Make the first day great,

... because no matter what, you are going back again tomorrow!

Sorry kids, today is the first day of school in NYC.

But don't worry, summer vacation starts on June 27, 2023, in 296 days.


It may be a coincidence but today is International Literacy Day. Please read a newspaper, a magazine, the back of an oil stained envelope with a recipe from your grandmother, .



At the very least, you could read the crap I purport to write every day.



And here's a word from the opposition - The dumb as dirt party.


September 8, 1951 -
Tony Bennett's first hit Because of You topped the charts on this date.



The song was written by Arthur Hammerstein (uncle of Oscar Hammerstein II) and Dudley Wilkinson in 1940.


September 8, 1966 -
Star Trek debuted on NBC-TV, with the airing of an episode titled The Man Trap on this date. (The series had to overcome calls from within the network to cancel the series before it even aired.)



When NBC was promoting Star Trek in magazines, all shots of Spock's pointed eyebrows and ears were airbrushed out of the pictures because NBC thought that no one would watch the show due to Spock's resemblance to the Devil. However, this concern was quickly invalidated upon the series' airing with Spock becoming not only one of the most popular characters, but also a sex symbol with young female viewers, an audience reaction no one in the cast or crew anticipated.


September 8, 1966 -
That Girl starring Marlo Thomas premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Marlo Thomas' father Danny Thomas would often make cameo appearances on the show. One episode not only featured a cameo by her father but her sister Terre Thomas and brother Tony Thomas as well.


September 8, 1973 -
Marvin Gaye started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with Let's Get It On, on this date.



Let's Get It On was the title track of Gaye's 1973 album. It topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart for two weeks and the Billboard Soul Singles chart for eight weeks. It also made history as Motown's most successful release in the United States to that date and the second most successful song of 1973 (behind Tony Orlando & Dawn's Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree).


September 8, 1986 -
The first nationally syndicated episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, went on the air on this date. The topic for the premiere show was "How to Marry the Man or Woman of Your Choice".



Oprah Winfrey used the show as an educational platform, featuring book clubs, interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events. It was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011.


September 8, 1994 -
At the MTV Video Music Awards, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (MCA), in character as "Nathanial Hornblower," rushes the stage when R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts beats Sabotage for Best Direction.



It's the first such intrusion at the VMAs. Frequent Beastie Boys collaborator Nathaniel Hörnblowér has an impressive resume. He directed classic Beasties videos (including So What Cha Want and Pass the Mic) as well as the rap trio’s 2006 live concert film, Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!. He is even credited for the iconic photograph on the cover of Paul’s Boutique.


September 8, 1997 -
The first episode of the legal dramedy Ally McBeal premiered on FOX, on this date.



Peter MacNicol does not appear in the pilot, though he's in the second episode as a guest star. He joined the regular cast later in the first season.


September 8, 1999 -
Sam Mendes' scathing comedy, American Beauty, Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, and Thora Birch, premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



Since Thora Birch was barely 17 years old at the time she made the film and thus classified as a minor in the United States, her parents had to approve her brief topless scene in the movie, and they and child labor representatives were on the set for the shooting of it. "To me, [the nudity] made sense," Birch said of the scene. "It wasn't something that shouldn't be in there. It's something that would happen."


September 8, 2001 -
(Ear worm allert -) Kylie Minogue released the single Can't Get You Out Of My Head, with a "la la la" chorus that does indeed burrow into the brain, on this date.



For most Americans, this was the first they heard from Minogue since 1988, when her cover of The Loco-Motion hit #3. She became an international sensation that year, but in the '90s her support was concentrated in the UK and in her home country of Australia. Can't Get You Out Of My Head put her back on the charts in many more territories.


September 8, 2015 -
Stephen Colbert debuted as the new host of CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on this date. (It was a stretch but he felt that he was up to the challenger.)



Stephen Colbert's first guest as host of the Late Show was actor George Clooney. This was actually the third time Clooney had the honor of being the first guest on a variety show, the first was on The Rosie O'Donnell Show, 19 years prior, and the second was on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, 12 years prior.


Another ACME Safety Film


Today in History -
September 8, 337 -

Constantine the Great's three sons, Constantine II, Constans and Constantius II, named themselves Caesars and divided the Roman Empire between them on this date.



But it was nearly sixteen hundred years before Sid Caesar himself was born, on September 8, 1922.


September 8, 1504 -
Michelangelo's David, was unveiled in Florence on this date.



If you were staring too hard, you'll notice that Dave has got a turtleneck. The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.



Now put your eyes back in your head.


John Endicott arrived in Naumkeag, Massachusetts, as the leader of a group of Puritan Grumps who had purchased land patents from the Plymouth Council in England on this date in 1628.

A previous group of settlers had established themselves in Naumkeag in 1626 but had no patent and were therefore Villainous Heretics. They gladly surrendered their claim in the face of the newcomers' Superior Moral Virtue, which came in a variety of gauges.



Later Naumkeag became Salem and developed witches, ultimately resulting in a profitable cottage industry.


September 8, 1664 -
The Dutch surrendered the city of New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York, on this day. The English navigator Henry Hudson claimed credit as the city's discoverer in 1609, when he sailed into its harbor and up the river that now bears his name, looking for a passage to India. Hudson was sailing for the Dutch West India Company, so it was the Dutch who moved in and settled the area in 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.



Forty years later, New Amsterdam became a city; its population, 800. In the 1660s the Dutch and English were at war, and on September 8, 1664, a fleet sent by the Duke of York seized the city and changed the name to New York.



There are many in the Congress who have been trying to give the city back to the Dutch, the English or the Indians for that matter ever since.


September 8, 1892 -
Please rise. "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The Pledge, which was written by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy, was published on this day in The Youth's Companion children's magazine.

(Rev. Bellamy did not include the words "Under God"; they were included by Congress 62 years later.)



School's began having children recite the pledge on October 12th that same year.

(You may be seated.)


September 8, 1930 -
3M of St. Paul, Minnesota begins marketing Scotch brand cellulose tape, the first waterproof, transparent, pressure-sensitive tape on this date.



The arrival of Scotch tape changed present-wrapping practices worldwide.


September 8, 1934 -
The luxury liner Morro Castle, en route from Havana to NYC, caught fire and ran aground at Asbury Park, NJ on this date. 134 people were killed.



The crew of the cruise ship let a small blaze get out of control and commandeered most of the spots in the lifeboats. Only 15 passengers survived as compared to 119 crew.

Remember, tip your service staff.


September 8, 1935 -
Dr. Carl Austin Weiss confronted Senator Huey Long in a narrow corridor of the State House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Weiss drew a .32 caliber pistol and fired one slug into Long's abdomen on this date.



The Senator's bodyguards immediately made Swiss cheese out of Weiss, riddling him with 61 bullets. Long was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later.


September 8, 1974 -
President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon, out of respect for Nixon's family. "Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."



Later polling will indicate that this move will ultimately deny Ford being elected president in his own right. A majority of Americans will remain convinced that a dirty deal had been struck between Ford and Nixon, giving Ford the top spot and Nixon the pardon. Not to add to any sort of conspiracy theory or anything but 10 years earlier, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission.


September 8, 1974 -
In Idaho, daredevil Evel Knievel climbed into his (really just a rocket on wheels) and hit the ignition on this date.



The vehicle manages to clear the quarter-mile-wide canyon, but then the parachute deploys prematurely and prevailing winds push him back into the chasm.

Total ripoff.


September 8, 1974 -

Leonard Matlovich appeared in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine on this date. He challenged the ban against homosexuals in the US military and was given a "general" discharge by the Air Force after publicly declaring his homosexuality.



His suit dragged on until 1980 when a federal judge ordered Matlovich reinstated. Instead of re-entering the Air Force, Matlovich accepted a settlement of $160,000. Matlovich became a gay rights activist and died from AIDS related symptoms in 1988.


September 8, 1993 -
The restless, refrigerated popicle-like remains of President Ferdinand Marcos, whose corpse spent several years exiled in Hawaii, returned, like MacArthur, to the Philippines for its final resting place.

Luckily, Imelda had her husband preserved, so they are finally able to put him on display just like Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot -- under glass in a mausoleum of his very own.



And so it goes.