This Day in Pop Culture: April 3

For those looking for an excuse to celebrate, today is as good as any. In fact, it’s World Party Day. Today is also one of many pop culture firsts including the first mobile phone call the first iPad and the first issue of TV Guide.

1996: World Party Day

Yep, it’s a real thing and a pop culture oddity. The first World Party Day (or P-Day if you prefer, but that sounds weird) is said to have taken place on this day in 1996 and was inspired by Vanna Bonta’s novel, Flight. If you skip to the end, you’ll see that the story finishes with a countdown to a huge celebration where all of humanity is united.

Apparently, fans of the book took the message of “party is the opposite of war” to heart and created their own worldwide party. While some may look at this as just another reason to party, the thought behind the message is that it is better to create a positive action and celebrate life rather than promoting peace passively.

2010: First iPad

Steve Jobs said when releasing the first iPad tablet. “What we want to do is we want to put an incredibly great computer in a book that you can carry around with you and learn how to use in 20 minutes.”

1981: Osborne 1

Not to be confused with singer Ozzy Osbourne, the first successful portable computer known as The Osborne 1 was unveiled on this day at the West Coast Computer Fair in San Francisco in California.

1973: First Call

It was on this day in 1973 when Martin Cooper, a Motorola employee, made the first mobile phone call from downtown Manhattan in New York to the Bell Labs’ headquarters in New Jersey.

1953: TV Guide Debuts

The early stages of the creation of what was to become TV Guide magazine started as far back as 1948 when Lee Wagner, the circulation director of MacFadden Publications, printed The TeleVision Guide. It was a TV listing publication for New York City. Actress Gloria Swanson was the first celebrity to appear on its cover. Soon, regional editions of the magazine were developed.

On this day in 1953, another one of pop culture firsts, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball’s baby, Desi Arnaz, Jr. was featured on the cover of the first national edition known as TV Guide. It was published with a circulation of 1,560,000 copies distributed in ten U.S. cities.

Over the years, TV Guide created 140 local editions. By the 1960’s, it became the most widely read magazine in the United States and in 1988, it peaked with a circulation of 19 million.

TV Guide kept the digest-sized format for many years, but in 2005, the format grew to a full-size magazine that featured more stories, but less program listings. Local editions were no longer available. Today, the magazine’s readership is much smaller than what it once was, but TV Guide continues on with paper and digital versions of the classic magazine.

1996: The “Unabomber” is Arrested

Unabomber Ted Kaczynski — Theodore John Kaczynski aka the Unabomber in 1968 and 1996. *(Wikimedia)*

The title of “Unabomber” was a mashup of the words, “university,” “airline” and “bomber” and went to Theodore John Kaczynski, a former professor-turned terrorist accused of 16 mail bombs that killed three people and injured 23 others over an 18-year period.

Initially, federal investigators thought that the attacker was targeting just universities and airlines, but later it became clear that Kaczynski had issues with “America’s industrial and technological society” as he himself reported in his 35,000-word thesis titled, “Unabomber’s Manifesto.”

The famous drawing of the suspect was drawn in 1987 and shown on TV and newspapers, but it wasn’t until this day in 1996 that the Unabomber was finally arrested. In January of 1998, Kaczynski pleaded guilty on all counts and is currently serving four life sentences plus 30 years.