elephones and elevators were beginning to creep into everyday life. In the arts, Picasso and Gertrude Stein were testing the limits of representation and narrative. World War I was on the horizon, and the political situation in Europe was unsettled. On the evening of May 29, 1913, two types of people had gathered for the debut of this ballet: the wealthy, who expected beautiful music and choreography in a traditional vein; and the Bohemians, who were eager for something bold and new. Stravinsky's opening called for a bassoon to "play higher in its range than anyone else had ever done." The audience stirred. The curtain rose on dancers dressed not in elegant, drifting tulle, but in heavy, drape-like fabric. And they did not leap lightly. They stomped about the stage. Audience laughter drove Stravinsky to the wings, where choreographer Vaslav Nijinksy had to shout his directions to the dancers, so loud was the reaction from the audience. The music was dissonant, primitive, and jarring; there was no melody. There were catcalls and hisses, fistfights between patrons. Forty people were ejected, but not before the audience had turned on the orchestra. The musicians patiently played on, even as they were pelted with vegetables. Stravinsky once confessed his schooldays were lonely: "I never came across anyone who had any real attraction for me." The debut of the ballet changed that; within days, he was the most famous and sought-after composer in the world. The Rite of Spring is now considered a masterpiece of 20th-century music.
On this day in 1976, during an interview on BBC Radio 2, British astronomer Patrick Moore announced that a very rare planetary event was about to take place—that Jupiter and Pluto would soon align in relation to Earth, and their combined gravitational pull would momentarily override Earth's own gravity and make people weigh less. He called it the Jovian-Plutonian Gravitational Effect, and said that if people jumped into the air at exactly 9:47 a.m., they would experience a floating sensation. Moore signaled, "Jump now!" over the airwaves, and within minutes the BBC switchboard was flooded with calls from people who claimed it had worked. In 1957, the BBC TV show "Panorama" ran a segment about the Swiss spaghetti harvest enjoying a "bumper year" thanks to mild weather and the elimination of the spaghetti weevil. Many credulous Britons were taken in. In 1998, Mark Boslough fabricated a press release claiming that the Alabama legislature had legally...
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