Today is Paul Bunyan Day. Paul Bunyan is a larger-than-life folk hero who embodies frontier vitality. He is a symbol of might, the willingness to work hard, and the resolve to overcome all obstacles.
He was popularized by newspapermen across the country in 1910 and has been a part of the American culture ever since.
June 28, 1944 -
Universal Pictures released Robert Siodmak's obscure film noir, Christmas Holiday starring Deanna Durbin and Gene Kelly, on this date.
Screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz changed the setting from a Paris brothel to a nightclub in New Orleans and the main character was changed from a prostitute to a more ambiguous nightclub singer and hostess, when adapting the 1939 novel of the same name by W. Somerset Maugham, due to the Hays Code.
June 28, 1951 -
A TV version of the popular radio program Amos 'N' Andy premiered on CBS on this date.
Although criticized for racial stereotyping, it was the first network TV series to feature an all-black cast. I'm ambivalent about embedded the episode, but it's out there on the internet.
If you have the time, watch the documentary posted above so you can understand what the show is about.
June 28, 1956 -
The film version of the Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical, The King and I premiered in New York City, on this date.
It was Yul Brynner who pushed for Deborah Kerr to be cast as Anna. He had seen some of her stage work, was highly impressed with her and was convinced that she was the one for the role. Deborah Kerr was also on the short slate of A List actresses that could open a movie at that point to begin with, so it didn't make Yul Brynner's decision that hard.
June 28, 1975 -
David Bowie released the song, Fame, featuring John Lennon on backing vocals, on this date. It become Bowie's first #1 hit in the US.
John Lennon helped write this song - he came up with the title and also sang the background Fame parts in the high voice. They started working on the song when Bowie invited Lennon to the studio, and Lennon played rhythm guitar on a jam session that resulted in this track. Bowie met Lennon less than a year earlier at a party thrown by Elizabeth Taylor. Lennon was one of Bowie's idols, and they became good friends.
June 28, 1985 -
Hard to believe now but Hollywood employed some of the Brat Pack again when Joel Schumacher's St. Elmo's Fire, starring Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy, Demi Moore, Judd Nelson, Ally Sheedy, and Mare Winningham, premiered on this date.
Much like her character, Demi Moore (Jules) had a drug problem when she was cast in the film. One day, director Joel Schumacher actually demanded that she leave the set because she was really high. Moore had to go through rehab and promise to stay clean in order to play a character with a drug problem.
June 28, 1996 -
Tom Shadyac's remake of the Jerry Lewis classic, The Nutty Professor, starring Eddie Murphy (in just about ever role,) Jada Pinkett, James Coburn, Larry Miller, Dave Chappelle and John Ales, went into general release in the US on this date.
Eddie Murphy said that even though he was playing an enormously overweight character, he had to keep himself in the best physical shape of his career. This was because he needed to look svelte and athletic as Buddy Love and also because he needed to be comfortable while wearing the heavy appliances and prosthetics for his scenes as the Klump family members.
June 28, 2003 -
Gore Verbinski's Disney moneymaking blockbuster, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, starring Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and Jonathan Pryce, premiered at Disneyland Park in Anaheim, California, on this date.
Clothing and smears of charcoal were used to conceal Johnny Depp's numerous tattoos. The "Jack Sparrow" tattoo on his arm in the movie is a fake, but he got a real replica after finishing the film, in honor of his son Jack.
A new political primer for children
Today in History:
June 28, 1778 -
It was a hot day in New Jersey on this date. Temperatures reportedly reached 96 degrees in the shade. Possibly invented historical character, Mary Ludwig Hays McCauley, "Molly Pitcher," wife of an American artilleryman, carried water to the soldiers during the Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth, N.J. and, supposedly, took her husband's place at his cannon after he was overcome with heat.
According to myth she was presented to General George Washington after the battle.
June 28, 1820 -
Robert Gibbon Johnson proved that tomatoes were not poisonous when he ate two homegrown tomatoes in front of a horrified crowd on the steps of the courthouse in Salem, New Jersey.
At the time in the US, tomatoes were believed to be poisonous because of their relationship with some wild plants of the nightshade family that produce toxic berries.
This is what passed for entertainment in New Jersey - the current democratic machine of southern New Jersey hadn't been formed yet.
June 28, 1902 -
Today is the birthday of nefarious American philosopher John Dillinger, born in 1902. (He is also believed to have been born on June 22, 1903.)
At the age of twenty, a precocious young Dillinger attempted to illustrate the transient nature of material goods by depriving a stranger of his automobile. When a warrant was issued for his arrest by Indiana police disinclined to accept Dillinger's delicate epistemological point, the young man cleverly joined the navy to demonstrate the redemptive powers of patriotism.
Philosophers have historically encountered resistance from the military, and Dillinger was no exception. He fled the service, returned home, got married, and robbed a grocer. The robbery went awry and Dillinger went to jail for nine years.
Jail hardened Dillinger and made him a very bitter man. Upon his release, he began robbing banks almost immediately. He quickly became Public Enemy Number One, which enabled him to be shot to death by the FBI outside the Biograph movie theatre in Chicago. And as stated previously, it is widely rumored (but hotly denied) pug ugly transvestite FBI chief, J. Edgar Hoover, ordered Dillinger's well-endowed member detached from his corpse and pickled, for his private files.
His philosophy, however, endures to this day, and is practiced widely and successfully by various tax authorities around the world.
And I have no idea if Hoover did with his trophy.
Jun 28 1905 -
At 5:30 a.m. on this date, a murderer named Henri Languille lost his head on the guillotine in Orleans. Dr. Jacques Beaurieux, an official witness to the execution, picks up the freshly-severed head of Languille just after it drops into the guillotine basket (don't worry, he's an official - the French just don't let anybody pick up freshly severed heads) and shouts the man's name three times. According to the doctor's report: "Languille's eyes very definitely fixed themselves on mine and the pupils focused themselves. ... I was dealing with undeniably living eyes which were looking at me."
June 28 1914 -
Archduck Franz Ferdinand was having an extremely bad day.
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During their tour, Nedjelko Cabrinovic tosses a grenade into the automobile carrying Archduck Franz Ferdinand and wife Sofia. But Ferdinand knocks the bomb away with his arm and his driver speeds away from the would-be assassin. The driver was naturally addled and the Archduck and Mallard Sophie became lost and stopped to ask for directions from a young boy on the side of the road (and as most men know this is a no-no - if you are lost, never ask for directions). The conversation went something like this:
"Say, lad, I'm the Austrian Archduck Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Habsburg throne and this is my wife, the Mallard Sophie. We seem to be lost. If we don't find our way back I might never have the chance to take the Austrian throne and continue the ruthless and relentless persecution of the Serbian peoples. Could you give us a hand?"
The boy was Gavrilo Princip and he had just started World War I. The war ended exactly five years later, on June 28, 1919, with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles. The Treaty of Versailles is best known for having caused the Second World War.
Gavrilo Princip died of tuberculosis in his jail cell. After his death, the following graffiti was discovered on the wall:
Happy Birthday Mel Brooks
I'm so happy to once again note that it's always a good day to know that Mel is still around.
June 28, 1969 -
In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969 at the Stonewall Inn, a Mafia run bar in Greenwich Village, the gay community fought back against routine police harassment that persecuted sexual minorities. Police raided the bar this time because it had refused to pay an increase in bribery. This incident is regarded by many as history's first major protest on behalf of equal rights for the LGBT community.
34 years later, on June 26, 2003, the US Supreme Court, in Lawrence v. Texas, struck down a Texas sodomy law and proclaimed that gay Americans have a right to private sexual relations. 44 years later (on June 26, 2013) the Supreme Court overturned DOMA and just two years after that, the court legalized marriage for same-sex couples, nationwide.
June 28, 1975 -
Rod Serling (b.1924), iconoclastic writer and director of the TV series Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, died on this date.
Serling, a decorated World War II veteran suffered from PTSD and insomnia throughout his life. His wartime experiences led him to become an outspoken opponent of the Vietnam War.
June 28 1997 -
Mike Tyson was disqualified from a championship boxing bout after biting off a large portion of Evander Holyfield's ear.
Tyson was later banned from boxing and fined $3 million for the incident.
Yeah, it tastes like chicken.
And so it goes
And on a personal note:
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