When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

Alexander Graham Bell

Posted on February 20, 2010

February 19 (50th day of 2010 - 315 remaining)

1878 - Thomas Alva Edison, famed inventor, patented a music player at his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ. (This music device is the one we know as the phonograph.) Here’s the real skinny on the story: Edison paid his assistant $18 to make the device from a sketch Edison had drawn. Originally, Edison had set out to invent a telegraph repeater, but came up with the phonograph or, as he called it, the speaking machine. When asked why he invented the machine, Edison told reporters, “How else am I gonna listen to my Dixie Chicks stuff?”

1985 - Mickey Mouse was welcomed to China as part of the 30th anniversary of Disneyland. The touring mouse played 30 cities in 30 days. Tough schedule even for a mouse!

1985 - William Schroeder became the first artificial-heart patient to leave the confines of the hospital (where the historic operation was performed). He spent 15 minutes outside the Humana Hospital in Louisville, KY.

1985 - Cherry Coke was introduced by the Coca-Cola Company, not at company headquarters in Atlanta, but in New York City, instead. Many who grew up in the 1950s rushed to buy the canned and/or bottled taste of nostalgia; hoping it would taste the same as they remembered … when they sat at the corner drug store’s soda fountain and ordered, “A Cherry Coke, please.”

1987 - A controversial anti-smoking ad aired for the first time on television. It featured actor Yul Brynner in a public service announcement that was recorded shortly before his October 1985 death from lung cancer.
(via 440.com)
2010 - a great day to listen to Kiss FM (http://kissfm.ro/live)

Posted on February 19, 2010