Liberty and independence forever

July 4, 1776 -
The Continental Congress approved adoption of the amended Declaration of Independence, prepared by Thomas Jefferson and signed by John Hancock - President of the Continental Congress - and Charles Thomson, Congress secretary (among others,) without dissent.



However, the New York delegation abstained as directed by the New York Provisional Congress. The United States was very busy for the next couple of years and didn't get around to commemorating Independence Day until 1796.

Another thing your teachers never told you -
Mary Katherine Goddard, who was working as printer at the time, voluntarily inscribed her full name on the document, making her the only woman who 'signed' the Declaration of Independence. Congress fled Philadelphia and settled temporarily in Baltimore. When they needed somebody to print the Declaration, Goddard was the person to help.



Those who signed it knew they were taking a risk that amounted to treason against the British empire if their side lost. At the bottom of the document is written "Baltimore, in Maryland: Printed by Mary Katherine Goddard."


July 4, 1964 -
The Beach Boys' song I Get Around topped the charts and stayed there for 2 weeks on this date.



This was released as a double A-side single in May 1964 with Don't Worry Baby. It is considered one of the best ever single releases along with Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles and Don't Be Cruel/Hound Dog by Elvis Presley. 


July 4, 1966 -
The Lovin' Spoonful release their song Summer in the City on this date.



The song was a collaboration between John Sebastian, The Lovin Spoonful's bassist Steve Boone, and the frontman's brother (and non-group member) Mark Sebastian. Mark was 15 years old when he wrote a poem that John used as the basis for the song - John especially liked the part that went, "But at night there's a different world."


July 4, 1966 -
The Beatles played two shows at Rizal Memorial Football Stadium, Manila, in the Philippines to over 80,000 fans, on this date. The Beatles did not appear at a palace reception hosted by President Marcos' family, who were not informed that the Beatles had previously declined their invitation.



The Philippine media misrepresent this as a deliberate snub and when Brian Epstein tries to make a televised statement, his comments are disrupted by static. The next day, as The Beatles make their way to the airport they were greeted by angry mobs, the Philippine government had retaliated by refusing police protection for The Beatles. These events were the final nail in the coffin for the Beatles continuing to tour.


July 4, 1970 -
Casey Kasem's American Top 40 debuts on station KDEO in El Cajon/San Diego, California on this date.



The concept of playing the 40 most popular songs from a national chart was a new one, and no one was sure of the success of the show at the time.


July 4, 1974 -
Steely Dan (Walter Becker and Donald Fagan) give up live performing after a show on this date in Santa Monica so they can focus on their studio work.



They don't tour again until 1993.


July 4, 1977 -
Norman Lear's short lived late night television talk show parody Fernwood 2-Night, starring Martin Mull, Fred Willard, and Frank De Vol, debuted on this date



Norman Lear originally planned for all of the dialogue on the show to be improvised as Martin Mull and Fred Willard are skilled improvisational comedians. But head writer Alan Thicke insisted that the show would be better scripted with Mull and Willard improvising occasionally. Lear threatened to fire Thicke after the first week of shows but because of the audience's positive response, Lear relented.


July 4, 1992 –
Sir Mix-A-Lot's great patriotic song, Baby Got Back, hit No. 1 on this date and remained there for a month.





The video was directed by Adam Bernstein, who also did Hey Ladies for Beastie Boys and Love Shack for The B-52's. According to Bernstein, casting the video was one of the strangest experiences of his professional life. Since it was the butts they were interested in, he and his crew took photos of the applicants' fundamentals, which they sent to Sir Mix-A-Lot for evaluation.


Please rise, or at least read, ACME's annual salute to our nation's birthday.

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

Today in History:
July 4, 1804 -
The first 4th of July celebration west of the Mississippi River was held, when Lewis and Clark's expedition team stopped in Kansas to throw the party on this date.

They fired the expedition canon and the men on the team got an extra ration of whiskey to celebrate the day.


July 4, 1826 -
Frienemies Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, both lay dying in there respective homes on this date. Jefferson, the nation's third president, deeply in debt at age 83, died at one o'clock in the afternoon and correctly surmised that Adams had outlived him. John Adams, the second president died at age 90 in Braintree, Mass, just a few hours after Jefferson. Adams' last words were, Thomas Jefferson still survives.



It was exactly 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.


July 4, 1831 -
James Monroe, fifth President of the United States, died in New York City at age 73 on this date.



This made him the third ex-President to die on Independence Day.

How patriotic.


July 4, 1850 -
President Zachary Taylor stood hatless in the sun for hours listening to long-winded speeches. He returned to the White House and attempted to cool off by eating cherries, cucumbers and drinking iced milk. Severe stomach cramps followed.



It is likely that Taylor's own physicians inadvertently killed him with a whole series of debilitating treatments. The cur lingered on until he unpatriotically died on July 9th.


July 4, 1862 -
Charles Dodgson, an Oxford mathematician and nude child photographer, told little Alice Liddell on a boat trip the fairy tale he had dreamed up for her called Alice's Adventures Underground on this date. We assume he had his pants on at the time.



Three year later, to the day, the first edition of Alice in Wonderland was published under Dodgson's pen name, Lewis Carroll.


July 4, 1884 -
The Statue of Liberty was presented to the United States in ceremonies at Paris, France, on this date. The 225-ton, 152-foot statue was a gift from France in commemoration of 100 years of American independence. The French, always the comedians, presented the gift eight years late of the centennial celebration and left the shipping and handling costs to the United States.



Created by the French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, the statue was installed on Bedloe Island (now Liberty Island) in New York harbor in 1885. It was dedicated on October 28, 1886.


July 4, 1898 -
The French passenger liner La Bourgogne, sank within an hour after a collision with the British ship Cromartyshire, in dense fog, 60 miles south of Sable Island near Nova Scotia, in the Atlantic, on this date. Only 165 of the 711 passengers survived.

While there are no deaths on the British ship, only one woman of the more than 300 women and children listed as passengers aboard the La Bourgogne, was among the survivors. The remainder were mostly the crew, along with a few men from steerage. After a brief and horrifying inquiry, the French maritime authorities heard stories of the officers vainly trying to maintain order (only 3 of the 18 officers survived) and of the crew members using knives, boat hooks, oars and whatever else came to hand, against the passengers for places in the few lifeboats that survived the collision. Even more shocking, once the boats were in the water, the brave French crew beat off and stabbed swimming passengers who had tried to clamber aboard.



The authorities refused to hold a proper investigation and the entire incident was hushed up to avoid an international scandal.

Once again, the stellar principle of 'Woman and Children first' at work.


July 4, 1916 -
Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs opened a stand at Brooklyn’s Coney Island and (according to highly specious legend) held an eating contest as a publicity stunt that became an annual event on this date.

Not to be too indelicate but some of the corpses of the first patrons have just about finished digesting that meal.


July 4, 1931 -
27 years after they began a relationship, Irish author James Joyce finally married Nora Barnacle on this date. Joyce had refused to marry Nora for several decades, as he had lost his Catholic faith.

They finally married for “testamentary reasons” at Kensington register office in London. Their grown child Lucia attended their wedding.


July 4, 2006 -
The shuttle Discovery lifted-off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on this date, bound for the International Space Station with seven astronauts aboard.



This was the second space shuttle to launch after the loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003.



And so it goes.

Keep calm and clam on.

It's National Fried Clam Day today. Unlike most of these so called 'holidays', this one is actually based on an event. The story goes that Lawrence “Chubby” Woodman of Essex, Massachusetts was the first person to make deep fried clams, in 1916. As one if Woodman’s specialties was making potato chips, he already had the vats and oil, so frying the clams was not a far stretch. Especially in Massachusetts, which is on the eastern coast of the US, where clam digging is especially popular.



This event is noted to have taken place on July 3, one day prior to Independence Day, so Chubby and his wife, Bessie, decided to set up a stall to sell them to the people of their community. They were an instant hit and grew in popularity from that time. The rest, as they say is history.


July 03, 1937 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Super Service, directed by Ub Iwerks and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



The opening shot, of the taxes added on to a gallon of gas, was a spoof on all the new taxes being levied by Congress. Social Security, for example, was a brand new concept in 1937 and many people were suspicious of its real purpose.


July 03, 1943 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Wackiki Wabbit, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Bugs Bunny, was released on this date.



The two castaways are caricatures of writers Tedd Pierce and Michael Maltese (who also provided the voices.)


July 3, 1944 -
Billy Wilder's film noir classic, Double Indemnity, starring Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck premiered in Baltimore, Maryland, on this date.



Author James M. Cain later admitted that if he had come up with some of the solutions to the plot that screenwriters Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler did, he would have employed them in his original novel.


Junly 03, 1948 -
The Looney Tunes short, The Up-Standing Sitter, directed by Bob McKimson and starring Daffy Duck, was released on this date.



The book Daffy is reading, The Egg and I, was the basis for a popular film made in 1947. It marked the first appearance of Ma and Pa Kettle who were spun off into their own series.


July 3, 1951 -
An under-appreciated Hitchcock classic, Strangers on a Train, was released on this date.



The stunt where the man crawled under the carousel was not done with trick photography. Alfred Hitchcock claimed that this was the most dangerous stunt ever performed under his direction, and would never allow it to be done again.


July 3, 1962 -
John Frankenheimer's biography of Robert Stroud, Birdman of Alcatraz, starring the amazing Burt Lancaster, premiered on this date.



Due to this popular movie, the real Robert Stroud became one of the most famous inmates of the federal prison at Alcatraz, second only to mob boss Al Capone.


July 3, 1973 -
At the Hammersmith Odeon in London, after 182 Ziggy Stardust concert performances, David Bowie appears as Ziggy Stardust for the last time, explaining: "Not only is this the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do." Many take this to mean Bowie was retiring from music altogether, though Bowie just means he is retiring Stardust.



Only his guitarist Mick Ronson knew about the announcement, which came as a complete shock not only to the audience but the rest of Bowie's band and crew. This show is later made into a movie directed by D.A. Pennebaker called Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars.


July 3, 1982 –
The Human League's single Don’t You Want Me went to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



With help from MTV, which launched on August 1, 1981, this opened a mini-British invasion of the USA. There were a lot of video shows in Europe, so when MTV went on the air, they were forced to play videos by many UK bands because that was most of their library.


July 3, 1985 -
Universal released Robert Zemeckis' sci-fi comedy Back To The Future, starring Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson and Crispin Glover on this date.



The rights to the film and its sequels are owned by Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. In a 2015 interview, Zemeckis maintained that no reboot or remake of the franchise would be authorized during his or Gale's lifetime.


July 3, 1996 -
One of the great summer popcorn movies, Independence Day, was released on this date.



According to producer/co-writer Dean Devlin, the U.S. military had agreed to support the film by allowing the crew to film at military bases, consulting the actors who have military roles, etc. However, after learning of the Area 51 references in the script, they withdrew their support.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
Siriusly - The Dog Days of Summer begin today. (That's an inside joke for astronomers.)

The following is provided for the benefit of non-astronomers.

Sirius is the name of the brightest star in the night-time sky (the brightest star in the day-time sky is called "the sun"), and it's known as the dog star because it's located in the constellation Canis Major - or, in English, Major Dog. The hottest days of the year in the northern hemisphere happen to coincide with the period during which Sirius rises with our own Sun, and ancient man therefore concluded that Sirius was contributing to the heat.

Like most men, they were wrong, but like most modern idiots, we continue to cherish their timeless wisdom anyway. Plus, having "Dog Days" of summer is a great boon to advertising copywriters, whose creativity is surely the driving force behind western civilization.


Joyeux anniversaire au Québec, vous ne cherchez pas un jour plus de 400.

On this date in 1608, the very manly French explorer Samuel de Champlain invented Quebec. Since then, the French Canadians have been even more obnoxious than the French themselves.


July 3, 1844 -
Museums and collectors, wanting the rare penguin-like Great Auks' skin and eggs, hunted the bird to extinction on this date. The last pair of known birds was found in Iceland by three hunters, Jón Brandsson, Sigurður Ísleifsson and Ketill Ketilsson.

The birds, which were incubating eggs, were strangled by Brandsson and Sigurour while Ketilsson smashed the eggs. There was one more reported sighting of a lone Auk in Newfoundland in 1852, which some scientists accept as the last sighting.

(Wow, would I hate to be the relatives of these three guys.)


July 3, 1863 -
The long three day Battle of Gettysburg ended on this date, marking the bloodiest battle the country had yet seen.



The fighting in the small Pennsylvania town marked a pivotal point in the Civil War and although both sides losses were essentially equal, helped turn the outcome toward the Union forces.


July 3, 1940 -
(Things your teacher never told you)
Following the German invasion and occupation of France, French warships fled to the port of Mers-el-Kebir in Algeria. Britain gave the french Vichy government the options of the following for it's French Navy:

1. Join British naval forces in the fight against Germany.
2. Hand the ships over to British crews.
3. Disarm the French Navy Ships.
4. Scuttle the ships.



The French refused, so Britain fearing the French Ships would be used by the Germans to help with an invasion of England circled the port with British Warships and opened fire on the French fleet, killing 1,250 French sailors, damaging the battleship Dunkerque and destroying the Bretagne and the Provence.


July 3, 1962 -
Happy Birthday Tom Cruise (Mapother IV), who turns 64 today.



Tommy' sbeen busy over the years


July 3, 1965 -
Roy Rogers' horse, Trigger, died at 25 on this date. His mounted body (bunkies, the preferred term is 'mounted'; stuffed is more like the plush toy on your bed.) was placed on display at Rogers' Museum in Victorville, Ca. (It then moved to a Roy Rogers' museum in Branson, Missouri.)



Trigger was not alone; Buttermilk (Dale Evans' horse) and Bullet (the Rogers' German Shepherd) were displayed alongside. (The Branson musuem closed in 2010 and Trigger, Buttermilk and Bullet were then residing in the lobby of the RFD-TV building -- just across the street from the former Branson museum. The former TV stars were shuffled around to various exhibitions by the TV station until a few years ago. RFD-TV acquired Don Imus' Ranch in New Mexico, making it a luxury resort and giving Trigger, Buttermilk and Bullet their new home.)


On July 3, 1969, Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones drowned in his own swimming pool on this date.



Although he was the first Rolling Stone to do so, Mr Jones is just one of millions of people to have drowned in their own swimming pools. As a public service, I have therefore chosen to help American readers prepare for the long holiday weekend with some advice on how not to drown in one’s pool:

1. The easiest way not to drown in your own pool is not to have one. Readers without pools may enhance their safety further by consulting the previous articles: “How Not to Kill Yourself: Don’t Throw Your Toaster into Your Bathtub!” and “How to Cross the Street Without Being Run Over.”

2. If you insist on owning a pool, don’t swim, walk, or nap in its vicinity.

3. Pools don’t drown people: water does. A drained pool is a safe pool. In troubling times like these, it’s also worth noting that empty pools may be put to good use as bunkers or bomb shelters.

4. Avoid the use of electronic equipment while swimming. Today’s multitasking professionals may feel inclined to save time by checking their email or drafting a PowerPoint presentation while taking a few laps, but this can prove ruinous for telecommunications equipment—and, in the case of desktop computers or mainframes, not much better for one’s own health.

5. Wait at least 45 minutes before swimming after ingesting mind-altering substances.

6. Don’t be a rock star. Scientific research has proven that rock stars are seven times more likely than the general population to drown in swimming pools, bathtubs, or pools of their own vomit.

7. Do not attempt to convert the water in your pool to Jell-O. Jell-O is just as deadly as chlorinated water when inhaled, but far more likely to attract insects and vermin. It is one thing to drown in your own pool; it is quite another to drown in your own pool and then be devoured by maggots.

8. Avoid poisonous snakes.


July 3, 1971 -
Kids, apparently even bathtubs are not safe for rock stars.

Jim Morrison was found dead of an apparent heart attack in his Paris apartment bathtub on this date.



That's what he wants us to think, anyway.


July 3, 1986 -
President Ronald Reagan presided over a gala ceremony in New York Harbor that saw the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty.



The restoration efforts, led under the direction of Lee Iacocca, cost $87 million dollars.


July 3, 1987 -
British millionaire Richard Branson and Swedish-born Per Lindstrand, the balloon's designer, became the first hot-air balloon travelers to cross the Atlantic on this date.



The two men were forced to jump into the sea as their craft went down off the coast of Scotland. Let's hope his intergalactic flights go a tad better.



And so it goes.

Don't let anyone tell you other wise

Once again, everything you learned was a lie; today is actually Independence Day - The US Continental Congress declared independence from Great Britain on this day (in 1776);



the formal Declaration of Independence was approved two days later on July 4.


July 2, 1946 -
Orson Welles first attempt at restarting his Hollywood career, The Stranger, starring Edward G. Robinson, Loretta Young, and Orson Welles premiered in Los Angeles, on this date. (This was the first mainstream American movie to feature footage of Nazi concentration camps following World War II.)



Knowing Orson Welles' reputation for long exposition scenes, International Pictures gave editor Ernest J. Nims the freedom to cut any sequences from the film he felt were unnecessary. To Welles' disgust, Nims ended up cutting almost 30 minutes of Welles' final version, including 19 minutes from the film's opening. The footage is believed lost, as even the original negatives have gone missing.


July 02, 1949 -
The Looney Tunes short, Henhouse Henery, directed by Bob McKimson, and starring Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dawg, was released on this date.



This is the first Foghorn Leghorn short to feature the song Camptown Races, which would be associated with the character.


July 2, 1949 -
The adaption of Ayn Rand's bestseller, The Fountainhead, directed by King Vidor, and starring Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey, Robert Douglas and Kent Smith, was released on this date.



King Vidor originally hoped to cast Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall in the lead roles, but Ayn Rand insisted on Gary Cooper in the lead. Bacall was cast opposite Cooper, but dropped out before filming began. Hoping the film would make her a star, Warner Bros cast a relative unknown, 22-year-old Patricia Neal, after considering and then rejecting Bette Davis, Ida Lupino, Alexis Smith, and Barbara Stanwyck as replacements for Bacall. Cooper objected to Neal being cast, but during filming, Cooper and Neal began an affair.


July 2, 1955 -
Wonderful, wonderful .... the average American got down and got funky when the first Lawrence Welk Show premiered nationally on ABC TV on this date



From its move to network television in 1955 until the very early 1960s, the show's primary sponsor was Dodge. The Dodge name would be part of the set and during some performances, the shots would be framed so that the Dodge name would be unobstructed. As was common in the 1950s, the name of the primary sponsor would be part of the show's official title.


July 2, 1958 -
The Michael Curtiz, musical drama, King Creole (based on the Harold Robbins novel, A Stone for Danny Fisher,) starring Elvis, Carolyn Jones and Walter Matthau premiered in the US on this date.



James Dean was at one point in the running for the role that, several years later, would be played by Elvis Presley. At this stage, the film was to be a gritty urban drama. Following Dean's death and the casting of Elvis, it was retooled to suit the King.


July 2, 1959 -
Ed Wood's greatest opus (not counting Glen or Glenda), Plan 9 from Outer Space, opened on this date.



Bela Lugosi appears in footage shot just before his death, but with no script in mind. Edward D. Wood Jr. wrote the script to accommodate all the footage shot in a cemetery and outside Tor Johnson's house in the new production. Lugosi was doubled by Tom Mason, Wood's wife's chiropractor, who was significantly taller than Lugosi, and played the part with a cape covering his face.


July 2, 1966 -
The title track of Frank Sinatra's comeback album, Strangers in the Night reached the number one spot (on this date) on the Billboard charts and marked his return to the top of the pop charts in the mid-'60s.



Sinatra knocked The Beatles down a peg when this song hit #1 in the US and pushed Paperback Writer to #2. After one week, the group reclaimed their spot at the top. A month earlier, Strangers in the Night dominated the UK chart for three weeks before The Beatles' song took over.


July 2, 1971 -
Gordon Parks' classic crime-drama Shaft, starring Richard Roundtree, premiered on this date.



One of only three films MGM released in 1971 that made a profit, and it helped save the studio from bankruptcy.


July 2, 1980 -
The David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker smash comedy, Airplane!, starring Robert Hays and Julie Hagerty premiered in the US on this date.



The doctor role was Leslie Nielsen's first comedic part. He later said he was delighted to get the offer, fearing that he was getting too old for anything but "elderly grandfather" parts.


July 2, 1986 -
The second movie Prince appeared in, Under the Cherry Moon, (Prince directed the film,) also starring Jerome Benton, Steven Berkoff, Kristin Scott Thomas (in her feature film debut), and Francesca Annis, was released on this date.



The movie's world premiere was held at the Centennial Twin Theater in Sheridan, Wyoming. The evening included an afterparty and a forty-five-minute private concert by Prince at the local Holiday Inn. Local resident Lisa Barber won the right to host the premiere when she was the ten thousandth caller in MTV's Prince Under the Cherry Moon contest. Several cast members attended, including Prince, Joni Mitchell, and Ray Parker, Jr.


July 2, 1997 -
Columbia Pictures released the science fiction comedy film Men in Black, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Tommy Lee Jones, Will Smith, Linda Fiorentino, Vincent D’Onofrio and Rip Torn, on this date.



Vincent D'Onofrio researched his role as Edgar by watching a lot of bug documentaries. In order to achieve his character's distinctive walk, he put on knee braces so he couldn't bend his legs, and taped up his ankles.


July 2, 2005 -
Pink Floyd perform Comfortably Numb at the Live 8 London concert, re-forming with band members Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason and Rick Wright for the first time since 1981, when Waters left the band.



It's the last time the four play together, as Wright died in 2008.


Another little known Monopoly card .


Today in History -
One day in the latter half of the ninth century, a poor young woman on her way to market dropped her basket of eggs - shattering all of them.

The young woman knelt on the ground beside the fallen basket and began to weep.

The local bishop had been out for his morning stroll and happened to see the entire episode. He attempted to console the woman, but she was having none of it. Without the eggs, she had nothing to sell at market. Nothing to sell meant no money to sustain her family. Being unable to sustain her family meant, well, what it usually means: degradation, illness, and eventually death. Soothing words from a bishop weren't much help.

The bishop then prayed for her pain to be eased. When he was done praying, the woman looked into her basket and saw that all of the eggs had been made whole.

"Wot's all that about, then?" she asked.

"Tis a sign of God's grace and compassion," the bishop said. "I am but his -"

"God fixed me eggs, what?"

"All things are possible with God," the bishop began, but the poor young woman interrupted again.

"All-powerful God? All-knowing God? I work meself to death eight days to the week, and when he finally comes through with a miracle - it's fixin' me eggs? What about a floor for me hut? What about clothes for me young-uns? What about -"

It is probably not necessary to record the full text of the woman's stirring solecism.

The bishop in question was St. Swithun, who died on this date in the year 862. His feast day is celebrated today in Norway (though England prefers to remember him on July 15, and spell his name “St. Swithin”).

He was the Bishop of Winchester and a royal counselor to Kings Egbert and Aethelwulf. (Yes - the very skullcap of the good bishop.)

As for the rest of his biography, history offers us next to nothing. We know he died. That’s about it. Which is why I bring him up.

Someone really ought to invent a life for the guy.

Maybe he was raised by honey badgers. Maybe he was kidnapped by cross-dressing pirates. Maybe he met three witches in a forest and they hailed him as the Thane of Cawdor. Maybe he fell hopelessly in love with the red-headed daughter of a rival landowner, and they had a tempestuous affair before she died tragically and he took holy orders in her memory. Maybe he had webbed toes and spoke fluent owl.

Who knows? No one.

So go ahead: make up a St. Swithun you can live with.


145 years ago today, Charles J. Guiteau stood up in the lobby of the B&O Railroad Depot in Washington, DC, and yelled, "I am a stalwart and Arthur is President now!" (Maybe it would have sounded less crazy if he said it in Latin - Ego sum a stalwart quod Arthur est Praesieo iam! All future Presidential assassins should take up Latin. ) The event might have passed without notice had Guiteau not been shooting President James Garfield at the time.



A wounded President Garfield lingered for 11 weeks, during which time surgeons attempted to find the bullet which had lodged in his back. The state-of-the-art technology for removing foreign objects from the body was at that time the hand. Dozens of physicians, nurses, and curious hangers-on probed Garfield's wound with their fingers in search of the bullet that had struck him. The inevitable infection of his wound killed him.



Charles Guiteau was hanged on June 30, 1882.


July 2, 1900 -
Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's airship LZ-1, took the first zeppelin flight over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen, Germany.



"LZ" stood for Luftschiff Zeppelin, or "Airship Zeppelin"


July 2, 1937 -
Attempting to become the first female pilot to circumnavigate the globe in an airplane, Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific with her drunken navigator, Fred Noonan, on this date. (Apparently drunkenness is a prerequisite to fly with aviation heroes.)



She still holds the record for a spouse going out for a carton of milk and not returning.


July 2, 1947 -
An object speculated to be a UFO crashes near Roswell, New Mexico on this date, though the United States Air Force claims it is a weather balloon.



I love a good 'faked' alien footage. It's World UFO Day today. So remember to Keep Watching The Skies!


65 years ago today Ernest Hemingway blew his brains out at his home in Ketchum, Idaho. Hemingway was a writer. He was also a man. He knew things about being a man. He also knew things about trying to be a man.



He wrote about them, those things. He wrote love stories and stories about fishermen and soldiers. He liked to write. And in the end he blew his brains out. Maybe that means something. Maybe it doesn't. Either way, don't bother asking for whom the bell tolled.

It wasn't for you.


On this date in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, prohibiting racial discrimination.



The way one of our former President was treated by Congress is proof that America has remained a paragon of racial harmony to this very day.


July 2, 1982 -
Larry Walters, a truck driver, using 45 helium filled weather balloons to lift him and his lawn chair three miles high on this date. He later was barely able to control his descent using a BB gun shooting holes in balloons when he accidentally dropped his pellet gun overboard. Walters then slowly descended back down to the ground.



He landed in a residential neighborhood in Long Beach where got tangled in some power lines, causing a 20 minute power blackout. Walters was able to climb to the ground.



And so it goes.