You only live once,

and the way I live once is enough.. — Frank Sinatra

For some reason, today is All or Nothing Day. All or Nothing Day is a time to take risks and live on the edge.



Live like today is your last day on earth and let your inner daredevil shine, especially if you are looking to become a Darwin Award winner.


July 26, 1951 -
Walt Disney's 13th animated feature, Alice in Wonderland, premiered in the UK and New York City on this date.





Continuing the pattern of film versions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland not being commercially successful, this movie was a huge box office failure. However, it did become something of a cult film during the 1960s, where it was viewed as a "head film". Several years later it became the Disney studio's most requested 16mm film rental title for colleges and private individuals. In 1974, the studio took note of this fact, withdrew the rental prints, and reissued the film nationally themselves


July 26, 1969 -
Johnny Cash released the single, A Boy Named Sue, on this date.



Cash was at the height of his popularity when he recorded the song live at California's San Quentin State Prison at a concert on February 24, 1969.


July 26, 1979 –
The Clash releases their first U.S. single, I Fought the Law on this date.



This was written by Sonny Curtis, who was a member of The Crickets (Buddy Holly's group). The Crickets recorded it shortly after Buddy Holly's death in 1959 and released it on their 1960 album In Style With The Crickets. If Holly had lived, there's a good chance it would have been a huge hit for The Crickets.


July 26, 1980 -
The Rolling Stones started a seven week run at No.1 (the group's eighth US No.1,) on the US album chart with Emotional Rescue, on this date.



Mick Jagger sang much of this in a falsetto, which was the thing to do with disco songs. The Bee Gees did the same thing, but unlike The Stones, were never able to get back the fans they lost to disco.


July 26, 1986 -
Peter Gabriel's song Sledgehammer went to No.1 on the US singles chart, No.4 hit in the UK, on this date.



The wildly innovative video was directed by Stephen R. Johnson and featured stop-motion claymation techniques. The video has won a number of awards, including a record nine MTV Awards at the 1987 MTV Video Music Awards, and Best British Video at the 1987 Brit Awards.


July 26, 1991 -
One of Mel Brooks non-film parody movies, Life Stinks, starring Mel, Leslie Ann Warren, Howard Morris, and Jeffrey Tambor premiered on this date. (This was one of my father-in-law's favorite movies.)



The film's original title, Life Sucks, was changed at the studio's insistence.


July 26, 2006 –
The directorial debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine, starring Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin, went into limited release on this date.



The production crew made sure Abigail Breslin really was listening to music in her headphones to keep her from hearing Alan Arkin's profanity-laced scenes.


July 26, 2015 -
In a field just outside of Cesena, Italy, 1000 musicians and singers play Foo Fighters Learn to Fly simultaneously with the dream of attracting the band to play a show in their city for the first time in nearly 20 years.





On November 3, 2015, the Foo Fighters performed a 27-song set for the for the Rockin’ 1000, starting with Learn to Fly.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
July 26, 1753 O.S. (August 6, 1753 N.S.) -
Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann, German physicist, died of electrocution in St. Petersburg, Russia on this date. He was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when he heard thunder. The Professor ran home with his engraver to capture the event for posterity. While the experiment was underway, a supposed ball lightning appeared and collided with Richmann's head leaving him dead in a red spot. His shoes were blown open, parts of his clothes singed, the engraver knocked out; the door frame of the room was split, and the door itself torn off its hinges.

Beside not telling him that hemlock was poison, his mother did not sit Little Georg upon her knee and tell him about the evils of electricity. He was apparently the first person in history to die while conducting electrical experiments.


July 26, 1775 -
The Continental Congress established a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general in Philadelphia on this date.

Franklin also established the standardized method of charging for mail delivery based on weight and distance.


July 26, 1826 -
Schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll was hanged in Valencia, Spain after uttering his last words: "I die reconciled to God and to man," on this date. He was the last person executed by the Spanish Inquisition.

Gee, I guess at that point everybody should have expected the Spanish Inquisition. (I promise I won't mention the Inquisition for a while.)


July 26, 1895 -
I really don't act. I just live what George and I are doing. It has to make some sort of sense to me, or it won't ring true. No matter what the script says, there's no audience and no footlights and no camera for me. There's no make-believe. It's for real.



Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen, the brilliant comedian and actor, and better half of the Burns and Allen team was born on this date.


July 26, 1921 -
The hand of fate had dipped into the ragbag of humanity.



Jean Parker "Shep" Shepherd Jr., American raconteur, radio and TV personality, writer and actor, was born on this date.


July 26, 1934 -
Winsor McCay, an American cartoonist and animator, died on this date. A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades.



His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905 to 1914, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.


July 26, 1943 -
Michael Philip Jagger, Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, occasional film producer and actor, was born on this date.



Ponder this: Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger, Mick's eighth child (who is almost eight years old) is the grand uncle to his half sister Jade Jagger Fillary's first granddaughter, Ezra Key, who is ten (although it is impolite to tell a lady's age.)


July 26, 1947 -
President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act forbade the CIA from operating within the US.

With the NSA surveillance program, that's not quite working out at the moment, is it?


July 26, 1956 -
A little more than 11 hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm, the Italian liner Andrea Doria, carrying 1,134 passengers and 572 crew, sank off New England coast.



46 people on the Andrea Doria and 5 crew members of the Stockholm died as a result of the crash. The SS Ile de France had been near the collision site and was able to assist in the rescue of many of the passengers of the Andrea Doria. Within four years, the Ile de France was used as a floating prop for the nautical disaster film, The Last Voyage, which had some plot similarities to the disaster involving the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria.


July 26, 1956 -
The Suez Crisis begins when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalizes the British and French-owned Suez Canal hoping to charge tolls that would pay for construction of of the Aswan dam on the Nile. Israel, followed by the UK and France, invades Egypt in October of that year. Political pressure from the U.S., the USSR and the UN leads to the withdrawal of the invading nations by 1957.



The Suez Conflict fundamentally altered the regional balance of power. It was a military defeat for Egypt, but Nasser's status grew in the Arab world as the defender of Arab nationalism. Israel withdrew from Egyptian territory gained in the fighting but regained access to the Straits of Tiran, while the United Nations adopted a larger role maintaining a peacekeeping force in the Sinai. Britain and France lost influence in the region and suffered humiliation after the withdrawal of their troops from the Canal Zone.


July 26, 1959 -
There was a partial nuclear reactor meltdown at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, on this date. Little known outside of the area, the nuclear accident released far more radiation that the Three Mile Island accident.



A report in 2006 said it may have caused hundreds of cases of cancer in the community, and that chemicals threatened to contaminate ground and water.


July 26, 1984 -
Serial killer, cannibal and flesh suit wearer Ed Gein died at the Mendota Mental Health Institute, a home for the criminally insane on this date.

Gein inspired the films Psycho and Silence of the Lambs. Bunkies, I warn you every year - DON'T go looking for any of the true crime scene photos attached to Mr. Gein's name unless you'd like the truly grizzly.


July 26, 1991 -

Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman) was arrested in Florida, for exposing himself at the South Trail XXX Cinema on this date.

For several years following the incident, Reubens lost his children's television show and product endorsements.


Don't forget, as if you could -



The opening Olympics ceremony is televised this evening, (grab a good seat on the couch now.)



And so it goes.

Once a saint, not always a saint

St. Christopher was once the patron saint of bachelors, travelers, transportation workers, protector against sudden death and toothaches.



The Saint Christopher feast day, celebrated on July 25, was removed from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in 1969. But by all means, please feel free to continue to pray to this beleaguered saint (or non-saint.)


July 25, 1953 -
The Merrie Melodies cartoon, Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century, starring Daffy Duck as space hero Duck Dodgers, Porky Pig as his assistant and Marvin the Martian as his opponent, was released on this date



Considering the period in which the cartoon was produced (the Second Red Scare was in full swing during the 1950s era), some scholars have used the cartoon to parallel the futility of the Cold War and the arms race.


July 25, 1960 -
When The Everly Brothers and Elvis Presley decided not to record his tune, Roy Orbison decided to record the song Only the Lonely himself. It reach reached the No.2 spot on the US Billboard's singles chart on this date.



This was one of the first songs Roy Orbison and Joe Melson wrote together. The inspiration for the lyrics came from Melson, who as a teenager fell in love with a girl who left him brokenhearted. Melson says that she took off in a Cadillac and the words to this song came to him naturally. Melson also says that the song was his proudest moment as a songwriter, as it was his first hit with Orbison. The pair would write many more hits for Orbison, including Running Scared, Crying and Blue Bayou.


July 25, 1966 -
The Supremes release the single You Can't Hurry Love, on this date.



This was written by the prolific songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland. It was based on a gospel song entitled You Can't Hurry God, which was sung by Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes, a gospel group based in Birmingham, Alabama.


July 25, 1980 -
The very silly movie, Caddyshack, premiered on this date (watch it - you'll laugh in spite of yourself.)



As it was his first directing job and he wanted to make sure the production was successful, Harold Ramis avoided fraternizing with the cast and crew's late night parties to focus on the next day's shoot. However when filming wrapped, Ramis had gone to the wrap party and partied so heavily and early into the party, that he had to be carried back to his hotel room.


July 25, 1980 -
AC/DC released their seventh studio album Back In Black, on this date. It was their first since the death of the band’s lead singer Bon Scott.



The album has sold an estimated 49 million copies worldwide to date, making it the second highest-selling album of all time, and the best-selling hard rock or heavy metal album.


July 25, 1986 -
Paramount Pictures released the Mike Nichols version of the Nora Ephron novel, Heartburn, starring Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Kevin Spacey (in his film debut) on this date.



Jack Nicholson replaced Mandy Patinkin as Mark Forman. Patinkin was originally cast as the male lead but was suddenly replaced by Nicholson after two days of shooting when director Mike Nichols realized there was no chemistry between Patinkin and lead actress Meryl Streep.


July 25, 1989 -
After leaving Def Jam, Beastie Boys release their second album, Paul's Boutique, on Capitol Records, on this date.



Paul's Boutique was a very big deal because it determined the whether the Beastie Boys were going to be a short-lived novelty act (not a stretch considering their big hit (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)) or a group with staying power. The album didn't sell very well compared to their first effort, but it earned them the acclaim they badly needed at that point and paved the way to their Hall of Fame career.


July 25, 2010 -
An undated television series based on Arthur Conan Doyle's tales of his famous detective Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman, premiered on the BBC, on this date.



Many of the crew in Sherlock are related. Sherlock's parents are actually actor Benedict Cumberbatch's parents, Wanda Ventham and Timothy Carlton; Amanda Abbington (Mary Morstan) and Martin Freeman (John Watson) were real-life partners; producer Sue Vertue is writer Steven Moffat's wife, and co-producer and writer Beryl Vertue is his mother-in-law; writer Mark Gatiss' husband is the barrister in The Reichenbach Fall; Steven Moffat's son plays Sherlock Holmes as a child in a few episodes.


Another ACME Safety Film


Today in History:
July 25, 1184 -
A feud between Louis III, Landgrave of Thuringia (an area in Central Germany) and Archbishop Conrad of Mainz also in Central Germany) which had existed since the defeat of Henry the Lion intensified to the point that King Henry VI (of Germany) was forced to intervene while he was traveling through the region during a military campaign against Poland. Henry decided to call a diet in Erfurt where he was staying to mediate the situation between the two and invited a number of other figures to the negotiations. On this date, a number of European nobles from across the Holy Roman Empire were at the meeting in a room at the Church of St. Peter at Erfurt, when their combined weight caused the floor to collapse into the latrine beneath the cellar and led to about 60 of nobles drowning in liquid excrement.



Others were luckier, being only injured or even leaving with minor contusions. This was the case of Louis III, who, although he fell into the cesspool, was able to get out and overcome the imaginable infections he might have suffered from his wounds and scrapes. His opponent, Archbishop Conrad, also survived, sitting on a window sill and holding on to the stained glass frame until he was rescued. Henry VI himself was saved for the same reason, remaining there until they were able to lower him down a ladder. By the way, he left the city immediately.

It is referred to as the "Erfurt latrine disaster." This disproved the Monty Python axiom concerning the ability to discern who was royalty but I'm sure you could care less.


July 25, 1689 -
King Louis XIV of France, a few years after his anal fistula surgery (See Nov. 18) declared war on Britain on this date, for having joined the League of Augsburg and the Netherlands in order to oppose the French invasion of the Rhenish Palatinate.

This caused the Battle of Schenectady in New York. (Really.)

Please feel free to drop that at your next cocktail party.


July 25, 1848 -
British statesman Arthur James Lord Balfour was born on this date. In 1917, as Foreign Secretary of the British Government, Lord Balfour declared that "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."



This came to be known as the Balfour Declaration, acknowledged by scholars throughout the world as the beginning of the Middle East Peace Process.


July 25, 1865 -
Dr. James Barry, British military medical officer and senior inspector general, died on this date.



As the good doctor was being laid out, a charwoman, Sophia Bishop noticed that Barry was a 'perfect female'. She satisfied her curiosity and also noticed what appeared to be stretch marks on Barry's stomach indicating the doctor had once been pregnant. It was soon revealed that Dr. Barry was likely a female, born Margaret Ann Bulkley.


July 25, 1909 -
French aviator Louis Blériot became the first person to fly across the English Channel when his aircraft (a 28hp wooden monoplane tied together with piano strings) landed in Dover, on this date.



The 36-year-old took off at 5:00 am from an airstrip near Calais and landed 43 minutes later. Blériot had followed his course by looking at ships below, having no compass in the airplane. Blériot claimed his prize of £1,000, offered by the newspaper Daily Mail for this feat.


July 25, 1917 -
Margaret Zelle, also known as Mata Hari, was found guilty of spying and was sentenced to death, on this date.



There is no actual evidence that she is a spy, although she may have slept with half of the German army (and the French had a thing about that.)


July 25, 1920 -
English chemist Rosalind Franklin, the unsung hero of DNA research, was born on the date.



James Watson and Francis Crick got the Nobel Prize for discovering the double helix after Franklin's lab partner showed Watson one of her best images — an X-ray labelled ‘photograph 51'. Some believe she should have shared in their Nobel Prize.


July 25, 1936 -
After NYC's 'Master Builder' Robert Moses had millions of yards of brown and white sand shipped from the Rockaways, Northport and Sandy Hook to Pelham Bay Park, Orchard Beach, the Bronx Rivera, was opened to the public on this date.

At one time, this was the largest Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) project in New York City and the beach had one of the largest parking fields in the city.


July 25, 1943 -
Benito Mussolini attempted to resign as Head Rat Bastard of Italy on this date. He did not receive a gold watch. His 401(K) was in tatters (and had not yet matured.) (I like to remind folks that one of our loyal bunkies is related to one of the carabinieris who arrested Il Duce on this date.)



He was therefore machine-gunned to death, suspended upside down, and urinated on by the people of Italy on April 28, 1945, as a civic reminder of the severe penalty for early withdrawal of principle.


July 25, 1946 -
The US conducted the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, as part of the Operation Crossroads series of nuclear bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.



The bomb, called Baker was detonated 90 feet underwater. Its explosion contaminated the target ships so badly that the Navy had to cancel the one remaining nuclear weapon test called Charlie.


July 25, 1956 -
Yes, I know that the ships Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided off Nantucket on this date

We're going to talk about it tomorrow


July 25, 1965 -
The ever-changing Bob Dylan plugged in for his headlining set backed by the Butterfield Blues Band at The Newport Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, on this date. Dylan's electric performance at the Newport Folk Festival surprised his audience — and not in a good way.



The crowd booed, even when he played his classic song Like A Rolling Stone. Regardless, his artistic direction was the beginning of a new plugged-in era in folk and rock music.


July 25, 1978 -
Lesley and Peter Brown, had tried for years to have a baby, but Lesley suffered from blocked fallopian tubes. Their doctors, a British gynecologist named Patrick Steptoe and a scientist named Robert Edwards, successfully developed the world's first in-vitro fertilization procedure and helped the Browns conceive. Their daughter, Louise Brown was born in Oldham, England on this date.



Though it was controversial at the time, the procedure now is considered mainstream;  hundreds of thousands of babies have been conceived via IVF.


July 25, 1984 -
Russian astronaut Svetlana Savitskaya performed a space walk while stationed on the Soviet space station Salyut 7, becoming the first woman who walking in space.



She also was the second woman in space - the first was Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova, 17 years earlier.


July 25, 1990 -
Please rise for the singing of our National Anthem -



At a baseball game, actress Roseanne Arnold warbled the Star Spangled Banner, grabbed her crotch and endeared herself to an entire nation on this date.


July 25, 1999 -
Woodstock '99 festival ended on this date with looting and rioting, leaving 12 trailers burned, towers toppled, and several women attacked during the course of the show.



About 500 state troopers were needed to quell the mass uprising of peace and love, apparently triggered by overpriced vendors and commercialization.


July 25, 2000 -
A right tire explosion on the Concorde caused the plane to crash after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on this date, leaving 113 dead.



It is the first crash in Concorde's history, and the only supersonic commercial flight to ever crash.



And so it goes.

Tequila: because adulting is hard

Today is National Tequila Day. Tequila originated from Mexico in the 1800s and is now one of the most popular alcohols worldwide, especially in America.



While I am not a tequila man myself, I would not turn a Frozen Margarita down on a hot and humid day.


July 24, 1939 -
Paramount Pictures' William Wellman's action adventure film, Beau Geste, starring Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, and Susan Hayward premiered in the US on this date.



Charles Barton, who has a small part as Buddy McMonigal, was, at the time, an assistant director at Paramount, having started his career as an actor. He had had a bad experience working as an A.D. to Paramount's top director, Cecil B. DeMille, on Union Pacific and refused to work with him again. Paramount demoted him to a bit actor on this picture as punishment. Barton soon left Paramount for Columbia where he was made a director and never worked for Paramount again.


July 24, 1946 -
Paramount Studios released the film-noir classic, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott and Kirk Douglas (his film debut,) on this date.



Originally, Barbara Stanwyck was not pleased that Producer Hal B. Wallis gave her and Lizabeth Scott equal billing in this movie, since Stanwyck was clearly the star and deserved billing above the title. However, years later, Lizabeth Scott walked into a restaurant in Hollywood and was escorted to a table, just coincidentally, next to Stanwyck's. Stanwyck hugged her very affectionately, and said how very good it was to see her and how much she had enjoyed working with her on this movie.


July 24, 1948 -
... Crumbly Crunchies are the best
Look delicious on your vest
Serve them to unwanted guests
Stuff the mattress with the rest....



A great Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, Haredevil Hare, was released on this date. (It was the first appearance of Marvin the Martian, though he wasn't named until decades later.)



Look for a photo of then freshman California Congressman Richard M. Nixon who appears in the faux newspaper The Daily Snooze under the headline "Heroic Rabbit Volunteers As First Passenger."


July 24, 1952 -
Fred Zinnemann's classic western, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and Thomas Mitchell, premiered in New York City, on this date.



In 1951, after 25 years in show business, Gary Cooper's professional reputation was in decline, and he was dropped from the "Motion Picture Herald's" list of the top-ten box-office performers. In the following year, he made a big comeback, at the age of 51, with this film.


July 24, 1971 -
The Raiders' (formerly Paul Revere and the Raiders) song, Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian) reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



The song was written by John D. Loudermilk, a singer/songwriter who recorded as "Johnny Dee". Loudermilk cut 10 of his own albums between the years 1961-1979; he hit the charts with 10 of his own singles between the years 1957-1967, and had tremendous success writing songs for other artists. Working from Nashville, Tennessee, he also wrote hit songs for the Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Stonewall Jackson, and Sue Thompson. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1976.


July 24, 1974 -
The controversial film Death Wish, based on the novel by Brian Garfield, directed by Michael Winner and starring Charles Bronson was released in the US on this date.



After the success of Dirty Harry, Clint Eastwood was offered the role of Paul Kersey but declined, feeling he would be poorly cast. He also thought that Gregory Peck would have been right for the part.


July 24, 1976 -
Elton John's duet with Kiki Dee, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was the second-biggest-selling record of 1976 in both the UK and US (In the UK, Save Your Kisses for Me was #1; in the US it was Silly Love Songs by Wings.


July 24, 1976 -
The Manhattans' song Kiss And Say Goodbye hits #1 in the US on this date.



The song was produced by the Philadelphia-based record producer Bobby Martin, a former member of the MFSB band of session musicians and recorded in 1975 at Joe Tarsia's Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. It would be a full year until it was released, possibly as the label was concerned about dropping a ballad during the disco explosion. "We thought that 'Kiss and Say Goodbye' would be the wrong song to release, and we were very much upset with Columbia choosing a R&B-Country song during the disco era," said Lovett. "And how wrong we were!"


July 24, 1978 -
The truly execrable Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band starring the Brothers Gibbs was released upon an unsuspecting public on this date.



Alice Cooper checked himself into a New York City rehab facility (which he quickly discovered was more of a mental asylum) for alcoholism. He was granted a temporary leave for three days (November 18 to 20, 1977) to record his vocals and shoot his scenes for the film.


July 24, 1977 -
Donna Summer's single I Feel Love, with producer Giorgio Moroder reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



I Feel Love is an electronic music landmark, with a track built entirely on a Moog synthesizer. Giorgio Moroder, a leading light in the genre and a longtime collaborator with Donna Summer, came up with the music. His associate, Pete Bellotte, produced the track with him and wrote the lyrics with Summer. Moroder and Bellotte are responsible for most of Summer's early disco hits.


July 24, 1993 –
UB40's cover of the Elvis Presley song, Can’t Help Falling In Love, hits No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Elvis Presley originally recorded this in 1961. UB40 were asked to record an Elvis tune of their choice for a new film called Honeymoon In Vegas. The band's drummer, James Brown, suggested they record this song because it was one of his favorites. The band agreed but when they presented the song to the film director Andrew Bergman, they learned that a few other acts had recorded the same song, with Clarence Giddons and Bruno Hernandez's version making it into the film, whilst Bono's version ended up on the soundtrack album, even though it wasn't in the film. However it was included on the soundtrack for the movie Sliver, starring Sharon Stone and William Baldwin.


July 24, 1998 -
The unflinchingly gritty Steven Spielberg war flick, Saving Private Ryan premiered on this date.



The cast endured a grueling, week-long course at boot camp instructed by technical advisor Dale Dye. Tom Hanks, who had previously been trained by Dye for the Vietnam war scenes in Forrest Gump, was the only one of them who knew it would be a hard and uncompromising experience: "The other guys, I think, were expecting something like camping in the woods, and maybe learning things while sitting around the campfire."


Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency


Today in History:
July 24, 1567 -

Prince Edward of England proposed marriage to the Queen immediately and his proposal is therefore known as the Rough Wooing. While the pedophile Prince waited for the Queen to acquire enough verbal skills to reply, the Scottish parliament annulled the engagement.

Edward's father, the English King Henry VIII, considered this an insult and declared war. Following an especially nasty Scottish defeat in 1547, Mary was sent to France. It was hoped she would learn to read and write there, and perhaps reach puberty.

She was raised in the court of Henry II, which ought to have taught her some manners, but instead inspired her to marry a dolphin. Eventually the dolphin became king and died, leaving Mary the dowager queen of France. She was 18. Her mother had meanwhile died in Scotland, which caused the Protestants to rebel. They imported the Reformation and banned the Pope. Mary, being Catholic, returned to Scotland to work out a compromise: the country could be Protestant as long as she was allowed to be Catholic.

Four years later she married her cousin, Lord Darnley, a Two-Door Steward. Unfortunately he turned out to be disgusting, and even the birth of a son could not induce Lord Darnley to behave. He was therefore struck by an explosion the following year and subsequently died of strangulation. She was then kidnapped by one of the men suspected of strangling Lord Darnley, a certain Earl of Bothwell, whom she therefore made a Duke and married.

This angered the Protestants, who rose up against her and, on this very day in 1567, made her abdicate in favor of her son, who was immediately crowned as James VI.



She then escaped, raised an army, and was promptly defeated. She became a guest (or, in English, "prisoner") of Queen Elizabeth, until she was caught writing letters asking friends to support (or, in Scottish, "kill") the English Queen.



She was therefore beheaded, and remains dead to this day.

(This will be on the test.)


343 years ago today, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a trading post at Fort Ponchartrain for France on the future site of the city of Detroit, Michigan, in an attempt to halt the advance of the English into the western Great Lakes region.

Mr Cadillac himself thereby came to be known as "the Rolls Royce of settlers." M. Cadillac would be happy to see the improvements going on in Detroit today.


July 24, 1883 -
Captain Matthew Webb wasn't having a great day today. Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875, was attempting to swim across the Niagara River just below the falls.

The Captain was looking to collect a £12,000.00 fortune, when he jumped from his small boat into the raging torrent. He hit his head on jagged rocks and drowned while trying to swim across the Niagara River. His last words were (apparently,) "If I die, they will do something for my wife?"


July 24, 1908 -
Sometimes, it's good to be the king ... you get to decide the length of the Olympic marathon.

When the modern Olympics began in Athens in 1896, a race of 40 kilometers, or 24.85 miles, was held to commemorate the legend of Pheidippides. He is the guy who ran from Marathon to Athens, cried, 'Nike!', realized that he forgot to sign the endorsement contract, then promptly died. For the London 1908 Olympics race, on this date, the marathon was extended to 26 miles so that The Princess of Wales (the future Queen Mary, grandmother of Queen Elizabeth) and her childrn (King Edward VII's grandchildren) could watch the start of the marathon and Queen Alexandria could see the finish from the royal box. The organizers decided on a course of 26 miles and 385 yards from the start at Windsor Castle to the royal entrance to the White City Stadium, followed by a lap of the track, finishing in front of the Royal Box.



The race had a thrilling conclusion - entering the stadium first was Italian Dorando Pietri. But he was exhausted, delirious. He turned the wrong way on the track, reversed course and stumbled, according to news accounts, five times in the final quarter-mile. By assisting Pietri to his feet, race officials assisted Pietri to his feet, jeopardizing his gold medal. But as the official Olympic report said, “It was impossible to leave him there, for it looked as if he might die in the very presence of the Queen.”



Pietri reached the tape first, collapsed and was placed on a stretcher. Arriving second was John Hayes of the United States. The Americans protested the aid given to Pietri, and Hayes was declared the winner. Though he was disqualified, Pietri became a hero. Queen Alexandra presented him with a silver cup. He spurred an international marathon craze. Irving Berlin wrote a song about him. And finally in 1921, the official marathon distance became 26 miles 385 yards.

So now you know


July 24, 1915 -
Almost 850 Western Electric employees and their family members perish when the chartered steamer SS Eastland rolled over in Chicago harbor on this date. History blames the top-heaviness of the ship, exacerbated (ironically) by the recent addition of lifeboats.



Moral: Avoid company picnics.


July 24, 1959 -
While visiting a model kitchen in a U.S. exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard M. Nixon debated with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a U.S. exhibition in the famous 'Kitchen' debate, on the merits of capitalism and communism



Nixon correctly said that the $100-a-month mortgage for the model ranch house was well within the reach of a typical American steelworker.

(Stop dreaming about a $100-a-month mortgage.)


Before you go - not to bum you out but, Autumn, will begin in 60 days.



Soon enough the days will grow shorter and the Canadian wildfires may still continue unchecked.



And so it goes.