If it wasn't for TV, we'd be eating frozen radio dinners

It's Frozen Food Day. The day was established by President Ronald Reagan in 1984 with Proclamation #5157: “Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim March 6, 1984, as Frozen Food Day, and I call upon the American people to observe such day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.”



He then announced that he wanted to award Admiral Byrd a medal for his work on frozen food and then was heading to the commissary to have lunch with Gale Storm. Aides just turned a weary eye to one another.


March 6, 1942 -
Ernst Lubitsch World War II comedy, To Be or Not to Be, starring Jack Benny, Carole Lombard and Robert Stack premiered on this date.



The biggest problem early in the shoot was Jack Benny's insecurity about acting the central role in such an important production by a major filmmaker. He seemed dumbfounded that Ernst Lubitsch had not only cast him but was building the film around him. Finally Lubitsch set him straight: "You think you are a comedian. You are not even a clown. You are fooling the public for 30 years. You are fooling even yourself. A clown - he is a performer what is doing funny things. A comedian - he is a performer what is saying funny things. But you, Jack, you are an actor, you are an actor playing the part of a comedian and this you are doing very well. But do not worry, I keep your secret to myself."


March 6, 1970 -
The Beatles released Let it Be in the UK on this date. Paul McCartney wrote this song supposedly after he had a dream about his mother who died when he was 14.



Since Let It Be was The Beatles last album, it made an appropriate statement about leaving problems behind and moving on in life. John Lennon hated the song because of it's apparent Christian overtones. He made the comment before recording it, "And now we'd like to do Hark The Angels Come."



The Beatles were so busy arguing with each other that Aretha Franklin was able to release a cover version of the song



on her album This Girl's In Love With You (as well as Eleanor Rigby), before The Beatles version came out.


March 6, 1970 -
David Bowie released the single The Prettiest Star in the UK on this date, as a follow-up single to Space Oddity. The track featured Marc Bolan on guitar, with whom Bowie would spend the next few years as a rival for the crown of the king of glam rock.



Bowie wrote this for his future wife, Angela 'Angie' Barnett. Bowie reportedly played it to Barnett over the phone when he proposed to her. Writing in The Mail On Sunday February 9, 2013, Angie recalled: "David wrote many of the songs for Aladdin Sane on his 1972 tour of America but 'The Prettiest Star' dates back to Christmas 1969. I was staying with my parents in Cyprus when he phoned and sang it down the phone to me. Two days later, I was back in London and our first stop was the recording studio, where Marc Bolan was adding the guitar solo. I was crazy about Aladdin Sane, loved the songs, especially 'The Prettiest Star.' That was the most personal. He wrote it for me."


March 6, 1973 -
Closing Time, one of Tom Waits’ most melodic albums, (and a fascinating snapshot into his early days as a bar-room balladeer,) was released on this date.



A number of artists covered songs from the album, starting a trend that would continue throughout Waits’ career. Martha was recorded by Tim Buckley and frequently performed by Bette Midler, while the Eagles recorded a version of Ol’ ‘55 for the band’s 1974 album On The Border.


March 6, 1977 -
Diana Ross became the first solo female performer to host a 90-minute TV special when An Evening With Diana Ross aired on NBC-TV on this date.



An Evening With Diana Ross became a double album on the Motown label that led to a one-woman show on Broadway for which she was awarded a special Tony Award.


March 6, 1987 -
Richard Donner's buddy cop flix, Lethal Weapon, starring Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Tom Atkins, Darlene Love, and Mitchell Ryan, opened on this date.



Casting director Marion Dougherty first suggested teaming Mel Gibson and Danny Glover. She arranged for Gibson to fly in from his home in Sydney, while Glover was flown in from Chicago, where he was appearing in a play, to read through the script.


March 6, 1995 -
Annie Lennox second solo album, Medusa, a collection of covers, was released on this date.



The first single No More I Love You's, was originally recorded by the English group The Lover Speaks.


March 6, 1998 -
The Coen Bros. off-kilter take on a Raymond Chandler detective story, The Big Lebowski, opened on this date.



In an early draft of the script, The Dude's source of income was revealed. He was an heir to the inventor of the Rubik's Cube, which would have also made him Hungarian in turn. It was Joel Coen's idea to drop this and never say.


March 6, 2009 -
Zack Snyder's version of the seemingly unfilmable graphic novel, Watchmen, starring Malin Akerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson, premiered on this date.



The first trailer for the film, which premiered with The Dark Knight sparked so much interest that it sent the graphic novel back onto the bestseller list. Barnes and Noble Bookstores reported selling out of the novel nationwide.


Another unimportant moment in history.


Today in History:
Michelangelo Buonaroti was born on this date in 1475. He painted and sculpted so much that it began to become embarrassing for other people, so they finally decided it was time to stop procrastinating and start the Renaissance.



So they did.


On March 6, 1619, Cyrano de Bergerac was born. Mr. de Bergerac was a brilliant French satirist and playwright, a rapier wit, and, from all contemporary accounts, an accomplished musician, an enthralling conversationalist, and a charming ladies' man.



He was unfortunately best known for his nose.


Dr. John Greenwood, George Washington's personal dentist, constructed the first 'dental foot engine' on this date in 1790.

He adapts his mother's foot treadle spinning wheel to rotate a drill.


March 6, 1836 -
... Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.

The Alamo was seized by General Santa Ana - 3,000 versus 147, it wasn't much of a fair fight. The holdouts suffered unnecessary deaths, disobeying direct orders by remaining, and losing their arms and cannon to the Mexicans. Davy - Pioneer, Patriot, Soldier, Trapper, Explorer, State Legislator, Congressman was one of the last holdouts to die on this day.



(The Mexican army managed to lose over 600 men.)




Remember the Alamo.


March 6, 1857 -
After years in litigation, the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Roger Taney, ruled that Dred Scott did not gain his freedom by living in a free territory. Taney wrote that African Americans could not have rights of their own and inferior to white people.



The essence of the decision was that as a slave, Dred Scott was not a citizen and therefore could not sue in a federal court. The opinion also stated that Congress could not exclude slavery in the territories and that blacks could not become citizens. In 2017 Charles Taney IV apologized to the family of Dred Scott for the words of his great-great-grand-uncle.


March 6, 1869 -

Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society on this date in a presentation entitled "The Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements." He left gaps in his charts and predicted the addition of three more elements in the near future.





Mendeleev's predictions were right, and he is credited with writing the first periodic table.


March 6, 1899 -
Friedrich Bayer and Co. patented their eponymous painkiller, Bayer aspirin in Berlin on this day. The compound salicylic acid, which occurs naturally in willow bark was already known to provide pain relief. Unfortunately it is bitter tasting and can cause vomiting. By mixing acetylating salicylic acid with acetic acid, German Bayer AG chemist Felix Hoffman concocted a less acidic formula to ease his father’s arthritis two years previously.



It quickly gained popularity, and at one time was the most used painkiller in the world.


March 6, 1912 -
National Biscuit Company's (Nabisco) Oreo cookies went on sale for the first time on this date.



The brand's competitor, Sunshine's Hydrox, had debuted in 1908. (Hydrox has up until recently, completely disappeared as a brand but secretly exists as 'cookie crumbs' for yogurt flavorings and an ingredient in piecrust.)


March 6, 1918 -
In January 1918, US naval collier (a ship that transports,) Cyclops was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service and sailed to Brazilian waters to fuel British ships in the South Atlantic.



It put to sea from Rio de Janeiro on February 16, 1918, and after touching at Barbados on March 3 and 4, was never heard from again. The loss of the ship without a trace is one of the sea's unsolved mysteries.


March 6, 1950 -

Silly Putty was introduced as a toy by Peter Hodgson, a marketing consultant, who packaged one-ounce portions of the rubber-like material in plastic eggs, on this date. It could be stretched, rolled into a bouncing ball, or used to transfer colored ink from newsprint.



The original discovery was made in 1943 by James Wright who combined silicone oil and boric acid in the laboratories of General Electric. He was researching methods of making synthetic rubber, but at the time no significant application existed for the material. However, it was passed around as a curiosity.



Hodgson saw a sample and realized its potential simply for entertainment and coined its name for marketing it as a toy. Its popularity made him a millionaire. (Hey, that's Peter Hodgson as the salty sea dog pulling the putty.)


March 6, 1965 -
Script writers build up for a laugh, but they don't allow any pause for it. That's where I come in. I ad lib - it doesn't matter what I say - just to kill a few seconds so you can enjoy the gag. I have to sense when the big laughs will come and fill in, or the audience will drown out the next gag with its own laughter.

Daisy Juliette Baker, Groucho's favorite comic foil, died on this date.





Groucho was often cruel to her on-screen but when the cameras stopped rolling, he had nothing but nice things to say about Margaret Dumont, calling her a "wonderful woman."


March 6, 1970 -
In Greenwich Village, a townhouse at 18 West 11th St. exploded on this date. SDS Weathermen members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins were killed at the site where a bomb was being manufactured.

Other members went underground and became known as the Weather Underground.


March 6, 1981 -
After 19 years presenting the CBS Evening News, Uncle Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, signs off for the last time.



With all that we've been through, once again we must ask, is there no one who can carry that weight now?



And so it goes.

Look for those Happy Hour deals

Happy Cinco De Marcho! Cinco De Marcho is a 12-day drinking regimen for anyone who wishes to “train one’s liver"

for the closing ceremonies on St. Patrick’s Day.


Also, it's National Cheez Doodle Day.



It's doesn't sound appetizing saying 'Extruded Flavored Cornmeal Day'


March 5, 1954 -
The Classic B movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon, premiered on this date.



Two different stuntmen were used to portray the creature, and therefore, two different suits were used in the movie. Ricou Browning played the creature when it was in the water and wore a lighter suit, Ben Chapman played the creature when it was out of the water with a darker suit.


March 5, 1956 -
Frank Sinatra released his tenth studio album Songs for Swingin' Lovers! on this date.



Sinatra aficionados often rank it his best album and many music critics consider it one of the greatest albums of its era.


March 5, 1959 –
In The Twilight Zone episode The Last Flight, (which originally aired February 5, 1960,) British RFC Flt. Lt. Decker was lost over France on March 5, 1917, and he seemed to have returned on this date, 42 years later.



Writer Richard Matheson explained that the title of this episode and its short story referred to both the protagonist's physical journey as well as his departure from cowardice.


March 5, 1965 -
The Mannish Boys released their second single I Pity The Fool, featuring a young David Bowie, produced by Shel Talmy, (who was also producing the early singles and albums by The Who and The Kinks).



Jimmy Page was Talmy's regular session musician and played the guitar solo on I Pity the Fool.


March 5, 1970 -
Universal released the blockbuster film, Airport, starring just about everyone who was available in Hollywood, on this date.



Trans Global Airlines was the name of the fictional airline for the film. For many years it was not unusual to see props from the movie (with the fictional TGA logo) in other Universal films where airliner interior scenes were shot.


March 5, 1971 -
Led Zeppelin started a 12-date 'Thank You' tour for British fans, appearing at the clubs from their early days and charging the same admission prices as in 1968.



Northern Ireland was a war zone at the time and their first show was at The Ulster Hall, Belfast, Northern Ireland where they played songs from their upcoming fourth album, including the first public performances of Black Dog, Stairway To Heaven, Going To California and Rock And Roll.


March 5, 1978 -
Mae West's final film, Sextette, was released on this date.



Eighty-four-year-old Mae West had trouble remembering her lines. She wore a wireless earpiece during filming, and Director Ken Hughes would speak her lines, which she would repeat. The earpiece occasionally picked up police radio transmissions. Once, West picked up a police call and repeated, "There's a 608."


March 5, 1983 -
Michael Jackson's single Billie Jean hits No. #1 on the Billboard Charts and stays there for seven weeks, on this date.



In his autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson said that Quincy Jones wanted to change the title to Not My Lover because he thought it would be confused with the tennis star Billie Jean King. Jackson ended up winning that battle.


March 5, 2006 -
The nature documentary Planet Earth narrated by David Attenborough premieres on the BBC TV, on this date.



The project took 40 camera teams shooting at over 200 different locations all over the world for more than five years.


Another lesser known Monopoly cards


Today in History:
March 5, 1616 -
Copernican theory was declared “false and erroneous” in a decree written by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine and issued by the Catholic Church and the work was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books by the Roman Catholic Church, on this date. Further, no person was to be permitted to hold or teach the theory that the Earth revolves around the Sun.



When Galileo later violates the decree, he will be put on trial and held under house arrest for the final eight years of his life.


March 5, 1770 -
British soldiers who had been taunted by a crowd of colonists opened fire, killing five people, on this date, in what would become known as The Boston Massacre. Among the five killed was an African American sailor, Crispus Attucks.



Colonists were already resenting the Townsend Acts, a very early WHO album. Tensions caused by the heavy military presence in Boston, led to brawls between soldiers and civilians and eventually to troops shooting their muskets into a riotous crowd.

SO you can see, the tradition of killing innocent black men in American is older than the Republic.


March 5, 1933 -
Germany went on a 12 year drinking binge - the Nazi Party won 44 percent of the vote in German parliamentary elections, enabling it to join with the Nationalists to gain a slight majority in the Reichstag.



Adolf 'Evil Bastard' Hitler had become chairman of the Nazi party in 1921, and two years later he tried to topple the German republican government in the "beer-hall putsch." Nazi storm troopers surrounded government officials during a meeting at a beer hall in Munich. The troopers forced the officials to swear allegiance to the Nazi revolution. But the coup was defeated and Hitler fled, then he was captured and imprisoned. While in prison, Hitler dictated his autobiography Mein Kampf (or, in English, I'm Crazy and I'm Gonna Kill You or How I Intend to Enslave or Kill Millions of People Immediately Upon My Release) to a sympathetic scribe, and the book became important to Nazism.

The failed coup made Hitler famous ( he already began selling the cryptic t-shirt 'World Tour 1939 - 1945'), and the Nazi party capitalized on the economic depression of 1929, as well as the heavy reparations Germany was made to pay for World War I, and they became a powerful force in Germany. In 1932, Hitler ran for president of Germany, but lost. The next year, he became the chancellor. Just before the parliamentary elections in 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire, which led to the Reichstag Fire Decree, which rescinded habeas corpus and other protective laws.



The following week, March 5, 1933, the Nazi Party won a slight majority in the elections. Within three weeks, the Nazi-dominated Reichstag passed the Enabling Act, which gave Hitler dictatorial powers and ended the Weimar Republic in Germany.

If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times: beer, Bavarians and the ballot do not mix.


It was on this date in 1946, in a speech at Fulton, Missouri, that Winston Churchill made his famous observation that, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent."



The speech was not well received at first, as the people of Fulton weren't sure which continent he was talking about and they didn't care what sort of drapes were fashionable in foreign parts.


Bizarre ironies of History -
On March 1, 1953, after an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Josif Stalin, truly Evil Bastard, did not emerge from his room the next day, having probably suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body.



Although his guards thought it odd that he did not rise at his usual time, the next day they were under orders not to disturb him and he was not discovered until that evening. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74, and was buried on March 9. His daughter Svetlana recalls the scene as she stood by his death bed "He suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance. Then something incomprehensible and awesome happened. He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse upon all of us. The next moment after a final effort the spirit wrenched its self free of the flesh."



Officially, the cause of death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage. Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Beria had, immediately after the stroke, gone about "spewing hatred against [Stalin] and mocking him", and then, when Stalin showed signs of consciousness, dropped to his knees and kissed his hand. When Stalin fell unconscious again, Beria immediately stood and spat.



His body was preserved in Lenin's Mausoleum until October 31, 1961, when his body was removed from the Mausoleum and buried next to the Kremlin walls as part of the process of de-Stalinization.

Wait, it starts to get weird here, America learns of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin's death when Air Force Staff Sergeant Johnny Cash intercepts a coded message from Russia. Cash enlisted in 1950 after he turned 18 and was assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile of the US Air Force Security Service at Landsberg, West Germany, where he proved his skill as a Morse Code operator.

The famed Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev lived in dread fear of getting on the wrong side of Stalin. Always looking to appease the Evil Bastard, he died at the age of 61 from a cerebral hemorrhage on March 5, 1953 (the same day and even hour and cause that Communist Party leader Joseph Stalin died.)



Prokofiev had lived near the Red Square and for three days the throngs gathered to mourn Stalin made it impossible to carry Prokofiev's body out for the funeral service at the headquarters of the Soviet Composer's Union. Paper flowers and a taped recording of the funeral march from his Romeo and Juliet had to be used, as all real flowers and musicians were reserved for Stalin's funeral.

Herman J. Mankiewicz, producer and alcoholic screenwriter, best known for his collaboration with Orson Welles on the screenplay of Citizen Kane, for which they both won an Academy Award and famously clashed over credit,



died of uremia poisoning in Hollywood, CA on March 5, 1953, the same day as Joseph Stalin and Sergei Prokofiev.


March 5, 1963 -
There's less violence in the world when people are using Hula-Hoops. - Mikey Way

The US Patent Office issues patent No. #3,079,728 to Arthur K. Melin and Richard Knerr for their Hula Hoop design.


March 5, 1963 -
Virginia Patterson Hensley (Patsy Cline), country music singer has an unfortunate close encounter with an airplane on this date.







What was it with singers and small planes in the early 60s


March 5, 1977 -
Walter Cronkite and Jimmy Carter went on the air for a call-in radio program where ordinary citizens could call and ask the president anything they liked.



Over 9 million callers tried to get through, and the questions ranged from Carter's pardoning the draft dodgers to why he sent his daughter to public school.


March 5, 1982 -
John Belushi was found dead at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood from a cocaine and heroin overdose on this date. A sketchy woman, Cathy Smith, was later charged with administering the fatal injections.



Sorry but there was really nothing funny about that - it was just a waste.


March 5, 1989 -
Darwin Award nominee Michael Anderson Godwin, previously on death row for murder but with sentence commuted to life imprisonment, died in a toilet-related accident at the Central Correctional Institution in South Carolina on this date. Godwin, sitting on a stainless steel toilet, bit into headphone wires that were connected to his television. He was immediately electrocuted.

[Moral: use a porcelain toilet. And eat more fiber.]



And so it goes.

Get out your Whowonkas and Jing-Tinglers

Today is my favorite day - March 4th

It's the day that tells you to do something.


March 4, 1922 -
The first vampire film Nosferatu, an illegal adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula, was released in Germany on this date.



The film was loosely based on the Bram Stoker book but the characters' names were changed in an attempt to prevent legal action (which failed). The subtitles were translated into French, then when the film went to the USA into English but with Stoker's character names used.


March 4, 1950 -
One of the classic Chuck Jones Looney Tunes cartoons, The Scarlet Pumpernickel, was released on this date. This was another show I was not allowed to watch with my family because I laughed too loudly.



By all means, please, stop eating or drinking while watching this cartoon, you may injury yourself. Also, a State dept report has just been released - the cavalry came to the rescue but it was too late.


March 4, 1961 -
Michelangelo Antonioni's landmark of European cinema, L'Avventura, premiered in the US on this date.



At its premiere at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival, the film was booed so much to the extent that Michelangelo Antonioni and Monica Vitti fled the theater. However, after the second screening there was a complete turn around in how it was perceived and it was awarded the Special Jury Prize.


March 4, 1963 -
The Beach Boys released Surfin' U.S.A. a song with lyrics by Brian Wilson set to the music of Sweet Little Sixteen, written by Chuck Berry.  Billboard ranked Surfin' U.S.A. the No. 1 song of 1963.



Many of the early Beach Boys' songs were about surfing. Dennis Wilson was the only Beach Boy who actually surfed, but surfing was a very popular at the time, especially with teenagers who bought records. For The Beach Boys, the surfing subculture gave them an opportunity to write songs about adventure and fun while exploring vocal harmonies and new production techniques. And while the majority of Americans didn't surf, the songs represented California, which was considered new and modern and a great place to be. Surfing, and California by extension, became more about a state of mind.


March 4, 1967 -
The Rolling Stones song, Ruby Tuesday, topped the charts on this date.



Brian Jones played the recorder (it sounds like a flute) on this song. He was a founding member of the group and fancied himself their leader, which along with a debilitating drug habit, starting causing problems in the band around this time. He was booted from the group in June 1969, and found dead in his swimming pool less than a month later.


March 4, 1979 -
Mary Tyler Moore's second ill-conceived venture in a variety series, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour, co-starring Dody Goodman, Michael Keaton, Joyce Van Patten, Ron Rifkin, and Doris Roberts, premiered on CBS on this date.



The show's premise was to give the audience a fictionalized view into the life of the star of a television variety show, much as The Jack Benny Show had purported to do two decades earlier on the same network. Unlike the Benny show, or Moore's sitcoms, but more like her earlier variety show the previous fall, The Mary Tyler Moore Hour would have trouble attracting a sizable audience. The series only lasted 11 episodes.


March 4, 1982 -
The David Zucker, Jim Abrahams, and Jerry Zucker silliness, Police Squad, starring Leslie Nielsen as Frank Drebin, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Each week featured a "Special Guest Star" who is killed off in the opening credits. Lorne Greene and William Conrad are knifed and tossed out of cars; Georg Stanford Brown has a safe dropped on him; Florence Henderson is shot during a musical number; Robert Goulet is executed by a firing squad; and William Shatner avoids a burst of machine-gun-fire only to drink a glass of poisoned wine.


March 4, 1984 -
Appearing in front of 50,000 people, The Police play the final concert of their Synchronicity tour in Melbourne, Australia, on this date.



It is their last show, except for a few special events together, until 2007.


March 4, 1996 -
The Beatles song Real Love, compiled from a John Lennon demo recording, is released in the UK, on this date. Yoko Ono supplied Lennon's demo for this song and Free As A Bird and gave the remaining Beatles permission to use them.



Jeff Lynne from The Electric Light Orchestra put this together. He has produced albums for George Harrison and played with him in The Traveling Wilburys. John Lennon recorded the demo on a small tape recorder, which posed a challenge when Lynne tried to mix it with updated tracks. He was able to use a noise reduction system to improve the sound.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
March 4, 1837 -
The "Windy City", "Chi-Town", "Second City," and the "City of Broad Shoulders" - Chicago became incorporated as a city on this date.



10,000 extra votes from various local cemeteries were counted that day alone.

Remember, vote early, vote often.


March 4, 1849 -
This is a US secret you probably don't know - this is the day America had no President.



James K. Polk (whose cause of death was officially listed as "diarrhea") officially stepped down as the 11th US president and President Zachary Taylor (who would die in office after eating cherries and milk at a July 4th celebration) refused to be sworn-in on a Sunday.



US Sen. David Rice Atchison (1807-1886) of Missouri then technically held office as president until Zachary Taylor took his oath the next day. However Atchison’s term as president pro tempore of the Senate had also expired, and his new term did not begin until March 5. For the rest of his life, Atchison enjoyed polishing this story, describing his "presidency" as "the honestest administration this country ever had."


March 4, 1861 -
The first official flag of the Confederate States of America, called the Stars and Bars, having seven stars, for the seven states that initially formed the Confederacy, was formally adopted as the flag of the Confederate States of America, on this date.

This flag was sometimes difficult to distinguish from the Union flag under battle conditions, so the flag was changed to the Stainless Banner. The union of the Stainless Banner, known as the Southern Cross, became the one more commonly used in military operations. The Southern Cross had 13 stars, adding the four states that joined the Confederacy after Fort Sumter, and the two divided states of Kentucky and Missouri.



While, the Southern states were adopting their banner, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the 16th President of the United States on this date as well.

So now you know.


March 4, 1884 -
...By a man's finger-nails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots, by his trouser knees, by the callosities of his forefinger and thumb, by his expression, by his shirt cuffs -- by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent inquirer in any case is almost inconceivable....



Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson begin their work on the case in A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, on this date (or maybe it didn't. I'm not going to join the massive debate the Holmesians get involved in with the accuracy of this date.)


March 4, 1933 -
Frances Perkins began on this date as the U.S. Secretary of Labor, the first female member of a president’s cabinet, in 1933. Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed her during the Great Depression to help establish Social Security and other public safety net programs that were known collectively as The New Deal.



For 12 years in that cabinet role, she built a reputation as the woman behind the New Deal. She also helped establish the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, workplace safety regulations (after a tragic factory fire), and the standard 40-hour work week.


March 4, 1952 -
Ronald Reagan married his 'mommy' Nancy Davis,

in the San Fernando Valley, on this date.


March 4, 1960 -
Waaaa, Ricky I don't want to be married anymore to you, you lousy two bit skirt chasing, whoremonger.



Lucille Ball filed divorce from Desi Arnaz on this date.


March 4, 1966 -
John Lennon claimed that The Beatles were "bigger than Jesus", and that "Christianity will... vanish and shrink" on this date.



I guess he was dead wrong about that.


March 4, 1974 -
The first issue of People Magazine featuring actress Mia Farrow, starring in the movie The Great Gatsby, was released on this date.

The duration of your stay in the bathroom has never been the same.


March 4, 1994 -
Comedian John Candy died on this date.





Just think - the fun Dr. Tongue and Desi Arnaz are having in the 3D House of Stewardesses. (So remeber, EVERYBODY MAMBO!)


And so it goes.