It's Oatmeal Cookie day.

(Remember to keep you cookie jar filled with Oatmeal cookies!)



Given the amount of drinking many of you probably did yesterday, a little extra fiber in your diet today wouldn't be the worst idea in the world. Word to the wise - if one of the raisins stats to crawl away, don't eat the cookie.


March 18, 1924 -
The Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler adventure film, The Thief of Bagdad, which tells the story of a thief who falls in love with the daughter of the Caliph, was released on this date.



For the flying carpet effect, Douglas Fairbanks stood on a 3/4-inch thick sheet of steel attached to 16 piano wires and rigged to the top of a crane, which lifted him above the crowd.


March 18, 1938 -
The under appreciated Ernst Lubitsch film, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife starring Gary Cooper and Claudette Coulbert (written by Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder) premiered on this date.



Ernst Lubitsch originally wanted Marion Davies for the part of Nicole, but she had retired from films by 1938.


March 18, 1964 -
In his first outing as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, Peter Sellers starred in The Pink Panther, which premiered in New York City on this date.



The film was intended to have David Niven's character Sir Charles Lytton as the main character. However, Peter Sellers' portrayal of Inspector Clouseau was so loved by the crew (and later by the audience) it became his character that this film and the sequels focused on.


March 18, 1967 -
The Beatles' Penny Lane single goes #1 on this date.



Paul McCartney was sitting at a bus shelter waiting for John Lennon to meet him on Penny Lane, a street near their houses in Liverpool, England. While sitting there Paul jotted down the things he saw, including a barber's shop with pictures of its clients and a nurse selling poppies for Remembrance Day.


March 18, 1968 -
Mel Brook's screamingly funny first film, a send-up of Broadway, The Producers, premiered in New York City on this date.



Gene Wilder said in an interview on TCM that at the first reading of the script, he excused himself to leave for a dentist appointment he could not miss, when in fact he had to go to the unemployment office to collect a check for $55 he desperately needed at the time.


March 18, 1972 -
Neil Young's Heart Of Gold, with backing vocals by James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt, hit No. #1 on the Billboard Charts in the US, on this date.



Young wrote this in 1971 after he suffered a back injury that made it difficult for him to play the electric guitar, so on the Harvest tracks he played acoustic. Despite the injury, Young was in good spirits (possibly thanks to the painkillers), which is reflected in this song.


March 18, 1975 –
McLean Stevenson’s character (Lt. Colonel Henry Blake) died in the M*A*S*H episode Abyssinia, Henry, its third season finale on this date.



According to producer Larry Gelbart, when Larry Linville read the (previously concealed) final page of the script, he said, "Fucking brilliant!" When Gary Burghoff read it, he looked at McLean Stevenson and said, "You'll probably win the Emmy for this, you son of a bitch!"


March 18, 1976 -
Nicholas Roeg's adaptation of the Walter Tevis' novel, The Man Who Fell To Earth, starring David Bowie (in his first major role), Candy Clark, Buck Henry, and Rip Torn, premieres in London, on this date.



According to costume designer May Routh, David Bowie was so thin that some of his outfits were boys' clothes.


March 18, 1981 -
Stephen J. Cannell's take on superheroes, The Greatest American Hero, starring William Katt, Robert Culp, and Connie Sellecca, premiered on ABC-TV, on this date.



Two years after the show's cancellation by ABC, NBC picked up the series, and aired its reruns in a Sunday night, post-primetime time slot. This led to speculation that NBC was looking to revive the series, but their efforts only resulted in The Greatest American Heroine pilot.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
March 18, 1314 -
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake during the final purge of the Templars in France on this date.



Among the things de Molay admitted to the Inquisitor panel (though possibly coerced) were the obligation of Templars to deny Christ when they joined, and a sacrament that involved spitting on a crucifix.

Oh that wacky life during the Middle Ages.


March 18, 1584 -
Ivan IV of Russia died on this date. He is better known by his nickname: Ivan the Terrible. He was the first king of Russia to call himself a Caesar, probably in the hopes that Shakespeare would write a play about him. He also replaced the sale of beer and mead with vodka at state-run taverns.



He couldn't pronounce Caesar, however, so he simply called himself "zar," and subsequent arguments over whether that should be spelled czar, tsar, zar or tzar became so heated that they eventually resulted in Russian History.


March 18, 1913 -
(Once again kids follow along, it's complex.) Itinerant sailor and general layabout Philip Mountbatten's (nee Philip Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg) grandfather, Christian Wilhelm Ferdinand Adolf Georg of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (sibling to a king and two queens) was out on an afternoon stroll. This, in and of itself, is not remarkable, except for the fact that this minor Danish/ German prince had changed his name to George and became the King of Greece. Wilhelm/ George, like most royalty, went out for an afternoon stroll without any pocket change (royalty and presidents don't carry money.)

Alexandros Schinas, an alcoholic vagrant asked the King for some spare change and shot him in the back went the King refused to give him money. Wilhelm/ George died en route to the hospital,

Alexandros died five days later after he 'accidentally' fell out of a window at police headquarters.



So kids let this be a lesson to you, if you find yourself the ruler of a European nation - the change you carry, may save your life.


March 18, 1915 -
Wenseslao Moguel, suspected of taking part in the Mexican Revolution, was captured by the Mexican Constitutionalists, on this date.



He was sentenced to summary execution, and was shot 8–9 times by a firing squad in the body, and received one final shot to the head point-blank range to ensure death. He survived his execution and lived to the age of 85.


March 18, 1922 -
Mohandas K. Gandhi a British educated lawyer, was arrested and sentenced to prison in India for civil disobedience after calling for mass civil disobedience which included boycotting British educational institutions and law courts, not working for the British controlled government and the boycott of foreign-made goods, especially British goods, on this date.

Although he was sentenced to six years in prison, he only served two before being released for an appendicitis operation.


March 18, 1937 -
A massive gas explosion at the New London Junior-Senior High School in New London, Texas, killed more than 400 people, most of them children, on this date.



As a result of the explosion, legislation was passed requiring an odor to be added to natural gas so that leaks may be detected.


March 18, 1954 -
In 1948, Howard Hughes gained majority control of RKO Pictures stock; at that time RKO had becomes a struggling Hollywood studio. A steady stream of lawsuits from RKO's minority shareholders became an increasing nuisance, especially as Hughes looked to focus on his aircraft-manufacturing and TWA holdings during the Korean War years. And so our favorite bisexual billionaire, ever increasing germaphobe and aviator Howard Hughes bought RKO Pictures for $23,489,478 (and not a penny more,) on this date.

With his purchase of the studio, Hughes became the closest thing to a sole owner of a studio that Hollywood had seen in more than three decades. Six months later, Hughes sold the studio to General Tire and Rubber Company for $25 million.


March 18, 1965 -
Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov performed the first spacewalk on this day. He stayed outside his ship for 12 minutes, held to the ship by a tether.



By the time his walk was over, his spacesuit had inflated so much in the vacuum of space that he could barely get back inside the ship. With a bit of quick thinking, he opened a value to allow some of the suit’s air to bleed off without venting all of it, only barely getting back into the capsule in time.


March 12, 1965 -
Gene Sesky of Scranton lost control of the truck he was driving, hauling 30,000 pounds of bananas, barreling down Moosic Street toward central Scranton, unable to stop and crashes into cars, telephone poles, and houses on its way down the hill, injuring many people and killing Mr. Sesky.



Harry Chapin sang about of the tragic event in his song 30,000 Pounds Of Bananas.


March 18, 1970 -
Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe and the Fish) was convicted on obscenity charges after he asks for an F, a U, a C and one other letter at a concert in Massachusetts.



The song was meant as a satire of US government attitudes toward the Vietnam War. Country Joe MacDonald released it at the height of the war after he had been discharged from the US Navy for several years. He wrote it in about 30 minutes after it popped into his head.


March 18, 1980 -
50 people were killed at the Plesetsk Space Center, Mirny, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, when a Vostok rocket exploded on the launch pad on this date.



At the time, this represented a significant percentage of the Soviet space program's scientists.



And so it goes.