Daily Almanac for Saturday, December 4, 2021; Day 338 of the Year

On this date in history, 1955, French actor and Mime artist Marcel Marceau, made his first TV appearance. This photo taken in 1962. By Harry Pot – Nationaal Archief, CC BY-SA 3.0 nl, https commons.wikimedia.org

FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS

Marcel Marceau (French pronunciation: ​[maʁsɛl maʁso]; born Marcel Mangel; 22 March 1923 – 22 September 2007) was a French actor and mime artist most famous for his stage persona, “Bip the Clown”. He referred to mime as the “art of silence” and he performed professionally worldwide for over 60 years. As a Jewish youth, he lived in hiding and worked with the French Resistance during most of World War II, giving his first major performance to 3,000 troops after the liberation of Paris in August 1944. Following the war, he studied dramatic art and mime in Paris.

In 1959, he established his own pantomime school in Paris, and subsequently set up the Marceau Foundation to promote the art in the U.S. Among his various awards and honors he was made “Grand Officier de la Légion d’Honneur” (1998) and was awarded the National Order of Merit (1998) in France. He won the Emmy Award for his work on television, was elected member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin and was declared a “National treasure” in Japan.[3] He was friends with Michael Jackson for nearly 20 years and Jackson said he used some of Marceau’s techniques in his own dance steps.

TODAY’S ALMANAC

Question of the Day

What causes the leaves on my rubber plant to turn yellow?Yellowing leaves on indoor rubber plants is a common problem. It is usually a sign of overwatering. Check your plant to make sure it has adequate bottom drainage to draw excess water away from the roots. If your plant has been in the same container for a long time, remove it and its root ball and loosen the bound roots. Remove some of the soil at the top of the ball, then transplant the tree in a larger pot.

Advice of the Day

Create more space; donate used books to your local library.

Home Hint of the Day

To discourage a cat from scratching upholstered furniture, give him a scratching post — 2 feet high and covered with carpet on a base large enough so that the cat won’t tip it over. Use scrap plywood and boards for a do-it-yourself project.

Word of the Day

HailHail falls mainly in the summer. It forms in thunderstorm clouds, which can extend high into the atmoshpere where extremely cold temperatures prevail. When a cloud releases rain, the rain can be forced upward, where it freezes into tiny ice pellets. If updrafts keep buffeting the pellets, layer upon layer of frozen water will be added to the pellets until, finally, hailstones are released.

Puzzle of the Day

What vegetables may be reduced to ashes merely by removing a part of them?Squashes

Died

  • Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu(French clergyman and statesman)– 1642
  • Frank Zappa(musician)– 1993
  • Besse Cooper(world’s oldest person at time of her death)– 2012

Born

  • Thomas Carlyle(historian)– 1795
  • Samuel Butler(author)– 1835
  • Wassily Kandinsky(artist)– 1866
  • Deanna Durbin(actress)– 1921
  • Ed Flesh(designer of the wheel on the TV game show Wheel of Fortune”“)– 1931
  • Roberta Lynn Bondar(astronaut)– 1945
  • Jeff Bridges(actor)– 1949
  • Marisa Tomei(actress)– 1964
  • Jay-Z(hip hop artist)– 1969

Events

  • At Fraunces Tavern in New York’s lower Manhattan, George Washington bade farewell to his officers of the Continental Army, before traveling to Annapolis, Maryland, to resign his commission as commander-in-chief– 1783
  • National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry founded– 1867
  • Boss Tweed escaped jail– 1875
  • Crew of shipwrecked tanker Kyzikes rescued, Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina– 1927
  • In its first aerial attack on Italy, the US bombs Naples– 1942
  • First television appearance of Marcel Marceau– 1955
  • Matisse’s Le Bateau rehung after being upside down in art museum for 47 days, New York City– 1961

Weather

  • New Haven, Connecticut, received 20 inches of snow in the first of two major snowstorms that December– 1786
  • The temperature dropped from 52 degrees F to 18 degrees F in 20 minutes, Livingston, Montana– 1972
  • Central Park in NYC reached 72 degrees F– 1982

COURTESY www.almamnac.com

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