Perhaps you remembered that last Friday was the 27th annual Shabbat Across America/ Canada, (held once again after being cancelled for a few years due to Covid concerns.) Hopefully you didn't forget to have Streit's Matzos at your family's Shabbat dinner.
Streit's Matzos, the unleaved experience of a lifetime.)
March 9, 1948 -
The first of John Ford's famed 'Cavalry Trilogy', Fort Apache (a thinly veiled retelling of Custer's Last Stand), premiered on this date. This film was followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande, though it was not originally intended as a trilogy.
The Fort Apache fort, built for this production, stood for years. It was reused in dozens of productions, most notably the TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. It was located at the Corriganville Movie Ranch in Simi Valley, California. Today it is possible to visit this location, as it is now administered as a City Park in Simi Valley.
March 9, 1954 -
Edward R. Murrow and his CBS news program, See It Now, examined Senator Joseph McCarthy’s record and anti-communist methods on their famous A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy segment on this date.
Edward R. Murrow, cigarette smoking, gin guzzling reporter took on the cigarette smoking, whiskey drinking junior senator and demagogue from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare hysteria on his program, See It Now, on this date.
Besides being arguably television's finest hour, it clearly demonstrates the powers of gin over whiskey.
March 9, 1954 -
The first local color television commercial was aired on WNBT television, now WNBC television, in New York on this date, for Castro Decorators of New York City. Castro were the folks who made the Castro convertible sofa beds.
The television commercial featured Bernadette Castro opening a big couch into a bed (only the B & W kinescope exists.)
March 9, 1959 -
The Barbie doll went on display at the American Toy Fair in New York City for the first time. Barbie was the first mass-produced toy doll in the United States with adult features.
With its sponsorship of the Mickey Mouse Club TV program in 1959, Mattel became the first toy company to broadcast commercials to children. They used this medium to promote their new toy, and by 1961, the enormous consumer demand for the doll led Mattel to release a boyfriend for Barbie. Ruth Handler named him Ken, after her son. Barbie's best friend, Midge, came out in 1963; her little sister, Skipper, debuted the following year.
March 9, 1966 -
The Beach Boys began recording God Only Knows on this date. (Paul McCartney once called God Only Knows, "The greatest song ever written.")
Brian Wilson wrote this song with Tony Asher, who was an advertising copyrighter and lyricist that Wilson worked with on songs for Pet Sounds. This song reflects Wilson's interest in spirituality, and it was a big departure from previous Beach Boys songs that dealt with girls, cars and surfing.
March 9, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode The Devil in the Dark aired on this date.
In it, the Enterprise arrives at Janus VI, where Kirk must deal with a mysterious creature that is destroying machinery and menacing the miners. This episode marks the first and only time an episode begins without the Enterprise or its crew being involved in the teaser scenes before the main credits.
This episode was the first time McCoy used the phrase, "I'm a doctor, not a (blank)" when Kirk asks him to help the Horta, finishing the line as, "I'm a doctor, not a brick layer!" An earlier version of this phrase is used in The Corbomite Maneuver, when McCoy says, "What am I, a doctor or a moon-shuttle conductor?"
March 9, 1969 -
Wiggen sisters Dorothy, Helen, Betty, and Rachel, recording under the name The Shaggs, released the album Philosophy of the World, on this date.
Numerous music critics and historians consider it the worst album ever recorded, but years later both Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain call it one of their favorites ever made. (You be the judge.)
March 9, 1979 -
ABC-TV aired the documentary Heroes of Rock & Roll, on this date.
This was one of the first comprehensive documentaries to be made about rock music.
March 9, 1984 -
The Ron Howard romantic comedy film, Splash, starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, and John Candy, premiered on this date.
Daryl Hannah's fin weighed 35 pounds. It took technicians three hours each day to put it on her, and she had to remain still while it was being attached. "At lunch they'd yank me out on a crane and plop me on the deck," she told People. "I couldn't eat because I couldn't go to the bathroom. I just lay there shivering with barnacles in my hair, soaking wet."
March 9, 1985 -
REO Speedwagon's single Can't Fight This Feeling started a three week run at No.1 on the Billboard on this date
Two videos were made for this song: one that shows them goofing around in a rehearsal space before performing it, and another far more elaborate video directed by Kevin Dole that shows a baby going through different life stages from birth to death. Heavy on compositing and special effects, it was cutting edge for 1984.
March 9, 1987 -
Island Records release U2's fifth studio album, The Joshua Tree (the original working title of which was The Two Americas,) on this date.
The first two singles, With Or Without You and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, climb to #1 in America. The Joshua Tree is the band’s best-selling album, with 25 million copies sold worldwide and at the 1987 Grammy Awards, won the band ‘Album Of The Year’ and ‘Best Rock Performance’, the first of what has become a record-breaking run of Grammy wins.
March 9, 1990 -
The cult classic, House Party, starring Kid 'n Play, Robin Harris, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, and John Witherspoon premiered in the US on this date.
During the party at Play's house, all of the dance sequences were done with no music. A.J. Johnson choreographed her and Tisha Campbell's routine for the battle. The toe-touch and kicks were actually signature moves for Kid-N-Play. They had become very popular as back up dancers for Salt-N-Pepa using these and more acrobatic stunts. The music was added after the dancing had been shot.
Another ACME Safety Film
Today in History:
March 9, 1170 -
In Essex, a UFO is spotted over St. Ostwyth, manifesting itself as a "wonderfully large dragon ... borne up from the Earth through the air". The craft kindled the air and destroyed a house.
And all of that was before LSD.
March 9, 1454 -
Amerigo Vespucci was born on this date. He was an Italian explorer who made many voyages to the new world at about the same time as Columbus.
The two continents of the new world were therefore named for him, and it wasn't until the seventeenth century (Greenwich time) that North and South Vespucci were renamed the Americas.
March 9, 1556 -
David Rizzio, the secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, was stabbed 56 times by a gaggle of Scottish nobles on this date (and no, they are not known as a murder of crows.)
Her husband Henry, Lord Darnley had orchestrated the murder with Mary witnessing, hoping to precipitate a miscarriage.
Isn't love among the royalty grand?
March 9, 1562 -
Kissing in public was banned in Naples Italy punishable by death. However this law was part of legislation to curb the spread of a plague that was rampaging across Europe.
It lasts for about a day before the local nobleman is forced to rescind it.
March 9, 1858 -
Philadelphia iron products manufacturer Albert Potts patented his design for a lamppost mounted collection mailbox (US Patent #19,578).
His box was designed to be mounted to a lamppost so people could drop their letters into the box instead of making a special trip to the post office to mail their letters.
March 9, 1862 -
Happy Bang-Clang Day. Bang-Clang Day commemorates the Battle of Hampton Roads, a Civil War battle that took place on this date. The battle is significant not because of its outcome, but because it marked the first battle between ironclad ships, ushering in a new era of naval warfare.
On the Confederate side was the Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack, and on the Union side was the Monitor.
So now you know.
March 9, 1961 -
Korabl-Sputnik-4, also known as Sputnik 9, was launched with a dog named Chernushka (Blackie) on a one orbit mission. Also onboard the spacecraft was a cosmonaut dummy (whom Russian officials nicknamed "Ivan Ivanovich"), mice and a Guinea pig.
The dummy was ejected out of the capsule during re-entry and made a soft landing using a parachute. The animals were recovered unharmed inside the capsule. Chernushka went on to a successful career as the provincial governor of the Kazakhian region. The Cosmonaut dummy could not be used again as 'Blackie' had spent the entire flight having a 'brief but intense' relationship with the leg of 'Ivan Ivanovich'.
March 9, 1967 -
Josef Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, walks into the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and asks to defect (some reports have it that she defected on March 6th - does it really matter - you don't give a damn.)
Her defection was one of a series of high-profile defections throughout the Cold War.
March 9, 1974 -
Officer Hiroo Onoda, the last Japanese soldier operating in the Philippines, surrendered, 29 years after World War II ended, on this date.
The Japanese intelligence officer and WWII holdout, came out of hiding in fatigues patched many times over, on Lubang island in the Philippines on his 52nd birthday.
March 9, 1981 -
Dan Rather succeeded Walter Cronkite as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.
Rather was the third person to occupy that seat since the program's 1948 launch. His last broadcast was March 9, 2005.
March 9, 1996 -
Nathan Birnbaum, the comedian Gracie Allen carried around for years, forgot to have his daily martini and died on this date.
Kids, let this be a lesson to us all - not only does alcohol taste good, it's good for you - even if you are 100 years old.
March 9, 1997 -
Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) was killed in a drive-by outside the Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles on this date. The murder has never been officially solved, though an ongoing feud with Death Row Records may have had something to do with it.
Be thankful that most of us aren't hip hop stars.
March 9, 1999 -
During a campaign interview conducted by Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s Late Edition program, V.P. Al Gore was asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley, Gore replied (in part): “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”
In context, Gore’s response (which employed the word “created,” not “invented”) was clear in meaning: the vice president was not claiming that he “invented” the Internet in the sense of having thought up, designed, or implemented it, but rather asserting that he was one of the visionaries responsible for helping to bring it into being by fostering its development in an economic and legislative sense. But so are urban legends born, thus on this date, Al Gore 'claimed' that he invented the internet.
March 9, 2004 -
Tom Jones was banned from wearing tight leather pants by his son — and manager — Mark Jones, on this date.
Mark told Tom it was time to "dress his age" as he was in danger of becoming a laughingstock at 63.
Tom, I so feel your pain. You don't want to see the list my daughters have presented me.
And so it goes.
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