Be not afraid of greatness

It's the eve of the Epiphany (Twelfth Night)





You may begin to put your decorations away.

The final gift tally (365 gifts): you would have received 12 drummers drumming,

22 flutist, 30 members from the house of Lords, hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock, 36 Fan dancers, 40 angry dairy workers, on permanent coffee break, 42 Swans, trying to mate in your dining room (avert the childrens eyes) , 42 geese a' laying, 40 golden rings, 36 calling birds, 30 French hens, 22 turtledoves and 12 partridges in their respective pear trees.



Free the birds, take the rings, set fire to the house and start a new life. And finally, the twelve drummers drumming represent the twelve points of belief in the Apostle’s Creed.



Did you come up with any New Year's Resolutions?:







The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.


January 5, 1944 -
Another great movie from Preston Sturges, The Miracle of Morgan's Creek, premiered on this date.



Eddie Bracken recalled that the studio was being driven crazy by the fact that Preston Sturges would spend the day rehearsing the camera and have nothing shot by 4:00 in the afternoon. However, the actor noted, between 4:00 and 6:00, Sturges would get 11 pages in the can, effectively producing in two hours what many directors shot in three days.


January 5, 1948 -
Warner Brothers-Pathe showed the very first color newsreel on this date.



The footage was of the Tournament of Roses Parade and the Rose Bowl football classic.


January 5, 1961 -
Mister Ed, the talking horse (with a daily diet was twenty pounds of hay, washed down with a gallon of sweet tea.,) debuted on CBS-TV on this date.



CBS refused to put the production on their network in its initial premiere in 1960, so the Studebaker Company purchased Mr. Ed and put it into syndication. It was an instant hit, and CBS bought it a year later.


January 5, 1969 -
Brian Hugh Warner was born on this date.



He was always kind to his mother.


January 5, 1980 -
The Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight, was the first hip-hop song to made it to the Top 40 on this date.



Before the song took off, it was almost impossible to buy hip hop albums in record stores, and it was almost unheard of to play hip hop on the radio.


January 5, 1980 –
KC and the Sunshine Band song Please Don’t Go because their fifth and final No. 1 hit on the Billboard Charts on this date.  Harry Wayne Casey parted ways with KC and The Sunshine Band soon after this was released, and the split was far from amicable.



This was KC and The Sunshine Band's first love ballad.

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


Today in History:
January 5, 1477 -
Swiss troops, led by René II, Duke of Lorraine, defeated the forces under Charles the Bold of Burgundy at the Battle of Nancy.

René's forces won the battle, and Charles' mutilated body was found three days later. But what the hell do you care about European history.


January 5, 1757 -
Mad man Robert Damiens attempted to kill King Louis XV of France on this date. The king survived the attack.



Damiens did not survive his execution.


January 5, 1914  -
Henry Ford surprised the business world as he announced that he would limited the workday of his employees to 8 hours a day, and almost doubled their salary with a minimum wage of $5 dollars.



At the time, such measures were almost unheard of, and Ford's actions were one of the first to put the spotlight on the need for fair working conditions.


January 5, 1919 -
The Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei was founded by Anton Drexler and others at the Furstenfelder Hof tavern in Munich on this date.

Why does so much of early Nazi history seems to center around beer halls?  It must have been something in those Bavarian Beer Purity laws.


January 5, 1925 -
Nellie Tayloe Ross, became the first female governor in the US when she was elected the governor of Wyoming, one month after her husband William B. Ross, the previous governor, died in office a month earlier.



Wyoming was also the first state to grant suffrage to women — nearly 40 years before the rest of the US.


January 5, 1933 -
Construction of the Golden Gate Bridge began on the Marin County side, which spans the deep channel at the entrance to San Francisco Bay on this date.



People had to line up for more than four years before suicides can begin (The Golden Gate Bridge is the most prevalent place in the USA to commit suicide.)


January 5, 1941 -
Amy Johnson CBE, pioneering English aviatrix, drowned after bailing out into the Thames Estuary on this date. Although she was seen alive in the water, a rescue attempt failed and her body was never recovered.



In 1999, it was reported that she was accidentally shot down by British forces when she twice failed to give the correct identification code during the flight.

Oops.


January 5, 1995 -
On Eye to Eye, Connie Chung's interview with House Speaker Newt Gingrich's mother, Kathleen, aired on CBS, on this date, complete with the whispered comment from Kathleen that Newt thought first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was a 'bitch' .



I wonder if Newt thinks the former Secretary of State still is.


January 5, 1998 -
Congressman Sonny Bono finally meets something that ends his bizarrely successful career - a pine tree at Heavenly Valley Ski Area on this date.



I guess the beat doesn't go on for him.


And so it goes


Before I let you go:

What were the gifts of the Magi? Bonus question: There was a fourth gift - what was it and who was it from?


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