A love song written by nature

June is the sixth month of the year and consists of thirty days. The ancient Romans gave it 29 days until 46 BC, when Julius Caesar added the thirtieth for reasons known only to himself. (Caesar's hobbies seem to have been conquering the known world, sleeping with some very rich North African teenager, and making calendars.)

The last day of the month is therefore referred to as its "Caesarean section" by calendar insiders.

(Calendar insiders need to get out more often.)



The month is believed to derive its name from either the Roman goddess Juno, patron goddess of marriage, or the Latin word iuniores ("the younger ones").



June marks the transition from spring to summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and from fall to winter in the Southern Hemisphere. (It is not a transitional month in other hemispheres.)



June has usually been the most popular month for weddings, but it's commonly overlooked that it's also one of the top twelve months for bathtub drownings and spontaneous combustion.



June is traditionally considered the poet's month because, with the warming of the earth and the lengthening light of fragrant evenings, thoughts inevitably turn to romance as hearts and passions swell. Also, June rhymes with a lot of words. For example: afternoon, aswoon, autoimmune, baboon, balloon, bassoon, bestrewn, boon, buffoon, Cameroon, cocoon, contrabassoon, croon, doubloon, dragoon, dune, entomb, excommune, festoon, floroon, granfalloon, harpoon, honeymoon, immune, inopportune, impugn, jejune, kaboom, lampoon, loon, macaroon, maroon, midafternoon, monsoon, moon, noon, pantaloons, picayune, platoon, poltroon, pontoon, prune, raccoon, rune, saloon, Schmigadoon, spittoon, spermatozoon, strewn, swoon, tune, tycoon, typhoon, ultramaroon, and vinegarroon.

Among the things we celebrate this month are::

National Accordion Awareness Month
Aquarium Month
Dairy Alternatives Month
National DJ Month
National Iced Tea Month
Fireworks Safety Months
National Pest Control Month
National Seafood Month


June 1, 1957 -
Another great drive in movie, The Giant Claw, directed by Fred F. Sears, and starring Jeff Morrow, Mara Corday, Robert Shayne, Morris Ankrum, and Dabbs Greer was released on this date.



In an interview, Jeff Morrow said that no one in the cast saw the title monster until they went to the film's premiere in Morrow's home town. Producer Sam Katzman had contracted with a low-budget model-maker in Mexico City to construct the "Giant Claw," and no one in the cast or crew had any idea it would come out looking as bizarre as it did. Morrow said the audience roared with laughter every time the monster made an appearance. He wound up slinking out of the theater in embarrassment before the film was over so no one who knew him would recognize him.


June 1, 1966 -
Dick Van Dyke tripped over the ottoman for the last time when CBS aired the last episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Last Chapter on this date.



In the show, Rob writes his autobiography and shows it to everyone. At the end of the show Alan decides to buy the rights to the manuscript and turn it into a TV series with him as the star after he finishes the variety series - which is what Carl Reiner did when he starred in the first unaired pilot for this series.


June 1, 1968 -
The British television series The Prisoner, starring Patrick McGoohan, had its American premiere on CBS-TV, as a summer replacement for a Jackie Gleason series, on this date.



At the end of the run of Secret Agent, there was a party, and some members of Parliament attended. Someone said to McGoohan, "So, what does a secret agent do when he retires?" meaning McGoohan. McGoohan took it literally and asked the question to some Parliament members. "Oh, we take care of them. We give them a house, a car, some pocket money, and that way they don't defect." This inspired McGoohan to create the show.


June 1, 1968 -
The Simon & Garfunkel release Mrs. Robinson hit No. 1 on the Billboard #100 list on this date.





Paul Simon began writing this as Mrs. Roosevelt, and had just the line, Here's to you, Mrs. Roosevelt when he changed it to Mrs. Robinson for The Graduate. Simon did not originally write a full-length version of this song, only the verses that are heard in the movie. After the movie became a hit, he finished the lyrics and recorded the full version that is known today.


June 1, 1980 -
Cable News Network (CNN) made its debut as the first all-news station.



How sad, Darth Vader had to do voice over work to rebuild the death star


June 1, 1984 -
The third feature film of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, starring the usually cast of characters on this date.



When negotiating Kirstie Alley's contract for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Paramount Studios did not offer or include any options or clauses regarding any possible sequels. According to director Leonard Nimoy, this left Alley open to negotiate a new contract for this film, resulting in Alley's excessive salary demands, which led to her being dropped and replaced by Robin Curtis.


June 1, 1984 -
The severly altered and shorten masterpiece by Sergio Leone, Once Upon a Time in America, starring Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Joe Pesci, Burt Young, Tuesday Weld, and Treat Williams, opened in the US on this date.



A few days before the film's premiere in 1984, Treat Williams found out the two-hour version, not the three hour and forty-nine minute version, would be shown in theaters. He was heard to have said that no one would understand the movie in the shortened version. Indeed, the film did not do well at theaters, and was shut out of the Oscars, and received no nominations. When the video cassette and DVD versions were released in the original three hour and forty-nine minute version, the film ultimately found commercial and critical success.


June 1, 1985 -
David Lee Roth's cover of two Louis Prima songs - Just A Gigolo / I Ain't Got Nobody peaks at No. 12 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Roth's love of quirky songs from a bygone era stems from his childhood, when he would listen to the underground radio station KPPC out of Pasadena, California. In their "anything goes" format, they played lots of fun, adventurous songs by the likes of Cab Calloway and Louis Prima.


June 1, 2001 -
Baz Luhrmann's jukebox musical fantasy, Moulin Rouge!, starring Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, John Leguizamo, Jim Broadbent, and Richard Roxburgh, opens nationwide in theaters, on this date.



Various tricks were used to make John Leguizamo's (Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa) legs appear shorter. Some shots are of his stand-in who was of the correct height, while in others he walked on his knees in special leg braces and wearing blue socks so that his lower legs could be digitally removed. Leguizamo did the entire climactic scene from a squatting position to give him greater mobility in his role. Consequently he had to endure several weeks of physical therapy afterwards.


June 1, 2009 –
Coco thought he succeeded Jay Leno when The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien premiered on NBC, on this date.



Many members of the Late Night cast and crew made the transition to The Tonight Show. The Max Weinberg 7, the house band from O'Brien's Late Night, served as the house band under the new name, Max Weinberg and The Tonight Show Band. Andy Richter returned to the show as announcer, and also began resuming his role as sidekick, shortly before the show's conclusion. The opening and closing theme song from Late Night was also carried over to Tonight, in a slightly altered form.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
June 1, 1494 -
The first written record of Scotch Whisky appeared in the Exchequer Rolls of Scotland on this date. (The Scots spell it whisky and the Irish spell it whiskey, with an extra 'e'. This difference in the spelling comes from the translations of the word from the Scottish and Irish Gaelic forms. Whiskey with the extra 'e' is also used when referring to American whiskies.)



It is generally agreed that Dalriadan Scots monks brought distillation with them when they came to Caledonia to convert the Picts to Christianity in the fourth and fifth centuries A.D. A Friar John Cor was the distiller of the first known batch.


June 1, 1571 -
The "Triple Tree" gallows was installed at Tyburn, England in time for the execution of John Storey, who was hanged, drawn, and quartered for committing treason.

The Triple Tree consists of an equilateral triangle nine feet long on each side, 18 feet off the ground. It can hang as many as 24 prisoners at once, and would remain in place for almost 200 years.


June 1, 1660 -
After having received a last-minute reprieve seven months earlier, Mary Dyer was hanged for heresy after returning to Boston on this date.



Dyer was guilty of the heinous crime of being a member of the Quakers, a subversive religious sect which had been banned by the Puritan colony under "pain of death" for their religious views of warm breakfast foods.


June 1, 1813 -
The U.S. Navy gained its motto as the mortally wounded commander of the U.S. frigate Chesapeake, Captain James Lawrence was heard to say, "Don't give up the ship!", during a losing battle with a British frigate Shannon; his ship was captured by the British frigate.



James Lawrence died of his wounds on June 4th, while the Chesapeake was being taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia, by her captors. His body was later repatriated to New York for burial.


June 1, 1926 -
Fame will go by and, so long, I've had you, fame. If it goes by, I've always known it was fickle. So at least it's something I experience, but that's not where I live.



Gladys Baker gave birth to Norma Jeane Mortenson in Los Angeles on this date.

Unfortunately, things did not quite work out for little Norma Jean.


June 1, 1938 -
Superman made his first appearance in D.C. Comics' Action Comics Series issue #1. The comic book sold for 10 cents. Jerry Siegel created Superman in 1933 after he dreamed about the Biblical story of Moses, whose parents abandoned him as a baby in order to save his life. This became the plot of the first Superman story.



It has been estimated that there are only 50 to 100 original copies of Action Comics #1 still in existence, and a smaller number of such exceptional quality as to be at the very high end of collectibility. One copy was stolen from actor Nicolas Cage, an avid comic book collector, in 2000. In March 2011, it was found in a storage locker in the San Fernando Valley and was verified by ComicConnect.com to be exactly the same copy that they sold to him previously. Cage had previously received an insurance payment for the item.


June 1, 1954 -
In the Peanuts comic strip, Linus' security blanket made its debut, on this date.

Although one of the things most associated with Linus is his obsessive need for the comfort provided by his security blanket, the intensity of that need clearly ebbs, as he is often (probably most frequently) shown without the beloved blanket.


June 1, 1967 -
It was 59 years ago today, The Beatles blew the collective world's mind away. Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released in the UK on this date





The album was quite complex to produced and took 129 days and about 700 hours to complete. The Beatles first album, Please Please Me, was recorded in less than 10 hours.


June 1, 1968 -
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.



Helen Keller - America's all-time favorite deaf and blind Socialist - died in Westport, Connecticut at the age of 87, on this date.


June 1, 1974 -
The procedure, the Heimlich maneuver (named after Dr. Henry Heimlich) was first mentioned in an article on this date in the journal, Emergency Medicine.



It's a maneuver that has largely replaced the old fashioned back-blows that people used to perform on choking victims.


It's Oscar the Grouch's birthday today.



Remember to leave something nice out in the trash today. (Please note: when Oscar first moved into his trash can he was orange. Then the gangrene set in.)


It's also my sister's birthday.

She doesn't usually make a big fuss about it but since she is the oldest relationship I have other than my parents, I will.

Happy Birthday.



And so it goes.

Please DON'T smoke em if you got em

World No Tobacco Day is observed around the world every year on May 31. The member states of the World Health Organization created World No Tobacco Day in 1987. It draws global attention to the tobacco epidemic and to the preventable death and disease it causes.





It aims to reduce the 3.5 million yearly deaths from tobacco related health problems. Since 1988 the WHO has presented one or more World No Tobacco Day (WNTD) Awards to organizations or individuals who have made exceptional contributions to reducing tobacco consumption.


May 31, 1958 -
The Looney Tunes short, Now Hare This, directed by Bob McKimson, starring Bugs Bunny, debuted on this date.



The Big Bad Wolf and his nephew would later appear in False Hare the final Bugs Bunny short from the original theatrical era.


May 31, 1975 -
The first single from the Isley Brothers hit album, The Heat Is On, Fight the Power, was released on this date. (The song is notable for the use of the word bullshit, which is usually censored during radio airplay.)



Often thought of as a song about the black experience, Fight The Power is more of a general statement on rising above the powers that be. The youngest Isley Brother, Marvin, explained in a 1976 interview with Blues & Soul: "We don't close ourselves away like some entertainers do – we listen to the radio, read the newspapers and generally get into what's happening out there in an attempt to reflect the world as it is. With The Heat Is On, we wanted to be as funky as possible musically, and yet for the lyrics to say something unusual. 'Fight The Power'? Well, we decided not to be passive, to take a stand. And we met hardly any resistance because that power could be anything – we all have our different conceptions of what it is to each of us. And just letting it out – about the bullshit that does go down – is something that everyone wants to do."


May 31, 1976 -
Tom Waits begins a two-week stint performing at Ronnie Scott's Club in Soho, London, England, run by Pete King, on this date.



The experience inspired Waits to write The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me)(An Evening with Pete King). Waits recorded this song, along with the rest of the album, Small Change, a month after this stint was complete.


May 31, 1976 -
Ten years after it appeared on The Beatles' Revolver album, Capitol Records issues Got To Get You Into My Life as a single on this date.



A British rock group called Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers released this song as a single around the same time it appeared on The Beatles Revolver album. Bennett & The Rebel Rousers were an opening act for The Beatles on their European tour in early 1966; since there were no plans to release Got To Get You Into My Life as a single, Paul McCartney encouraged them to record it and produced the session. Earth, Wind & Fire recorded a funky new version for the 1978 movie Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Beatles producer George Martin was in charge of the music, and the soundtrack was a success, but the movie, which starred Peter Frampton, The Bee Gees and Aerosmith, was a huge flop. Earth, Wind & Fire's version of this hit #9 in the US.


May 31, 1980 -
Casablanca Records released the Lipps Inc./ Steven Greenberg song, Funkytown, on this date.



Lipps Inc. (pronounced "Lip Synch") was formed especially for this song. The vocals were by Cynthia Johnson, who was Miss Black Minnesota 1976. The group continued to record until 1985 with a changing lineup, but they failed to see the success they'd had with their first hit.


May 31, 1983 -
After a break in which David Byrne and Jerry Harrison release solo albums and Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth form Tom Tom Club, Talking Heads return with their fifth album, Speaking In Tongues.



It contains their biggest hit, Burning Down The House. Talking Heads drummer Chris Frantz and bass player Tina Weymouth, married since 1977, are big fans of funk. When they went to a P-Funk show at Madison Square Garden in New York City, the crowd started chanting, "Burn down the house, burn down the house" (this is before The Roof Is on Fire), which gave Frantz the idea for the title.


The first Seinfeld episode (referred to as episode #2 The Stakeout) created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld premiered on Thursday, May 31, 1990 on NBC-TV. The show often described as "about nothing" was not an immediate success.



After the pilot was shown, on July 5, 1989, a pickup by the NBC network did not seem likely and the show was actually offered to Fox, which declined to pick it up. However, Rick Ludwin, head of late night and special events for NBC, diverted money from his budget, and the next four episodes were filmed.

I wonder what ever happened to those guys?


May 31, 1992 -
The last episode of the original series, Night Court: The 1992 Boat Show aired on NBC-TV, on this date.



This episode was actually aired out of order. The two parter, Opportunity Knocks, which aired before this episode, was the finale of the series. This episode never aired on its original air date and was held over to the end of the season confusingly airing after the series finale.


May 31, 1999 -
The VH1 documentary series Behind the Music began airing nightly with their premiere episode The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Behind the Music.



Anthony Kiedis and Flea (bass guitar) first met when they were both 15 and attending high school together. (20 years after the program, the band is still going strong.)


Another selection from the discount bin at ACME's Record Shoppe today


Today in History:
May 31, 455 -
Petronius Maximus, emperor for less than three month, was having an extremely bad day. News reached Rome that Vandals were planning on sacking Rome (besides vigorous bouts of sodomy; sacking was the favorite pastime for Vandals.) The level headed Petronius attempted to organize an orderly evacuation of the Senate and his cronies. Panic, unfortunately set in and Petronius Maximus was completely abandoned by his bodyguard and entourage and was left to fend for himself.



As he rode out of the city on his own, he was set upon by an angry mob who stoned him to death. His body was mutilated and flung into the Tiber.

Sometimes, it isn't every worth getting out of bed, even if you're the ruler of all the known world.


May 31, 1678 -
The lovely young Lady Godiva, aged 17, rode naked on horseback through Coventry, England, to protest the high tax rate established by her own husband, Earl Leofric of Mercia. Her protest worked and he lowered taxes.



While I can't say whether or not the MAGA crowd strongly endorse this type of civil disobedience, I'd like to remind the ladies out there that taxes are pretty damn high just about everywhere these days.


May 31, 1819 -
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.







A great New Yorker and even greater poet, Walt Whitman was born on this date.


May 31, 1859 -
The iconic clock in the clock tower attached to the Palace at Westminister first began to keep time on this date.



The name Big Ben is often used to describe the tower or the clock but it's actually is the name of the carillon inside. The tower itself was formally known as St. Stephen’s Tower until 2012, when it was renamed Elizabeth Tower on the occasion of Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, celebrating 60 years on the British throne. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, the work which had been scheduled to end at the end of this year, now stretches into 2022.


May 30, 1879 -
The Gilmore's Garden in New York City is renamed Madison Square Garden by William Henry Vanderbilt and opens to the public at 26th Street and Madison Avenue.

Originally it was a railroad passenger depot located at East 26th Street and Madison Avenue, the New York and Harlem Railroad, before they would move in 1871. Then, with tented roof, it would become P.T. Barnum's Great Roman Hippodrome. In 1876, the theatre became Gilmore's Garden, after Patrick Gilmore, a band leader. The building under his name housed flower shows, pedestrian marathons, the first Westminster Kennel Club Show in 1877, beauty contests, and concerts. Owned by the Vanderbilt family, William renamed it Madison Square Garden in 1879, continuing to present a variety of shows; boxing, track and field, and Barnum back with the elephant Jumbo. The first building had a capacity of ten thousand and was open-air.


May 31, 1889 -
Relentless rain and inadequate maintenance causes the South Fork Dam to fail, unleashing a 35-foot-high wall of water on Johnstown, Pennsylvania.



The wall of flood water grew at times to 60 feet high, tearing downhill at 40 miles per hour, leveling everything in its path and killing 2,209 people.


May 31, 1895 -
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, head of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, patented corn flakes on this date. The good doctor believed in a vegetarian diet and a regimen of exercise. The good doctor also believed in proper elimination. At his sanitarium, Kellogg made sure that the bowel of each and every patient was plied with water, from above and below. His favorite device was an enema machine that could run 15 gallons of cold water through an unfortunate bowel in a matter of seconds.



Every water enema was followed by a pint of yogurt — half was eaten, the other half was administered by enema “thus planting the protective germs where they are most needed and may render most effective service”. The yogurt served to replace the intestinal flora of the bowel, creating what Kellogg claimed was a squeaky clean intestine.



Bet you'll never look at a carton of yogurt the same way again.


May 31, 1902 -
The Treaty of Vereeniging was signed on this date, canceling the Bore War for lack of interest.

(The Bore War should not be confused with the Boar War, which was much more exciting on account of tusks.)


May 21, 1921 -
Following an accusation of improper conduct between Dick Rowland, a black shoeshiner and Sarah Page, a white elevator operator, hundreds of white people gather and start to form what looks like a lynch mob which ends with the traditionally black district of Greenwood in Tulsa, Oklahoma being burnt to the ground with many black citizens choose or were forced to relocate after the riot which ended on June 1st 1921 after the National Guard troops from Oklahoma City declare martial law.



As many as 10,000 white men and boys attacked the black community and 35 blocks of the black business district were burned with participation by police officers and a local unit of the National Guard. Some 200-300 people were believed to have been killed. In 2000 the Tulsa Race Riot Commission recommended that reparations be paid to survivors of the riots and their descendants.


May 31, 1957 -
The House for Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) convicts the playwright Arthur Miller of contempt of Congress, on this date.

He had refused to answer two questions at a hearing before the committee:

1. "Can you tell us who were there when you walked into the room?"
2. "Was Arnaud D'Usseau chairman of the meeting of the Communist party writers which took place in 1947 at which you were in attendance?"

Although he testified frankly about his own relationships with persons of Communist bent or membership, he said that his conscience had forbidden him to tell about others.


May 31, 1963 -
Nun Nu Thanh Quang, a Buddhist monk, immolated himself on this date at the Dieu de Pagoda in Hue, Vietnam.

That has got to hurt.


May 31, 1969 -
The National Legume Collective negotiated intensely all through the early part of 1969 with John Lennon and his new wife, Yoko Ono to record their new promotional song, Give Peas a Chance. The agreement ends abruptly when the organization actually heard Ms. Ono's voice.



John Lennon and Yoko Ono then decide not to waste the experience and record Give Peace a Chance, the first single recorded by a solo Beatle, from their hotel bed (not as a political statement as some have argued but because of the bloated feeling from eating a non-stop diet of peas for the past five months).


May 31, 1996 -
Timothy Leary died quietly in his sleep on this date, thereby failing his intended mission of killing himself live on the Internet.



On a brighter note, a longstanding Moody Blues prophecy was fulfilled.


Before you go - I would be remiss if I didn't remember to wish one of our bunkies a very Happy Birthday!

Hope you've enjoyed your Birthday Jim



And so it goes.

You would be forgiven if you were slightly confused

Today is Mint Julip Day - the Kentucky Derby would seem like a perfectly fine day to honor this drink. Perhaps gamblers finally sobered up after their losses that day and decided to celebrate the beverage. The American word 'julep' can be traced to French julep, which comes from the Arabic julab, which is from the Persian julab, meaning 'rose water.' The drink as we know it today is an American invention. Maybe you need one after having to follow along.



Famous writers drank mint juleps and wrote them into their works. William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway partook of the libations, and they are mentioned in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, and Hunter S. Thompson's The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved. The classic mint julep as made in Kentucky, starts with a chilled silver mug or goblet filled with crushed ice. Dissolve 1 lump of sugar in a little water, fill mug with bourbon, add the dissolved sugar and stir well. Place 4 or 5 sprigs of fresh mint down into the ice. Whatever the reason, make yourself a tall frosty one and celebrate the start of the summer season.


May 30, 1936 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Bingo Crosbyana, directed by Friz Freleng, debuted on this date.



The short prompted a lawsuit from Bing Crosby against Warner Bros. for having a cowardly character in the cartoon based on his voice and image.


May 30, 1939 -
John Ford's bio pix of President Abraham Lincoln, Young Mr. Lincoln starring Henry Fonda, Alice Brady, Marjorie Weaver, and Arleen Whelan, premiered in Springfield, Illinois on this date.



Henry Fonda originally turned down the role of Lincoln, saying he didn't think he could play such a great man. He changed his mind after John Ford asked him to do a screen test in full makeup. After viewing himself as Lincoln in the test footage, Fonda liked what he saw, and accepted the part. He later told an interviewer, "I felt as if I were portraying Christ himself on film."


May 30, 1939 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Naughty but Mice, directed by Chuck Jones, starring Sniffles, debuted on this date.



The short was the first appearance of Sniffles.


May 30, 1956 -
RKO Radio Pictures released Fritz Lang's late period film-noir classic, While The City Sleeps, starring Dana Andrews, Vincent Price and Ida Lupino (with whom you don't fuck with) premiered on this date.



According to Film Noir historian Eddie Mueller in the commentary for Where the Sidewalk Ends, Dana Andrews was drunk during the entire production of this movie. (It was already established, by Andrews himself, that he was an alcoholic during the 1950s.) Ironically, his character is drunk throughout half the film.


May 30, 1957 -
Another earlier version of Brokeback Mountain, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, directed by John Sturges and starring Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, premiered on this date



Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster had worked together in I Walk Alone, and often saw each other at various Hollywood functions. But, as Douglas recounted in his autobiography, The Ragman's Son, they didn't become friends until this movie, which lead to some pretty loose-and-easy moments on the set. For instance, they couldn't focus during a scene in which an unarmed Lancaster is surrounded by several men in a saloon, only to be rescued by Douglas, who steals another man's gun and tosses it to Lancaster. "We go out on the porch", Douglas wrote, "and Burt says to me, 'Thanks, Doc'. I was supposed to say, 'Forget it.' When I came to 'Forget it', the ridiculousness of the scene, our great bravery, our machismo, made us howl. We did the scene over and over. It just made us laugh harder." They were finally laughing so much, an angry John Sturges had to send them home for the day.


May 30th, 1963 -
A classic drive-in movie from Roger Corman, The Terror, starring Boris Karloff, Jack Nicholson, and Sandra Knight, premiered on this date.



Roger Corman shot the bulk of the film in four days, but the second-unit work was filmed over a nine month period by five directors, Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Jakob, Monte Hellman, Jack Nicholson, and Jack Hill.


May 30, 1964 -
The Beatles first single, of their own material, Love Me Do, (the B side was P.S., I Love You,) released in England in 1962, hit # 1 on the Billboard 100 in the US on this date.



The Beatles recorded versions of this song with three different drummers. At their first Parlophone audition in June 1962, Pete Best was still their drummer. When they recorded it on September 4, Ringo was their drummer, but when George Martin decided it would be the single, he had them record it again a week later.



At this session, he used a session drummer named Andy White and stuck Ringo with the tambourine. The version with Ringo drumming was released as the single, but the version released on the album had Andy White's drumming. Ringo didn't pitch a fit when he got bumped at the session, but was very upset and felt real insecure, especially since The Beatles had just fired a drummer.


May 30, 1973 -
George Harrison's second post-Beatles album (his fourth solo album,) Living In The Material World was released on this date.



The album reaches No. 1 on the Billboard charts and the single Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth), off the album, also hits the top spot. Publishing royalties from that song and others on the album go to Harrison's Material World Charitable Foundation.


May 30, 1980 -
Peter Gabriel released his third solo studio album, which is self-titled, on this date. It features the songs, Games Without Frontiers, Biko, and I Don’t Remember.



The album is sometimes referred to as Melt, owing to its cover photograph by Hipgnosis. Some music streaming services refer to it as Peter Gabriel 3: Melt.


May 30, 2003 -
The Academy Awarding Pixar Animation Studios and Walt Disney Pictures film, Finding Nemo, voiced by Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, and Willem Dafoe, premiered on this date.



Andrew Stanton pitched his idea and story to Pixar head John Lasseter in an hour-long session, using elaborate visual aids and character voices. At the end of it, an exhausted Stanton asked Lasseter what he thought, to which Lasseter replied, "You had me at 'fish.'"

Don't forget to tune in to ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today.


Today in History:
May 30, 1431 -
Convicted of heresy by the English (see May 23), 19-year-old Joan of Arc got an extreme hot foot as her punishment in Rouen, France, on this date.



Pope Benedict XV canonized her in 1920.


May 30, 1593 -
Noted English dramatist, spy and buggerer (a famed pastime of English and Irish playwrights), Christopher Marlowe was either:



a: murdered in a tavern brawl on this date, or,
b: faked his death and assumed a new identity as William Shakespeare, noted English dramatist, spy and buggerer.


May 30, 1806 -
Andrew Jackson couldn't wait to marry his wife, Rachel Donelson Robards.

He was so impatient that he had married her before she could obtain a legal divorce from her first husband, Captain Lewis Robards - so technically she was a bigamist and an adulteress. His political opponents made much of this fact. Dueling over a horse racing wager and his wife's honor, the future President took a bullet in the chest from fellow lawyer Charles Dickinson on this date in 1806.



The slug shatters two ribs and buries itself near his heart. Then it was Jackson's turn to fire; his shot managed to sever an artery, technically breaking the rules of the duel. Dickinson died a few hours later, the only man Jackson ever killed in any of his 103 duels.

The bullet that struck Jackson was so close to his heart that it could never be safely removed. Jackson had been wounded so frequently in duels over his wife's honor that it was said he "rattled like a bag of marbles". At times he would cough up blood, and he experienced considerable pain from his wounds for the rest of his life.

I suppose that's what love was like in the 19th Century.


May 30, 1842 –
The semi-annual event, Kill the Queen Day takes place, on this date, when John Francis fails in an attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria as she drives down Constitution Hill in London with Prince Albert. This was actually Francis’s second attempt; the day before, he had pulled out his pistol but had either lost courage or his gun had misfired; he slipped away.

John Francis, 19 at the time, was the only one of Victoria’s assailants to be found guilty of treason and sentenced to death. His sentence was, however, commuted to transportation for life. He lived the rest of his 63 years in Australia, marrying and fathering ten children. He died in 1885. Many of his descendants live on.


On May 30, 1889, the world’s first bra was (allegedly) invented.



Breasts are an essential feature among mammals, allowing mothers to nurture their young during protracted infancies. No infancy is longer than that of the human species - particularly that of the American male, which often lasts until death.



Breasts, of course, are not just mobile diners for infants. On humans, at least, they also have significant recreational value. Nothing else quite matches the nutrition, entertainment, and sheer jiggle value of the human breast (though Jell-O™ comes close).



Naturally, men couldn’t leave something with the power, appeal, and nutritive value of breasts entirely in the hands of women - literally or metaphorically. From the very dawn of human history, therefore, breasts have been in men’s hands.



In 2500 BC, the Minoan women of Crete were said to have worn special garments that lifted their breasts completely out of their clothing. (Like another popular story of ancient Minos, this is believed to be half bull.) By the rise of the Hellenic (Greek) and Roman civilizations, however, women were binding their breasts tightly to reduce their busts. This style persisted until 476 AD, which historians rightly call the Fall of Rome.

As history progressed, the popularity of breasts rose and fell - heaved and plunged, lifted and separated. Each new culture found its own way of exalting or obscuring the breast. By the nineteenth century in Europe, breasts were being pressed together and thrust upward by whalebone-fortified corsets. The strain was unbearable. Something had to give.

On May 30, 1889, the world’s first bra was invented. Or so the story goes - I've lost all track of where I first found that date. However, I do know that corset maker Herminie Cadolle invented the Bien-être (meaning "well-being") in 1889, a garment that supported the breasts from the shoulders down instead of squeezing them up from below. A revolution, indeed.

Marie Tucek patented the first “breast supporter” in 1893 - a design featuring separate pockets for the breasts, with shoulder straps and hook-and-eye closures. Yes, the very first over-the-shoulder boulder holder.



New York socialite Mary Jacob Phelps invented a modern bra in 1914 (with two handkerchiefs, some ribbon, and a bit of cord) to accommodate a sheer evening gown. Ms. Phelps sold her invention, which she called the brassiere, to the Warner Brothers Corset Company in Bridgeport, Connecticut, for $1,500 in 1914.

The US War Industries Board encouraged the assimilation of the bra in 1917 by encouraging women to stop buying corsets, thereby freeing up nearly 60 million pounds of the metal used in them. (That was a lot of girded loins.) During the 1920s, a Russian immigrant by the name of Ida Rosenthal founded Maidenform with her husband William. The Rosenthals grouped breasts into cup sizes and developed bras for women of every age.



From then on, the bra was here to stay - lifting, separating, supporting, and (in some cases) liberating breasts across the globe. So, you see, Bunkies, it doesn’t really matter what happened on May 30, 1889. It only matters that I’ve gotten you to read the word breast about twenty times in the last several paragraphs.

Now you know.


May 30, 1896 -
The first car accident in the United States happened in New York City on this date.

Henry Wells from Springfield, Massachusetts was out joy riding his Duryea Motor Wagon, careening along the streets at 18 mph, when he collided with with a bicycle ridden by Evylyn Thomas, New York native. She was brought to Manhattan Hospital with a broken leg.


May 30, 1906 -
Chocolate tycoon Milton Hersey opened Hersheypark which he built as a leisure park for his employees, on this date.



Over the years, a Merry-go-Round and boat rides on the creek that ran through the park were added, but It wasn’t until 1923 that the first roller coaster was built, The Wild Cat. Over the next 70 years, nine roller coasters were added, a water park, themed areas, a zoo, and other attractions.


May 30, 1908 -

Melvin Jerome Blanc, the prolific American voice actor, performing on radio, in television commercials, and most famously, in hundreds of cartoon shorts for Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera during the Golden Age of American animation, was born on this date.





He is often regarded as one of the most gifted and influential persons in his field, providing the definitive voices for iconic characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Barney Rubble among hundreds of others. His talents earned him the nickname, The Man of a Thousand Voices. When he died he had "That's All Folks" inscribed on his tombstone.


May 30, 1922 -
The Lincoln Memorial was dedicated on this date.



The Memorial walls feature a typo. The north wall of the monument building features an inscription of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, a speech originally delivered in March 1865 at the tail end of the Civil War. Lincoln’s memorable incantation, “With high hope for the future, no prediction in regard to it is ventured,” concludes the first paragraph of the inscription, though with a minor error: The word “FUTURE” is misspelled as “EUTURE,” a blunder that remains visible despite attempts to correct it.


May 30, 1966 -
Surveyor 1, the first US spacecraft to land on an extraterrestrial body (the Moon), was launched from Cape Canaveral, on this date.



The hovercraft successful soft landed in the Ocean of Storms on the Moon on June 2, 1966. Surveyor 1 transmitted 11,237 still photos of the lunar surface to the Earth by using a television camera and a sophisticated radio-telemetry system.


May 30, 1971 -
The US space probe Mariner 9, the first satellite to orbit Mars, was launched on this date.



Over the years, it will send more than 7,000 pictures of the planet back to Earth.The images revealed what appear to be ancient dry riverbeds on the surface, suggesting the presence of water on Mars at some point in the past. Mariner 9 photographed the entire surface of Mars.


May 30, 1989 -
Chinese students erected a giant statue called "The Goddess of Democracy" in Tiananmen Square on this date.

The statue was put up as part of the ongoing student protests in Tiananmen Square, and was brought down by tanks just five days later.

(Once again, I'm not winning any fans in China.)



And so it goes.