He Gave His Life for Tourism

Happy King Tut Day!

On November 4th, 1922, while exploring Egypt's Valley of the Kings, Howard Carter and his team of grave robbers discovered a step that would, weeks later, lead them into the burial chambers of King Tutankhamun, an Egyptian Pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. A boy king who spent very little time on the throne, Tut's true cultural significance is that his tomb went essentially untouched for over 3 millennia allowing the modern world the most complete view of Egyptian burial practices, as well as the most complete set of Egyptian burial tchotchkes which have since toured the World numerous times over.

Watch Steve Martin walk like an Eqyptian (and as a bonus, a surreal, fascinating, yet relatively lame Heckle & Jeckle cartoon), celebrate Teela's birthday, and read more about today after the jump:






"King Tut's Tomb," 1950
Dir: Mannie Davis


Heckle & Jeckle - King Tut's Tomb by DwightFrye

Also Today - 

Happy Birthday, Linda Gary!

Linda Gary (b. Nov. 4, 1944 - d. Oct. 5, 1995) was the voice-actor responsible for most of the recurring female characters on He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, including Teela, the Sorceress, Queen Marlena, and Evil-Lyn.  For He-Man's sister show, She-Ra: Princess of Power (which in a turn for the literal was about He-Man's sister), Gary voiced Glimmer and Madame Razz, as well as the villainous Scorpia and Shadow Weaver.  Although a majority of her work was done for Filmation Associates on their adventure cartoons of the late 70s and early 80s, it should be noted that Gary also performed Aunt May on the 1981 and 1994 incarnations of Spider-Man, was Chromia on Transformers,  and provided background and guest voices for numerous Disney and Hanna-Barbera television productions.

Today in History: 1842 - Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd.

Holidays: National Chicken Lady Day; Use Your Common Sense Day.

Birthdays: Art Carney, b. 1918; Walter Cronkite, b. 1916; Matthew McConaughey, b. 1969; Will Rogers, b. 1879; Loretta Swit, b. 1937; Yanni, b. 1954.