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

_______________________________ 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

_____________________________ 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

___________________________ 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