Apple

The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History January 22 - 28.

Happy Monday to my wonderful Okay History Friends! I trust everyone had a nice weekend.

I mentioned on Friday that I had begun using my wife’s computer since my computer decided it needed a break after six months of work. The good people at Dell have assured me that one day I will have my computer back and that maybe it will last longer than six months.

In the meantime, I am using a MacBook Pro made by Apple. Good timing, considering what Apple did this week in history.

On January 22, 1984, Apple introduced the Apple Macintosh Computer.

Apple spent millions of dollars to air a commercial announcing the first personal computer. It was shown during the Super Bowl which was played in January back in those days. Ridley Scott directed it.

The unit featured a screen, a keyboard, and a mouse. I need a mouse when I use a computer because I’m stuck in 1984. Each MacIntosh cost about a million dollars each, but don’t quote me. My family’s first computer was the Adam, which was more of a video console on which I played Buck Rogers constantly. It didn’t have a mouse, but it did prevent me from reading books.

Like my Dell, the Adam broke down a lot and lasted on the market for about a year.

Not so with Apple. The company went public four years earlier, and its stock prices have only increased over the past 40 years. If you invested a million dollars in 1984, you’d be worth roughly a gazillion now. Math has never been my strong point.

But the point here is Apple makes excellent products. I just can’t wait to get my crappy one back and have all of my stuff where I want it.

Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. Here's what I got:

1. Georgetown University was established on January 23, 1789. Founded by the Jesuit Catholic order, Georgetown would eventually produce a nationally prominent basketball program. Beginning in 1990, an even better Jesuit school named Xavier began kicking Georgetown’s butts regularly, including last Friday, when Xavier erased a 12-point second-half deficit to win 92-91.

2. Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman physician in the United States on January 23, 1849. Blackwell was born in England but moved to the United States after being accepted into a medical school for all men, who did it as a joke. The joke was on them because Elizabeth became a pioneer in women’s medicine. Her younger brother Henry married an impressive woman of his own, Lucy Stone. I wrote about her last October.  

3. Ted Bundy died on January 24, 1989. The serial killer confessed to murdering 30 women during the 1970s. He drove a Volkswagen Beetle to lure his victims, and weirdly, this car is on display at a museum in Tennessee. The state of Florida strapped Bundy to a chair and sent about a gazillion watts of electricity into his body.

Anonymous and I watched the movie Killers of the Flower Moon on Saturday, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, and Lily Gladstone. It’s a crime drama based on the series of murders of the Osage Indian Tribe in 1920s Oklahoma. Martin Scorsese directed it.

I’m not much of a movie critic, but I will say this - make sure your self-esteem is pretty high before taking on this film. It’s three and a half hours of watching everyone die for no good reason. Thank goodness that guy who was in Friday Night Lights and Breaking Bad showed up playing that FBI agent and began to solve everything, or else it would have been a wasted evening. Like OKH, Killers of the Flower Moon could’ve used some help in the editing department.

I just hope Aunt Joan hasn’t watched this movie. Aunt Joan, if you are reading this, please don’t watch this movie. I mean, it’s good, but it’s also bad. For everyone else, just block out some time, preferably about five hours in the morning, so you can spend the rest of your day doing something good. Don’t watch this movie, and then go to bed.

I have a busy week this week coming up. Maybe I’ll get my computer back, maybe not.

I’m back on Friday with the next round of presidential elections rankings.

Stay warm, and have a great week! Thanks for your support!

Okay,

Chris

Blue stays warm by playing with his gazillion toys.