Good morning.
We’ve a lovely blanket of snow in the city today, and we’ll have a high of twenty-three, with wind chill values around zero.
The latest FW poll, The Rabbit in the Statue’s Ear, is now closed. 63.16% of respondents felt that South Africa should remove a tiny rabbit surreptitiously placed in the ear of a statue of Nelson Mandela, and 36.84% felt that it should remain.
On this day in 1934, Samuel Goldwyn makes a sound 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.
Published in 1900, Baum’s novel told the story of Dorothy, a young girl on a Kansas farm who is swept away by a tornado and carried to the magical Land of Oz. Baum, who died in 1919, based his book on the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, and also drew inspiration from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. His own work of children’s literature became an instant classic, was translated into some 40 languages and spawned numerous sequels.
Baum’s widow, Maud, allowed another writer to continue the series after her husband’s death in 1919–and adaptations, including a long-running Broadway musical that debuted in 1903 and several silent films. The most famous adaptation, however, would be Goldwyn’s film version of The Wizard of Oz, which was finally released in 1939. Goldwyn had supposedly intended for Shirley Temple to take the part of Dorothy, but the role went to 17-year-old Judy Garland instead, and it would catapult her to international stardom.
On this day in 1925, fire destroys a local hospital:
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]