Oops, I guess I should have mentioned this yesterday.
Frank Capra was born on May 18, 1897, and Jimmy Stewart was born on May 20, 1908. Without them we would not have had such American classics as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Mr. Smith Goes Back to Washington, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Again, Mr. Smith Did Not Tap his Foot under a Stall, The Koch Brothers present Mr. Smith and the Tea Party, Mr. Smith is Really Very Serious about Term Limits and Mr. Smith Drops Dead in A Senate Cloakroom (astride a male intern.)
The duo also gave us It's a Wonderful Life with its own magnificent sequels: It's a Really Wonderful Life, It Just Doesn't Get Any Better Than Life and Life Is Just So Damn Good I Don't Know Whether to Take a Dump or Go Blind.
May 18, 2001 -
DreamWorks released the animated comedy Shrek, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, and Cameron Diaz, in the US on this date.
Mike Myers recorded Shrek's voice in a natural accentless voice before the film was test-screened. After watching it, he decided that the voice didn't sound right and had all of his lines re-recorded with a Scottish accent, based on the voice his mother used when reading him bedtime stories as a child.
Today in History:
On May 18, 1843, Joseph Smith made a specific prophecy -
May 18, 1926 -
Aimee Semple McPherson, possibly the most famous woman in America at the time, went for a swim in the Pacific Ocean at Venice Beach and disappeared. McPherson was a hugely popular evangelist; she had a radio following of over a million, so when she disappeared, police pulled out all stops to try to find her.
She reappeared a month later, claiming to have been kidnapped, but it quickly became apparent that she had stepped out with a married engineer from her radio station, Kenneth Ormiston. The scandal rocked her ministry, and she faded out of the public eye, until she apparently 'accidentally overdosed' on Seconals in 1944.
May 18, 1936 -
Tokyo gangster Kichizo Ishida was accidentally strangled by his mistress during a session of rough sex. Ishida had been a "gasper," someone who enjoys the sexual effects of asphyxiation. The woman, Sada Abe, indulged him by wrapping her pink kimono belt around his neck. After her lover's death, Abe cuts off Ishida's penis and scrotum with a meat cleaver and carries them around until she is finally arrested, three days later.
40 years later, a taboo breaking film, In the Realm of the Senses, was released, retelling the events of this sordid tale.
Makes a great first date movie.
May 18, 1953 -
Jackie Cochran, long-time aviation fan and a close friend of pilot Chuck Yeager, became the first woman to break the sound barrier on this date.
She was also the first woman to fly a bomber plane across the Atlantic, and the first pilot in general to make a blind landing, one which relies only on instruments. Years later, on June 3, 1964, Cochran piloted an F-104G Starfighter at twice the speed of sound, establishing a woman's world speed record of 1,429 miles per hour.
May 18, 1955 -
I couldn't care less about actors' trailers and food on sets and stuff like that - I just want to act.
The superstar Asian actor, Chow Yun-Fat, was born on this date.
May 18, 1980 -
The body of Ian Curtis, lead singer of dirge band Joy Division, was discovered hanging in the kitchen by his wife on this date. Curtis killed himself on the eve of Joy Division's U.S. tour.
His surviving band mates go on to form New Order.
May 18, 1980 -
After a 5.1 magnitude earthquake in Washington state, 57 people were killed in an avalanche of volcanic mud in the eruption of Mount St. Helens.
The volcano spews out 200 million cubic yards of of pumice, ash, and debris which covers 24 square miles of the valley below.
Before I forget: Make sure you are wearing your rubbers - the streets are flooded with seamen
And so it goes
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