The Reader's Digest Published..1922

HReader’s Digest, U.S.-based monthly magazine, having probably the largest circulation of any periodical in the world. It was first published in 1922 as a digest of condensed articles of topical interest and entertainment value taken from other periodicals. Founded on a low budget by DeWitt Wallace and his wife, Lila Acheson, after numerous magazine publishers had rejected the idea, the pocket-size magazine appealed from the start to popular tastes. It began publishing condensed versions of current books in 1934. Later Wallace began to develop articles for Reader’s Digest by commissioning them first and then offering the completed articles to other publications—from which the Digest would then reprint them, paying the other magazine a fee for reprint rights. This practice was attacked by some editors. However, the Digest moved gradually toward publishing original material under its own auspices most of the time. Although conceived by Wallace as an impartial journal, the Digest was occasionally criticized for reflecting its publishers’ generally conservative point of view. Its circulation, however, did not falter. By the late 20th century the Digest had 39 editions worldwide in 15 languages, with a total circulation of 28 million.
DeWitt Wallace  and Lila Acheson       
Headquarters of RD till 1939
















Taking over Reader’s Digest, Mary Berner has campaigned to change perceptions inside and outside 
the company.(2007)



   Since March 2007, Ms. Berner has been reconfiguring the innards of the company — and trying to overhaul its public image, too. If you hear “Reader’s Digest” and think only of a cheery, waiting-room magazine — the one with the jokes, the lists, and the homespun stories like “Nobody Cares About Grandfather’s Clock but Grandma” — well, Ms. Berner would like to have a word with you.

She would like you to know that Reader’s Digest has modernized and, for the first time in its history, won the National Magazine Award this year, the industry’s most coveted prize. (Recent articles have included “Disposable Income: How to Make a Quick Buck on the Treasures — and Trash — in Your Closets” and “Simple Till 6: An Eating Plan for Busy People.”) And she would like you to know that said magazine is but a small part of a soon-to-be-renamed company, with a trove of Web sites (likeAllRecipes.com) and magazines (like Every Day With Rachael Ray) that you probably didn’t know it owned.

Charlie Chaplin First Appeared as the Little Tramp..1914..Feb 7

On this day in 1914, the silent film Kid Auto Races at Venice premieres in theaters, featuring the actor Charlie Chaplin in his first screen appearance as the “Little Tramp,” the character that would become his best-known onscreen alter ego.

Born on April 16, 1889, in England, Chaplin became a professional performer by the age of 10. In 1908, he joined the Fred Karno pantomime troupe, earning special notice for his portrayal of a character known as “The Drunk.” The troupe was touring the United States in 1913 when Chaplin was signed by Mack Sennett, whose Keystone Studios was becoming known for its short slapstick comedy films. In his first Keystone comedy,Making a Living, Chaplin played a swindler, complete with a sinister mustache and a monocle. The performance wasn’t as funny as expected, but Sennett gave his newest comic another chance, casting him in Kid Auto Races at Venice.

In preparation for filming, Chaplin reportedly combed through the Keystone costume closets to create the now-famous look of the Little Tramp. “Pants baggy, coat tight…hat small, shoes large,” as he later described it in his autobiography. To disguise the character’s age, he added a brush-like mustache over his lip. “I had no idea of the character,” he wrote, “but the clothes and the makeup made me feel the person he was.” In Kid Auto Races at Venice, the Little Tramp goes to a children’s cart race held in Venice, California, where he interferes with the race and gets in the way of the cameraman trying to take pictures of the contestants. Chaplin later refined the character, which to many became inseparable from the actor and filmmaker himself. Kid Auto Races at Venice captures the Tramp’s essence as a part-comic, part-tragic figure with a shuffling walk, expressive face and exaggeratedly polite manners. Upon its release, the film was an immediate hit and the Tramp was a sensation, making Chaplin the most famous actor in Hollywood.

After 35 Keystone comedies, Chaplin moved on to ever-more lucrative contracts with Essanay Studios, Mutual and First National before founding the United Artists studio in 1919 with his fellow actors Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford and the director D.W. Griffith. Chaplin would not always technically play a tramp, but his characters invariably had a bit of the Tramp in them, whether working as a waiter (1916’s The Rink), a janitor (1918’s Triple Trouble) or a gold prospector (1925’s The Gold Rush, considered by many to be Chaplin’s masterpiece). The Tramp himself made memorable appearances in a number of acclaimed hits, including The Tramp (1915), The Kid (1921), The Circus(1928) and City Lights (1931).

After the movies converted to sound in the late 1920s, Chaplin held out for a while but finally gave his Tramp a voice in Modern Times (1936); he covered his British accent by singing nonsensical fake Italian lyrics. Though Chaplin would make other films, including The Great Dictator (1940), Monsieur Verdoux (1947) and Limelight (1952),Modern Times marked the last appearance of his immortal alter ego.

Teapot Dome scandal

Teapot Dome, United States government scandal in the early 1920s over the leasing of government-owned oil reserves at Elk Hills, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. In 1922 Secretary of the Interior Albert Bacon Fall secretly leased the two oil reserves to private oil companies. In 1923 a Senate committee began an investigation into the leases and later the Congress of the United States filed a successful lawsuit to cancel them. Fall served a year in prison and paid a $100,000 fine following his 1929 conviction for accepting a bribe.

Warren G. Harding 1865 - 1923

The corruption and scandal concerning the oil industry which plagued the Harding administration during the early twenties is remembered today solely as the Teapot Dome Scandal. Teapot Dome, a rather implicating charade that involved the Secretary of the Interior and the oil industry was one of the first major scandals of modern day presidency's, and served as an example for the press to vent steam against their government.

Warren G. Harding

 

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Oil businessman Edward L. Doheny (second from right, at table) testifying before the Senate Committee investigating the Teapot Dome oil leases in 1924.

The Scandal: One of the politicains who opposed the conservation was Senator Albert B. Fall who became Warren Harding's Secretary of the Interior in 1921. Fall, upon becoming the Secretary of the Interior, convinced Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby to turn the control of the oil fields over to him. Fall then moved to lease the Teapot Dome to Harry Sinclair's Mammoth Oil Company and the Elk Hills reserve to Edward Doheny's Pan American Petroleum Company. In return for leasing these oil fields to the respective oil magnates Fall received "gifts" from the oilmen totaling about $400,000. Fall attempted to keep actions secret but his sudden improvements in standard of living drew speculation. The scandal was first revealed to the public in 1924 after findings by a committee of the U. S. Senate. The individual within the Senate who took charge of investigating the alledged wrongdoing by Fall was Thomas J. Walsh, a democrat from Montana. Albert Fall had made legitamite leases of the oil fields to the private companies but the taking of money was his undoing.

Background: Origins of the scandal date back to the popular conservation legislation of presidents Teddy Roosevelt, William Taft and Woodrow Wilson, specifically as to the creation of naval petroleum reserves in Wyoming and California. Three naval oil fields, Elk Hills and Buena Vista Hills in California and Teapot Dome in Wyoming, were tracts of public land that were reserved by previous presidents to be emergency underground supplies to be used by the navy only when the regular oil supplies diminished. The Teapot Dome oil field received its name because of a rock resembling a teapot that was located above the oil-bearing land. Many politicians and private oil interests had opposed the restrictions placed on the oil fields claiming that the reserves were unnecessary and that the American oil companies could provide for the U.S. Navy.

Consequences on the Involved: Lasting throughout the 1920's were a series of civil and criminal suits related to the scandal. Finally in 1927 the Supreme Court ruled that the oil leases had been corruptly obtained and invalidated the Elk Hills lease in February of that year and the Teapot lease in October of the same year. The navy did regain control of the Teapot Dome and Elk Hills reserves in regards to the courts decision. Albert Fall was found guilty of bribery in 1929, fined $100,000 and sentenced to one year in prison. Harry Sinclair who refused to cooperate with the government investigators was charged with contempt and received a short sentence for tampering with the jury. Edward Doheny was aquitted in 1930 of attempted to bribe Fall.

Results of the Scandal: The Teapot Dome scandal was a victory for neither political party in the 1920's, it did become a malor issue in the presidential election of 1924 but neither party could claim full credit for divulging the wrongdoing. The concentrated attention on the scandal made it the first true symbol of government corruption in America. The scandal did reveal the problem of natural resource scarcity and the need to protect for the future against the depletion of resources in a time of emergency. Calvin Coolidge, who assumed the presidency after Harding's death, handled the problem very systematically and his administration avoided any damage to their reputation. Overall the Teapot Dome scandal came to represent the corruption of American politics which has become more prevelant over the decades since the scandal.

Time Magazine Founded

Mar. 3, 1923 Vol. I No. 1 1st Issue of TIME Mar. 10, 1967 Henry R. Luce TIME's Founder Jul. 30, 1923 1st Woman on TIME's Cover Jan. 2, 1928 Charles Lindbergh 1st Man of the Year Oct. 5, 1983 60th Anniversary Issue Mar. 9, 1998 75th Anniversary Issue TIME was first published on March 3, 1923 as a newsmagazine which summarized and organized the news so that "busy men" could stay informed. Here are some articles to help you learn more about the history of TIME and how it has evolved since its founding more than 80 years ago. The evening that the first issue went to press (and many press nights thereafter), the entire full-time staff got into a taxicab, carrying the entire editorial reference library (Who's Who, World Almanac, Congressional Directory) and drove to the printers on Manhattan's 11th Avenue.

One of the hallmarks of the newsmagazine format that Henry Luce and Briton Hadden created in 1923 was a penchant for telling stories through people. Carlyle defined history as "the biography of great men." Similarly, Luce and Hadden's TIME showed that journalism, the rough draft of history, could illuminate momentous events by profiling the gifted and powerful personalities who helped shape them. Nowhere more so than in TIME's selection of a Person of the Year, which has been a highlight since 1927. These iconic figures--statesmen, visionaries, tyrants, unexpected heroes like New York City Mayor RUDY GIULIANI--were singled out because they put a stamp on their world and expressed the great themes of their times. The vivid fascination and significance they represent can be appreciated in a multimedia exhibition, "TIME's Person of the Year at 75," which has traveled to three U.S. cities in the past year and is on view in Chicago through Jan. 5. Open the following pages for a sampling of the absorbing, inspiring and provocative figures featured in the exhibition.

1928 WALTER P. CHRYSLER The son of a Kansas locomotive engineer, Chrysler learned about cars by taking them apart and reassembling them. He showed the same ability with companies. By the end of 1928 his innovative Chrysler Motors was turning out not only its namesake models but also Plymouths, Dodges and DeSotos, mounting a challenge to automotive giants Ford and General Motors. Chrysler, wrote TIME, "had become one of the chief U.S. industrialists." But he was not through building. In this same year he announced plans for the 77-story Chrysler Building, whose graceful Art Deco structure remains one of the signature profiles of the Manhattan skyline.

1937 GEN. AND MME. CHIANG KAI-SHEK He was the leader who had unified most of China under a reformist government. She was a daughter of the eminent, Western-oriented Soong family who became his effective propagandist in the U.S. Though they had been forced to flee the Japanese invasion in 1937, TIME saluted them for forging a Chinese "national consciousness.

1938 ADOLF HITLER Hitler was the first malign figure to be selected as POY, and his evil only grew during the next several years. Hitler's ruthless domination of Europe was, said TIME, "the greatest threatening force that the democratic, freedom-loving world faces today." The 1938 Munich pact confirmed it: he won a hands-off promise from Britain and France, and the stage was set for his pursuit of World War II.

1947 GEORGE C. MARSHALL Named POY first as a man of war--in 1943, when he was Chief of Staff of the Army--Marshall was chosen again as a man of peace: the Secretary of State who conceived the Marshall Plan, which promised to underwrite the economic recovery of postwar Europe's democracies. Through his bold scheme, said TIME, "the U.S. people, not quite realizing the full import of their act ... took upon their shoulders the leadership of the world."

Ant power

Question Corner: Ant power

  

SPECIAL ARRANGEMENTDo ants possess stronger muscles that enable them to produce more strength than humans? Photo: Special Arrangement

How are ants able to move/pull objects that are heavier than the insect?

Sehore, Madhya Pradesh

Can we imagine carrying ten-time heavier objects than our body weight? It may be possible for the ‘ super-man', but not for an ordinary man. However, ants could carry or pull objects weighing several folds heavier than their own body weights.

Do ants possess stronger muscles that enable them to produce more strength than humans? The answer is ‘NO', according to Sir Vincent Brian Wigglesworth, the ‘Father of Insect Physiology' who compared and found no differences between the muscle force (per unit area) of insects and vertebrates. Then what enables the ants to carry heavier objects is their relatively smaller body size.

According to the square – cube law, when an object undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier and its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier. When an animal grows in length (or height), the volume increases in cube but the cross sectional area of its muscles increases only in square.

Mass is the amount of matter in an object, and hence the (cubic) increase in volume tends to increase the body mass significantly, whereas the cross-sectional area of the muscles increases in a much slower rate (only in square). Hence, these cross sectional areas of muscles have to support relatively more mass and thus larger animals like humans need to put most of the muscles in use to carry their own mass.

In other words, larger animals have to carry their own weight, besides the heavier objects; so they are able to carry only slightly heavier objects. However, because of the smaller body size, the body mass of ants is much lower and hence they put fewer muscles into use to carry this body mass. Thus, ants could use more muscles to carry bigger loads than their own mass, which not only applies to ants, but also holds good for most of the insects. However, since ants are quite abundant in human habitats, we frequently seeing them carrying big
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Tomb of King Tut Discovered 1922

Though several of the foremost excavators over the past century had declared there was nothing left to find in the Valley of the Kings, Howard Carter and his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon, spent a number of years and a lot of money searching for a tomb they weren't sure existed. In November 1922, they found it. Carter had discovered not just an unknown ancient Egyptian tomb, but one that had lain nearly undisturbed for over 3,000 years. What lay within astounded the world.

The Coffinette for the Viscera of Tutankhamun on display during the press viewing of the 'Tutankhamun & The Golden Age of the Pharaohs' exhibition on November 13, 2007 in Greenwich, London, England.

Uncertainty

Work feverishly continued on the afternoon of November 4th through the following morning. By late afternoon on November 5th, 12 stairs (leading downwards) were revealed; and in front of them, stood the upper portion of a blocked entrance. Carter searched the plastered door for a name but of the seals that could be read, he found only the impressions of the royal necropolis. Carter was extremely excited:

The design was certainly of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Could it be the tomb of a noble buried here by royal consent? Was it a royal cache, a hiding-place to which a mummy and its equipment had been removed for safety? Or was it actually the tomb of the king for whom I had spent so many years in search?²

To protect the find, Carter had his workmen fill in the stairs, covering them so that none were showing. While several of Carter's most trusted workmen stood guard, Carter left to make preparations. The first of which was contacting Lord Carnarvon in England to share the news of the find. On November 6th, two days after finding the first step, Carter sent a cable: "At last have made wonderful discovery in Valley; a magnificent tomb with seals intact; re-covered same for your arrival; congratulations."³

It was nearly three weeks after finding the first step that Carter was able to proceed. On November 23rd, Lord Carnarvon and his daughter, Lady Evelyn Herbert, arrived in Luxor. The following day, the workers had again cleared the staircase, now exposing all 16 of its steps and the full face of the sealed doorway. Now Carter found what he could not see before, since the bottom of the doorway had still been covered with rubble - there were several seals on the bottom of the door with Tutankhamun's name on them.

Now that the door was fully exposed, they also noticed that the upper left of the doorway had been broken through, presumably by tomb robbers, and resealed. The tomb was not intact; yet the fact that the tomb had been resealed showed that the tomb had not been emptied.

 a picture of the back of King Tutankhamun's throne.

The Golden Coffin of King Tut..

Golden Shrine with godess.

The King as he is today