This Week in Geek History + the Geekly Cocktail: July 8th-14th

Hey everyone… Annaleigh “The Lush” Josephs here with a segment new to SciFi4Me: This Week in Geek History with the Geekly Cocktail.  While there’s always lots of news to report, it’s always important to recognize where we came from (and, let’s face it, there are a few things to make any of us feel pretty old).  So, without further adieu, the first installment of TWiGH/GC (okay, so I’ll find an easier short version later).

July 8th, 2000: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is released in the United States, only contributing to the fanaticism of Potterheads stateside.

July 10th, 1856: Nikola Tesla is born in the Austrian Empire (though his baptism papers show a different date).  Tesla would later be a pioneer in the scientific world through his work in the primarily mechanical and electrical fields.  Engineering geeks everywhere enjoy the namesake coil.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX5V_9s0Gfw]

July 11th, 1962: Telstar I (launched the day prior) successfully relays the first live transatlantic television feed.

July 11th, 1979: Skylab, an American space station which orbited the Earth starting in 1973, re-enters the atmosphere.  It disintegrated on the way back in, but remaining chunks caused fiery brimstone to fall on Western Australia.

July 11th, 2008: Apple releases the iPhone 3G.  Yup… it’s been three years.  Stew on that one for a minute.

July 12th, 2000: The first “X-Men” movie premiers in New York.  Anna Paquin donned the Rogue ‘do onscreen for the first time eleven years ago.

July 13th, 1940: The man who would later grace the world as Jean-Luc Picard and Professor Charles Xavier, Sir Patrick Stewart, is born in Yorkshire.

July 13th, 1942: As if the date wasn’t awesome enough, the future Han Solo and Indiana Jones, Harrison Ford, is born in Chicago.

July 14th, 1965: Mariner 4 flies by Mars and is the first of the program successful in taking pictures of the planet.  Communications were terminated on December 21st, 1967 and it remains in an exterior heliocentric orbit…supposedly. 😉

Aaaand…the Geekly Cocktail: The Goblet of Fire (courtesy of The Little Pink Blog)

Goblet of Fire

Ingredients:

* 1 oz vodka
* 1 oz blue curacao
* 3 oz lemonade
* Splash 151
* Pinch of cinnamon

Directions:

* Pour vodka, blue curacao, and lemonade into a goblet-type glass
* Top with a splash of 151 proof rum
* Light on fire
* Add the pinch of cinnamon to the flames (cinnamon will spark)
* *** Blow out flames before consuming! ***

Enjoy and be safe!  Until next Friday, this has been AJ with This Week in Geek History with the Geekly Cocktail.