Today is the Feast of the First Stardate

September 8, 1966 -
Star Trek debuted on NBC-TV, with the airing of an episode titled The Man Trap on this date.



The science fiction show proceeds to suffer in the ratings against established sitcoms Bewitched and My Three Sons. I guess space wasn't the final frontier - TV is.


Please read a newspaper, a magazine, the back of an oil stained envelope with a recipe from your grandmother, today is International Literacy Day.



At the very least, you could read the crap I purport to write every day.

And here's a word from the opposition - The dumb as dirt party.


September 8, 1951 -
Tony Bennett's first hit Because of You topped the charts on this date.



The song was written by Arthur Hammerstein (uncle of Oscar Hammerstein II) and Dudley Wilkinson in 1940.


September 8, 1966 -
That Girl starring Marlo Thomas premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



Marlo Thomas originally wanted to title the show Miss Independence which was her father's nickname for her. But ABC-TV executives felt the title sounded like a 1930's musical. Executive producer Bill Persky came up with the title That Girl based on his father's laments over his sister's behavior.


Today in History -

Constantine the Great's three sons, Constantine II, Constans and Constantius II, named themselves Caesars and divided the Roman Empire between them on this date in the year 337.



But it was nearly sixteen hundred years before Sid Caesar himself was born, on September 8, 1922.


September 8, 1504 -
Michelangelo's David, was unveiled in Florence on this date.



If you were staring too hard, you'll notice that Dave has got a turtleneck. The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.

Now put your eyes back in your head.


John Endicott arrived in Naumkeag, Massachusetts, as the leader of a group of Puritan Grumps who had purchased land patents from the Plymouth Council in England on this date in 1628.

A previous group of settlers had established themselves in Naumkeag in 1626 but had no patent and were therefore Villainous Heretics. They gladly surrendered their claim in the face of the newcomers' Superior Moral Virtue, which came in a variety of gauges.

Later Naumkeag became Salem and developed witches, ultimately resulting in a profitable cottage industry.


September 8, 1664 -
The Dutch surrendered the city of New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York, on this day. The English navigator Henry Hudson claimed credit as the city's discoverer in 1609, when he sailed into its harbor and up the river that now bears his name, looking for a passage to India. Hudson was sailing for the Dutch West India Company, so it was the Dutch who moved in and settled the area in 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.



Forty years later, New Amsterdam became a city; its population, 800. In the 1660s the Dutch and English were at war, and on September 8, 1664, a fleet sent by the Duke of York seized the city and changed the name to New York.

There are many in the Congress who have been trying to give the city back to the Dutch, the English or the Indians for that matter ever since.


September 8, 1930 -
3M of St. Paul, Minnesota begins marketing Scotch brand cellulose tape, the first waterproof, transparent, pressure-sensitive tape on this date.



The arrival of Scotch tape  changed present-wrapping practices worldwide.


September 8, 1934 -
The luxury liner Morro Castle, en route from Havana to NYC, caught fire and ran aground at Asbury Park, NJ on this date. 134 people were killed.



The crew of the cruise ship let a small blaze get out of control and commandeered most of the spots in the lifeboats. Only 15 passengers survived as compared to 119 crew.

Remember, tip your service staff.


September 8, 1935 -
Dr. Carl Austin Weiss confronted Senator Huey Long in a narrow corridor of the State House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Weiss drew a .32 caliber pistol and fires one slug into Long's abdomen on this date.



The Senator's bodyguards immediately made Swiss cheese out of Weiss, riddling him with 61 bullets. Long was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later.


September 8, 1974 -
President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon, out of respect for Nixon's family. "Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."



Later polling will indicate that this move will ultimately deny Fords being elected president in his own right. A majority of Americans will remain convinced that a dirty deal had been struck between Ford and Nixon, giving Ford the top spot and Nixon the pardon. Not to add to any sort of conspiracy theory or anything but 10 years earlier, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission.


September 8, 1974 -
In Idaho, daredevil Evel Knievel climbs into his (really just a rocket on wheels) and hit the ignition on this date.



The vehicle manages to clear the quarter-mile-wide canyon, but then the parachute deploys prematurely and prevailing winds push him back into the chasm.

Total ripoff.


September 8, 1974 -

Leonard Matlovich appeared in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine on this date. He challenged the ban against homosexuals in the US military and was given a "general" discharge by the Air Force after publicly declaring his homosexuality.



His suit dragged on until 1980 when a federal judge ordered Matlovich reinstated. Instead of re-entering the Air Force, Matlovich accepted a settlement of $160,000. Matlovich became a gay rights activist and died of AIDS in 1988.


September 8, 1993 -
The restless, refrigerated popicle like remains of President Ferdinand Marcos, whose corpse spent several years exiled in Hawaii, returned, like MacArthur, to the Philippines for its final resting place.

Luckily, Imelda had preserved her husband, so they are finally able to put him on display just like Lenin, Stalin and Pol Pot -- under glass in a mausoleum of his very own.



And so it goes