Everyone would be healthier if they didn't eat junk food.

It's National Junk Food Day. (What did I say yesterday about it being a huge conspiracy!)



It doesn't really matter what you eat - at some point, you'll be dead.


July 21, 1943 -
Twentieth Century Fox's musical spectacular, Stormy Weather, starring Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, Katherine Dunham, Fats Waller, Fayard Nicholas, Harold Nicholas, Ada Brown, and Dooley Wilson, premiered in the US on this date.



This was the final film of both Fats Waller and Bill Robinson. .


July 21, 1971 -
Carole King's single from the Tapestry album, It's Too Late, hits #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



In the You're So Vain vein, this song was rumored to be about James Taylor, who was good friends with King and played on the Tapestry album. In early 1971, Taylor and King toured together with King the opening act. Many people tended to think that this song was about a short romance between the two. King never confirmed these rumors, and Taylor later dated and married Carly Simon.


July 21, 1977 -
Despite protests, The Sex Pistols made their first appearance on the UK music show Top Of The Pops where they lip-synched to their third single, Pretty Vacant (which was released three weeks prior); The performance helped push the song up the charts to No.7.



The Sex Pistols would probably not have been invited if the BBC had realized the title is to be interpreted as "pretty va-cunt." The Pistols had already seen their debut single, God Save The Queen, banned by the BBC as well as by independent UK radio. Their debut album was also banned, and in December 1976, they caused a furor by swearing overtly on an independent television news program, egged on by interviewer Bill Grundy.


July 21, 1989 -
Orion Pictures' comedy UHF, (written by and) starring Weird Al Yankovic, David Bowe, Fran Drescher, Victoria Jackson, Kevin McCarthy, Michael Richards, Gedde Watanabe, Kevin McCarthy, Anthony Geary, Emo Philips and Trinidad Silva premiered in US theatres on this date. The soundtrack features many of Yankovic's signature song parodies, as well as a few of his original songs.



Real fish were attached to the "Wheel of Fish." They were bought at a local fish market early one morning. The set designer began attaching them to the wheel around 6 am, making sure the wheel spun smoothly. Filming started at 4:30 pm, on a hot summer day, in a building that wasn't air-conditioned, filled with hot studio lights and over 100 extras.


July 21, 1990 -
Roger Waters staged an over-sized version of Pink Floyd's The Wall near the Berlin Wall, on this date, to celebrate the actual wall's fall several months earlier.



Shot on Potsdamer Platz, the no man's land between East and West Germany, the producers didn't know if the area would be filled with mines - no one did. Before setting up, they did a sweep of the area and found a slew of munitions and a previously unknown Nazi S.S. bunker, the very same as Hitler had lived his last days in as seen in the movie Downfall.


July 21, 2014 -
Marvel Studios and Disney Studios megahit, Guardians of the Galaxy (now known as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1,) starring Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper and a boatload of other people, premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



Chris Pratt apparently stole his Star-Lord costume from the set, for the sole purpose of having it available so he could show up in costume to visit sick children in the hospital, who might want to meet Star-Lord.


Another ACME Safety Film


Today in History:
July 21, 365 -
An earthquake destroyed the ancient Egyptian city of Alexandria, causing the sea to recede and then re-enter the city with tremendous force. Many of those not killed by collapsing buildings were drowned. Fifty thousand died.



It was not a good day in Ole Alexandria


July 21, 1730 -
Holland established the death penalty for acts of sodomy on this date.

I've often said, this is what comes from trolls and the lack of proper lubricant.


July 21, 1899 -
Ernest Hemingway was born on this date. He was young at the time of his birth. It was fine to be young.

He drove an ambulance in the first world war. It wasn't called the first world war then. It was called the war. It was one of those times when people shot at each other. When people were shooting at each other they didn't have time to worry about what to call it. It was only afterwards that they needed to call it something.

"What should we call that time when we were shooting at each other?"

"Let's call it the Great War."

"Good."

It was a good ambulance. It was long with a red and white sign. It had flashing lights and a siren that went "wee-ooo, wee-ooo." He liked that.



After the war he lived in Paris. A lot of Americans lived in Paris after the war, but only a few of them had ever driven an ambulance. In the 30s he went to Spain. He was a journalist. They were having a war.

They called it the Spanish Civil War. It was started by an Evil Stooge named General Franco on July 18, 1936. It was a test drive to see whether or not they should have World War II. They had fascists and socialists and anarchists. They even drank sangria. People shot at each other.



(General Franco finally gave up power on July 19, 1974, because he was sick. Maybe he had always been sick. It is sometimes hard to understand sickness. Maybe we are not meant to understand it.)



Later Hemingway lived in Cuba. He liked to fish. He liked to drink. He thought all men should fish. He wrote stories about fishing. Finally he blew his brains out at his home in Idaho. It was July 2, 1961.

He had written a lot of books but now he was dead.


July 21, 1919 -
The Wingfoot Air Express (owned by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company) caught fire and crashed into the Illinois Trust and Savings Building in Chicago, 13 people were killed. This was the worst Airship disaster in the USA until the Zeppelin Airship, Hindenburg crashed in 1937.



Of the 13 who died: one was a crew member, two were passengers whilst the remaining 10 were bank employees in the building below.


July 21, 1925 -
The so-called "Monkey Trial" ended in Dayton, Tenn., with John T. Scopes convicted of violating state law for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution.



Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100. The conviction was later overturned on the technicality that the judge had set the fine rather than the jury.


July 21, 1951 -
I used to think that the worst thing in life was to end up alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel alone.



Robin McLaurim Williams, actor and comedian, was born on this date (or was it 1952.)


July 21, 1969 -
Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin blast off from the Moon after twenty-one and a half hours on the surface and return to the command module piloted by Michael Collins on this date.



The lunar module’s lower section, left behind, has a plaque mounted upon it, reading, “Here men from the planet Earth first set foot upon the moon, July 1969 A.D. We came in peace for all mankind.”



While all of the world is celebrating the success of the Apollo 11 mission; a little remembered incident also occurred 52 years ago this week, the Soviets nearly landed an unmanned vehicle on the Moon first, Luna 15. The USSR had ambitious lunar landing and exploration plans. The country’s “Luna” space program – envisaging the launch of interplanetary spacecraft to the Moon – appeared in 1958, earlier than NASA’s Apollo program. Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight in 1961 only strengthened the Soviet belief that it was their destiny to dominate space. And for a while, it seemed they would. The five-ton Soviet station (Luna 15 was launched Sunday, July 13,) approached the Moon on July 17, three days before the now airborne Apollo 11, and went into near-lunar orbit. But then, the unforeseen happened. For some reason, the spacecraft got stuck in lunar orbit, allowing Apollo 11 to sneak past.



As the first men on the Moon prepared to launch from the lunar surface, astronomers at the Jodrell Bank Observatory in Manchester heard commands being sent up to Luna 15 from Moscow. The Soviet spacecraft was beginning its 52nd orbit and preparing to descend towards the surface … it wasn’t until this moment the English astronomers realized the craft was designed to land. They tracked the spacecraft in real time as it sped towards the surface, listened as it gained speed and finally crashed right into Mare Crisium, the Sea of Crises, about two hours before Armstrong and Aldrin we set to leave the lunar surface.

“I say, this has really been drama of the highest order,” remarked one Jodrell Bank astronomer when it was all over.


July 21, 1972 -
In Milwaukee, George Carlin was arrested for obscenity and disorderly conduct for performing his "Seven Dirty Words" routine on a Summerfest stage in Milwaukee. (Tits is still the funniest.)



He was released after posting $150 bail.


July 21, 2011 –
NASA’s Space Shuttle program ends with the landing of Space Shuttle Atlantis on mission STS-135 at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on this date.



After 135 flights in 30 years, the space shuttles were now history. NASA estimated with the landing of the Atlantis' flight over, the five shuttle orbiters would together have traveled 537,114,016 miles in orbit. Three hundred and thirty-five astronauts have flown on them; 14 died when the shuttles Columbia and Challenger were lost.



And so it goes.