between 1990 and 1996.




On the subject of corporatizing conspiracy theories, I just learned Alex Jones has a supplement called MK-ULTRA. The bottle alone is almost worth the price. LOL.