You can never be overdressed or overeducated

Today is the start of the 2026-27 school year for the more than 1.1 million NYC public school students (and their teachers.)

There are appx 291 days until the next summer vacation (about 180 days of school) and you know every student is counting every single day until then.


It's Cheap Advice Day, celebrates low cost counselors everywhere, whether they are a professional in the psychiatric industry or that friend who just can’t help but offer their unsolicited advice.

This holiday originates from an episode of Charles M. Shultz’ Peanuts on September 10, 1992 where resident psychiatrist Lucy van Pelt raised her psychiatric fee from 5 cents to 47.


September 10, 1932 -
The Merrie Melodies short, You're Too Careless!, directed by Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, was released on this date.



The Dear Old Maestro was probably a reference to conductor/composer/violinist Ben Bernie.


September 10, 1942 -
The Merrie Melodies short, The Dover Boys at Pimento University or The Rivals of Roquefort Hall", directed by Chuck Jones, was released on this date.



Chuck Jones made his first attempt at experimenting with the traditional cartoon format and layout with this cartoon. He later said that Warner Bros. originally refused to release the film and threatened to fire him. Fortunately for him (and for animation history) the studio needed the cartoon to fill release orders for its shorts.


September 10, 1951 -
Jean Renoir underrated classic film (in spectacular Technicolor), The River, was released in the US on this date.



This film was instrumental in launching the careers of Satyajit Ray - an assistant on the film - and Subrata Mitra, who went on to become Ray's cinematographer.


September 10, 1955 -

Gunsmoke premiered on CBS-TV on this date. The television series ran from September 10, 1955 until September 1, 1975 on CBS for 635 episodes. It had the longest run of any scripted series with continuing characters in American primetime television.



William Conrad was the first choice to play Marshall Matt Dillon on TV, having established the role on radio, but his increasing obesity led to more photogenic actors being considered.

Losing the role embittered Conrad for years, though he later starred in another CBS television series, Cannon (1971-1975). Denver Pyle was also considered for the role, as was nipple rouge manufacturer, Raymond Burr who was ultimately seen as too heavy-set for the part.

Rumors that the role was offered to John Wayne have been largely debunked, although he did apparent in an opening promotional video for the program.

Ah, if only Raymond Burr.


September 10, 1965 –
The first National Geographic Special, the 1963 US expedition to Mount Everest, aired on CBS, on this date.



Narrated by Orson Welles, this classic documentary includes the first motion pictures ever taken from Everest's summit by the first Americans to scale the dangerous west ridge.


September 10, 1966 -
The Beatles' Revolver album goes #1 and stays #1 for six weeks, on this date.



Revolver is the only album on which George Harrison wrote three of the songs. On all the others he only has two or less cuts. On The White Album he had four, but it was a double album so he was only allotted his usual one track per-side.


September 10, 1966 -
The Supremes started a two-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Charts with You Can't Hurry Love, their sixth No. 1 single, on this date.



This was written by the prolific songwriting team of Holland-Dozier-Holland. It was based on a gospel song entitled You Can't Hurry God, which was sung by Dorothy Love Coates and the Gospel Harmonettes, a gospel group based in Birmingham, Alabama.


September 10, 1985 -
The film adaptation of the David Hare play Plenty, directed by Fred Schepisi, and starring Meryl Streep, Charles Dance, Tracey Ullman, John Gielgud, Sting, Ian McKellen, and Sam Neill premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on this date.



Many critics dismissed this movie as being just a filmed version of David Hare's stage play, even though Hare had rewritten about sixty percent of the material for this movie.


September 10, 1988 -
Home Vision Entertainment released the documentary Comic Book Confidential, directed by Ron Mann and featuring the work of Robert Crumb, Will Eisner, William M. Gaines, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, and Frank Miller, on this date.



In the introductory credits the artists portrayed in the film are presented by a comic artist who is working on a comic page, filling the frames with the name and a typical comic character of each artist.


September 10, 1990 -
NBC helped Will Smith on the long juggernaut that was his career when they began airing the series The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, on this date.



Despite portraying himself as a charismatic, self-confident playboy, Will Smith has said that he was a shy, awkward teen who was very insecure about approaching and dating girls.


September 10, 1993 -
The science fiction television series The X-Files premiered with the episode Pilot on the Fox network on this date



Dana Scully was named after the famous sports journalist Vin Scully. Mulder is the maiden name of Chris Carter's mother.


September 10, 1994 -
The animated parody of a superhero series, The Tick, premieres on FOX TV, on this date.



Townsend Coleman (Tick), Rob Paulsen (Arthur) and Cam Clarke (Die Fledermaus) also voiced three of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Michelangelo was voiced by Coleman, Raphael by Paulsen and Leonardo by Clarke. Before becoming animated shows, both The Tick and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic series were intended as spoofs. The Tick was parodying superhero comics in general, while TMNT focused on The 1980's era of Marvel Comics Daredevil.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
On September 10, 1419, supporters of the French Dolphin murdered John the Fearless.

John's brothers, Thomas the Prudent and Henry the Wary, lived on into old age.


September 10, 1623 -
A cargo load of lumber and fur became the first exports in history from North America to England on this date.

This ensured the commercial success of the new world, as Europe had long been paralyzed by a shortage of sticks and hair.


September 10, 1898 -
Empress Elisabeth of Austria was not a particularly happy royal. Known as the Princess Diana of her day, she was estranged from her husband, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria (because of the stifling nature of court life) she lost her daughter, Sophie, in 1857, and her favorite cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in a tragic fashion. Her brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by revolutionaries. But most of all, she never was able to get over her most terrible tragedy, the suicide of her son, Rudolph, in 1889.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria was not a particularly happy royal. Known as the Princess Diana of her day, she was estranged from her husband, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria (because of the stifling nature of court life) she lost her daughter, Sophie, in 1857, and her favorite cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in a tragic fashion. Her brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by revolutionaries. But most of all, she never was able to get over her most terrible tragedy, the suicide of her son, Rudolph, in 1889.



The sixty-year old empress was stabbed with a file by a twenty-four year old anarchist, Luigi Lucheni, shortly after noon on September 10, 1898 on the promenade of Lake Geneva as she boarded a steamship for Montreux.



After the incident the Empress still walked for a few minutes. Because she was so strictly corseted, she was unaware how seriously she had been wounded.

Her last words were "What happened to me?"


September 10, 1922 -
Yma Sumac (and not Amy Camus from Brooklyn), noted Peruvian soprano, one of the most famous proponents of exotica music, was born on this date.





She was said to have well over four octave range.


September 10, 1932 -
You must take the A Train to go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem ...



It's the 94th Anniversary of the famed NYC transit line (it was the first city owned line; the other two lines at the time were privately owned.)


Believe it or not, Mike the Headless Chicken (April 1945 – March 1947) was a Wyandotte rooster (cockerel) that lived for 18 months after its head had been cut off. Thought by many to be a hoax, the bird was taken by its owner to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish its authenticity.



On Monday, September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, had his mother-in-law around for supper and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen failed to completely decapitate the five-and-a-half month old bird named Mike. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact. Lloyd wasn't trusted with the knife on the farm after that.



On the first night after the decapitation Mike slept with his severed head under his wing.


September 10, 1953 -
Brothers Gilbert and Clark Swanson contributed to an American food revolution by selling their first TV dinner, for 98 cents, on this date.



It let customers feast on turkey with corn bread stuffing, buttered peas, and sweet potatoes - right in front of their television screens. Americans eating habits and health would never be the same.


September 10, 1972 -
The USA suffered its first loss of an Olympic basketball game on this date, in a disputed match against the Soviet Union at the Munich, Germany Olympic Games.



The Soviets won the game by a single point, making the winning basket as time expired and igniting vociferous American objections questioning the legitimacy of the final play.


September 10, 1977 -
Convicted torture-killer Hamida Djandoubi, an immigrant from Tunisia, becomes the last person executed by France when he was guillotined in Marseilles on this date.

He did not survive his execution and there are no notes as to whether or not Djandoubi was buried with his head under his arm.



And so it goes.

Amazingly, someone thought this would work

In the 1960s, the CIA launched "Operation Acoustic Kitty," an effort to train cats to become foreign spies by implanting microphones in their ears and radio transmitters at the base of their skulls. The hope was to train the cats to sit near foreign officials to capture any private conversations.



The operation came to a halt when they realized that cats aren't really trainable and will do whatever the heck they want.


September 5, 1933 -
The Looney Tunes short, Buddy's Day Out, directed by Tom Palmer and starring Buddy, was released on this date.



The first Warner Bros. cartoon that Leon Schlesinger is served as the head president without Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising, who also got fired for signing the contract by losing the rights to its character Bosko and later moved to MGM in 1934.


September 5, 1939 -
The Looney Tunes short, Sioux Me, directed by Ben Hardaway and Cal Dalton , was released on this date.



This cartoon has not been shown on American television since the 1980s due to heavy stereotyping of Native Americans.


September 9, 1966 -
The cult favorite series, The Green Hornet, starring Van Williams, Bruce Lee, and William Dozier (as the narrator), premired on ABC-TV on this date.



Van Williams became good friends with Bruce Lee and repeatedly negotiated with the show's producers to give Lee more screen time and lines. Bruce Lee once said that he was selected for the role of Kato because he was the only Asian actor who could properly pronounce "Britt Reid".
Impress your friends with this piece of trivia - Britt Reid is the grand-nephew of John Reid, the Lone Ranger.


September 9, 1966 -
ABC-TV premiered, at the time, the highest budgeted science fiction series, The Time Tunnel, Rendezvous with Yesterday, on this date. The series starred James Darren and Robert Colbert.



Many episodes made extensive use of stock footage from the 20th Century Fox film library, which allowed Irwin Allen to do shows against an "epic" backdrop that could not have been done on a television budget.


September 9, 1967 -
The animated sci-fi series Birdman and the Galaxy Trio produced by Hanna-Barbera debuted on NBC on this date. (An easy bar bet to win: Birdman and the Galaxy Trio never appeared together in any of the episodes.)



In 2000, the Carton Network premiered a series Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, a parody of the Birdman series, featuring cameos by many Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, usually appearing as parody versions of "themselves". For example, one episode featured The Flintstones mixed with elements of The Sopranos.


September 9, 1971 -
Imagine, John Lennon's second solo album and most popular of his solo works, was released on this date.



This song is a strong political message sugarcoated in a beautiful melody. Lennon realized the softer approach would bring the song to a wider audience, who hopefully would listen to his message: If you want peace, first you have to imagine it.


September 9, 1975 -
The sitcom Welcome Back Kotter, starring Gabe Kaplan, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



The original title of the series was to be simply Kotter, but that was before composer John Sebastian had difficulty writing the theme song lyrics. He couldn't find enough rhyming words for the title. Giving up on that tack, he decided to compose lyrics that illustrated the premise of the show in a song called, Welcome Back. The producers were so impressed with the song that they decided to change the series title to Welcome Back, Kotter. The song was also released on a single which went to #1 on the charts.


September 9, 1977 -
David Bowie taped an appearance on Marc Bolan's ITV show, Marc, on this date, singing Heroes as well as a duet with Bolan, Standing Next To You, which was prematurely terminated when Bolan fell from the stage, much to Bowie’s amusement. (The show aired on September 28.)



This song is a strong political message sugarcoated in a beautiful melody. Lennon realized the softer approach would bring the song to a wider audience, who hopefully would listen to his message: If you want peace, first you have to imagine it.


September 9, 1978 -
The Rolling Stones released their hit, Beast of Burden on this date.



While Richards spent much of the '70s insulating himself with drugs, former London School of Economics student Jagger was running the band. However, by the time of Some Girls, Richards wanted to share the workload. Mojo magazine January 2012 asked Richards how much this song was about his relationship with Jagger? He replied; "Mick wrote a lot of it but I laid the general idea on him. At the time Mick was getting used to running the band. Charlie was just the drummer, I was just the other guitar player. I was trying to say, 'OK I'm back, so let's share a bit more of the power, share the weight, brother."


September 9, 1992 -
During a performance at the MTV Video Music Awards, Nirvana played Lithium, ending in a grand finale where bassist Krist Novoselic tosses his instrument high into the air. When he tries to catch it, he misses, and the bass whacks him in the head.



Nirvana wanted to play Rape Me at the Video Music Awards but MTV wanted Smells Like Teen Spirit. Kurt Cobain had to check out of rehab to attend the show, and had made comments disparaging MTV in the past. At rehearsals, a standoff ensued where MTV threatened to go nuclear, banning not just Nirvana, but other acts from their label if they didn't fall in line. Lithium was the compromise, but Nirvana made the network sweat, playing a few seconds of Rape Me before going into their agreed-upon song.


September 9, 1995 -
Coolio's classic, Gangsta's Paradise (from the movie Dangerous Minds), featuring L. V. topped the charts on this date.



Gangsta's Paradise was a reworking of Stevie Wonder's 1976 song Pasttime Paradise. Coolio updated the lyrics to make it relevant to life on the streets in the mid-'90s.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Facts


Today in History:
September 9, 1087 -
William the Conqueror died of internal injuries, sustained six weeks prior in a horse riding accident at Mantes-la-Jolie.

The king's funeral did not go well - according to some sources, a fire broke out during the funeral; the original owner of the land on which the church was built claimed he had not been paid yet, demanding 60 shillings, which William's son Henry had to pay on the spot. When the corpulent king was later laid to rest in the foundations of a church, his corpse would not fit in the stone sarcophagus. William's "swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd."



Don't you just wish they had television back then.


September 9, 1890 -
136 years ago today a little boy named Harland was born in Kentucky.



When Harland was six, his father died and his mother was forced to go to work. Little Harland did most of the cooking for his younger siblings. By the age of seven he was a  master of the local cuisine.

There was no stopping the ambitious Harland, who had his own highway service station in Corbin, Kentucky, by the time he was forty.



He began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station. He didn't own a  restaurant, so he served them at his own dining table. Word of his excellent cooking spread  (secret combination of eleven herbs and spices) and soon he moved across the street to a  restaurant that seated 142 people.

His cooking soon became so well known that his state's governor, Ruby Laffoon, made him a  colonel.



In an independent 1976 survey, Colonel Harland Sanders was ranked as the world's second most recognizable figure.


September 9, 1947 -
At the Naval Weapons Center in Dahlgren, Virginia, Grace Murray Hopper records the discovery of the first actual computer “bug” by the computer’s operators at 3:45pm in her log book with the explanation, “First instance of actual computer bug being found.” The bug is literally just that, a moth which had become stuck in Relay #70 on Panel “F” of the Harvard Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator. When they extracted the culprit with tweezers, they taped it into the logbook along with the official report.



Legend has it that Hopper, a naval officer and famous mathematician, was the one who found the bug, but she will state categorically that she wasn’t there at the time. The urban legend will crop up that this was the first-ever use of the word ‘bug’ in this context, but that’s not true. Thomas Edison used the term bug when discussing electrical circuits as early as the 1870s. It is, however, the first time the term “debug” is used. The log book will later be preserved by the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.


September 9, 1956 -
Elvis Presley made his first-ever appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, performing four songs for guest host Charles Laughton on this date.



Ed himself had vowed never to have Presley on his show, but Sullivan was at home this evening, recuperating from a severe head injury, from a drunken fall.


September 9, 1971 -
1,300 inmates riot inside the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York state, commandeering the prison and taking 40 guards hostage on this date.



The national guard staged an assault five days later, killing 42 people in the process (10 of them being captives).


September 9, 1976 -
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery.

Mao Tse-tung, Chinese Communist party chairman (1949-76) died in Beijing, on this date.



In 1965, he launched the controversial Cultural Revolution, an often-brutal campaign to reform Chinese society. He was later held responsible for over 70 million deaths. Mao Tse- tung’s death triggered a two-year power struggle. The Cultural Revolution's chief architects, Mao’s widow (Jiang Qing) and three others, the so-called Gang of Four, were jailed. Deng Xiaoping returned from disgrace and eventually seized power.


September 9, 2003 -
Edward Teller, the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb" and purported model for Dr. Strangelove (or Dr. Kissinger, take your pick), died at the age of 95 at his home on the Stanford University campus.



His role in the destruction of colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer's career during the McCarthy era resulted in his own ostracism by many of his peers.

And no, he didn't utter, Mein Fuhrer, I can walk just before his death.


September 9, 2015 -
Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor-Mountbatten had been the head of her family owned business for more than 23,227 days - surpassing the reign of her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria, on this date. (She has been currently working 25,420 days.)



The BBC noted that the Queen did not want a fuss to be made. “It is evidently viewed as bad form for one long-lived queen to be seen in any way to be celebrating the passing of a record set by another long-lived queen.”



Sadly the Queen passed away on the 8th of September, 2022. She had been on the job for 70 years, 7 months and 2 days, Have a good thought for her majesty today.


Before you go -

Christmas is in 107 days



And so it goes.

Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.

Today is International Literacy Day. This years theme is: Promoting literacy for a world in transition: Building the foundation for sustainable and peaceful societies.



Please read a newspaper, a magazine, the back of an oil stained envelope with a recipe from your grandmother, at the very least, you could read the crap I purport to write every day.



And here's a word from the opposition - The dumb as dirt party.


September 8, 1892 -
Please rise. "I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The Pledge, which was written by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy, was published on this day in The Youth's Companion children's magazine.

(Rev. Bellamy did not include the words "Under God"; they were included by Congress 62 years later.)



School's began having children recite the pledge on October 12th that same year.

(You may be seated.)


September 8, 1951 -
The Looney Tunes short, Lovelorn Leghorn, directed by Bob McKimson and starring Foghorn Leghorn, was released on this date.



This is the first pairing of Foghorn Leghorn and Miss Prissy, who debuted in the Porky Pig cartoon An Egg Scramble the previous year. Initially in these cartoons, Miss Prissy has a crush on Foghorn Leghorn, who doesn't reciprocate her affections, though in later cartoons, Foghorn pursues Miss Prissy for selfish reasons..


September 8, 1951 -
Tony Bennett's first hit Because of You topped the charts on this date.



The song was written by Arthur Hammerstein (uncle of Oscar Hammerstein II) and Dudley Wilkinson in 1940.


September 5, 1952 -
The Looney Tunes short, Mouse-Warming, directed by Chuck Jones and starring Claude Cat (in his final appearance), was released on this date.



The rodent moving team bears a slight resemblance to the popular comedy sketch characters of Ralph and Ed from what would become the TV sitcom The Honeymooners a few years later.


September 8, 1966 -
Star Trek debuted on NBC-TV, with the airing of an episode titled The Man Trap on this date. (The series had to overcome calls from within the network to cancel the series before it even aired.)



Although this was the first episode to air on NBC, it was actually the sixth episode produced. NBC chose to air this episode first because they felt that it had more action than any of the first 5 episodes and it also featured a monster.


September 8, 1966 -
We all took the train in from Brewster, NY when the first episode of That Girl, Don't Just Do Something, Stand There starring Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Marlo Thomas' father Danny Thomas would often make cameo appearances on the show. One episode not only featured a cameo by her father but her sister Terre Thomas and brother Tony Thomas as well.


September 8, 1973 -
Marvin Gaye started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with Let's Get It On, on this date.



Let's Get It On was the title track of Gaye's 1973 album. It topped the Billboard Pop Singles chart for two weeks and the Billboard Soul Singles chart for eight weeks. It also made history as Motown's most successful release in the United States to that date and the second most successful song of 1973 (behind Tony Orlando & Dawn's Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Ole Oak Tree).


September 8, 1975 -
The second spin-off from the Mary Tyler Moore universe, Phyllis, starring Cloris Leachman, Henry Jones, Jane Rose' Judith Lowry, Lisa Gerritsen, Barbara Colby, and Richard Schaal, premiered on CBS-TV on this date.



Barbara Colby played Julie Erskine in the first three episodes of the series. She and her friend James Kiernan were murdered on July 24, 1975, and the crime remains unsolved.


September 8, 1986 -
The first nationally syndicated episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, went on the air on this date. The topic for the premiere show was "How to Marry the Man or Woman of Your Choice".



Oprah Winfrey used the show as an educational platform, featuring book clubs, interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events. It was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011.


September 8, 1994 -
At the MTV Video Music Awards, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (MCA), in character as "Nathanial Hornblower," rushes the stage when R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts beats Sabotage for Best Direction.



It's the first such intrusion at the VMAs. Frequent Beastie Boys collaborator Nathaniel Hörnblowér has an impressive resume. He directed classic Beasties videos (including So What Cha Want and Pass the Mic) as well as the rap trio’s 2006 live concert film, Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!. He is even credited for the iconic photograph on the cover of Paul’s Boutique.


September 8, 1997 -
The first episode of the legal dramedy Ally McBeal premiered on FOX, on this date.



Peter MacNicol does not appear in the pilot, though he's in the second episode as a guest star. He joined the regular cast later in the first season.


September 8, 1999 -
Sam Mendes' scathing comedy, American Beauty, Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, and Thora Birch, premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



Sam Mendes designed the two girls' look to change over the course of the film, with Thora Birch gradually using less makeup and Mena Suvari gradually using more, to emphasize his view of their shifting perceptions of themselves.


September 8, 2001 -
(Ear worm allert -) Kylie Minogue released the single Can't Get You Out Of My Head, with a "la la la" chorus that does indeed burrow into the brain, on this date.



For most Americans, this was the first they heard from Minogue since 1988, when her cover of The Loco-Motion hit #3. She became an international sensation that year, but in the '90s her support was concentrated in the UK and in her home country of Australia. Can't Get You Out Of My Head put her back on the charts in many more territories.


September 8, 2015 -
Stephen Colbert debuted as the new host of CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on this date. (It was a stretch but he felt that he was up to the challenger.)



The Ed Sullivan Theater (where the show is taped) underwent an extensive renovation during the time between David Letterman's retirement and Stephen Colbert's debut as host of the Late Show. In addition to the talk show set receiving an overhaul, several architectural features of the theater were restored. The theater's ornate domed ceiling, which had been hidden behind air ducts and sound buffers, was uncovered, and the ornate stained-glass windows, which had been removed and placed in storage during the Letterman era, were re-installed.


Today's momen of Zen


Today in History -
September 8, 337 -

Constantine the Great's three sons, Constantine II, Constans and Constantius II, named themselves Caesars and divided the Roman Empire between them on this date in the year 337.



But it was nearly sixteen hundred years before Sid Caesar himself was born, on September 8, 1922.


September 8, 1504 -
Michelangelo's David, was unveiled in Florence on this date.



If you were staring too hard, you'll notice that Dave has got a turtleneck. The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.



Now put your eyes back in your head.


John Endicott arrived in Naumkeag, Massachusetts, as the leader of a group of Puritan Grumps who had purchased land patents from the Plymouth Council in England on this date in 1628.

A previous group of settlers had established themselves in Naumkeag in 1626 but had no patent and were therefore Villainous Heretics. They gladly surrendered their claim in the face of the newcomers' Superior Moral Virtue, which came in a variety of gauges.



Later Naumkeag became Salem and developed witches, ultimately resulting in a profitable cottage industry.


September 8, 1664 -
The Dutch surrendered the city of New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York, on this day. The English navigator Henry Hudson claimed credit as the city's discoverer in 1609, when he sailed into its harbor and up the river that now bears his name, looking for a passage to India. Hudson was sailing for the Dutch West India Company, so it was the Dutch who moved in and settled the area in 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.



Forty years later, New Amsterdam became a city; its population, 800. In the 1660s the Dutch and English were at war, and on September 8, 1664, a fleet sent by the Duke of York seized the city and changed the name to New York.



There are many in the Congress who have been trying to give the city back to the Dutch, the English or the Indians for that matter ever since.


September 8, 1930 -
3M of St. Paul, Minnesota begins marketing Scotch brand cellulose tape, the first waterproof, transparent, pressure-sensitive tape on this date.



The arrival of Scotch tape changed present-wrapping practices worldwide.


September 8, 1934 -
The luxury liner Morro Castle, en route from Havana to NYC, caught fire and ran aground at Asbury Park, NJ on this date. 134 people were killed.



The crew of the cruise ship let a small blaze get out of control and commandeered most of the spots in the lifeboats. Only 15 passengers survived as compared to 119 crew.

Remember, tip your service staff.


September 8, 1935 -
Dr. Carl Austin Weiss confronted Senator Huey Long in a narrow corridor of the State House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Weiss drew a .32 caliber pistol and fired one slug into Long's abdomen on this date.



The Senator's bodyguards immediately made Swiss cheese out of Weiss, riddling him with 61 bullets. Long was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later.


September 8, 1974 -
President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon, out of respect for Nixon's family. "Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."



Later polling will indicate that this move will ultimately deny Ford being elected president in his own right. A majority of Americans will remain convinced that a dirty deal had been struck between Ford and Nixon, giving Ford the top spot and Nixon the pardon. Not to add to any sort of conspiracy theory or anything but 10 years earlier, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission.


September 8, 1974 -
In Idaho, daredevil Evel Knievel climbed into his (really just a rocket on wheels) and hit the ignition on this date.



The vehicle manages to clear the quarter-mile-wide canyon, but then the parachute deploys prematurely and prevailing winds push him back into the chasm.

Total ripoff.


September 8, 1974 -

Leonard Matlovich appeared in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine on this date. He challenged the ban against homosexuals in the US military and was given a "general" discharge by the Air Force after publicly declaring his homosexuality.



His suit dragged on until 1980 when a federal judge ordered Matlovich reinstated. Instead of re-entering the Air Force, Matlovich accepted a settlement of $160,000. Matlovich became a gay rights activist and died from AIDS related symptoms in 1988.


September 8, 1993 -
The restless, refrigerated popicle-like remains of President Ferdinand Marcos, whose corpse spent several years exiled in Hawaii, returned, like MacArthur, to the Philippines for its final resting place.

Luckily, Imelda had her husband preserved, so they are finally able to put him on display just like Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot -- under glass in a mausoleum of his very own.



And so it goes.