Taphophobia is the irrational fear of being buried alive. Due to medicine science not being so advanced in the 19th Century, comatose or seriously ill people were sometimes mistakenly buried alive. In order to counteract these potential blunders, people were buried with little bells above ground. These bells were attached to a string, which went into the coffin. If the person was buried alive, and later woke up they would tug on the string that would ring the bell above ground. Hopefully someone would hear it and then dig the person out of their premature resting place.
Today is the Feast of Assumption of Mary. Kids it's a Holy Day of Obligation. (While the day only became a Holy Day of Obligation recently - on November 1, 1950, Pope Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary to be a dogma of faith - in fact, the Feast of the Assumption is one of the oldest holy days in the Church, with accounts of celebrations going back to the sixth century.)
August 15, 1948 -
CBS-TV inaugurated the first nightly news broadcast with anchorman Douglas Edwards.
Mr. Edwards held the job for 14 years and was succeeded by Walter Cronkite.
August 15, 1964 -
Dean Martin's song Everybody Loves Somebody knocks The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night from the #1 spot on the Hot 100 on this date.
In 1964, Dean Martin was finishing up recording his Dream with Dean album and had completed 11 songs. Albums always had 12 songs in the US, so Dean asked his conductor and piano player, Ken Lane, if he had something else for him. Ken said he had an old song he had written - Everybody Loves Somebody. Dean liked it and recorded it with just Ken, a bass player, a guitar and drums. The reaction to the cut on the album was so great that Dean went back into the studio and re-recorded it for a single release with a full orchestra and background singers.
August 15, 1979 -
Neal Israel's futuristic comedy film, Americathon, starring John Ritter, Fred Willard, Peter Riegert, Harvey Korman, and Nancy Morgan, with narration by George Carlin, premiered in the US on this date.
As part of the promotion for this film's release in 1979, Ted Coombs traveled on roller-skates across the USA for a total of 5,193 miles, setting a world record. He is now a technology author, futurist, artist, and scientist.
August 15, 1979 -
The very long delayed epic, Apocalypse Now, premiered in NYC on this date. (Order some Banh xeo and a couple of bottles of Tiger Beer, and watch the Redux version, in honor of the anniversary.)
An early scene where Captain Willard is alone in his hotel room was completely unscripted. Martin Sheen told the camera crew to just let the cameras roll. Sheen was really drunk. He punched the mirror, which was real glass, cutting his thumb. Sheen also began sobbing and tried to attack director Francis Ford Coppola. The crew was so disturbed that they wanted to stop shooting, but Sheen wanted to keep the cameras going. At the time he was fighting a drinking problem and his own issues. He got so caught up in the scene and his own inner struggles that he hit the mirror. He believed that continuing the scene would help him face his problems.
Don't forget to tune in to ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today.
Today in History:
Animals that we eat are raised for food in the most economical way possible, and the serious food producers do it in the most humane way possible. I think anyone who is a carnivore needs to understand that meat does not originally come in these neat little packages.
It's the 108th birthday of Julia Child - Chef, Spy, Philosopher and in my opinion, one of the greatest Americans of the last century.
Besides Julia, today is the birthday of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769),
Rose Marie (1925),
Oscar Peterson (1925),
Linda Ellerbee (1944), (possibly the second greatest living American)
Jimmy Webb (1946),
Oh, and my friend Liz
August 15, 1057 -
Macbeth was killed at the Battle of Lumphanan in Aberdeenshire on this date, by Malcolm Canmore, the eldest son of King Duncan I, who was deposed by Macbeth years earlier
August 15, 1534 -
St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spanish ecclesiastic, founded the Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in Paris with the aim of defending Catholicism against heresy and undertaking missionary work, on this date. Ignatius converted to Christianity while convalescing after a battle and wrote his Spiritual Exercises meant as a guide for conversion.
You may now impress your friends with that bit of knowledge.
August 15, 1843 -
Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, the world's second oldest amusement park still in operation,offers rides such as roller coasters and carousels as well as exotic flower gardens, opened on this date. Today, it is the most visited amusement park in Scandinavia.
The world's oldest amusement park still in operation is the Dyrehavsbakken park, also in Denmark.
August 15, 1877 -
Thomas Edison wrote to the president of the Telegraph Company in Pittsburgh, PA on this date (stay with me.)
The letter stated that the word, "hello" would be a more appropriate greeting than "ahoy" when answering the telephone.
So now you know
August 15, 1911 -
Procter and Gamble unveiled Crisco shortening on this date.
August 15, 1914 -
The SS Ancon cargo ship was the first to pass through the newly-built Panama Canal on this date.
Today, more than 14,000 ships pass through each year.
August 15,1914 -
106 years ago today, Julian Carlton, a servant of architect Frank Lloyd Wright burned down Wright's Wisconsin home, Taliesin and murdered seven people, including Wright's lover, Mamah Borthwick Cheney, and her two children. Wright was in Chicago at the time, working on a project.
Carlton was almost immediately captured and jailed, but died six weeks later (a result of having swallowed acid), without uttering a meaningful word about the motive behind his rampage.
August 15, 1935 -
Will Rogers, the most famous man in America, died near Barrow, Alaska when his sea plane plunges into a lagoon. At the time, he and one-eyed aviator Wiley Post were surveying possible flight paths between Seattle and the Soviet Union.
Remember kids, let this be a lesson to you - don't take a flight with a drunken, one eyed pilot.
August 15, 1945 -
Harry Truman hadn't sobered up yet. He could not quite believe that he was President and got to drop not one but two atomic bombs.
Truman had announced the Japanese surrender the day before. But it was on this day in 1945 that the Allies officially declared V-J Day.
Aug 15, 1947 -
At the stroke of midnight on the 14th of August, Britain withdrew its control on the jewel in its crown and India and Pakistan became two separate, independent, democratic nations,after some 200 years of British rule.
The division of Pakistan from India prompted mass emigration: Muslims moving west to Pakistan and Hindus moving east toward India. The event also unleashed a period of religious turmoil in India and Pakistan that would result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, including Gandhi.
August 15, 1965 -
The Beatles played to nearly 60,000 fans at Shea Stadium in New York City, on this date, marking the birth of stadium rock.
People tend to forget that this was one of the first major stadium concerts by a rock group.
August 15, 1969 -
The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair began on this date, on Max Yasger's farm in upstate New York.
The greatest gathering of marketing and advertising professionals in American history, the festival featured the musical artists behind some of today's hottest commercial jingles.
August 15, 1977 -
The Big Ear radio telescope, operated at Ohio State University by the SETI project, receives a strong seventy-two second narrowband radio signal from deep space (6EQUJ5.) The event is named the “Wow! signal” for the notation made by Jerry Ehman, a volunteer on the project.
The signal appears to have come to the northwest of the globular cluster of M55 in the constellation Sagittarius, near the Chi Sagittarii star group. It has never been detected again.
And so it goes.
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