No great story ever started with someone eating a salad.

Today is National Tequila Day. Tequila originated from Mexico in the 1800s and is now one of the most popular alcohols worldwide, especially in America.



While I am not a tequila man myself, I would not turn a Frozen Margarita down on a hot and humid day.


July 24 1937 -
The Looney Tunes short, Porky's Badtime Story, directed by Bob Clampett, and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



Both characters wear trousers here as part of their work attire. Porky seldom would be seen in pants going forward.


July 24, 1939 -
Paramount Pictures' William Wellman's action adventure film, Beau Geste, starring Gary Cooper, Ray Milland, Robert Preston, Brian Donlevy, and Susan Hayward premiered in the US on this date.



At the film's world premiere, the first reel of the 1926 silent version of Beau Geste was shown just before the entire 1939 sound version, in an effort to demonstrate how far films had advanced in thirteen years. This almost backfired because the 1939 film, apparently, followed the 1926 one extremely closely, and some of the first-night critics were annoyed, rather than pleased at this, feeling that the 1939 version should have been more imaginative. However, this did not keep the 1939 version from becoming a smash hit and a film classic.


July 24, 1946 -
Paramount Studios released the film-noir classic, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott and Kirk Douglas (his film debut,) on this date.



Kirk Douglas earned this, his debut role, with the help of his old drama school friend, Lauren Bacall. Bacall knew that producer Hal B. Wallis was looking for fresh talent and she suggested Douglas to him. She encouraged Wallis to watch a play featuring Douglas. When he did, Wallis was so impressed by the performance that he cast Douglas in this film.


July 24, 1948 -
... Crumbly Crunchies are the best
Look delicious on your vest
Serve them to unwanted guests
Stuff the mattress with the rest....



A great Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, Haredevil Hare, and starring Bugs Bunny, was released on this date. (It was the first appearance of Marvin the Martian, though he wasn't named until decades later.)



Look for a photo of then freshman California Congressman Richard M. Nixon who appears in the faux newspaper The Daily Snooze under the headline "Heroic Rabbit Volunteers As First Passenger."


July 24, 1952 -
Fred Zinnemann's classic western, High Noon, starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and Thomas Mitchell, premiered in New York City, on this date.



In 1951, after 25 years in show business, Gary Cooper's professional reputation was in decline, and he was dropped from the "Motion Picture Herald's" list of the top-ten box-office performers. In the following year, he made a big comeback, at the age of 51, with this film.


July 24 1954 -
The Looney Tunes short, Bewitched Bunny, directed by Chuck Jones, and starring Bugs Bunny and Witch Hazel, was released on this date.



Witch Hazel's cookbook has such recipes as: Waif Waffles, Moppet Muffins, Urchin Pie, Kiddie Kippers, Children Chops, Smorgas Boy.


July 24, 1971 -
The Raiders' (formerly Paul Revere and the Raiders) song, Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian) reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



The song was written by John D. Loudermilk, a singer/songwriter who recorded as "Johnny Dee". Loudermilk cut 10 of his own albums between the years 1961-1979; he hit the charts with 10 of his own singles between the years 1957-1967, and had tremendous success writing songs for other artists. Working from Nashville, Tennessee, he also wrote hit songs for the Chet Atkins, Johnny Cash, Stonewall Jackson, and Sue Thompson. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1976.


July 24, 1974 -
The controversial film Death Wish, based on the novel by Brian Garfield, directed by Michael Winner and starring Charles Bronson was released in the US on this date.



After finishing The Stone Killer, Charles Bronson and Michael Winner wanted to make another film together, and were discussing further projects. "What do we do next?" asked Bronson. "The best script I've got is 'Death Wish'. It's about a man whose wife and daughter are mugged and he goes out and shoots muggers," said Winner. "I'd like to do that," Bronson said. "The film?" asked Winner. Bronson replied, "No . . . shoot muggers."


July 24, 1976 -
Elton John's duet with Kiki Dee, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



This was the second-biggest-selling record of 1976 in both the UK and US (In the UK, Save Your Kisses for Me was #1; in the US it was Silly Love Songs by Wings.


July 24, 1976 -
The Manhattans' song Kiss And Say Goodbye hits #1 in the US on this date.



The song was produced by the Philadelphia-based record producer Bobby Martin, a former member of the MFSB band of session musicians and recorded in 1975 at Joe Tarsia's Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia. It would be a full year until it was released, possibly as the label was concerned about dropping a ballad during the disco explosion. "We thought that 'Kiss and Say Goodbye' would be the wrong song to release, and we were very much upset with Columbia choosing a R&B-Country song during the disco era," said Lovett. "And how wrong we were!"


July 24, 1978 -
The truly execrable Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band starring the Brothers Gibbs was released upon an unsuspecting public on this date.



Alice Cooper checked himself into a New York City rehab facility (which he quickly discovered was more of a mental asylum) for alcoholism. He was granted a temporary leave for three days (November 18 to 20, 1977) to record his vocals and shoot his scenes for the film.


July 24, 1977 -
Donna Summer's single I Feel Love, with producer Giorgio Moroder reached No. #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



I Feel Love is an electronic music landmark, with a track built entirely on a Moog synthesizer. Giorgio Moroder, a leading light in the genre and a longtime collaborator with Donna Summer, came up with the music. His associate, Pete Bellotte, produced the track with him and wrote the lyrics with Summer. Moroder and Bellotte are responsible for most of Summer's early disco hits.


July 24, 1993 –
UB40's cover of the Elvis Presley song, Can’t Help Falling In Love, hits No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Elvis Presley originally recorded this in 1961. UB40 were asked to record an Elvis tune of their choice for a new film called Honeymoon In Vegas. The band's drummer, James Brown, suggested they record this song because it was one of his favorites. The band agreed but when they presented the song to the film director Andrew Bergman, they learned that a few other acts had recorded the same song, with Clarence Giddons and Bruno Hernandez's version making it into the film, whilst Bono's version ended up on the soundtrack album, even though it wasn't in the film. However it was included on the soundtrack for the movie Sliver, starring Sharon Stone and William Baldwin.


July 24, 1998 -
The unflinchingly gritty Steven Spielberg war flick, Saving Private Ryan premiered on this date.



The Omaha Beach scene cost $11 million to shoot, and involved up to 1,000 extras, some of whom were members of the Irish Army Reserve. Of those extras, 20-30 of them were amputees, issued with prosthetic limbs, to play soldiers who had their limbs blown off.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History:
July 24, 1567 –
Mary of Guise, the French wife of Scotland's King James V, gave birth to a daughter named Mary in 1542. A week later, King James died, and the very young Mary became Queen of Scotland.

Prince Edward of England proposed marriage to the Scottish Queen almost immediately, and his proposal is therefore known as the Rough Wooing. While the underage prince waited for the Queen to acquire enough verbal skills to respond, the Scottish Parliament annulled the engagement.

Edward’s father, King Henry VIII of England, considered this an insult and declared war. After a particularly nasty Scottish defeat in 1547, young Mary was sent to France. It was hoped she would learn to read and write there and perhaps eventually reach puberty.

She was raised at the court of King Henry II, which should have taught her some manners, but instead inspired her to marry the Dauphin. The Dauphin eventually became king and then died, leaving Mary the dowager Queen of France at age eighteen. Meanwhile, her mother had died in Scotland, sparking a Protestant rebellion. The Scots imported the Reformation and banned the Pope. Mary, being Catholic, returned to Scotland to work out a compromise: the country could be Protestant as long as she was allowed to remain Catholic.

Four years later, she married her cousin, Lord Darnley - a Tudor Stewart. Unfortunately, he turned out to be insufferable, and even the birth of a son couldn't induce him to behave. The following year, his house exploded. Darnley survived the blast, only to be discovered nearby, having been strangled. It was generally agreed that this constituted a bad day.

Mary was then kidnapped by one of the leading suspects in Darnley's murder, the Earl of Bothwell. She made him a duke and married him.



This angered the Protestants, who rose up against her and, on this very day in 1567, forced her to abdicate in favor of her son, who was immediately crowned James VI.



She later escaped, raised an army, and was promptly defeated. She became a guest (or, in English, prisoner) of Queen Elizabeth I until she was caught writing letters asking her friends to support (or, in Scottish, kill) the English Queen.

She was therefore beheaded and remains dead to this day.

(This will be on the test.)


325 years ago today, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a trading post at Fort Ponchartrain for France on the future site of the city of Detroit, Michigan, in an attempt to halt the advance of the English into the western Great Lakes region.

Mr Cadillac himself thereby came to be known as "the Rolls Royce of settlers." M. Cadillac would be happy to see the improvements going on in Detroit today.


July 24, 1883 -
Captain Matthew Webb wasn't having a great day today. Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875, was attempting to swim across the Niagara River just below the falls.



The Captain was looking to collect a £12,000.00 fortune, when he jumped from his small boat into the raging torrent. He hit his head on jagged rocks and drowned while trying to swim across the Niagara River. His last words were (apparently,) "If I die, they will do something for my wife?"


July 24, 1908  –
Sometimes, it's good to be the king ... you get to decide the length of the Olympic marathon.

When the modern Olympics began in Athens in 1896, a race of 40 kilometers, or 24.85 miles, was held to commemorate the legend of Pheidippides. He's the guy who ran from Marathon to Athens, cried, "Nike!," realized he'd forgotten to sign the endorsement contract, then promptly died.

For the 1908 London Olympic marathon, held on this date, the race was extended to 26 miles so that the Princess of Wales (the future Queen Mary, grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II) and her children (King Edward VII's grandchildren) could watch the start, while Queen Alexandra could see the finish from the Royal Box. The organizers ultimately settled on a course measuring 26 miles and 385 yards, running from Windsor Castle to the royal entrance of the White City Stadium, followed by one lap of the track and finishing directly in front of the Royal Box.



The race had a thrilling conclusion—entering the stadium first was Italy's Dorando Pietri. But he was exhausted and delirious. He turned the wrong way on the track, reversed course, and stumbled, according to news accounts, five times during the final quarter-mile. By helping Pietri back to his feet, race officials inadvertently cost him the gold medal. But as the official Olympic report explained, "It was impossible to leave him there, for it looked as if he might die in the very presence of the Queen."



Pietri reached the tape first, collapsed, and was placed on a stretcher. Arriving second was John Hayes of the United States. The Americans protested the assistance given to Pietri, and Hayes was declared the winner.

Though he was disqualified, Pietri became a hero. Queen Alexandra presented him with a silver cup. He inspired an international marathon craze. Irving Berlin even wrote a song about him. Finally, in 1921, the official marathon distance was standardized at 26 miles and 385 yards.

So now you know.


July 24, 1915 -
Almost 850 Western Electric employees and their family members perish when the chartered steamer SS Eastland rolled over in Chicago harbor on this date. History blames the top-heaviness of the ship, exacerbated (ironically) by the recent addition of lifeboats.



Moral: Avoid company picnics.


July 24, 1959 -
While visiting a model kitchen in a U.S. exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard M. Nixon debated with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a U.S. exhibition in the famous 'Kitchen' debate, on the merits of capitalism and communism



Nixon correctly said that the $100-a-month mortgage for the model ranch house was well within the reach of a typical American steelworker.

(Stop dreaming about a $100-a-month mortgage.)


Before you go - not to bum you out but, Autumn, will begin in 60 days.



Soon enough the days will grow shorter and we still may never read the Epstein files.



And so it goes.

Back in the saddle again

July 23, 1950 -
The Singing Cowboy Gene Autry's series The Gene Autry Show, co-starring Pat Buttram, sponsored by Wrigley's Doublemint Gum, premiered on CBS-TV, on this date.



Two-thirds of the way through the first season's production, Pat Buttram was severely injured in an explosion and was hospitalized for several months. In order to complete the production run, his sidekick role was filled in the remaining episodes by Chill Wills, Fuzzy Knight and Alan Hale Jr.. Wills and Knight wore the same costume as Buttram so that long shots of stock footage could be easily used, but there was no disguising Hale's bulk - he wore his own distinctive clothing.


July 23, 1938 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Cinderella Meets Fella, directed by Tex Avery, and starring Elmer Fudd, was released on this date.



After moving to MGM, Avery made a more famous Cinderella parody entitled Swing Shift Cinderella.


July 23, 1949 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Bad Ol' Putty Tat, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Syvester and Tweety Bird, was released on this date.



The two badminton players in this cartoon are caricatures of screenwriters Michael Maltese (the short, fat one) and Tedd Pierce (the tall, thin one).


July 23, 1955 -
Chuck Berry's first single, Maybellene was released on this date.



Chess Records gave the disc jockey Alan Freed a co-writing credit on this song (and also some cash) in exchange for playing it on the radio. Deals like this led to the Payola scandals, which led to rules prohibiting record companies from paying DJs to play their songs. Marshall Chess, the son of Chess founder Leonard Chess, recalled to The Independent newspaper May 27, 2008: "He [Freed] played the hell out of Chuck's first record, 'Maybellene', because of that. My father says he made the deal, and by the time he got to Pittsburgh, which was half a day's drive away, my uncle back at home was screaming, 'What's happening? We're getting all these calls for thousands of records!'"


July 23, 1962 –
Telstar relayed the first publicly transmitted, live, trans-Atlantic television program, featuring CBS’s Walter Cronkite and NBC’s Chet Huntley in New York, and the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby in Brussels.



The first broadcast was intended to have been remarks by President John F. Kennedy, but the signal was acquired before the president was ready, so the lead-in time was filled with a short segment of a televised game between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field. Although no longer functional, Telstar remains in orbit.


July 23, 1966 -
Frank Sinatra's song Strangers in the Night, hits the top of the charts on this date.



This was a big comeback song for Sinatra, becoming his first #1 pop hit in 11 years. His previous chart-topper was Learnin' The Blues in 1955.


July 23, 1979 –
Electric Light Orchestra dedicated the release, on this date, of the single Don’t Bring Me Down from their album Discovery to Skylab which had crashed back to Earth on July 11, 1979. (The song is the first ELO song without any strings.)



Don't Bring Me Down became the biggest hit ELO ever had on their own in the U.S., topped only by a collaborative single with Olivia Newton-John on Xanadu, from the 1980 movie of the same name.


July 23, 1982 -
Warner Bros. released George Roy Hill's adaptation of John Irving's novel, The World According to Garp, starring Robin Williams, Mary Beth Hurt, Glenn Close, and John Lithgow, on this date.



Glenn Close plays Robin Williams's mother, yet she is only four years older than him. Similarly, Close and actress Mary Beth Hurt played women from successive generations yet in real life they are only one year apart in age.


July 23, 1983 -
The Police kicked off the North American leg of their 107-date Synchronicity world tour at Comiskey Park (now rebuilt as U.S. Cellular Field) in Chicago, on this date. Co-incidentially, their fifth and last album, Synchronicity, hits #1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



The album gained its title from Carl Gustav Jung’s book Synchronicity. The word by definition means unconnected events that have a causal connection. That definition really informs the overall concept of the album with each song being so individual yet each song fit like a puzzle piece that once connected created a total picture.


July 23, 1984 -
The Cars released the song Drive from their Heartbeat City album on this date. The song goes on to become The Cars' highest charting single where it peaked at No.3 on the US chart.



The video was directed by a 23-year-old Timothy Hutton, who had won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the movie Ordinary People. Hutton aspired to direct, so when Ric Ocasek of The Cars suggested he do it, Hutton jumped at the chance. Hutton cast the Czechoslovakian model Paulina Porizkova as the female lead in the clip. Auditioning for the role was the first time she met Ocasek, whom she married in 1989.


July 23, 1987 -
Columbia Pictures released the biopix about Richie Valens, La Bamba, starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Esai Morales, Rosanna DeSoto, and Elizabeth Peña, on this date.



This movie is often thought of alongside The Buddy Holly Story, but La Bamba is far more accurate. For example, in the Buddy Holly Story they imply that the bus had broken down, when in fact it was the heater that had broken down. However, Buddy Holly's main reason for chartering a plane was primarily because he had run out of clean laundry and wanted time to get to a laundromat before the following evening's show.


July 22, 1993 -
John Singleton's drama, Poetic Justice, starring Janet Jackson and Tupac Shakur, opens in US theatres on this date.



In one scene, Justice (Janet Jackson) is listening to the Stevie Wonder song Never Dreamed You'd Leave In Summer. Sixteen years later, Wonder performed that song at the memorial for Janet's brother, Michael.


July 23, 1996 -
Fiona Apple released her debut album, Tidal, on this date.



Fiona Apple typically works by writing songs that are extensions of her journals, baring her soul for all to hear in a process that can be years in the making. The song Criminal was atypical for her process: she claims she wrote the song in just 45 minutes to prove she could, and to give her record label (Work, a division of Sony) the hit song they were after. The album itself went on to sell over 3 million copies in America.


Another little known ACME's Monopoly card


Today in History:
July 23, 776BC -
A very large number of sweaty, muscular men poured into Greece, shaved their entire bodies, oiled themselves up and ran naked through the streets on this date (and it wasn't even Greek Pride Day.)



The first Olympic Games opened in Olympia on this date.


July 23, 1848 -
Protesting slavery as well as the U.S. involvement in the Mexican War, Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his $1 poll tax and was arrested on this date in history. That night, a relative came by and paid Thoreau's poll tax.

When he was told he could leave, Thoreau objected and was threatened with force to remove him. His written account of the experience is later read by Leo Tolstoi, Marcel Proust, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis and William Butler Yeats and it persuaded them to advocate civil disobedience.


July 23, 1885 –



One of the most famous residents of West 122nd Street and Riverside Drive made a most fateful decision on this date.

He decided to give up the ghost.

In 1881, Ulysses S. Grant - American general, the eighteenth President of the United States, and a famous horseback-riding drunk - purchased a house in New York City and placed almost all of his financial assets into an investment banking partnership with Ferdinand Ward. The arrangement was suggested by Grant's son Buck (Ulysses Jr.), who was having success on Wall Street.

Very wrong move.

Ward swindled Grant (and other investors whom Grant had encouraged) in 1884, bankrupted the company - Grant & Ward - and fled. Ward had perfected the large-scale investment swindle decades before Charles Ponzi gave the scheme its name.

Grant learned around the same time that he was suffering from throat cancer. He and his family were left destitute; at the time, retired U.S. Presidents did not receive pensions, and Grant had forfeited his military pension when he became President. He first wrote several articles about his Civil War campaigns for The Century Magazine, which were warmly received. Mark Twain then offered Grant a generous contract for the publication of his memoirs, including 75 percent of the book's sales as royalties.



Terminally ill, Grant finished the book just a few days before his death. The memoirs sold more than 300,000 copies, earning the Grant family more than $450,000. Twain promoted the book as "the most remarkable work of its kind since the Commentaries of Julius Caesar," and Grant's memoirs have also been praised by writers such as Matthew Arnold and Gertrude Stein as among the finest ever written..

Ulysses S. Grant died at 8:06 a.m. on Thursday, July 23, 1885, at the age of 63, in Mount McGregor, Saratoga County, New York. His last word was reportedly a request: "Water." (I'd like to believe it was actually, "Sir, cut my bourbon with water.").

Grant's funeral was one of the greatest outpourings of public grief in history. A massive funeral procession marched through New York City from City Hall to Riverside Park. It included 60,000 marchers, stretched seven miles, and took up to five hours to pass. Well over one million spectators witnessed the procession.



Numerous dignitaries attended, including President Grover Cleveland, his Cabinet, the Justices of the Supreme Court, the two living ex-presidents (Hayes and Arthur), virtually the entire Congress, and almost every prominent surviving figure from the Civil War.

Civil War veterans from both North and South took part, reflecting the high esteem in which Grant was held throughout a reunified country. General Winfield S. Hancock led the procession, and Grant's pallbearers included former comrades - General William T. Sherman, General Philip H. Sheridan, and Admiral David D. Porter - as well as former Confederates - Generals Joseph E. Johnston and Simon B. Buckner.



Completed in 1897, Grant's Tomb is the second-largest mausoleum in North America (President Garfield's Memorial is the first).


July 23, 1886 -
New York saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed to have made a daredevil plunge from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River on this date.



However, having the perfect new New York spirit, few historians believe the jump actually occurred


July 23, 1904 –
At the turn of the last century, ice cream men were a breed apart. It was hard work making ice cream, and the rewards were few.

"You don't choose ice cream," they said. "Ice cream chooses you."

Well, Charles E. Menches was an ice cream man. They say it ran in his veins. (They say, forget the autopsy: you don't need actual ice cream in your blood to have it in your veins.)

Charles E. Menches had always known he'd be an ice cream man. Everyone had known. While other boys in St. Louis played stickball or jacks, little Chuckie experimented with different creams and salts. While other boys dreamed of becoming doctors or lawyers, little Chuckie dreamed of exotic flavor combinations like cinnamon-onion swirl and artichoke-pistachio.

Charles E. Menches' passion for ice cream was infectious. He made his brother Frank an ice cream man. They began traveling to fairs and special events across the Midwest, selling ice cream from a tent. (Apparently, they also had a thing for hamburgers - the brothers also lay claim to having introduced the hamburger to the American public. But that's another story...)

They did what all ice cream men did: they scooped their ice cream into bowls and sold it to their customers. People loved ice cream back then, just as they love it today. And why not? It was ice cream.



One sweltering day at the St. Louis World's Fair - July 23, 1904, to be precise - Charles E. Menches and his brother Frank sold so much ice cream that they ran out of dishes.

An ordinary ice cream man might have folded up his tent and taken the rest of the day off. But not Charles E. Menches. Charles E. Menches knew the code of the ice cream man. More than that - he lived it.

The people of St. Louis would not be denied their ice cream. Not if Charles E. Menches had anything to say about it.

The tent beside Charles and Frank's ice cream stand belonged to Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian pastry maker who sold sweet wafer pastries called zalabia. (Ernest A. Hamwi was what Syrians would call a zalabia man, but they wouldn't say he had zalabia in his veins. Syrians would never talk such tripe.)

In a moment of brilliant inspiration, Charles E. Menches bought all of Ernest A. Hamwi's zalabia and rolled them into cones. He then began selling his ice cream in sweet wafer cones instead of dishes.

The ice cream cone was born.



(Sure, Italo Marchiony had received U.S. Patent No. 746971 for the ice cream cone seven months earlier in New York.

But Italo Marchiony had never been an ice cream man.)

Anyway, it beats the old system of cramming your mouth with as much ice cream as you could hold before suffocating.


July 23, 1966 -
The "longest suicide in Hollywood" finally came to a sad on this date, with the death of Montgomery Clift of a heart attack brought on by his severe drug and alcohol addictions.



After his near-fatal car accident in 1956, (in which, Elizabeth Taylor saved the actor from choking to death by removing two teeth lodged in his throat) Montgomery Clift stumbled through life in a haze of pain and professional disappointments. Clift still managed to turn in some amazing performances during this period



(Monty got a raw deal indeed.)

He is now the most famous 'resident' of Quaker Cemetery in Prospect Park Brooklyn.


July 23, 1984 –
Vanessa Williams became the first Miss America to resign when she surrendered her crown after (previously shot) nude photos of her appeared in Penthouse magazine.



Ms. Williams rebounded from the Miss America scandal and has gone on to a successful career as an actress and recording artist. And if you think I'm going to link to the photos in question, more fool you, bunkies.



And so it goes.

It is kisstomary to cuss the bride

Today is Spooner's Day, honoring Reverend William Archibald Spooner, a 19th Century British clergyman, who was born on this date in 1844. Spoonerisms are usually a two-word phrase in which the first letters (and occasionally the initial vowels) of the words are reversed.



Reverend Spooner was adept at the art of the oopsy linguae, or misspeak. As a result, certain verbal miscues have been tagged Spoonerisms.


July 20, 1944 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Hare Force, directed by Friz Freleng, and starring Bugs Bunny was released on this date.



Both Bugs and Sylvester the Dog hum/sing snippets of As Time Goes By which featured prominently in the 1944 Best Picture Oscar-winning Casablanca.


July 21, 1950 -
The Looney Tunes short, t's Hummer Time, directed by Robert McKimson, and starring Foghorn Leghorn, was released on this date.



The sign "DON'T BE HALF SAFE" refers to Arrid deodorant. During the 1940s and 1950s, its famous slogan was "Don't be half-safe-use Arrid to be sure", which gave rise to "Half-Safe," the name of the amphibious vehicle which Ben Carlin used to circumnavigate the world.


July 22, 1959 -
Either considered the worst or greatest film ever made, Ed Wood Jr's sci-fi classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space, starring Bela Lugosi, Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson, Vampira and narrated by Criswell, opened in the US on this date.



Bela Lugosi appears in footage shot just before his death, but with no script in mind. Edward D. Wood Jr. wrote the script to accommodate all the footage shot in a cemetery and outside Tor Johnson's house in the new production. Lugosi was doubled by Tom Mason, Wood's wife's chiropractor, who was significantly taller than Lugosi, and played the part with a cape covering his face.


July 22, 1963 -
The Beach Boys released the single Surfer Girl, (the b-side is Little Deuce Coupe,) 0n this date. The single was the first Beach Boys record to have Brian Wilson officially credited as the producer.



Brian Wilson's girlfriend when he wrote this song was Judy Bowles, who was with him before he formed the band. It's not clear if she directly inspired this song (Wilson has given conflicting answers), but he did write another song about her around this time called Judy, which was not released until it was issued on a collection of outtakes in 1991.


July 22, 1964 -
One of Hitchcock's most underrated (and sexually twisted) films, Marnie premiered on this date.



To film real horses riding without having to work outdoors, Alfred Hitchcock came up with the idea of running the horses on a gigantic treadmill. Crew members objected to the idea, because it was considered highly unsafe, and because they simply didn't think it would work. Still, Hitchcock wanted to at least try it, and when they did, it worked without a problem. Originally, a harness was attached to Tippi Hedren during these shots for safety reasons, but it was removed when it was found to impede shooting.


July 22, 1967 -
The Toho Studio released King Kong Escapes (Kingu Kongu no gyakushû,) directed by Ishiro Honda in Japan on this date. (Despite the master villain being named Dr. Who, this film has no connection to Doctor Who.)



Two costumes of King Kong were made. The arms of the first costume were very long, so Haruo Nakajima's hands did not reach those of the costume. He had to grasp onto sticks that were attached to the hands of the costume. He wore a second costume with shorter arms whenever they were shooting footage of King Kong battling other monsters. Like with Toho's previous Kong costume, Nakajima was sewn shut inside the suit.


July 22, 1977 -
Stiff Records released Elvis Costello's debut studio album, My Aim Is True, produced by Nick Lowe, on this date in the UK.



Elvis Costello quit his day job at Elizabeth Arden on July 5, 1977. I guess he'd made a living since then.


July 22, 1983 –
20th Century Fox jumped on the strange new bandwagon of Dad's taking care of their kids when the film, Mr. Mom, starring Michael Keaton, Teri Garr, Martin Mull, Ann Jillian, and Christopher Lloyd went into a limited release on this date.



Michael Keaton turned down Splash to do this movie. Ron Howard was asked to direct, but he turned it down in order to make Splash.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts


Today in History:
July 22, 1587 -
Roanoke, the colony founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, might have gone missing on this date.



Recent development point to the fact that the inhabitants of Roanoke didn't go missing, they appear to have originated the joke that after certain people left, everyone else moved and didn't leave a forwarding address.


July 22, 1893-
Katharine Lee Bates wrote the poem America the Beautiful after admiring the view from the top of Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, Colorado, on this date. While the lyrics were written by Bates, its music was composed by church organist and choirmaster Samuel A. Ward at Grace Episcopal Church in Newark, New Jersey. The two never met. The poem was first published in the Fourth of July 1895 edition of the church periodical, The Congregationalist. At that time, the poem was first entitled America.



Samuel A. Ward had initially composed the song's melody in 1882 to accompany lyrics to Materna, basis of the hymn, O Mother dear, Jerusalem, though the hymn was not first published until 1892. The combination of Ward's melody and Bates's poem was finally known as America the Beautiful in 1910.


July 22, 1916 -
In San Francisco, on this date, some 50,000 people marched in a Preparedness Day parade (the largest parade ever held in the city), supporting the US intervention in World War I. The event was sponsored by business leaders and opposed by labor. A bomb went off on Market St. during the parade and 10 people were killed and 40 injured. The bomb was presumed to be set by a professed anarchist.



Labor leader Tom Mooney and his assistant, Warren K. Billings were arrested, convicted of the bombing, and sentenced to death. In 1918 Mooney's sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, the same as Billings' when a commission established by President Wilson found no clear evidence connecting the two to the crime. By 1939, evidence of perjury and false testimony at the trial had become overwhelming. California Governor Culbert Olson pardoned both men. The identity of the bomber will probably never be known.


July 22, 1933 -
Wiley Post (who possessed his flying license signed by Orville Wright) took off from Floyd Bennett Field in New York City and traveled 15,596 miles over a period of 7 days, 18 hours and 45 minutes and became the first person to fly solo around the world on this date.



Post landed back at Floyd Bennett Field in New York, completing the first round-the-world solo flight. His return was greeted by some 50,000 people.


July 22, 1934 -
John Dillinger was shot dead outside Chicago's Biograph Theatre, on this date in history. And one of the most bizarre urban legends was born.



According to the rumor, J. Edgar Hoover — pug-ugly head of the FBI and notorious transvestite — rushed to Chicago to see the corpse of Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1, for himself. Dillinger was a ladies’ man and was reported to be very specially endowed.

Hoover, after viewing the nude lifeless body of Dillinger in the morgue, orders Dillinger's member to be removed and preserved as a 'specimen' for his private files.

Rumors of Hoover's trophy dogged him for the rest of his life. He even took the extraordinary step, sometime in the late ’60s, of declaring that he "did not now nor ever have Dillinger's privates in a jar." His comments were not taken seriously, as he was reportedly wearing a size 28 Dior outfit with matching handbag (and Raymond Burr Nipple Rouge) at the time.

The Smithsonian Institution is still flooded with requests annually to view this special exhibition.


July 22, 1951 -
It's the first episode of Dogs In Space -

Two Russian dogs, Dezik and Tsygan, were the first canines to make a sub-orbital flight in history on this date.



The Russian space program used dogs quite often to determine whether a particular space mission would be safe for humans. Little know fact: the real reason Nikita Khrushchev slammed his shoe on the desk in the UN - Khrushchev had just been passed a note about a ten year investigation of Tsygan's over-familiarity with his shoe.


July 22, 1962 -
The NASA Mariner 1 spacecraft, which had been intended to become the first U.S. probe to explore the planet Venus, began flying erratically roughly four minutes after launch, goes off course, and is destroyed to prevent it from impacting a populated area, on this date.



Later investigations will reveal that the guidance instructions transmitted from the ground failed to reach the rocket due to an antenna malfunction, leaving the onboard computer in control.


July 22, 1973 –
One of the main destructive forces within our family has been these runaway egos. I think if you look at any show business family, that struggle exists.







Rufus Wainwright, American-Canadian singer-songwriter, son of Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, was born on this date.


July 22, 1975 -
Stanley Forman took the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo Fire Escape Collapse on this date.

The photograph, which is part of a series, shows 19-year-old Diana Bryant and her 2-year-old goddaughter Tiare Jones falling from the collapsed fire escape of a burning apartment building on Marlborough Street in Boston. It spurred action to improve the safety of fire escapes across the United States.


At the time of his death on this date in 1982, King Sobhuza II was the longest-reigning monarch in the world. His death also established him as the most recently-deceased monarch in the world. Today he is on a long list of continuously dead rulers.

Sobhuza began his career as Paramount Chief of the Swazi in 1921, but was not recognized as king by Great Britain, which ran the nation as a protectorate, until 1967. (The forgetful Brits have a long history of failing to recognize kings, perhaps owing to the difficulty of seeing clearly in the London fog.)



The Brits wrote a Constitution before they left, but Sobhuza did not discover it until 1973, at which point he discarded it on the grounds of its being British. Five years later he implemented a better Constitution that, surprisingly enough, left all political power in his own hands.

He died in 1982. The Constitution declared that he should be succeeded by one of his children, which seemed simple at first but was complicated by the revelation of his having had over 600 children.



(Apparently he had time on his hands for more than political power.) It took four years to find the right son, and King Mswati III has reigned ever since.


July 22, 1982 -
It's a happy 44th anniversary for over 2000 couples who were married by Rev. Moon in Madison Square Garden on this date in NYC.

As far as I can find out, nearly 75% of the couples are still married (although, perhaps not to each other.)


July 22, 2013 -
Talk about having a bad hair day - Beyonce soldiered through a concert in Montreal, Canada after her hair got tangled in the blades of a fan. She was performing Halo from an audience pit when the incident happened.



She continued to sing her encore while security guards tried to extract her from the fan, which was mounted on the edge of the stage.


July 22, 1992 –
What you have inside is much more beautiful than what's on the outside!





Selena Gomez, American singer and actress, was born on this date. My daughters love her



And so it goes.