The humidity is sticking around for another day or so

A little extra dab of antiperspirant

will make you everyone's best friend.


July 9, 1966 -
The Beatles song Paperback Writer, topped the charts on this date.



Paul McCartney wrote this after helping some friends, including John Dunbar, set up the Indica Bookshop (in the basement was the Indica Gallery, where John Lennon eventually met Yoko Ono), in January of 1966. Paul was the first customer of the shop.


July 9, 1983 -
The Police song Every Breath You Take topped the charts on this date.



Sting wrote the song at the same desk in Jamaica where Ian Fleming wrote his James Bond novels.


July 9, 1995 -
The Grateful Dead, who had been performing for 30 years, gave their last performance on this day, when they performed at Soldier Field in Chicago. During their 30 years, they performed more than 2,300 live concerts.



The lead guitarist and backbone of the band, Jerry Garcia, died one month after the final show.


Today in History:
July 9, 1776  -
New York finally got around to ratifying the Declaration of Independence on this date, making it the 13th colony to do so. The document was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops stationed in New York City.

Later that night, American troops destroyed a bronze-lead statue of Great Britain's King George III that stood at the foot of Broadway on the Bowling Green. Most of the statue pieces were sent to Connecticut where munitions makers turned them into 42,000 bullets.


On the Fourth of July in 1850, President Zachary Taylor snacked on cherries and milk while attending a ceremony at the Washington Monument. It was a hot day, and the heat made him sick.

He got sicker and sicker and died on July 9.

He remains the only U.S. president to have died from indigestion (with the possible exception of Warren G Harding, who may or may not have been poisoned by his wife - which could be considered death by extreme indigestion - but that's another story.)



His last words were, "I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends."

I firmly believe he actually regretted eating the cherries-and-milk that caused his fatal indigestion, but I'm not going to quibble with a man's dying words. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore, possibly one of the worse president.


July 9, 1918 -
Two passenger trains crossing the Dutchman's Curve in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, collided at speeds of 50 to 60 miles per hour killing 101 people and leaving 171 injured, on this date.

The great wreck of 1918 is still considered the worst rail disaster in US history.


July 9, 1926  -
Mathilde Krim, geneticist, founder of the AIDS foundation, was born on this date.



Have a good thought for her in your day today


July 9, 1933  -
Oliver Sacks, neurologist, was born on this date.



Have a kind remembrance of him in your day today.


July 9, 1945 -
... dirty money always brings sorrow and sadness and misery and disgrace. Said by a man who never took a bribe.



During a newspaper strike, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read the daily comic strips aloud on WNYC radio on this date.


July 9, 1956 -
America's favorite actor, Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on this date.



Let's hope someday, Tom finds himself and successes in a career.


July 9, 1958 -
A tsunami wave struck Lituya Bay in southeast Alaska on this date. The tsunami wave was 1,719 feet high - taller than the Empire State Building (1,470 feet tall). It was caused by an earthquake and descriptions by witnesses as moving at 600 miles per hour. It was later determined that this was the largest wave to ever strike land in history.



The wave destroyed 6-foot trees and stripped the shore down to bedrock. It killed two people when it sank their boat, while two other boats rode it out with all passengers surviving.


July 9, 1964 -
I want every girl in the world to pick up a guitar and start screaming.



Courtney Michelle Love, rock musician and actress, was born on this date.


July 9, 1982 -
Michael Fagan, dressed in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and bleeding from a fresh cut on his hand, walks into the private bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II while she was asleep and her personal guard out walking her dogs. Fagan had scaled the wall surrounding Buckingham Palace and gained entry without triggering any alarms. The two carried on a 12-minute conversation, while the intruder holds a jagged broken ashtray, before somebody finally apprehended him.



Who knew that the Queen could carry on a 12 minute conversation with one of her subjects?


July 9, 2005 -
Danny Way, a daredevil skateboarder, rolled down a large ramp and jumped across the Great Wall of China on this date.



He was the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid.



And so it goes.