Suitcases of memories

June 16, 1956 -
Gene Vincent (Capitol Record's answer to Elvis Presley) and the Bluecaps'(so named after Ike's golf cap) Be-Bop-A-Lula, was released on this date.



This is one of those songs that has a great story behind it that is probably not true. Vincent and his record company circulated the story that he wrote the song during a 6-month stay in Portsmouth Naval Hospital, where he was recovering from a motorcycle accident. He played his guitar and came up with the tune inspired by the newspaper cartoon strip Little Lulu.


June 16, 1960 -
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho opened in New York on this date.



In the opening scene, Marion Crane is wearing a white bra because Alfred Hitchcock wanted to show her as being "angelic". After she has taken the money, the following scene has her in a black bra because now she has done something wrong and evil. Similarly, before she steals the money, she has a white purse; after she's stolen the money, her purse is black.


June 16, 1984 -
Cyndi Lauper's song Time After Time topped the charts (her first no.1 hit) on this date.



Wrestler Captain Lou Albano, who appeared in the "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" video, played a cook at a diner in this one. Lauper's mom and boyfriend were also in the video, portraying her mom and boyfriend.


Today in History:
June 16 1750 BC -
King Hammurabi died in Babylon on this date and was succeeded by his son Samsu-iluna.



I know you're saying to yourself, "Who cares?". Well, now that you know.


June 16, 1556 -
Keep this in mind: Always read your Baedeker before traveling.

Pedro Fernandes Sardinha, the first bishop of Bahia did not and he encountered some unpleasant results. The good bishop was shipwrecked between the rivers Sao Francisco and Cururipu and murdered by the indigenous natives there.

Had he read his guide book, he would have learned that;

a.) he should not wear chimichurri sauce as a cologne and
b.) the Caytes of the Brazilian coast ate the crews of every wrecked Portuguese ship they found.

Besides the first Bishop of Bahia, the obviously very hungry Indians also ate two Canons, the Procurator of the Royal Portuguese Treasury, two pregnant women and several children.

Who knew Portuguese was finger lickin' good?


June 16, 1858 -
More than 1,000 Republican delegates met in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse for the Republican State Convention. By late afternoon, they chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate for the U.S. Senate, running against Democrat Stephen A. Douglas.

Later that evening, Lincoln delivered this address to his Republican colleagues in the Hall of Representatives. The title comes a sentence from the speech's introduction, "A house divided against itself cannot stand," which paraphrases a statement by Jesus in the New Testament.

If only Lincoln had read his Scriptures a little more closely he would have uncovered the passage that had confused many biblical scholars, "Hey Abe, Don't go to Ford's Theatre on Good Friday."


June 16, 1890 -
British comedian Arthur Stanley Jefferson (Stan Laurel), was born on this date. He acted in 190 films (many of them with his partner Oliver Hardy) and was awarded a Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1961.



He died in 1965 from a heart attack. At Laurel's funeral, Buster Keaton said, "Chaplin wasn't the funniest, I wasn't the funniest, this man was the funniest."


June 16, 1904 -
Happy Bloomsday! The straight-A English majors will greet one another joyously. Yes - yes - yes! they'll titter. It will all be terrific fun.



They'll feel smart and proud and better than the rest of us (and you again can feel morally superior for knowing it), and now you know why.


June 16, 1948 -
In the first skyjacking of a commercial plane, three armed men stormed the cockpit of the Miss Macao, a passenger seaplane operated by Cathay Pacific airline.

When the pilot refuses to turn over the controls, he was shot dead and the plane crashes into the ocean. The only survivor among the 27 people on board was the leader of the terrorists.

Oops.


June 16, 1958 -
Imre Nagy, once prime minister of Hungary for all of ten days, was executed by the Soviet Union for attempting to withdraw his country from the Warsaw Pact on this date.



It is said that Nikita Khrushchev had Nagy executed, "as a lesson to all other leaders in socialist countries."

That'll learn em.


June 16, 1959 -
While entertaining friends at his home, George Reeves (Ben Affleck), who played the title character in the original Superman TV series, goes upstairs to his bedroom and commits suicide with a 9mm German Luger.



This has been hotly debated and it is now believe that the irate husband of a B movie actress Reeves was sleeping with, shot the actor in his home.


June 16, 1961 -
This may be a shock to some of you readers but some male ballet dancers engage in an active sodomy lifestyle. Rudolf Nureyev was a major buggerer, much to the consternation of both the Kirov management and the Russian political authorities. In the Kirov's first-ever appearance in Paris in 1961, Nureyev was an outstanding success, yet his defiance of company regulations about mingling with foreigners, provoked a command return to Moscow.



Rudolf Nureyev defected from the Kirov Ballet at Le Bourget Airport in France while he was on the verge of flying back to USSR on this date. Within five days, Nureyev embarked on a six-month season with the international Grand Ballet du Marquis de Cuevas, dancing the Prince and the Blue Bird in The Sleeping Beauty.


June 16, 1963 -
Valentina Tereshkova, piloting the Vostok 6, became the first woman to travel in space.



With her single flight, she logged more flight time than the combined times of all American astronauts who had flown before that date.


June 16, 1976 -
15,000 schoolchildren take to the streets of Soweto to protest South Africa's adoption of bilingual instruction in the Afrikaans language.



The nonviolent march ends abruptly when police and soldiers open fire on the crowd, killing 600 and igniting days of rioting throughout the region.


June 16, 1999 -
The founder of the United Kingdom's Monster Raving Loony Party, one Screaming Lord Sutch (real name David Edward Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow), was found hanged at his late mother's residence. Sutch was the longest lasting party leader in the UK at the time of his death, ruled a suicide.



One of the Loony Party planks was, all vegetables sold in supermarkets, should be clearly marked “Strictly for oral use only”




And so it goes.