On This Day November 18th

 OTD

November 18th is the 322nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar; 43 days remain until the end of the year.

 

 Events

326 – Pope Sylvester, I consecrated the old St. Peter's Basilica

401 – The Visigoths, led by King Alaric I, crossed the Alps and invaded northern Italy.

1493 – Christopher Columbus first sights the island now known as Puerto Rico.

1803 – The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, is fought, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere.

1803 – The Battle of Vertières, the last major battle of the Haitian Revolution, is fought, leading to the establishment of the Republic of Haiti, the first black republic in the Western Hemisphere.

1910 – In their campaign for women's voting rights, hundreds of suffragettes marched to the British Parliament in London. Police beat several, newspaper attention embarrasses the authorities, and the march is dubbed Black Friday.

1963 – The first push-button telephone goes into service.

1978 – In Jonestown, Guyana, Jim Jones leads his Peoples Temple to a mass murder–suicide that claimed 918 lives in all, 909 of them in Jonestown itself, including over 270 children.

2013 – NASA launches the MAVEN probe to Mars.

 

Birthdays

1571 – Hippolytus Guarinonius, Italian physician and polymath (d. 1654)

1736 – Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, German harpsichord player and composer (d. 1800)

1787 – Louis Daguerre, French artist, photographer, and inventor (d. 1851)

1882 – Jacques Maritain, French philosopher and author (d. 1973)

1901 – George Gallup, American statistician (d. 1984)

1909 – Johnny Mercer, American singer-songwriter and producer, co-founded Capitol Records (d. 1976)

1923 – Alan Shepard, American astronaut (d. 1998)

1950 – Rudy Sarzo, Cuban-American rock bass player

1968 – Owen Wilson, American actor

1980 – Denny Hamlin, American race car driver.

 

 Holiday Spotlight

MICKEY MOUSE DAY

  Mickey Mouse is more than just a character; he’s an iconic figure for the Disney brand. But he almost didn’t exist. Mickey Mouse was only created to replace Walt Disney’s original successful creation, Oswald the Rabbit. Disney Studios made Oswald for Charles Mintz, a film producer and distributor through Universal Studios. With so much success from Oswald, Disney asked Mintz to increase the studio’s budget, but instead, Mintz demanded Walt take a 20 percent cut. He then reminded Disney that Universal owned Oswald and that he had already signed most of Disney’s current employees to his new contract. Disney refused to sign the new agreement, finished the final Oswald comic of his contract, and ended his work with Universal.

 With just himself and two loyal animators, Ub Iwerks and Les Clark, Disney had to start from scratch. From this experience, he learned to ensure he owned all the rights to characters produced by his company. His inspiration for Mickey came from a tame mouse at his desk at Laugh-O-Gram Studio in Kansas City, Missouri. The character's original name was Mortimer Mouse until his wife, Lillian, convinced him to change it, ultimately creating Mickey Mouse.

 On May 14, 1928, Mickey appeared in a test screening of the cartoon short “Plane Crazy” but failed to impress audiences and attract distributors. Walt then produced a second Mickey short called “The Gallopin’ Gaucho,” which also suffered from a lack of distributor interest. “Steamboat Willy,” first released on November 18, 1928, in New York, was co-directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. Intended as a parody of Buster Keaton’s “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” it was the third Mickey film produced and the first to find a distributor, serving as Mickey’s debut.

 

Other Include

European Antibiotic Awareness Day

Family Volunteer Day

Guinness World Record Day

International Games Day

Married to a Scorpio Support Day

National Adoption Day

National Apple Cider Day

National Princess Day

National Survivors of Suicide Day

National Vichyssoise Day

Occult Day

Playmobile's National Day of Play

Push-button Phone Day

William Tell Day

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