Month: January 2015

NASA Day of Remembrance

NASA established the Day of Remembrance to honor those who have died in America’s space program. The day focuses on those who died in three NASA space tragedies: the Apollo 1 fire on January 27, 1967; the Shuttle Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986; and the Shuttle Columbia tragedy of February 1, 2003. The day also remembers NASA employees who died in training and maintenance accidents. NASA headquarters observes the day with a roll call of all those who have died. At Cape Canaveral in Florida, a moment of silence is observed at noon.

Source: The Free Dictionary

Edgar Allan Poe Publishes “The Raven” (1845)

Like Poe’s other works, “The Raven” conveys the dreamlike and often macabre forces that pervaded the author’s sensibility. While his wife suffered from a protracted illness, Poe composed this poem, which became an instant sensation when it appeared in the Evening Mirror in 1845. In the poem, the speaker, who is mourning the death of his love, Lenore, is mysteriously visited by a talking raven and asks the bird a series of questions. What is the raven’s one-word response to each query?

Source: The Free Dictionary

Oprah Winfrey (1954)

The grand dame of television talk shows, Winfrey is a highly respected television host, actress, billionaire media magnate, and philanthropist. Early in her career, she hosted AM Chicago, which, following its early success, was renamed The Oprah Winfrey Show and expanded to a full-hour format. In the mid-1990s, Winfrey adopted a less tabloid-oriented format and began covering important social issues like abuse, addiction, and depression. Why did Texas cattlemen sue Oprah in 1998?

Source: The Free Dictionary

Jessica Tandy

Tandy was a noted British-American theater, film, and TV actress. She made her London stage debut in 1927 and soon became a leading lady, appearing as Katherine opposite Laurence Olivier’s Henry V, and Ophelia opposite John Gielgud’s Hamlet. She became known for her incisive portrayals of diverse characters and won a Tony Award playing Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. Tandy often took the stage with her husband, actor Hume Cronyn. In 1989, she won an Academy Award for what film?

Source: The Free Dictionary