New Year's Eve will certainly be different

If you want to stay young looking, pick your parents very carefully.



America's Oldest Teenager, Dick Clark suffered a fatal heart attack yesterday. He was 82.


April 19, 1961 -
Frederico Fellini's iconic, La Dolce Vita, premiered in the United States on this date.



The famous scene in the Trevi Fountain was shot in March, when nights were still cold. Federico Fellini said in an interview that Anita Ekberg stood in the cold water in her dress for hours without any trouble. Marcello Mastroianni, on the other hand, had to wear a wetsuit beneath his clothes, and even that wasn't enough. Still freezing, he downed an entire bottle of vodka, so that he was completely drunk while shooting the scene.


April 19, 1978 -
The Patti Smith Group released the song Because the Night on this date.



Smith was hesitant to use a song written by someone else, but changed her mind when she heard Bruce Springsteen's demo.


Today in History:
April 19, 1775 -
Alerted by Paul Revere the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington Common with the Battle of Lexington-Concord. on this date. Eight Minutemen were killed and 10 wounded in an exchange of musket fire with British Redcoats.

In New York, Lexington seems to have won as there is no Concord Avenue.


April 19, 1824 -
Notorious drug user, buggerer, sister sleeping, club footed man about Europe, oh yeah, and poet, Lord George Gordon Byron, died from malaria fever in Greece on this date.



His body is set back to England for burial (his heart, literally remains in his beloved Greece, buried under a tree in Messolonghi) but he is so infamous that neither the deans of Westminster and St Paul's will accept his body for proper burial. His family at last buries him in a small fault vault in Northern England.


April 19, 1906 -
It was a rainy day in Paris. One of those days that song writers write about. Nobel-winning chemist Pierre Curie was in a hurry and preoccupied. He tried to run across the street and did not look both ways. He slipped, and then was hit and run over by a horse drawn vehicle. His skull was badly fractured.

Kids' once again - Your mother is always right. Just because you're a Nobel winning - look both ways before crossing.


April 19, 1927 -
Mae West, suspected transvestite, was jailed, on this date, for her performance in Sex, the Broadway play she wrote, directed, and starred in. She was sentenced to ten days in prison. While incarcerated on Roosevelt Island, she was allowed to wear her silk panties instead of the scratchy prison issue and the warden reportedly took her to dinner every night.

She served eight days with two days off for good behavior. Media attention to the case enhanced her career - it didn't make her change her act, but it did bring her national notoriety—and helped make her one of Hollywood's most memorable, and quotable, stars.

She said: "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."


April 19, 1927 -
Cecil B. Demille's silent-film version of The King of Kings premiered on this date.



This film features author Ayn Rand as one of the hundreds of people in a crowd. At a time when Rand was a struggling immigrant, Cecil B. DeMille gave her the job to help get her on her feet.


April 19, 1946 -
Raymond Chandler's film-noir classic The Blue Dahlia premiered on this date.



Shortly after this film released, a young woman named Elizabeth Short was murdered in Los Angeles. The local newspapers dubbed the case the Black Dahlia as a morbid twist on this film's title. Unlike the movie, the Short murder case is still unsolved.


April 19, 1987 -
The Simpsons make their television debut in the short Good Night a segment for The Tracey Ullman Show.



I wonder whatever happened to The Simpsons.

(Once again, I had to hang around the murky world of the internet underground to get this blurry copy of the clip. I'd like to show you a better version of the clip but the goons, I mean lawyers from Fox would break my legs and I've just about gotten used to walking.)


April 19, 1993 -
More than 80 Branch Davidians burn to death in Waco, Texas as the FBI stages a disastrous final assault on their compound. This brings a sudden end to the 51-day siege.

Janet Reno really learned 'em good.


April 19, 1995 -
At 9:02 am Oklahoma City, USA, a large car bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building killing 168 people, and injuring 500 including many children in the building’s day care center.

Authorities charged Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, with the crime.

Both were convicted.


April 19, 2005 -
Darth Sidious was elected the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church on this date.

At this point, I bet the Pope would be happy if you just thought about his Hitler youth group past (remember try to remember not to mention the whole kids molestation thing at his party.)



And so it goes