Astonishing Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine,
published by Popular Publications between 1940 and 1943. The magazine's
first editor was Frederik Pohl, who also edited a companion
publication, Super Science Stories. The budget for Astonishing was very
low, which made it difficult to acquire good fiction, but through his
membership of the Futurians, a group of young science fiction fans and
aspiring writers, Pohl was able to find material to fill the early
issues. The magazine was successful, and Pohl was able to increase his
pay rates slightly within a year. He managed to obtain stories by
writers who subsequently became very well known, such as Isaac Asimov
and Robert Heinlein. After Pohl entered the army in early 1943, wartime
paper shortages led Popular to cease publication of Astonishing. The
final issue was dated April of that year. The magazine was never
regarded as one of the leading titles of the genre, but despite the low
budget it published some well-received material. Science fiction critic
Peter Nicholls comments that "its stories were surprisingly good
considering how little was paid for them", and this view has been
echoed by other historians of the field. (more...)
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<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astonishing_Stories>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1002:
St. Brice's Day massacre: King Ethelred II ordered the massacre of all
Danes in England.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethelred_the_Unready>
1927:
The Holland Tunnel, connecting New York City's Manhattan with Jersey
City, New Jersey, under the Hudson River, opened.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holland_Tunnel>
1965:
The steamship SS Yarmouth Castle burned and sank about 60 miles
(100 km) northwest of Nassau, Bahamas, killing about 90 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Yarmouth_Castle>
1970:
The Bhola tropical cyclone hit the densely populated Ganges Delta in
East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), killing an estimated 500,000 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970_Bhola_cyclone>
1992:
The High Court of Australia ruled in Dietrich v The Queen that although
there is no absolute right to have publicly funded counsel, in most
circumstances a judge should grant any request for an adjournment or
stay when an accused is unrepresented.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_v_The_Queen>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
pernoctation (n):
1. An overnight stay; action (or instance) of abiding through the night
at a location.
2. The action (or an instance) of walking about at night, especially
as a vigil or watch
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pernoctation>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
The good man, though a slave, is free; the wicked, though he reigns, is
a slave, and not the slave of a single man, but — what is worse — the
slave of as many masters as he has vices.
--Augustine of Hippo
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Augustine_of_Hippo>