Swim in the water and jump when you hit ground

Today is Frog Jumping Day. Frog Jumping Day celebrates Mark Twain's 'jumping frog' which made him famous.



The short story was first published in 1865 as Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog while Twain was still a struggling journalist in California - and two years later it was the main attraction of his first book. He never wrote another short story that had such widespread appeal and was so popular.


May 13, 1939 -
The Looney Tunes short, Kristopher Kolumbus Jr., directed by Bob Clampett, starring Porky Pig, debuted on this date. This short has seldom aired on TV due to prominent Native American stereotypes.



This is one of only two Warner Bros. shorts released between Porky and Teabiscuit and Hare-um Scare-um to not feature Warner Bros in a banner during the opening rings.


May 13, 1966 -
The Rolling Stones released Paint it Black, in the UK on this date.



Keith Richards explained how this song came together: "We were in Fiji for about three days. They make sitars and all sorts of Indian stuff. Sitars are made out of watermelons or pumpkins or something smashed so they go hard. They're very brittle and you have to be careful how you handle them. We had the sitars, we thought we'd try them out in the studio. To get the right sound on 'Paint It Black' we found the sitar fitted perfectly. We tried a guitar but you can't bend it enough."


May 13, 1970 -
The Beatles' final movie, Let It Be, received its U.S. premiere, in New York City theaters on this date.



John Lennon believed that Michael Lindsay-Hogg deliberately avoided including shots of him and Yoko Ono in favor of more shots of Paul McCartney. Lennon said he felt that "the camera work was set up to show Paul and not to show anybody else" and that "the people that cut it, cut it as 'Paul is God' and we're just lyin' around ..." Ringo Starr also complained that most of the "clowning" he performed at the director's behest was never used. (Please seek out the Peter Jackson documentary, The Beatles: Get Back.)


May 13, 1978 -
Lt. Columbo finally got to that one last thing on this date when the series finale of Columbo, The Conspirators aired on NBC-TV.



The series was picked up again in 1989 and continued on its eighth season onward, produced by ABC-TV.


May 13, 1978 –
Yvonne Elliman's single If I Can’t Have You (written by The Bee Gees,) went to No.1 on the Billboard Charts, replacing the song, Night Fever, another song written by The Bee Gees and also featured on The Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.



The huge success of this song resulted in Elliman being remembered as a disco artist, but this style of music was an exception to the medium-tempo ballads that she specialized in, and which comprised the bulk of her recordings. She sang the role of Mary Magdalene in the original album Jesus Christ Superstar and in the subsequent Broadway and film versions, and achieved her first hit single with the ballad I Don't Know How to Love Him.


May 13, 1994 -
Nearly two years to the day after his farewell, Johnny Carson made a surprise cameo on the Late Show With David Letterman, which turned out to be his last-ever TV appearance before his death in January 2005, on this date.



Just before Carson's death in 2005, CBS executive Peter Lassally, who had produced both Letterman and Carson during his long career, revealed that Carson would occasionally send jokes directly to Letterman.


May 13, 1994 -
Soundgarden released the second single off their album Superunknown, Black Hole Sun, on this date.



Chris Cornell got the idea for this song while driving home from Bear Creek Studio, near Seattle, where Soundgarden were recording a version of New Damage for a charity album. He recalled to Uncut magazine August 2014: "I wrote it in my head driving home from Bear Creek Studio in Woodinville, a 35-40 minute drive from Seattle. It sparked from something a news anchor said on TV and I heard wrong. I heard 'blah blah blah black hole sun blah blah blah'. I thought that would make an amazing song title, but what would it sound like? It all came together, pretty much the whole arrangement including the guitar solo that's played beneath the riff."


May 13, 2004 -
The last episode of Frasier aired on TV following an 11-year run on NBC-TV on this date.



The series holds the record for the most Emmy wins for a TV series of any kind (comedy or drama) with 37 wins.


Another episode of ACME's Litlle Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
May 13, 1497 -
Pope Alexander VI excommunicated Girolamo Savonarola for heresy on this date.



In Florence the Dominican monk Girolamo Savonarola had led the February 7th burning of musical instruments, books and priceless works of art (Bonfire of the Vanities.) He preached against corruption in the Church and civil government.


May 13, 1568 -
Mary Queen of Scots was defeated by English at the Battle of Langside, south of Glasgow, on this date.



After the battle, Mary fled south. She spent her last night in Scotland at Dundrennan Abbey, near Kirkcudbright (an event commemorated by Dundrennan Road in Battlefield) before crossing to England to face captivity and eventual execution.


May 13, 1637 -
Cardinal Richelieu, a powerful French clergyman and statesman, is credited with introducing a refinement that would forever change dining etiquette: the table knife. Concerned with the increasingly crude and dangerous habits of his dinner guests — most notably their tendency to pick their teeth with the sharp points of their knives — Richelieu ordered that the tips of all table knives in his household be rounded off.



This seemingly small adjustment had a significant cultural impact. Not only did it help curb what Richelieu viewed as uncouth behavior at the dinner table, but it also marked an early step toward the more refined and formalized practices of dining that would develop throughout Europe in the centuries to follow. The rounded knife quickly caught on among the French aristocracy, eventually influencing cutlery design across the continent.


May 13, 1787 -
The first fleet of ships carrying convicted criminals left England en route to a new British prison called Australia.

You'd think that by sending their religious nuts to North America and their criminals to Australia, the British would have created a pleasant little island paradise for themselves. Instead their empire has dwindled away over the past 100 years, while the religious nuts and criminals of the U.S. and Australia have established themselves as major powers at Wimbledon.


May 13, 1846 -
The United States, under President James Polk, declared that a state of war already existed against Mexico, two months after fighting began, on this date.



This was in response to an incident where the Mexican cavalry surrounded a scouting party of American dragoons. $10 million was appropriated for war expenses by Congress. There are some in Arizona who haven't heard that the hostilities have long since ended.


May 13, 1890 –
Nikola Tesla was issued a patent (#428,057) for the Pyromagneto-electric generator.

While Tesla's patent of the pyromagneto electric generator explains the theoretical principles behind a "free energy" generator that utilizes radiant energy, no one has managed to produce a working model of this type of generator yet.


May 13, 1913 -
The latest brainchild of Russian aircraft design genius Igor Sikorsky embarks on its maiden flight on this date. (The Tzar was a little confused; he had to be convinced that being the Csar, or Czar for that matter, he was eligible for a seat inside the plane.)

The Grand, easily the world's most luxurious passenger plane, includes such innovations as upholstered seats, a balcony, and even a lavatory (you just didn't want to live under the flight path.)


May 13, 1917 -
Three small children in Fatima, Portugal receive the first of six visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, on this date, (as a former altar boy and on the other side of 60, I'm hedging my bets and making no jokes about the Virgin Mary.)



Over the next five months she lays some pretty heavy crap on the kids, including a three-part secret: a vision of Hell, a prophecy of war with godless Russia, and a third secret which involved Y2K.


May 13, 1940 -
Winston Churchill had just come into office as the British Prime Minister, a few days previously, after the pacifistic Neville Chamberlain resigned, gave his famous "blood, toil, tears and sweat" speech on this date.



The speech was one of several famous ones by the over weight and increasingly alcoholic Churchill, and set the tone for the British government's approach to the war.


May 13, 1950 -
Steveland Morris Hardaway, musician was born prematurely, on this day. Too much oxygen in the incubator caused the baby to become permanently blind.



At the age of ten, Little Stevie Wonder, as he was called by Berry Gordy at Motown, was discovered singing and playing the harmonica. He had many hits during his teens including Fingertips and as an adult he has earned an Oscar and at least sixteen Grammy Awards.



It's too bad the whole blindness thing has held him back.


May 13, 1973 -
Tennis players Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court played in a $100,000 winner-take-all challenge match, on this date. The match has become known as the first Battle of the Sexes (also known as the Mother's Day Massacre.)



Margaret Court, the 1970 the singles Grand Slam champion, underestimated the 55 year old Bobby Riggs and eventually lost, and Riggs went on to challenge Billie Jean King, who famously beat him in September of that year.


May 13, 1981 -
A delusional Turk (as opposed to a malignant and a turbaned Turk) shot Pope John Paul II four times in St. Peter's Square, (the pope survived after emergency surgery.) Mehmet Ali Agca believed:

a.) that the Vatican was an abomination before God,
b.) the pope was a representation of capitalism, and
c.) both must be destroyed.



19 years later, the Church would disclose that the assassination attempt was foretold in 1917, as part of the third secret of Fatima. (Like how we tied both those item together.) It must have been a comfort to John Paul II when he lay there in agony, Agca sent him his best wishes.

This may all be on the test


May 13, 1988 -
Assassins, gangsters, and enraged mobs of the past have employed a wide variety of methods to silence their victims. One such method involves chucking people out of windows, an act known as defenestration. A very rare way to shut yourself up involves self-defenestration.



Chet Baker, heroin addict and world famous jazz trumpet player, while on a successful world tour, died in Amsterdam after "falling" from a hotel window.

Oops.



And so it goes.

A delight when well done

Limerick, Ireland’s third largest city, was founded by the Vikings in 812. Some of Limerick’s well-known sons and daughters include actor Richard Harris, rock legends The Cranberries, broadcaster Terry Wogan, novelist and playwright Kate O’Brien and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Frank McCourt.



But that has nothing to do with the fact that it's Edward Lear's birthday.



Please keep all those unfortunate bucket owners from Nantucket in your thoughts today.


May 12, 1944 -
The camp classic, Cobra Woman, directed by Robert Siodmak, starring Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Lon Chaney, Jr., and Sabu, opened in the US on this date.



At the time this film was made, Montez was (along with Abbott and Costello and Deanna Durbin) one of Universal's most popular box office attractions. As a result, no expense was spared in its making, and it features many of the elements that came to personify "The Maria Montez formula": an exotic, fictional setting, vividly colorful (and occasionally outrageous) costumes, elaborate special effects (including matte paintings and process shots) and expensive sets.


May 11, 1951 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Early to Bet, directed by Bob McKimson, debuted on this date.



The cartoon is a sequel to the 1950 short It's Hummer Time, which featured the same bulldog giving the same cat elaborate punishments.


May 12, 1960 -
Elvis Presley guest-starred in The Frank Sinatra Timex Special (the show is commonly referred to as Welcome Home Elvis) on ABC-TV. This was Elvis' first appearance on TV in three years; he had only recently been discharged from the army.

Elvis was paid an at the time incredible sum of $125,000 for less than seven minutes of onscreen time. The special was important to Elvis' career as he tried to move towards a more 'adult' audience.



(I'm not sure if Frank would approve of you touching your 'affected' areas and touching the screen to receive St. Elvis' healing power. But Frank's dead and it's no longer his world; so feel free to heal yourself.)


May 12, 1963 -
Bob Dylan was an aspiring young musician at the time, when he was asked to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, to promote his 2nd album The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. Although Ed had heard Dylan's audition performance of the song (and had no problem with it,) CBS' Standard and Practice department did not want him to play his song the Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues, because of it's controversial nature. Bob Dylan decided not to appear on the show rather than pick another song or change the lyrics.



The story got widespread media attention in the days that followed helping to establish Dylan’s public reputation as an uncompromising artist. The publicity Bob Dylan received from this event probably did more for his career than the actual Ed Sullivan Show performance would have.


May 12, 1967 -
One of the most widely regarded debut albums in the history of rock music, Are You Experienced by the Jimi Hendrix Experience was released in the UK, on this date.



With its spherical fisheye image and strangely saturated colors, the U.S. cover of Are You Experienced remains one of the most iconic album covers of the psychedelic era. But it wouldn’t exist if Hendrix hadn’t absolutely loathed the cover of the earlier U.K. release, which featured a drab photo of the guitarist spreading a cape, Dracula-style, behind the heads of his bandmates.


May 12, 1972 -
Although initially receiving mixed reviews, the Rolling Stones released one of Rock's greatest double albums, Exile on Main St., on this date.



Mick Jagger once complained though, the album was not his favorite Rolling Stones albums. He described it as sounding "lousy" with "no concerted effort of intention", adding "at the time, Jimmy Miller was not functioning properly. I had to finish the whole record myself, because otherwise there were just these drunks and junkies."


May 12, 1987 -
There was a final roll call at the Hill Street Station when NBC TV aired the last episode of Hill Street Blues, It Ain’t Over Till It’s Over, on this date.



The series is regarded as a hallmark in American dramatic television. It was the first dramatic series to incorporate long shots, hand-held shots and continuous story lines. It was nominated for a record 21 Emmys for its first season in spite of low ratings.


May 12, 1989 -
The very silly sci-fi comedy Earth Girls Are Easy, directed by Julien Temple and starrings Geena Davis, Jeff Goldblum, Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Julie Brown, Charles Rocket and Michael McKean, opened on this date.



Jeff Goldblum taught acting at the time, and inexperienced actors Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans would often go to him for advice. One of Goldblum's techniques was to distract himself before a take by reading aloud from a book right up until "action" was called, so Carrey and Wayans would make loud noises in-character between takes. Julie Brown said, "It wasn't easy to work with them, even though they're all really talented."


May 12, 1993 –
We al said our goodbye to Kevin, Paul and Winnie and shed many a tear when ABC TV aired the final episode of The Wonder Years, Independence Day, aired on this date.



At the beginning of production, it was unclear as to whether the show would renew for another season or not–so the script was open-ended. Ultimately, the series ending elements, such as Kevin‘s closing narration, were added in post-production once the show was officially canceled.


May 12, 1995 -
The action thriller Crimson Tide, directed by Tony Scott, and starring Denzel Washington, Gene Hackman, George Dzundza, Viggo Mortensen, and James Gandolfini, opened in the US on this date.



Since the U.S. Navy would not cooperate with the filming, for several scenes the French Navy allowed the use of one of their Triomphant Class ballistic missile submarines along with the aircraft carrier Foch.


May 12, 2013 -
After the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield records the David Bowie song Space Oddity on board the International Space Station, his sublime rendition is posted to YouTube, quickly garnering millions of views.



Commander Hadfield said that he had made the video for a number of reasons, but “maybe most importantly, it was a chance to let people see where we truly are in space exploration”. David Bowie himself posted on Facebook to say that the cover of his 1969 song was “possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created”.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
May 12, 1797 -
Following Napoleon's conquest of Venice, Ludovico Manin reluctantly steps down as its last Doge on this date.

Thus ends the Most Serene Republic's 820-year history of national sovereignty.

So now you know, try working that into a conversation.


May 12, 1926 -
In May of 1926, Roald Amundsen, the leader of the first party to reach the South Pole and Lincoln Ellsworth, a wealthy explorer, wanted to be the first to reach the North Pole (why - because.) Due to the inhospitable terrain, they were preparing to take the Norge, a rigid airship, over the pole. The Norge was built in Rome and was piloted by Umberto Nobile. While they were preparing, Richard E. Byrd arrived in Norway to attempt to fly to the Pole in the Josephine Ford, a Fokker F.VII. On May 9, Byrd flew out from King’s Bay (Kongsfjorden) with Floyd Bennett and returned 15 and one half hours later, saying that he had reached the Pole.

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His claim was quickly accepted, but it was later calculated that it would have taken the Fokker almost 22 hours to get to the Pole and back from King’s Bay, discounting Byrd’s claim. On May 11, Amundsen took off in the Norge, reaching the North Pole on this date. They did not land there, but dropped flags of Norway, the United States, and Italy on the Pole.


May 12, 1929 -
Burt Bacharach, composer, was born in Kansas City, Mo., on this date.



Mr. Bacharach was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972.


May 12, 1932 -
Delivery truck driver William Allen pulled his truck to the side of a road about 4.5 miles from the Lindbergh home. He went to a grove of trees to relieve himself, and there he discovered the badly decomposed body of the Lindbergh Baby.



There were signs that the body had been chewed on by various animals as well as indications that someone had made an attempt to hastily bury the body.

These kinds of stories make you want to be a piss bottle man.


May 12, 1937 -
Albert Frederick Arthur George Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, The Duke of York (and incidentially the Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney) through sheer happemstance, was crowned Britain's King George VI at Westminster Abbey on this date.



Television was in its infancy on the day of George VI's coronation. The BBC Television Service filmed its first outdoor broadcast, using a mobile van, showing the new king and his wife Elizabeth (Elizabeth II parents) as they made their way to Westminster Abbey and it was also, the first coronation to be broadcast on television.


May 12, 1937 -
George Denis Patrick Carlin stand-up comedian, social critic, prolific pot smoker, actor and author was born on this date.







In 2004, Carlin placed second on the Comedy Central list of the 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time, ahead of Lenny Bruce and behind Richard Pryor (not a bad seating arrangement.)


May 12, 1967 -
At Queen Elizabeth Hall in England, Pink Floyd staged the first-ever quadraphonic rock concert on this date. Included in their set was their first UK hit, Arnold Layne.



Please kids, don't be like Syd, titrate your meds correctly.


May 12, 1971 -
Tor Johnson died of congestive heart failure at the age of 67 in San Fernando, California, on this date.



The man who once wrestled under the name "The Super Swedish Angel" leaves behind a legacy of B-movie acting roles, most famously as the bald zombie in Ed Wood's masterpiece Plan 9 from Outer Space.


May 12, 1982 -
A mentally unbalanced priest named Juan Fernandez Krohn attempted to stab Pope John Paul II with a bayonet on this date, but was overpowered by the pope's Swiss Guards before he could do any damage.



When asked later, Krohn said that the pope was an "agent of Moscow" and had to be killed.


I nearly forgot - Happy 70th Birthday, Homer Simpson!

And so it goes.

Hopefully, it will only get warmer from here

May 11, 12 and 13 are the feast days of Saints Mamertus, Pancras and Servais (or Servatuis or Gervatuis.) These three are known as the The Icy Saints not because they were cold during their lifetimes, but because these days are traditionally the coldest of the month. English and French folklore (and later American) held that these days would bring a late frost. In Germany, they were called the Icemanner, or Icemen Days, and people believed it was never safe to plant until the Icemen were gone.

Another bit of folklore claimed, "Who shears his sheep before St. Servatius's Day loves more his wool than his sheep."



Allow you mind to wander to think of all the dirty jokes you can now tell yourself.


May 11, 1931 -
Fritz Lang's first sound film, M (Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder), starring Peter Lorre, premiered in Berlin on this date.



Fritz Lang's cruelty to the actors was legendary. Peter Lorre was thrown down the stairs into the cellar over a dozen times. When Lang wanted to hire Lorre for Human Desire over two decades later, the actor refused.


May 11, 1936 -
Universal Pictures' semi-sequel of the 1931 film Dracula, Dracula's Daughter, starring Otto Kruger, Gloria Holden and Edward Van Sloan, premiered in the US on this date.



Completed for $278,000 it was one of Universal's most expensive productions of the 1930s.


May 11, 1955 -
The sequel to the film Creature from the Black Lagoon, Revenge of the Creature, went into general release, on this date. It's notable for being the only sequel to a 3-D film also shot in 3-D.



A young Clint Eastwood makes his first uncredited screen appearance as lab technician Jennings. He discusses with Professor Ferguson (John Agar) about an experiment involving a cat and four rats sharing the same cage. He points out that one of the rats in the cage is missing and accuses the cat of eating it, but discovers that the missing rat was in his lab coat pocket.


May 11, 1957 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Fox-Terror, directed by Bob McKimson, starring Foghorn Leghorn and the Barnyard Dawg, debuted on this date.



This is one of the few Foghorn Leghorn and Barnyard Dawg cartoons where both win at the end.


May 11, 1965 -
The Byrds made their TV debut on NBC's Hullabaloo, performing Mr. Tambourine Man, on this date.



Bob Dylan wrote Mr. Tambourine Man, which was originally released on his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home, on March 22, 1965. His version wasn't released as a single, but when The Byrds released their cover on April 12, 1965, it was a transatlantic hit, topping the charts in both the US (on June 26) and UK (on July 22). It's the only song Dylan ever wrote that went to #1 in America (in the UK, Manfred Mann's cover of Quinn The Eskimo also went to #1).


May 11, 1968 -
Richard Harris released a song about an unfortunate accident with pastry, MacArthur's Park, written by Jimmy Webb, on this date. It ultimately climbed to No. 2 on the Billboard Charts. 10 years later, Donna Summer sang about the same experience but her version hits No. 1 on the charts.



Richard Harris sang the title as "MacArthur's Park," and since he was the first to record it, that's how most others (including Donna Summer), sang it. When the song's writer, Jimmy Webb, recorded it for his 1996 album Ten Easy Pieces, he sang it as "MacArthur Park." (Please forgive me if you find yourself humming the song all day long.)


May 11, 1969 -
It's ... the day the Monty Python comedy troupe was formed.



John Cleese and Graham Chapman were introduced to Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin on the set of their British TV series, Do Not Adjust Your Set.


May 11, 1972 -
In an effort to shed his teenybopper image, David Cassidy appears shirtless (and pantless) on the cover of Rolling Stone.

The story is headlined "Naked Lunch Box," a reference to how many kids have his likeness on their school lunch boxes. He comes off as a free spirit, and admits to taking drugs. It's a (literally) revealing look at Cassidy, who provides Rolling Stone with one of their most memorable cover stories.


May 11, 1974 -
ABC Records released Steely Dan's Any Major Dude Will Tell You, on this date, (oh yeah, Rikki Don't Lose that Number was the A-side.)



"Have you ever seen a Squonk's tears," a Squonk is a mythical woodland creature who has the ability to dissolve in its own tears. Steely Dan came across the word in a book by Jorge Luis Borges. Genesis also makes mention of this animal in their song Squonk, from their 1976 album A Trick of the Tail.


May 11, 1985 –
Sade's single Smooth Operator reached #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date. Julien Temple directed the video, which finds Sade singing in a nightclub as a shady deal goes down. Most viewers saw the 4:15 version, but an extended version was also made.



Sade Adu was a backup singer in the English band Pride. There was a section of their stage show when she would come to the front and sing some songs she wrote, including this one. That early arrangement was very different, with more of a rock vibe. Sade, who never intended to be a singer (she studied fashion) gradually built her confidence and formed her own band in 1983, which quickly earned a record deal.


Word of the Day


Today in History:
May 11, 1310 -
For you fans of the Da Vinci Code, 54 members of the Knights Templar were burned at the stake in France for being heretics on this date.

Established during the Crusades to protect pilgrims traveling to the Holy Land, this military order came into increasing conflict with Rome until Clement V officially dissolves it at the Council of Vienna in 1312.


May 11, 1812 -
Spencer Perceval was a British statesman and Prime Minister. He is the only British Prime Minister to have been assassinated. On this date in 1812, Perceval was on his way to attend a session of Parliament when he was shot through the heart in the lobby of the House of Commons by a mentally unsound man, John Bellingham, who blamed his financial instability on a casual suggestion of Perceval.



He died almost instantly, uttering the words "I am murdered", and Bellingham gave himself up to officers. He was found guilty and hanged a week later. It is often thought to be illegal to die in the Palace of Westminster, and the place of his actual death and the place of his recorded death are unknown.


May 11, 1888 -
Israel Isidore Beilin was a Russian-born naturalized American composer and lyricist, and one of the most prolific American songwriters in history. Irving Berlin was one of the few Tin Pan Alley/ Broadway songwriters who wrote both lyrics and music for his songs.









Although he never learned to read music beyond a rudimentary level, with the help of various uncredited musical assistants or collaborators, he eventually composed over 3,000 songs, many of which (e.g. God Bless America, White Christmas, Anything You Can Do, There's No Business Like Show Business) left an indelible mark on American music and culture. He composed 17 film scores and 21 Broadway scores.


May 11, 1907 -
A derailment outside Lompoc, California killed 32 Shriners, when their chartered train jumps off the tracks at a switch near Surf Depot on this date.

Many of them were scalded to death when the steam boiler ruptured. I bet no one in Lompoc was celebrating National Train Day this past weekend.



No word on the fate of their groovy fezzes.


May 11, 1949 -
Siam changed its name to Thailand on this date, because everyone was getting tired of those jokes where one guy would say, "Are you familiar with this place?" and the other guy would go "Yeah, Siam," and the first guy would go, "You gonna tell me where we are?" and the other guy would be like, "Yes: Siam." and it would go on and on and they'd never give it a rest.



Had anyone foreseen the glut of restaurants trading on the new name, however - Beau Thai, Thai Me Up, Thai One On, etc—the nation might still be called Siam. (The country had been known as Siam until 1939, when it changed its name to Thailand for nationalistic reasons. It reverted back to Siam in 1945, but when the political scene changed again, it was once again named Thailand.) I'm not going to mention that Constantinople, previously the town of Byzantium and later to be known as Istanbul, was founded in 330 AD.


May 11, 1960 -
Four Mossad agents on this date, abducted factory foreman, junior water engineer and professional rabbit farmer Ricardo Klement



(and, oh yeah, he was also know as fugitive Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann) from a bus stop in Buenos Aires.


May 11, 1981 -
Jamaican music legend and U.N. Peace Medal recipient Bob Marley died of brain cancer in a Miami hospital at the age of 36 on this date.



Marley had quietly begun a course of radiation therapy at Sloan-Kettering a few months prior, but abandoned it just two days later after word leaked out.


May 11, 2011 -
One of the rarest rock T-shirts in the world — a 1979 Led Zeppelin T-shirt from their 1979 Knebworth gig, — sold for $10,000 on eBay, on this date, to an anonymous Australian bidder.



It was the largest sum ever paid for a vintage tee at the time. The seller, Kyle Ermatinger, originally purchased the used t-shirt for $123 and believed that he had overpaid for it.



And so it goes.