How dare you call me a ham?

March 6, 1942 -
Ernst Lubitsch World War II comedy, To Be or Not to Be, starring Jack Benny, Carole Lombard and Robert Stack premiered on this date.



Carole Lombard took the female lead despite the strenuous objections of her husband, Clark Gable.  After the shooting of this film was finished, Carole Lombard told many people that this film was the happiest experience of her career from start to finish.


March 6, 1998 -
The Coen Bros. off-kilter take on a Raymond Chandler detective story, The Big Lebowski, opened on this date.



The Dude is in every scene of the movie. Even in the scene where the Nihilists are ordering pancakes you can see the van in which the Dude and Walter are driving. This is in keeping with the traditional film-noir, in which the protagonist is the narrator and acts as the audience's guide throughout the film.


(due to a family emergency posting in the next few day may be abbreviated - we'll see.)
Today in History:
Michelangelo Buonarotti was born on this date in 1475. He painted and sculpted so much that it began to become embarrassing for other people, so they finally decided it was time to stop procrastinating and start the Renaissance.



So they did.


On March 6, 1619, Cyrano de Bergerac was born. Mr. de Bergerac was a brilliant French satirist and playwright, a rapier wit, and, from all contemporary accounts, an accomplished musician, an enthralling conversationalist, and a charming ladies' man.



He was unfortunately best known for his nose.


Dr. John Greenwood, George Washington's personal dentist, constructed the first 'dental foot engine' on this date in 1790.

He adapts his mother’s foot treadle spinning wheel to rotate a drill.


March 6, 1836 -
... Davy, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.

The Alamo was seized by General Santa Ana - 3,000 versus 147, it wasn't much of a fair fight. The holdouts suffered unnecessary deaths, disobeying direct orders by remaining, and losing their arms and cannon to the Mexicans.  Davy - Pioneer, Patriot, Soldier, Trapper, Explorer, State Legislator, Congressman was one of the last holdouts to die on this day.



(The Mexican army managed to lose over 600 men.)  Remember the Alamo.


March 6, 1869 -
Dmitri Mendeleev presented the first periodic table to the Russian Chemical Society on this date in a presentation entitled “The Dependence between the Properties of the Atomic Weights of the Elements”. He left gaps in his charts and predicted the addition of three more elements in the near future.



Mendeleev's predictions were right, and he is credited with writing the first periodic table.


March 6, 1899 -
Friedrich Bayer and Co. patented their eponymous painkiller, Bayer aspirin in Berlin on this day. The main ingredient of aspirin, acetylsalicylic acid, had been used since ancient times, though Bayer's company was the first to offer it in a convenient and stable pill form.



It quickly gained popularity, and at one time was the most used painkiller in the world.


March 6, 1912 -
National Biscuit Company's (Nabisco) Oreo® cookies went on sale for the first time on this date.



The brand's competitor, Sunshine's Hydrox®, had debuted in 1908. (Hydrox has completely disappeared as a brand but secretly exists as 'cookie crumbs' for yogurt flavorings and an ingredient in piecrust.)


March 6, 1918 -
In January 1918, US naval collier (a ship that transports,) Cyclops was assigned to the Naval Overseas Transportation Service and sailed to Brazilian waters to fuel British ships in the South Atlantic.

It put to sea from Rio de Janeiro on February 16, 1918, and after touching at Barbados on March 3 and 4, was never heard from again. The loss of the ship without a trace is one of the sea's unsolved mysteries.


March 6, 1965 -
... Married. I can see you right now in the kitchen, bending over a hot stove. But I can't see the stove.

Daisy Juliette Baker, Groucho's favorite comic foil, died on this date.



Groucho was often cruel to her on-screen but when the cameras stopped rolling, he had nothing but nice things to say about her, calling her a “wonderful woman.”


March 6, 1970 -
In Greenwich Village, a townhouse at 18 West 11th St.exploded on this date. SDS Weathermen members Diana Oughton, Ted Gold and Terry Robbins were killed at the site where a bomb was being manufactured.

Other members went underground and became known as the Weather Underground.

March 6, 1970 -
The Beatles released Let it Be in UK on this date. Paul McCartney wrote this song supposedly after he had a dream about his mother who died when he was 14.



Since Let It Be was The Beatles last album, it made an appropriate statement about leaving problems behind and moving on in life. John Lennon hated the song because of it's apparent Christian overtones. He made the comment before recording it, "And now we'd like to do Hark The Angels Come."



The Beatles were so busy arguing with each other that Aretha Franklin was able to release a cover version of the song on her album This Girl's In Love With You (as well as Eleanor Rigby), before The Beatles version came out.


March 6, 1981 -
After 19 years presenting the CBS Evening News, Uncle Walter Cronkite, the most trusted man in America, signs off for the last time.



Now that Jon Stewart has put his load down; who will carry that weight now?



And so it goes.