I've heard that it's 420 somewhere

Bunkies, if you or your kid cut school or work today, once again, lock up the snacks. They may come home with a case of the munchies.



Be thankful though, they're not out celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Klara Hitler's bouncing baby little evil bastard named Adolf on this date in 1889, (smack them hard across the back of the head if they were thinking about it though.)



Or that you should be concerned if they were celebrating the 27th anniversary of the Columbine attack.



Perhaps you'll probably spent the better part of the day,if you're over 65 or have a compromised immune system, thinking about the FDA's recommendation to get another booster shot for COVID and contemplating the life of St. Agnes of Montepulciano on her feast day.

But what ever you do, celebrate responsible.


April 20, 1939 -
During the 1939 World's Fair, David Sarnoff, president of RCA, unveiled the first commercial publicly accessible television broadcast, on this date. In Flushing NY, Sarnoff proclaimed "Now we add sight to sound" and during the opening ceremonies of the fair on April 30th, FDR became the first president to ever be televised.



The speech is broadcast by RCA subsidiary NBC to two hundred televisions across the state of New York. It might have had a larger audience had more TV sets been available - at this time, there were only a few hundreds TV set in America. By the end of the year, a thousand receivers woull be sold in the U.S. Screens are initially only about five inches across.


April 20 1946 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Hollywood Canine Canteen, directed by Robert McKimson, debuted on this date. This is the first Merrie Melodies short that Robert McKimson directed.



Celebrity caricatures are (in order): Edward G. Robinson, Eddie Cantor, Jimmy Durante, Ed Wynn, Monty Woolley, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Bing Crosby, Dennis Day, Jerry Colonna, Carmen Miranda, Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Penny Singleton (as Blondie Bumstead), Arthur Lake (as Dagwood Bumstead), Leopold Stokowski, Joe Besser, Dorothy Lamour, Frank Sinatra, Kay Kyser, M.A. Bogue, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Lionel Hampton, and Benny Goodman.


April 20 1957-
The Merrie Melodies short, Boyhood Daze, directed by Chuck Jones, debuted on this date.



According to animation historian Don Markstein, Ralph Philips was Chuck Jones' version of the literary character Walter Mitty. Both are meek, put-upon characters who seek to escape reality through daydreaming about being heroes or villains. The main difference was that Walter is an adult trapped in an unhappy marriage, while Ralph is a little boy with mundane problems.


April 20, 1976 -
George Harrison, who is good friends with Eric Idle, joined Monty Python on stage at the comedy troupe's show at New York's City Center, on this date. Dressed as a Canadian Mountie, Harrison joins the chorus for The Lumberjack Song. No mention is made of Harrison's appearance, and few in the audience recognize him.



The next night, Harry Nilsson shows up to perform the same feat, but with disastrous results, as he fell into the audience and broke his arm.


April 20, 1977 -
Annie Hall, at 93 minutes, the shortest color film to ever win the Best Picture Oscar, premiered on this date (Marty, in glorious B & W was 91 minutes.)



The house under the rollercoaster where Alvy grew up is actually the Kensington Hotel in Coney Island, Brooklyn which was located underneath the Thunderbolt rollercoaster. Allen discovered it while searching locations during filming. The hotel and rollercoaster were demolished in 2000.


April 20, 1981 -
ABC unceremoniously aired the final episode of Soap, leaving many of the plotlines unresolved.



Susan Harris, the creator of the series, went on to create The Golden Girls and Empty Nest, using many of the same actors who first appeared on Soap.


April 20, 1992 -
The life and music of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury, who died five months earlier following complications from AIDS, was celebrated in a star-studded concert, A Concert For Life, at London’s Wembley Stadium, on this date.



Organized by Mercury’s bandmates, the event not only featured an array of luminaries (including Elton John, David Bowie, Phil Collins, George Michael, and Metallica) but also raised funds for AIDS research, launching the Mercury Phoenix Trust.


April 20, 1993 -
Aerosmith releases their 11th studio album Get a Grip, on this date.



Get a Grip went on to sell more than seven million copies in the U.S. and 20 million copies worldwide, ensuring the album's place as Aerosmith's most successful studio album in terms of global sales.


April 20, 2002 -
An English dubbed version of the Japanese animated fantasy film written and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi,) premiered at the San Francisco International Film Festival, on this date.



It was the first anime film to be nominated for (and win) an Academy Award. At 125 minutes, it also has the longest runtime of any other film nominated or winning in that category.


Word of the Day.


Today in History:
April 20, 1233 -
Pope Gregory IX placed the Inquisition, in existence since 1227, under the aegis of the Dominican Order on this date.



Torture is apparently sometimes necessary to save souls, and the office continues to exist today as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.



And the congregation was once headed by ex-Pope (and ex- Nazi Youth), Prefect Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.


April 20, 1841 -
Edgar Allen Poe’s story, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, first appears in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine, on this date. The tale is generally considered to be the first detective story.



The story describes the extraordinary “analytical power” used by Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin to solve a series of murders in Paris. Like the later Sherlock Holmes stories, the tale is narrated by the detective’s roommate.


April 20, 1916 -
The Chicago Cubs played their first game at their new home at Weeghman Park (renamed Wrigley Field in 1926 after William Wrigley bought controlling interest in the Cubs), between themselves and the Cincinnati Reds, on this date.



The Cubs besting the Reds 7–6 in eleven innings. This proved to be the highlight of an otherwise unremarkable season. (And you are saying to yourself, "What's new about that!"


April 20, 1940 -
Vladimir Zworykin, better known as a co-inventor of television, demonstrates the first electron microscope for RCA on this date.

The company was among the first to develop the electron microscope, which remains widely used in many forms of scientific research today.


April 20, 1964 -
The first transcontinental picturephone call is made between the Bell System exhibit at the World’s Fair in New York City and Disneyland in Anaheim, California. The device consists of a telephone handset and a small monitor. The system allows users to see each other as a fuzzy video image as they talk.



A three-minute call between the special booths AT&T set up in Chicago, New York, and Washington cost between $16 and $27. The system will be offered commercially in Chicago, but it will never become popular.


April 20, 1979 -
President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a Killer Swamp Rabbit, while on vacation in Plains GA on this date. The rabbit swam menacingly towards him, and he had to repel the ferocious creature with a paddle. There were no injuries.



Press Secretary Jody Powell leaked the story to the press, and the White House had a lot of explaining to do.


April 20, 1992 -
Alone in his apartment watching TV, British comedic legend Benny Hill suffered a fatal heart attack on this date.



His bloated toupee-less body with his underwear around his ankles was found days later.

Sorry but I guess there's nothing funny about that.


April 20, 2010 -
While drilling at the Macondo Prospect, there was an explosion on the rig, Deepwater Horizon, caused by a blowout which killed 11 crewmen and ignited a fireball visible from 35 miles away. The resulting fire could not be extinguished, and, on this date, Deepwater Horizon sank, leaving the well gushing at the sea floor and causing the largest offshore oil spill in United States history.



BP announced on April 18, 2012 that it has reached a class-action settlement with attorneys representing thousands of businesses and individuals who made claims after the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As late as January of 2014, BP was still attempting not to pay claims made against them in the suit. The court has rejected BP attempts.

BP originally projected that its settlement costs would be $7.8 billion. A federal judge approved a $20 billion settlement to end years of litigation. The settlement will be paid over 16 years.


April 20, 2008 -
26-year-old Danica Patrick won the Indy Japan 300 at Twin Ring Montegi in Montegi, Japan, making her the first female winner in IndyCar racing history.



She finished the 200-lap race 5.8594 seconds ahead of Helio Castroneves, then a two-time Indy 500 champ. At the 2009 Indy 500, Patrick came in third behind winner Castroneves and second-place finisher Dan Wheldon. Patrick retired from IndyCar after the 2011 season and fully retired from racing in 2018.



And so it goes.

I want to ride my bicycle

Today commemorates the first recorded 'on purpose' LSD trip taken by Albert Hofmann, on this date in 1943, (Hoffman 'accidentially' dosed himself three days previously.)



If you are going to celebrate the holiday, remember to titrate your trip correctly.


April 19, 1927 -
Cecil B. Demille's silent-film version of The King of Kings premiered on this date.



It is rumored that the film featured author Ayn Rand as one of the hundreds of people in a crowd. At a time when Rand was a struggling immigrant, Cecil B. DeMille gave her the job to help get her on her feet.


April 19, 1935 -
James Whale's brilliant sequel to Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff, Colin Clive, Elsa Lanchester, Ernest Thesiger, and Oliver Peters Heggie, premiered in the U.S. on this date.



Boris Karloff protested against the decision to make The Monster speak, but was overruled. Since he was required to speak in this film, Karloff was not able to remove his partial bridgework as he had done to help give the Monster his sunken cheek appearance in the first Frankenstein. That's why The Monster appears fuller of face in the sequel.


April 19, 1941-
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Preview, directed by Tex Avery and starring Porky Pig, debuted on this date.



This is the last Porky Pig cartoon Tex Avery directed, alongside his last black-and-white Looney Tunes cartoon he directed.



April 19, 1946 -
Raymond Chandler's film-noir classic The Blue Dahlia premiered on this date.



One of the reasons that Veronica Lake was selected to star opposite Alan Ladd was because of her height. Ladd was a notably short leading man (5' 6"), and Lake's similarly diminutive stature (4' 11") meant that the filmmakers did not have to make Ladd appear taller by comparison. At the same time, Ladd resented Doris Dowling, who played his wife in the film, because she was half a foot taller than him, and tried to have her replaced. The producers placated Ladd by having Dowling sitting or lying down during all her scenes with him.


April 19, 1952-
The Looney Tunes short, Water, Water Every Hare, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Bugs Bunny and Gossamer, debuted on this date.



This is the second appearance of the orange monster, but here he is named Rudolph. In his debut in Hair-Raising Hare, he had no name and was simply "Monster" (as is indicated on the locked door from where he first appears in this short). In his third appearance (decades later) in Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24½th Century, his name is Gossamer. The mad scientist in this short is patterned after Boris Karloff right down to the heavy eyebrows and Dr. Frankenstein riffs that made Karloff a household name from the 1930s through the 1960s.

April 19, 1961 -
Frederico Fellini's iconic, La Dolce Vita, premiered in the United States on this date.



When shooting the famous Fontana di Trevi scene, director Federico Fellini complained that the water in the fountain looked dirty. A representative of Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) present at the shooting was able to supply the film team with some of the airline's green sea dye marker (for use in case of an emergency landing at sea). This was used to color the water, and the director was satisfied.


April 19, 1973 -
The sci-fi thriller Soylent Green, directed by Richard Fleischer, and starring Charlton Heston, Leigh Taylor-Young, and Edward G. Robinson (in his final film role), opened in New York City on this date.



During shooting, Edward G. Robinson was almost totally deaf. He could hear people only if they spoke directly into his ear. His dialogue scenes with other people had to be shot several times before he got the rhythm of the dialogue and was able to respond to people as if he could hear them. He could not hear director Richard Fleischer yell "cut" when a scene went wrong, so Robinson would often continue acting out the scene, unaware that shooting had stopped.


April 19, 1978 -
The Patti Smith Group released the song Because the Night on this date.



Bruce Springsteen wrote this song. He gave it to Patti Smith in 1976 because he thought it would suit her voice. He was also in a legal battle with his manager, Mike Appel, that kept him from recording for almost three years.


April 19, 1980 -
Blondie song Call Me, featured in the Richard Gere movie American Gigolo went to No.1 on the US singles chart on this date.



Disco producer Giorgio Moroder wrote this with Blondie lead singer Debbie Harry, who thus became the first woman in British chart history to write three #1 hits. However she wasn't Moroder's first choice. The Italian disco king had originally wanted Stevie Nicks to provide vocals on the track but the Fleetwood Mac vocalist declined the offer.


April 19, 1986
Prince's single Kiss hits #1 on the US Billboard Charts, on this date. The #2 song is Manic Monday by the Bangles, which was written by Prince.





The band Mazarati, which was formed by Prince's bass player Brown Mark and signed to his Paisley Park record label, asked Prince for a song for their debut album, so he took a break from his Parade sessions and dashed off a minute-long bluesy acoustic demo for them on a mini tape recorder. Mazarati and producer David Z re-worked the song, giving it an irresistible funk groove. When he heard it, Prince was smart enough to take the song right back. He replaced their lead vocal, added the guitar break in the chorus and included it as a last-minute addition to his Parade album.


April 19, 1987 -
The Simpsons make their television debut in the short Good Night - a segment for The Tracey Ullman Show.



(I had to hang around the murky world of the internet underground to get this blurry copy of the clip. I'd like to show you a better version of the clip but the goons, I mean lawyers from Fox would break my legs and I've just about gotten used to walking.)

I wonder whatever happened to The Simpsons.


April 19, 1987 -
The short-lived but critically acclaimed series, Duet, starring Mary Page Keller, Matthew Laurance, Allison La Placa, and Chris Lemmon, premiered on the Fox Network, on this date. The series was part of the original Sunday prime time line up for the network that launched in April 1987.





Alison La Placa was only hired to appear in two episodes, but the crew liked her and decided to keep her around. She gradually became the show's breakout character and landed her own spinoff when this series was canceled.


April 19, 1990 -
Folks got to start flying Sandpiper Air, out of Tom Nevers Field airport in Nantucket, Massachusetts, when Wings, starring Tim Daly, Steven Weber, Crystal Bernard, David Schramm, Rebecca Schull, and Thomas Haden Church, premiered on NBC TV, on this date.



Tim Daly (Joseph Hackett), Steven Weber (Brian Hackett), Crystal Bernard (Helen Chappel Hackett) and David Schramm (Roy Biggins) are the only actors to appear in all 172 episodes of the series


April 19, 1990 -
On the BBC, the television program, French and Saunders Show, airs a Pythonque courthouse sketch featured the guitarists David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, Gary Moore and Lemmy.



The sketch ended with a jam by the musicians. Please watch the clip; you may thank me later.


April 19, 2002 -
The Nia Vardalos written rom-com (some of my friends watch it as a docudrama) My Big Fat Greek Wedding, starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Andrea Martin, and Joey Fatone, premiered in the US on this date.



According to Nia Vardalos, paying for catering during the film proved not to be a problem. Wherever the film was being shot, whenever local Greek restaurants learned about it, they sent over lots of free food.


Another record from the discount bin of (The ACME Record Shopper.)


Today in History:
April 19, 1775 -
Alerted by Paul Revere, the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington Common with the Battle of Lexington-Concord on this date. Eight Minutemen were killed and 10 wounded in an exchange of musket fire with British Redcoats.



In New York, Lexington seems to have won as there is no Concord Avenue.


April 19, 1824 -
Notorious drug user, buggerer, sister sleeping, club footed man about Europe, oh yeah, and poet, Lord George Gordon Byron, died from malaria fever in Greece on this date.



His body was set back to England for burial (his heart, literally remains in his beloved Greece, buried under a tree in Messolonghi) but he was so infamous that neither the deans of Westminster and St Paul's would accept his body for proper burial. His family at last buried him in a small family vault in Northern England.)


April 19, 1897 -
The first Boston Marathon was run in Boston, Massachusetts. John J. McDermott of New York ran the 24.5-mile course of the all-male event in a winning time of 2:55:10. It was the first of its type in the U.S.



The course was lengthened to 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km) to conform to the standard set by the 1908 Summer Olympics and codified by the IAAF in 1921.


April 19, 1906 -
It was a rainy day in Paris. One of those days that song writers write about. Nobel-winning chemist Pierre Curie was preoccupied and in a hurry. He tried to run across the street and did not look both ways. He slipped and then was hit and run over by a horse drawn vehicle. His skull was badly fractured.

Kids' once again - Your mother is always right. Just because you're a Nobel winning - look both ways before crossing.


April 19, 1927 -
Mae West, suspected transvestite, was jailed, on this date, for her performance in Sex, the Broadway play she wrote, directed, and starred in. She was sentenced to ten days in prison. While incarcerated on Roosevelt Island, she was allowed to wear her silk panties instead of the scratchy prison issue and the warden reportedly took her to dinner every night.

She served eight days with two days off for good behavior. Media attention to the case enhanced her career - it didn't make her change her act, but it did bring her national notoriety and helped make her one of Hollywood's most memorable, and quotable, stars.

She said: "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."


April 19, 1946 -
He proudly carries the Charles Atlas seal of approval!



Tim Curry, actor and singer was born on this date. Fling toast around the room and do the Time Warp in his honor today!


April 19, 1993 -
More than 80 Branch Davidians died in Waco, Texas as the FBI stages a disastrous final assault on their compound on this date. This brought a sudden end to the 51-day siege.



As you about to see, this helped us a great deal.


April 19, 1995 -
At 9:02 am, 28 years ago today, a large car bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and injuring 500 including many children in the building's day care center.



Authorities charged Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, with the crime.

Both were convicted. McVeigh was executed in 2001 and Nichols is currently serving a life sentence.



And so it goes.

Jurassic times call for Jurassic measures!

Velociraptors are small vicious dinosaurs that usually ruin everyone's day at your local millionaire's amusement park.

Remember large windows and doorways are Velociraptor points of entries. Mark them accordingly and avoid at all cost. Once you've finished locating possible velociraptor entry points within your building, you can mark those areas so that your loved ones are also aware of the building's vulnerabilities.

Velociraptor attacks are a very serious matter. Educate yourself, and make sure you always have at least four possible escape routes, since three of those will be occupied by velociraptors in the event of an attack.

Remember you don't have to outrun a raptor, you just have to outrun one of your friends.


(Oops, I nearly forgot.) Since 2007 (give or take a year), record stores on six continents are set to celebrate Record Store Day,

an annual event, held one Saturday (typically the third) every April and every Black Friday in November, in order to 'celebrate the culture of the independently owned record store'.



Click here to see which albums are being released exclusively for Record Store Day.


April 18, 1953 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Muscle Tussle, directed by Robert McKimson and starring Daffy Duck, debuted on this date.



Atomcol is pitched as the remedy to being called a scrawny weakling, much as Charles Atlas' muscle-building regime magazine ads encouraged humans to follow.


April 18, 1959 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Apes of Wrath, directed by Friz Freleng and starring Bugs Bunny, debuted on this date.



When the stork hiccups from his drunken speech when taking a break on his delivery trip at the beginning, if one looks closely, the stork is seen having two visible eyeballs in each of his eyes in a number of quick blink-and-miss frames. Whether this is an animation mistake or completely intentional on the animators' part is unknown.


April 18, 1971 -
The first solo television special of Diana Ross, Diana!, premiered on ABC TV on this date.



The special also featured appearances by Danny Thomas and Bill Cosby, plus performances by The Jackson 5, and also included Jackson 5 lead singer Michael Jackson's solo debut.


April 18, 1975 -
John Lennon released Stand by Me on this date.



Lennon's cover was his last hit prior to his five-year retirement from the music industry.


April 18, 1979 -
For some reason, never clearly explained by TV professionals, the George Schlatter produced weekly series profiling human interest stories, Real People, premiered on NBC TV on this date.



Forms of reality television had been done in the past but Real People blended profiles of everyday citizens, comedic studio commentary and viewer interaction. And for some reason, the series was a huge hit.


April 18, 1986 -
Universal Studios releases the fantasy film Legend, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry, David Bennent, Alice Playten, and Billy Barty, premiered in the US on this date.



Tim Curry had to wear a large, bull-like structure atop his head with three-foot fiberglass horns supported by a harness underneath the make-up. The horns strained the back of Curry's neck because they extended forward and not straight up. Rob Bottin and his crew finally came up with horns that were hollow and lightweight. At the end of each filming day, Curry spent an hour in a bath in order to liquefy the soluble spirit gum that served as the adhesive for his make-up. At one point, he got too impatient and claustrophobic that he pulled the make-up off too quickly, tearing off his own skin in the process. Director Ridley Scott felt both horrified and sorry for Curry, and immediately tried to find an easier way to make up his character. Since he didn't want Curry to put more make-up on his torn skin, he shot around him for a week. Scott also realized that it added a dramatic build-up for the character, so he re-shot some of his opening scenes this way. The footage of Curry in the opening to the U.S. Theatrical release was filmed before any of this took place.


April 18, 1987 -
Aretha Franklin and George Michael duet I Knew You Were Waiting (for Me) hit no. #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



The Queen of Soul had fallen out of favor and her fortunes were revived by her 1985 album Who's Zoomin' Who, which contained two US Top 10 hits: the title track and Freeway of Love. It took this duet with George Michael, however, to return her to the top of the chart, where she had not been for 20 years (with Respect).


April 18, 2003 -
Walt Disney Studios' adaptation of the children's novel, Holes, starring, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Patricia Arquette, Tim Blake Nelson and Shia LaBeouf, went into general release in the U.S. on this date.



A screenplay was initially written by Richard Kelly, who greatly departed from the source material by writing a dark, violent adaptation of the story set in a post-apocalyptic world. The studio reportedly found the script far too disturbing for a children's movie, rejecting it in favor of the final script written by the novel's author, Louis Sachar.


April 18, 2004 -
Eamon hits no. 1 on the Billboard Charts with F*ck It (I Don't Want You Back), on this date. The song holds the record for the most expletives ever in a #1 song. 

(Kids, ask your folks if you can listen to this song.)



There are 33 profane words in the lyrics, which is one reason why most radio stations didn't play the song when it first came out. The following year an edited version arrived which had all the swears silenced. The DJs referred to the song as simply I Don't Want You Back.


April 18, 2008 -
Universal's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, starring Jason Segel, Paul Rudd, Kristen Bell, Mila Kunis, Russell Brand, and Bill Hader, premiered in the US on this date.



The film is based on script-writer Jason Segel's experience breaking up with Linda Cardellini, as well as three other breakups with unspecified women. Segel has said that the 'naked breakup' did not involve Cardellini, and that she was a great girlfriend.

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


Today in History:
It was a tense April in Boston in 1775. The colonists were simmering with resentment toward the motherland, on account of King George III having strewn the colonies with excessive tacks, painful to step on and bothersome to the horses. Furthermore, British cabbies had refused to unionize, and the colonists were adamantly opposed to taxis without representation.



In December of 1773, King George III tried to assuage the riled colonists by sending them boatloads of tea. (King George III was insane.) The colonists dressed up like Indians and poured all the king's tea into Boston harbor, proving they could be perfectly insane without any help from the king.

Meanwhile, a network of colonists had been secretly meeting for some time. They reasoned that since they preferred coffee to tea, liked salad before rather than after the entree, and couldn't make any sense whatever of cricket, they were obviously no longer British. Perhaps they had become French, or Portuguese. Finally they took a vote, which proved they were American.

The king's colonial representatives overheard some of these discussions, and decided to arrest as many of these patriots as possible, unless they could kill them first.

On April 18, 1775, Paul Revere, (William Dawes and Samuel Prescott) got wind of the British officers' plan to arrest John Hancock and Sam Adams in Lexington that very night - arrests that would have been calamitous to the colony's fledgling insurance and beer industries.



Anticipating colonial unrest, British officers had deployed Regulars on all the key roads between Boston and Lexington. (The Regulars had previously proved effective even where the Irregulars and Extra Longs had failed.)

Revere told some friends to hang two lanterns in Boston's Old North Church, in order to signal his wife that he'd be late for dinner, and immediately set out for Charlestown. Once there, he mounted a horse and began the ride to Lexington.



He found himself almost immediately pursued by Regulars, whom he eluded by means of wily Boston riding tactics: he took a series of lefts from the right lane and a series of rights from the left, utterly confounding his pursuers, who were anyway accustomed to riding on the other side of the street and still weren't sure what to do at a blinking red light. One of the Regulars rode straight into a fruit stand and ended up covered in produce. Another rode through a big plate glass window that two workmen were carrying across the road. It was pretty funny.

Just before midnight, Revere finally arrived at Jonas Clarke's Lexington home, where he breathlessly informed Adams and Hancock that the British were coming. This confounded Adams and Hancock, who, like Revere, were themselves British.



Once the confusion was cleared up, Adams and Hancock fled for safety while Revere and two others rushed on to Concord. Many memorable and important historical events ensued, such as the American Revolution, but by then it was April 19th, and therefore no longer appropriate to this date's entry.



Although Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem immortalized Paul Revere alone. Revere was the least heroic, he was captured by British patrols and held for awhile before he was released without his horse.



Please indulge your local tea party members today, Sara Palin hasn't been heard from in a while and with all that's going on, it just better this way.


April 18, 1882 –
>A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.







Leopold Stokowski, conductor, and long-time music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra was born on this date.

But, what the hell do you care?


April 18, 1906 -
A devastating earthquake struck San Francisco at 5:13 a.m., followed by a major aftershock three hours later. More than 3,000 people were killed from either collapsing structures or any of the 59 separate fires which burned over the next three days.



In the downtown area, the U.S. Army was forced to dynamite whole city blocks in order to contain the flames, due to the lack of water pressure.


April 18th, 1923 -
On the first day of the new baseball season, the gates of Yankee Stadium were opened, and 74,200 people flooded through the turnstiles, while another 25,000 were turned away – an astounding number, considering the previous attendance record for a single game was 42,000 for the 1916 World Series in Boston. In an ironic twist, the first game was fittingly played against the Boston Red Sox, Babe Ruth’s former team. Even more fitting was that Ruth hit the first home run in the stadium on opening day – a three-run home run, giving the Yankees a 4-1 win.



Before Yankee Stadium opened in 1923, the Yankees rented from their cross-town rivals, the New York Giants, and shared the space at the Polo Grounds. Threatened with eviction, the Yankees were forced to build their own stadium in the Bronx. The ballpark became the first to have three tiers of seating, consisting of 58,000 seats. It was also the first ballpark to be called a "stadium" due to its enormous size.


April 18, 1930 -
As impossible as this may seem, at 8:45 pm on this date, a BBC news announcer told the British public 'there is no news', and played piano music for the rest of the 15-minute interval.



The wireless service then returned to broadcasting from the Queen's Hall in Langham Place, London, where the Wagner opera Parsifal was being performed.


April 18, 1942 -
The Doolittle raids took place over Tokyo (the first U.S. air raid to strike the Japanese home islands during WWII,) and were led by Lieutenant Colonel James H. Doolittle, who received a congressional medal of honor for his actions.



Though the raid did not do much material damage to Japan, it demonstrated how vulnerable the Japanese home islands were to air attack just four months after their surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.


April 18, 1955 -
Nobel Prize recipient Albert Einstein died in his hospital bed from a ruptured aortic aneurysm on this date.



Seven hours later, Dr. Thomas Harvey, chief pathologist at Princeton Hospital, performed Albert Einstein's autopsy. He removed the brain and took it home. Thus began a 40 year journey of "They Stole Einstein's Brain".


April 18, 1963 -
Harvard's most successful 'failure' Conan O'Brien was born on this date



Don't worry, some day Coco will find himself.


April 18, 1968 -
Robert P. McCulloch, American entrepreneur and chairman of McCulloch Oil Company, bought London Bridge on this date, from the Corporation of London for $2,460,000 plus shipping costs of around $240,000.



He bought the structure as a tourist attraction to entice people to vacation and potentially retire in Lake Havasu City, Arizona, a planned community he established a few years earlier. Rebuilding London Bridge took three years and several million dollars more, which strained McCulloch's finances.


April 18, 1983 -
62 people were killed and more than 100 injured in a suicide bombing against the U.S. Embassy in Beirut on this date. The attacker used a van packed with one ton of high explosives. Included among the dead was the CIA's entire Middle East bureau.



The group Islamic Jihad claims responsibility, although the intelligence community believes it was actually the work of Hezbollah.


April 18, 1988 -
American auto worker John Demjanjuk was convicted of crimes against humanity by an Israeli court on this date. They determined that he was Treblinka's notorious Ivan the Terrible. The court sentences him to hang one week later, but the conviction is later overturned when it appears to have been a case of mistaken identity.

In 2002, a U.S. federal court later strips Demjanjuk of his citizenship after it rules that he did in fact work as a Nazi prison guard, although at Sobibor, Majdanek, and Flossenburg. On May 11 2009, Demjanjuk left his Cleveland home by ambulance, and was taken to the airport, where he was deported by plane to Germany. Starting in late 2009, his trial began in Munich on charges he helped kill 29,000 Jews as a Nazi prison guard at the Sobibor death camp in 1943. On May 12, 2011, Ivan Mykolaiovych Demianiuk was convicted as an accessory to the murder of 27,900 Jews and sentenced to five years in prison.



Mr. Demjanjuk died on March 17, 2012, still attempting to appeal his case. Since his appeal was not heard at the time of his death, his conviction was invalidated and he died without a criminal record.

I'm not sure how that helped him when he approached the gates of hell.



And so it goes.