Today is Good Friday,
On Good Friday, parishioners (the old ladies who populate church in the middle of most days) follow the officiant and observe the Stations of the Cross.
Passover starts tonight - please bone up on those four questions.
Remember you will not be graded on a curve!
April 19, 1927 -
Cecil B. Demille's silent-film version of The King of Kings premiered on this date.
It is rumored that the film featured author Ayn Rand as one of the hundreds of people in a crowd. At a time when Rand was a struggling immigrant, Cecil B. DeMille gave her the job to help get her on her feet.
April 19, 1946 -
Raymond Chandler's film-noir classic The Blue Dahlia premiered on this date.
One of the reasons that Veronica Lake was selected to star opposite Alan Ladd was because of her height. Ladd was a notably short leading man (5' 6"), and Lake's similarly diminutive stature (4' 11") meant that the filmmakers did not have to make Ladd appear taller by comparison. At the same time, Ladd resented Doris Dowling, who played his wife in the film, because she was half a foot taller than him, and tried to have her replaced. The producers placated Ladd by having Dowling sitting or lying down during all her scenes with him.
April 19, 1961 -
Frederico Fellini's iconic, La Dolce Vita, premiered in the United States on this date.
The film contributed the term "paparazzo" to the language. The term derives from Marcello's photographer friend Paparazzo. Federico Fellini took the name "Paparazzo", as he explained in a later interview, from the name of someone he met in Calabria (Southern Italy) where Greek names are still common. "Paparazzi" is the plural meaning.
April 19, 1967 -
MGM released a truly bizarre James Bond spoof, Casino Royale, starring just about everybody, including Woody Allen(?), premiered on this date.
The film's original studio-approved budget was $6 million, a large sum for 1966. However, production problems resulted in the shoot running months over schedule, with an accompanying increase in costs. By the time the film was finally completed its original $6-million budget had more than doubled, making it one of the most expensive films made up to that time.
April 19, 1987 -
The Simpsons make their television debut in the short Good Night - a segment for The Tracey Ullman Show.
(Once again, I had to hang around the murky world of the internet underground to get this blurry copy of the clip. I'd like to show you a better version of the clip but the goons, I mean lawyers from Fox would break my legs and I've just about gotten used to walking.)
I wonder whatever happened to The Simpsons.
April 19, 1978 -
The Patti Smith Group released the song Because the Night on this date.
Bruce Springsteen wrote this song. He gave it to Patti Smith in 1976 because he thought it would suit her voice. He was also in a legal battle with his manager, Mike Appel, that kept him from recording for almost three years.
April 19, 1990 -
On the BBC, the television program, French and Saunders Show, airs a Pythonque courthouse sketch featured the guitarists David Gilmour, Mark Knopfler, Gary Moore and Lemmy.
The sketch ended with a jam by the musicians. Please watch the clip; you may thank me later.
April 19, 2002 -
The Nia Vardalos written rom-com (some of my friends watch it as a docudrama) My Big Fat Greek Wedding, starring Nia Vardalos, John Corbett, Lainie Kazan, Michael Constantine, Andrea Martin, and Joey Fatone, premiered in the US on this date.
According to Nia Vardalos, paying for catering during the film proved not to be a problem. Wherever the film was being shot, whenever local Greek restaurants learned about it, they sent over lots of free food.
Even on Good Friday, it's 5 pm somewhere.
Today in History:
April 19, 1775 -
Alerted by Paul Revere, the American Revolutionary War began at Lexington Common with the Battle of Lexington-Concord on this date. Eight Minutemen were killed and 10 wounded in an exchange of musket fire with British Redcoats.
In New York, Lexington seems to have won as there is no Concord Avenue.
April 19, 1824 -
Notorious drug user, buggerer, sister sleeping, club footed man about Europe, oh yeah, and poet, Lord George Gordon Byron, died from malaria fever in Greece on this date.
His body was set back to England for burial (his heart, literally remains in his beloved Greece, buried under a tree in Messolonghi) but he was so infamous that neither the deans of Westminster and St Paul's would accept his body for proper burial. His family at last buried him in a small family vault in Northern England.)
April 19, 1897 -
The first Boston Marathon was run in Boston, Massachusetts. John J. McDermott of New York ran the 24.5-mile course of the all-male event in a winning time of 2:55:10. The course was lengthened to 26 miles 385 yards (42.195 km) to conform to the standard set by the 1908 Summer Olympics and codified by the IAAF in 1921.
It was the first of its type in the U.S. For the first time in 33 years, an American has won the Boston Marathon. Desiree Linden took the women's race Monday with a time of 2 hours, 39 minutes and 53 seconds.
April 19, 1906 -
It was a rainy day in Paris. One of those days that song writers write about. Nobel-winning chemist Pierre Curie was preoccupied and in a hurry. He tried to run across the street and did not look both ways. He slipped and then was hit and run over by a horse drawn vehicle. His skull was badly fractured.
April 19, 1927 -
Mae West, suspected transvestite, was jailed, on this date, for her performance in Sex, the Broadway play she wrote, directed, and starred in. She was sentenced to ten days in prison. While incarcerated on Roosevelt Island, she was allowed to wear her silk panties instead of the scratchy prison issue and the warden reportedly took her to dinner every night.
She said: "I believe in censorship. I made a fortune out of it."
April 19, 1993 -
More than 80 Branch Davidians died in Waco, Texas as the FBI stages a disastrous final assault on their compound on this date. This brought a sudden end to the 51-day siege.
As you about to see, this helped us a great deal.
April 19, 1995 -
At 9:02 am, 24 years ago today, a large car bomb exploded at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, and injuring 500 including many children in the building's day care center.
Authorities charged Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, with the crime.
Both were convicted. McVeigh was executed in 2001 and Nichols is currently serving a life sentence.
And so it goes
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