Snowman Burning Day is a celebration that marks the ends of winter and the beginning of spring. The holiday was first celebrated in 1971. The Unicorn Hunters at the Lake Superior State University (LSSU) have established the holiday. The idea for Snowman Burning Day came from Germany's Rose Sunday Festival, where the mayor of each town burns a straw snowman to welcome spring, but only if the children of the town have been good all year. It has been in celebration on the first day of Spring since then.
December 12, 1531-
It's the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
December 12, 1954 -
BBC Television aired the landmark adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighy-Four on this date. It is the most expensive drama produced to date.
The program was first aired on December 12th 1954 then repeated live on December 16th. This second transmission was telerecorded (filmed as broadcast) and is the version which survives. However the repeat nearly did not happen due to the hysterical reaction from some newspapers to the "horrific" and "subversive" nature of the play. Fortunately the BBC did not cave in and the re-staging went ahead as planned, but only after a narrow vote in favour by their Board of Governors.
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.
Katharine Hepburn had to use her salary as backing in order to make this movie because Spencer Tracy was so ill that the studio didn't think that he would make to the end of the picture. Katharine Hepburn never saw the completed movie. She said the memories of Tracy were too painful.
December 12, 1972 -
Irwin Allen's ocean disaster movie, The Poseidon Adventure, premiered in NYC on this date.
Paul Gallico was inspired to write his novel by a voyage he made on the Queen Mary. When he was having breakfast in the dining room, the liner was hit by a large wave, sending people and furniture crashing to the other side of the vessel. He was further inspired by a true incident which occurred aboard the Queen Mary during World War II. Packed with American troops bound for Europe, the ship was struck by a gargantuan freak wave in the North Atlantic. It was calculated that if the ship had rolled another five inches, she would have capsized like the Poseidon.
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 word "fuck", and all permutations of it, are said sixty-five times. This was a record up to that time. A tamer version with less profanity was filmed at the same time for television showings. Because of the amount of swearing, the entire movie was pretty much shot twice.
December 12, 1980 -
Well, whip it good!
Whip It got a big boost from the radio industry trade magazine Friday Morning Quarterback, whose publisher, Kal Rudman, loved the song. After reading about it in FMQB, some program directors put the song in rotation, and it got a great response, creating a buzz that led other stations to play it.
Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour Today
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.
December 12, 1915 -
It's the birthday of Francis Albert 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
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