Browsing: November 13

A Brief History On November 13, 2019, we celebrate “Lucky 13” by telling the history of the card game, Poker, a game that enjoys widespread popularity and comes in so many forms it would be difficult to explain all the different games.  In 1937, R. F. Foster wrote: “the game of poker, as first played in the United States, five cards to each player from a twenty-card pack, is undoubtedly the Persian game of As-Nas.”  Ah, but more recent historians, including David Parlett, that study the origins of poker have concluded that Mr. Foster was wrong!  They claim poker evolved…

Read More

A Brief History On November 13, 1901, a British lifeboat crew answered the distress flares of a small ship in peril off the coast of Norfolk, England, only to suffer terrible hardships in attempting to launch their lifeboat from shore to go to the sailors in peril.  So hazardous were the conditions, that the lifeboat ended up being turned over on top of the crewmen, causing 9 of the heroic rescuers to drown.  Cases in which rescuers end up being killed or severely injured themselves are not at all rare, and today we will discuss a few such cases. Digging…

Read More

A Brief History On November 13, 2017, in the United States we celebrate the annual chance for unmarried spinsters to catch themselves a husband in the Sadie Hawkins Day race for freedom.  Started by cartoonist Al Capp in his Lil Abner cartoon back in 1937, the race pits unmarried women against eligible bachelors, with the only rule being if she catches him, she keeps him! Digging Deeper The story in the comic strip is about a 35 year old denizen of Dogpatch, unmarried at that advanced age and facing spinsterhood.  Her father, a big deal in those parts (major potato…

Read More

A Brief History Dark comedic drama fans, here is your chance to be among the first in Cleveland to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Monday, November 13, 2017 at 7:00 PM at Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights, Ohio!  Please visit http://www.foxsearchlightscreenings.com/3BBJCU for the chance to download a pass.  Passes are limited and seating is first-come, first-served and not guaranteed.  Please arrive early to increase chance of entry. Digging Deeper THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a dark comedic drama from Academy Award® winner Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES).  After months have passed without a culprit in her daughter’s murder case,…

Read More

A Brief History On November 12-13, 1970, an Indian Ocean cyclone with winds over 150 mph hit what is now Bangladesh (then East Pakistan) killing more than 3 times the number of people killed in the Atom Bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined! Half a million people died in the low lands of the Ganges River delta, mostly from the storm surge that flooded the area. Digging Deeper In addition to massive loss of human life, thousands of homes and other buildings were washed away, thousands of acres of crops were destroyed, thousands of domestic and wild animals died,…

Read More