WHEN LINDBERGH GOT DISSED

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In 1927, TIME magazine instituted its annual tradition of "Man of the Year," where it devotes a cover story to the individual (or sometimes, a group, such as "U.S. Scientists" in 1960 or "American Women" in 1985) who had the most influence on events in the world in the prior year. In 1982, it took the controversial step of naming "The Computer" as the Man of the Year and, in 2006, the even more controversial yet arguably wimpy step of designating "You" for that honor, on the theory that almost everyone advanced the Information Age by using the internet.

Actually, the use of the term "honor" in the preceding paragraph may be a little problematic, as a person could have a profound influence on events and win the title while still being a rapscallion (such as Hitler in 1938 and Stalin in 1939).

Since 1999, the official designation of the recipient has been "Person of the Year."

The tradition was instituted originally as a way to mitigate the embarrassment suffered by TIME for its 1927 failure to run a cover story initially on Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic. Establishing "Man of the Year" and then appointing Lindbergh as the first recipient helped compensate for this otherwise sizable PR gaffe.

THE BABY GAS MASK

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One of the more macabre collectible items from World War II is the infant gas mask. In 1939, the British government attempted to issue gas masks to every one of its 47 million citizens--including babies. The child would be encased within the mask and the parent would hold the tyke and operate a hand pump to pass air through the filter.

Fortunately, these items are almost always even now found in mint unused condition, as one of the few blessings of the conflict was that none of the nations involved deployed poison gas--except for, of course, the Nazis in their concentration camps.

THE WICKED BIBLE

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In 1631, Robert Barker and Martin Lucas, the royal printers in London, produced a version of the King James Bible which erroneously contained the commandment, "Thou shalt commit adultery." The King ordered all of the books called back and destroyed, and the printers were fined 300 pounds (about 34,000 pounds in today's money). The few surviving copies of what became known as "The Wicked Bible" that still exist are quite valuable today.

WHAT DIFFERENCE A © MAKES

"They're coming to get you, Barbra."

One of the greatest movies ever made and the flagship horror film of the last 100 years was George Romero's 1968 production of Night of the Living Dead. While its significance can be measured in so many different ways (and probably will be in future Henry's Daily Factoids), for now it is merely adequate to state that it started the whole genre of cannibalistic zombies in cinema and TV. With the abundance of gore in today's cinema, it is hard to imagine the shocking impact that a movie graphically displaying flesh-eating ghouls had on the unsuspecting audiences in 1968.

Due to the well-deserved popularity and ubiquitous viewing of the movie, you would think that Romero and his co-writer John Russo would be gazillionaires from the royalties from the project.  However, on the initial print of the film, Romero had it titled in the opening credits as "Night of the Flesh-Eaters©." The distributor of the film changed the title to "Night of the Living Dead" before releasing it. Under intellectual property law as it existed in 1968, the failure to include the copyright symbol (©) in the new title meant that the movie immediately translocated into the public domain. As a result, numerous distributors copied and displayed it legally without having to pay any royalties to Romero or Russo. Romero did sue the distributing company for its error, but it went bankrupt before he could collect anything.

Romero's and Russo's loss is society's gain. Because flesh-eating zombies were immediately thrust into the public domain, hundreds of deliciously dark and diabolical minds have been able to incorporate them freely, along with their attributes created in the original screenplay (such as lethargic walking, disquieting dietary habits, and vulnerability to brain injury), into other movies, TV shows, books, and comics without having to parse the legal technicalities of copyright law.

It also means that I can link you to the entire movie here. Enjoy.

THE CASE OF THE PROFOUNDLY PROFANE PARROT

Andrew Jackson’s wife, Rachel, had an African Grey parrot with the unimaginative name of “Pol.” After Rachel’s demise, Jackson personally took care of Pol until Jackson’s own death. Pol was initially present at Jackson’s funeral but was quickly ejected after screaming various creative and obscene phrases in English and Spanish which he had previously learned from the President.