Fun Fact #496
Fun Fact #496
While the term “Cameo” has become famous in film, it has been used long before the Screen was even invented, often included in literature.
The reason why actually makes some sense as it can be used to date something like historical fictions, or plays based on real events (weirdly Benjamin Franklin has by far the most cameos in Literature particularly in European books). It can also be used to pay Homage to characters in other works by including a very similar figure (Don Quixote is one of the most famous examples of this).
Yet by far the version that is the most famous is pulling a Balzac. Honore De Balzac (yes that was his real name; 1799-1850) was the founding father of realism in European literature, and part of this was his idea of writing his books in a shared universe La Comidie Humaine (The Human Comedy: 96 Novels, 48 volumes, 5 plays, and another 48 short stories with an array of unfinished works). To achieve a sense of unity between his works they often had Characters from previous books make appearances in newer works. In short this proved highly successful and Balzacs –more commonly known as Universes– are still made today with works like The MCU, SonyVerse, and The Pixar Theory all being wonderful examples of this.
Also just a Fun Sidenote: In 1976, the IAU named one of the largest craters on Mercury named after Honore Balzac with multiple craters being contained within his crater all being named after some of his characters
Bonus Fun Fact! From April 15th through April 29th (2024) The earth will be experiencing The Lyrid Meteor Shower which will be made from debris that broke off comet Thatcher around 687 BC making it the oldest ever recorded Meteor shower. NASA Predicts the best night to view this will be April 22nd between Moonrise and Moonset with a possible 100 mentors an hour during that time (normal nights see around 18 meteors a night). If you miss That meteor shower there will be another one around May 4th from Haley's comet, but that one is only expected to produce 10-30 meteors an hour. Sorry Couldn't fit this in nicely with this week's fun facts but thought you all would enjoy it.
As Always thanks for reading and I hope you have a stellar day!
