You can not hold back nature

Every year March 10th is the Festival of Life in the Cracks Day, celebrating the first signs of spring weather, such as the green sprouts sprouting from cracks in the pavement. (Spring is in 10 days)

It a nice way to honor the rebirth and renewal in life, and see beauty and life everywhere as well.

Today is also International Day of Awesomeness. It's a day for celebrating all things awesome, and everything awesome that you, your friends, and everybody else does.



It's also the birthday of Chuck Norris



Remember, Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle.


March 10, 1938 -
Bette Davis won her second Academy Award and re-ignited her sagging career when Jezebel, premiered in New York City on this date.



Following a quarrel with William Wyler, with whom she was having an affair, Bette Davis embarked on an affair with Henry Fonda that greatly increased tensions on the set. After a phone call from Fonda's pregnant wife, she called things off.


March 10, 1956 -
The musical adaptation of the play High Tor, starring Bing Crosby, Nancy Olsen and Julie Andrews (in her TV debut) aired on the Ford Star Jubilee program on CBS, on this date.



Stephen Sondheim also set a musical version of the play High Tor, but Maxwell Anderson refused permission, so the Sondheim musical adaptation was never produced. Subsequent copyright extension acts mean the Stephen Sondheim music will be illegal until 2042.


March 10, 1958 -
Big Records released the single, Our Song, by a teenage duo from Queens, New York, Tom and Jerry, on this date.



The duo in a few years will become famous in the '60s under their real names, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.


March 10, 1960 -
The crime thriller based on the novel The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith, Purple Noon starring Alain Delon, and directed by René Clément, opened in France, on this date.



Author Patricia Highsmith, expressed satisfaction with the film, which she called "very beautiful to the eye and interesting for the intellect," and with Alain Delon's performance as Tom Ripley. She was, however, disappointed with the film's ending, calling it "a terrible concession to so-called public morality."


March 10, 1972 -
Peter Bogdanovich's valentine to screwball comedies, What's Up, Doc?, starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, Kenneth Mars, and Madeline Kahn, premiered in the US on this date



Peter Bogdanovich did not get permission from the city of San Francisco to drive cars down the concrete steps in Alta Plaza Park; these were badly damaged during filming and still show the scars today. Because of the damage to city property during the filming of this movie, San Francisco now requires productions to provide with its filming permit application a very detailed scene-by-scene breakdown of everything that the company is asking permission to film.


March 10, 1972 -
Universal Pictures released the science fiction film Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull , and starring Bruce Dern, on this date.



To keep costs down, Douglas Trumbull hired college students for modelmaking and other such special effects work. One of them, John Dykstra, went on to a distinguished special effects career of his own.


March 10, 1977 -
The TV movie A Circle of Children, starring Jane Alexander, Rachel Roberts, and David Ogden Stiers and based on the life and book about this by Mary Mac Cracken premiered on CBS TV, on this date.



The film was one of the first to deal sympathetically with the issue of autism


March 10, 1978 -
TV audiences get to see for the first time, the trials and tribulations of Dr David (and not Bruce) Banner and his travels to find the cure for his gamma ray exposure accident when The Incredible Hulk, starring Bill Bixby, Jack Colvin and Lou Ferrigno, premiered on CBS TV on this date.



First appearance of the Hulk making his escape by breaking through a wall and running down an alley (wearing blue pants). This scene was re-used many times over the course of the series.


March 10, 1979 –
Poco's single Crazy Love went to No. 1 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary charts on this date.



Crazy Love was the first single by Poco to reach the Top 40 and remained the group's biggest hit.


March 10, 1983 –
Despite the production value and Michael Jackson's star quality, MTV didn't play the video Billie Jean until the song was already a #1 hit. Les Garland, who ran the network at the time, claims that they loved the video and played it as soon as they could, but interviews with executives at Jackson's record company and with others familiar with the matter suggest otherwise.



In the book I Want My MTV, multiple sources who worked at MTV claimed that the network wanted to air the Beat It video first, because Eddie Van Halen played on it and the song fit their format. Walter Yetnikoff, who was head of CBS Records (Jackson's was signed to its subsidiary, Epic), recalls threatening to pull all CBS videos from MTV if they didn't play Billie Jean. He says he threatened to bring Jackson's producer Quincy Jones in on it as well, and the network acquiesced. MTV broadcasted the video of Michael Jackson’s song Billie Jean for the first time, on this date.



When MTV started playing the clip, it was first put in medium rotation, then promoted to heavy rotation when viewers loved it. The video for this song is often credited with breaking the color barrier on MTV. When the video for Beat It was delivered, that one also went into hot rotation. For a two-month stretch in the summer of 1983, both videos were getting constant airplay, establishing Jackson as a video star. His next video effort was for Thriller, which revolutionized the form.


March 10, 1989 -
Terry Gilliam's fourth film, The Adventures Of Baron Munchausen, starring John Neville, Eric Idle, Uma Thurman, and a whole bunch of other people, premiered on this date.



A moon city set was to have been built at Pinewood Studios. However, since there was no money left to do this, Terry Gilliam took the sketches of the designs, and stuck them to a board. The 2D buildings were then moved forwards/backwards and left/right. The result is bizarre and effective.


March 10, 1994 -
The surprise Australian independent hit, Muriel's Wedding, starring Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, and Bill Hunter went into limited release in the US on this date.



The writer/director P.J. Hogan wanted to use the music of ABBA in the film. At first, permission for the music to be used was denied. When the director promised to fly to Europe to plead his case to the founders of the band, permission was granted, as long as the band received a percentage of the film profits. The film turned out to be a big international hit, and thus helped inspire the very successful Broadway show which became the movie Mamma Mia!.


March 10, 1997 -
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, created by Joss Whedon and starring Sarah Michelle Geller premiered on WB Television Network on this date.



The entire first season was filmed before the first episode went to air, giving them the opportunity to go back and re-shoot various scenes. The scene in the library where Buffy states "it's my first day..." was actually filmed on the last day of shooting, after they decided her original performance was too forceful and aggressive. Another scene added to the pilot (to fill in time, as it was shorter than expected) was the infamous "you have something in your eye" scene, where The Master blinds a vampire who had failed him.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
March 10, 1876 -
It was on this date in 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell (Don Ameche) conducted the first successful experiment on a radical new technology. He put a "transmitter" in one room of his home and a "receiver" in another. He connected them with wire. He then shouted into the mouthpiece of the transmitter, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."



A moment later, his assistant, who had been waiting in the room with the receiver, came into Bell's room and said he had heard and understood everything.



When Alexander Graham Bell finished his invention of the telephone, he noticed he had two missed calls from Chuck Norris.



The invention didn't enjoy much commercial success because the market for persons with out-of-earshot assistants named Watson was not as large as Bell had hoped, but it did serve as a major stepping-stone to one of Bell's most significant inventions, the Watson Detonator.


March 10, 1914 –
At London’s National Gallery, suffragette Mary Richardson slashes Diego Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus with a meat cleaver: “I have tried to destroy the picture of the most beautiful woman in mythological history as a protest against the Government for destroying Mrs. Pankhurst, who is the most beautiful character in modern history. Justice is an element of beauty as much as colour and outline on canvas. Mrs. Pankhurst seeks to procure justice for womanhood, and for this she is being slowly murdered by a Government of Iscariot politicians.” — her statement was published in The Times, London, the next day.


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Emmeline Pankhurst and other members of the militant Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), while serving sentences for their activities, went on hunger strikes to protest the horrible conditions at Holloway Prison; the government begins violent force-feedings to prevent them from dying as martyrs.


March 10, 1948 -
The State owned Communist newspaper reported that the Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk was thrown from a window at his apartment in Prague under mysterious circumstances on this date.

Authorities rule his death was a "suicide" and then decide to rule the death as accidentally because he seems to have "fallen while sitting in a yoga position on a window sill to combat insomnia". But most likely he was suffocated first, judging from the fact that he had lost control of his bowels and the deep nail marks on the window sill.

I hate when that happens.


March 10, 1948 -
... Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold ....

Author and artist, Zelda Fitzgerald died in a fire at Highland Hospital, NC, along with eight other inmates on this date.



She was locked in on the 3rd floor while undergoing insulin-induced coma therapy.

I really hate when that happens.


March 10, 1951 -
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover announces that he has turned down an offer to become commissioner of baseball on this date.

The governor of California, Earl Warren, (and soon to be proponent of 'The Magic Single Bullet Theory',) had previously rejected an offer to become baseball's leader. Think how the nation would be different if baseball was able to fit Hoover with a pair of high heel cleats.


March 10, 1977 -
Roman Polanski gave a 13 year old girl Quaaludes and has sex with her during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson's home on this date. He later fled the country to avoid statutory rape charges.

He would currently be living in Los Angeles (and probably having more fun) if he just went into the bathroom and auditioned his hand puppet alone.


March 10, 1977 -
Astronomers James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham and Douglas J. Mink discover rings around Uranus on this date.

Allow yourself to titter and guffaw like a school boy.


March 10, 1980 -
Jean Harris shot and killed her unfaithful lover, cardiologist Herman Tarnower, co-author of The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet in his Purchase N.Y. home on this date.



She was granted clemency on December 31, 1992 by Governor Mario Cuomo after she served 12 years of a 15 year sentence. Harris was released in January 1993. Mrs Harris died in December 2013.

Sometimes, diets make you a little hangry


March 10, 1988 -
An avalanche hit the British royal party including King Charles (Prince of Wales at the time,) as they were ski-ing off piste above the resort of Klosters in Switzerland, on this date.



Charles and several other members of the party, including their guide, were able to ski to safety, but one of the Prince's closest friends Major Hugh Lindsay, former equerry to the Queen is not so lucky.



And so it goes.

It's a magical day

Dr. Caligari's favorite sponsor, Raymond Burr's Nipple Rouge, would like to honor a great American - and wish everyone a very happy and healthy Joe Franklin Day.



Don't forget that March 13th is the 30th annual Shabbat Across America/ Canada. Hopefully you won't forget to have Streit's Matzos at your family's Shabbat dinner.

Streit's Matzos, the unleavened experience of a lifetime.)


Today is also National Napping Day, the holiday is observed the day following the return of daylight saving time.





National Napping Day provides everyone with the opportunity to have a nap (by themselves or with a friend) and catch up on the hour of sleep they lost due to the spring forward time change. (Remember the true sign that you are an adult - you don't need to be encouraged to take a nap.)


March 9, 1948 -
The first of John Ford's famed 'Cavalry Trilogy', Fort Apache (a thinly veiled retelling of Custer's Last Stand), premiered on this date. This film was followed by She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Rio Grande, though it was not originally intended as a trilogy.



The Fort Apache fort, built for this production, stood for years. It was reused in dozens of productions, most notably the TV series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin. It was located at the Corriganville Movie Ranch in Simi Valley, California. Today it is possible to visit this location, as it is now administered as a City Park in Simi Valley.


March 9, 1954 -
.Edward R. Murrow and his CBS news program, See It Now, examined Senator Joseph McCarthy’s record and anti-communist methods on their famous A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy segment on this date.



Edward R. Murrow, cigarette smoking, gin guzzling reporter took on the cigarette smoking, whiskey drinking junior senator and demagogue from Wisconsin, Joseph McCarthy and the Red Scare hysteria on his program, See It Now, on this date.

Besides being arguably television's finest hour, it clearly demonstrates the powers of gin over whiskey.


March 9, 1954 -
The first local color television commercial was aired on WNBT television, now WNBC television, in New York on this date, for Castro Decorators of New York City. Castro were the folks who made the Castro convertible sofa beds.



With its sponsorship of the Mickey Mouse Club TV program in 1959, Mattel became the first toy company to broadcast commercials to children. They used this medium to promote their new toy, and by 1961, the enormous consumer demand for the doll led Mattel to release a boyfriend for Barbie. Ruth Handler named him Ken, after her son. Barbie's best friend, Midge, came out in 1963; her little sister, Skipper, debuted the following year.


March 9, 1966 -
The Beach Boys began recording God Only Knows on this date. (Paul McCartney once called God Only Knows, "The greatest song ever written.")







Brian Wilson wrote this song with Tony Asher, who was an advertising copyrighter and lyricist that Wilson worked with on songs for Pet Sounds. This song reflects Wilson's interest in spirituality, and it was a big departure from previous Beach Boys songs that dealt with girls, cars and surfing.


March 9, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode The Devil in the Dark aired on this date.

In it, the Enterprise arrives at Janus VI, where Kirk must deal with a mysterious creature that is destroying machinery and menacing the miners. This episode marks the first and only time an episode begins without the Enterprise or its crew being involved in the teaser scenes before the main credits.



This episode was the first time McCoy used the phrase, "I'm a doctor, not a (blank)" when Kirk asks him to help the Horta, finishing the line as, "I'm a doctor, not a brick layer!" An earlier version of this phrase is used in The Corbomite Maneuver, when McCoy says, "What am I, a doctor or a moon-shuttle conductor?"


March 9, 1969 -
Wiggen sisters Dorothy, Helen, Betty, and Rachel, recording under the name The Shaggs, released the album Philosophy of the World, on this date.



Numerous music critics and historians consider it the worst album ever recorded, but years later both Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain call it one of their favorites ever made. (You be the judge.)


March 9, 1979 -
ABC-TV aired the documentary Heroes of Rock & Roll, on this date.



This was one of the first comprehensive documentaries to be made about rock music.


March 9, 1984 -
The Ron Howard romantic comedy film, Splash, starring Tom Hanks, Daryl Hannah, and John Candy, premiered on this date.



Daryl Hannah's fin weighed 35 pounds. It took technicians three hours each day to put it on her, and she had to remain still while it was being attached. "At lunch they'd yank me out on a crane and plop me on the deck," she told People. "I couldn't eat because I couldn't go to the bathroom. I just lay there shivering with barnacles in my hair, soaking wet."


March 9, 1985 -
REO Speedwagon's single Can't Fight This Feeling started a three week run at No.1 on the Billboard on this date



Two videos were made for this song: one that shows them goofing around in a rehearsal space before performing it, and another far more elaborate video directed by Kevin Dole that shows a baby going through different life stages from birth to death. Heavy on compositing and special effects, it was cutting edge for 1984.


March 9, 1987 -
Island Records release U2's fifth studio album, The Joshua Tree (the original working title of which was The Two Americas,) on this date.



The first two singles, With Or Without You and I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, climb to #1 in America. The Joshua Tree is the band’s best-selling album, with 25 million copies sold worldwide and at the 1987 Grammy Awards, won the band ‘Album Of The Year’ and ‘Best Rock Performance’, the first of what has become a record-breaking run of Grammy wins.


March 9, 1990 -
The cult classic, House Party, starring Kid 'n Play, Robin Harris, Martin Lawrence, Tisha Campbell, and John Witherspoon premiered in the US on this date.



During the party at Play's house, all of the dance sequences were done with no music. A.J. Johnson choreographed her and Tisha Campbell's routine for the battle. The toe-touch and kicks were actually signature moves for Kid-N-Play. They had become very popular as back up dancers for Salt-N-Pepa using these and more acrobatic stunts. The music was added after the dancing had been shot.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
March 9, 1170 -
In Essex, a UFO is spotted over St. Ostwyth, manifesting itself as a "wonderfully large dragon ... borne up from the Earth through the air". The craft kindled the air and destroyed a house.

And all of that was before LSD.


March 9, 1454 -
Amerigo Vespucci was born on this date. He was an Italian explorer who made many voyages to the new world at about the same time as Columbus.



The two continents of the new world were therefore named for him, and it wasn't until the seventeenth century (Greenwich time) that North and South Vespucci were renamed the Americas.


March 9, 1556 -
David Rizzio, the secretary to Mary, Queen of Scots, was stabbed 56 times by a gaggle of Scottish nobles on this date (and no, they are not known as a murder of crows.)



Her husband Henry, Lord Darnley had orchestrated the murder with Mary witnessing, hoping to precipitate a miscarriage.

Isn't love among the royalty grand?


March 9, 1562 -
Kissing in public was banned in Naples Italy punishable by death. However this law was part of legislation to curb the spread of a plague that was rampaging across Europe.

It lasts for about a day before the local nobleman is forced to rescind it.


March 9, 1858 -
Philadelphia iron products manufacturer Albert Potts patented his design for a lamppost mounted collection mailbox (US Patent #19,578).

His box was designed to be mounted to a lamppost so people could drop their letters into the box instead of making a special trip to the post office to mail their letters.


March 9, 1862 -
Happy Bang-Clang Day. Bang-Clang Day commemorates the Battle of Hampton Roads, a Civil War battle that took place on this date. The battle is significant not because of its outcome, but because it marked the first battle between ironclad ships, ushering in a new era of naval warfare.



On the Confederate side was the Virginia, formerly the USS Merrimack, and on the Union side was the Monitor.

So now you know.


March 9, 1961 -
Korabl-Sputnik-4, also known as Sputnik 9, was launched with a dog named Chernushka (Blackie) on a one orbit mission. Also onboard the spacecraft was a cosmonaut dummy (whom Russian officials nicknamed "Ivan Ivanovich"), mice and a Guinea pig.



The dummy was ejected out of the capsule during re-entry and made a soft landing using a parachute. The animals were recovered unharmed inside the capsule. Chernushka went on to a successful career as the provincial governor of the Kazakhian region. The Cosmonaut dummy could not be used again as 'Blackie' had spent the entire flight having a 'brief but intense' relationship with the leg of 'Ivan Ivanovich'.


March 9, 1967 -
Josef Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, walks into the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi and asks to defect (some reports have it that she defected on March 6th - does it really matter - you don't give a damn.)



Her defection was one of a series of high-profile defections throughout the Cold War.


March 9, 1974 -
Officer Hiroo Onoda, the last Japanese soldier operating in the Philippines, surrendered, 29 years after World War II ended, on this date.



The Japanese intelligence officer and WWII holdout, came out of hiding in fatigues patched many times over, on Lubang island in the Philippines on his 52nd birthday.


March 9, 1981 -
Dan Rather succeeded Walter Cronkite as anchor and managing editor of the CBS Evening News.



Rather was the third person to occupy that seat since the program's 1948 launch. His last broadcast was March 9, 2005.


March 9, 1996 -
Nathan Birnbaum, the comedian Gracie Allen carried around for years, forgot to have his daily martini and died on this date.



Kids, let this be a lesson to us all - not only does alcohol taste good, it's good for you - even if you are 100 years old.


March 9, 1997 -
Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace) was killed in a drive-by outside the Soul Train Music Awards in Los Angeles on this date. The murder has never been officially solved, though an ongoing feud with Death Row Records may have had something to do with it.



Be thankful that most of us aren't hip hop stars.


March 9, 1999 -
During a campaign interview conducted by Wolf Blitzer on CNN’s Late Edition program, V.P. Al Gore was asked to describe what distinguished him from his challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, Senator Bill Bradley, Gore replied (in part): “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system.”



In context, Gore’s response (which employed the word “created,” not “invented”) was clear in meaning: the vice president was not claiming that he “invented” the Internet in the sense of having thought up, designed, or implemented it, but rather asserting that he was one of the visionaries responsible for helping to bring it into being by fostering its development in an economic and legislative sense. But so are urban legends born, thus on this date, Al Gore 'claimed' that he invented the internet.


March 9, 2004 -
Tom Jones was banned from wearing tight leather pants by his son — and manager — Mark Jones, on this date.

Mark told Tom it was time to "dress his age" as he was in danger of becoming a laughingstock at 63.

Tom, I so feel your pain. You don't want to see the list my daughters have presented me.


And so it goes.

Today - Time is not on your side

Did you forgot to set the clock ahead - we'll wait (while we madly dash around the house ourselves.) Here's a short film explaining Daylight Saving Time -



Do you need some more time (did you get the clock on the microwave? None of you still have a VCR?) Here's another short film -



Alright, you can either continue reading or go back to bed for an hour.

Remember - you'll have one less hour for drinking today - start earlier.


Today marks the observance of International Women's Day, celebrating the achievements of inspiring women around the world. (This year, the theme of International Women’s Day is “Give To Gain”.)





The earliest Women's Day observance was held on February 28, 1909, in New York; it was organized by the Socialist Party of America in remembrance of the 1908 strike of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union. An annual "international women's day" was first organized by the German socialist and theorist Clara Zetkin along with 100 delegates from 17 countries in March 1911.


March 8, 1933 -
The quintessential backstage musical, 42nd Street, premiered in New York City on this date.



Ginger Rogers took the role of "Anytime Annie" at the urging of director Mervyn LeRoy, whom she was dating at the time. Illness prevented Mervyn LeRoy from directing, so he handed the reins over to Lloyd Bacon.


March 8, 1947 -
A Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon, Scent-imental over You , directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Pepé Le Pew, debuted on this date.



The opening narration is a spoof of entertainment gossip shorts, which were a popular cinematic feature of the era.


March 8, 1959 -
The apex of the golden age of television was achieved on this date when The Incredible Jewel Robbery aired. Groucho, Chico and Harpo made their final TV appearance together.



It was all down hill from here. Chico died two years later, followed by Harpo three years after that.


March 8, 1964 -
The first of three film adaptions of Richard Matheson novel, I am Legend, The Last Man on Earth, starring Vincent Price, premiered on this date.



To more accurately show how grueling it was for his character to survive, Vincent Price insisted on lifting real people into the back of his car instead of dummies. This is why it seems he's taking extra care with the bodies. For the scene at the pit, however, he's handling dummies for obvious reasons.


March 8, 1967 -
Mad Monster Party was released by Embassy Pictures for Rankin/Bass Productions, Inc on this date.



In her stand-up comedy routine, Phyllis Diller (the voice of the Monster's Mate) referred to her husband as "Fang". She decided to use the name when referring to the Frankenstein Monster - whom her character is married to in the film - because that was what she was used to. The producers decided to allow it since the name of 'Frankenstein' was copyrighted, and referring to the name (or his monster) would have required paying royalty fees.


March 8, 1969 -
Creedence Clearwater Revival's Proud Mary hits #2 on the Hot 100 on this date. It stayed at No. 2 for three weeks.



John Fogerty wrote the lyrics based on three song title ideas: Proud Mary, Riverboat, Rolling On A River. He carried around a notebook with titles that he thought would make good songs, and Proud Mary was at the top of the list.


March 8, 1974 -
All good things must come to an end - the last episode The Brady Bunch series, The Hair-Brained Scheme aired on ABC-TV on this date.



Robert Reed was written out of this episode. He felt that the plot involving hair tonic was implausible. When he began arguing with the producers over the script, studio security wanted to remove him from the set. However, Sherwood Schwartz would not allow it because he felt that it would be too distressing for the kids. Reed remained on the set to watch the filming of the episode, which would ultimately become the final episode of the series. Carol refers to Mike's absence in passing in the closing segment, in which the family returns home from Greg's graduation ceremony. She says to Greg, "We're so proud that you graduated with honors, Greg. Too bad your father was out of town and had to miss it."


March 8, 1975 –
Laurence Luckinbill, and Carole King were the guest stars on The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode, Anyone Who Hates Kids and Dogs, on CBS-TV, on this date.



Carole King played one of Stevie's aunts, under her married name Carole Larkey.


March 8, 1979 -
John Denver and several popular female celebrities from the late 70s including, Cheryl Ladd, Valerie Harper, Cheryl Tiegs, Tina Turner, and Erma Bombeck starred in the TV special John Denver and The Ladies, which aired on CBS TV on this date.



The special had DuPont as a sponsor – an odd choice, considering Denver’s ecological focus. The show's debuted to no great acclaim and was mostly forgotten.


March 8, 1991 -
The highest grossing independent film of 1991, New Jack City, directed by Mario Van Peebles was released on this date.



Story is largely based on a real-life Detroit gang known as The Chambers Brothers. Writer Barry Michael Cooper got the idea for the film after visiting Detroit and learning about the gang's exploits.


March 8, 1994 -
Two seminal albums from the '90s were released on this date: Soundgarden's Superunknown and Nine Inch Nails' The Downward Spiral.





They enter the albums chart at #1 and #2, respectively.


March 8, 1996 -
The film that put the Coen Bros. into the mainstream consciousness, Fargo, went into limited release on this date.



Filming took place in the winter of 1995, when the region was experiencing its second-warmest winter in 100 years. Filming of outdoor scenes had to be moved all over Minnesota, North Dakota, and Canada, and much of the snow was artificial.


Another album from the discount bin at The ACME Record Shoppe


Today in History:
March 8 1619 -
Johannes Kepler's three laws of planetary motion provided evidence that the planets, including the Earth, orbit the Sun in an oval shape and that a planet's speed varies at different stages of its orbit. The German astronomer's first two laws were published in 1609. His third law, which he discovered



So that and $3.00 will get you a ride on the NYC subway.


March 8, 1910 -
French aviatrix 'Baroness' Raymonde de Laroche was the first woman to receive a pilot's license, No. 36 on this date.



Soon after receiving her license, De Laroche participated in aviation meetings at Heliopolis in Egypt, Saint Petersburg, Budapest and Rouen. During the show in St. Petersburg, she was personally congratulated by Tsar Nicholas II.


March 8, 1941 -
Sherwood Anderson and his fourth wife, Eleanor, were enjoying a well deserved vacation on a ocean liner bound from from New York to Valparaiso, Chile. During a cocktail party on the ship, Anderson was enjoying his olive from a well chilled martini: it would be his last.

Anderson soon became very ill and he and his wife had to disembarked at Colon in Panama and headed to a local hospital. He died in agony, two days later on this date. An autopsy revealed that he had accidentally swallowed a small piece of a toothpick (presumably in the martini olive), which had perforated his colon and caused a fatal case of peritonitis.

Remember, ask not for whom the bell tolls. And don't swallow your toothpick.


March 8, 1950 -
Marshal Voroshilov announced the existence of the Soviet atomic bomb on this date.

This baffled the western powers, who were sure they had left the secret somewhere safe.



33 years later, on this date, the ever swift President Ronald Reagan gets around to calling the Soviets, "an evil empire."

Let us quote that great Tantrist practioner during these trying times and "hope the Russians love their children, too."


March 8, 1968 -
The Soviet submarine, K-129, sank in the Pacific Ocean, killing all 97 crew members aboard. Later in the year a U.S. submarine secretly retrieves an encryption machine, codebooks, and nuclear warheads from the Soviet vessel.



A further bold attempt is made in 1974 to bring up the entire submarine using the CIA ship Glomar Explorer, built by Howard Hughes. That mission supposedly fails, and was made public by the Los Angeles Times to the great embarrassment of the Agency.


March 8, 1971 –
Muhammad Ali lost to Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier in the “Fight of the Century” at Madison Square Garden in New York City on this date.



Frank Sinatra wasn’t able to get ringside seats for the Fight, so he arranged to take photos for Life magazine so that he could be close to the action.


March 8, 1999 -
Joseph Paul "Joe" DiMaggio passed away in his Florida home on this date in 1999.



We actually know where he's gone. And since he's been dead for more than 20 years, we should take our lonely eyes off of him. It's a little creepy.



And so it goes.