The Bat is a three-act comedy-mystery play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and
Avery Hopwood that was first produced by Lincoln Wagenhals and Collin
Kemper. The play opened on Broadway on August 23, 1920. At a rented
summer home, Cornelia Van Gorder and guests search for stolen money
while being stalked by a masked criminal known as "the Bat". The play
originated as an adaptation of Rinehart's 1908 mystery novel The
Circular Staircase. It was a critical and commercial success, running
for 867 performances in New York and 327 in London, with tours by
several road companies. It was revived twice on Broadway, in 1937 and
1953. It had several adaptations, including a 1926 novelization credited
to Rinehart and Hopwood but ghostwritten by Stephen Vincent Benét.
Three film adaptations were produced: The Bat (1926), The Bat Whispers
(1930), and The Bat (1959). The play and its adaptations inspired other
comedy-mysteries with similar settings, and influenced the creation of
the comic-book superhero Batman.
Read more: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat_%28play%29>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
1896:
Andrés Bonifacio and his Katipunan comrades in what is now
Quezon City rose up in revolt against Spanish rule, marking the
beginning of the Philippine Revolution.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cry_of_Pugad_Lawin>
1921:
The Royal Navy's R-38, the world's largest airship at the time,
was destroyed by a structural failure while in flight over Hull, killing
44 of the 49 crew aboard.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R38-class_airship>
1943:
World War II: The decisive Soviet victory in the Battle of
Kursk (German tanks and soldiers pictured) gave the Red Army the
strategic initiative for the rest of the war.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kursk>
2011:
A 5.8 MW earthquake struck the Piedmont region of Virginia, and
was felt by more people than any other quake in U.S. history.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Virginia_earthquake>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
make a big thing out of:
To call attention to or publicize; to make a fuss about, especially
unnecessarily.
<https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/make_a_big_thing_out_of>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Think on the shame of dreams for deeds, The scandal of unnatural
strife, The slur upon immortal needs, The treason done to life: Arise!
no more a living lie, And with me quicken and control Some memory that
shall magnify The universal Soul.
--William Ernest Henley
<https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Ernest_Henley>