Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) is an animated short film by American
cartoonist Winsor McCay (c. 1867–1934). He first used the film
before live audiences as an interactive part of his vaudeville act: the
frisky, childlike Gertie did tricks at the command of her master. His
employer, newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, later curtailed
McCay's vaudeville activities, so McCay added a live-action introductory
sequence to the film for its theatrical release. Gertie was the first
film to use animation techniques such as keyframes, registration marks,
tracing paper, the Mutoscope action viewer, and animation loops.
Although Gertie is popularly thought to be the earliest animated film,
it was McCay's third, and his earlier films were preceded by animation
made at least as far back as J. Stuart Blackton's 1900 film The
Enchanted Drawing. Gertie influenced the next generation of animators,
including the Fleischer brothers, Otto Messmer, Paul Terry, and Walt
Disney. McCay abandoned a sequel, Gertie on Tour (c. 1921), after
producing about a minute of footage. Gertie is the best preserved of his
films—others are lost or in fragments—and has been preserved in the
US National Film Registry.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gertie_the_Dinosaur>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1575:
Leiden University, the oldest and highest-ranked university in
the Netherlands, was founded by William, Prince of Orange.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leiden_University>
1879:
At a meeting of the Royal Canadian Institute, engineer and
inventor Sandford Fleming first proposed the adoption of worldwide
standard time zones based on a single universal world time.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_time>
1910:
Newspaper and magazine publisher William D. Boyce established
the Boy Scouts of America, expanding the Scout Movement into the United
States.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America>
1960:
The first eight brass star plaques were installed in the
Hollywood Walk of Fame in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_Walk_of_Fame>
1979:
Denis Sassou Nguesso was chosen as the new President of the
Republic of the Congo after Joachim Yhombi-Opango was forced from power.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denis_Sassou_Nguesso>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
nunatak:
A mountain top or rocky element of a ridge that is surrounded by glacial
ice but is not covered by ice; a peak protruding from the surface ice
sheet.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nunatak>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Ignorance, which is contented and clumsy, will produce what is
imperfect, but not offensive. But ignorance discontented and dexterous,
learning what it cannot understand, and imitating what it cannot enjoy,
produces the most loathsome forms of manufacture that can disgrace or
mislead humanity
--John Ruskin
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Ruskin>