Don't shoot your eye out celebrating!

May 17, 1845 -
Inventor Stephen Perry received a patent for the rubber band.



In his honor, today is RUBBER BAND DAY.


It's National Norway Day. Please consider consuming a great deal of Fårikål (lamb and cabbage) and Hansa.



And remember, please don't pine for the fjords.


Once again, I'm old



This song was released 35 years ago today.


Today in History -
May 17, 1673 -
Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette first set out to explore the course of the Mississippi, which they believed would lead them to paradise.

Unfortunately it only took them to New Orleans, and they weren’t even in time for Mardi Gras.


May 17, 1792 -
24 drunken stock brokers got together outside of 68 Wall Street in New York under a buttonwood tree on Wall Street which earlier was the site of a stockade fence and signed an agreement with two provisions: 1) the brokers were to deal only with each other. Thereby eliminating the auctioneers, and 2) the commissions were to be .25%.

Thus the New York Stock Exchange was born (and none of it involving the shadowy derivative market.)


May 17, 1899 -
Thomas Alva Edison copyrighted the first western film, The Cripple Creek Bar Room, which he had shot at his Black Maria studio in West Orange, New Jersey, on this date.



Although there was little, if any, plot to this short film, it was the first with a setting in the west.


May 17, 1940 -
Garson Kanin's screwball comedy, My Favorite Wife, opened on this date.



Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, who play rivals in this film, lived together for twelve years from 1932 to 1944 (not that there's anything wrong with that.)


May 17, 1950 -
Nicholas Ray's, excellent film noir, In a Lonely Place, premiered on this date.



"I was born when she kissed me, I died when she left me, I lived a few weeks while she loved me."

Put this on your Netflix list now.


May 17, 1974 -
During a gun battle with members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, the LAPD fires tear gas into their Watts hideout. The canisters ignite a fire which soon consumes the house. Three other SLA members, including kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst, watch the events unfold on TV in their motel room down the street from Disneyland.



Proving once again, it is the happiest place on earth.


May 17, 1992 -
Bandleader, accordion player, and soap bubble aficionado Lawrence Welk dies of pneumonia in his beachfront condo in Santa Monica, California.



The same day, the World Health Organization removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses (who knew Welk was so powerful.)

"Now for my accordion solo, Myron, will you join me?"



And so it goes