Take life one layer at a time

Today is Lasagna Day. I'm not going to lie to you - I don't believe you can just whip up a lasagna together in a day. It's going to take you a day or two just to collect all of the ingredients. Why not have a nice family dinner this coming weekend by planning on making a nice tray of fresh homemade Lasagna this week. (Watch this video or check out the box of pasta on how to assemble it, if you don't know; I've linked my recipe for gravy.)



Start shopping for you ingredients today and enjoy your family this upcoming weekend.


July 29, 1939 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Snow Man's Land, directed by Chuck Jones, was released on this date



The main Mountie is voiced by Pinto Colvig, using his Goofy voice.


July 29, 1957 -
Jack Paar took over as new host of The Jack Paar Tonight Show on this date. Paar brought the show back to its in-studio interview format.



More a conversationalist than comedian, audiences were drawn to Paar's show because of the interesting guests be brought on, from entertainers to politicians, and for the controversy that occasionally erupted there.


July 29, 1961 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Compressed Hare, directed by Chuck Jones, starring Bugs Bunny and Wile E. Coyote, was released on this date



This marks the last Bugs Bunny cartoon of the Golden Age of Animations where Wile E. Coyote talks.


July 29, 1959 -
Another campy cult classic William Castle flick (this time featuring 'Percepto',) The Tingler opened on this date.



William Castle toyed with other ideas to frighten audience members, in addition to 'percepto'; among them: rolling bean bags to brush against the legs of audience members, speakers mounted at different areas that would give a 'screech' when the tingler appeared, and possibly even using 'shills' to operate some type of mechanical device to tickle the legs of the audience members; but the only viable way of doing it was by attaching buzzers in select seats to coincide with the appearance of the tingler- 'percepto'.


July 29, 1965 -
The Beatles movie Help! premiered in London on this date.



By Paul McCartney's and Ringo Starr's own admission, they were so stoned on pot the day they shot the scene where Dr. Foot (Victor Spinetti) and Algernon (Roy Kinnear) tried to blow them up in the Austrian Alps, that when George Harrison screamed his line "It's an fiendish thingy! Run Ringo!" both Ringo and Paul ran over the next hill.


July 29, 1965 -
The Columbia Pictures drama, Ship of Fools, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starring Vivien Leigh, Simone Signoret, Jose Ferrer, Lee Marvin, Oskar Werner, Elizabeth Ashley, George Segal, Jose Greco, Michael Dunn, Charles Korvin, and Heinz Rühmann, opened on this date.



Vivien Leigh was subject to bouts of depression and alcoholism and was abrasive to fellow actors. There was a rocky start to her relationship with Lee Marvin, complaining about his stale alcohol breath. Eventually, the two became highly unlikely good friends.


July 29, 1972 -
Gilbert O'Sullivan topped the charts with his hit Alone Again (Naturally) on this date. (I will not take responsibility for the following ear worm; listen to the clip at your own risk.)



This was Irish-born singer Gilbert O'Sullivan's only American #1. It sold 2 million copies, spent six weeks at the summit in America and earned him three Grammy Award nominations (Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year). It was the second best-selling single of the year in America behind Don McLean's American Pie. (I will not take responsibility for the following ear worm; listen to the clip at your own risk.)



(Let's take a moment to remember the late, great Biz Markie.)


July 29, 1976 -
The adventure film, Swashbuckler, directed by James Goldstone, and starring Robert Shaw, James Earl Jones, Peter Boyle, Geneviève Bujold, Beau Bridges and Geoffrey Holder, was released on this date.



In an interview, Geneviève Bujold talked about her nude swimming scene. "In Puerto Vallarta I had to dive naked from the pirate ship and swim to shore. They tried all sorts of camera angles - from above the surface, underwater and then with the camera shooting half above the surface and half beneath," Bujold recalled. "It took them two days to shoot that scene. I never knew a director to make so many retakes. I think perhaps if Jim had wanted, he could have done the whole thing in less than half a day. But I didn't mind. The nude scene was pleasant and the water was warm. The days were hot and I think the others envied me for being able to splash around. I wasn't self-conscious. In fact, I enjoyed it. It felt just right. I saw the rushes and the nude shots are quite circumspect."


July 29, 1982 –
Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler slapped actor Andy Kaufman in the face on the program Late Night with David Letterman, a staged event that prompted a several month ‘war’ between the two of them.



It remains among the greatest Letterman moments of all time. The video went viral long before the Internet gave rise to the term, with people across the country clamoring for bootlegged VHS and Beta tapes of the incident.


July 29, 1983 -
NBC's answer to MTV, Friday Night Videos, premiered on this date.



The show, created by Dick Ebersol, had some big-name artists and videos, and there was a fun segment called Video Vote, which pitted two artists/videos against one another to see who fans enjoyed the most (submitting their votes via a 900 number).


July 29, 2010 -
President Barack Obama made an appearance with Barbara Walters and the ladies of The View on this date.



It was the first time a sitting president appeared on a daytime talk show.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Fact


Today in History:
July 29, 1588 -
Phillip II of Spain sent his armadillo to invade England. This Spanish armadillo was defeated by the belly-buttons of Lord Howard and Sir Francis Drake in one of the greatest navel engagements of all time.



The defeat altered the balance of power in Europe irreversibly and marked the last use of armadillos in navel warfare.


July 29, 1900 -
Italian King Umberto I thought he was have a good day. It was a warm summer evening and he had just finished distributing prizes to athletes after a sporting competition. Umberto got back into his carriage and Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who had resided in America, burst from the crowd brandishing a revolver and fired four times, killing the king instantly.

The murder was believed to be due to the king’s decision to fire cannon rounds into a crowd of starving peasants and workers that had assembled asking the king for assistance; 100s were killed; Bresci was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a life of hard labor at Santo Stefano Prison on Ventotene Island. Umberto was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III. After serving less than a year of his life sentence, Bresci was found dead in his cell, in extremely suspicious circumstances. (One might suspect that you could get a passable lasagna at the prison.)


July 29, 1921 -
The Council on Foreign Relations was incorporated in New York City on this date by a group of bankers and other influential people, including John D Rockefeller. The CFR remains a vital component of the New World Order, and is surpassed in importance only by the Trilateral Commission.

Now that you have this information, you know too much and you'll probably have to be killed.


July 29, 1921 -
Adolf Hitler was selected as leader of the National Socialist Party on this date.

I'm guessing there are still a scant few Germans of a certain age that have regrets concerning this election.


July 29, 1945 -
After delivering parts of the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the cruiser U.S.S.Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by the I-58 Japanese submarine around midnight on this date.



Some 900 survivors jumped into the sea and were adrift for four days. Nearly 600 died before help arrived. Most of its crew was ravaged by sharks.

Talk about karma.


July 29, 1948 –
After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, Britain's King George VI opened the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, in London, on this date.



Germany and Japan were not invited and the Soviet Union chose not to attend.



Alice Coachman became the first black woman from any country to win a gold medal in track and field. She surpassed the Olympic record of 5 feet, 4 3/4 inches held jointly by Americans Jean Shiley and Babe Didrikson since the 1932 Olympics.


July 29, 1958 -
President Eisenhower stopped playing golf long enough to sign the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA on this date.

Richard Nixon immediately gave Ike a rum toddy and let him take his afternoon nap.


July 29, 1966 -
Returning home from his manager Albert Grossman's house, Bob Dylan had some sort of motorcycle accident, on this date. The accident, which has become somewhat mythic, purportedly left Dylan with a broken vertebrae in his neck, but no ambulance was called and he was not admitted to a hospital. Dylan spent years recuperating and became something of a recluse, disappearing from the public spotlight for eight years.

He continued to write and record music, but with only a few exceptions, did not appear in public again until January 1974, when he launched his "North American Tour."


July 29, 1968 -
Pope Paul VI issues encyclical Humanae Vitae, prohibiting all unnatural forms of birth control.



This did not please many practicing Catholics, although it answers the age-old question ever priest knows - Altar boys can't get pregnant.


July 29, 1974 -
Cass Elliot (Ellen Naomi Cohen,) a seminal member of The Mamas and the Papas, died in London on this date.



Although initial reports ascribe the cause of death to choking on a ham sandwich, in actuality it was a heart attack.


July 29, 1981 -
In the fairy tale wedding of the century, Britain's Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in an internationally televised ceremony at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, England on this date.



The couple was later divorced in 1996, Diana was 'killed' in a car accident in 1997, and Charles , now finally gainfully employed as King of England, fulfilled his long time fantasy and became a feminine hygiene product when he married his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005.

Hey, fairy tales don't always have happy endings.


July 29, 1987 –
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream signed a licensing agreement for their Cherry Garcia flavor, named after the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, with Mr. Garcia on this date.

Ben and Jerry’s agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Rex Foundation, the Grateful Dead Band's primary philanthropic outlet since 1984. For a month following the musician's death in 1995, the ice cream was made with black cherries instead of Bing Cherries as a show of mourning.



And so it goes.

Fighting on arrival, fighting for survival

Today is National Buffalo Soldiers Day. The holiday celebrating the contributions of some of the earliest African-American troops in the United States military.



The U.S. Congress recognizes the contributions of the more than 180,000 black Americans who fought to preserve the Union during the Civil War, by passing legislation known as the Army Organization Act, establishing six regular Army regiments of black enlisted soldiers. Of those six units, the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments become two of the most highly decorated units in American military history.


Today is also Milk Chocolate Day. American eat on average 12 lbs of chocolate per year; The Swiss on the other hand eat a little more than 26 lbs a year (that works out to about 450 bars of chocolate.)



If you don't continually gorge on chocolate, the terrorist have won.



(Psst, I've mentioned this before - it is a conspiracy organized by a large Mid Western Syndicate of Big Sugar corporations and dentists.)


July 28, 1932 -
The first film to feature the theme of Zombie-ism, White Zombie starring Béla Lugosi premiered in NYC on this date.



The film was thought lost until its rediscovery in the 1960s. A court battle was fought between film distributor Frank Storace and the estate of Stanley Krellberg, the copyright owner of the film. Storace had wished to produce a restored version but the estate refused him access to original footage in their possession. Storace gave up the court battle and did not win his access to his original footage.


July 28, 1945 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Wagon Heels, directed by Bob Clampett and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date



Because of its wildly stereotypical depiction of the Native American, it is seldom shown on television nowadays.


July 28, 1948 -
Bud and Lou's biggest box-office success, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, opened on this date, (this was one of my favorite childhood films.)



The scene in which Wilbur (Lou Costello) is unknowingly sitting on the lap of Frankenstein's monster (Glenn Strange) required multiple takes. The scene allowed Costello to improvise wildly, which caused Strange to constantly break up laughing during the takes.


July 28, 1951 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Leghorn Swoggled, directed by Bob McKimson and starring Foghorn Leghorn, Henery Hawk and the Barnyard Dawg, was released on this date



The last-released Robert McKimson short that Warren Foster wrote; starting with His Hare Raising Tale, he would transfer to Friz Freleng's unit, while McKimson would get Tedd Pierce, who previously wrote for both Freleng and Chuck Jones.


July 28, 1954 -
The Elia Kazan classic, On the Waterfront, premiered in New York on this date.



Shortly after the film's debut in 1954, the AFL-CIO expelled the East Coast longshoremen's union because it was still run by the mob.


July 28, 1957 -
Jerry Lee Lewis appeared of TV for the first time when he performed on the Steve Allen Show on this date.



Only a year earlier, Allen humiliated Elvis by making him appear in a tuxedo, singing Hound Dog to a dog, in an attempt to desexuallize Elvis' performance, Well, Jerry Lee Lewis gives a performance far more threatening than anything Elvis ever did live on television, just by the way he kicks that stool.


July 28, 1973 -
Bill Graham produced the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen Rock Festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway, that featured the Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful Dead.







Many rock critics claim the event was the largest gathering of people in the history of the United States. 150,000 tickets were sold for $10 each, but for all the other people it was a free concert. The concert was estimated to have drawn some 650,000 people. The crowd was so huge that a large part of the audience was not able to see the stage.


July 28, 1973 -
Grand Funk Railroad releases their biggest hit We're An American Band on this date.



Grand Funk was one of the best-selling bands of the '70s, and this was their biggest hit.Critics were often very harsh, especially Rolling Stone magazine, but they had a huge fan base and got lots of radio play.


July 28, 1988 -
The second film in the autobiographical series (Trilogy, The Long Day Closes,) from the phenomenal Terence Davies, Distant Voices, Still Lives opened in the US on this date. Please find time to watch this film.



Pete Poslethwaite found it hard to believe that Terence Davies' father (on whom his character was based) could have been so violent and cruel to his family. It wasn't until Davies asked his sister to tell him about being beaten in the cellar with a broomstick by their father (which is depicted in the film) that he accepted it was true.


July 28 1993 -
The 20th Century Fox comedy, >Robin Hood: Men in Tights, directed by Mel Brooks, and starring Cary Elwes, Richard Lewis, Roger Rees, Amy Yasbeck, Dave Chappelle (in his film debut), Isaac Hayes, and Tracey Ullman, was released on this date.



Cary Elwes based his performance in The Princess Bride on Errol Flynn's portrayal of Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood. Fittingly, it was his performance in The Princess Bride that brought Elwes to Mel Brooks' attention.


July 28 1995 -
The independent coming-of-age drama, Kids, directed by Larry Clark, and starring Leo Fitzpatrick, Justin Pierce, Chloë Sevigny, and Rosario Dawson, was released on this date.


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The film received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA (no one under 18 admitted). Clark appealed the rating, and lost. The MPAA recommend that Clark not cut the film because they felt it would lose some of its impact.


July 28, 2007 -
Plain White T's single, Hey There Delilah goes to No. 1 on the Billboard Chart, on this date, two years after it was first released.



The "Delilah" refered to in the song is the runner Delilah DiCrescenzo, who lead singer Tom Higgenson was trying to impress with a song.


Today's moment of Zen.


Today in History:
July 28, 1540 -
King Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard on this date.



To celebrate his nuptials, Henry had his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, executed.



It must have been some reception.


July 28, 1586, (the date is sometimes noted as December 3.) -
Sir Thomas Herriot introduced Colombian potatoes to England. Before this date, potatoes were merely glimpsed from afar, shyly smiling but never saying hello.

Over fifty years earlier, the Spanish had been the first to discover potatoes. The mathematician, astronomer and translator had just returned from Sir Walter Raleigh’s English colony on Roanoke Island in modern-day North Carolina, where he had made detailed studies of the wildlife.


July 28, 1794 -
Maximilien "The Incorruptible" Robespierre who had dominated the Committee of Public Safety during the 'Reign of Terror,' was having an extremely bad day. The day before, crustaceous mobs led by lobsters throughout France, drove around Paris, protesting of his dictatorial ways and staged the Coupe of Thermidor, relieving him of his power.



Maximilien Robespierre was then relieved of his head and guillotined for having ravaged the French meteorological cycle with his nefarious Rain of Terror on this date.


July 28, 1835 -
King Louis Philippe of France survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Maria Fieschi, who rigged 25 guns together and fired them all with the pull of a single trigger, killing approximately 18 people but not his intended target

Fieschi was wounded in the attack and the King spared no expense in tending to the other victims of his trigger happy would be assassin. Once Fieschi was deemed medically fit, he was tried, condemned to death and was guillotined on February 19, 1836.

Perhaps he should have spent more time on the practice range.


July 28, 1841 -
James Boulard and Henry Mallin pull the decomposed body of a young woman from the Hudson River near Hoboken, New Jersey. Mary Cecilia Rogers, who worked at a popular cigar store, was initially thought to have been killed in the course of a brutal gang rape, but ultimately it seems more likely that she died from a botched abortion.

Years later, novelist Edgar Allen Poe adapts the sensational news story about 'The Beautiful Cigar Girl' into the short story The Mystery of Marie Roget.


July 28, 1914 -
One month after the recent assassination of the Archduck Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, on this date.



World War One was underway. In just four years, it would claim 8.5 million lives and leave 21.2 million wounded, and lay the groundwork for an eventual rematch.

Sometimes family feuds just get out of hand.


July 28, 1932 -
(More things your teacher never told you ...)
Federal troops under the order of President Hoover forcibly dispersed the "Bonus Army" of (17,000 World War I veterans) who had gathered in Washington, D.C. on June 17th to demand money they weren't scheduled to receive until 1945.



The troops under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and Major George S. Patton are ordered to charge into the veterans and were sent to destroy the temporary shacks in the Bonus Army's camps in Hooverville on the Anacostia Flats forcing the marchers out. By the end of the day hundreds of veterans were injured, and several were killed.


July 28, 1945 -
A US Army B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors. An engine plunges down an elevator shaft, sparking a fire in the basement. Eleven people in the building were killed, in addition to the three man bomber crew. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. (Kids, please, do not try this at home.)



And as of this morning, from my vantage point, I can see that it's still standing.


July 28, 1957 -
A C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane of the US Air Force left Dover AFB in Delaware, carrying three nuclear weapons jettisoned its precious cargo into the Atlantic, somewhere east of Delaware and New Jersey, on this date. The bombs were never recovered.



Remember every time you go to a beach off the Jersey Shore, a 200 foot radioactive mutant Blue Crab is lurking somewhere, beneath the waves.



And so it goes.

Say, you wouldn't be that scwewy wabbit, would you?

July 27, 1940 -
Bugs Bunny made his debut in a cartoon called A Wild Hare, on this day. Warner Brothers' writers and animators set out to make a rabbit who would be the epitome of cool. They modeled bugs on Groucho Marx with a carrot instead of a cigar. Mel Blanc gave him a Brooklyn accent.



This cartoon is considered the first to feature both Bugs' and Elmer's catchphrases - "What's Up, Doc?" and "Be vewy quiet...I'm hunting wabbits" respectively.



As of January 2013, he has appeared in more films than any other cartoon character - more than 175 films.


July 27, 1949 -
Mighty Joe Young, an RKO Radio Picture made by the same creative team responsible for King Kong, premiered in New York City on this date, (in fact, when Joe smashes through the facade during the nightclub riot, the first scream you hear is that of Fay Wray, stock audio from the original King Kong.)



Second-unit director David Sharpe recalled an incident that happened on the nightclub set: "We were shooting some action stuff . . . which featured lions, tigers, elephants, and apes in cages around the table area. We had trained lions to run from one side of the set to the other. One of them broke loose, jumped onto the top of his cage and grabbed the trainer by the throat. I was in the camera cage. I pushed the iron door open, raced across the set and punched the lion in the face. I guess I shocked him so badly he let go, turned tail and ran into his cage."

(I've mentioned this before, I'm no longer going to direct you to Terry Moore's photo spread in Playboy. You go on ahead and find it yourself.)


July 27, 1958 -
The gothic thriller, Night of the Hunter, directed by Charles Laughton, (his only directorial feature,) and starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason, Evelyn Varden, and Peter Graves, opened on this date. The film opened to negative reviews. It is now considered one of the greatest films ever made.



While the poor critical reviews are often cited as the reason Charles Laughton never directed another feature, Laughton himself said that he much preferred directing in the theatre. There, you could constantly change and amend the production--adding lines, changing lighting and sets--but with film once it was done it could never be changed.


July 27, 1968 –
Cass Elliot releases her first solo single, Dream a Little Dream of Me following the break up of The Mamas and Papas.



This song was written in 1931 and became a popular standard in depression-era America. Fabian Andre and Wilbur Schwandt composed the music and Gus Kahn wrote the lyrics. When she was 15, Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas met Fabian Andre. Years later, when Phillips heard that Andre died in a fall in an elevator shaft, she remembered meeting him and this song came up. They decided to record it with "Mama" Cass Elliot on lead vocals, and it became her signature song, and she performed it with The Mamas & The Papas and as a solo artist until her death in 1974.


July 27, 1968 –
The Who releases their single Magic Bus in the U.S. on this date. The song has become one of the band's most popular songs and had been a concert staple.



The song has been released in various renditions. The eight-minute version that appears on Live at Leeds, with Daltrey wailing on harmonica, may be the wildest. Martin Scorsese made it a high point of the soundtrack for Ray Liotta’s coked-up driving scene in Goodfellas.


July 27, 1978 -
National Lampoon's Animal House, the grandfather of all gross-out comedies, premiered in New York City on this date. (Toga party, anyone?)



After firing the crew hairdresser (who wanted extra time off), John Landis took the core Delta actors to a local barber shop and asked the barber if he could do early 1960s-style haircuts. The man looked at the pictures and said it would be easy. He did all of the actors' haircuts, one after another.


July 27, 1983 -
Little Tommy's break out film, Risky Business, opened on this date. This film is not, as usually noted, an above average teenage sex comedy but the precursor to 'Greed is Good' mantra that sunk this country for years to come.



The sunglasses Joel wears are the Ray-Ban Wayfarer model. Annual sales of Wayfarers were languishing as of 1983 but skyrocketed 2,000 percent after the movie's release. This film and The Blues Brothers have contributed to the popularity of the Wayfarers since.


July 27, 1984 -
Warner Bros. gift to an unsuspecting world, Purple Rain, starring Prince, premiered on this date.



A few days before the premiere, Prince had a nightmare that Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert despised the film, with Ebert ripping the film apart. He said, "I dreamed those two guys on the TV were reviewing the movie and that fat guy was tearing me up!" Siskel and Ebert both loved the film in their reviews.



(you may put your arms down now, dab your eyes, and resume your day.)


July 27, 1985 -
Paul Young hits #1 with the single, Everytime You Go Away, a cover of a Hall & Oates song released in 1980. It's the only Hall & Oates cover ever to make the Top 40.



Young's success with the song didn't produce any sour grapes for Daryl Hall, who credited him with tapping into the commercial potential he failed to see the first time around. Hall told Music Connection: "I never thought of it any other way than the way it was 'til Paul Young did it ... I was just doin' a kind of gospel/soul song; that was all I had in mind for it. I was really surprised to hear the production they did because it kept the elements but commercialized it - made it sound like a pop record."


July 27, 1985 -
The Eurythmics' song There Must Be An Angel (Playing With My Heart) went to No.1 on the UK singles chart on this date, the duo's only UK No.1 single.



The song features Stevie Wonder, who provides the harmonica solo. Wonder worked on this own schedule, so when Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart went to Los Angeles to record the song, they weren't sure if or when he would show up. "It was getting very late and we were getting pessimistic whether he'd even turn up at all," Lennox recalled in Q magazine. "Finally he showed up, and he was really an adorable person. He had these braids on his hair with beautiful gold beads, and when he plays he shakes his head so the beads make a loud noise. But his assistant, who takes care of him, took out this beanbag thing and gently tied Stevie's hair into it so it didn't make a sound down the mikes. The man is a supreme musician, worth waiting for."


July 27, 2007 -
20 Century Fox finally go around to releasing the film version of the very long running series, The Simpsons, The Simpsons Movie, featuring the voices of the regular television cast of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, and Harry Shearer, on this date.



In total, The Simpsons Movie took nine years to complete. This is because Fox greenlit the project back in 1997 but in the years up until release, they had to get the voice cast to sign deals, which they didn't do up until 2001. Producing a final script also took several years because almost 160 different versions were written before choosing the final one as plots were continuously being repurposed for the television episodes.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
July 27, 1586 -
Sir Walter Raleigh and some of his men returned to England and disembarked at Plymouth smoking tobacco from pipes, which caused a sensation, on this date.



William Camden, a contemporary witness, reports that "These men who were thus brought back were the first that I know of that brought into England that Indian plant which they call Tabacca and Nicotia, or Tobacco" Tobacco in the Elizabethan age was known as "sotweed."

President Johnson celebrated this momentous date in history by signed the 1965 Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act on this date (in 1965); it required cigarette makers to print health warnings on all cigarette packages about the effects of smoking.


July 27, 1890 -
At the Chateau d'Auvers, Vincent van Gogh presses a revolver to his chest and pulls the trigger.(Or did he?) Somehow the bullet misses the vital organs, and the painter manages to stumble over to a friend's house.



The following night, Van Gogh died of an infection in the arms of his brother Theo.


July 27, 1922 -
Life is made up of small pleasures. Happiness is made up of those tiny successes. The big ones come too infrequently. And if you don't collect all these tiny successes, the big ones don't really mean anything.



Norman Milton Lear television writer and film and television producer was born on this date.


July 27, 1931 -
A swarm of grasshoppers destroyed thousands of acres of crops in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota on this date



Bunkies, remember when I told you not to search for images concerning Ed Gein yesterday, maybe you don't want to watch the videos below.



The corn fields were totally destroyed, without a stalk left standing.


July 27, 1953 -
The armistice that ended the Korean War was signed on this date. It was a war that began in June 1950 when North Korea invaded the south. Almost 35,000 Americans were killed in the conflict, more than 5,000 captured or went missing. A corporal in the 1st Marine Division named Anthony Ebron said, "Those last few days were pretty bloody. Each time we thought the war was over we'd go out and fight again. The day it ended we shot off so much artillery that the ground shook. Then, that night, the noise just stopped. We knew it was over."



Harry Truman said that if he had signed the same armistice, the Republicans would have drawn and quartered him, but Dwight D. Eisenhower had run for president on the platform that he would end the war, and when he was elected, that's what he did.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to inform the North Koreans that they, in fact, signed the armistice, because technically, they are still at war with someone, possibly us.


July 27, 1980 -
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the exiled Shah of Iran, died of lymphatic cancer in Cairo on this date.

Maybe we can borrow Mr. Peabody's Wayback machine and send the former Shah somewhere else for his surgery other than New York–Weill Cornell Medical Hospital.


July 27, 1996 -
During a celebration for the Atlanta Olympics, security guard Richard Jewell notices a suspicious green knapsack in Centennial Park. He immediately alerts police and helps to clear people from the area shortly before the pipe bomb explodes. For his trouble, Jewell becomes the FBI's preliminary suspect and news organizations ran wild with the story.



Because he didn't do it, numerous media outlets end up paying him large undisclosed settlements. Eric Rudolph was later charged with the bombing. He was arrested May 31, 2003. Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing.



And so it goes.