Is Mash Potato Day around the corner?

Today is National Chicken Dance Day -



Although I'm sure that Werner Thomas, the creator of the original Chicken Dance music ( Der Ententanz (The Duck Dance)) never had Beyoncé's dancing in mind


May 14, 1925 -
On this fine spring day, a middle-aged London society matron goes out to buy flowers for a party. Meanwhile, across town, a shell-shocked World War I veteran is grappling with severe PTSD and planning his tragic exit from a world that refuses to understand him. Just your average Thursday, really. Virginia Woolf’s groundbreaking novel Mrs. Dalloway hit the shelves on this date.



What Mrs. Dalloway actually delivers is a deep, stream-of-consciousness journey through the minds of its characters, all within the span of a single day. Readers are taken on an emotional rollercoaster of neuroses, repressed desires, class anxiety, mental illness, and existential dread—with bonus appearances by Big Ben and cucumber sandwiches. Woolf’s fluid, impressionistic style broke with literary tradition, diving headfirst into themes that were, for the 1920s, about as taboo as wearing pants to high tea. Homosexuality? Check. Feminism? Absolutely. The psychological toll of war? Front and center. All woven seamlessly into a narrative where not all that much happens - and yet everything happens.


May 14, 1938 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Now That Summer Is Gone, directed by Frank Tashlin, debuted on this date.



It would make sense that squirrels would save their nuts at the First 'Nut'ional Bank - an obvious play on First National Bank.


May 14, 1938 -
Michael Curtiz' technicolor swashbuckler, The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Basil Rathbone, and Claude Rains, premiered in the U.S. on this date.



During one fight sequence, Errol Flynn was jabbed by an actor who was using an unprotected sword--he asked him why he didn't have a guard on the point. The other player apologized and explained that director Michael Curtiz had instructed him to remove the safety feature in order to make the action "more exciting". Flynn reportedly climbed up a gantry where Curtiz was standing next to the camera, took him by the throat and asked him if he found that "exciting enough".


May 14, 1949 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Bee-Deviled Bruin, directed by Chuck Jones, starring The Three Bears, debuted on this date.



Junyer Bear is modeled after the character Lennie, from the story and film Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.


May 14, 1951 -
The seminal It's Time For Ernie, debuts on NBC on this date.



Show like as Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Uncle Floyd Show, Saturday Night Live, The David Letterman Show and even Captain Kangaroo and Sesame Street were influenced by Kovacs and his television work.

TV has never been quite the same since.


May 14, 1960 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Hyde and Go Tweet, directed by Friz Freleng, starring Sylvester and Tweety, debuted on this date.



Sylvester breaks the fourth wall when he asks the audience if he has a choice whether to jump or not..


May 14, 1973 -
François Truffaut's masterpiece about film-making, Day for Night (La Nuit Américaine), starring Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Pierre Léaud premieres at the Cannes Film Festive, on this date.



The English title refers to a technique for filming night scenes in broad daylight, achieved by either lowering the lens aperture or through the use of filters. The French call it the "American night". Ferrand uses this literal translation when talking about the car crash shooting, but Julie cannot understand what he means ("What is American night?").


May 14, 1989 -
We say goodby to the Keaton family when NBC TV aired the last episode of Family Ties, Alex doesn't Live Here Anymore on this date.



The show was a long-time staple of NBC's "Must See TV" Thursday night line-up. After season five, the show moved from Thursday night following The Cosby Show to Sunday night. The show dropped from second place in the ratings to number seventeen due to the move. The ratings declined even further in season seven, and the show was cancelled.


May 14, 1989 -
Moonlighting, one of the better "boy/girl detective show" aired it's last episode on ABC on this date.



Even after the series had long since 'jumped the shark', Bruce Willis' toup was a thing to behold.


May 14, 1998 -
The final episode of Seinfeld aired on this date.



Jerry Seinfeld holds both the record for the "most money refused" according to the Guinness Book of World Records by refusing an offer to continue the show for $5 million per episode, and another record for the Highest Ever Annual Earnings For A TV Actor, while the show itself held the record for the Highest Television Advertising Rates until 2004, when the final episode of Friends aired.

Not too shabby for a show about nothing.


May 14, 1999 -
A lavish rendition of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Michael Hoffman, and starring Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer and Rupert Everett, Stanley Tucci, Calista Flockhart, Anna Friel, Christian Bale, and Dominic West, opened on this date.



Although it appears to be an idyllic location, the shoot was anything but. Five weeks of filming almost completely at night quickly took its toll on an increasingly unhinged cast and crew, whilst all the lush greenery ultimately became poisonous (the studio set was in an aircraft-sized hangar where the plants all started decaying, releasing all sorts of noxious gases into the atmosphere) under the hot studio lights.


Another lesser known Monopoly card


Today in History:
May 14, 964 -
Give me that old time religion.

Pope John XII died of injuries inflicted eight days prior by a jealous husband who caught him in flagrante delicto with his wife.



The 26-year-old pontiff (yes, I know he is often shown as a bald, and sometimes, with white hair and a beard. Apparently he was known as a 'great' fornicator and like make a randy young man, he didn't have time to sit around for a caricature,) had received a blow to the temple, causing immediate paralysis. Critics had accused John of converting the Lateran Palace into a whorehouse.


The first inoculation against Smallpox was administered on May 14, 1796, by Edward Jenner, when Jenner took fluid from a cowpox blister and scratched it into the skin of James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy



(Brief aside: How much do you trust your child’s doctor? Imagine this conversation — “Good afternoon, Mr. and Mrs. Phipps. Little Jimmy looks great. Lungs are clear, no fevers, textbook eight-year-old. Oh, and before you go — I’m going to slice his arm open and rub cow sore juice into the wound. No need to panic, it’s for science.”)



To Jenner’s eternal credit - and Jimmy’s unintentional bravery - it worked. The boy developed a mild fever, recovered quickly, and showed immunity to smallpox. Thus began the long, winding road to modern immunization, all thanks to a combination of bovine biology and bold 18th-century guesswork. But wait! This marvel of medicine came just four days after Napoleon kicked the Austrians around at the Battle of Lodi on May 10, 1796. Coincidence? Probably. But let’s not get picky with our historical drama..



And if you like eerie coincidences, try this timeline on for size:

May 10, 1774: King Louis XV dies… of smallpox.

May 14, 1610: Henry IV (his grandfather) is assassinated.

May 14, 1643: Louis XIII (his dad) dies.
Clearly, French kings should have avoided May altogether.



After Louis XV’s death, his grandson Louis XVI took the throne - famously married to Marie Antoinette, who reportedly told the poor to eat cake (which, in fairness, they could not afford to do even sarcastically). This tone-deaf ruling class behavior led directly to La Révolution, which kicked off on La Quatorze Juillet - French for “The Fourth of July,” if you ask someone who wants to sound cultured while being deeply wrong.



Cue the Rain of Terror, then the Rise of Napoleon, then the Battle of Lodi, and suddenly we’re back to Edward Jenner and his revolutionary use of cow-goo science. Hey, it’s not technically a full circle, but it is the kind of spiraling chaos history excels at — especially when everyone keeps dying on May 14.


May 14, 1878 -
Robert A. Chesebrough begins selling Vaseline (registered trademark for petroleum jelly (U.S. Patent 127,568.)

For the remainder of his life, he ate a teaspoon of the product every day.

(While he was president, Calvin Coolidge loved having his head rubbed with Vaseline while he ate his breakfast in bed.)

Insert dirty joke here (of course liberally lubricated with Vaseline.)


May 14th, 1932 -
New York City Mayor Jimmy Walker, organized a day-long Beer rally known as the "We Want Beer Parade." Nearly 100,000 people showed up in support of repeal and the legalization of beer.



On the very same day the city of Detroit held a similar even of there own, in which some 40,000 people attended.

They marched and the chanted, "Who want's a bottle of beer?"


May 14, 1936 -
Walden Robert Cassotto, singer, actor, Bronx Science grad, was born in NYC on this date.



Bobby Darin was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990.


May 14, 1943 -
At approximately 4:10 a.m., Australia’s AHS Centaur, a hospital ship, was sunk without warning after it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.



Of the 332 medical personnel and civilian crew aboard, only 64 survived.


It's Israel's 78th anniversary today (Israel became a nation at midnight May 14th, in 1948, upon the termination of the British mandate.)



Once again, let us hope that the current situation in Israel will end peacefully and soon.


May 14, 1973 -
The last Saturn V rocket was launched on this date, carrying Skylab One, the first manned space station. At the time, it was the largest payload launched into space by any nation.



During the following nine months, three successive teams of astronauts would crew Skylab. The space station would fall back into the Earth’s atmosphere in July 1979, accidentally scattering debris across Western Australia (luckily no one was injured.)


May 14, 1998 -
The world lost one of its smoothest voices and sharpest suits: Francis Albert Sinatra, better known as Ol’ Blue Eyes, bowed out at the age of 82.



If you believe in poetic exits, perhaps the last voice he heard really was his own, crooning from a record player, whispering, “May you live to be 100, and may the last voice you hear be mine.” From Hoboken bars to Las Vegas stages, from Oscar-winning performances to allegedly "Italian Business Men", Sinatra’s life was a masterclass in swagger. He wasn’t just a singer, he was a symbol of an era. Suave, volatile, loyal, mysterious, magnetic and with just enough mafia-adjacent intrigue to keep things spicy.



The Chairman of the Board once said, “What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can.” Which is one way to describe an existence filled with top-shelf bourbon, sold-out concerts, a few FBI files, Ava Gardner, and four marriages. A model citizen? Not quite. A cultural icon? Undeniably.



Frank Sinatra didn’t just sing songs, he inhabited them. He didn’t just perform, he commanded. And when he died on this date, of a heart attack, the world fell a little quieter. Though, somewhere, in some smoky lounge in the great beyond, you can imagine him raising a glass and saying, “What I do with my life is of my own doing. I live it the best way I can. I've been criticized on many, many occasions, because of - acquaintances, and what have you."



And so it goes.

Swim in the water and jump when you hit ground

Today is Frog Jumping Day. Frog Jumping Day celebrates Mark Twain's 'jumping frog' which made him famous.



The short story was first published in 1865 as Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog while Twain was still a struggling journalist in California - and two years later it was the main attraction of his first book. He never wrote another short story that had such widespread appeal and was so popular.


May 13, 1935 -
The classic Universal Pictures horror film, Werewolf of London, directed by Stuart Walker and starring Henry Hull, Warner Oland, Valerie Hobson, Lester Matthews, and Spring Byington, opened on this date.



This film made up much of its werewolf mythology out of whole cloth. The ideas that being bitten by a werewolf makes one a werewolf, that a werewolf changes under the full moon, and that werewolves were wolf/man hybrids were completely made up.


May 13, 1939 -
The Looney Tunes short, Kristopher Kolumbus Jr., directed by Bob Clampett, starring Porky Pig, debuted on this date. This short has seldom aired on TV due to prominent Native American stereotypes.



This is one of only two Warner Bros. shorts released between Porky and Teabiscuit and Hare-um Scare-um to not feature Warner Bros in a banner during the opening rings.


May 13, 1966 -
The Rolling Stones released Paint it Black, in the UK on this date.



Keith Richards explained how this song came together: "We were in Fiji for about three days. They make sitars and all sorts of Indian stuff. Sitars are made out of watermelons or pumpkins or something smashed so they go hard. They're very brittle and you have to be careful how you handle them. We had the sitars, we thought we'd try them out in the studio. To get the right sound on 'Paint It Black' we found the sitar fitted perfectly. We tried a guitar but you can't bend it enough."


May 13, 1970 -
The Beatles' final movie, Let It Be, received its U.S. premiere, in New York City theaters on this date.



John Lennon believed that Michael Lindsay-Hogg deliberately avoided including shots of him and Yoko Ono in favor of more shots of Paul McCartney. Lennon said he felt that "the camera work was set up to show Paul and not to show anybody else" and that "the people that cut it, cut it as 'Paul is God' and we're just lyin' around ..." Ringo Starr also complained that most of the "clowning" he performed at the director's behest was never used. (Please seek out the Peter Jackson documentary, The Beatles: Get Back.)


May 13, 1978 -
Lt. Columbo finally got to that one last thing on this date when the series finale of Columbo, The Conspirators aired on NBC-TV.



The series was picked up again in 1989 and continued on its eighth season onward, produced by ABC-TV.


May 13, 1978 –
Yvonne Elliman's single If I Can’t Have You (written by The Bee Gees,) went to No.1 on the Billboard Charts, replacing the song, Night Fever, another song written by The Bee Gees and also featured on The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.



The huge success of this song resulted in Elliman being remembered as a disco artist, but this style of music was an exception to the medium-tempo ballads that she specialized in, and which comprised the bulk of her recordings. She sang the role of Mary Magdalene in the original album Jesus Christ Superstar and in the subsequent Broadway and film versions, and achieved her first hit single with the ballad I Don't Know How to Love Him.


May 13, 1994 -
Nearly two years to the day after his farewell, Johnny Carson made a surprise cameo on the Late Show With David Letterman, which turned out to be his last-ever TV appearance before his death in January 2005, on this date.



Just before Carson's death in 2005, CBS executive Peter Lassally, who had produced both Letterman and Carson during his long career, revealed that Carson would occasionally send jokes directly to Letterman.


May 13, 1994 -
Soundgarden released the second single off their album Superunknown, Black Hole Sun, on this date.



Chris Cornell got the idea for this song while driving home from Bear Creek Studio, near Seattle, where Soundgarden were recording a version of New Damage for a charity album. He recalled to Uncut magazine August 2014: "I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35-40 minute drive from Seattle. It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard 'blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah'. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that's played beneath the riff."


May 13, 2004 -
The last episode of Frasier aired on TV following an 11-year run on NBC-TV on this date.



The series holds the record for the most Emmy wins for a TV series of any kind (comedy or drama) with 37 wins.


Another episode of ACME's Litlle Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
May 13, 1497 -
Pope Alexander VI excommunicated Girolamo Savonarola for heresy on this date.



In Florence the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola had led the February 7th burning of musical instruments, books and priceless works of art (Bonfire of the Vanities.) He preached against corruption in the Church and civil government.


May 13, 1568 -
Mary Queen of Scots was defeated by English at the Battle of Langside, south of Glasgow, on this date.



After the battle, Mary fled south. She spent her last night in Scotland at Dundrennan Abbey, near Kirkcudbright (an event commemorated by Dundrennan Road in Battlefield) before crossing to England to face captivity and eventual execution.


May 13, 1637 -
Cardinal Richelieu, a powerful French clergyman and statesman, is credited with introducing a refinement that would forever change dining etiquette: the table knife. Concerned with the increasingly crude and dangerous habits of his dinner guests — most notably their tendency to pick their teeth with the sharp points of their knives — Richelieu ordered that the tips of all table knives in his household be rounded off.



This seemingly small adjustment had a significant cultural impact. Not only did it help curb what Richelieu viewed as uncouth behavior at the dinner table, but it also marked an early step toward the more refined and formalized practices of dining that would develop throughout Europe in the centuries to follow. The rounded knife quickly caught on among the French aristocracy, eventually influencing cutlery design across the continent.


May 13, 1787 -
The first fleet of ships carrying convicted criminals left England en route to a new British prison called Australia.

You'd think that by sending their religious nuts to North America and their criminals to Australia, the British would have created a pleasant little island paradise for themselves. Instead their empire has dwindled away over the past 100 years, while the religious nuts and criminals of the U.S. and Australia have established themselves as major powers at Wimbledon.


May 13, 1846 -
The United States, under President James Polk, declared that a state of war already existed against Mexico, two months after fighting began, on this date.



This was in response to an incident where the Mexican cavalry surrounded a scouting party of American dragoons. $10 million was appropriated for war expenses by Congress. There are some in Arizona who haven't heard that the hostilities have long since ended.


May 13, 1890 –
Nikola Tesla was issued a patent (#428,057) for the Pyromagneto-electric generator.

While Tesla's patent of the pyromagneto electric generator explains the theoretical principles behind a "free energy" generator that utilizes radiant energy, no one has managed to produce a working model of this type of generator yet.


May 13, 1913 -
The latest brainchild of Russian aircraft design genius Igor Sikorsky embarks on its maiden flight on this date. (The Tzar was a little confused; he had to be convinced that being the Csar, or Czar for that matter, he was eligible for a seat inside the plane.)

The Grand, easily the world's most luxurious passenger plane, includes such innovations as upholstered seats, a balcony, and even a lavatory (you just didn't want to live under the flight path.)


May 13, 1917 -
Three small children in Fatima, Portugal receive the first of six visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, on this date, (as a former altar boy and on the other side of 60, I'm hedging my bets and making no jokes about the Virgin Mary.)



Over the next five months she lays some pretty heavy crap on the kids, including a three-part secret: a vision of Hell, a prophecy of war with godless Russia, and a third secret which involved Y2K.


May 13, 1940 -
Winston Churchill had just come into office as the British Prime Minister, a few days previously, after the pacifistic Neville Chamberlain resigned, gave his famous "blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech on this date.



The speech was one of several famous ones by the over weight and increasingly alcoholic Churchill, and set the tone for the British government's approach to the war.


May 13, 1950 -
Steveland Morris Hardaway, musician was born prematurely, on this day. Too much oxygen in the incubator caused the baby to become permanently blind.



At the age of ten, Little Stevie Wonder, as he was called by Berry Gordy at Motown, was discovered singing and playing the harmonica. He had many hits during his teens including Fingertips and as an adult he has earned an Oscar and at least sixteen Grammy Awards.



It's too bad the whole blindness thing has held him back.


May 13, 1973 -
Tennis players Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court played in a $100,000 winner-take-all challenge match, on this date. The match has become known as the first Battle of the Sexes (also known as the Mother's Day Massacre.)



Margaret Court, the 1970 the singles Grand Slam champion, underestimated the 55 year old Bobby Riggs and eventually lost, and Riggs went on to challenge Billie Jean King, who famously beat him in September of that year.


May 13, 1981 -
A delusional Turk (as opposed to a malignant and a turbaned Turk) shot Pope John Paul II four times in St. Peter's Square, (the pope survived after emergency surgery.) Mehmet Ali Agca believed:

a.) that the Vatican was an abomination before God,
b.) the pope was a representation of capitalism, and
c.) both must be destroyed.



19 years later, the Church would disclose that the assassination attempt was foretold in 1917, as part of the third secret of Fatima. (Like how we tied both those item together.) It must have been a comfort to John Paul II when he lay there in agony, Agca sent him his best wishes.

This may all be on the test


May 13, 1988 -
Assassins, gangsters, and enraged mobs of the past have employed a wide variety of methods to silence their victims. One such method involves chucking people out of windows, an act known as defenestration. A very rare way to shut yourself up involves self-defenestration.



Chet Baker, heroin addict and world famous jazz trumpet player, while on a successful world tour, died in Amsterdam after "falling" from a hotel window.

Oops.



And so it goes.

A delight when well done

Limerick, Ireland’s third largest city, was founded by the Vikings in 812. Some of Limerick’s well-known sons and daughters include actor Richard Harris, rock legends The Cranberries, broadcaster Terry Wogan, novelist and playwright Kate O’Brien and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt.



But that has nothing to do with the fact that it's Edward Lear's birthday.



Please keep all those unfortunate bucket owners from Nantucket in your thoughts today.


May 12, 1944 -
The camp classic, Cobra Woman, directed by Robert Siodmak, starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Sabu, opened in the US on this date.



At the time this film was made, Montez was (along with Abbott and Costello and Deanna Durbin) one of Universal's most popular box office attractions. As a result, no expense was spared in its making, and it features many of the elements that came to personify "The Maria Montez formula": an exotic, fictional setting, vividly colorful (and occasionally outrageous) costumes, elaborate special effects (including matte paintings and process shots) and expensive sets.


May 11, 1951 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Early to Bet, directed by Bob McKimson, debuted on this date.



The cartoon is a sequel to the 1950 short It's Hummer Time, which featured the same bulldog giving the same cat elaborate punishments.


May 12, 1960 -
Elvis Presley guest-starred in The Frank Sinatra Timex Special (the show is commonly referred to as Welcome Home Elvis) on ABC-TV. This was Elvis' first appearance on TV in three years; he had only recently been discharged from the army.

Elvis was paid an at the time incredible sum of $125,000 for less than seven minutes of onscreen time. The special was important to Elvis' career as he tried to move towards a more 'adult' audience.



(I'm not sure if Frank would approve of you touching your 'affected' areas and touching the screen to receive St. Elvis' healing power. But Frank's dead and it's no longer his world; so feel free to heal yourself.)


May 12, 1963 -
Bob Dylan was an aspiring young musician at the time, when he was asked to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, to promote his 2nd album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Although Ed had heard Dylan's audition performance of the song (and had no problem with it,) CBS' Standard and Practice department did not want him to play his song the Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues, because of it's controversial nature. Bob Dylan decided not to appear on the show rather than pick another song or change the lyrics.



The story got widespread media attention in the days that followed helping to establish Dylan’s public reputation as an uncompromising artist. The publicity Bob Dylan received from this event probably did more for his career than the actual Ed Sullivan Show performance would have.


May 12, 1967 -
One of the most widely regarded debut albums in the history of rock music, Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was released in the UK, on this date.



With its spherical fisheye image and strangely saturated colors, the U.S. cover of Are You Experienced remains one of the most iconic album covers of the psychedelic era. But it wouldn’t exist if Hendrix hadn’t absolutely loathed the cover of the earlier U.K. release, which featured a drab photo of the guitarist spreading a cape, Dracula-style, behind the heads of his bandmates.


May 12, 1972 -
Although initially receiving mixed reviews, the Rolling Stones released one of Rock's greatest double albums, Exile on Main St., on this date.



Mick Jagger once complained though, the album was not his favorite Rolling Stones albums. He described it as sounding "lousy" with "no concerted effort of intention", adding "at the time, Jimmy Miller was not functioning properly. I had to finish the whole record myself, because otherwise there were just these drunks and junkies."


May 12, 1987 -
There was a final roll call at the Hill Street Station when NBC TV aired the last episode of Hill Street Blues, It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over, on this date.



The series is regarded as a hallmark in American dramatic television. It was the first dramatic series to incorporate long shots, hand-held shots and continuous story lines. It was nominated for a record 21 Emmys for its first season in spite of low ratings.


May 12, 1989 -
The very silly sci-fi comedy Earth Girls Are Easy, directed by Julien Temple and starrings Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Julie Brown, Charles Rocket and Michael McKean, opened on this date.



Jeff Goldblum taught acting at the time, and inexperienced actors Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans would often go to him for advice. One of Goldblum's techniques was to distract himself before a take by reading aloud from a book right up until "action" was called, so Carrey and Wayans would make loud noises in-character between takes. Julie Brown said, "It wasn't easy to work with them, even though they're all really talented."


May 12, 1993 –
We al said our goodbye to Kevin, Paul and Winnie and shed many a tear when ABC TV aired the final episode of The Wonder Years, Independence Day, aired on this date.



At the beginning of production, it was unclear as to whether the show would renew for another season or not–so the script was open-ended. Ultimately, the series ending elements, such as Kevin‘s closing narration, were added in post-production once the show was officially canceled.


May 12, 1995 -
The action thriller Crimson Tide, directed by Tony Scott, and starring Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen, and James Gandolfini, opened in the US on this date.



Since the U.S. Navy would not cooperate with the filming, for several scenes the French Navy allowed the use of one of their Triomphant Class ballistic missile submarines along with the aircraft carrier Foch.


May 12, 2013 -
After the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield records the David Bowie song Space Oddity on board the International Space Station, his sublime rendition is posted to YouTube, quickly garnering millions of views.



Commander Hadfield said that he had made the video for a number of reasons, but “maybe most importantly, it was a chance to let people see where we truly are in space exploration”. David Bowie himself posted on Facebook to say that the cover of his 1969 song was “possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created”.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
May 12, 1797 -
Following Napoleon's conquest of Venice, Ludovico Manin reluctantly steps down as its last Doge on this date.

Thus ends the Most Serene Republic's 820-year history of national sovereignty.

So now you know, try working that into a conversation.


May 12, 1926 -
In May of 1926, Roald Amundsen, the leader of the first party to reach the South Pole and Lincoln Ellsworth, a wealthy explorer, wanted to be the first to reach the North Pole (why - because.) Due to the inhospitable terrain, they were preparing to take the Norge, a rigid airship, over the pole. The Norge was built in Rome and was piloted by Umberto Nobile. While they were preparing, Richard E. Byrd arrived in Norway to attempt to fly to the Pole in the Josephine Ford, a Fokker F.VII. On May 9, Byrd flew out from King’s Bay (Kongsfjorden) with Floyd Bennett and returned 15 and one half hours later, saying that he had reached the Pole.

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His claim was quickly accepted, but it was later calculated that it would have taken the Fokker almost 22 hours to get to the Pole and back from King’s Bay, discounting Byrd’s claim. On May 11, Amundsen took off in the Norge, reaching the North Pole on this date. They did not land there, but dropped flags of Norway, the United States, and Italy on the Pole.


May 12, 1929 -
Burt Bacharach, composer, was born in Kansas City, Mo., on this date.



Mr. Bacharach was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.


May 12, 1932 -
Delivery truck driver William Allen pulled his truck to the side of a road about 4.5 miles from the Lindbergh home. He went to a grove of trees to relieve himself, and there he discovered the badly decomposed body of the Lindbergh Baby.



There were signs that the body had been chewed on by various animals as well as indications that someone had made an attempt to hastily bury the body.

These kinds of stories make you want to be a piss bottle man.


May 12, 1937 -
Albert Frederick Arthur George Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, The Duke of York (and incidentially the Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney) through sheer happemstance, was crowned Britain's King George VI at Westminster Abbey on this date.



Television was in its infancy on the day of George VI's coronation. The BBC Television Service filmed its first outdoor broadcast, using a mobile van, showing the new king and his wife Elizabeth (Elizabeth II parents) as they made their way to Westminster Abbey and it was also, the first coronation to be broadcast on television.


May 12, 1937 -
George Denis Patrick Carlin stand-up comedian, social critic, prolific pot smoker, actor and author was born on this date.







In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor (not a bad seating arrangement.)


May 12, 1967 -
At Queen Elizabeth Hall in England, Pink Floyd staged the first-ever quadraphonic rock concert on this date. Included in their set was their first UK hit, Arnold Layne.



Please kids, don't be like Syd, titrate your meds correctly.


May 12, 1971 -
Tor Johnson died of congestive heart failure at the age of 67 in San Fernando, California, on this date.



The man who once wrestled under the name "The Super Swedish Angel" leaves behind a legacy of B-movie acting roles, most famously as the bald zombie in Ed Wood's masterpiece Plan 9 from Outer Space.


May 12, 1982 -
A mentally unbalanced priest named Juan Fernandez Krohn attempted to stab Pope John Paul II with a bayonet on this date, but was overpowered by the pope's Swiss Guards before he could do any damage.



When asked later, Krohn said that the pope was an "agent of Moscow" and had to be killed.


I nearly forgot - Happy 70th Birthday, Homer Simpson!

And so it goes.