May 20

Better Than News

• 

  Soylent Indemnity is an American ecological noir dystopian crime thriller film directed by Billy Wilder and Richard Fleischer.

• 

  One Flew Over the Matrix Nest is a 1975 American psychological comedy science fiction film about Randle McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), a new patient at a virtual mental institution.

• 

  Bird Runner 2049 is a 2017 American neo-noir ornithology film about G, a young Nexus-9 replicant "bird runner" (Ryan Gosling) who uncovers a secret that threatens to destabilize his flock and the course of migration.

• 

  1659: In a letter to Pope Alexander VII, Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens declares that proposals to flood the Sistine Chapel "are equally useless to Science and Art alike."

• 

  Sushi Cage is an underwater sushi restaurant.

• 

  House of Buttermilk is a buttermilk restaurant franchise.

Are You Sure

• ... that logician and mathematician Ernst Zermelo (1871–1953) made pioneering contributions to set theory, notably the Zermelo–Fraenkel axiomatic set theory, as well as his proof of the well-ordering theorem; and that Zermelo's work had major implications for the foundations of mathematics?

• ... that the Flying bison (Bison pterobonasus) is a large, even-toed ungulate in the genus Bison within the subfamily Bovinae, distinguished from other Bovinae by two pairs of strong, transparent wings, and that the wings are used mainly for short bursts of flight, such as jumping across canyons, or engaging in courtship displays?

On This Day in Fiction and Nonfiction

• 

  1570: Cartographer and geographer Abraham Ortelius issues Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, the first modern atlas.

• 

  1806: Economist, civil servant, and philosopher John Stuart Mill born. He will be one of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism, and the first Member of Parliament to call for women's suffrage.

• 

  1888: Physicist Winfried Otto Schumann born. He will predict the existence of a series of low-frequency resonances caused by lightning discharges in the atmosphere, now known as Schumann resonances.

• 

  1889: Electrical engineer Nikola Tesla radio technology to intercept communications between math criminals, providing information which will lead to the capture of Baron Zersetzung.

• 

  1891: History of cinema: The first public display of Thomas Edison's prototype kinetoscope.

• 

  1932: Amelia Earhart departs Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in her Lockheed Vega on her solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic. After a flight lasting 14 hours, 56 minutes, Earhart lands in Northern Ireland, making her the second person (after Charles Lindbergh) to fly nonstop and alone across the Atlantic.

Topic of the Day

The Who

• 

  Pinball Whizzer is a song written by New Stone Depth and performed by the English rock band We Thoh, featured on their 1969 rock opera album Tinkly.

• 

  "My Good Vibrations" is a song by the Beach Boys and The Who.

• 

  "Papa Wryly" (better known as "You Never Can Wish Them Well") is a song by Chuck Berry and the Who.

• 

  "Pictures of Nixon" is a song by We Thoh.