Hey, it's big in Europe.
June 24, 1967 -
Procol Harum released their classic A Whiter Shade of Pale on this date.
It was the most played song on jukeboxes in the last 75 years in public places in the UK, as of 2009.
Again, it's a European thing
If you're in NYC today, get ready to shake your groove thang, the Gay Pride parade makes it's way down Fifth Avenue.
And believe me that's a lot of groove thang to cram into 5 hours.
Today In History:
June 24, 1374 -
Please titrate your ergot carefully, a little sexual frenzy is good and all, but ...
In a sudden outbreak of Dancing Mania (aka St. John's Dance), people in the streets of Aix-la-Chapelle, Prussia experience terrible hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapse from exhaustion.
Many of the sufferers are afflicted with frothing at the mouth, diabolical screaming, and sexual frenzy. The phenomenon lasts well into the month of July. Nowadays, ergot madness is suspected as being the ultimate cause of the disorder. (Please refrain from mentioning raves.)
June 24, 1812 -
Napoleon, ever the French cuisine booster, wants to spread his enjoyment of meals with heavy cream sauces and decides to invade Russia (ultimately with mixed results.)
He has to wait 70 years before Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky decides to write an Overture about the entire incident.
June 24, 1947 -
Businessman pilot Kenneth Arnold encounters a formation of nine flying saucers near Mt. Ranier, Washington, exhibiting unusual movements and velocities of 1,700 mph.
No explanation is found for this first report of flying saucers in the recent era, but it does earn Mr. Arnold legions of skeptics and an eventual IRS tax audit.
June 24, 1948 -
Communist forces with 30 military divisions cut off all land and water routes between West Germany and West Berlin, prompting the United States to organize the massive Berlin airlift.East Germany blockades the city of West Berlin.
During the Berlin Airlift, American and British planes flew about 278,000 flights, delivering 2.3 million tons of food, coal and medical supplies. General Lucius Clay, the local American commander, ordered the air supply effort.
June 24, 1957 -
The U.S. Supreme Court rules, Roth v. United States, that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment, though a dissenting opinion included with the ruling notes the issue of prior restraint renders this a terrible decision.
By 1973, another case, Miller v. California, a five-person majority agreed for the first time since Roth as to a test for determining constitutionally unprotected obscenity, superseding the Roth test. By the time Miller was considered in 1973, Justice Brennan had abandoned the Roth test and argued that all obscenity was constitutionally protected, unless distributed to minors or unwilling third-parties.
(Aren't you happy when important legal issues can be dramatized with puppet shows.)
June 24, 1967 -
Pope Paul VI published his encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus (priestly celibacy) on this date.
I would bet here's when things really came to a head with that whole 'inappropriate' touching situation in the church.
June 24, 1970 -
Mike Nichols' adaptation of Joseph Heller's Catch 22 was released on this date .
This is the first American film to show an actor on the toilet - Martin Balsam, playing opposite Anthony Perkins. Ten years earlier, the first American film to show a toilet was Psycho... starring Martin Balsam and Anthony Perkins.
Before I let you go - I'll leave you with this video to put a smile on your face
These kids are fierce!
And so it goes.
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