If you don't continually gorge on chocolate, the terrorist have won.
(Psst, I've mentioned this before - it is a conspiracy organized by a large Mid Western Syndicate of Big Sugar corporations and dentists.)
Today is also National Buffalo Soldiers Day. The holiday celebrating the contributions of some of the earliest African-American troops in the United States military.
The U.S. Congress recognizes the contributions of the more than 180,000 black Americans who fought to preserve the Union during the Civil War, by passing legislation known as the Army Organization Act, establishing six regular Army regiments of black enlisted soldiers. Of those six units, the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments become two of the most highly decorated units in American military history.
July 28, 1932 -
The first film to feature the theme of Zombie-ism, White Zombie starring Béla Lugosi premiered in NYC on this date.
According to friends of Bela Lugosi, the actor always regretted that he had taken the role of "Murder" Legendre for only $800 while the film was quite successful at the box office for Edward and Victor Halperin.
July 28, 1948 -
Bud and Lou's biggest box-office success, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, opened on this date, (this was one of my favorite childhood films.)
Bobby Barber was employed for the film as a "court jester". It was his job to keep the energylevel up through a series of practical jokes and deliberately blown takes. Often when Lou Costello expected Lon Chaney Jr. to come through the door, Barber would run in wearing a hat and cape and immediately run back out. Bela Lugosi enjoyed Barber's antics as long as he was not the victim.
July 28, 1954 -
The Elia Kazan classic, On the Waterfront, premiered in New York on this date.
Shortly after the film's debut in 1954, the AFL-CIO expelled the East Coast longshoremen's union because it was still run by the mob.
July 28, 1954 -
One of Humphrey Bogart's best late work, The Caine Mutiny, premiered in New York on this date. (Bogart was already seriously ill with esophageal cancer, although it would not be diagnosed until January 1956.)
Humphrey Bogart's tour-de-force performance in the climactic courtroom scene was so powerful, that it completely captivated the onlooking film technicians and crewmen. After the scene's completion, the company gave Bogart a round of thunderous applause.
July 28, 1957 -
Jerry Lee Lewis appeared of TV for the first time when he performed on the Steve Allen Show on this date.
Only a year earlier, Allen humiliated Elvis by making him appear in a tuxedo, singing Hound Dog to a dog, in an attempt to desexuallize Elvis' performance, Well, Jerry Lee Lewis gives a performance far more threatening than anything Elvis ever did live on television, just by the way he kicks that stool.
July 28, 1973 -
Bill Graham produced the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen Rock Festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway, that featured the Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful Dead. The concert was estimated to have drawn some 650,000 people,
The concert drew some 650,000 people, the single largest paying crowd in concert history.
July 28, 1973 -
Grand Funk Railroad releases their biggest hit We're An American Band on this date.
Grand Funk was one of the best-selling bands of the '70s, and this was their biggest hit.Critics were often very harsh, especially Rolling Stone magazine, but they had a huge fan base and got lots of radio play.
July 28, 1988 -
The second film in the autobiographical series (Trilogy, The Long Day Closes,) from the phenomenal Terence Davies, Distant Voices, Still Lives opened in the US on this date. Please find time to watch this film.
After an initial meeting, Terence Davies felt Pete Postlethwaite was not impressed with him as director nor the set up of the production and was sure he was going to say no to the film. However, his producer told him not to worry and when they showed Postlethwaite the trilogy of earlier films Davies had made, he agreed to star.
July 28, 2007 -
Plain White T's single, Hey There Delilah goes to No. 1 on the Billboard Chart, on this date, two years after it was first released.
The "Delilah" refered to in the song is the runner Delilah DiCrescenzo, who lead singer Tom Higgenson was trying to impress with a song.
Today in History:
July 28, 1540 -
King Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard on this date.
To celebrate his nuptials, Henry had his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, executed.
It must have been some reception.
July 28, 1586, (the date is sometimes noted as December 3.) -
Sir Thomas Herriot introduced Colombian potatoes to England. Before this date, potatoes were merely glimpsed from afar, shyly smiling but never saying hello.
July 28, 1794 -
Maximilien "The Incorruptible" Robespierre who had dominated the Committee of Public Safety during the 'Reign of Terror,' was having an extremely bad day. The day before, crustaceous mobs led by lobsters throughout France, drove around Paris, protesting of his dictatorial ways and staged the Coupe of Thermidor, relieving him of his power.
Maximilien Robespierre was then relieved of his head and guillotined for having ravaged the French meteorological cycle with his nefarious Rain of Terror on this date.
July 28, 1835 -
King Louis Philippe of France survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Maria Fieschi, who rigged 25 guns together and fired them all with the pull of a single trigger, killing approximately 18 people but not his intended target
Perhaps he should have spent more time on the practice range.
July 28, 1841 -
James Boulard and Henry Mallin pull the decomposed body of a young woman from the Hudson River near Hoboken, New Jersey. Mary Cecilia Rogers, who worked at a popular cigar store, was initially thought to have been killed in the course of a brutal gang rape, but ultimately it seems more likely that she died from a botched abortion.
July 28, 1914 -
One month after the recent assassination of the Archduck Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, on this date.
World War One was underway. In just four years, it would claim 8.5 million lives and leave 21.2 million wounded, and lay the groundwork for an eventual rematch.
Sometimes family feuds just get out of hand.
July 28, 1932 -
(More things your teacher never told you ...)
Federal troops under the order of President Hoover forcibly dispersed the "Bonus Army" of (17,000 World War I veterans) who had gathered in Washington, D.C. on June 17th to demand money they weren't scheduled to receive until 1945.
The troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and Major George S. Patton are ordered to charge into the veterans and were sent to destroy the temporary shacks in the Bonus Army's camps in Hooverville on the Anacostia Flats forcing the marchers out. By the end of the day hundreds of veterans were injured, and several were killed.
July 28, 1945 -
A US Army B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors. An engine plunges down an elevator shaft, sparking a fire in the basement. Eleven people in the building were killed, in addition to the three man bomber crew. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. (Kids, please, do not try this at home.)
And as of this morning, from down the street from my home, I can see that it's still standing.
July 28, 1957 -
A C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane of the US Air Force left Dover AFB in Delaware, carrying three nuclear weapons jettisoned its precious cargo into the Atlantic, somewhere east of Delaware and New Jersey, on this date. The bombs were never recovered.
Remember every time you go to a beach off the Jersey Shore, a 200 foot radioactive mutant Blue Crab is lurking somewhere, beneath the waves.
And so it goes.
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