Happy Little Red Wagon Day

Little Red Wagon Day, celebrated annually on the last Wednesday of March, honors the original little red wagon.



This day celebrates the power of imagination on wheels as children of all ages take flight with their little red wagons.


March 30, 1964 -
This game show is celebrating its' 58th anniversary on this date? Pens down.



Merv Griffin's game show Jeopardy! made its debut on television. He sold the rights for the show to Coca-Cola for $250 million in 1986. The show was hosted by Art Fleming until 1975. It resurfaced in syndication in 1984 with Alex Trebek as host.



(Imagine the contestants fighting to play Celestical Jeopardy with Alex Trebek now.)


March 30, 1966 -
Barbra Streisand's second television special, Color Me Barbra aired on CBS-TV, on this date.



The concert was one of the first to be filmed in color. The technology was so new that when two of the three cameras broke immediately prior to the show, there were no parts available to repair them.


March 30, 1967 -
The Beatles visited Michael Cooper's London photographic studio on this date and shot the most iconic album cover ever created.



The cover of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was designed by Peter Blake and put together by Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, who painstakingly combed through hundreds of photos for months before the photo shoot. (Kids, remember, this was all done before Photoshop.)


March 30, 1981 -
Hugh Hudson's historical drama about the 1924 Olympics, Chariots of Fire, starring Ben Cross and Ian Charleson premiered in London on this date.



When Colin Welland completed his first draft, the only title he could think of was Runners. Then, one Sunday evening he turned on BBC's religious music series Songs of Praise, featuring the hymn Jerusalem, with lyrics from a poem by William Blake. The chorus including the words "Bring me my chariot of fire". The writer leapt up to his feet and shouted to his wife, "I've got it, Pat! 'Chariots of Fire'!"


March 30, 1985 -
Phil Collins scores his second #1 hit as a solo artist with One More Night on this date. The track was taken from his third album, No Jacket Required.



The music video, directed by Jim Yukich, finds Collins playing piano at a bar in London (owned by Virgin Records founder Richard Branson).


Another job posting from the ACME Employment Agency


Today in History:
March 30, 315 -
The Donation of Constantine grants to the See of Rome dominion over all earthly thrones of Europe, a document made by the Roman Emperor Constantine I after his conversion to Christianity in return for being cured from leprosy (it was the least he could do after avoiding his nose falling off his face).



But in 1440, anachronisms in the document prove that it was really a fraud written around 752 AD, during the reign of and under orders of Pope Stephen II and the Frankish king Charlemagne (more about him later).


March 30 1282 -
After vespers on Easter Monday, a French sergeant named Drouet touched the breast of a young Sicilian bride, causing an outrage that precipitated the slaughter of perhaps 2,000 Frenchmen living and ruling over Sicily.

Lesson here: don't cop a feel of someone else wife after church, especially if they're Sicilian.



One of Giuseppe Verdi's (Joe Green) most musically acclaimed operas, Les Vêpres Siciliennes is based on this conflict.


March 30, 1840 -
Who’s your fat friend?.



George Bryan Beau Brummell, English dandy and former favorite of the prince regent, died of syphilis in a French lunatic asylum for paupers.

(I hate when that happens.)


March 30, 1853 -
Vincent Van Gogh was born on this date. Exactly 134 years later to the very day, his painting Sunflowers sold for $39.7 million.



Van Gogh’s life was full of such eary coincidences.


March 30, 1856 -
(In case this comes up in the coverage on the War in Ukraine) Russia signed the Treaty of Paris ending the Crimean War on this date. It guaranteed the integrity of Ottoman Turkey and obliged Russia to surrender southern Bessarabia, at the mouth of the Danube.



The Black Sea was neutralized, and the Danube River was opened to the shipping of all nations.


March 30, 1858 -
Hymen Lipman was granted a patent (U.S. patent No. 19,783) for creating the first wood-cased pencil with an attached rubber eraser, revolutionizing classrooms and art studios alike.



Unfortunately, the patent was later revoked by the Supreme Court when it was challenged by a German firm, Faber-Castell, that attached the eraser using a metal ferrule. Lipman invented neither the pencil nor the eraser, he simply combined the two so the invention was considered invalid.

So now you know.


March 30, 1863 -
OK kids, it's your favorite topic - life among the those wacky inbred royals.

Danish prince Wilhelm Georg was chosen as King George of Greece on this date.

King George I is the great-grandfather of the late Prince Philip, yes that gadabout Greek sailor who lived in London. Kids, now follow this: Philip and his lovely wife Elizabeth are second cousins once removed: they are both descended from Christian IX of Denmark - Elizabeth II is a great-granddaughter through her paternal great-grandmother Alexandra of Denmark, and the Duke is a great-grandson through his paternal grandfather George I of Greece.

As well as second cousins once removed, the couple are also third cousins: they share Queen Victoria as a great-great-grandmother. Elizabeth's great-grandfather was Edward VII, while Edward's sister Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine was the Duke's great-grandmother. All of this was probably painfully obvious to them on their wedding day as everyone assembled to witness their wedding was related to one another and could only be seated with a convoluted flow chart.

So goes love amongst the royals and hillbillies.


On March 30, 1870, the U.S. Congress readmitted Texas to the Union. Texas is the only state in the Union whose name is an anagram for taxes. Texas had been naughty and seceded in 1861, but they said they were sorry and promised never to do it again.



Congress didn’t think they really meant it, but let them back in anyway, after making Texas write "I will not secede from the union" 500 times".

Conclude this paragraph with the Texaphobic slur or Texaphiliac slogan of your choice.


March 30, 1909 -
...The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge, is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.... - The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald

The Queensboro Bridge (originally known as Blackwell's Island Bridge, affectionately known as the 59th St. Bridge, now known as the Edward I. Koch Bridge,) the first double-decker bridge, opened and linked the New York boroughs of Manhattan and Queens on this date.



The Simon and Garfunkel song Feelin' Groovy uses the bridge as its namesake.


March 30, 1954 -
Canada's first subway line, Toronto's Yonge line opened on date.



Built by the publicly owned TTC (Toronto Transportation Commission, now Toronto Transit Commission) between 1949 and 1954, it was the beginning of postwar Toronto's effort to accommodate the demands of the city's prosperity and its future.


March 30, 1968 -
Two children playing in a deserted East Village tenement at 371 East 10th St come across the body of a homeless drug addict later identified as Bobby Driscoll (the patron saint of child actors gone wrong), 31, the first actor Walt Disney put under contract and the voice of Disney's Peter Pan, on this date.



So I guess he really wouldn't grow up.


March 30, 1972 -
Royal Canadian Navy sailors were issued their very last daily rum ration on this date, (the Britain's Royal Navy stopped issuing rum rations on July 31, 1970.)



This left them with merely the lash and sodomy. There are no reports on how that's working out for them, although rumors abound that this was the sticking point on Brexit.


March 30, 1981 -
President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded by John W. Hinckley Jr. outside the Washington Hilton Hotel on this date. Press Sec. James Brady was also shot as was Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy and District of Columbia police officer Thomas Delahanty.



While President Reagan underwent surgery for a life-threatening gunshot wound, Secretary of State Alexander Haig announced to the press: "As of now, I am in control here, in the White House, pending return of the Vice President."



As bloodless coups go, it was a brilliant though short-lived one.


March 30, 1993 -
Charlie Brown (very uncharacteristically) hit a game winning home run on this date.

The pitcher on the opposing team - Royetta Hobbs.



And so it goes.