Yes, it's a snow day today

so I went back to sleep


Here is a mash-up of this obscure British Comedy Troupe Monty Python -



I wonder what ever happened to them.


January 3, 1952 -
The ominous, four-note introduction to the brass and tympani theme music, then the staccato voice over intoned, Ladies and gentlemen: the story you are about to hear is true.



The first regularly scheduled episode of Dragnet premiered on this date.


January 3, 1973 -
The Columbia Broadcasting System sold the New York Yankees to a 12-man syndicate headed by George Steinbrenner for $10 million.

As of March 2013, Forbes Magazine valued the team at $2.3 Billion dollars


January 3, 2000 -
The last daily Peanuts strip ran. (2000) The comic strip, which centered around the iconic Charlie Brown, his dog Snoopy, and their friends, had been running since 1950. 

Almost 20,000 strips were published in total, not to mention the musicals, movies, and television specials that featured the Peanuts gang.


Today's gift count: you currently have 10 Leaping Lords, 18 Rockettes, 24 young milkmaid, 28 Swans making a racket, 30 geese a' laying, 30 golden rings, 28 calling birds, 24 French hens, 18 turtledoves and 10 partridges in their respective pear trees.

Begin thinking about fleeing the country (with the gold rings) and living in Canada under an assumed name.


Today in History:
January 3, 1496 -
Leonardo da Vinci unsuccessfully tests a flying machine of his own design on this date. He designed many flying machines, some of which have actually tested successfully in modern times.

In the 2002 BBC television series Leonardo, it will be theorized that da Vinci, who was a devout pacifist, purposefully designed the flying machine to fail, so that it could not be put to a military use.


January 3, 1521 -
Pope Leo X still angry about the defacing of Castle Church of Wittenberg, released his papal bull Decet Romanum Pontificem and excommunicated Martin Luther for challenging church doctrine on this date.

A little known fact but Luther was an excellent matador and waived his 95 theses in front of the bull


January 3, 1870 -
the grandest physical habitat and surroundings of land and water the globe affords ...

The construction of the Brooklyn-side wooden caisson of the Brooklyn Bridge began on this date.


January 3, 1953 -
Frances Bolton and her son, Oliver from Ohio, became the first mother and son to serve simultaneously in the U.S. Congress.

I wonder if she kept telling him to sit up straight and stop talking to his neighbor while they were at work?


January 3, 1959 -
A new U.S. flag of 13 stripes and 49 stars waved in the air, on this date.



Alaska became the 49th state in the United States


January 3, 1962 -
Pope John XXIII excommunicated Fidel Castro on this date.

I'm sure Fidel is still having a good laugh over that one.


January 3, 1967 -
Jack Ruby died of natural causes at Parkland Hospital, on this date, where Lee Harvey Oswald had died and President Kennedy had been pronounced dead after his assassination.

He could possibly be one of the only people involved in this sordid affair that did.


January 3, 1969 -
In New Jersey, 30,000 copies of John and Yoko's album Two Virgins are confiscated because the cover is deemed obscene.

There is nothing more shocking than two naked multimillionaires on the cover of your Rock and Roll Album.

Kids, go ask your parents what albums were.


Before you go:  Since most of you are snowed in today, I found a gift way in the back of the tree



Why not sit down and enjoy it.



And so it goes