Happy New Year's Day

It's January 1st for those of you who don't use that new fangled Gregorian Calendar and still keep stock with the Julian Calendar.

I bet you were up all night partying like it was 1581.

January 14, 1858 -

Emperor Napoleon III (having the unusual distinction of being both the first titular president and the last monarch of France) and Empress Eugenie escape unhurt after an Italian assassin throws a bomb at their carriage as they travel to the Paris Opera to see Rossini's William Tell, Orsini and his accomplices threw three bombs at the imperial carriage. The first bomb landed among the horsemen in front of the carriage. The second bomb wounded the animals and smashed the carriage glass. The third bomb landed under the carriage and seriously wounded a policeman who was hurrying to protect the occupants. Eight people were killed and 142 wounded, though the emperor and empress were unhurt. Napoleon, ever the politician, realized that he and Eugénie had to proceed to the performance and appear in their box.



They apparently, really wanted to see the opera.

January 14, 1900 -


Speaking of opera, Giacomo Puccini's opera "Tosca" premieres in Rome.




January 14, 1919 -
Andy Rooney, American humorist, author, television personality and owner of one of the world's largest eye brows, was born on this date.




January 14, 1956 -
Womp-bomp-a-loom-op-a-womp-bam-boom!



Little Richard releases "Tutti Frutti". And yet Pat Boone's cover of the song rose higher in the charts on it's initial release.




January 14, 1957 -Humphrey Bogart, the Greatest Male Star of All Time, model for the Gerber baby and founding member of the Hollywood Rat Pack (a phrase coined by Lauren Bacall) finally decided to let the world catch up with his three drink lead and succumbs to cancer of the esophagus.



At his funeral, John Huston eulogised that:

Bogart never took himself too seriously—his work most seriously. He regarded the somewhat gaudy figure of Bogart, the star, with an amused cynicism; Bogart, the actor, he held in deep respect…In each of the fountains at Versailles there is a pike which keeps all the carp active; otherwise they would grow overfat and die. Bogie took rare delight in performing a similar duty in the fountains of Hollywood. Yet his victims seldom bore him any malice, and when they did, not for long. His shafts were fashioned only to stick into the outer layer of complacency, and not to penetrate through to the regions of the spirit where real injuries are done."


January 14, 1980 -
The Blues Brothers movie with Dan Akroyd & John Belushi opens.



I know you're going to be shocked, but during filming, John Belushi apparently got drunk, went to a stranger's house, asked if he could have a glass of milk and a sandwich and then crashed on their couch for a couple of hours before the cast and crew found him.


And so it goes