Sunday, August 29, 2010

It doesn't seem like it's been five years

August 29, 2005
Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle. The death toll eventually reached at least 1,600. An estimated 300 Louisiana residents died out of state; some 230 people perished in Mississippi. Property damage estimates were in the hundreds of billions of dollars.


Parts of the affected area has still not fully recovered. Please remember the victims of Hurricane Katrina.


August 29, 1958 -
Michael Joseph Jackson, the self-crowned King of Pop was born on this date.







I'm really half expected Michael and his legion of zombie dancers to swarm out of the cemetary any day now.


August 29, 1915 -
Ingrid Bergman, the Swedish three-time Academy Award, two-time Emmy Award, and Tony Award- winner (what a slouch) and "a horrible example of womanhood and a powerful influence for evil" was born (and died in 1982) on this date.



... A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous....


August 29, 1920 -
Charles Christopher "Bird" Parker, jazz saxophonist and composer was born on this date.




August 29, 1953 -
Warner Brothers introduced Speedy Gonzalez in the cartoon Cat-Tails for Two on this date.



While this is the first cartoon featuring the character Speedy Gonzales, his depiction here is vastly different from the character he would later become. It wasn't until his second appearance, Speedy Gonzales, that he was re-designed as the character we know him as today.


August 29, 1964 -
The first movie I ever saw (but not on this date), Walt Disney’s Mary Poppins opened on this date.



Robert Wise and Ernest Lehman visited the set to view rushes of Julie Andrews' performance. She was cast immediately in the lead for The Sound of Music on the strength of that visit.


August 29, 1967 -
ABC'S television ratings soared through the roof as David Janssen and Barry Morse starred in the final episode of The Fugitive.



Some sources incorrectly state that an alternate ending for the series was planned in which Kimble would be seen removing a false arm, revealing him as the true killer. In the book The Fugitive Recaptured, Barry Morse reveals that this rumor may have started with a never-realized plan that he and David Janssen had for pulling a "false arm" gag at public appearances.


Today in History:
More on Political Philosophy...

John Locke was born on August 29, 1632. Mr. Locke was a political philosopher, and many of his ideas found their way into the American Constitution.


He is best known for his essay concerning human understanding, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which remains famous to this day as the shortest essay ever written.


Another important political philosopher was born this week: Jean Baptiste Colbert was born on August 29, 1619.


Colbert was the finance minister to King Louis XIV of France. His own Political Philosophy consisted of a big pile of money. This was a very effective politics, and therefore deemed insufficiently philosophical, which is why you tend to hear more about Locke and Hegel.


August 29, 1896 -
The Chinese-American dish Chop Suey was invented in New York City by the chef to visiting Chinese Ambassador Li Hung-chang.



Here is one of those bright dividing lines: if you know what chop suey is - you're old. If you've tasted chop suey - you're really old.


August 29, 1966 -
The Beatles perform their last concert before paying fans at Candlestick Park in San Francisco.



The performance marked the end of a four-year period dominated by touring and concerts including nearly sixty U.S. appearances and over one thousand four hundred internationally.



And so it goes.

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