January 10 – No Pants Subway Ride

Posted on January 10, 2016

Improv Everywhere claims on its website, “We cause scenes.” 

Literally!

You don't see this every day!

Today's scene should be entertaining, but it sounds like it could cause health and safety issues as well! Today has been declared No Pants Subway Ride Day in New York City and other cities around the world.

Passengers board subway cars at different stops, pretending not to know or notice each other, all wearing all the normal gear necessary for winter weather: coats, hats scarves, gloves, boots...but NO PANTS!

Some passengers get on the subway – the first leg of their journey, at least – with their pants on but remove their pants while riding the subway.

Some passengers pretend that they forgot their pants but can't be bothered to feel embarrassed about it.

And this isn't just a thing with five quirky actors. Apparently, by now there are tens of thousands of participants in over 60 cities, in over 25 countries!

Some people seem to be pretending not
to notice the no-pants riders.

Others are laughing or even covering their eyes!

Is it silly? Is it chilly? You decide!

If you check out the Improv Everything website, you can see how a tradition like No Pants Subway Ride gets its start and grows, slowly at first but eventually more and more quickly...

By the way, I think it's neat that this year's No Pants Subway Ride happens to be on the anniversary of the first subway ride! (See "Also on this date" below.)

Try improv!

Today might be a great day to try out some improv exercises and games, or even to find an improv class. Here and here are some ideas. 

Also on this date:

Horologist Abraham-Louis Breguet's birthday  

League of Nations Day

National Vodoun Day in Benin

Astronomer Simon Marius's birthday

Astronomer Robert Woodrow Wilson's birthday

Anniversary of first subway

Anniversary of first aerial photo in U.S.

Anniversary of a successful Amelia Earhart flight

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest pages on:

• January holidays
• January birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in January

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

• February holidays
• February birthdays
• Historical anniversaries in February

July 19, 2012 - The Metro Opens in Paris

– 1900

The underground trains of Paris—in other words, the subway—opened for the first time on this date in 1900.

The first line that opened provided transport to the 1900 summer Olympic Games at the Bois de Vincennes. Parisians immediately loved the Metro—and thirty thousand tickets were sold on the first day alone!

That first year, 17 million passengers used the Metro—even though the subway “system” consisted of only one line. 

Nowadays, there are fourteen lines, and more than four million passengers ride the trains EVERY DAY! That comes up to a grand total of more than 1.47 BILLION per year! That makes the Paris Metro the second busiest subway system in Europe. 

(Want to guess the #1 busiest in Europe? How about the busiest in the world? Answers at the bottom of the post.)

One of the system's stations, Chatelet-Les Halles, which has five Metro lines and three RER commuter rail lines, is the world's largest Metro station.

The Metro is known for its Art Nouveau entrances.

How do you build train tracks BELOW a city?

Most of the underground lines were laid under already-existing streets. The soil of Paris is not conducive to deep digging, so most of the lines are not that far below the surface, and they were created with what is called the “cut-and-cover” method. This involved digging a deep trench along a main street. (In order to keep traffic to a minimum, this was often done one small section at a time.) The trench was lined with brick or concrete, and then given a roof of strong steel girders. Then the trench section was covered with road, sidewalk, or whatever..and the construction area was moved down to the end of the section just built. This cut-and-cover method of tunnel building is quite inexpensive and therefore often used today.

There are exceptions to the shallow-tunnel generalization, including tunnels that go underneath Paris's river, the Seine. Metallic caissons from 20 to 40 meters long were assembled on the bank of the river and then gradually driven into the river bed, apparently providing an interesting spectacle for passersby. (A caisson is a large watertight chamber that is open at the bottom, used during construction work done under water. The water is kept out by air pressure.) In order bore the tunnel, the ground was frozen (extra-super-duper frozen, at minus 24 degrees Celsius!) using calcium chloride brine.

To learn how some subway tunnels are built these days, check out the Washington Post's infographic. 

ANSWERS to questions above: The busiest subway system in Europe is Moscow, Russia, and the busiest in the world is in Tokyo, Japan. Paris's Metro is only #8 in the world, behind: Toyko, Japan; Seoul, South Korea; Moscow; Beijing, China; Shanghai, China; Guangzhou, China; New York City, U.S.

Also on this date:

Arts and Artists Day 

Anniversary of the first parking meters. 

January 10, 2010

Happy Above and Below Day

On this date in 1863, the world's first underground train opened to fare-paying passengers in London. It was called the Metropolitan Railway (and is now called the Underground or the Tube). In the U.S., an underground train is called a subway.

On this date in 1911, the first aerial photograph taken in the U.S. from an airplane was taken over San Diego, California.

On this date in 1935, Amelia Earhart began a flight from Honolulu, Hawaii, to Oakland, California. When she succeeded, landing the next day, she became the first person to have successfully solo such a flight. Thousands of cheering fans greeted her.

Did you know...?

• Within a few months of opening, the London Underground was carrying more than 26,000 passengers a day. (An amazing 40,000 passengers traveled on it the very first day.)

• The underground train that crosses the English Channel goes through a undersea tunnel about 50 kilometers (30 miles) long, and about 75 meters (250 feet) deep at the deepest point. The Channel tunnel is called the Chunnel.

• Our “aerial photos” now come from satellites in space and cover every bit of the Earth. The resolution is down to 1.3 to 2 feet per pixel. That means you theoretically could spot even a bicycle or a doghouse on the latest aerial photos!

• It took Amelia Earhart 17 hours and 7 minutes to fly the 2,408 miles from Hawaii to California. Now such a flight would take about 5 or 6 hours.

Explore some aerial photos.

• Zoom in (wait a few seconds for the picture to focus) on this photo of New York City.
• Here are some splendid aerial photos of London at night. (The Big Picture is an excellent place for all sorts of photos, by the way!)
• This photo is of the Harbin ice festival in China. Isn't it wild???

Find your house in a satellite photo.

The map of the London Underground is considered a classic. It doesn't try to show things exactly where they are, since that isn't helpful. Instead, it shows the train lines and stations relative to each other, and they are clearly labeled and color coded. Many other transportation maps worldwide are based on this one.

Do a coloring page on Amelia Earhart.