Cloud seeding was actually invented by atmospheric scientist Bernard Vonnegut, who in 1946 discovered the potential of silver iodide for the process. The first attempt at cloud seeding was in upstate New York during 1946 when a chemist caused snow to fall after he dumped six pounds of dry ice into a cloud from a plane.

Several countries have since had rainmaking programs. In the 1960s, Australian CSIRO’s activities in Tasmania increased rainfall as high as 30% in autumn in some areas. The Tasmanian experiments were so successful that the Commission has regularly undertaken seeding ever since in mountainous parts of the state.

From 1962 to 1983, Project Stormfury was an attempt by the United States military to modify hurricanes using cloud seeding. Unfortunately, results were unclear and the fear that the actions could negatively change the course of powerful hurricanes eventually stopped the project.

Very much like Donald Duck’s successful rainmaking company in Barks’ story, there are now some companies specialized in the job, like Weather Modification, Inc. in North Dakota.

China has the largest cloud seeding operation in the world. Its Weather Modification Department employs more than 32,000 people in 30 provinces working to increase the amount of rain over arid regions, including China’s capital city, Beijing, by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky where rain is desired. The department has 7,100 anti-aircraft guns, 4,991 special rocket launchers and around 30 aircraft across the country to do the job.

In light of the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics, the Beijing meteorological office’s weather modification department is now busy preparing to ensure clear skies for the games, by perfecting techniques of artificial rain and cloud dispersal.

So there you have it: cloud seeding is big business, and all these activities would make even Master Rainmaker Donald Duck jealous.

The Popovics, who bought the home for 190-thousand dollars in 2002, say they went to eBay instead of listing the house on the regular market “because we feel there is someone out there that might be able to take the building to the next step and do something with the historical significance.”

Born December 5, 1901, Walt Disney lived in the house for four years before the family moved to Marceline, Missouri.

The description on eBay reads:

“Excerpt from preliminary staff summary of information submitted to the Commission on Chicago Landmarks. Walt Disney birthplace. “The story of Walt Disney’s association with Chicago began in 1890 when his parents, Elias and Flora Disney, moved to the city as a young married couple seeking new opportunities. On Halloween Day, 1892, Disney paid $750 for a 25 x 125 corner lot on 2156 N. Tripp Avenue, on the Northwest side of Chicago. The area was annexed into the city in 1889 and soon became a desirable location for working-class families to buy lots and build homes of their own. The tracts of vacant land quickly became densely built up with small cottages and two-flats that closely resembled the Disney cottage in appearance and scale. On November 23, 1892, Elias Disney obtained a building permit to build a two story, 18 x 28 foot wood cottage, costing appx $800. Elias was able to keep the cost low on the cottage by acting as his own contractor, and doing much of the construction himself. It is doubtful that a professional architect was consulted, but family reminiscences suggest that Flora Disney was instrumental in working out the floor plan and securing the construction materials. By the turn-of-the-century, the quiet isolated neighborhood that Elias found in 1891 was soon showing signs of some of the negative aspects of being part of a large city. After nearly fifteen years of living on Tripp Avenue, the Disneys decided it was time to move on.”

View eBay item 220058471607 here.

The comic books, the great majority of them unread, were bought off the newsstand by a previously unknown collector named Davis Crippen. He started at age eight, but his collection really picked up steam a year later, in 1939. Inspired by a family friend’s collection of Big Little books, Davis decided that from then on he would buy and keep every single new comic book as it came out.

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