Good News in History September 23

134 years ago today, the Nintendo company was founded in Kyoto. For lovers of Super Mario Bros., Pokémon, Zelda, and all other contributions from the third great pillar of console video gaming, it might be surprising to know the company, founded by Fusajiro Yamauchi, essentially predates home electricity. They did however open shop selling entertainment—in the form of the Japanese playing card game Hanafuda. READ More about the company’s surprisingly long history… (1889)

The Hanafuda cards they manufactured was one of the only tolerated forms of gambling during the late 19th century, and Nintendo is thought to mean the “temple of free hanafuda,” referring to this legality. The cards were about the size of western playing cards, only thicker and with nature images like koi, cranes, and fish on them.

Nintendo survived in a difficult environment, as the cards were a niche market with a long product life and expensive manufacturing process. They continued to survive as a business through a new tax on playing cards, the Russo-Japanese War, and a decision that Mr. Yamauchi had to make adopting his son-in-law so the business could continue to be registered as a family-owned company.

Following World War II, Nintendo still controlled a large market share in playing card manufacturing, and with grandson-in-law Hiroshi at the helm, they contracted with Walt Disney to put Disney characters on card sets. Hiroshi also changed the name from Nintendo Karuta to The Nintendo Playing Card Co., and then a second time to Nintendo Co. Ltd. when he took the company public.

More troubles persisted in a changing market, but by 1980 the integrated circuit had been invented, as had the electronic screen, and all the other components that would allow Nintendo to start making video game consoles. And the rest they say, is history.

MORE Good News on this Day:

• American commander John Paul Jones was said to have declared, “I have not yet begun to fight!” during a Revolutionary War naval battle (1779)
• 92 years ago, Ray Charles, the American singer, songwriter, musician, and composer, who was blind since childhood and pioneered the genre of soul music by combining rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues, was born (1930)
• Saudi Arabia National Day celebrates unification (1932)
• Silent movie star Charlie Chaplin returned to his native England after 21 years (1952)
• Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City opened its first venue, Philharmonic Hall — now Avery Fisher Hall (1962)
• The Jetsons first aired, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon and the first color series of the ABC TV network (1962)
• The Box Tops started a four-week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘The Letter’, one of the most recognizable pop songs, which sold over four million copies, earned two Grammy nominations, and became a Top Ten hit for Joe Cocker (1967)
• Mozilla’s Firefox web browser (the fastest and safest browser until Chrome came along) was born: version 0.1 (2002)

Happy 38th Birthday to Hasan Minhaj, the comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, and actor who was named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in 2019. His Netflix stand-up comedy special Homecoming King garnered rave reviews and won him a 2018 Peabody award.

Jon Stewart hired the first-generation American to be a correspondent on the comedy news program The Daily Show in 2014.

In 2017, he hosted the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, and the following year launched the weekly political comedy series Patriot Act on Netflix, which earned him his second Peabody.

Minhaj is back with a brand new one-man show, The King’s Jester, returning to his storytelling roots and touring the country. WATCH a clip, if you don’t mind a little cursing, to see why this comic has just sold out six nights at the Kennedy Center’s main stage… (1985)

And, 217 years ago today, Lewis and Clark returned to St. Louis from their groundbreaking exploration to the Pacific Northwest during which they mapped the land and established friendship and trade with at least two dozen indigenous nations.

Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson, the Army volunteers commanded by Captain Meriwether Lewis and close friend, Second Lieutenant William Clark, endured the perilous expedition for more than two years, mapping a route to the Pacific Ocean and studying the area’s plants, animals, and geography. They met Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman who traveled with the group and was reunited with her long lost brother, a tribal leader who played a pivotal role in aiding the expedition’s travel over the Rocky Mountains. (1806)

Happy 80th Birthday to Spanish singer and songwriter Julio Iglesias.

The Grammy award winner in 2013 was the Latin artist who sold the most records in history and is one of the top ten record sellers in music history, with more than 100 million records sold worldwide in 14 languages. During his career, he has played more than 5,000 concerts for over 60 million people and is the most popular international artist in China, Brazil, France, Romania, Italy, and others. WATCH a duet with Willie Nelson, performing To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before… (1943)

And, Happy Birthday to Bruce Springsteen who was ‘born In the USA’ 73 years old today.

The New Jersey singer-songwriter’s recent film, Western Stars, took him into new creative frontiers as a co-director exploring his troubled past, including mental illness, through the lens of the recent LP of the same name.

“The older you get, the heavier that baggage becomes that you haven’t sorted through,” says The Boss in his 2019 film. “I still have days when I struggle with it.”

“Aging is scary but fascinating, and great talent morphs in strange and often enlightening ways,” wrote Springsteen in his 2016 best-selling memoir Born to Run. The book inspired his Tony Award-winning play, Springsteen on Broadway, which featured the Boss baring his life story, set to song and monologue which ran for more than a year through December 2018.

Springsteen has been candid about his struggles with mental illness, which runs in his family and for which he takes medications that have helped. During a career that has spanned five decades, Springsteen became known for his poetic and socially conscious lyrics and epic 3-hour stage performances, playing songs that often address the struggles of the working-class.

His best-known songs include Born to Run, Thunder Road, and Badlands in the 70s, Hungry Heart, Dancing in the Dark, Born in the U.S.A. and Glory Days in the 80s, and Human Touch and Streets of Philadelphia in the 90s. He has won 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes, an Academy Award, and a recently the Tony. He is now looking ahead to getting the E Street Band back together, with new songs he’s written for a “really good rock band record.” (1949)

Also, on this day 102 years ago, Mickey Rooney, the award-winning actor and comedian was born in Brooklyn, New York. In a career spanning nine decades, he appeared in more than 300 films and played the young ‘Andy Hardy’ in 15 films that epitomized American family values. A versatile performer and dancer at age 17, he was celebrated for his performance as a juvenile delinquent in Boys Town, opposite Spencer Tracy. Laurence Olivier once said he considered Rooney “the best there has ever been”. One director called him “the closest thing to a genius I ever worked with”.

At 19, he was the first teenager to be nominated for an Oscar (the first of four nominations with 2 wins in his lifetime) for his leading role in Babes in Arms and at the peak of his career—from 1939 to 1941—Rooney was the top box-office attraction and one of the best-paid actors of that era. Drafted into the Army during World War II, he served nearly two years entertaining over two million troops on stage and radio and was awarded a Bronze Star for performing in combat zones.

Rooney’s popularity was renewed with supporting roles in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Requiem for a Heavyweight, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, and The Black Stallion in 1979. He won an Emmy in 1982 plus a Golden Globe for his role in Bill. WATCH CNN and ABC’s obituaries summarizing his brilliant life upon his death at 93… (1920–2014)

Photos: Rooney in 1940 (left), and in 1986 (right) by Allan Warren, CC license

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