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

_______________________________ 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

_____________________________ 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

___________________________ 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