Today is Flitch of Bacon day.

Every year on this day, since about 1104, any married couple who could prove they had been faithful and loving to one another for one year was awarded half a pig, known as a flitch of bacon.



(The average weight of a side of pork is about 100 lbs. I want to know if the couple is supposed to bring home the side of pork themselves.)


It's also National Daiquiri Day.



It's just about the middle of the summer, so it more than appropriate to celebrate (although it might have been fun to celebrate it on July 11 - see my note on sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia.)


July 19, 1941 -
MGM released the Hanna/ Barbera cartoon, The Midnight Snack, starring Tom and Jerry, on this date.



William Hanna and Joseph Barbera originally had the cat named Jasper and the mouse was Jinx, in 1940's Puss Gets the Boot cartoon. This is the first cartoon with their names, Tom Cat and Jerry Mouse.


July 19, 1960 -
The initial pilot for what would become The Dick Van Dyke Show, Head of the Family, premiered on this date.



Carl Reiner has said that he let this pilot sit for about a year after it didn't sell, and then he showed it to Sheldon Leonard who told him he liked it and it had potential, but it "needs better actors, including you!"


July 19, 1965 -
The Beatles released the single, Help (B-side I'm Down), ahead of the release of the album of the same name, on this date.



The song runs just 2:18, but packs in 267 words, making it one of the most lyrically dense hits of the era. It starts and ends on a vocal, and there are two vocal lines running throughout the song, as John Lennon sings lead while George Harrison and Paul McCartney do backgrounds, singing some of the same phrases either before or after Lennon. There are only a few seconds in the song where somebody isn't singing.


July 19, 1986 -
Genesis had their first (and only) #1 Hot 100 hit as Invisible Touch tops the chart, on this date.



The Invisible Touch album marked Genesis' complete transformation from complex, theatrical music (starting when Peter Gabriel was lead singer) to condensed pop songs. They lost some fans along the way, but gained many more.


July 19, 1995 -
Amy Heckerling's comic adaptation of Jane Austin's novel Emma, Clueless, starring Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Paul Rudd, Dan Hedaya, and Brittany Murphy, premiered in US theatres on this date.



Alicia Silverstone (Cher) actually did not know how to correctly pronounce "Haitians" in the classroom scene. Director Amy Heckerling told the crew not to correct her because she liked it so much and wanted it to be in the film.


July 19, 1996 -
Danny Boyle’s brilliant adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s equally celebrated novel, Trainspotting, starring Ewan McGregor, Robert Carlyle and Kelly MacDonald premiered on this date.



Kelly Macdonald, in her naiveté, invited her mother and brother to the set while filming her sex scene with Ewan McGregor.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in history:
July 19, 1692 -
Five Salem witches were hanged for the crime of witchcraft on this date, based primarily on the accusations of little girls who were bewitched.

Eventually, the village executed a total of 20 witches.

Those were some nasty little girls.


July 19, 1870 -
France attempted to declare war on Russia. Due to a typographical error, however, France inadvertently declared war on Prussia on this date and caused the Franco-Prussian War. This eventually led to the creation of Germany, which led to World War I, World War II, and the Volkswagen.



Moral: always proofread.


July 19, 1919 -
Raymonde de Laroche, the first woman to pilot a plane in 1909 and first woman to receive a pilot's license, died in an plane crash at Le Crotoy airport in France, on this date.

Raymonde de Laroche had miraculously survived three serious crashes before the fourth one claimed her.


July 19, 1937 -
The Nazis opened Entartete Kunst, the Degenerate Art show, in Munich on this date. The traveling exhibition offers up Expressionism for ridicule, carefully arranged by (offensive) subject.



The German youth were not admitted, lest they become tainted.


July 19, 1941 -
Prime Minister Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign in Europe on this date.



The BBC World Service began regular broadcasting throughout Europe with the opening four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which in Morse Code spell V for "Victory."


July 19, 1950 -
Australian Ben Carlin, with his wife, Elinore, set out from Montreal in an amphibious jeep; the craft took to the water off Nova Scotia and crossed the entire Atlantic Ocean, making landfall at the Canary Islands after a stop in the Azores.



The Carlin’s continued their journey by land, eventually stopping in England and going to Malmo, Sweden. Carlin tried to interest British auto manufacturers in his heavily modified vehicle, but there were no takers.


July 19, 1952 -
Keep watching the skies.



During a series of UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. occurring over July 13-29, unidentified objects are picked up on D.C.'s National Airport radar system. Sightings in the region are so extensive the Air Force was prompted to hold a press conference. Conveniently, these were all "radar mirages" resulting from "temperature inversions."


July 19, 1966 -
Frank Sinatra married Mia Farrow in Las Vegas on this date.

Ava Gardner's famous comment on the union: Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy!

Ouch.


July 19, 1969 -
John Fairfax, after an amazing 180 days alone at sea, became the first person to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. (When Fairfax was asked what he did for a living, he would usually answer, "I'm a professional adventurer. I not only enjoy it, I try to make money off it.")



Two year later he rowed across the Pacific with his then-girlfriend Sylvia Cook; the trip took them 361 days. They became the first people to accomplish that feat.


July 19, 1984 -
I stand before you to proclaim tonight, America is a land where dreams can come true for all of us.



38 years ago today, U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York won the Democratic nomination for vice president at the party's convention in San Francisco.



Co-incidentally, the first women's rights convention, organized by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was held in Seneca Falls, NY on this date in 1848.



And so it goes.