History of the Day: 10/6

Today is a big day in movie history. In 1889, Thomas Edison created the first motion picture. It looks like something from a horror movie. The Jazz Singer, which was the first motion picture with sound (talkie) opened on this day in 1927. In 1966, LSD was declared illegal in the U.S., which had formerly made movies in people's heads. Through the magic of modern technology, we have recorded one of these LSD induced movies for your viewing pleasure. And, today is the birthday of Pauline Gore, mother of Al Gore which, I guess, makes her the grandmother of the internet which, in turn, made all these movie clips available for you today.

Alfred Lord Tennyson, one of the greatest of the British poets, died on this day in 1892. It's hard to pick from a corpus of words which includes such famous excerpts as "nature, red in tooth and claw", "better to have loved and lost", "Theirs not to reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", etc. So, here is Tennyson himself, recorded by Edison on his phonograph (and creepily animated) reading one of his last poems, Charge of the Light Brigade. Incidentally, England cared for its veterans so poorly that another poet, Rudyard Kipling, wrote a follow-up poem called Last of the Light Brigade. It's quite depressing.

Larry Walters, first and greatest of the Lawn Chair Force pilots, died on this day in 1993.

Finally, today is the feastday of St. Faith, primarily interesting because of her coat of arms, which is really cool.

- St. Faith ()