Good morning, Whitewater.
We’ve the last week of the year’s first month before us: a day with up to an inch of snow probable, and a high of twenty-five. Sunrise is 7:14 AM and sunset 5 PM, for 9h 46m 10s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 42.5% of its visible disk illuminated.
Whitewater’s School Board meets tonight at 6 PM in closed session, opening thereafter at 7 PM into open session. A copy of the agenda as of this post is embedded below:
On this day in 1934, Samuel Goldwyn makes a shrewd purchase:
One of America’s best-loved movie projects gets underway on this day in 1934, when the producer Samuel Goldwyn buys the film rights to the children’s novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
Production of The Wizard of Oz was plagued with problems, from numerous script rewrites to casting and directorial changes. After the original director, Richard Thorpe, was fired, Victor Fleming stepped in to take over the director’s role from George Cukor, who left to helm David O. Selznick’s Civil War epic Gone With the Wind, a job which, ironically, Fleming would later replace him in. When Fleming left, King Vidor stepped in to replace him. Despite all these changes, Fleming received the main director’s credit for the movie. Another stumbling block occurred when Buddy Ebsen, the original Tin Man, got sick from a reaction to the aluminum makeup he was forced to wear; he was replaced by Jack Haley.
In the end, the 101-minute-long film had modest success at the box office and earned several Oscar nominations–including a Best Song win for “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and a special award for Garland as Best Juvenile Performer. In 1956, an estimated 45 million people tuned in to watch the movie debut on television as part of the Ford Star Jubilee. Countless TV showings later, The Wizard of Oz is one of the most beloved and best-known films of all time.
On this day in 1925, fire ruins:
1925 – Fire Destroys Whitewater Hospital
On this date a fire destroyed the Whitewater Hospital. Monetary losses were estimated at $20,000, but no deaths were reported. [Source: Janesville Gazette]
Google-a-Day asks a geography question:
The castle that sits on top of the volcanic mound, Beblowe Craig, was founded by what 16th century king?