Just a wee bit off the top

Today is National Beheading Day, one of the long list of make believe holidays that litter the internet. I'm sorry to say that once again, the board of directors of ACME have rejected the suggestion to become the main corporate sponsor.



So remember to wish your friends and neighbors Happy National Beheading Day. Enjoy the odd look they give you.


September 2, 1937 -
Selznick International Pictures' romantic adventure film, The Prisoner of Zenda, directed by John Cromwell (and an uncredited W. S. Van Dyke,) and starring Ronald Colman, Madeleine Carroll, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., C. Aubrey Smith, Raymond Massey, Mary Astor, and David Niven premiered in the US on this date.



Director John Cromwell was not happy with his cast. In memos to David O. Selznick he said that Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and David Niven were "overindulged and lazy." Ronald Colman "never knows his lines. I don't know which one of them annoys me most. Also, both Colman and Carroll insist they have a 'bad side' to be avoided by the camera, but it's the same 'bad side.' Shooting them face-to-face is all but impossible."


September 2, 1939 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Little Brother Rat, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Sniffles, was released on this date.



Owl eggs are usually white, or spotted, but definitely not blue.


September 2, 1944 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Goldilocks and the Jivin' Bears, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



Because the short contains stereotyped portrayals of African-Americans, it is no longer available in any type of authorized release and is among the group of controversial cartoons known to animation buffs as the Censored Eleven.


September 2, 1949 -
Carol Reed's adaptation of Graham Greene's post war thriller, The Third Man, starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Trevor Howard, and Orson Welles, premiered in London of this date.



During the shooting of the film, the final scene was the subject of a dispute between Graham Greene, who wanted the happy ending of the novella, and Carol Reed and David O. Selznick, who stubbornly refused to end the film on what they felt was an artificially happy note. Greene later wrote:  "One of the very few major disputes between Carol Reed and myself concerned the ending, and he has been proved triumphantly right."


September 2, 1949 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Dough for the Do-Do, directed by Friz Freleng, and Starring Porky Pig, was released on this date. (This short is basically a remake of Porky in Wackyland.)



This was the last Porky Pig cartoon to be directed by Friz Freleng.


September 2, 1950 -
Here, watch your language, bud. We're on the air.

The Merrie Melodies short The Ducksters, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck, was released on this date. I believe this is one of my favorite non Bug Bunny Looney Tunes ,



On the game show Porky Pig wins:
1. The Rocky Mountains
2. A 17 - Jewel half Nelson
3. The La Brea Tar Pits
4. The Rock of Gibraltar
5. 600 gallons of genuine Niagara Falls
6. $26,000,000.03

The identification of the Ajax Broadcasting Company was an unusual name for Warner Bros.; Ajax was a name more commonly used by rival studio Disney, whereas Warner Bros. would more commonly use Acme Corporation in its later productions.


September 2, 1965 -
The Rolling Stones appeared on the British TV show Ready Steady Go! on this date.



The boys all joined in a parody of Sonny and Cher's I Got You Babe.

Oh those scalawags!


September 2, 1993 -
Neil Young and Pearl Jam performed Young’s song Rockin’ In The Free World at the MTV Video Music Awards on this date.



Pearl Jam have performed this song from time to time with Young, who is their musical mentor. The first time they performed it together was at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards, where the Jeremy video won four awards. Young came on as a surprise guest after the band played a new song, Animal. By the end of the performance, Vedder had tossed his mic stand into the audience, Mike McCready had smashed his guitar, and the crowd went crazy.


September 2, 1994 -
Hootie & the Blowfish made their first television appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, on this date.



This song got a lot of airplay and helped make the Cracked Rear View album (named for a line in the 1987 John Hiatt song Learning How To Love You) the best seller of 1995 in the US.


September 2, 2005 –
If you ever need the definition of 'deer in the headlights' moment, just watch Mike Meyers in this clip.



On NBC’s Concert for Hurricane Relief, Kanye West stated that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”. The comment went out live on the US east coast, but was cut from a taped version seen on the west coast.


September 2, 2006 -
Stephen Frears brilliant portrayal of the royal family's reaction to the death of Princess Diana, The Queen, starring Helen Mirren, Michael Sheen, and James Cromwell premiered at the Venice Film Festival on this date.



Scenes within the Royal household were shot on 35mm film, so they would look lush and cinematic. Scenes within Blair's world were shot on 16mm, so they would look more like television, in order to give visual contrast between commoners and royalty.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History -
Pheidippides of Athens sets out on his famous run that inspired the Marathon on this date in 490 BC

(we'll catch up with this fool-hearty soul later and why the marathon is a little more than two mile longer than the re-introduced 1896 marathon.)


September 2, 31BC (you know the drill - drunken orgy going calendar makers, drinking from lead cups lead to inaccurate dates.) -
The Naval Battle of Actium in the Ionian Sea, between Roman leader Octavian and the alliance of Roman Mark Antony and Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, occurred on this date. Octavian soundly defeated Antony's fleet which was burned and 5000 of his men were killed. The rivals battled for control of the Roman Empire at Actium, where Cleopatra, seeing Antony's navy being outmaneuvered by Octavian's, ordered her 60 ships to turn about and flee to safety.



Antony's reaction has baffled historians for ages. When he saw Cleopatra leaving, Antony immediately left his command ship and followed her with 40 of his own ships following. Some have attributed Antony's rash departure to being caught off guard when his lover decided to leave him. Others have argued that Antony and Cleopatra had always secretly planned for him to steal away with her once her ships had the opportunity to break free.


September 2, 1666 -
Thomas Farrinor forgot to put out his oven at the end of his shift, on this date.



Unfortunately, the resulting fire cost him his job as official baker to King Charles II of England and started the Great Fire of London. (Quite surprisingly, only six people 'officially' were declared dead because of the fire. To remember the fire, the city of London erected a monument. Six people have committed suicide by jumping off of it, and two have fallen accidentally to their deaths. You might hear this fun fact repeated on tours or forums: more people have died from falling off the monument than died in the fire.



But it's not true - more like several hundred and quite possibly several thousand; very poor people likely died in the fire, burnt so beyond recognition (and not on the 'official radar') that their remains were not counted.

On the plus side, it burned out of control and destroyed four-fifths of London, thereby ending the Black Plague.


Lydia Kamekeha Liliuokalani was born on this date in 1838.

Upon the death of her brother in 1891, she became sovereign Queen of Hawaii. This was considered posing by the American colonials of Hawaii, who reminded her that monarchy was unconstitutional in the United States.



She reminded them that Hawaii was not part of the United States. This was more than unconstitutional: it was cheeky.



She was immediately deposed, then wrote wrote Aloha Oe and retired; spending the rest of her life, unsuccessfully suing the United States for illegally ceasing her island nation.



(And you wonder why the former president may have hesitated showing his birth certificate.)


September 2, 1901 -
Twelve days before the assassination of President William McKinley, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt offered the advice, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," in a speech at the Minnesota State Fair on this date.



Roosevelt described his style of foreign policy as "the exercise of intelligent forethought and of decisive action sufficiently far in advance of any likely crisis."


USS Shenandoah was the first of four United States Navy rigid airships. She was built from 1922 to 1923 at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, and first flew in September, 1923. She developed the Navy's experience with rigid airships, even making the first crossing of the North American continent by airship.

On September 2, 1925, Shenandoah departed Lakehurst on a promotional flight to the Midwest which would include flyovers of 40 cities and visits to state fairs. Testing of a new mooring mast at Dearborn, Michigan was included in the schedule.



While passing through an area of thunderstorms and turbulence over Ohio early in the morning of the 3rd, the airship was torn apart and crashed in several pieces near Caldwell, Ohio. Shenandoah's commanding officer, Commander Zachary Lansdowne and 13 other officers and men were killed.


September 2, 1930 -
Capt. Dieudonne Costes and Lt. Maurice Bellonte arrived in Valley Stream, N.Y. from Paris (3,852 miles) in 37 hours and 18 minutes, aboard the Question Mark - the first non-stop westbound fixed wing aircraft flight between Europe and America.



The flight was a commemorative return visit of Lindberg's historical flight to Paris in 1927.


Russ Columbo, was an American singer, violinist and actor, most famous for his signature tune, Prisoner of Love and the legend surrounding his early death.



On September 2, 1934, Columbo was shot under peculiar circumstances by his longtime friend, photographer Lansing Brown. Columbo was visiting him at the studio one day. In lighting a cigarette, Brown lit the match by striking it against the wooden stock of an antique French dueling pistol. The flame set off a long-forgotten charge in the gun, and a lead pistol ball was fired. The pistol ball ricocheted off a nearby table and hit Columbo in the left eye, killing him almost instantly.

Columbo's death was ruled an accident, and Brown exonerated from blame. His funeral mass was attended by numerous Hollywood luminaries, including Bing Crosby and Columbo's fiancée Carole Lombard.

Literally, with friends like this, who needs enemies.


September 2, 1945 -
In front of an assembled group of Allied sailors and officers, General Douglas MacArthur signed documents during the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri on this date.



The unconditional surrender of the Japanese to the Allies officially ended the Second World War six years and a day since it began in Poland back in 1939. (Remember, those original Hitler World Tour T-Shirts are still quite valuable.)


September 2, 1969 -
Six weeks after landing men on the Moon, America's first automatic teller machine (ATM), at the time called the Docuteller, made its public debut on this date, dispensing cash to customers at Chemical Bank in Rockville Center, New York.

It marked the first time reusable, magnetically coded cards were used to withdraw cash. Today there are well over 3 million ATMs around the world, with one for approximately every 3,000 people.



And so it goes

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

September is the ninth month of the year, which is why its name is derived from the Latin Septem, meaning seven.

(We have previously addressed this problem last month; see August, the Sixth Month.) On the French Revolutionary calendar, September is known as Vendémiaire (vintage,) and in Dutch, September is "the begining of autumn", Hertmaand. The Basque refer to it as "ear month," and the Congolese, "sánza ya libwá" (Ninth month), the Irish called it "the month of plenty", and the Samoan call it, "September."



September is:
California Wine Month
National Chicken Month
Cable TV Month
National Home Furnishings Month
National Prime Beef Month
Prostate Cancer Awareness Month.



So remember, ask your doctor for Billy the Kid - we think you'll like it.

Since it September 1, if you need to, you'd better hurry to catch the 11 am train,





The Hogwarts Express, that makes a run between London, King's Cross Station Platform 9¾ and Hogsmeade Station, if you need to get back to school.

Another thing about September, today is the start of the season when oysters are fit to eat (when months names contain an "R")



Let us give thanks to that first brave person who ate a raw oyster.

One more thing - For those of you reading this in Los Angeles,

Happy Chicken Boy Day!


It's Emma M. Nutt Day, the first woman telephone operator, hired in 1878. She was hired personally by Alexander Graham Bell. A few hours after Emma started work her sister Stella Nutt went into the family business and became the world's second female telephone operator.

Emma loved the job, and worked at it for 33 years. She, reportedly, was able to remember every single phone number in the New England Telephone Company directory.



She apparently had no life.


September 1, 1902 -
Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon), written and directed by Georges Méliès, assisted by his brother Gaston, considered to be the first science fiction movie, was released on this date.



After finishing work on the film, Georges Méliès intended to release it in America and thereby make lots of money. Unfortunately, Thomas A. Edison's film technicians had already secretly made copies of the film, which was shown across the USA within weeks. Melies never made any money from the film's American showings, and went broke several years later (while Edison, of course, made a fortune on the film.)

Damn that Edison!


September 1, 1937 -
After it's disasterous initial release in March of 1937, Columbia Pictures cut over 25 minutes of Frank Capra's adventure film Lost Horizon, starring Ronald Colman, Jane Wyatt, Edward Everett Horton, John Howard, Thomas Mitchell, Margo, Isabel Jewell, and Sam Jaffe was re-released on this date.



UCLA tried to reconstruct the film, using the complete 123-minute soundtrack. Most of the missing film was badly degraded and useless, so the restorers used stills to fill in the missing minutes. Later, one minute of the missing footage was found and restored, resulting in some 24 minutes of stills supported by the soundtrack. The one minute of restored footage depicts Conway's meeting with the High Lama.


September 1, 1938 -
Frank Capra bounced back from the disastrous reviews of Lost Horizon, released the previous year, with You Can't Take It with You, which opened in NYC on this date.



Shortly before filming began, Lionel Barrymore lost the use of his legs to crippling arthritis and a hip injury. To accommodate him, the script was altered so that his character had a sprained ankle, and Barrymore did the film on crutches. Barrymore would receive injections every hour to help relieve the pain of his arthritis.


September 1, 1947 -
The screwball comedy, in which Myrna Loy and Shirley Temple play sisters in the film, (even though Myrna Loy was more than 20 years older that Shirley Temple), The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer, opened nationwide on this date.



There are a couple of in joke references to Shirley Temple in the film. When Cary Grant is sitting with Shirley in the soda shop, the waitress serves him a "Shirley Temple" drink. Later, when Shirley is in her room, packing her suitcase, she takes a Shirley Temple doll off the mantle over her fireplace.


September 1, 1948 -
Paramount released the Anatole Litvak noir classic, Sorry Wrong Number, starring Barbara Stanwyck and Burt Lancaster, on this date.



Barbara Stanwyck found that sustaining that level of emotion all week long and then going home on the weekend was a draining experience. "Five days I was handling it, starting the next day's work where I'd picked up, sustaining it all, and then I had two whole days to relax and not to worry about the character, and I tell you it was strange," said Stanwyck. "It was really hard to pump myself up on Monday morning to try to feel that desperate tension."


September 1, 1954 -
The sci-fi film, Tobor the Great (a.k.a. Tobor) directed by Lee Sholem, and starring Charles Drake, Karin Booth, and Billy Chapin, was released on this date.



Here Comes Tobor was a proposed science-fiction TV series. Produced for the 1956 to 1957 season, the project was never picked up and only a pilot episode was filmed but never aired.


September 1, 1956 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Slap-Hoppy Mouse, directed by Bob McKimson, and starring Sylverster the Cat and Hippety Hopper, was released on this date.



The sign in front of the dilapidated house reads Tralfaz Property. That name would be given to the Jetson's dog in the first series episodes before he became known as Astro.


September 1, 1957 -
The British sci-fi film Quatermass 2 (AKA Enemy From Space), directed by Val Guest and starring Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sid James, Bryan Forbes, Vera Day, and William Franklyn, was release in the US on this date.



In between takes Brian Donlevy's toupée was accidentally blown off by the aeroplane engine wind machines used during the film's climax.


September 1, 1962 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Honey's Money, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Yosemite Sam, was released on this date.



One of the few instances where Yosemite Sam is not paired with Bugs Bunny.


September 1, 1972 -
David Bowie released John, I'm only Dancing in the U.K. on this date.



This was the follow-up single to Bowie's British breakthrough Starman. He'd previously charted with Space Oddity back in 1969, but had been unable to follow it up.


September 1, 1983 -
Island Records released the eighth studio album by singer and songwriter Tom Waits, Swordfishtrombones, on this date.



Swordfishtrombones moves away from conventional piano-based songwriting towards unusual instrumentation and a somewhat more abstract and experimental rock approach.


Today's moment of Zen.


Today in History:
September 1, 1854 -
Engelbert Humperdinck was born on this date,



No, not that one,



this one, the German opera composer.


September 1, 1897 -
The first subway in North America was opened in Boston on this date. Trolley car grid-lock and street congestion on main thoroughfares motivated the Massachusetts Legislature to authorize the construction of the subway. (Either that, or their unnatural love of dank, urine drenched underground stations.)



The "cut and cover" method of construction was used, with a deep trench dug or "cut" on Tremont Street, and a steel structure built around it and then filled in or "covered up." The Boston subway designers visited the Budapest Subway, and the later Paris Metro.


September 1, 1904 -
Helen Keller with the tireless assistance of teacher Annie Mansfield Sullivan, graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College at age 24.

Helen Keller was the first non-seeing, non-hearing person to enroll in an institution for higher learning - and then to graduate with a degree.


September 1, 1914 –
The last passenger pigeon, a female named Martha, died in captivity in the Cincinnati Zoo on this date.

There are various reasons for the extinction of the passenger pigeon - the main one unfortunately was they tasted so damn good broasted.



Her body was frozen into a block of ice and sent to the Smithsonian Institution, where it was skinned and mounted.



Martha (named after Martha Washington) is in the museum's archived collection, and was on display a few years ago.


September 1, 1923 -
The worst earthquake in Japan's history hit the Kanto Plain between Tokyo and Yokohama with a magnitude of 7.9 on the Richter scale. The earthquake and subsequent fires killed nearly 140,000 people and destroyed most of both cities.



The fires started because the earthquake occurred at noon, when charcoal cooking stoves were in use.



People, please stop using your hibachis in your rice paper houses.


September 1, 1932 -
No man could hold life so carelessly without falling down a manhole before he is done ...



New York City Mayor James Walker who had been the Mayor since being elected in 1926 was forced to resign following charges of graft and corruption in his administration on this date.


September 1, 1939 -
Germany, itching to start their Second World War Tour (the Foreign Minister of Germany, Joachim von Ribbentrop was seen running around Europe in the Tour T-Shirt, months earlier,) kicked it off at 5:30 AM on this date.



Hitler was so happy that day, he orders extermination of the mentally ill in Germany and Austria on this day as well.


September 1, 1939 -
Mary Jean Tomlin, Academy Award nominated, Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award winning actress, comedian, writer and producer was born on this date.



One of her first "professional" gigs was as a waitress in Howard Johnson's on Broadway near Times Square. Her comments to customers and staff heard over the eatery's microphone attracted her first big-city audience.


September 1, 1961 -
TWA Flight 529, a Lockheed Constellation L-049 propliner, crashed shortly after takeoff from Midway Airport in Chicago, killing all 73 passengers and 5 crew members on board.



At the time, it was the deadliest single plane disaster in US history.


September 1, 1972 -
The anti-American and anti-Semitic (towards the end of his life) Bobby Fischer became the World Chess Champion in Reykjavik, Iceland, defeating Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union on this date.



He had become the youngest United States Junior Chess Champion at 13 years old followed by the US championship at age 14 and many consider him to be one of the greatest natural talent Chess Players ever.


September 1, 1995 -
After twelve years of building, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum opened in Cleveland, by the Lake Erie waterfront, on this date. The organization was established in 1983 by a group of leading figures in the music industry — including Atlantic Records cofounder Ahmet Ertegun and Jann Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone magazine.



Cleveland was the place where Alan Freed, the popular disk jockey of WJW-AM radio show, first popularized the term “Rock and Roll” on his pioneering Moondog Rock ‘n’ Roll Party radio show.



Since the cutting of the ribbon, The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum has hosted over eight million visitors and 50,000 of them were students and teachers.



And so it goes

So now you know

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. To steal from many is research.


August 31, 1929 -
RKO released the musical film-short St. Louis Blues, starring singer Bessie Smith, on this date.



At W.C. Handy's suggestion, Bessie Smith was picked to be the star of the film. Bessie had scored a huge hit in 1925 with her recording of St. Louis Blues, which had featured Louis Armstrong on cornet. This is the only known footage of Bessie in existence.


August 31, 1946 -
Warner Bros. introduced Foghorn Leghorn and the Barnyard Dawg, when the Merrie Melodies cartoon Walky Talky Hawky, (directed by Robert McKimson,) premiered on this date.



Foghorn Leghorn was closely based on Sen. Claghorn, a blustery, windbag Southern politician on radio's The Fred Allen Show -played by Allen's announcer Kenny Delmar - whose trademark lines included, "Somebody, Ah say, somebody knocked," "That's a joke, son," and "Pay attention, boy!".


August 29, 1957 -
The Looney Tunes short, Bugsy and Mugsy, directed by Friz Freleng and starring Bugs Bunny, Rocky and Mugsy, was released on this date.



Rocky's eyes are shown briefly a few times. He usually has his trademark hat pulled down over his brow..


August 31, 1966 -
A forgotten Blake Edward's comedy, What Did You Do in the War, Daddy?, written by William Peter Blatty and starring James Coburn and Dick Shawn, opened on this date.



Harry Morgan played Major Potts who becomes comically nonsensical in this movie. In the third season of the TV series MASH, he played essentially the same character as Major General Bartford Hamilton Steele. The episode was The General Flipped at Dawn, which first aired on September 10, 1974. When McLean Stevenson character Colonel Henry Blake, left the show at the end of the third season, the producers hired Morgan and created a new character, Colonel Potter. Interestingly, Potter is similar to the name of role he played here; Maj. Pott, sometimes referred to as Potty.


August 31, 1973 -
The Rolling Stones released their eleventh British (and thirteenth American) studio album Goats Head Soup, on this date.



The initial cover for the all was to have a goat peering out from a simmering pot, nodding to the album's Jamaican origins. (It was mostly recorded in Jamaica, where the soup, known as "mannish water," is a delicacy.) Mick Jagger has been quotes in saying,"The goat's head was my idea and it didn't really work out, the record company didn't like it, so we went with the more user-friendly portraits of the band in the end."


August 31, 1984 –
The sci-fi film C.H.U.D. (cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers) directed by Douglas Cheek, and starring John Heard, Daniel Stern, and Christopher Curry, premiered on this date. An urban legend in 1985 suggested that this was based on a true story that happened in Cincinnati in the 1970s.



In 2011, as an April Fool's Day joke, the Criterion Collection, the USA's most prestigious distributor of home video, announced that it was releasing a special-edition DVD and Blu-ray Disc of the film with spine number 573. It was later assigned to The Music Room, but C.H.U.D. did receive a special edition Blu-ray release from Arrow Video in 2016.


August 31, 1985 -
Dire Straits' album, Brothers In Arms, started a nine-week run at No.1 on the US album charts on this date. The album also topped the charts in 25 other countries and went on to sell over 20 million worldwide.



The title of the album was inspired by the Falklands War, which was going on when Dire Straits lead singer Mark Knopfler wrote the song. The Falklands War was a conflict between Argentina and the UK over islands off the coast of Argentina that each country claimed rights to. The islands are British territories, but in 1982 Argentina tried to reclaim one of the islands. Britain reclaimed their territories, but lost 258 soldiers in the conflict.


August 31, 1987 -
Epic/CBS Records released the Michael Jackson album, BAD on this date.



Michael Jackson used the album to create a new image for himself, wearing leather and chains and acted tough. The title was hip with the times as well, as teenagers were using the word "bad" to mean "seriously cool." It was rebellious without being controversial, and it worked well for Jackson despite the ludicrous album cover. Barney Hoskyns may have written it best in his review of the album: "With his gossamer-delicate, surgically sculpted features, he looks like a beautiful Latin girl trapped inside an outfit from Mad Max II."



A nearly 18 minute video of the title song, written by novelist and screenwriter Richard Price and directed by Martin Scorsese, debuted on CBS-TV on this same day, as well.


Word of the Day.


Today in History -
Gaius Caesar Caligula was born on August 31 in the year 12 AD. Caligula succeeded Tiberius in the year 37, and his reign was most notable for its policy of Sex with the Emperor.



(Please note - this guy not only slept with the unwilling wives of senators and his sisters, he married his horse and tried to have him made a god.) This turned out to have been a weak Political Philosophy, because the Romans all had classical educations and saw right through him.



So they killed him.


August 31, 1422 -
Henry V of England, one of the great warrior kings of the Middle Ages, died suddenly of dysentery on this date. He was 34 at the time.

At the time of his death, Henry had not only consolidated power as the King of England but had also effectively accomplished what generations of his ancestors had failed to achieve through decades of war: the near unification of the crowns of England and France in a single person.



In 2002 he was ranked 72nd in the 100 Greatest Britons poll. And yet, lack of proper sanitary conditions carried him away.

Bunkies, listen to your ole pal, herr doktor - wash your hands after visiting the rest room.


August 31, 1879 -
Alma Maria Schindler, noted in her native Vienna for her beauty and intelligence, was born on this date.

In her youth she was an aspiring composer. But that's not why I bring her up.



She was the wife, successively, of the composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and novelist Franz Werfel, and lover to the painter Oskar Kokoschka. Rather than try to encapsulate the story of this very busy woman,



Listen to Tom Lehrer's song Alma, which nicely gives you (if slantedly) the gist of her life.


August 31, 1887 -
The kinetoscope was patented by Thomas Edison (U.S. patent #589,168) on this date.
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When his assistant W.K.L. Dickson invented the motion picture viewer, Edison initially considered it an insignificant toy. However, it turned out to be an immediate success.


August 31, 1910 -
The first U.S. airplane flight over water is made by Glenn Hammond Curtiss in his biplane over Lake Erie from Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland, Ohio, to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio.

A crowd of 18,000 flocked to Euclid Beach to see his plane take off , and all across Cleveland people left their workplaces and headed outdoors to catch a glimpse of the amazing sight. The next day, flying back to Cleveland, he beat both the Lake Shore Limited train and homing pigeons, although it took longer than the first flight because he had to face strong winds. His return to Euclid Beach was greeted by 20,000 people.


August 31, 1919 -
Workers of the world unite!

In Chicago, journalist John Reed established the American Communist Labor Party, on this date,



providing entertainment for Joseph McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover for decades.


August 31, 1920 -
John Lloyd Wright, son of famed architect Frank Lloyd Wright, was issued a patent for "Toy-Cabin Construction," which are known as Lincoln Logs. (U.S. patent 1,351,086)



Wright sold his rights to Playskool for $800, to supplement his meager salary, at the time. It is estimated that over 100 million sets of Lincoln Logs have been sold worldwide.


August 31, 1945 -
Let's all wish the intensely litigious and curmudgeonly, George Ivan Morrison, singer and songwriter, happy birthday.





Van the Man, is still the greatest living blue-eyed soul singer.


August 31, 1948 -
Los Angeles police arrested actor Robert Mitchum, the coolest cat in Hollywood, for marijuana possession on this date. He later received a 60-day sentence.



Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands celebrated her Golden Jubilee on this date as well. (You figure out the connection.)


August 31, 1950 -
A mouse flew on a US V-2 rocket from New Mexico, USA on on this date, reaching an altitude of 137 km (85 miles).

It was the first mouse in space. Unfortunately the rocket disintegrated because the parachute system failed.



But what the hell do you care.


August 31, 1955 -
The first solar-powered car, the 15 inch Sunmobile (designed by William G. Cobb,) was publicly demonstrated by General Motors Corporation, on this date. Light energy falling on twelve tiny selenium photoelectric cells created electric current sufficient to power the electric motor that turns a driveshaft connected to the car’s rear axle by a pulley.

It was one of the 253 exhibits at the General Motors Powerama in Chicago, Illinois, which will be seen by over 2,500,000 visitors during the course of the twenty-eight day, seven million dollar event spread over one million square feet on the shore of Lake Michigan.


August 31, 1957 -
When I'm writing, I will always work, I'm so disciplined about what I do. It's one of the things I learned very early on. If I allowed it to be some craft where I'm working for inspiration, I think I probably would have written 30 songs by now. Instead I've written a couple thousand. Not all of them are good, but I learned - again, early on - that some songs would just come to you, and that would be great.



Glenn Tilbrook, singer, guitarist and with his writing partner Chris Difford, formed the pop group Squeeze, was born on this date.


August 31, 1976 -
George Harrison was found guilty of unintentionally plagiarizing My Sweet Lord from the Chiffons song He's So Fine.



Those damn Beatles could never come up with an original tune.


August 31, 1977 -
Ian Smith, espousing racial segregation, won the Rhodesian general election with 80% of overwhelmingly white electorate's vote.



Oops.


August 31, 1997 -
On August 28, 1997, Mrs. Dr. Caligari and I were coming out of the revolving doors at the Ritz Hotel in Paris and a very famous couple were coming in. A few days later on this date, a charming, slightly addled, beautiful divorcee with two children decides to take a car ride with her very rich Egyptian boyfriend and his very drunk driver. She makes the fatal mistake of not buckling her seat belt and paid a very heavy toll.



So ended the glamorous and controversial life of Diana Spencer Mountbatten-Windsor.

Bunkies here a good piece of advice for anyone, if you don't want to end up dying in the backseat of a black 1994 Mercedes-Benz W140 in a road tunnel in Paris - BUCKLE UP.



And so it goes