OK, I got through this without feeling weird about discussing it.
It's the start of Manhattanhenge time again (today and tomorrow.) For all of you Illuminati conspiratorialists, ponder the fact that many of Hip Hops multi-millionaire performers are New Yorkers. Also consider that the two times of Manhattanhenge happens to correspond with Memorial Day and Baseball's All Star break.
Manhattan's grid was originally proposed in 1811, by Gouverneur Morris, surveyor John Rutherfurd, and New York State Surveyor General Simeon De Witt, four years after the city council appointed them "Commissioners of Streets and Roads," charged with master-planning the city's expansion from its dense base on Manhattan's southern tip.
Because of the work of the The Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the orderly plan of the grid like layout of most of Manhattan occurred, we were able to see the spectacular setting of the sun which aligns with the east-west streets, fully illuminating every single cross-street for the last fifteen minutes of daylight (best bet according to The New York Times is either tonight at 8:14 P.M. or tomorrow at 8:13 P.M. EDT - please be careful to watch out for the traffic.)
May 28, 1929 -
Warner Bros released the film On With the Show! on this date. It was the first movie shown to be fully in color and fully in sound. (A color version of the film thought to have been lost has recently been rediscovered.)
It was the second movie produced by Warner Brothers, and helped start the Technicolor revolution.
May 28, 1938 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Isle of Pingo Pongo, directed by Tex Avery, starring Elmer Fudd/ Egghead, debuted on this date. (This is the first cartoon to use the name Elmer Fudd, although it only uses "Elmer" on the lobby card.) This short is no longer aired on TV due to it's offensive racial stereotypes.
The short was banned from syndication in the United States by United Artists in 1968. Ten other Warner Bros. shorts were also banned, dubbing the banned collection the Censored Eleven. This ban has been upheld by the cartoon's successive owners.
May 28, 1953 -
Walt Disney's first animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor, Melody, premiered on this date
Originally there was going to be an entire series of Adventures in Music shorts but in fact, only one other was made: the Academy Award-winning Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom.
May 28, 1958 - The Japanese sci-fi film The H-Man, directed by Ishiro Honda and starring Yumi Shirakawa, Kenji Sahara, Akihiko Hirata, Koreya Senda, and Makoto Sato, premiered on this date.
Spencer Pratt'
The dissolving effect was created by deflating life-sized inflatable human figures, filming them in fast-motion, and then running the film at normal speed.
May 28, 1966 –
Percy Sledge's song When A Man Loves A Woman hit no. 1 on the Billboard charts on this date.
Percy Sledge said that when he originally sang this, he had in mind Lizz King, his girlfriend of three years who left him for a modeling job in Los Angeles. Said Sledge: "I didn't have any money to go after her, so there was nothing I could do to try and get her back."
May 28, 1966 -
Ike and Tina Turner released the classic song River Deep, Mountain High, on this date. (Although this is credited to Ike and Tina Turner, Ike had no part in the recording process. Turner was paid $20,000 up front to made sure that he was not in the studio during the sessions.)
This was written by Ellie Greenwich, Jeff Barry, and Phil Spector. Greenwich and Barry were married from 1962-1965 but kept working together after their divorce. They were one of the most successful songwriting teams of the '60s, with a string of hits that included Do Wah Diddy Diddy and Leader of the Pack. Spector was a legendary producer famous for his "Wall Of Sound" recording technique, which he had used with great success on other songs he worked on with Greenwich and Barry, including hits by The Ronettes and The Crystals. Greenwich, Barry and Spector each had separate ideas for songs which they combined to form River Deep - Mountain High. The melody is a composite of three different unfinished songs.
May 28, 1982 -
Roxy Music release their eighth and final album, Avalon, on this date.
Avalon was Roxy Music's most successful studio album. It stayed at number one on the UK Albums Chart for three weeks, and stayed on the chart for over a year.
May 28, 1989 -
Marvin Young (Young MC, who is now 56 years old) an economics major at University of Southern California released his Grammy Award winning album, containing the hit Bust A Move, on this date.
The main sample in this song is a loop from a song that came out in 1970 called Found A Child by a Seattle Funk group called Ballin' Jack.
May 28, 1990 -
The short-lived summer replacement, (which was actually very funny,) The Dave Thomas Comedy Show, debuts on CBS-TV, on this date.
There were only five episodes shot but the show had a lot of his friends and Second City pals on the show, with each show featuring a big name guest star. These were John Candy, Dan Ackroyd, Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara.
May 28, 1993 -
The action comedy Super Mario Bros., a live adaptation of the popular Nintendo game starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, debuts in US theaters, on this date. The movie is a huge flop but is noted for its stunning visual effects.
In his 2007 autobiography John Leguizamo states he and Bob Hoskins hated working on the film and would frequently get drunk to make it through the experience. Both men apparently knew the movie would turn out bad, so they simply tried to make the best of it. He also stated he felt one of the biggest reasons the movie turned out the way it did was because the directors wanted a more "adult" movie while the studio, considering the source material, was looking for a children's film.
May 28, 1999 -
The definitive Rom Com, Notting Hill, directed by Roger Michell, and starring Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Rhys Ifans, Emma Chambers, Tim McInnerny, Gina McKee, and Hugh Bonneville, opened in the US on this date.
During the birthday dinner scene, Anna Scott is asked how much she made on her last film, and her reply is $15 million. This is the amount Julia Roberts was paid for her role in this movie.
Another little known Monopoly Card
Today in History:
May 28, 1503 -
The Treaty of Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England was signed culminating in the marriage of James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor (sister of Henry VIII) on this date.
Once again the European sense of time prevails and the treaty would actually last only 10 years.
On May 28, 1743, Joseph Ignace Guillotin was born in France on this day. Later he became a doctor. As a politically active humanitarian, he was understandably disturbed by the grisly executions of the French Revolution. He was sure people could be killed more efficiently, and he proposed a device to do just that (Antoine Louis devised the gismo.)
Dr Guillotin probably died of natural causes and was not eventually guillotined (as many believe,) thus robbing us of the possible existence of a moral to his story.
(Readers seeking morals, however, are advised as always to conduct their searches elsewhere.)
May 28, 1892 -
The Sierra Club was founded, with naturalist John Muir its first President, on this date.
It would later become the United States' largest grassroots environmental organization.
May 28, 1897 -
Jell-O was introduced, fifty-two years after Peter Cooper (inventor of the Tom Thumb engine) received the first U.S. patent for a gelatin dessert, on this date. Pearl B. Wait, a carpenter and cough medicine manufacturer from LeRoy, New York, produces varieties in strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon fruit flavors, dubbed Jell-O by his wife, May Davis Wait.
When sales turn out to be poor, Wait sells his Jell-O business for $450 to his neighbor, Orator F.Woodward, who had founded the Genesee Pure Food Co. two years earlier. Success will come slowly, but with Woodward’s creative sales and sampling strategies, Jell-O began will begin to catch on. In 1902, when he launches his first advertising campaign in Ladies’ Home Journal, sales will reach $250,000. So remember there's always room for the juice of boiled calves hooves.
May 28, 1908 -
Ian Lancaster Fleming, the writer of the James Bond character, was born in London, on this date.
Serving as a naval intelligence officer during the Second World War, he drew largely on this experience to create the character of James Bond, an international man of mystery, working at the highest levels of British intelligence.
May 28, 1930 -
The Chrysler Building, the premier Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, had it's opening ceremony, on this date. Standing 1,047 feet (319 meters) high, it was briefly the world's tallest building before it was overtaken by the Empire State Building in 1931. With the construction of One World Trade Center, it was been again relegated to the third tallest building in New York City.
Van Alen secretly obtained permission to build a spire that was hidden inside the building during construction. The spire, measuring 125 feet (58.4 meters) long and composed of Nirosta stainless steel, was hoisted to the top of the building on October 23, 1929. The added height allowed the Chrysler Building to surpass both 40 Wall Street and the Eiffel Tower as the tallest building and the tallest structure in the world. It was also the first man-made structure to stand taller than 1,000 feet (305 meters). The steel chosen to cap the building was Krupp KA2 "Enduro" Steel (you may buy me a drink after you win a bar bet with that bit of knowledge).
In less than a year, the Chrysler Building was surpassed in height by the Empire State Building. Van Alen's satisfaction was further muted by Walter Chrysler's refusal to pay his fee.
May 28, 1944 -
The thrice married, former prosecutor, businessman, transvestite, former Republican mouthpiece for an inveterate liar from the state of New York, and inveterate drunkard and butt dialer Sir Rudolph William Louis Giuliani III, was born on this date.
I have nothing else to say about this man - I hope he has some sort of hobby to occupt himself while he is in jail, in the future.
May 28, 1959 -
America launched a Jupiter rocket on this date, containing a rhesus monkey named Able and a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker. After experiencing nine minutes of microgravity, the capsule successfully returns to Earth with both monkeys intact.
However, Able died during surgery to remove his electrodes. Able was then stuffed and mounted and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institute of Air and Space Museum.
There is no truth to the rumor that Miss Baker went on to carry on a long term dalliance with President Kennedy and Frank Sinatra.
May 28, 1972 -
The virtually exiled King Edward VIII, (styled the Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI in 1936,) died on this day in 1972 in Paris. He was buried at Windsor Castle. It was the first time that his widow, the Duchess was a royal guest of the Queen.
According to Sarah Bradford, the royal biographer, the Queen Mother, who had for 36 years resented the fact that the Duke's undying love for the horse faced, possible transvestite Mrs. Simpson had put her husband on the throne right at the threshold of war and had condemned him to an early death (She conveniently forgot that her husband was a very heavy smoker from early adulthood and that his family was prone to cancer), was very solicitous about the senile Duchess and took care of her during the funeral. The Queen did not weep for her uncle, but, strangely enough, when the Duchess followed him in death 14 years later, the Queen did weep at her funeral.
May 28, 1987 -
German teenager Matthias Rust lands his Cessna in Moscow's Red Square, buzzing the Kremlin on the way in.
He serves 18 months in prison for this prank, which also costs the commander of the Soviet Air Command his job.
Oops.
And so it goes.
