Huzzah!, it's Pig in a Blanket Day again, encouraging the consumption of ‘pigs in blankets’ – small pork sausages wrapped in bacon or pastry, and cooked until crispy (for those of you porcine adverse, choose your own ground meat filling.)
Please celebrate sensibly.
April 24, 1939 -
The Warner Bros. bio-pix on the life of Benito Juarez, Juarez, starring Paul Muni, Bette Davis, Brian Aherne, Claude Rains, and John Garfield, premiered in the US on this date.
Orry-Kelly designed costumes for Bette Davis which changed in tone as the film progressed: from white at the beginning, changing to gray in mid-film, and then to black at the end when she goes insane.
April 24, 1941 -
George Stevens' tearjerker classic, Penny Serenade, starring Irene Dunne, Cary Grant, Beulah Bondi, and Edgar Buchanan, premiered in the US on this date.
In a flagrant disregard of the then Production Code, it would appear that Irene Dunne and Cary Grant share a marital bed instead of separate ones. Also, there's an implication that the two have sex on a train, something unheard of in the morally hidebound 1940s.
April 24, 1961 -
Del Shannon started a four week run at No.1 on the Billboard singles chart with Runaway, on this date.
Shannon and his keyboard player, Max Crook, came up with this while they were playing a club in their hometown of Battle Creek, Michigan. Crook played a keyboard called a "Musitron" on the song.
April 24, 1972 -
John Lennon's controversial single, Woman Is the N*gger of the World was released in the US, on this date. The song peaked at No.57, despite virtually every radio station in the country refusing to play it.
Yoko Ono said the phrase during a magazine interview in 1967 and Lennon later explained that he was making a point that women deserved higher status in society.
April 24, 1974 -
David Bowie released his iconic album, Diamond Dogs, on this date.
This song introduces us to Bowie's post-Ziggy Stardust persona, Halloween Jack: "The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat and he lives on top of Manhattan Chase." It has also been suggested this song was influenced by Dhalgren, a science fiction novel by Samuel R. Delany.
April 24, 1976 -
With rumors of a Beatles reunion swirling, Saturday Night Live executive producer Lorne Michaels goes on camera to offer the guys $3,000 (union scale) to reunite on the show, on this date.
Paul and Linda McCartney were spending the evening with John Lennon at his New York Dakota apartment and watched Saturday Night Live on TV. Lennon and McCartney thought about taking a cab to the studio, but decided they were too tired. This was the last time Lennon and McCartney were together.
April 24, 2000 -
In support of their first studio album after twenty years, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen appeared on an episode of The VH-1 series Storytellers, and spend an hour on the show, playing their songs, take requests from the audience, and in their typically cryptic fashion divulge some of the concepts behind their music.
The usually reclusive duo made a number of appearances in 2000, including a PBS In the Spotlight special, an outdoor street concert on Today and an appearance on the Late Show With David Letterman, Becker and Fagen discovered they actually enjoyed touring, erasing their early ’70s nightmares of the fledgling arena rock industry. Their ecstatic reception also eased Fagen’s stage fright and insecurities as a live performer.
April 24, 2000 -
The TV biopic The Three Stooges, starring Michael Chiklis, Paul Ben-Victor, John Kassir, Jim Lemley, and Evan Handler, premiered on ABC TV, on this date.
The movie made use of a Sydney landmark in an innovative way. New York's Coney Island amusement park used to have an attraction within its grounds called Luna Park. Sydney's amusement park, Luna Park, is of similar vintage. It has a still-functioning attraction inside its grounds named Coney Island. Even though the neon-lit facades of each park's rides are quite different, a temporary staging area was placed in front of Luna Park Sydney's main "face" entrance for night-time filming - and the movie's main characters appear that they are inside New York's amusement park, performing in front of an elaborate Luna Park attraction.
Word of the Day
Today in History:
April 24, 1184 BC (this is an approximated date.)
... burnt the topless towers of Ilium...
It is traditionally held that city of Troy fell on this date after a ten year siege by the armies of Greece.
April 24, 1800 -
The Library of Congress, the oldest cultural institution in the nation's capital, was established by an act of Congress on this date.
Initially it was housed in the new Capitol in Washington, D.C., but British troops burned the Capitol building and stole the library materials. Retired president Thomas Jefferson then offered his personal library to the Congress.
April 24, 1895 -
Joshua Slocum set sail in The Spray from Boston, Massachusetts, on this date, and would return three years later as the first man to solo-sail the globe’s circumference.
His book, Sailing Alone Around the World, became an international best-seller, and a cornerstone of travel literature.
April 24, 1913 -
The Cathedral of Commerce built one nickel at a time, the Woolworth building opened on this date.
The Five and Dimes are long gone but the skyscraper remains.
April 24, 1915 -
The Ottoman Turkish Empire began the brutal mass deportation of Armenians on this date. Turkey said Armenians had sided with Russia and issued deportation orders for the mass deportation of Armenians. Armenian organizations in Istanbul were closed and 235 members were arrested for treason. Turkish police arrested some 800 of the most prominent Armenians in Constantinople, took them into the hinterlands and shot them
It is generally agreed upon (except by the Turkish Government) that this was the beginning of the Armenian Genocide. And here I go, losing another whole demographic.
April 24, 1916 -
... We know their dream; enough
To know they dreamed and are dead;
And what if excess of love
Bewildered them till they died? - W. B. Yeats
Some 1,600 Irish nationalist, the Irish Volunteers, launched the Easter Rising by seizing several key sites in Dublin, including the General Post Office. Eemon de Valera was one of the commandants in the uprising. It was provoked by impatience with the lack of home rule and was put down by British forces several days later. Michael Collins, a member of Sinn Fein, led the guerrilla warfare.
April 24, 1942 -
To have ego means to believe in your own strength. And to also be open to other people's views. It is to be open, not closed. So, yes, my ego is big, but it's also very small in some areas. My ego is responsible for my doing what I do - bad or good.
Barbara Joan Streisand, singer, actress and director, was born on this date
April 24, 1953 -
Winston Churchill, the British leader who guided Great Britain and the Allies through the crisis of World War II, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II on this date.
Later, this same year he also won the Nobel peace prize for literature.
April 24, 1970 -
The first Chinese satellite, Dong Fang Hong I, was launched aboard a Long March rocket on this date. Upon reaching orbit, the satellite transmits the popular Communist Chinese song, The East is Red.
With the launch, China became the fifth country with a satellite in space.
April 24, 1986 -
'Her Royal Highness' The Duchess of Windsor, Bessie Warfield Spencer Simpson Windsor former maitresse en titre (official mistress), plain-faced, twice-divorced American, possible transvestite and Nazi sympathizer died on this date.
And the House of Windsor breathed a sigh of relief -
until Princess Diana.
April 24th, 1990 -
The Space Shuttle Discovery launched the Hubble Space Telescope into orbit. It is hoped that the Telescope will be able to see up to the edge of the known universe. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) was one of the largest space telescopes ever used, at the time, and has contributed to many astrological discoveries, notably in the area of supernovas and dark energy.
Hubble has sent back a series of stunning photographs of deep space, and revolutionized thinking about the universe. Unlike many other spacecraft, the HST is open for public use — anyone regardless of education level or nationality can apply for time to use it.
And so it goes
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