To give, and not to count the cost.

Today is the Feast day of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuit order of Catholic priests and brothers, died in Rome on this date in 1556.


July 31, 1928 -
MGM’s Leo the lion roared for the first time on this date.



He introduced MGM’s first talking picture, White Shadows on the South Seas. The film was directed by W.S. Van Dyke and starred Monte Blue. It won an Oscar in 1928-29 for Best Cinematography

July 31, 1991 -
The Jim Abrahams spoof of Top Gun, Hot Shots!, starring Charlie Sheen, Cary Elwes, Valeria Golino, Lloyd Bridges, and Jon Cryer, premiered on this date.



Valeria Golino claims the scene in which she catches an olive popped out of her bellybutton was accomplished without trick photography.


Word of the day:


Today in History:
July 31, 1485 -
Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, was first published on this date.



Malory wrote this classic tale of knightly love and chivalry while in prison for armed assault and rape.


July 31, 1790 -
Samuel Hopkins was issued the first patent for a process of making potash, potassium carbonate, an ingredient used in fertilizer. The patent was signed by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and President George Washington.

Since then, over 6 million patents have been granted by the US PTO.


July 31, 1944 -
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, French aviator  and author best know for his novella The Little Prince, went missing while flying in a Lockheed P-38 Lightning on a reconnaissance mission over Marseilles, on this date.



In the days and weeks that followed, various parties speculated that Saint Exupéry was shot down over the Mediterranean, had a flight accident, or even committed suicide. The latter theory grew out of the fact that the flyer had felt isolated from his squadron and was pessimistic about the future.


July 31, 1945 -
Wearing a stolen army uniform, prisoner John Giles attempted to escape from Alcatraz island by boarding an outbound cargo boat. But instead of San Francisco, the vessel heads for Angel Island, where Giles was promptly captured.



When attempting your escape from prison, do not attempt to save money by purchasing a round trip ticket. Please confirm that you have boarded the correct escape craft.


It was on this day in 1954 that human feet first stood upon the summit of Pakistan's K2 mountain, the second-tallest mountain in the world.

K2 was known to the Chinese as "Great Mountain" and to Indian and Pakistani locals as "That Big Thing Over There." It was not until 1856, when T.G. Montgomerie of Britain's Survey of India was logging the mountains of the Karakorum range, that it was dubbed K2. This helped distinguish it from K1, to its left, and K3, to its right.

(K1 was later named Mount Masherbrum. K3 moved to Arizona, where Jan Brewer believed the mountain is assisting underage children sneak into the country across the border.)

It was an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio that first succeeded in ascending to the peak of K2. Team members Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni achieved that distinction on July 31, 1954.



The summit wasn't reached again until 1977, when a Japanese team with more than 1500 porters found their way to the top.



The first American expedition reached the top in 1978 without the aid of any stinking porters.


July 31, 1948  –
At Idlewild Field in New York, New York International Airport was dedicated by President Harry Truman on this date.



A 30 year old Congressman John F. Kennedy suddenly has a blinding headache that day and doesn't know why.


July 31, 1964 -
The American space probe Ranger 7 transmitted the first photo moon’s surface ever taken by a U.S. spacecraft, mapping the surface for a future lunar landing, on this date. Ranger 7 carried six slow-scan vidicon TV cameras capable of transmitting high-resolution television pictures of the lunar surface.



A total of 4,308 photographs before Ranger 7 crashed in Mare Cognitum (Sea of Clouds). The total cost of the mission was about $170 million (your tax dollars at work.)


July 31, 1966 -
The Beatles records were burned in Birmingham, Alabama on this date -- only because John Lennon innocently declared that the band happens to be "more popular than Jesus."



The record burning of course has the opposite effect, as sales of Beatles records dramatically increase (in part to burn them.)


July 31, 1966 -
Charles Whitman, as a student at the University of Texas at Austin, wounded 30 and killed 16 on this date, before being killed by police.



Two years later, Peter Bogdanovich directed his first film, Targets, based of the the Whitman slayings.



Roger Corman told Peter Bogdanovich he could make any film he wanted to, with two conditions: he had to use stock footage from The Terror, and he had to hire Boris Karloff for two days (Karloff was under contract and owed Corman those two days). Karloff was so impressed with the script that he refused pay for any shooting time over his contracted two days. He worked for a total of five days on the movie.


July 31, 1971 -

Don't go, there's a lovely Earth out this evening....



One of the most expensive car rides occurred on this date, when James B. Irwin and David R. Scott took the Lunar Roving Vehicle or "Moon Buggy" on its premiere jaunt on the surface of the Moon.


July 31, 1976 -
NASA released the famous Face on Mars photo taken by the Viking 1, on this date.

Later, after analysis of higher resolution photos from the Mars Global Surveyor, the face will be determined to be an optical illusion,



but until then, the face will spark imaginations and lead to rampant conspiracy theories.


Tomorrow is the festival of Lammas, an ancient harvest festival, (which we will have more to say about tomorrow.)



According to Shakespeare, Guiletta Capulet was born on "Lammas Eve at night," so Juliet's birthday is July 31st (sharing her birthday with Harry Potter and his creator, J. K. Rowlings.)


July 31, 1980 (I'm going with 1980 and not getting involved in the 1979 controversy) -
Harry Potter, an orphan who discovers that he is a wizard was born on this dates.





J K Rowlings, the Harry Potter brand author, shares a birthday with her creation (born 1965). Her 'children's stories' have made her a billionaire.



Who knew an orphaned kid with a facial birthmark could make someone so much money?


July 31, 2003 -
Felix Baumgartner, became the first man to glide across the English Channel without an aircraft when he jumped from a plane thirty thousand feet above Dover, England wearing carbon fiber wings attached to his back.



He glided 23 miles across the Channel in ten minutes at a starting speed of 220 mph and slowing to a speed of 135 mph. Baumgartner finished his flight using a parachute landing in Cap Blanc-Nez, France.



And so it goes.



1269

Today is Paperback Book Day

Everybody should be out there reading. And what better way to read something than, a light weight, portable and bio-degradable object - a paperback!



The reason for the celebration today is that Sir Allen Lane started what would become Penguin Books, and they published their first paperback book on July 30, 1935.  I just finished reading The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky, on the beach in paperback just recently.


Flowers and Trees is a 1932 Silly Symphonies cartoon produced by Walt Disney, directed by Burt Gillett and released to theatres by United Artists on this date. It was the first commercially released film to be produced in the full-color three-strip Technicolor process, after several years of two-color Technicolor films.



The cartoon premiered at Grauman's Chinese Theater as the opening short to the feature Strange Interlude.


July 30, 1966 -
The Dynamic Duo make the jump from the TV scene to the movie scene - Batman, The Movie, premiered in Austin, Texas on this date.



Adam West was initially reluctant about making the movie. He decided to do it when told by producers that without his involvement in the film, the part of Batman/Bruce Wayne would be recast. West was also convinced to do the film partly with a stipulation to have more screen time as Bruce Wayne.


July 30, 1966 -
The Beatles' album Yesterday... & Today,  went #1 and stayed #1 for 5 weeks, on this date.



The record was released just after John's infamous interview in which he stated that the Beatles were "bigger than Jesus", which angered Americans and provoked many bans on their music and public incinerations of memorabilia. But Yesterday And Today would take public disapproval to a whole new level, as the original cover featured the band in butcher's smocks with baby doll parts and raw meat covering them. The record was pulled almost immediately - creating an instant collector's item - and in the confusion that followed, several replacement covers were issued.


July 30, 1982 -
One of Ron Howard's early movie directorial efforts Night Shift, premiered on this date.



The fraternity having the party in the morgue is Delta Tau Chi (seen on the wall) which is the same fraternity as in Animal House.


July 30, 1999 -
Paramount Picture released the Gary Marshall Rom Com, Runaway Bride (a semi-remake of the Capra classic It Happened One Night) featuring the re-teaming of  Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, and featuring the always funny Joan Cusack, on this date.



In real life, Julia Roberts canceled her own wedding to Kiefer Sutherland only a few days before the ceremony in 1991.


July 30, 2004 -
The surprise hit stoner film, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, starring John Cho, Kal Penn, and the very funny Neil Patrick Harris, opened on this date.



As a "thank you" for all of the free advertising the film gave them, White Castle arranged to have collectible "Harold and Kumar" cups at all of their locations during the film's release. It marks the first time an R-rated comedy is advertised on fast food containers.


Another ACME PSA


Today in History:
Prague has always been a tough town for elected officials.



On July 30, 1419, Jan Zelivsky, a Hussite priest at the church of the Virgin Mary of the Snows, led his congregation on a procession through the streets of Prague to the Town Hall. The town council members had refused to exchange their Hussite prisoners, and an anti-Hussite threw a rock at one of the protesters. Enraged, the crowd stormed the town hall and threw seven of the council members from the windows onto the spears of the armed congregation below. Thus, the First Defenestration of Prague occurred.



Less you think that was the only defenestration in that tough old town, at Prague Castle on May 23, 1618, an assembly of Protestants tried two Imperial governors, Wilhelm Grav Slavata (1572 - 1652) and Jaroslav Borzita Graf Von Martinicz (1582 - 1649), for violating the Letter of Majesty (Right of Freedom of Religion), found them guilty, and threw them, together with their scribe Philip Fabricius, out of the high windows of the Bohemian Chancellery. They landed on a large pile of manure and all survived unharmed. Philip Fabricius was later ennobled by the emperor and granted the title "von Hohenfall" (lit. translating to "of Highfall").

Apparently, the streets of Prague were literally full of crap.

But what there were more, a defenestration (chronologically the Second Defenestration of Prague) happened on September 24, 1483, when a violent overthrow of the municipal governments of the Old and New Towns ended with throwing the Old-Town portreeve and the bodies of seven killed aldermen out of the windows of the respective townhalls.



Sometimes, the name the Third Defenestration of Prague is used, although it has no standard meaning. For example, it has been used to describe the death of Jan Masaryk, who was found under the bathroom window of the building of the Czechoslovakian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on March 10, 1948, allegedly murdered by Communists, though the official Communist line claimed this to be a suicide.

It's tough to be an elected official in Prague.



So, here are some quick rules for avoiding defenestration:

7. Don't throw stones at angry mobs.
6. Watch out for Catholics.
5. Watch out for Protestants.
4. Don't piss off really powerful people.
3. Surround tall buildings with piles of manure.
2. Never go to Prague.

And, of course,



1. Never leave home.

Again, it's a tough town for politicians but it's the gravy train for glazers.


July 30, 1729 -
Happy Birthday Crab Cake Capital of the World



The city of Baltimore was founded on this date and is named after Lord Baltimore (Cecilius Calvert).


July 30, 1818 -
It's Emily Bronte's birthday.



The Brontes were three hideous sisters who dwelt in a cave and had to share a single eyeball between them. They were eventually outwitted and slain by wily Odysseus. (Unless that was the Gorgons, in which case the Emily Brontes were three Englishwomen who wrote poetry and novels in the middle nineteenth century.)



Women were not allowed to write books at the time because novels were still being written in the formal style, and it was feared that women would corrupt that classic form with their penchant for multiple climaxes. The Brontes therefore wrote under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Charlotte got to be Currer and this made the other girls jealous: Currer was the handsome and swarthy sailor, while Ellis was the stuttering librarian and Acton was the simpleminded shepherd.

As authors, the Emily Brontes were heavily influenced by the Romantics (Talking In Your Sleep), but most scholars contend that Emily's Wuthering Heights owes more to the Meteorologists.



She is perhaps best known for her invention of Heathcliff, most recently popularized by American cartoonist George Gately.


July 30, 1865 -       
The Brother Jonathon, a paddle wheel steamer, sank off the coast of Northern California after it hit a rock near Crescent City, on this date. 225 passengers and crew died during the ensuing panic. There were only 19 survivors. It has been considered the worst US steamship disaster that had occurred.

The 220-foot, side-wheeled steamer was on route to Puget Sound and reportedly carried as much as $2 million in gold. In the 1990s Deep Sea Research found and salvaged 1,207 gold coins from the ship. California received 20% of the treasure and the rest was put up for auction in 1999.


July 30, 1871 -
The boiler on the Staten Island Ferry Westfield exploded, killing as many as 100 people and  injured hundreds of others as well, on this date.

The ferry was owned by the president of the Staten Island Railway, Jacob Vanderbilt, who was arrested for murder, but was not convicted.


July 30, 1938 -
In his Dearborn, Michigan office Henry Ford proudly accepts a Nazi medal on his 75th birthday, on this date. The Grand Cross of the Order of the German Eagle was the highest award the Reich can bestow on foreigners. The medal arrives with a note of personal greetings from Adolf Hitler.

A rabid anti-semite, Ford paid for copies of the racist hoax Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion to be deposited in major U.S. libraries.

Hopefully, there isn't a Ford in your future.


July 30, 1947 -
As the 'Siegfried' leitmotif from Act III of Wagner's opera played in the background - Arnold Schwarzenegger, the last gasp of the dream of the Aryan 'Uberman', was spawned on this date.



I'm not quite sure that an overly greased muscle man in a speedo (who would become the governor of a bankrupt US state and fathered children out of wed-lock ) was what Hitler had in mind, but who knows.


July 30, 1965 -
As part of President Johnson's Great Society program, the president signed the Social Security Act of 1965 into law established Medicare and Medicaid in the United States, on this date.

Both older Americans and people living in poverty benefited from passage of the Social Security amendments. Medicare initiated a basic program of insurance for those aged 65 and over, funded by a tax on employees wages and matched by employer contributions. Medicaid provided grants to states to establish health care programs for low-income individuals and families. The act also lowered the age at which widows could begin collecting benefits and added certain divorced women to the list of benefit recipients.


July 30, 1975 -
Jimmy Hoffa was or wasn't killed on this date.



Jimmy is or isn't buried somewhere in the Meadowlands or a horse farm or was made into ground meat and consumed at some very unfortunate barbecue (the FBI still continue to try to sort it all out.)



And so it goes.


1270

It's National Lasagna Day

This was one long (ass) week.  We all need a break.  Why not celebrate with a nice plate of fresh homemade Lasagna. (Watch this video or check out the box of pasta on how to assemble it, if you don't know; I've linked my recipe for gravy.)



Everybody drink heavily and rest up this weekend


July 29, 1957 -
Jack Paar took over as new host of The Jack Paar Tonight Show on this date. Paar brought the show back to its in-studio interview format.



More a conversationalist than comedian, audiences were drawn to Paar's show because of the interesting guests be brought on, from entertainers to politicians, and for the controversy that occasionally erupted there.


July 29, 1959 -
Another campy cult classic William Castle flick (this time featuring Percepto,) The Tingler opens on this date.



William Castle toyed with other ideas to frighten audience members, in addition to 'percepto'; among them: rolling bean bags to brush against the legs of audience members, speakers mounted at different areas that would give a 'screech' when the tingler appeared, and possibly even using 'shills' to operate some type of mechanical device to tickle the legs of the audience members; but the only viable way of doing it was by attaching buzzers in select seats to coincide with the appearance of the tingler- 'percepto'.


July 29, 1965 -
The Beatles movie Help! premiered in London on this date.



While the Beatles are attempting to solve Ringo's ring problem at the jeweler's, George can be seen quietly shoplifting various jewels and slipping them into his overcoat pockets!


July 29, 1972 -
Gilbert O'Sullivan topped the charts with his hit Alone Again (Naturally) on this date.



This was Irish singer Gilbert O'Sullivan's only American #1. It sold two million copies, spent six weeks at the summit in America and earned him three Grammy Award nominations (Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Song of the Year, and Record of the Year).

(I will not take responsibility for the following ear worm; listen to the clip at your own risk.)


July 29, 1982  –
Professional wrestler Jerry Lawler slapped actor Andy Kaufman in the face on the program Late Night with David Letterman, a staged event that prompted a several month ‘war’ between the two of them.



It remains among the greatest Letterman moments of all time. The video went viral long before the Internet gave rise to the term, with people across the country clamoring for bootlegged VHS and Beta tapes of the incident.

Don't forget to tune into The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour


Today in History:
July 29, 1588 -
Phillip II of Spain sent his armadillo to invade England. This Spanish armadillo was defeated by the belly-buttons of Lord Howard and Sir Francis Drake in one of the greatest navel engagements of all time.



The defeat altered the balance of power in Europe irreversibly and marked the last use of armadillos in navel warfare.


July 29, 1900 -
Italian King Umberto I thought he was have a good day. It was a warm summer evening and he had just finished distributing prizes to athletes after a sporting competition. Umberto got back into his carriage and Gaetano Bresci, an Italian-born anarchist who had resided in America, burst from the crowd brandishing a revolver and fired four times, killing the king instantly.

The murder was believed to be due to the king’s decision to fire cannon rounds into a crowd of starving peasants and workers that had assembled asking the king for assistance; 100s were killed; Bresci was arrested, found guilty, and sentenced to a life of hard labor at Santo Stefano Prison on Ventotene Island. Umberto was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III. After serving less than a year of his life sentence, Bresci was found dead in his cell, in extremely suspicious circumstances.


July 29, 1921 -
The Council on Foreign Relations was incorporated in New York City on this date by a group of bankers and other influential people, including John D Rockefeller. The CFR remains a vital component of the New World Order, and is surpassed in importance only by the Trilateral Commission.

Now that you have this information, you know too much and you'll probably have to be killed.


July 29, 1921 -
Adolf Hitler was selected as leader of the National Socialist Party on this date.

I'm guessing there are still some Germans of a certain age that have regrets concerning this election.


July 29, 1945 -
After delivering parts of the first atomic bomb to the island of Tinian, the cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed and sunk by the I-58 Japanese submarine around midnight on this date.



Some 900 survivors jumped into the sea and were adrift for four days. Nearly 600 died before help arrived. Most of its crew was ravaged by sharks.

Talk about karma.


July 29, 1948 –
After a hiatus of 12 years caused by World War II, Britain's King George VI opened the first Summer Olympics to be held since the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, in London, on this date.



Germany and Japan were not invited and the Soviet Union chose not to attend.

Alice Coachman of the US team was the first black woman to win a gold medal when she triumphed in the high jump.


July 29, 1958 -
President Eisenhower stopped playing golf long enough to sign the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which created NASA on this date.

Richard Nixon immediately gave Ike a rum toddy and let him take his afternoon nap.


July 29, 1966 -
Returning home from his manager Albert Grossman's house, Bob Dylan had some sort of motorcycle accident, on this date.  The accident, which has become somewhat mythic, purportedly left Dylan with a broken vertebrae in his neck, but no ambulance was called and he was not admitted to a hospital. Dylan spent years recuperating and became something of a recluse, disappearing from the public spotlight for eight years.

He continued to write and record music, but with only a few exceptions, did not appear in public again until January 1974, when he launched his "North American Tour."


July 29, 1968 -
Pope Paul VI issues encyclical Humanae Vitae, prohibiting all unnatural forms of birth control.



This did not please many practicing Catholics, although it answers the age-old question ever priest knows - Altar boys can't get pregnant.


July 29, 1974 -
Cass Elliot (Ellen Naomi Cohen,) a very large part of The Mamas and the Papas, died in London on this date.



Although initial reports ascribe the cause of death to choking on a ham sandwich, in actuality it was a heart attack.


July 29, 1981 -
In the fairy tale wedding of the century, Britain's Prince Charles married Lady Diana Spencer in an internationally televised ceremony at Saint Paul's Cathedral in London, England on this date.



The couple was later divorced in 1996, Diana was 'killed' in a car accident in 1997, and Charles fulfilled his long time fantasy and became a feminine hygiene product when he married his mistress Camilla Parker Bowles in 2005.

Hey, fairy tales don't always have happy endings.


July 29, 1987 –
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream signed a licensing agreement for their Cherry Garcia flavor, named after the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia, with Mr. Garcia on this date.

Ben and Jerry’s agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds to the Rex Foundation, the Grateful Dead Band's primary philanthropic outlet since 1984. For a month following the musician's death in 1995, the ice cream was made with black cherries instead of Bing Cherries as a show of mourning.



And so it goes.


1271

Bunkies, this is important

As the kids like to say, this shit is getting real.


But now, our musical interlude.



You may go on, happily, with your day.


Today is Milk Chocolate Day - what evil mind would celebrate it during the summer? American eat on average 12 lbs of chocolate per year; The Swiss on the other hand eat a little more than 26 lbs a year (that works out to about 450 bars of chocolate.)

If you don't keep this increase in choco-gorging, the terrorist have won.





(Psst, I've mentioned this before - it is a conspiracy organized by a large Mid Western Syndicate of Big Sugar corporations and dentists.)


July 28, 1948 -
Bud and Lou's biggest box-office success, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, opened on this date, (this was one of my favorite childhood films.)



The scene in which Wilbur (Lou Costello) is unknowingly sitting on the Frankenstein Monster's (Glenn Strange) lap required multiple takes. The scene allowed Costello to improvise wildly, which caused Strange to constantly break up laughing during the takes.


July 28, 1954 -
The Elia Kazan classic, On the Waterfront, premiered in New York on this date.



The scene where Eva Marie Saint drops her glove and Marlon Brando picks it up and puts it on his hand was unplanned. Saint dropped her glove accidentally in rehearsal and Brando improvised the rest. Elia Kazan loved the new business and asked them to repeat it for the take.


July 28, 1954 -
One of Humphrey Bogart's best late work, The Caine Mutiny, premiered in New York on this date. (Bogart was already seriously ill with esophageal cancer, although it would not be diagnosed until January 1956.)



The scars on Van Johnson's face in this film are real, not makeup. While filming A Guy Named Joe,  Johnson was in an automobile accident and thrown through the car's windshield. The plastic surgery of the day could not totally remove his scars. In all his later films he wore heavy makeup to hide them but felt that, in this film, they added to his character's appearance.


July 28, 1973 -
Bill Graham produced the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen rock festival at the Watkins Glen International Raceway, that featured the Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful Dead.



The concert drew some 650,000 people, the single largest paying crowd in concert history.


July 28, 1988 -
The second film in the autobiographical series ('Trilogy', 'The Long Day Closes') from the phenomenal Terence Davies, Distant Voices, Still Lives opened in the US on this date.  Please find time to watch this film.



The film was a 'labour of love' for director, cast and crew. Due to the extreme low budget, it had to be shot intermittently over a period of two years.


It's always 5PM somewhere


Today in History:
July 28, 1540 -
King Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard on this date.



To celebrate his nuptials, Henry had his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, executed.

It must have been some reception.


July 28, 1794 -
Maximilien "The Incorruptible" Robespierre who had dominated the Committee of Public Safety during the 'Reign of Terror,' was having an extremely bad day. The day before, lobsters throughout France drove around Paris, protesting of his dictatorial ways and staged the Coupe of Thermidor, relieving him of his power.



Maximilien Robespierre was relieved of his head and guillotined for having ravaged the French meteorological cycle with his nefarious Rain of Terror on this date.


July 28, 1835 -
King Louis Philippe of France survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Maria Fieschi, who rigged 25 guns together and fired them all with the pull of a single trigger, killing approximately 18 people but not his intended target

Fieschi was wounded in the attack and the King spared no expense in tending to the other victims of his trigger happy would be assassin. Once Fieschi was deemed medically fit, he was tried, condemned to death and was guillotined on February 19, 1836.

Perhaps he should have spent more time on the practice range.


July 28, 1841 -
James Boulard and Henry Mallin pull the decomposed body of a young woman from the Hudson River near Hoboken, New Jersey. Mary Cecilia Rogers, who worked at a popular cigar store, is initially thought to have been killed in the course of a brutal gang rape, but ultimately it seems more likely that she died from a botched abortion.

Years later, novelist Edgar Allen Poe adapts the sensational news story about "The Beautiful Cigar Girl" into the short story The Mystery of Marie Roget.


July 28, 1914 -
One month after the recent assassination of the Archduck Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, on this date.

World War One was underway. In just four years, it would claim 8.5 million lives and leave 21.2 million wounded, and lay the groundwork for an eventual rematch.

Sometimes family feuds just get out of hand.


July 28, 1945 -
A US Army B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors. An engine plunges down an elevator shaft, sparking a fire in the basement. Eleven people in the building were killed, in addition to the three man bomber crew. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. (Kids, please, do not try this at home.)



And as of this morning, from down the street from my office, I can see that it's still standing.

(And folks - Please, this clip doesn't prove or disprove any 9/11 Conspiracies.)


July 28, 1957 -
A C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane of the US Air Force left Dover AFB in Delaware, carrying three nuclear weapons jettisons its precious cargo into the Atlantic, somewhere east of Delaware and New Jersey, on this date. The bombs were never recovered.



Remember every time you go to a beach off the Jersey Shore, a 200 foot radioactive mutant Blue Crab is lurking. Either that or something escaped from Governor Christie's lobster pot again.



And so it goes.

Before you go - Sesame Street basically presents the 80s.



You do not need the Flock of Seagulls haircut to watch.


1272

A Pledge Pin!

July 27, 1940 -
Bugs Bunny made his debut in a cartoon called A Wild Hare, on this day. Warner Brothers' writers and animators set out to make a rabbit who would be the epitome of cool. They modeled bugs on Groucho Marx with a carrot instead of a cigar. Mel Blanc gave him a Brooklyn accent.



This cartoon is considered the first to feature both Bugs' and Elmer's catchphrases - "What's Up, Doc?" and "Be vewy quiet...I'm hunting wabbits" respectively.


July 27, 1949 -
Mighty Joe Young, an RKO Radio Picture made by the same creative team responsible for King Kong, premiered in New York City on this date, (in fact, when Joe smashes through the facade during the nightclub riot, the first scream you hear is that of Fay Wray, stock audio from the original King Kong.)



Terry Moore claims that another actress was already hired for the role of Jill. She claims that she got the role by running to the end of the RKO lot and back after Ernest B. Schoedsack asked her, and claims that she was then hired on the spot.

(Remember, I'm no longer going to direct you to Terry Moore's photo spread in Playboy.  You go on ahead and find it yourself.)


July 27, 1978 -
National Lampoon's Animal House, the grandfather of all gross-out comedies, premiered in New York City on this date. (Food fight, anyone?)



As this was Kevin Bacon's first role, when he went to the premier, he wasn't allowed to sit with the rest of the cast because the ushers didn't believe he was in it. He had to sit in the back with everyone else.


July 27, 1983 -
Little Tommy's break out film, Risky Business, opened on this date. This film is not, as usually noted, an above average teenage sex comedy but the precursor to 'Greed is Good' mantra that sunk this country for years to come.



The dance scene where Joel dances to "Old Time Rock N' Roll" was completely improvised. In the script Tom Cruise was simply instructed to "dance to rock music".


July 27, 1984 -
Warner Bros. gift to an unsuspecting world, Purple Rain, starring Prince, premiered on this date.



Purple Rain was shopped around to numerous production companies including Indigo Films; which was owned by Jim Brown and Richard Pryor. Brown himself expressed his disappointment about not acquiring the project in the Spike Lee documentary Jim Brown: All American.



(you may put your arms down now, dab your eyes, and resume your day.)


Famous people doing stuff


Today in History:
July 27, 1586 -
Sir Walter Raleigh and some of his men returned to England and disembarked at Plymouth smoking tobacco from pipes, which caused a sensation, on this date.



William Camden, a contemporary witness, reports that "These men who were thus brought back were the first that I know of that brought into England that Indian plant which they call Tabacca and Nicotia, or Tobacco" Tobacco in the Elizabethan age was known as "sotweed."

President Johnson celebrated this momentous date in history by signed the 1965 Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act; required cigarette makers to print health warnings on all cigarette packages about the effects of smoking on this date (in 1965.)


July 27, 1890 -
At the Chateau d'Auvers, Vincent van Gogh presses a revolver to his chest and pulls the trigger. Somehow the bullet misses the vital organs, and the painter manages to stumble over to a friend's house.



The following night, Van Gogh died of an infection in the arms of his brother Theo.  (Or did he)


July 27, 1953 -
The armistice that ended the Korean War was signed on this date. It was a war that began in June 1950 when North Korea invaded the south. Almost 35,000 Americans were killed in the conflict, more than 5,000 captured or went missing. A corporal in the 1st Marine Division named Anthony Ebron said, "Those last few days were pretty bloody. Each time we thought the war was over we'd go out and fight again. The day it ended we shot off so much artillery that the ground shook. Then, that night, the noise just stopped. We knew it was over."



Harry Truman said that if he had signed the same armistice, the Republicans would have drawn and quartered him, but Dwight D. Eisenhower had run for president on the platform that he would end the war, and when he was elected, that's what he did.

Unfortunately, someone forgot to inform the North Koreans that they, in fact, signed the armistice, because technically, they are still at war with someone.


July 27, 1980 -
Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the exiled Shah of Iran, died of lymphatic cancer in Cairo on this date.

Maybe we can borrow Mr. Peabody's Wayback machine and send the former Shah somewhere else for his surgery other than New York–Weill Cornell Medical Hospital.


July 27, 1996 -
During a celebration for the Atlanta Olympics, security guard Richard Jewell notices a suspicious green knapsack in Centennial Park. He immediately alerts police and helps to clear people from the area shortly before the pipe bomb explodes. For his trouble, Jewell becomes the FBI's preliminary suspect and news organizations ran wild with the story.



Because he didn't do it, numerous media outlets end up paying him large undisclosed settlements. Eric Rudolph was later charged with the bombing. He was arrested May 31, 2003. Rudolph later pleaded guilty to the bombing.



And so it goes.


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Carpe Diem

For some reason, today is All or Nothing Day. All or Nothing Day is a time to take risks and live on the edge.



Live like today is your last day on earth and let your inner daredevil shine.


July 26, 1951 -
Walt Disney's 13th animated feature, Alice in Wonderland, premiered in the UK and New York City on this date.





The English novelist Aldous Huxley worked with Walt Disney on early scripts for this project in late 1945. The original idea was for a cartoon version of Alice embedded in a flesh-and-blood episode from Lewis Carroll's life. Huxley's mother, Julia Arnold, was one of the little girls that Carroll used to enjoy photographing, and to whom he told the Alice stories. The project was close to Huxley's heart, but Disney found his work too intellectual, and it was not used. Huxley received no credit on the finished picture.


July 26, 1991 -
One of Mel Brooks non-film parody movies, Life Stinks, starring Mel, Leslie Ann Warren, Howard Morris, and Jeffrey Tambor premiered on this date. (This was one of my father-in-law's favorite movies.)



The film's original title, "Life Sucks", was changed at the studio's insistence.


July 26, 2006 –
The directorial debut of the husband-wife team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, Little Miss Sunshine, starring  Greg Kinnear, Steve Carell, Toni Collette, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin, and Alan Arkin, went into limited release on this date.



All of the girls acting as participants in the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant, except Abigail Breslin, were veterans of real beauty pageants. They wore the same costumes, including hair and makeup, and performed the same talent routines as they had in their real-life pageants. 


Another moment of Zen this week


Today in History:
July 26, 1753 -
Professor Georg Wilhelm Richmann, German physicist, died of electrocution in St. Petersburg, Russia on this date. He was attending a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when he heard thunder. The Professor ran home with his engraver to capture the event for posterity. While the experiment was underway, a supposed ball lightning appeared and collided with Richmann's head leaving him dead in a red spot. His shoes were blown open, parts of his clothes singed, the engraver knocked out; the door frame of the room was split, and the door itself torn off its hinges.

Beside not telling him that hemlock was poison, his mother did not sit Little Georg upon her knee and tell him about the evils of electricity. He was apparently the first person in history to die while conducting electrical experiments.


July 26, 1775 -
The Continental Congress established a postal system for the colonies with Benjamin Franklin as the first postmaster general in Philadelphia on this date.

Franklin also established the standardized method of charging for mail delivery based on weight and distance.


July 26, 1826 -
Schoolmaster Cayetano Ripoll was hanged in Valencia, Spain after uttering his last words: "I die reconciled to God and to man," on this date. He was the last person executed by the Spanish Inquisition.

Gee, I guess at that point everybody should have expected the Spanish Inquisition. (I promise I won't mention the Inquisition for a while.)


Winsor McCay, an American cartoonist and animator, died on this date in 1934. A prolific artist, McCay's pioneering early animated films far outshone the work of his contemporaries, and set a standard followed by Walt Disney and others in later decades.



His two best-known creations are the newspaper comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland, which ran from 1905 to 1914, and the animated cartoon Gertie the Dinosaur, which he created in 1914.


July 26, 1943 -
Michael Philip Jagger, Golden Globe and Grammy Award winning singer, songwriter, occasional film producer and actor, was born on this date.



Deveraux Octavian Basil Jagger, Mick's eighth child (who is a toddler) is the grand uncle to his half sister Jade Jagger Fillary's first granddaughter, Ezra Key.


July 26, 1947 -
President Harry Truman signed the National Security Act, creating the Department of Defense, the National Security Council, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The act forbade the CIA from operating within the US.

With the NSA surveillance program, that's not quite working out at the moment, is it?


July 26, 1956 -
A little more than 11 hours after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm, the Italian liner Andrea Doria, carrying 1,134 passengers and 572 crew, sank off New England coast.



46 people on the Andrea Doria and 5 crew members of the Stockholm died as a result of the crash. The SS Ile de France had been near the collision site and was able to assist in the rescue of many of the passengers of the Andrea Doria.  Within four years, the Ile de France was used as a floating prop for the nautical disaster film, The Last Voyage, which had some plot similarities to the disaster involving the Italian liner SS Andrea Doria.


July 26,1959 -
There was a partial nuclear reactor meltdown at Rocketdyne’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles, on this date. Little known outside of the area, the nuclear accident released far more radiation that the Three Mile Island accident.



A report in 2006 said it may have caused hundreds of cases of cancer in the community, and that chemicals threatened to contaminate ground and water.


July 26, 1984 -
Serial killer, cannibal and flesh suit wearer Ed Gein died at the Mendota Mental Health Institute, a home for the criminally insane on this date.

Gein inspired the films Psycho and Silence of the Lambs.  Kiddies, please follow this advice from your old Doctor - don't check out some of the true crime scene photos attached to Mr. Gein's name unless you'd like the truly grizzly.


July 26, 1991 -
Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman) was arrested in Florida, for exposing himself at the South Trail XXX Cinema on this date.



For several years following the incident, Reubens lost his children's television show and product endorsements.



And so it goes.

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Put a hi ball in the crank case

St. Christopher once was the patron saint of bachelors, travelers, transportation workers, protector against sudden death and toothaches.



The Saint Christopher feast day of July 25 was removed from the Roman Catholic calendar of saints in 1969.  But by all means, please feel free to continue to pray to this beleaguered saint (or non-saint.)


July 25, 1953 -
The Merrie Melodies cartoon, Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, starring Daffy Duck as space hero Duck Dodgers, Porky Pig as his assistant and Marvin the Martian as his opponent, was released on this date



It would go on to become one of the most famous of the Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies cartoons. In animation historian Jerry Beck's 1994 poll of animators, film historians and directors, this cartoon was rated the fourth greatest cartoon of all time.


July 25, 1980 -
The very silly movie, Caddyshack, premiered on this date (watch it - you'll laugh in spite of yourself.)



As it was his first directing job and he wanted to make sure the production was successful, Harold Ramis avoided fraternizing with the cast and crew's late night parties to focus on the next day's shoot. However when filming wrapped, Ramis had gone to the wrap party and partied so heavily and early into the party, that he had to be carried back to his hotel room.


July 25, 1986 -
Paramount Pictures released the Mike Nichols version of the Nora Ephron novel, Heartburn, starring Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Kevin Spacey (in his film debut) on this date.



Jack Nicholson replaced Mandy Patinkin as Mark Forman. Patinkin was originally cast as the male lead but was suddenly replaced by Nicholson after two days of shooting when director Mike Nichols realized there was no chemistry between Patinkin and lead actress Meryl Streep.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
July 25, 1689 -
King Louis XIV of France, a few years after his anal fistula surgery (See Nov. 18) declared war on Britain on this date, for having joined the League of Augsburg and the Netherlands in order to oppose the French invasion of the Rhenish Palatinate.

This caused the Battle of Schenectady in New York. (Really.)

Please feel free to drop that at your next cocktail party.


July 25, 1848 -
British statesman Arthur James Lord Balfour was born on this date. In 1917, as Foreign Secretary of the British Government, Lord Balfour declared that "His Majesty's Government view with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."



This came to be known as the Balfour Declaration, acknowledged by scholars throughout the world as the beginning of the Middle East Peace Process.


July 25, 1865 -
Dr. James Barry, British military medical officer and senior inspector general, died on this date.



As the good doctor was being laid out, a charwoman, Sophia Bishop noticed that Barry was a ‘perfect female’. She satisfied her curiosity and also noticed what appeared to be stretch marks on Barry’s stomach indicating the doctor had once been pregnant. It was soon revealed that Dr. Barry was likely a female, born Margaret Ann Bulkley.


July 25, 1909 -
French aviator Louis Blériot became the first person to fly across the English Channel when his aircraft (a 28hp wooden monoplane tied together with piano strings) landed in Dover, on this date.



The 36-year-old took off at 5.00 am from an airstrip near Calais and landed 43 minutes later. Blériot had followed his course by looking at ships below, having no compass in the airplane. Blériot claimed his prize of £1000, offered by the newspaper Daily Mail for this feat.


July 25, 1917 -
Margaret Zelle, also known as Mata Hari, was found guilty of spying and was sentenced to death, on this date.



There is no actual evidence that she is a spy, although she may have slept with half of the German army (and the French had a thing about that.)


July 25, 1936 -
After NYC's 'Master Builder' Robert Moses had millions of yards of brown and white sand shipped from the Rockaways, Northport and Sandy Hook to Pelham Bay Park, Orchard Beach, the Bronx Rivera, was opened to the public on this date.

At one time, this was the largest Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) project in New York City and the beach had one of the largest parking fields in the city.


July 25, 1943 -
Benito Mussolini attempted to resign as Head Rat Bastard of Italy on this date. He did not receive a gold watch. His 401(K) was in tatters (and had not yet matured.)

He was therefore machine-gunned to death, suspended upside down, and urinated on by the people of Italy on April 28, 1945, as a civic reminder of the severe penalty for early withdrawal of principle.


July 25, 1946 -
The US conducted the first underwater test of the atomic bomb, as part of the Operation Crossroads series of nuclear bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.



The bomb, called Baker was detonated 90 feet underwater. Its explosion contaminated the target ships so badly that the Navy had to cancel the one remaining nuclear weapon test called Charlie.


July 25, 1956 -
Yes, I know that the ships Andrea Doria and Stockholm collided off Nantucket on this date

We're going to talk about it tomorrow


July 25, 1978 -
Lesley and Peter Brown, had tried for years to have a baby, but Lesley suffered from blocked fallopian tubes. Their doctors, a British gynecologist named Patrick Steptoe and a scientist named Robert Edwards, successfully developed the world's first in-vitro fertilization procedure and helped the Browns conceive. Their daughter, Louise Brown was born in Oldham, England on this date.



Though it was controversial at the time, the procedure now is considered mainstream — hundreds of thousands of babies have been conceived via IVF.


July 25, 1984 -
Russian astronaut Svetlana Savitskaya performed a space walk while stationed on the Soviet space station Salyut 7, becoming the first woman who walking in space.



She also was the second woman in space - the first was Russian astronaut Valentina Tereshkova, 17 years earlier.


July 25, 1990 -
Please rise for the singing of our National Anthem -



At a baseball game, actress Rosanne Arnold warbled the Star Spangled Banner, grabbed her crotch and endeared herself to an entire nation on this date.


July 25, 1999 -
Woodstock '99 festival ended on this date with looting and rioting, leaving 12 trailers burned, towers toppled, and several women attacked during the course of the show.



About 500 state troopers were needed to quell the mass uprising of peace and love, apparently triggered by overpriced vendors and commercialization.


July 25, 2000 -
A right tire explosion on the Concorde caused the plane to crash after takeoff from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris on this date, leaving 113 dead.



It is the first crash in Concorde's history, and the only supersonic commercial flight to ever crash.



And so it goes.


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Before you go - The fantastic website snopes.com is in financial trouble and could use everyone's help -

In times like these, it's good to have a place to uncover what really is the 'fake news'.

It's National Tequilla Day today.

Tequila originated from Mexico in the 1800s and is now one of the most popular alcohols worldwide, especially in America.



While I am not a tequila man myself, I would not turn a Frozen Margarita down on a hot and humid day.


July 24, 1946 -
Paramount Studios released the film-noir classic, The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Van Heflin, Lizabeth Scott and Kirk Douglas (his film debut,) on this date.



The failure of the original copyright holder to renew the film's copyright resulted in it falling into public domain, meaning that virtually anyone could duplicate and sell a VHS/DVD copy of the film.


July 24, 1948 -
... Crumbly Crunchies are the best
Look delicious on your vest
Serve them to unwanted guests
Stuff the mattress with the rest....

A great Warner Bros. cartoon directed by Chuck Jones, Haredevil Hare, was released on this date. (It was the first appearance of Marvin the Martian, though he wasn't named until decades later.)



Look for a photo of then freshman California Congressman Richard M. Nixon who appears in the faux newspaper The Daily Snooze under the headline "Heroic Rabbit Volunteers As First Passenger."


July 24, 1965 -
Bob Dylan released his classic Like a Rolling Stone on this date.



The title is not a reference to The Rolling Stones. It is taken from the phrase "A rolling stone gathers no moss." Dylan got the idea from the Hank Williams song Lost Highway, which contains the line, "I'm a rolling stone, I'm alone and lost."


July 24, 1978 -
The truly execrable Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band starring the Brothers Gibbs was released upon an unsuspecting public on this date.



Aerosmith was the second choice to play the Future Villain Band. KISS was approached first, but turned down the role fearing it would hurt their image. They instead opted to star in KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park.


July 24, 1998 -
The unflinchingly gritty Steven Spielberg war flick, Saving Private Ryan premiered on this date.



Steven Spielberg cast Matt Damon as Private Ryan because he wanted an unknown actor with an All-American look. He did not know Damon would win an Oscar for Good Will Hunting and become an overnight star before the film was released.


Word of the day


Today in History:
July 24, 1567 -
Mary of Guise, the French wife of Scotland's King James V, gave birth to a daughter named Mary in 1542. A week later King James died and the very young Mary became the Queen of Scotland.

Prince Edward of England proposed marriage to the Queen immediately and his proposal is therefore known as the Rough Wooing. While the pedophile Prince waited for the Queen to acquire enough verbal skills to reply, the Scottish parliament annulled the engagement.

Edward's father, the English King Henry VIII, considered this an insult and declared war. Following an especially nasty Scottish defeat in 1547, Mary was sent to France. It was hoped she would learn to read and write there, and perhaps reach puberty.

She was raised in the court of Henry II, which ought to have taught her some manners, but instead inspired her to marry a dolphin. Eventually the dolphin became king and died, leaving Mary the dowager queen of France. She was 18. Her mother had meanwhile died in Scotland, which caused the Protestants to rebel. They imported the Reformation and banned the Pope. Mary, being Catholic, returned to Scotland to work out a compromise: the country could be Protestant as long as she was allowed to be Catholic.

Four years later she married her cousin, Lord Darnley, a Two-Door Steward. Unfortunately he turned out to be disgusting, and even the birth of a son could not induce Lord Darnley to behave. He was therefore struck by an explosion the following year and subsequently died of strangulation. She was then kidnapped by one of the men suspected of strangling Lord Darnley, a certain Earl of Bothwell, whom she therefore made a Duke and married.

This angered the Protestants, who rose up against her and, on this very day in 1567, made her abdicate in favor of her son, who was immediately crowned as James VI.



She then escaped, raised an army, and was promptly defeated. She became a guest (or, in English, "prisoner") of Queen Elizabeth, until she was caught writing letters asking friends to support (or, in Scottish, "kill") the English Queen.



She was therefore beheaded, and remains dead to this day.


316 years ago today, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded a trading post at Fort Ponchartrain for France on the future site of the city of Detroit, Michigan, in an attempt to halt the advance of the English into the western Great Lakes region.

Mr Cadillac himself thereby came to be known as "the Rolls Royce of settlers."  M. Cadillac would be happy to see the improvements going on in Detroit today.


July 24, 1883 -
Captain Matthew Webb wasn't having a great day today. Webb, the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875, was attempting to swim across the Niagara River just below the falls.

The Captain was looking to collect a £12,000.00 fortune, when he jumped from his small boat into the raging torrent. He hit his head on jagged rocks and drowned while trying to swim across the Niagara River. His last words were (apparently,) "If I die, they will do something for my wife?"


July 24, 1915 -
Almost 850 Western Electric employees and their family members perish when the chartered steamer SS Eastland rolled over in Chicago harbor on this date. History blames the top-heaviness of the ship, exacerbated (ironically) by the recent addition of lifeboats.



Moral: Avoid company picnics.


July 24, 1959 -
While visiting a model kitchen in a U.S. exhibition in Moscow, Vice President Richard M. Nixon debated with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev at a U.S. exhibition in the famous 'Kitchen' debate, on the merits of capitalism and communism



Nixon correctly said that the $100-a-month mortgage for the model ranch house was well within the reach of a typical American steelworker. (Stop dreaming about a $100-a-month mortgage.)



And so it goes.


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