The Sinking of the Lusitania is a silent animated short film by American
cartoonist and animator Winsor McCay that depicts the 1915 disaster in
which a German submarine killed 1,198 people, including 128 Americans.
McCay's employer, William Randolph Hearst, who was opposed to sending US
troops to fight in World War I, downplayed the tragedy in his
newspapers. In 1916 McCay grew tired of drawing anti-war cartoons for
Hearst and started working on this propaganda film. He and his
assistants spent twenty-two months in their off hours working on the
production, using the new cel technology that was more efficient than
the rice paper he had used previously. Released in 1918, The Sinking of
the Lusitania is the earliest animated documentary and serious, dramatic
work of animation to survive. It had little commercial success compared
to McCay's earlier films, Little Nemo (1911) and Gertie the Dinosaur
(1914), and his later animation went largely unnoticed. The artist spent
the rest of his life making editorial drawings.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sinking_of_the_Lusitania>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
351:
Jews in the Roman province of Syria Palaestina rebelled against
the rule of Constantius Gallus, Caesar of the Eastern Roman Empire.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_revolt_against_Constantius_Gallus>
1697:
Stockholm's royal castle, dating back to the 13th century, was
destroyed in a huge fire; the blueprint for the current royal palace was
presented only a couple of weeks later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_Palace>
1763:
Pontiac of the Ottawa Native American tribe led an attempt to
seize Fort Detroit from the British, marking the start of Pontiac's War.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac%27s_War>
1940:
A debate in the British House of Commons began, and culminated
in the replacement of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Winston
Churchill several days later.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway_Debate>
2010:
A team of researchers presented a complete draft sequence of
the Neanderthal genome, demonstrating that today's modern humans have
Neanderthal ancestors.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_human_admixture_with_modern_humans>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
sequela:
(pathology) A disease or condition which is caused by an earlier disease
or problem.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sequela>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
We never can have a true view of man unless we have a love for
him. Civilisation must be judged and prized, not by the amount of power
it has developed, but by how much it has evolved and given expression
to, by its laws and institutions, the love of humanity.
--Rabindranath Tagore
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore>