Everyone should support their local weatherman

Today is National Weather Forecasters Day. It is observed on February 5 to commemorate the birthday of John Jeffries, one of the first people in America to begin observing the weather in a scientific way.





The day was created to celebrate meteorologists, the men and women who predict - Dark. Turning partly light by morning.


February 5, 1927 -
Buster Keaton's movie The General premiered on this date. Keaton's picture received both poor reviews by critics and weak box-office results when it first opened.



The General was Buster Keaton’s favorite film and is now considered a late great of the silent era though was poorly received at its release. The cold reception the film received meant it was the last film in which Keaton had such artistic control over his content.


February 5, 1936 -
Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp makes his final silent-film appearance, Modern Times, which was released on this date.



The film originally ended with Charles Chaplin's character suffering a nervous breakdown and being visited in hospital by the gamin, who has now become a nun. This ending was filmed, though apparently only still photographs from the scene exist today.


February 5, 1944 -
The first appearance of a Marvel superhero outside a comic, Captain America serial film starring Dick Purcell, premiered on this date.



But how did you find out about my vibrator? (Just listen for it about 4:55 in)

Marvel Comics gave the rights to Captain America to Republic Pictures for free, in the hopes that the exposure would increase sales of the Captain America comic book.


February 5, 1953 -
Walt Disney's 14th animated feature, Peter Pan, opens at Roxy Theater, on this date. This was the last Disney film released through RKO, as Walt Disney established his own distribution company, Buena Vista Distribution, by the end of 1953.



Though the film was a modest success, Walt Disney himself was dissatisfied with the finished product, feeling that the character of Peter Pan was cold and unlikable. However, experts on J.M. Barrie praise this as a success, as they insist that Pan was originally written to be a heartless sociopath.


February 5, 1956 -
Don Siegel subversive take on 50's Communist paranoia, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, premiered on this date.



Production designer Ted Haworth came up with a fairly simple and inexpensive (about $30,000 total) idea for creating the pods. The most difficult part was when the pods burst open, revealing the likenesses of the actors. The actors had to have naked impressions of themselves made out of thin, skin-tight latex. Making the casts, which involved being submerged in the very hot casting material with only a straw in their mouths to breathe through, was grueling for the actors, especially Carolyn Jones, who was claustrophobic. Dana Wynter recalled, "I was in this thing while it hardened, and of course it got rather warm! I was breathing through straws or something quite bizarre, and the rest of me was encased, it was like a sarcophagus. The guys who were making it tapped on the back of the thing and said, 'Dana, listen, we won't be long, we're just off for lunch [laughs]!' In the end, we had to be covered except for just the nostrils and I think a little aperture for the mouth."


February 5, 1967 -
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour premiered on CBS-TV, on this date.



Mom actually liked both of them equally.


February 5, 1969 -
ABC premiered a television pilot for a comedy series titled Turn-On, on this date. The cast included Teresa Graves, Hamilton Camp, Mel Stewart, Chuck McCann, and guest host Tim Conway. The show was cancelled while it was on the air, making it one of the shortest runs of any program.





The station manager of WEWS, Cleveland's ABC affiliate, pulled the show off the air after 15 minutes. The remainder of the time slot was a black screen with live organ music, an emergency procedure that hadn't been used in over 20 years.


February 5, 1983 -
The Toto single off their album Toto IV, Africa, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.





The video was directed by Steve Barron, who also did Rosanna and many other early MTV favorites. Toto was one of the few American bands that was making videos even before MTV, and after the network launched in 1981, their Barron-directed clips earned them lots of exposure.


Another little known Monopoly card.


Today in History:
Today is Liberation Day in San Marino.

Americans remain woefully misinformed about San Marino. (American remain woefully misinformed about most countries that aren't located between Canada and Mexico.)

It's not only Liberation Day in San Marino, but, it's also the feast day of St. Agatha -

(patron saint of breast cancer survivors - but again, I digress ...)

About seventeen-hundred years ago, during an epic game of hide and seek, Marinus the Stonemason ran up Mount Titano in Italy to hide from the Roman Emperor Diocletian. It was a good hiding spot and he was never found. He started his own country to pass the time, and the Republic of San Marino survives to this day, an island of foreign nationals in the middle of Italy.

Citizens of are not San Mariners. They are Sammarinese.

The population of San Marino is about 25,000. The population of San Marino, California, is about 13,000.

The California town was named in 1878 by James de Barth Shorb, who had built his home there and didn't think people would go for Shorbtown. Instead, he named it after the Maryland town in which he'd been born.

That was reportedly San Marino, Maryland, which the California town's website claims to have been named "for the tiny European republic."

There is no Maryland town named San Marino. (If there is, they haven't yet made their presence felt on Google.) Foul play is obviously afoot.

Proceed with caution.


February 5, 1556 -
Henry II of France and Philip of Spain signed a truce at the Abbey of Vaucelles, calling a halt to this phase of the long-running Habsburg-Valois conflict

But you don't give a rat's ass.


February 5, 1783 -
A large earthquake in Calabria, Italy left 50,000 dead on this date.

Luckily none of my wife's or a friend of mine's forebearers were involved or they wouldn't be here.


February 5, 1816 -
Rossini's opera Barber of Seville premieres in Rome on this date.







It was one of the earliest Italian operas to be performed in America and premiered at the Park Theater in New York City on November 25 1825.


February 5, 1914 -
William Seward Burroughs II, junkie, novelist, murderer, painter, professional sodomist and performer was born on this date.



Except for a couple of blots on his CV, he is my hero (well him and Julia Child.)


February 5, 1919 -
Four of the leading figures in early Hollywood: Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D. W. Griffith, incorporated to form their own company to better control their own work as well as their futures. The company was United Artist.



MGM reacquired its 100% stake in United Artists in 2011.


February 5, 1940 -
Hans Ruedi Giger, Swiss painter, sculptor, and set designer best known for his design work on the film Alien, was spawned on this date.



He had a very happy childhood.


February 5, 1941 -
The SS Politician wrecked off the coast of the Isle of Eriskay in the Hebrides on this date. It carried some 20,000 cases of whiskey, which the natives hid from customs agents.



The story was told in the 1947 book Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie. The book was made into a film in 1949 (and remade in 2017.) According to official files recently released by the British Home Office, there was nearly 290,000 ten shilling notes on board as well (this would be the equivalent of several million pounds at today's prices), not all of which was ever recovered.


February 5, 1952 -
NYC's first modern day Walk/Don’t Walk pedestrian signal signs were installed at 44th St & Broadway in Times Square, on this date. Each sign flashed “Walk” for 22 seconds, then “Don’t Walk” for ten seconds, before the “Don’t Walk” illuminated red for 58 seconds more.

The installation of this sign was inspired by the growing number of deaths resulting from pedestrian accidents. The use of these pedestrian traffic signs are still used today in order to make streets safer.


February 5, 1958 -
A B-47 returning from a simulated combat mission suffered a midair collision with an F-86, on this date. A Mark 15 Mod 0 hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb was purposely jettisoned by the crippled B-47 bomber off the coast of Savannah, Georgia, and has yet to be recovered.

The bomb, whether or not it contains a plutonium detonator (the Air Force has been hazy on this fact), has not been found: to repeat - a large object with some enriched uranium surrounded by four hundred pounds of TNT has gone missing for 60 years. (This is essentially a dirty bomb - a dirty bomb resting just off the shore of a vibrant United States port.)



Recovering the bomb and the enriched uranium inside would be a coup for any nation looking to skip a few steps to becoming a nuclear power, so one could return the Tybee Bomb, definitely no questions asked.


February 5, 1971 -
Apollo 14 manned lunar module Antares lands near the Fra Mauro region of the Moon, on this date.



Apollo 14 commander Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the fifth human to walk on the Moon with astronaut Edgar D. Mitchell.


Before you go - We're going to preview some of the commercials ahead of the Superbowl, this weekend -





I must ask - who in there right mind would chase after a keg of light beer? Now a keg full of Bombay Sapphire Gin, that's anther matter totally.



And so it goes

A sweater just makes everything better

Today is National Sweater Day in the United States and given how cold it is outside today, IT IS the best day to wear a sweater, striped of not.



The first Thurday in February is the best day to wear a sweater for our neighbor to the North. It is National Sweater Day in Canada this year is celebrated on February 5. (Some sources have us celebrating National Sweater Day with the Canadians but let's not start taking all of their things just yet.)



Since 2010, WWF has encouraged more than a million Canadians to show their support for limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius by turning down their thermostats by the same amount (or more) and wearing their favorite sweaters to stay warm.


February 4, 1961 –
United Artists' film The Misfits, directed by John Huston, (written by Arthur Miller,) and starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Clift, went into general release on this date.



A doctor was on call 24 hours a day for both Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift during the filming because both were experiencing health problems with alcohol and medical stimulants. Ironically, Clark Gable died of a heart attack right after production ended. Marilyn Monroe blamed herself for Clark Gable's death. However it should be noted that Gable was already in poor health when filming began. He had been a chain smoker since his mid-teens, and until recently he had been a heavy drinker. Twice over the past decade he had suffered severe chest pains which could have been heart attacks.


February 4, 1966 -
The Rolling Stones released 19th Nervous Breakdown, on this date. It goes on to reach No.2 on both the US and UK charts.



The lyrics are an attack on spoiled brats who are given everything and are still unhappy. Jagger took pains to explain that the song was not autobiographical. Regarding the lyrical inspiration, he said, "Things that are happening around me - everyday life as I see it. People say I'm always singing about pills and breakdowns, therefore I must be an addict – this is ridiculous. Some people are so narrow-minded they won't admit to themselves that this really does happen to other people besides pop stars."


February 4, 1970 -
Twentieth Century Fox's film Patton, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, (written by Francis Ford Coppola,) and starring George C. Scott premieres in New York on this date.



The movie begins without showing the 20th Century-Fox logo, or any other indication that the film is starting. At military bases across the US theater owners reported that soldiers in the audience would often stand up and snap to attention when they heard the movie's opening line ("Ten-hut!"), assuming it to be a real call to attention.


February 4, 1977 -
American Bandstand 25th Anniversary Special airing in primetime on ABC-TV on this date.

(Sorry for the quality of the video)

The show features one of the first "all-star jams," as Chuck Berry is joined by Greg Allman, Junior Walker, The Pointer Sisters, Charlie Daniels and several others on a performance of Roll Over Beethoven.


February 4, 1977 -
Fleetwood Mac's Rumours album was released 49 years ago on this date - Bunkies, we are old.



Many of the songs on the album show a darker side in the lyrics. It's asking you to move on, leave the singer alone. Fleetwood Mac was experiencing the shatter of all of their emotional ties with not one, not two, but three break-ups! That was the divorce of the McVies, Buckingham and Stevie Nicks breaking up, and Fleetwood going through a divorce from his wife.

This was another album my sister and I wore the needle on the record player out on.


February 4, 1979 -
Co-Ed Fever, one of the three series that attempted to capitalize on the success of the motion picture National Lampoon's Animal House, (the others were ABC's Delta House and NBC's Brothers and Sisters,) had a special preview on CBS-TV on this date.



The show had such poor ratings that it was cancelled before it's scheduled premiere date of February 19. The show has been ranked no. 32 on TV Guide's 50 Worst Shows of All Time.


February 4, 1984 –
British group Culture Club second song released off their second album, Colour by Numbers, Karma Chameleon reach No. #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



Songwriting in Culture Club was mostly a group effort, with Boy George writing the lyrics. Many of his words were inspired by his relationship with the group's drummer, Jon Moss, with whom he had an affair during the height of the group's fame. George admitted that their first single Do You Really Want To Hurt Me? was about Moss, and their difficult lover-professional relationship was the inspiration for the line, "You're my lover, not my rival" in Karma Chameleon. The relationship was hidden to the public and Jon never admitted it during the '80s, so in a way Boy George was communicating with him through their songs.


February 4, 2007 -

Can you make it rain harder?



Prince performed at Super Bowl XLI, in the pouring rain and giving what is arguably the greatest Halftime show performance on this date.


February 2, 2012 -
Adele becomes the first female British artist to have three #1 songs from the same album top the Billboard Hot 100 chart when Set Fire to the Rain hits the top spot, following Rolling In The Deep and Someone Like You from the album 21.



Many of the songs on 21 are about the heartbreaking ending of Adele's first real relationship. She told MTV News in an interview to plug the album's release: "It broke my heart when I wrote this record, so the fact that people are taking it to their hearts is like the best way to recover. 'Cause I'm still not fully recovered. It's going to take me 10 years to recover, I think, from the way I feel about my last relationship. It was the biggest deal in my entire life to date. He made me totally hungry. He was older, he was successful in his own right, whereas my boyfriends before were my age and not really doing much. And he got me interested in film and literature and food and wine and traveling and politics and history, and those were things I was never, ever interested in. I was interested in going clubbing and getting drunk."


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
February 4, 1861 -
State delegates met in Montgomery, Alabama, to form a Confederate government on this date.

They elected Jefferson Davis as president of Confederacy.



Do you think Hallmark has a card commemorating this event?


February 4, 1889 -
Harry Longabaugh was released from Sundance Prison in Wyoming, thereby acquiring the famous nickname, The Sundance Kid on this date.

Bunkies, this was the original version of Brokeback Mountain during the 60's


February 4, 1902 -
Isolationist, racist, neo-nazi and early environmentalist Charles Lindbergh, first man to fly solo across the Atlantic, was born on this date.



Kind of complicated guy, don't you think.


February 4, 1912 -
Franz Reichelt (alias The Flying Tailor) designed an overcoat to fly or float its wearer gently to the ground like the modern parachute. To demonstrate his invention he made a jump of 60 meters from the first deck of the Eiffel Tower, at that time the tallest man-made structure in the world.



The parachute failed and Reichelt fell to his death. The jump was recorded by the cameras of the gathered press. Winner of the 1912 Darwin Award.


February 4, 1913 -
People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically... No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in..



Rosa Lee Parks, civil rights activist whose refusal to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Alabama and helped started the Civil Rights Movement, was born on this date.


February 4, 1918 -
Nobody fucks with Ida Lupino



Ida Lupino, actress, director, and a pioneer among women filmmakers was born on this date.


February 4, 1948 -
Vincent Furnier (Alice Cooper), rocker and avid golfer, turns 77 today.



Yes, we're all not worthy.


February 4, 1972 -
Senator Strom Thurmond sent a secret memo, on this date, to William Timmons (in his capacity as an aide to Richard Nixon) and United States Attorney General John N. Mitchell, with an attached file from the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, urging that British musician John Lennon (then living in New York City) be deported from the United States as an undesirable alien, due to Lennon's political views and activism.



The document claimed that Lennon's influence on young people could affect Nixon's chances of re-election, and suggested that terminating Lennon's visa might be "a strategy counter-measure".


February 4, 1974 -
Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland's Thompson gun, and bought it.



Newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst, 19 years old, was kidnapped in Berkeley, California, by the Symbionese Liberation Army on this date.


February 4, 1983 -
Karen Carpenter died of anorexia nervosa on this date. She frequently took laxatives and induced vomiting to prevent weight gain.



At the time of her death she was pencil thin. Lead graphite thin.


February 4, 1987 -
Pianist/jewelry wearer Wladziu Valentino died in Palm Springs, California due to complications from AIDS on this date.



Nobody ever suspected the man was gay.


February 4, 1998 -
Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates was assaulted with a direct hit by a fluffy cream pie during a three-pronged attack in Brussels. He was in Belgium attending meetings with industry and government leaders.



Rumor is that the attack was engineered by Noel Godin, infamous for his other pie throwings at government officials.


February 4, 1999 -
In NYC, plainclothes police officers fired 41 shots at Amadou Diallo, a Bronx street peddler and immigrant from Guinea, who was unarmed in front of his Bronx home. Police were searching for a rapist and Daillo was killed with 19 gunshot wounds.



Officers Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy were later indicted (but ultimately cleared) for 2nd degree murder.


February 4, 2004 -
Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard University student, launched "The facebook", as it was originally known, on this date; the name taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshmen, profiling students and staff.



Within five years of its founding, Facebook had more than 500 million users. And if you think I'm going to say anything more, you're nuts.


On February 4, 2008, at 00:00 GMT, NASA transmitted the Beatles song Across The Universe in the direction of the star Polaris, 431 light years from Earth. The transmission was made using a 70m antenna in the DSN's Madrid Deep Space Communication Complex, located outside of Madrid, Spain. It was done with an "X band" transmitter, radiating into the antenna at 18 kW. (This may be on the test.)



In case our overlords on Nibiru are Radiohead fans, here's a tune for them



Should our alien overlords come from Planet X, hopefully David Bowie will plead our case, now that he is back home.



And so it goes

It's still cold outside - here are some Dad jokes

What half of a large intestine:



1 semicolon


It's' Elmo's Birthday!



It's nice to know someone, even a puppet gives a damn about you.


February 3, 1932 -
Paramount Pictures released Josef von Sternberg's Shanghai Express, starring Marlene Dietrich, Clive Brook and Anna Mae Wong in Los Angeles on this date.



It was Josef von Sternberg's intention to have the style of the film should reflect the rhythm of a train journey. This explains the film's tight pace and the rather staccato quality of the dialogue. This film is included among the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Schneider.


February 3, 1944 -
Robert Stevenson's classic presentation of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, starring Orson Wells, and Joan Fontaine, premiered in NYC on this date. (Look for Elizabeth Taylor in an uncredited role in the film.)



Orson Welles did enough work behind the scenes that the production company offered him a producer credit, which he turned down. Welles' official reason for this is a belief that a person who is not directing the film shouldn't be "just" a producer.


February 3, 1945 -
Walt Disney's The Three Caballeros, premiered in the US, on the date.



The premise of the film is that it is Donald Duck's birthday and his friends give him a tour of Latin America as a gift. The date of the birthday is given as "Friday 13th" with no month specified. The later animated short Donald's Happy Birthday is also set on Donald's birthday and gives the date as "March 13th".


February 3, 1951 -
Another great Sylvester cartoon, Canned Feud, premiered on this date.



This cartoon is particularly violent for the series and for a Sylvester cartoon in particular.


February 3, 1960 -
Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita, starring Marcello Mastroianni and Anita Ekberg premiered in Rome on this date.



The film and especially the final beach scene were inspired by the infamous 1953 Wilma Montesi murder case. Montesi was an Italian woman from a proper family. Her dead body was found on a beach near Rome. The investigation exposed the drugs and sex orgies of Roman high society at the time. The murder remains unsolved as of today.


February 3, 1964 -
Just prior to the Beatles invasion of the US, Meet the Beatles went 'gold' on this date.



Meet the Beatles! was The Beatles first "official" album in America, released on January 20, 1964 by Capitol Records, the sister company within EMI to their British label, Parlophone.


February 3, 1973 –
Elton John' song Crocodile Rock became his first US Billboard Hot 100 hit on this date.



Elton's lyricist Bernie Taupin told Esquire in 2011 that this song is "a strange dichotomy because I don't mind having created it, but it's not something I would listen to.".


February 3, 1978 –
The comedy film, The One and Only, starring Henry Winkler, Kim Darby, and Gene Saks, and directed by Carl Reiner was released on this date.



Henry Winkler first became aware of the script for this movie when he ran into actor Dustin Hoffman in a doorway of a New York building. Hoffman talked for about three minutes about some screenplays he owned the rights to and about a year later Winkler received a copy of this film's script.


February 3, 1978 -
The TV-movie Dead Man's Curve, the first to deal with the tragic Jan & Dean story, premieres on ABC-TV on this date.



Wolfmand Jack, Dick Clark, and Beach Boys Mike Love and Bruce Johnston, appear in the movie. In the film, Wolfman Jack introduces himself to Jan and Dean in a small town as "Bob Smith", manager and The Jackal at the local radio station. Wolfman Jack's real name is Robert Weston Smith.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
February 3, 1468 -
About 600 years ago a child was born in the city of Mainz, in what is today Germany. His name was Johannes Gutenberg. He worked as a goldsmith and gem cutter until finally converting a wine press into a printing press.



He printed 200 copies of the Bible and gradually went broke. He died on this date.

Lesser known to history is the name of Edgar Weasle-Puck, the Englishman who developed a printing press at around the same time as Gutenberg. Instead of printing Bibles, however, Weasle-Puck ran off 500 copies of Lewde & Graffical Engravingf of Perfonf Not Wearing Any Clothef. He made a small fortune, changed his name, purchased an Earldom, and moved to southern France, where he spent the rest of his days eagerly awaiting the invention of the lower-case "s."


February 3, 1637 -
Considered the first major speculative bubble, the sale and collection of tulips in the Netherlands reached extraordinary heights before collapsing spectacularly on this date.



At the height of the tulip mania, one bulb could sell for more than ten times the annual income of a skilled craftsman. And you could not smoke that crap.


February 3, 1882 -

P.T. Barnum purchased the elephant Jumbo on this date. He kept him for three years until the animal's skull was crushed by a train.



After his death, Jumbo's skeleton was donated to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The elephant's heart was sold to Cornell University. Jumbo's hide was stuffed by William J. Critchley and Carl Akeley, both of Ward's Natural Science, and the mounted specimen traveled with Barnum's circus for a number of years.



In 1889, Barnum donated the stuffed Jumbo to Tufts University, where it was displayed until destroyed by a fire in 1975, coincidentally a fate that befell many of Barnum's exhibits during his own lifetime. The great elephant's ashes are kept in a 14-ounce Peter Pan Crunchy Peanut Butter jar in the office of the Tufts athletic director.

I could not make this up if I wanted to do so.


February 3, 1913 -
In one of the darkest days in U.S. history, the 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified on this date. This amendment created the income tax.



Please check on your Qanon supporting neighbor; they might do themselves harm on this day. You know what, upon further thought, leave them be.


The United States broke diplomatic relations with Germany on February 3, 1917. The Germans were very upset by this and tried to make America jealous by flirting with Mexico. Britain overheard Germany's sweet talk and told America everything she'd heard. Unfortunately for Germany, however, it didn't make America jealous. It made America angry. A few months later the United States declared war on Germany.



(Less than two years later, World War I ended with Germany's defeat. This made Germany upset again, and they spent the next two decades planning how they'd get even. Eventually this led to World War II, which also ended, once again, with Germany's defeat. Germany remains upset to this day, but, having been deprived of an army, poses no serious threat to anyone but France.)


February 3, 1927 -
Some very famous directors have started in the mail room, which is just getting inside the studio, getting to know people, getting to know the routine.



Kenneth Anger, American underground avant-garde film-maker, author of the notorious book Hollywood Babylon and professional Dan Rather impersonator, was spawned on this date.


February 3, 1943 -
The US transport ship Dorchester, which was carrying troops to Greenland, sank after being hit by a torpedo. Four Army chaplains (Rev. Lt. George L. Fox, a Methodist minister; Rabbi Lt. Alexander D. Goode; Father Lt. John P. Washington, a Roman Catholic priest; and Rev. Lt. Clark V. Poling, a Protestant minister from the Dutch Reformed Church) gave their life jackets to four other men, and went down with the ship.



Of the 902 men aboard the U.S.A.T. Dorchester, only 230 survived. Before boarding the Dorchester back in January, Chaplain Poling had asked his father to pray for him, "Not for my safe return, that wouldn't be fair. Just pray that I shall do my duty...never be a coward...and have the strength, courage and understanding of men. Just pray that I shall be adequate."


February 3, 1956 -
It's Nathan Lane's birthday today.





Pound for pound, one of the funniest guest on a talk show.


February 3, 1959 -
The Day the Music Died:

Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper were on a tour called “Winter Dance Party” tour. The musicians were traveling from venue to venue on tour buses.



A small plane carrying The Big Bopper (J.P. Richardson), Buddy Holly and Richie Valens crashed near Mason City, Iowa, while en route to a show in Fargo, North Dakota. Richardson had developed a case of the flu during the tour (erroneously thought to have been caused by riding on the unheated bus) and asked one of Holly's bandmates, Waylon Jennings, for his seat on the plane; Jennings agreed to give up the seat. Dion DiMucci of Dion and The Belmonts, who was the fourth headliner on the tour, was approached to join the flight as well; however, the price of $36 was too much. Dion had heard his parents argue for years over the $36 rent for their apartment and could not bring himself to pay an entire month's rent for a short plane ride.



The plane crashed during a blizzard, smashing into a cornfield at over 220 mph, flipping over on itself and tossing the passengers into the air. The victims were jettisoned from the plane, landing yards from the wreckage, and lay there for ten hours as snowdrifts formed around them. Because of the weather, no one reached the crash site until later in the morning.



The Surf Theatre's Winter Dance Party in Clear lake, Iowa,was held this past weekend. Hopefully, If you were in the area, you caught it.


February 3, 1971 -
New York Police Officer Frank Serpico was shot during a drug bust in Brooklyn on this date and survived to later testify against police corruption.



Many believe the incident proves that NYPD officers tried to kill him.


February 3, 1995 –
Astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 is launched from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. STS-63 was the second mission of the US/Russian Shuttle-Mir Program, which carried out the first rendezvous of the American Space Shuttle with Russia's space station Mir.



In July 1999, Collins became the first (and currently only) female Shuttle commander with the launch of STS-93. On her last mission in 2005, she would command the historic STS-114 "Return to Flight" mission, the first after the Columbia tragedy.



And so it goes