If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking - Emily Dickinson
March 21, 1940 -
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ...
Mrs. Danvers is hardly ever seen walking, she seems to glide. Alfred Hitchcock wanted her to be seen solely from Joan Fontaine's character's anxious point of view, and this effect tied in with her fear about Mrs. Danvers appearing anytime unexpectedly.
March 21, 1952 -
The first rock and roll concert was held in America on this date, when DJ Alan Freed (the man who coined the phrase "Rock and Roll") hosted The Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, Ohio.
The reason the concert ended in disaster: a minor printing error. The mistake was caused by someone forgetting to add the date to tickets issued for a follow-up ball, which Leo Mintz, an early rock-n-roll promoter had set about organizing immediately after the initial one sold out. As a result, an estimated 20,000 people showed up on the same night for the first concert - at a venue which could hold half that number.
March 21, 1964 -
The Beatles' single She Loves You, went #1 and stayed #1 for two weeks on this date.
The Beatles released a German version translated as Sie Liebt Dich in the US in 1964. They learned some German when they became the house band in Hamburg in 1962, but needed a German speaker to help them with the lyrics. They recorded the German version in Paris - it was the only time they recorded outside of England.
March 21, 1967 -
George Roy Hill's musical spoof of the Roaring 20's, Thoroughly Modern Millie, starring Julie Andrews, Mary Tyler Moore, James Fox, John Gavin, Carol Channing, and Beatrice Lillie, premiered in NYC, on this date.
The was the final theatrical movie of Beatrice Lillie. She was showing early signs of Alzheimer's disease, and had trouble memorizing her lines. During filming, Julie Andrews stood off-camera and repeated Lillie's lines to her, so Lillie could complete her scenes.
March 21, 1970 -
Simon & Garfunkel release the single The Boxer, from their fifth and final studio album, Bridge over Troubled Water, on this date.
This song took over 100 hours to record, with parts of it done at Columbia Records studios in both Nashville and New York City. The chorus vocals were recorded in a church: St. Paul's Chapel at Columbia University in New York. The church had a tiled dome that provided great acoustics. It was an interesting field trip for the recording crew who had to set up the equipment in the house of worship.
March 21, 1980 -
Pink Floyd’s powerful protest song Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it remained for 11 consecutive weeks. This track was part of their iconic rock opera album The Wall, which was released in 1979.
The song stood out not only for its haunting sound and memorable guitar riff but also for its bold message. The track protests against the rigid and oppressive British school system of the time, especially the authoritarian teaching methods that stifled individuality and creativity. The memorable chorus — "We don't need no education..." — captured this defiance, making it a powerful anthem for rebellion and non-conformity.
March 21, 1980 –
On the season finale of Dallas, the infamous character J.R. Ewing was shot by an unknown individual - Who Shot JR?
Viewers had to wait all summer, and most of the autumn because of a Hollywood actors' strike (and Hagman's own holdout), to learn whether J.R. would survive, and which of his many enemies was responsible.
March 21, 1983 -
Pink Floyd released The Final Cut, their twelfth studio album and the last to feature founding member Roger Waters. Subtitled A Requiem for the Post War Dream, the album stands as one of the band’s most politically charged and emotionally intense works.
When Pink Floyd began work on The Final Cut, Waters took the reins entirely. He wrote all the songs, handled nearly all the lead vocals, and guided the album's creative direction. Guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason, and keyboardist Richard Wright (who had been fired during The Wall sessions) played minimal roles in the recording process. Gilmour contributed guitar solos, but the album was essentially a Roger Waters solo project released under the Pink Floyd name.
March 21, 1995 -
We all get to spend Dave Nelson's first day at WNYX when NewsRadio, starring Dave Foley, Phil Hartman, Maura Tierney and Andy Dick premiered on NBC-TV, on this date.
Jon Lovitz appeared as three different characters in the series: 1. A guest appearance as a mental patient who befriends Bill McNeal, 2. A guest appearance as a suicidal man perched on the ledge outside Dave's window, 3. As Max Lewis, a radio DJ who had several dozen jobs in his past, but who was hired to replace the late Bill McNeal, largely because he had once worked alongside him. Lovitz said that he took the role to honor the memory of his good friend, the late Phil Hartman.
March 21, 1990 -
The short-lived CBS sitcom, Sydney, starring Valerie Bertinelli and a pre-Friends Matthew Perry, premiered on this date.
The theme song for Sydney was Finish What Ya Started By Van Halen from their album OU812. Valerie was married to the guitarist Eddie Van Halen at the time.
Another unimportant moment in history.
Today in History:
March 21, 1556 -
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer (who led the effort to help Henry VIII marry Anne Boleyn,) scheduled to denounce his errors and be burned at the stake (after Queen Mary, Henry's daughter, attained the throne), denounced his own confessions and was hustled off to be burned.
He then put forth his hand and declared: “For as much as my hand offended, writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished.”
Oh that wacky English Reformation.
March 21, 1843 -
According to confused Biblical scholar William Miller, Christ would return sometime in the year following this day in 1843. After Jesus failed to appear by the next March, Miller claimed it was the result of an arithmetic error and recalculated the deadline to be October 22, 1844.
March 21, 1943 -
Cornelia Fort was flying with a student pilot on the morning of December 7, 1941, when they nearly collided with a Japanese aircraft leaving the scene at Pearl Harbor. Thus she became one of the few airborne eyewitnesses to the attack.
She was the second woman to volunteer for the Women's Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron (the WAFS, which later merged into the WASPs, or Women Airforce Service Pilots), whose members logged millions of miles ferrying aircraft to points of embarkation and towing targets for training exercises. On a routine ferrying flight in 1943, Fort died at the controls of an aircraft when another plane struck hers. She was the first woman pilot to die in the line of duty for the U.S. military.
In honor of the start of spring, let us seriously consider spring cleaning—and the unfortunate fate of the Collyer brothers.
On March 21, 1947, police received a tip that there was a dead body in the Collyer home. After several hours of crawling through ceiling-high, booby-trapped corridors made of newspapers and junk, the police found Homer—dead, apparently only a few hours earlier. But where was Langley?
Eighteen days and nearly 100 tons of trash later, police found Langley’s decomposing, rat-gnawed corpse. He had been crushed in one of his own booby-trapped passageways. Medical examiners concluded that Langley had died about a week before his brother. Homer, blind, crippled, and without assistance, succumbed to malnutrition, dehydration, and cardiac arrest several days later. Not exactly a happy ending.
So kids, clean your room, get outside, and play with your friends. Oh, and don’t forget to wash your hands.
March 21, 1962 -
A two-year old female black bear, named Yogi, was taken aboard a B-58 bomber out of Edwards Air Force Base in California, flown up to 35,000 feet at a supersonic speed of 850 miles per hour, and ejected from the bomber in a specially made capsule. She landed safely, and became the first living creature to survive a parachute jump from a plane flying faster than sound.
Imagine what PETA would have made of this test at the time.
March 21, 1963 -
Alcatraz Prison was closed at the order of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy on this date. (The same year, the United States Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois opened as the replacement facility for Alcatraz.)
Hardened criminals would have to go elsewhere to experience the joys of prison sex by the sea.
March 21, 1965 -
NASA launches the Ranger 9 Lunar Lander on this date, the last in a series of unmanned lunar probes, on a mission to photograph the surface of the Moon.
It would return 5,814 pictures before impacting the surface of the lunar surface.
March 21, 1970 -
On this date, Vinko Bogataj crashes during a ski-jumping championship in Germany;
his image becomes that of the "agony of defeat" guy in the opening credits of ABC's Wide World of Sports.
March 21, 1976 -
David Bowie and Iggy Pop were arrested on suspicion of marijuana possession in New York. They were released on $2,000 bail. The charges were later dropped on 4/20/76.
March 21, 1980 -
Mobster Angelo The Docile Don Bruno was killed with a shotgun blast to the head while he waits in his car after dinner. The order was probably ordered Anthony Tony Bananas Caponigro, Bruno's consigliere, so much for family loyalty. His replacement, one of Bruno's former capo Phil Chicken Man Testa, is short lived, as he is killed a year later by a nail bomb at his home.
Today's episode of Oh, that Wacky Russian Revolution:
The Russian Royal family was having a really bad day—in a month that was particularly bad. On March 21, 1917, Nicholas II and his family were officially arrested. It was a confused and confusing period, and the situation would only continue to deteriorate until the October Revolution (which actually took place in November).
Since yesterday was Fred Rogers' birthday, I believe an important comparison should be made to help you better understand the Russian Imperial dynasty:
Hosts of the long-running PBS series Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood: 1
Russian heads of state to have died by natural causes: 10
On-screen deaths on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood: 0
Average length of Russian reign, in years: 15.6
Years Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood ran: 31
Russian emperors to die of dropsy: 1
Dropsy deaths in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe: 0
Russian emperors assassinated: 5
Assassination attempts on the life of King Friday XIII: 0
Violent Bolshevik Revolutions in the Neighborhood of Make Believe: 0
Please be prepared for a pop quiz tomorrow.
And so it goes.
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