Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons is a 1960s British science-fiction television series created by Gerry Anderson (pictured) and produced by Century 21 Productions for Associated Television. In keeping with Anderson's earlier productions such as Thunderbirds, it mixes marionette puppet characters and scale-model special effects in a filming technique dubbed "Supermarionation". The plot of the 32-episode series, set in 2068, centres on an interplanetary war between Earth and a race of Martians known as the Mysterons. Captain Scarlet, top agent of Spectrum, an international security organisation, acquires "retro-metabolism" (a Mysteron healing power that enables him to recover from normally fatal injuries), making him Earth's "indestructible" ultimate weapon against the threat from Mars. Reception to the series has acknowledged a "dark" tone and a large amount of depicted violence, although the programme has a target audience of children. A computer-animated reboot series, Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, commenced broadcast in 2005.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Scarlet_and_the_Mysterons

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1282:

Sicilians began to rebel against the rule of the Angevin King Charles I of Naples, starting the War of the Sicilian Vespers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sicilian_Vespers

1822:

The United States merged East Florida and West Florida to create the Florida Territory. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Territory

1940:

Second Sino-Japanese War: Wang Jingwei was officially installed by Japan as head of a puppet state in China. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Jingwei

1972:

Vietnam War: North Vietnamese forces began the Easter Offensive in an attempt to gain as much territory and destroy as many units of the South Vietnamese Army as possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_Offensive

1981:

Trying to impress actress Jodie Foster, obsessed fan John Hinckley, Jr. shot and wounded U.S. President Ronald Reagan and three others outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reagan_assassination_attempt

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

pepo (n): 1. A kind of fruit possessing a hard rind and producing many seeds in a single, central, pulpy chamber; a melon, gourd. 2. A plant producing such a fruit http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pepo

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

Laughter is wine for the soul – laughter soft, or loud and deep, tinged through with seriousness. Comedy and tragedy step through life together, arm in arm, all along, out along, down along lea. A laugh is a great natural stimulator, a pushful entry into life; and once we can laugh, we can live. It is the hilarious declaration made by man that life is worth living. --Seán O'Casey http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_O%27Casey