Quatermass II is a British science-fiction serial, originally broadcast
by BBC Television in 1955. It is the second in the Quatermass series by
writer Nigel Kneale, and the first of those serials to survive in its
entirety in the BBC archives. It is also the earliest surviving complete
British science-fiction television production. The serial sees Professor
Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group being asked
to examine strange meteorite showers. His investigations lead to his
uncovering a conspiracy involving alien infiltration at the highest
levels of the British Government. As some of Quatermass's closest
colleagues fall victim to the alien influence, he is forced to use his
own unsafe rocket prototype, which recently caused a nuclear disaster at
an Australian testing range, to prevent the aliens from taking over
mankind. Although sometimes compared unfavourably to the first and third
Quatermass serials, Quatermass II was praised for its allegorical
concerns of the damaging effects of industrialisation and the corruption
of governments by big business. It is described on the British Film
Institute's "Screenonline" website as "compulsive viewing."
(Full article...).
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quatermass_II>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1740:
A two-week massacre of ethnic Chinese in Batavia, Dutch East
Indies, came to an end with at least 10,000 people killed.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1740_Batavia_massacre>
1797:
Dropping from a hydrogen balloon 3,200 feet (980 m) above
Paris, André-Jacques Garnerin carried out the first descent using a
frameless parachute (schematic pictured).
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9-Jacques_Garnerin>
1877:
The Blantyre mining disaster, Scotland's worst mining accident,
occurred when an explosion at a colliery in Blantyre killed 207 miners.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blantyre_mining_disaster>
1907:
A bank run forced New York's Knickerbocker Trust Company to
suspend operations, which triggered the Panic of 1907.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1907>
1962:
Cold War: U.S. President John F. Kennedy announced that Soviet
nuclear weapons had been discovered in Cuba and that he had ordered a
naval "quarantine" of the island nation.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
subduct:
1. (transitive) To draw or push under or below.
2. (intransitive) To move downwards underneath something.
3. (rare) To remove; to deduct; to take away; to disregard.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/subduct>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party
line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of
vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of
communism, but they don't seem to see this.
--Doris Lessing
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Doris_Lessing>