Well, I guess it's not as bad as Tom Waits selling dog food.
June 13, 1952 -
The seventh collaboration of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn, Pat and Mike, was released on this date.
Of the nine movies she made with Spencer Tracy, this was Katharine Hepburn's favorite.
June 13, 1962 -
Stanley Kubrick's take on Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel Lolita, premiered on this date.
The famous heart-shaped sunglasses that Lolita wears appear only in publicity photos; Lolita wears cat eye sunglasses in the movie.
June 13, 1967 -
Sean Connery's fifth appearance as James Bond - You Only Live Twice, opened in the US on this date.
This is the first film in the series where James Bond does not wear his trademark tuxedo.
It's the feast day of Saint Anthony of Padua. One of the most beloved of saints, his images and statues are ubiquitous. Proclaimed a Doctor of the Church on January 16, 1946, he is sometimes called the Evangelical Doctor.
He is especially invoked for the recovery of things lost; as well as against starvation, barrenness; patron of amputees, animals, boatmen, Brazil, diocese in Beaumont, Texas, domestic animals, the elderly, expectant mothers, faith in the Blessed Sacrament, Ferrazzano, fishermen, harvests, horses, lower animals, mail, mariners, oppressed persons, Padua, paupers, Portugal, sailors, scholars, sterility, swineherds, Tigua Indians, travel hostesses, travellers, and watermen.Do you think Marcel Proust prayed to him while writing?
Today in History:
June 13, 323 BC (or June 11, who's to say) -
A youthful Alexander the Great (Colin Farrell or Richard Burton, take you pick) died in Babylon (NOT Long Island). The precise cause of his death has baffled modern science for thousands of years. Many historians believe he died of either malaria or hybris, also known as Syphilis or the Greek Fire.
Alexander had a horse named Bucephelas, and is best known for having devoured the Gordian Nut.
In the village of Maidstone, Kent, there lived a Pheasant (or Villain) whose daughter was about fourteen years old. The day the Taxman came around to collect, the Villain was away. Only his wife and daughter were home. The Taxman didn't believe that the girl was less than fifteen. She and her mother insisted that she was. At last the Taxman tore the girl's clothes off to see for himself.
After stripping her, he quickly determined that a more tactile examination would be necessary. When she resisted, the situation took a violent turn—and at that volatile moment, the girl's father came in and saw what was going on. Like any good father, he crushed the Taxman's skull and stomped on his brains.
News of the event spread. The Pheasants (Villains) of southeast England rallied to the father's support. They began Wat Tyler's Rebellion on June 13, 1381.They made the skull-smashing father their leader because his name was Wat Tyler. Over the next few days, Wat Tyler led the Pheasants (Villains) against the government, burning the Archbishop of Salisbury at the Stake (whence the expression "Salisbury Steak").
The purpose of this rebellion was to secure a pardon for having rebelled. When Wat Tyler confronted King Richard II in Smithfield, he voiced this demand and was consequently stabbed to death, by the Lord Mayor of London (something you just can't imagine Mayor Bloomberg doing.)
Upon Wat Tyler's death, of course, it was no longer possible to have Wat Tyler's Rebellion, so everyone else went home (hence "Pheasants coming home to roost").
Many of them were later killed.
June 13, 1865 –
"...And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
William Butler Yeats, Irish poet and dramatist, and one of the foremost figures in 20th century literature, was born on this date.
He was brother of the artist Jack Butler Yeats, the son of John Butler Yeats, and along with J. M. Synge and Sean O'Casey, was one of the driving forces behind the Irish Literary Revival. Together with Lady Gregory and Edward Martyn he founded Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief playwright.
June 13, 1886 -
The bodies of Bavaria's mad King Ludwig II and his physician, Dr. Gudden, are discovered floating face-down in Lake Starnberg.
The recently-deposed monarch who wasn't so much mad as gay, had been under house arrest ever since his uncle, Prince Luitpold von Bayern, staged a coup a few days earlier.
It's alway a problem when you're the King of Bavaria and your family can't accept that you're gay.
June 13, 1917 -
18 German Gotha bomber planes flew over London in the first aerial bombardment in history (not counting Zeppelins). They were met by over 90 British fighters, but not one Gotha was brought down. This bombing raid caused 162 deaths.
On June 13, 1944, Germany commemorated the anniversary by launching the first of its V-1 flying bombs, also called the doodlebug (Fieseler Fi-103), on southern England. Only one of the four missiles London saw that day caused any casualties, but a steady stream of V-1s causing severe damage and casualties fell on London in coming months.
On June 13, 1990, East Germany began tearing down the Berlin Wall. The date apparently has some significance in the Teutonic psyche.
Be gentle with men in lederhosen.
June 13, 1920 -
The United States Postal Service rules that children may not be sent via Parcel Post. Before that, children had been clogging the mail chutes of America.
Dammit, there going my holiday travel plans.
June 13, 1934 -
Two months before becoming Fuhrer, Hitler meets Mussolini in Venice. Unfortunately, Mussolini refuses to have an interpreter and his German is not good, so neither man can understand the other.
Unimpressed, Mussolini gathers a general impression of the German as "a silly little monkey."
June 13, 1970 -
The Beatles had there last number one song The Long and Winding Road on this date.
I hope they were able to make a living after this.
June 13, 1971 -
Next to the White House wedding photo of President Nixon's daughter Tricia, the New York Times runs its first story on the Pentagon Papers, a top secret DoD analysis authored by the RAND Corporation detailing every mistake and deception made during the 30-year history of the Vietnam War.
Attorney General John Mitchell manages to block any further publication of the embarrassing documents, but the court order is countermanded two weeks later in a Supreme Court decision.And so it goes.
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