1846

Today in History 12/28 (Westminster Abbey)

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Westminster Abbey in London (© Joe Daniel Price/Getty Images)(1065) Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London
King Edward the Confessor is near death and unable to attend the consecration ceremony of the church he commissioned as a burial place and to atone to the pope for a broken vow. Edward will die eight days later. The abbey will be completed in 1090 but rebuilt in the Gothic style by Henry III.
Westminster Abbey, formally titled the Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, is a large, mainly Gothic abbey church in the City of Westminster, London, England, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is one of the United Kingdom’s most notable religious buildings and the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English and, later, British monarchs. The building itself was a Benedictine monastic church until the monastery was dissolved in 1539. Between 1540 and 1556, the abbey had the status of a cathedral. Since 1560, the building is no longer an abbey or a cathedral, having instead the status of a Church of England “Royal Peculiar”—a church responsible directly to the sovereign.
Address: 20 Dean’s Yard, London SW1P 3PA
Phone: 020 7222 5152
Construction completed: 960 AD
Height: 225 feet (Architectural)
Denomination: Church of England
Architects: Christopher Wren · Nicholas Hawksmoor · Henry Yevele · John of Gloucester · Robert of Beverley · Henry of Reyns

Panorama of Westminster North Entrance
North entrance of Westminster Abbey
wiki/Westminster_Abbey
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(1065) Westminster Abbey is consecrated in London.
Also on this day,

1846 | Iowa becomes the 29th US state
President James K. Polk signs a law making an area that was part of the Louisiana Purchase the 29th state. Iowa, named for a Native American tribe, joins the nation as a slave-free state and will support the Union in the Civil War.
1895 | Audience pays admission to see a movie
At the Grand Cafe in Paris, brothers Louis and Auguste Lumière charge admission to see short films they made about ordinary French life. It marks the first time an audience has paid money to see a movie. The films are shown on a hand-cranked camera-projector the brothers invented: the Cinematographe.
1958 | ‘Greatest’ football game as Baltimore Colts win ‘Greatest Game Ever Played’
The 1958 National Football Championship Game between the Colts and the New York Giants is the first playoff game in NFL history to go into sudden-death overtime. The Colts win 23-17 in Yankee Stadium and the matchup will become known as the ‘Greatest Game Ever Played.’

Today in History 12/28/17

US and Iowa state flags (© Brian Snyder/Reuters)(1846) Iowa becomes the 29th US state
President James K. Polk signs a law making an area that was part of the Louisiana Purchase the 29th state. Iowa, named for a Native American tribe, joins the nation as a slave-free state and will support the Union in the Civil War.
Iowa is a state in the Midwestern United States, bordered by the Mississippi River on the east and the Missouri River and the Big Sioux River on the west. Surrounding states include Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the east, Missouri to the south, Nebraska to the west, South Dakota to the northwest, and Minnesota to the north.
Population: 3.13 million (2016)
Area: 56,272 sq miles (145,743 km²)
Colleges and universities: Iowa State University · University of Iowa · University of Northern Iowa · Drake University · Grinnell College
Capital: Des Moines
Governor: Kim Reynolds
Senators: Joni Ernst · Chuck Grassley

Iowa in United States
Map of the United States with Iowa highlighted

wiki/Iowa
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Today in History 09/23 (The Shawshank Redemption)

(From left) Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman in 'The Shawshank Redemption' (© Columbia Pictures/Separate Cinema Archive/Getty Images)(1994) ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ begins run in US theaters
Just 33 theaters host the limited American opening of ‘The Shawshank Redemption,’ and the resulting box office returns will not be impressive. ‘Redemption’ will be redeemed with rave reviews, seven Oscar nominations, and a growing reputation as one of the best-loved movies ever made.

The Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 American drama film written and directed by Frank Darabont, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption. It tells the story of banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who is sentenced to life in Shawshank State Penitentiary for the murder of his wife and her lover, despite his claims of innocence. Over the following two decades, he befriends a fellow prisoner, contraband smuggler Ellis “Red” Redding (Morgan Freeman), and becomes instrumental in a money laundering operation led by the prison warden Samuel Norton (Bob Gunton). William Sadler, Clancy Brown, Gil Bellows, and James Whitmore appear in supporting roles.

Darabont purchased the film rights to King’s story in 1987, but development did not begin until five years later when he wrote the script over an eight-week period. Two weeks after submitting his script to the Castle Rock Entertainment film studio, Darabont secured a $25 million budget to produce The Shawshank Redemption, which started pre-production in January 1993. While the film is set in Maine, principal photography took place from June to August 1993 almost entirely in Mansfield, Ohio, with the Ohio State Reformatory serving as the eponymous penitentiary. The project attracted many stars of the time for the lead roles including Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, and Kevin Costner. Thomas Newman provided the film’s score.

While The Shawshank Redemption received positive reviews on its release, particularly for its story and the performances of Robbins and Freeman, it was a box office disappointment, earning only $16 million during its initial theatrical run. Many reasons were cited for its failure at the time, including competition from films such as Pulp Fiction and Forrest Gump, to the general unpopularity of prison films, lack of female characters, and even the title, which was considered to be confusing for audiences. Even so, it went on to receive multiple award nominations, including seven Academy Award nominations, and a theatrical re-release that, combined with international takings, increased the film’s box office gross to $58.3 million.

Over 320,000 VHS copies were shipped throughout the United States, and based on its award nominations and word of mouth, it became one of the top rented films of 1995. The broadcast rights were acquired following the purchase of Castle Rock by the Turner Broadcasting System, and it was shown regularly on the TNT network starting in 1997, further increasing its popularity. The film is now considered to be one of the greatest films of the 1990s. As of 2017, the film is still broadcast regularly, and is popular in several countries, with audience members and celebrities citing it as a source of inspiration, and naming the film as a favorite in various surveys. In 2015, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, finding it “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.


Release date: Sep 23, 1994 (United States)
Director: Frank Darabont
Gross revenue: $58.30 million USD
Screenwriter: Frank Darabont
Story by: Stephen King
Awards: American Society of Cinematographers Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in Theatrical Releases (1994) · Japan Academy Prize for Outstanding Foreign Language Film (1996)

Black and white image of the iconic tree from The Shawshank Redemption located in Lucas, Ohio. Photo was after the 2011 lightning strike which split the tree in half
The Shawshank tree after being split by lightning in 2011. It became a symbol of hope for its role in the film
wiki/The_Shawshank_Redemption
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(1994) ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ begins run in US theaters.
Also on this day,

1642 | Harvard holds its first graduation ceremony
Nine graduates participate in Harvard College’s first commencement exercise as about 14 undergrads, family members, clergy, plus Governor Winthrop of the Massachusetts Bay Company, look on. America’s first college will go on to become one of the world’s most prestigious universities.
1846 | Neptune is plotted, and discovered
French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier has used celestial mechanics to plot the coordinates of a faraway planet that can’t be seen by the naked eye, and today, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle’s telescope spies Neptune almost exactly where Le Verrier calculated it would be.
1889 | Handmade playing cards launch Japan’s Nintendo founding
Fusajiro Yamauchi thinks a revival of Japanese card playing would mean good business, so he founds Nintendo Koppai in Kyoto, a company specializing in the Hanafuda card game. A century or so later the firm will gain worldwide success when it evolves into an electronic games company.

Today in History 09/23/17

Voyager view of Neptune (Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech)(1846) Neptune is plotted, and discovered
French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier has used celestial mechanics to plot the coordinates of a faraway planet that can't be seen by the naked eye, and today, German astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle's telescope spies Neptune almost exactly where Le Verrier calculated it would be.
The planet Neptune was mathematically predicted before it was directly observed. With a prediction by Urbain Le Verrier, telescopic observations confirming the existence of a major planet were made on the night of September 23–24, 1846, at the Berlin Observatory, by astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle (assisted by Heinrich Louis d'Arrest), working from Le Verrier's calculations.
Neptune by Voyager 2
Neptune in 1989 by the Voyager 2 probe

wiki/Discovery_of_Neptune
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