Some things just don't have a connection

August 18, 1937 -
Following on from the success of Toyota Industries the son of the original founder Sakichi Toyoda of Toyota Industries, Kiichiro Toyoda, founded the Toyota Motor Company in Japan, on this date.



but what the hell do you care. Today is National Bad Poetry Day in the United States.



There's a very fun website will generate on command a great deal of very bad poetry here.


August 18, 1962 -
The Looney Tunes short, Louvre Come Back to Me!, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Peppy Le Pew, was released on this date.



The final Looney Tunes short starring Pepe Le Pew.


August 18, 1969 –
Playing on the unscheduled fourth day, Jimi Hendrix’s version of The Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock was considered by some, at the time, to be controversial and disrespectful. Of about 500,000 people who were there over the weekend, only about 30,000 were left, and many of them remember waking up to this song.



He had been playing this version for about a year, beginning as part of a guitar solo he played during Purple Haze. When he played southern states in the US, he was often warned not to play it because the locals made threats against him, but Jimi always played it anyway.


August 18, 1969 -
The mockumentary comedy, Take the Money and Run, directed by Woody Allen, and starring Woody Allen, Janet Margolin, and Louise Lasser, opened on this date.



Woody Allen later said he was not nervous about his first day but was so excited about shooting on location in San Quentin prison that he cut his nose shaving that morning. The mishap can be seen in the prison scene in the movie. He and his team found the inmates there to be very friendly and cooperative. The prison authorities also eagerly welcomed the production but issued a warning: cast and crew were always to be accompanied by guards and if taken hostage, the gates would not be opened to secure their release.


August 18, 1979 -
Chic's single Good Times was their second single to go to No.1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date. The song has become one of the most sampled tunes in music history, most notably in hip hop music.



Nile Rodgers of Chic knew that his song was a block party favorite, but he didn't hear the single Rapper's Delight until he was in a club and the DJ played it. He vigorously objected to the use of his song as the track for another, and threatened legal action. Rather than fight it, Sugarhill Records settled with Chic and awarded them full composer credit, so Bernard Edwards and Rodgers are listed as the only songwriters on Rapper's Delight. With no lawsuit, there was no precedent set for sampling, and artists began incorporating tracks from other songs with impunity throughout the '80s. It was Gilbert O' Sullivan whose 1991 lawsuit against Biz Markie finally established the legal ruling that samples must be cleared.


August 18, 1986 -
Mercury Records released Bon Jovi's third studio album, Slippery When Wet on this date.



The album was going to be called Wanted Dead Or Alive (another song on the album) and show the band on the cover dressed as cowboys. After doing the photo shoot with photographer Mark Weiss, the band decided they were taking it too seriously, changed the title to Slippery When Wet, and found a Jersey girl with ample boobs to wear a wet T-shirt for the cover. That shoot was also with Weiss, this time at Bradley Beach in New Jersey. (The cover with the girl was used on Japanese versions of the album.)  

It looked like they had a winner, but Bon Jovi's record label got cold feet, worried that retail chains wouldn't stock it. They needed a new cover quickly, so Jon Bon Jovi went to Weiss' studio where they wet down a garbage bag and wrote "Slippery When Wet" on it.


August 18 1989 -
Columbia Pictures released Brian DePalma's memorable war drama, Casualties of War, starring Michael J. Fox, Sean Penn, John C. Reilly, and John Leguizamo, in the US on this date.



Brian De Palma said that he had been trying to make this film since 1969 when he first read the Casualties Of War article in The New Yorker. But with the Vietnam War still going on, there was no way that was going to happen, even for many years after it ended. However, in the 1980s, following the success of Vietnam War films Platoon and Full Metal Jacket, and his own gangster hit The Untouchables, studio bosses at Paramount gave him the green light to start developing the project.


August 18, 1993 -
Woody Allen reunited with one of his favorite actress, Diane Keaton when Sony Pictures released Manhattan Murder Mystery in the US on this date.



Manhattan Murder Mystery was actually the generic working title during production--Woody Allen films usually have generic titles during production like "Woody Allen Fall Project"--but since no new title could be thought of, Allen decided to leave that as the title.


August 18, 1995 -
New Line Cinema releases the fantasy film Mortal Kombat (based on the popular video game), directed by Paul W.S. Anderson and starring Christopher Lambert, Robin Shou, Linden Ashby, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Bridgette Wilson, and Talisa Soto, in the US, on this date.



The locations in Thailand were so remote they were only accessible by boat. Cast, crew and equipment had to be transported by long canoes. An outhouse was built in a secluded area near the set so that the crew didn't have to make constant trips to and from the mainland.


August 18, 2001 –
Alicia Keys' single, Fallin’ reached No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was the first single from Keys, who was 20 years old when it was released, but had started writing the song three years earlier. A prodigy who signed with Columbia records when she was 16, Keys wrote the song while she was at the label. Her Columbia album never materialized, as she never clicked with their vision. When she was 18, she left for J Records, a new label founded by Clive Davis. Under Davis, she was given more creative freedom, which worked out very well. Fallin' was a huge hit and validated Davis' strategy.


Today's moment of Zen.


Today in History:
August 18, 1227 -
Genghis Khan died in his sleep, after a fall from his horse on this date. His old age and drinking probably contributed to his death.



(or perhap a Tangut princess, to avenge her people and prevent her rape, castrated him with a knife hidden inside her - ouch), which the Mongols manage to keep secret for some time. Recently, it was just announced.


August 18, 1503 -
... In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed — they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock....



Pope Alexander VI (a Borgia) died on this date. He was the father of seven illegitimate children, and during his reign chose as his lover the lovely sixteen year old Guilia Farnese. He is said to have uttered the last words "Wait a minute" before expiring. (Interesting aside - before the pope could be properly buried, his corpse bloated then exploded. Share that at the dinner table tonight.)


August 18, 1590 -
Sent to England to get supplies three years prior, John White finally returns to Roanoke Island and discovers his colony "strongly enclosed with a high palisade of great trees, with [curtain walls] and [bastions] -- very fort-like."



There is no sign of the settlers or where they may have gone, but carved in the bark of one of the trees is the word CROATOAN.

Luckily, REDRUM wasn't carved in the trees, because that would have been scary.


August 18, 1868 -
French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen discovers Helium, while analyzing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipse in Guntur, India, on this date.



Because helium was found in the Sun before it was found on Earth, its name comes from the Greek word for Sun, helios. It marks the first discovery of an “extraterrestrial” element, since helium hadn’t yet been discovered on Earth.


August 18, 1903 -
German engineer Karl Jatho allegedly flies a motorized gliding airplane four months before the Wright Brothers make their first flight, on this date.

The plane, equipped with a single-cylinder 10 horsepower Buchet engine and a two-blade pusher propeller, allegedly makes several short flights over distances of up to 200ft (60m) at altitudes of up to 10ft (3m). But who's to say I wasn't there, where you?


August 18, 1905 -
Roald Amundsen and his crew of six aboard Gjøe, a converted herring boat, made contact with the US Coast Guard cutter Bear which confirmed their crossing the Northwest Passage following a 26-month journey, on this date.



but what the hell do you care.


August 18, 1920 -
When Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the 19th Amendment to the Constitution on this date, all American women were guaranteed the right of to vote.



It appeared that the amendment might fail by one vote in the Tennessee house, but 24 year-old Harry Burn surprised observers by casting the deciding vote for ratification. At the time of his vote, Burns had in his pocket a letter he had received from his mother urging him, "Don't forget to be a good boy" and "vote for suffrage."


August 18, 1936 -
Robert Redford, American actor was born on this date.



He was the founder of the Sundance Film Festival, which he named after his character from the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He set up the Sundance Film Institute in Utah for independent filmmakers and in 1997 announced the creation of Sundance Cinemas, a venture with a major distributor to set up a chain of theaters for the screening of independent films.


August 18, 1940 -
King George VI felt bad that his brother the Duke of Windsor hadn't really found work after resigning from his previous job, as King Edward VIII of England (but that's another story,) and had him installed as Governor of the Bahamas, on this date.



Edward continued as governor of the Bahamas until 1945. Afterward, he and his wife spent the remainder of their lives essentially in retirement, waiting for death.

Not a particularly happy ending for a fairy tale.


August 18, 1955-
Pete Seeger testifies before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he is asked if he has performed for communists.



Seger replies: "I have sung for Americans of every political persuasion, and I am proud that I never refuse to sing to an audience, no matter what religion or color of their skin, or situation in life. I have sung in hobo jungles, and I have sung for the Rockefellers, and I am proud that I have never refused to sing for anybody."


August 18, 1957 -
Denis Colin Leary, actor, comedian, writer, and director was born on this date.



He established the Leary Firefighters Foundation. When 9/11 happened, his foundation went into action and was hailed as "the second-quickest charity" to get money into the hands of grieving families. One auction alone raised $600,000.


August 18, 1958 -
... Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. ...



Lolita, a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, first written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, later translated by the author into Russian, was finally published on this date in New York. The novel is both internationally famous for its innovative style and infamous for its controversial subject: the book's narrator and protagonist, Humbert Humbert, becoming sexually obsessed with a 12-year-old girl named Dolores Haze.


August 18, 1963 -
James Meredith graduated with a political science degree from the University of Mississippi on this date; he was the first African-American to do so.

He continued on to earn a law degree from Columbia University in 1968.


August 18, 1999 -
A giant black rainbow encircled the Earth, sucking all oxygen from the atmosphere. The air returns shortly thereafter, but only after millions die from asphyxiation. On the bright side, the survivors go on to build a Utopian civilization.



It all happens precisely as predicted in the 1950s by Criswell, the TV psychic immortalized in the movie Plan 9 from Outer Space. If you don't remember this happening, fear not, our new alien Overlords deemed you too stupid to handle this terrifying information and had you anally probed to erase your memory.



It's much too complicated to explain to the likes of most of you.



And so it goes.

But the cat came back

Today is known as Cat Night. The term Cat Night harks back to a rather obscure old Irish legend concerning witches and the belief that a witch could turn herself into a cat eight times, but on the ninth time (August 17), she couldn’t regain her human form.

This bit of folklore also gives us the saying, “A cat has nine lives.” Because August is a yowly time for cats, this may have prompted the speculation about witches on the prowl in the first place.


Today is also National Thrift Store Day - the day was created to promote shopping at secondhand stores in their home towns today. We here at the home office are promoting National Thrift Store Day by encouraging everyone to shop secondhand in New York today.



Hey, it's not always the highest quality, but the price is right.


August 17, 1908 -
Fantasmagorie, considered by some film historians as the first fully animated film in history, was exhibited for the first time ever at the Théâtre du Gymnase in Paris, on this date.



To make this film, the director, Émile Cohl placed each drawing on an illuminated glass plate and then traced the next drawing-with variations-on top of it until he had some 700 drawings.


August 17, 1934 -
MGM released its version of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, starring Wallace Beery, Jackie Cooper and Lionel Barrymore, on this date in NYC.



Jackie Cooper did not like his performance, writing in his autobiography that he felt an older English boy should have played Jim Hawkins.


August 17, 1935 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Merry Old Soul, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



This short was likely inspired by the Disney cartoon released two years prior, which featured Old King Cole and characters from Mother Goose. Studio borrowing was common at the time.


August 17, 1959 -
Kind of Blue, Miles Davis' brilliant and influential jazz album, was released on this date by Columbia Records.



It has been regarded by many critics as the greatest jazz album of all time.


August 17, 1946 -
The Looney Tunes short, Of Thee I Sting, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



Bugs Bunny appears on a mosquito fighter as a mascot. WW2 era bombers were similarly adorned with illustrations and names.


August 17, 1957 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Ducking the Devil, directed by Bob McKimson, and starring Daffy Duck, and the Tasmanian Devil, was released on this date.



The only cartoon in the Golden Age of American Animation where Taz is not paired with Bugs Bunny.


August 17, 1960 -
A great George Pal sci-fi classic, The Time Machine was released on this date.



George Pal wanted the disk on the machine to spin clockwise for travel into the future and counter-clockwise for travel into the past. Due to the way the mechanism was built it was deemed too expensive and time-consuming to add the reversing feature.


August 17, 1963 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Chili Weather, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester the Cat, was released on this date.



Most of the Guadalajara Food Processing Plant factory footage where vegetables are processed consists of recycled animation from I Gopher You.


August 17, 1968 -
The Doors third studio album, Waiting for The Sun reached No. 1 on the Billboard Album Charts on this date.



Although the album was commercially success, some critics found it pretentious and over-arranged.


August 17, 1974 -
Eric Clapton's second studio album 461 Ocean Boulevard, started a four-week run at No.1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



The house featured on the album cover is 461 Ocean Boulevard in the town of Golden Beach, Florida near Miami where Clapton lived while making the album. He recorded the album at famed Criteria Studios between April and May 1974, where, in 1970, he had recorded Layla And Other Assorted Love Songs with Derek and the Dominos.


August 17, 1979 -
Handmade Films released the classic religious satire film, Monty Python's Life of Brian in the US on this date.



Originally financed by EMI, which backed out because it considered the script blasphemous. The Pythons sued EMI and settled out of court. George Harrison, a huge Monty Python fan, thought it was the last chance to have another Python movie. He created Handmade Films, and "pawned" (his words) his home in London and his office building to raise the £4 million needed. When asked why he said, "Because I want to go see it." Eric Idle joked that it was the highest price ever paid for a cinema ticket.


August 17, 1986 -
Pixar Animation Studios released its first film, Luxo Jr., directed by John Lasseter.



The film sent shock waves throughout the industry. At the time most animators were fearful of the computer; Luxo Jr. made them appreciate that it was just another tool.


August 17, 1990 -
Herbert Ross' crime comedy, (written by Nora Ephron,) My Blue Heaven, starring Steve Martin, Rick Moranis, and Joan Cusack opened in the US on this date.



The story was loosely based on the life of Henry Hill after he went into witness protection program. Hill was the same man whose story was the basis of Goodfellas. The films' respective writers, Nicholas Pileggi and Nora Ephron, were husband and wife at the time.


August 17, 1987 -
Tom Waits released his ninth studio album, Franks Wild Years, on this date.



Franks Wild Years is the final piece of what is loosely considered the Rain Dogs trilogy (1983’s Swordfishtrombones (which featured the song Frank’s Wild Years )and 1985’s Rain Dogs, marking his third collaboration with wife Kathleen Brennan.


Word. of the Day


Today in History:
August 17, 1807 -
Robert Fulton's North River Steamboat began heading up New York's Hudson River on its successful round-trip to Albany. It was the first vessel to demonstrate the commercial use of a steam engine for river transportation.



For some unknown reason, a friend and biographer of Fulton incorrectly referred to the steamboat as 'The Clermont' and the wrong name has stuck ever since.


August 17, 1892 -
It ain't no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don't break any.



Brooklyn's own, Mae West, actress in burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway, and movies, was born on this date.


August 17, 1896 -
Bridget Driscoll, a 44-year-old mother of two, becomes the world's first automobile fatality when she steps in front of a car outside the Crystal Palace in London. At the coroner's inquest, Arthur Edsall stated he had been driving at only 4 mph.

The motorist also claims that when he saw the pedestrian, he rang his bell and shouted "Stand back!" For whatever reason, the coroner accepts Edsall's preposterous story.


August 17, 1907 -
Pike Place Market, the most popular tourist destination in Seattle, opened for business on this date.



Today, it’s the oldest continually operating farmer’s market in America


August 17, 1929 -
James Horace Alderman, convicted of murdering two Coast Guardsmen and a Secret Service agent in 1927, was hanged at 5:00 a.m. at Coast Guard Base 6 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on this date. It was reported in the media that Alderman's neck was broken and he died a painless death.

Unfortunately, Alderman kicked and strangled for a full twelve minutes before being pronounced dead by a local doctor. He was the only person ever executed on Coast Guard property.

And I always thought seamen knew how to tie knots.


August 17, 1943 -
Robert De Niro, American actor, was born on this date.



He and Martin Scorsese were brought up blocks apart in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, but never formally met when they were young. When introduced at a party in 1972, the two came to realize that they had seen each other many times but had never spoken.


August 17, 1945 -
... All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others....



Animal Farm by George Orwell, the most famous satirical allegory of Soviet totalitarianism, was first published, on this date.


August 17, 1948 -
Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard was arrested for passing bad checks in San Luis Obispo, California, on this date. In court a fortnight later, Hubbard pays the $25 fine.

If I say anymore, I might be forced to watch several new releases starring little Tommy Cruise.


August 17, 1978 -
Three Americans from New Mexico, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman, completed the first transatlantic balloon flight, landing in a barley field 60 miles from Paris, 138 hours and six minutes after lifting off from Presque Isle, Maine. The helium-filled Double Eagle II covered 3,233 miles in its six-day journey.



The flight, the fourteenth known attempt, was the culmination of more than a century of previous attempts to cross the Atlantic Ocean by balloon.


August 17, 1980 -
Dingos snatch baby Azaria from a campground near Ayers Rock, Australia, on this date. Her mother, Lindy Chamberlain (Meryl Streep - A dingo ate my baby), is later convicted of murder and spends three years in prison, but the conviction is ultimately overturned.



Apparently there have been a number of baby/dingo incidents over the years; dingos cannot differentiate animals from humans. Finally, Ms. Chamberlain was cleared of any wrong doing in regards to the death of her daughter.


August 17, 1987 -
Rudolf Hess was found hanged by an electrical cord at Spandau prison,aged 93. He had been incarcerated there for 40 years, 21 of those years as the solitary inmate.



In 1941 Hess flew to Scotland with ideas of peace in his head, making Hitler very very upset.


August 17, 1998 -
President Bill Clinton became the first sitting president in American history forced to testify in a criminal case investigation of which he was the focus (having sex with Monica), on this date. Other presidents before Clinton had testified before grand juries in the past, but they had always done so to give evidence against others.



Thomas Jefferson testified against former Vice President Aaron Burr. Gerald Ford testified in a trial of a man who had tried to assassinate him. Jimmy Carter testified in the bribery trial of a financier named Robert Vesco. But Clinton was the first sitting president ever to be served a subpoena to testify in his own indictment.

Perhaps the President was celebrating the anniversary (August 17, 1992) of Woody Allen admitted to being romantically involved with Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of Mia Farrow, (his longtime companion.)



And so it goes.

If you don't get on the ride, you won't experience the adventure.

Each year on August 16th, many people at amusement parks and theme parks across the country participating in National Roller Coaster Day which is celebrated on this date.



J.G. Taylor received one of the earliest patents (US patent #128,674) for an inclined railway in 1872. In 1878, Richard Knudsen received a patent (US #198,888) for an inclined-plane railway. For years, history has believed the first roller coaster in America designed by LaMarcus Thompson, opened at Coney Island on June 16, 1884.



An article was discovered reporting the anticipated excitement of J.G. Taylor’s elevated railway in 1872 at Rocky Point, Rhode Island. According to the Providence Evening Press from June 18, 1872, the reporter describes a ride of 400 feet where nine passengers are given a shove and gravity does the rest.

So whenever the roller coaster was first in operation, get out and enjoy the ride.


August 16, 1930 -
Fiddlesticks, was Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's first sound cartoon. It is about a happy-go-lucky, needy frog, named Flip the Frog.



This cartoon was created by Ub Iwerks in 1930. He had drawn a frog and his girlfriend in Night, one of the last Silly Symphonies short films he drew while working for Walt Disney.


August 16, 1940 -
The first of Alfred Hitchcock's war-time thrillers, Foreign Correspondent, starring Joel McCrea, Laraine Day and Herbert Marshall, premiered on this date.



Producer Walter Wanger and Alfred Hitchcock clashed repeatedly during shooting. Wanger kept wanting to have the script re-written with every news story reporting changes in the European situation. Hitchcock, who hated making a movie without the script in absolutely final form before shooting began, pointed out that even if the movie were up-to-date at the time of shooting, it would be out of date by the time he finished post-production, and it was ready for release.


August 16, 1941-
The Merrie Melodies short, Sport Chumpions, directed by Friz Freleng, was released on this date.



Both the phrases "Monotonous, isn't it?" and "Hmmm, could be!" would be used by Bugs Bunny in numerous future cartoon shorts. They were first made popular by radio comic Jerry Colonna.


August 16, 1969 -
Eric Clapton's supergroup Blind Faith release their self-titled album, on this date. On the cover is a photo of a naked 11-year-old girl holding a model spacecraft. An alternate cover with a band photo was issued in America for stores that refused to stock it.



Blind Faith was one of the first rock supergroups. Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker had been in Cream, Steve Winwood was in Traffic and The Spencer Davis Group, and Ric Grech was in a group called Family.


August 16, 1974 -
The Ramones played their first show in a local New York club, CBGB, on this date.



The Ramones, along with other NYC acts such as Television, The Heartbreakers, Blondie, and Patti Smith quickly gained a following and helped Punk rock develop in New York City in the mid-1970s.


August 16, 1976 -
ABBA release Dancing Queen, the most popular single of the 70s, in Sweden on this date.



ABBA recorded this about a year before it was released. It was written and recorded around the same time as Fernando, which was chosen as the single. They knew Dancing Queen would also be a hit, so they held it until the album was released before issuing it as a single.


August 16, 1985 -
CBS-TV's adaptation of the Arthur Miller classic Death of A Salesman, directed by Volker Schlöndorff and starring Dustin Hoffman and John Malkovich premiered on this date.



Author Arthur Miller always pictured Willy Loman as a short, weak man with a booming voice. After nearly forty years, Miller finally got his wish after casting Dustin Hoffman.


August 16, 1985 -
The comedy, Volunteers, directed by Nicholas Meyer, and starring Tom Hanks, John Candy, and Rita Wilson, opened in the US on this date.



Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson met for the second time while filming this movie. Wilson originally met Hanks in 1981 on the set of Bosom Buddies when she guest-starred in the episode All You Need Is Love. However, their relationship wasn't kindled until they were reunited on the set of this movie. They married four years later.


August 16, 1986 -
Madonna got a birthday gift on this date when her single, Papa Don’t Preach hit No. #1 of the Billboard Charts.



A producer named Brian Elliot wrote this song for a new artist he was working with named Christina Dent, who was on the same label as Madonna. When a record company executive heard it, he convinced Elliot to give it to Madonna instead, because she was an established star. This was one of the most controversial Madonna songs. Many articles were written about it in the context of abortion. The media attention helped make it a hit and keep it on the charts.


Another album from the discount bin at The ACME Record Shoppe.


Today in History: August 16, 1819 -
Sixty cavalrymen charge into a crowd of approximately 70,000 protesters at St. Peter's Field in Manchester, England on this date.



The soldiers began to hack away at the people with their sabers and trample them under hoof. Eleven died and 400 were wounded in the Manchester Massacre, also called the Battle of Peterloo.


August 16, 1858 -
U.S. President James Buchanan inaugurates the new transatlantic telegraph cable by exchanging greetings with Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.



However, once again America was ill advised by the request for Prince Albert in a can: Victoria was not amused. The cable stretched from Valentia, Ireland to Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, Canada but failed after only five days and was discontinued being used by September of that year. The first permanent telegraph line across the Atlantic Ocean was laid in 1866.


August 16, 1938 -
Blues musician Robert Johnson, who presumably sold his soul to the devil (the story was referred to in the movie Crossroads), was poisoned by a jealous husband in Three Forks, Mississippi and died on this date.



Besides being a seminal figure in the history of the Blues, Johnson is often cites as an early influence in the development of Rock and Roll.


August 16, 1948 -
Famed booze hound, skirt chaser and home-run slugger George Herman "Babe" Ruth died at age 53 in New York City.



He is credited with turning baseball from a game of speed and skill to one of power.


August 16, 1954 -
Sports Illustrated was first published by Time Inc. on this date. It was claimed that 250,000 subscriptions had been sold before the first issue came off of the presses (and all without a bikini model on the cover.)

The magazine would become the most recognized, widely read sports periodical in the English language. The magazine is currently read by more than 23 million people each week and has more than 3 million subscribers.


August 16, 1956 -
Bela Lugosi, Broadway and Hollywood star, portrayer of the undead in countless films and formaldehyde connoisseur, died of a heart attack on this day while lying in bed in his Los Angeles home. He was 73.



Bela Lugosi was buried wearing one of the many capes from the Dracula stage play, in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. Contrary to popular belief, Lugosi never requested to be buried in his cloak; Bela Lugosi, Jr. has confirmed on numerous occasions that he and his mother, Lillian, made the decision.


In this business, my business, I get to meet all kinds of incredible people, fascinating people, glamorous people and sexy people and highly intellectual people. And you meet them and you go 'interesting, interesting, interesting'. They're interesting, but not very many people stop you in your tracks..



Happy Birthday to the Material Girl.


August 16, 1960 -
Air Force Captain Joe Kittinger parachuted from space after climbing in a balloon from 102,800 feet (31,330 m), on this date. His free-fall lasted 4 minutes and 36 seconds. He experienced temperatures approaching minus-100 degrees Fahrenheit.



He set four historical records over New Mexico: highest balloon ascent, fastest speed by a human without an aircraft and to this day, and incredibly, he still holds records for highest parachute jump and longest-ever free-fall.


August 16, 1962 -
The Beatles fired their original drummer Pete Best in favor of Ringo Starr on this date.



Afterwards, Best formed a new band and released the album: Best of the Beatles, a play on his own name. This led to disappointment from fans who bought the album without reading the track listing.


August 16, 1977 -
The King is Dead! Elvis Presley died (or not) in his home at the age of 42, while sitting on the toilet. While doing his business, he had been perusing The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus. Presumably, Elvis' search was concluded shortly thereafter.



Elvis has long left the building



Remember, add more bran to your diet.


August 16, 1987 -
Mercury, Venus and Mars all get bunched up near the Sun in what some call the Harmonic Convergence on this date.



Thousands of nutballs clustered at sacred locations like Mount Shasta, California begin meditating their asses off for some damn reason.


August 16, 1989 -
A solar flare from the Sun creates a geomagnetic storm that affects micro chips, leading to a halt of all trading on Toronto’s stock market, on this date.



Since then, power companies in North America, the UK, Northern Europe, and elsewhere have taken more care to evaluate the risks of geomagnetically induced currents and to develop mitigation strategies.


August 16, 1991 -
Shamu the Whale died at 16, from respiratory failure, on this date.

After a brief but very moving service, the Japanese mourners at the graveside were invited to consume the dearly departed; wasabi sauce and pickled ginger was served on the side.


August 16, 2018 -
Hey Nineteen, that's Retha Franklin!

Aretha Louise Franklin, the Queen of Soul, died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer on this date.







In 1987, she became the first woman inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. In 2008, she was voted Greatest Singer Of All Time by the musicians and journalists selected by Rolling Stone magazine to name their favorite singers of the Rock era. Following Aretha were Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, Sam Cooke and John Lennon. Franklin is the most charted female artist in history, with 20 #1 R&B singles, 17 Top 10 pop singles, and over 110 songs that appeared on the Billboard chart. She also won more awards than almost anyone else, racking up 18 Grammys, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Arts, besides being honored as the first female inductee into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.



And so it goes.