Happy National Sea Serpent Day! In August of 1848, the crew of the HMS Daedalus of the Royal Navy had an encounter with what they saw as a sea serpent. Some say it was probably a whale, or a squid, or hell, a pod of dolphins (those sneaky jerks). It’s hard to trust the word of a sailor in the mid-1800s, but today is still a good day to look out over the nearest body of water and wonder what might be lurking beneath.

This is The Reset Button from Classic Nerd, resetting your day.

August 7th in Nerd History

Here are 5 things that happened on August 7th at the intersection of nerd and pop culture.

I.

Birthdays of honor: David Duchovny (1960), Wayne Knight (1955), Bruce Dickinson (1958), Charlize Theron (1975).

II.

In 1981, the adult animation classic Heavy Metal was released. This movie seemed pretty scary to me as a kid just based on the cover art … and it kind of freaked me out when I actually watched it, too … and kind of freaking me out just thinking about it, to be honest.

In 1992, when it was perfectly acceptable to do so, you could bring the kids to the movies with you and drop them off at 3 Ninjas while you hit up Unforgiven, both released on August 7 of that year.

And in 1987, Madonna tried to hit it big in theaters yet again with Who’s That Girl — spoiler alert, it didn’t go super well, with the film bombing. But the accompanying album and tour were commercial successes.

III.

In 1987, the underrated action-puzzle game RoboWarrior came out for the NES. Is it possibly a bit of a Bomberman ripoff? Yeah, very possibly, but still worth revisiting on your favorite emulator.

IV.

In 2007, Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron’s record for all-time home runs when he belted his 756th career homer out of AT&T Park. Ending up with 762 career home runs, everyone can definitely agree that this is a totally legit record and really we have zero qualms with it. Phew!

V.

On this day in 1981, “Jesse’s Girl” by Rick Springfield topped the charts. Good luck getting this out of your head today.