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On Tuesday, we noted Hedy Lamarr's sort-of unexpected patent of a
communications system, but on this day in 1930, a scientist you'd expect to
get a patent got one -- but for an invention you wouldn't associate with him. It's no surprise that Albert Einstein would be granted a patent, but what is surprising
(to us, anyway) is that he and fellow physicist Leo Szilard (who devised the nuclear chain reaction that made the atomic bomb possible) were granted patent number US1781541 for a refrigerator. As you might expect, it’s a special
refrigerator that uses no electricity, has no moving parts, and needs only a
heat source to operate, but still – Einstein invented a fridge?
As we think about refrigerators, we’re reminded that we'd better start making
room in our own for Thanksgiving (and just how in the world did it get to be November
already?). Contemplating Turkey Day, brings the pilgrims to mind, and today is the 290th anniversary of the
Puritans sighting land off of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Something that would have utterly baffled those pilgrims is Pee-wee Herman, so we don’t expect to see any puritans at the Broadway opening
of The Pee-wee Herman Show tonight. But Pee-wee's fan base being
what it is, you never know ...
Someone we think might have appreciated Pee-wee, or, at least, appreciated
his anarchic spirit, was novelist Kurt Vonnegut, born on this day in 1922. Vonnegut used black humor and
satire in such novels as Slaughterhouse-Five, Mother Night,
and Cat's Cradle to eviscerate modern American society, politics, and organized religion.
We don't know if Mr. Vonnegut ever traveled Route 66, the "Mother Road" that ran (according to Bobby Troup's song)
"from Chicago to L.A.; more than 2,000 miles along the way." The highway
was established on this day in 1926, and until its decommissioning in 1985,
carried millions of travelers though the heart of America, allowing them (for
the first time, in many cases) to see peoples they never would have met, eat
strange local foods,
and become more acquainted with the mosaic that was pre-war America. It's
still possible to drive Route 66, but in many cases, the road is untended
and in bad repair, and many of the small towns and
businesses that thrived in its heyday shut
their doors when the road was replaced by gleaming new interstate freeways.
The most notable events of this day are inextricably linked. In 1918, on the
eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, World War I finally ended after more than four years of senseless
battle, with 16 million soldiers and civilians killed and another 21 million wounded. Starting in 1919,
November 11 has been designated either Armistice Day (in honor of the cause of peace) or Veterans Day (honoring all who have served in the armed forces).
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