June 17, 1950 -
The Disassociated Press sent a reporter to get Bug Bunny's life story in What's Up Doc?, which was released on this date.
Bugs' classic catchphrase is shown in this film to have been originally an accident. It came from Bugs after he pied Elmer in the face and bonked him on the head with a mallet during their burlesque, when it was suppose to be the other way around.
June 17, 1968 -
Ohio Express' Yummy Yummy Yummy (I've got love in my tummy) went gold on this date.
Some listeners believed the lyrics "I got love in my tummy" were about pregnancy. Floyd Marcus talks about this phenomenon: "There's that whole story about '1, 2, 3 Red Light' being this underlying date rape song. But you know, that just goes along with people wanting to make more out of things than they really are. I mean, it's like saying when John Lennon said 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' wasn't about LSD, or "Little Susie's Dream" by The Tradewinds, because of the initials, LSD, people read into those things. Hey, it's good for promo. People often want to give more meaning to things than they really have."
June 17, 1971 -
Carole King's album Tapestry goes to No. 1 on US album charts and stays there for 15 weeks
Tapestry was a groundbreaking album, which helped popularize the singer/songwriter genre. It stayed on the American album charts for over six years, selling over 24 million copies worldwide. Until 1976, it was the largest-selling album ever, and until March 29, 1980 when Dark Side of the Moon marked its 303rd week on the Billboard album charts, it had the longest stay on the Billboard Top 200. Tapestry won 1971 Grammys for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance.
June 17, 1976 -
Blondie released their debut single X Offender on this date. Written by Gary Valentine and Debbie Harry, the title of the song was originally 'Sex Offender', written about an 18-year-old boy being arrested for having sex with his younger girlfriend.
Debbie Harry changed the lyrics so that the song was about a prostitute being attracted to the police officer that had arrested her. Private Stock, the band’s label insisted that the single be changed to X Offender because they were nervous about the original title.
June 17, 1987 -
A late Kubrick masterpiece, Full Metal Jacket, was released on this date.
To make Gunnery Sgt. Hartmann's performance and the recruits' reactions as convincing as possible, Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, and the other actors playing recruits never met R. Lee Ermey prior to filming. Stanley Kubrick also saw to it that Ermey didn't fraternize with the actors between takes.
June 17, 2006 -
Shakira's single Hips Don't Lie, featuring Wyclef Jean, reaches the No. #1 spot on Billboard's Hot 100, on this date.
The title Hips Don't Lie comes from Shakira's in-studio mantra about how her band members need to watch her hips to determine where a song they're working on needs to go - if they're not moving, something is wrong. "I would tell them, 'Listen, hips don't lie. If they're not moving, this isn't working. If they shake, we're in good shape.'"
Another bad Father's Day gift option
Today in History:
June 17, 1775 -
American forces were defeated by the British at Breed's Hill, near Boston, in the Battle of Bunker Hill, after famously withholding their fire until they could see the whites of their enemies' eyes.
This battle should not be confused with that of Bunker Hill, fought on Breed's Hill, during which the Americans shot like hell at anything that moved.
June 17, 1797 -
Agha Muhammad Khan, Shah of Persia (who was also a eunuch, but that's another story) ordered his servants to bring him a melon cut into slices. He finished half, ordered the other half to be put away and vowed to his servants, that if even one slice of the melon was missing in the morning, all three servants would be beheaded by him.
There's a lesson here somewhere -
a.) Treat your staff better?
b.) Purchase more fruit for dessert?
c.) Dare to eat the peach?
The Statue of Liberty, France's gift to the United States marking the Centennial of the American Declaration of Independence arrived in New York Harbor on June 17, 1885 on board the French frigate Isere (only nine years after the gift was offered.)
To prepare for transit, the Statue was reduced to 350 individual pieces and packed in 214 crates. (The right arm and the torch, which were completed earlier, had been exhibited at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, and thereafter at Madison Square Park in New York City.)
June 17, 1928 -
Amelia Earhart became the first woman to make a transatlantic flight, when she took off from Trepassey Harbor, Newfoundland, in a Fokker F.VIIb/3m on this date.
Amelia Earhart was the passenger (and keeper of the flight log,) in a plane named Friendship with co-pilots Wilmer "Bill" Stultz and Louis "Slim" Gordon. The plane landed 20 hours and 40 minutes later, at Woolston in Southampton, England, with just a small amount of fuel left.
June 17, 1933 -
Four FBI agents and the fugitive they were transporting, Frank Nash, were killed in a shootout with gangsters who were trying to free Nash, at the Union Square Station in Kansas City on this date. (Please be sure to visit the Pierpont Steak House when you find yourself at the Union Square Station in Kansas City.)
After being pardoned twice for murder and burglary, Frank Nash was arrested and convicted again for assault and was serving a 25-year sentence when he escaped in 1930. The FBI had just recaptured Nash after his three-year run when they were all gunned down.
Killing the person you are trying to free defeats the whole purpose.
June 17, 1939 -
In Versailles, Eugene Weidmann becomes the last person to be publicly guillotined.
The "hysterical behavior" by spectators was so scandalous that French president Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions.
A few people can ruin it for everybody.
June 17, 1947 -
Pan Am inaugurated the first round-the-world passenger service when the Lockheed Constellation 'Clipper America' with 21 passengers, 9 crew members and 400 pounds of food, departed from LaGuardia Airport in New York bound for San Francisco, the long way around.
The trip covered more than 20,000 miles in 13 days, with 92 hours 43 minutes of flight time, landing in 17 cities and 10 countries.
June 17, 1963 -
The US Supreme Court ruled 8-1 to strike down rules requiring the recitation of the Lord's Prayer or reading of Biblical verses in public schools.
We've been godless heathens ever since.
June 17, 1967 -
China tested its first hydrogen bomb, a U-235 implosion fission device named “596,” over the Lop Nur Testing Grounds.
It was China’s first full-scale implosion weapon test, and its sixth nuclear test within thirty-two months, a record for the shortest development period of any nation’s nuclear weapons program.
(Remember that the next time you try to short tip the Chinese delivery guy.)
June 17, 1972 -
Perhaps the former President might be interested in the following - Five men broke into the Democratic Party National Committee headquarters at the Watergate building in Washington, DC on this date. They had hoped to bug the offices but were arrested before they could release any insects.
President Richard Nixon would later describe the incident as a "third rate burglary." Their arrests ultimately led to President Nixon's resignation in 1974.
(Nixon's resignation prior to 1974 was attributed to simple melancholia.)
June 17, 1994 -
Convicted memorabilia thug O.J. Simpson failed to turn himself in to the LAPD at a prearranged time and was later spotted in a white Ford Bronco on a Los Angeles expressway on this date. After a low-speed pursuit through the freeways and streets of Brentwood, O.J. was finally arrested live on television in the driveway of his mansion.
According to one of the defense attorneys who served on O.J.'s "Dream Team," Simpson tried to kill himself in the car, but the gun "misfired". The Juice allegedly told him: "I pulled the trigger and it didn't go off."
That would have saved everyone a boatload of trouble.
And so it goes.
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