On April 22, 1970, 20 million Americans took to the streets, parks, and auditoriums to demonstrate for a healthy, sustainable environment in massive coast-to-coast rallies.
Thousands of colleges and universities organized protests against the deterioration of the environment.
Happy Earth Day!
Groups that had been fighting against oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife suddenly realized they shared common values.
So perhaps you're ready to brave to great outdoors, with or withour your mask and hug a tree.
If you don't want to be this familiar with nature, give a deep bow to your house plants.
April 22, 1939 -
Warner Bros. released the film, Dark Victory, starring Bette Davis (in one of her favorite roles) and George Brent (her favorite actor with whom she had an affair) on this date.
Bette Davis pestered Warner Brothers to buy the rights to the story, thinking it a great vehicle for her. WB studio chief Jack L. Warner fought against it, arguing that no one wanted to see someone go blind. Of course, the film went on to become one of the studio's biggest successes of that year.
April 22, 1942 -
One of Hitchcock's brilliant World War II efforts (and with his first all-American cast), Saboteur, premiered in Washington D.C. on this date.
When the French liner, the S.S. Normandie burned and partially sank in New York City harbor, Alfred Hitchcock quickly dispatched a Universal newsreel crew to the scene to get footage that he incorporated into this movie, intercut with studio shots of the saboteur smiling from the back seat of a taxi as he looks out on the supposedly sabotaged ship.
April 22, 1953 -
Twentieth Century Fox releases the surrealistic science fiction film Invaders from Mars, directed by William Cameron Menzies on this date.
The genesis of this film was when the wife of writer John Tucker Battle woke him up one morning to recount a vivid and disturbing dream she had of Martians invading Earth. He had her tell him as much as she could recall, and he developed the rest of the story from there.
April 22, 1966 -
The Troggs' (who were originally called The Troglodytes) song, Wild Thing was released in the U.S. on this date.
The song went on to reach No.1. Fronted by Reg Presley, Wild Thing became a major influence on garage rock and punk rock.
April 22, 1974 -
Maude and Walter finally leave Tuckahoe, New York and moves to Washington D.C. when she was elected as a congresswoman during the last episode of Maude, Maude's Big Move, aired on CBS TV on this date.
The producers of Maude liked the idea of a show centered around a new Congressional representative (even though they had watched a D.C.-politics show called All's Fair from their studio barely make it through the 1976-77 season) and remade this show three times. The first was the pilot for Onward and Upward, starring John Amos as the Congressman. Amos, who had quit Good Times after its third season, quit this series before any new shows could be made. The next try was called Mr. Dugan (after a couple of name changes) and scheduled for a limited run in 1979 with Cleavon Little in the title role. For third try the producers moved the whole show to a college campus, Hanging In, added a fifth character named Rita (Darrian Matthias) as a wide-eyed student assistant. They also picked up Bill Macy in the lead role and filmed four shows. They aired on CBS-TV in August 1979 and sank into obscurity.
April 22, 1978 -
The Blues Brothers (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) make their debut on Saturday Night Live, on this date, later becoming the first characters from the show to get their own movie.
Steve Martin performs King Tut on the same Saturday Night Live episode, popularizing goofy Egyptian dancing.
The song, which portrays the pharaoh as his "favorite honky," goes on to sell over 500,000 copies.
Word of the Day
Today in History:
April 22, 1451 -
Isabella I, Queen of Castille, was born on this date. She also became the Queen of Aragon in 1479.
She was Christopher Columbus' patron, and must therefore share some of the responsibility for the many thousands of casinos across America.
April 22, 1500 -
Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral, on a voyage to India, sails far to the southwest and discovers Brazil, claiming it for Portugal. The indigenous people of the area may have had something to say about it but as historian Eddie Izzard has observed, "...they didn't have a flag."
The land was first visited earlier in the year by a Spaniard, Vicente Yanes Pinzon, but in his rush to get two-for-one Caipirinhas, he left his flag on-board ship and failed to claim it for Spain.
April 22, 1870 -
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov was born on this date He later became Lenin, invented the Communist Party in Russia and made himself first Head Bastard of the Soviet Union.
It's interesting to note that Alexander Kerensky, the leader of Russia's provisional revolutionary government in 1917 until overthrown by Lenin, was born on the same day as Lenin, only eleven years later.
Well, it's interesting to some people.
April 22, 1886 -
Ohio passes a statute that makes seduction unlawful, on this date. Covering all men over the age of 18 who worked as teachers or instructors of women, this law even prohibited men from having consensual sex with women (of any age) whom they were instructing.
The penalty for disobeying this law ranged from two to 10 years in prison. So watch it, Bub!
April 22, 1904 -
Robert Oppenheimer was born on this date. Mr. Oppenheimer is known as the Father of the Atomic Bomb.
The bomb's mother has never been identified to anyone's satisfaction, which only underscores the lax security at Los Alamos.
April 22, 1923 -
I never kept up with the fashions. I believed in wearing what I thought looked good on me..
Bettie Mae Page was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on this date.
April 22, 1946 -
The rudest possible gift is a gift card. It means you think the person is stupid and has no interests. The only good gift card is Bitcoin. You practically have to be a hacker to know about it.
John Waters, film director, actor, raconteur, and the owner of the world's greatest pencil-thin mustache was born on this date.
April 22, 1950 -
Peter Frampton, musician, singer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, was born on this date.
If you were a teenager in the mid 70s, you were issued your standard copy of Frampton Comes Alive to face your 'awkward' years. (Mr. Frampton appears doing well these days and has continued his farewell tour.)
April 22, 1952 -
About 200 reporters from across the country gathered on a mound of volcanic rock on the edge of Yucca Lake in Nevada, on this date, to witness the detonation of a nuclear bomb, Operation Big Shot, once again, on United States soil.
Such tests had been in operation for more than a year, but for the first time, the press had been invited to record and broadcast the nuclear explosion.
April 22, 1964 -
President Johnson opened the New York World's Fair in Flushing Meadow, Corona Park, New York, on this date.
The Fair also is remembered as the vehicle Walt Disney utilized to design and perfect the system of "audio-animatronics," in which a combination of sound and computers control the movement of life-like robots to act out scenes. In the It's a Small World attraction at the Pepsi pavilion, animated dolls and animals frolicked in a spirit of racially-insensitive unity on a boat-ride around the world.
Once the fair was over, Walt feverishly pushed his Imagineers to build him an 'actual' President. Historians argue that this was the beginning of Ronald Reagan campaign for the Presidency.
April 22, 1994 -
Richard M. Nixon suffered a fatal stroke on this date. His body was laid to rest in the unhallowed grounds of his Presidential Library.
His head was severed from his body and wooden stakes were driven through his heart to make sure he was dead.
Before you go: Passover starts tonight - please bone up on those four questions.
Remember you will not be graded on a curve!
While it's not as bad as not finding the missing easter egg, by all means, please find the Afikoman, (no one wants to accidentally eat a piece of exceptionally stale cracker.)
And so it goes.
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