Today is National Ice Cream Soda day. Remember to pour the soda over the ice cream (you get a thicker ice cream soda foam.)
If you added a little Kahlua in first, even better.
(Hey, everything ain't for the kids.)
June 30, 1972 -
The sci-fi film Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the third sequel in the Planet of the Apes oeuvre, directed by J. Lee Thompson and starring Roddy McDowall, was released in U.S. theatres on this date.
In the film (set in 1991), the apes were enslaved after a plague brought back from space wiped out all of the Earth's cats and dogs a decade earlier before the events portrayed. In 1978, six years after the film's release, there was a worldwide pandemic of canine papillomavirus (a disease not known until then) that killed several thousands of dogs.
June 30, 1989 -
One of Spike Lee's big early films, Do The Right Thing, went into limited release in the US on this date.
The key scene when Danny Aiello and John Turturro talk alone, approximately midway through the film, was partly improvised. The scripted scene ended as the character Smiley approached the window. Everything after that, until the end of the scene, was completely ad-libbed.
June 30, 1995 -
Ron Howards' film about the ill-fated 13th Apollo mission bound for the moon, Apollo 13, premiered on this date.
Ron Howard stated that, after the first test preview of the film, one of the comment cards indicated "total disdain"; the audience member had written that it was a "typical Hollywood" ending and that the crew would never have survived.
June 30, 2006 –
The 20th Century Fox comedy, The Devil Wears Prada, starring (the lousy actress) Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci and Adrian Grenier, premiered on this date.
Anna Wintour, the powerful Vogue editor on whom Meryl Streep's character was widely believed to be based on in the novel (Lauren Weisberger once worked as her assistant), reportedly warned major fashion designers, who had been invited to make cameo appearances as themselves in the film, that they would be banished from the magazine's pages if they did so. Wintour's spokespeople deny this claim. However, it is notable that Vogue and other major women's and fashion magazines have avoided reviewing or even mentioning the book in their pages.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
June 30, 1520 -
... And as the gloom begins to fall ...
June 30, 1837 -
England outlawed the use of the pillory on this date.
June 30, 1859 -
Charles Blondin (Jean François Gravelet,) a French acrobat became the first person to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope on this date. Blondin walked a 1,100 feet long rope that was 160 feet above the water.
The entire walk from bank to bank to bank took 23 minutes, and Blondin immediately announced an encore performance to take place on the Fourth of July (which he gave and survived.)
June 30, 1882 -
Charles Guiteau, the assassin of President Garfield, was hanged on this date.
Tickets for the event went for as much as $300. Proving once again, give the people what they want and they'll show up.
June 30, 1894 -
Under a cloudless sky and as part of a pageant which delighted tens of thousands of people, the new Tower-Bridge, which deserves to be reckoned among the greatest engineering triumphs of the Victorian age, was declared open for traffic by land and water... - The Times of London, July 2, 1894
One of London's most iconic symbols, The Tower Bridge was officially opened on this date by The Prince of Wales (Teddy, the future King Edward VII, took time out of his unofficial profession of Royal Whore Monger, to officiate on this date.)
June 30, 1908 -
An explosion near the Tunguska River in Siberia on this date, incinerated some 300 sq. km. that encircled the impact of an estimated 60 meter diameter stony meteorite. It flattened some 40,000 trees over 900 sq. miles and caused damage equivalent to a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb.
The explosion in Siberia, which knocked down trees in a 30-mile radius and struck people unconscious some 40 miles away, is believed by some scientists to be caused by a falling fragment from a meteorite.
June 30, 1934 -
Acting on behalf of the Fuhrer, SS troops around Germany arrested hundreds of loyal SA stormtroopers under the charge of treason in order to eliminate the group.
One squad descends on a Bavarian resort, where it interrupts a contingent of SA men engaged in homosexual festivities. Lieutenant Edmund Heines was caught in bed with a teenaged boy, and shot to death on the spot. The rest were taken into custody. Hitler sacrificed Ernst Rohm (his pal and head of the SA stormtroopers) rather than lose the support of the military. He personally confronted Rohm in a jail cell and left a single shot pistol in the cell. Ten minutes later, Rohm had killed himself (unless he didn't, in which case, he was executed at point blank range by Hitler's goons - reports are sketchy.)
Nobody ruins a good sodomy and lederhosen party in like Hitler's goons.
June 30, 1936 -
It's the 84th anniversary of publication of Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind on this date.
Despite spending 10 years of her life working on the tome, Mitchell didn’t really have much intention of publishing it. When a “friend” heard that she was considering writing a book (though in fact, it had been written), she said something to the effect of, “Imagine, you writing a book!” Annoyed, Mitchell took her massive manuscript to a Macmillan editor the next day. She later regretted the act and sent the editor a telegram saying, “Have changed my mind. Send manuscript back.”
It had been extensively promoted, chosen as the July selection by the Book-of-the-Month Club, and so gushed about in pre-publication reviews -- "Gone With the Wind is very possibly the greatest American novel," said Publisher's Weekly -- that it was certain to sell, though few predicted the sustained, record-breaking numbers. Though she had been eager and active for her fame, Mitchell too was caught off guard.
June 30, 1953 -
The first Corvette rolled off the production line on this date. The car only came in white with a black top and red interior. Optional features included a curtain instead of roll-up windows and interior door handles.
300 cars were made the first year and sold for $3,498.
Tomorrow is Canada Day, and ACME, in an effort to fulfill its legal obligation to broadcast a quota of Canadian content, er... I mean, to honor our sister of the north:
June 30, 1987 -
The Royal Canadian Mint introduced the $1 coin, affectionately known as the Loonie, on this date.
It bears images of a common loon, a bird which is common and well known in Canada, on the reverse, and of Queen Elizabeth II on the obverse. It is produced by the Royal Canadian Mint at its facility in Winnipeg.
And now you know.
June 30, 1997 -
Hong Kong was acquired by Britain in 1842, when it was ceded in perpetuity by China as a base for Britain's trading ventures. Under the First Convention of Peking, signed in 1860, the tip of the Kowloon peninsula and Stonecutters' Island were ceded to Britain.
And so it goes.
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