Happiness in the next

December 12, 1531-
It's the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an indigenous peasant, had visions of the Virgin Mary. Legend held that the Virgin Mary appeared to Juan Diego outside Mexico City and left an imprint on his cactus-fiber poncho. The poncho became an icon for the Virgin of Guadalupe.

So now you know.


December 12, 1954 -
BBC Television broadcasted the landmark adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighy-Four on this date. It is the most expensive drama produced to date.



When first screened by the BBC there were numerous public complaints and these led to questions being asked in the House of Commons. Although, following remarks by the Duke of Edinburgh that he and the Queen had "thoroughly enjoyed" the broadcast, the live repeat, four days later, attracted the largest television audience since the Coronation.


December 12, 1967 -
Stanley Kramer's (for the time,) controversial film, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner, starring Spencer Tracy (in his last role), Sidney Poitier, and Katharine Hepburn, was released on this date.



Spencer Tracy received a posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for this film. His widow Louise attended the ceremony in the event that he would win. However, the award went instead to Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night which also starred Sidney Poitier.


December 12, 1972 -
Irwin Allen's ocean disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure, premiered in NYC on this date.



Except for the most dangerous sequences, all of the stunts were done by the actors themselves. All the actors, at one point, complained to the production staff about how difficult the shoot was physically.


December 12, 1973 -
Columbia Picture released the Hal Ashby film The Last Detail, starring Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Carol Kane and Michael Moriarty, on this date.



The script was completed in 1970, but contained too much profanity to be shot as written. Columbia Pictures waited for two years trying to get writer Robert Towne to tone down the language. Instead, by 1972, the standards for foul language relaxed so much, that all the profanity was left in.


December 12, 1980 -
Well, whip it good!



When MTV launched in 1981, they had very few videos to choose from. Some European and Australian artists had been making videos, but very few came from US artists, and most of those were concert videos. Devo had been making interesting videos for a while because they thought Laser Discs were going to catch on and wanted to make film shorts with music soundtracks that people could watch on them. Laser Discs never caught on, but MTV did, which gave this video lots of exposure.


Hey Jilly, get me a scotch, and punch that guy!


Today in History:
December 12, 1899 -
Dentist George Grant was granted a patent (U.S. patent No. 638,920) for the modern golf tee on this date. The design, basically, lifts a golf ball slightly off the ground.

This additional height gives the golfer better control in his hit. Before the invention of the golf tee, golfers would often make a small mound of dirt or sand to serve as a tee. Groundskeepers everywhere rejoice.


December 12, 1915 -
It's the birthday of Francis Albert Sinatra today. I have been advised by legal council to stop making jokes about Mr. Sinatra's alleged organized crime connection, especially if I would like to make it home tonight (Please note - I did not use the word, Mafia.)





And once again, We here at ACME would to remind the various gentlemen from Bensonhurst we had occasion to speak with - we did not resort to any cheap gimmicks to slander the Chairman of the Board, greatest singer of the 20th century. (Now will you please return our Christmas tree - the children are confused about whether or not their gifts are also being held.)


December 12, 1917 -
With a rent payment of $90 borrowed from a friend, Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town outside Omaha, NE in an old Victorian mansion on this date.



Flanagan's archbishop allowed Flanagan to focus on the boy's home and assigned nuns to help him.


December 12, 1937 -
Japanese aircraft shell and sink US gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River in China. Japan apologized, disciplining those involved and paying $2.2M reparations.



You think we might have seen something was brewing.


December 12, 1968 -
Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don't have time.





After a long and well enjoyed life, Tallulah Bankhead died in St. Luke's Hospital in New York City of double pneumonia, complicated by emphysema and malnutrition, on this date.

Her last coherent words reportedly were "Codeine... bourbon." (I will be stealing that, except substituting gin for bourbon at the end.)



And so it goes.

405