... Bring a gun ...

 (I have to deal with some family issues over the next few days - posting may be spotty. Sorry about that.)

June 2, 1957 -
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev was interviewed on US television for the very first time when CBS's Face the Nation aired on this date.



With Cold War tensions running high, some government officials accused CBS of putting out Communist propaganda. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, love god of Carol Burnett, refused to watch the interview.


June 2, 1973 -
Paul McCartney and Wings' song My Love, from the album Red Rose Freeway, hit No. 1 on the US singles chart on this date.



This is one of three songs of the same title to top the American singles chart. Petula Clark's "My Love," was # 1 in 1966 whilst Justin Timberlake's song of the same title reached the peak position in 2006.


June 2, 1987 -
The Paramount Picture Brian De Palma film, The Untouchables starring Kevin Costner, Sean Connery and Robert DeNiro premiered in NYC on this date.



Robert De Niro tracked down Al Capone's original tailors, and had them make him some identical clothing for the movie.


June 2, 1989 -
Peter Weir's take on the classic film Goodbye Mr. Chips, Dead Poets Society, written by Tom Schulman, and starring Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, and Ethan Hawke opened in limited release on this date.



Peter Weir chose to shoot the film in chronological order to better capture the development of the relationships between the boys and their growing respect for Mr. Keating. Robin Williams considered this movie to be one of his favorite films of his own, and considered Peter Weir to be the best director he had ever worked with.


I wish I read it


Today in History:
June 2, 1740 -
The Marquis de Sade was born on this date and his sexual proclivities made his name a noun.



His sexual proclivities themselves have been preserved in a mason jar at the Louvre.


June 2, 1793 -
Jean Paul Marat recites names of 29 people to the French Assembly, virtually all of whom will be guillotined. The Rain of Terror officially began in France.



This was one of the worst meteorological events in French history and cost hundreds of thousands of lives.


June 2, 1886 -
President (Steven) Grover Cleveland, 49 and weighing over 300 lbs. (think Gov. Chris Christie with a walrus mustache) married Frances Folsom (his legal ward) in a White House ceremony on this date. Ms.Folsom, was the 22-year-old daughter of Cleveland's late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom.



The intimate wedding ceremony took place in the White House Blue Room with fewer than 40 people present (those who could get over the entire ick factor.) To date, Cleveland is the only president to marry in the Executive Mansion while in office.



Here's a great bar bet: One of Cleveland's first political post was when he was elected Sheriff of Erie County in New York State in 1870.  While in office, he presided over the hanging of two convicted murderers.  So when he was elected President in 1884 (and in 1892), he was the only President to have personally executed anyone.


June 2, 1896 -
The first radio patent was issued to Guglielmo Marconi in England for his wireless telegraphy apparatus, described as “Improvements in Transmitting Electrical Impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus Therefor.” (UK No. 12,039)
http://www.radiomarconi.com/marconi/popov/1901fe1.gif







I wonder what will become of that new fangled thing?


June 2, 1897  -
Mark Twain, at age 61, was quoted by the New York Journal on this date, as saying "the report of my death was an exaggeration."

He was responding to the rumors that he had died.

That always puts a crimp in your day


June 2, 1910 -
Charles Stewart Rolls, one of the founders of Rolls-Royce, became the first man to fly an airplane nonstop across the English Channel both ways, on this date.

He became Britain's first aircraft fatality the following month when his biplane broke up in midair; he did not immediate return to his seat when the fasten your seat light was illuminated.


June 2, 1924 -
President Calvin Coolidge signed the Indian Citizenship Act (also known as the Snyder Act, after the bill's sponsor, Representative Homer P. Snyder, of New York,) granting full citizenship to all indigenous people born in the U.S. on this date.

Even Native Americans who were granted citizenship rights under the 1924 Act may not have had full citizenship and suffrage rights until 1948. Some states barred Native Americans from voting until 1957.


June 2, 1941 -
Baseball great, Lou Gehrig, died at 37 at his home in the Bronx on this date.



You would have thought someone might have mentioned to him that he had Lou Gehrig's disease earlier in his career.


June 2, 1953 -
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor-Mountbatten officially becomes the head of her family's business and had her coronation on this date.



The entire ceremony was, save for the anointing and communion, televised throughout the Commonwealth, and was watched by an estimated 20 million people, with 12 million more listening on the radio.



The Queen's reign is longer than those of her four immediate predecessors combined (Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII and George VI). She is the longest reigning British or English monarch, the second-longest-serving current monarch of a sovereign state (after King Bhumibol of Thailand, who reigned for 70 years, 126 days) and the oldest reigning British monarch.

Here are the Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom who served QEII

Sir Winston Churchill *    1952 – 1955Sir Anthony Eden             1955 – 1957
Harold Macmillan            1957 – 1963Sir Alec Douglas-Home   1963 – 1964
Harold Wilson                 1964 – 1970
Edward Heath                 1970 – 1974
Harold Wilson                 1974 – 1976
James Callaghan              1976 – 1979
Margaret Thatcher          1979 – 1990
John Major                      1990 – 1997
Tony Blair **                   1997 - 2007
Gordon Brown                 2007 - 2010
David Cameron  ***        2010 - 2016
Theresa May ****           2016 - 2019

*  Incredibly Churchill had the distinction of being the only MP to be elected under both Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.
**  Tony Blair was the first Prime Minister to have been born during The Queen's reign. He was born in early May, 1953 - a month before the Coronation.
*** David Cameron was born in 1966; Prince Andrew, the Queen's third child was already 6 years old at the time.
**** Theresa May is set to resign on June 7

And boy, while Charles is chomping at the bit, I bet Kate is starting to measure the curtains.


June 2, 1966 -
NASA had it's first successful moon landing with the Space Surveyor 1's soft landing, on this date.



The Soviet Union was the first when the Russian probe Luna 9 had a successful soft landing on the moon on February 3rd earlier in 1966 .



And so it goes.


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