Why bring this up? The date today is 7/11 (at least in this country. Foreigners and other degenerates refer to the day as 11/7 but that's another story...)
It was great foresight on the part of our beloved city forefathers to lay out the city in such a way that this happens every year just around my birthday.
So get outside and enjoy it. (You can catch it one more time tomorrow night. )
July 11, 1937 -
I want to say at once that I frankly believe that Irving Berlin is the greatest songwriter that has ever lived.... His songs are exquisite cameos of perfection, and each one of them is as beautiful as its neighbor. Irving Berlin remains, I think, America's Schubert.
Jacob Gershowitz, one of the greatest writers of the American songbook, died of a brain tumor at age 38 in Beverly Hills, Ca. on this date.
July 11, 1942 -
A classic 40s Merrie Melodies cartoon, Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid was released on this date.
The part where Bugs and Killer are temporarily fooled into thinking that the bones are theirs is a reference to a Harold Lloyd film, The Freshman.
July 11, 1965 -
One of the 60s best Beach movies, Beach Blanket Bingo opened today.
Nancy Sinatra was the original choice to play Sugar Kane. However, she backed out just before production was supposed to begin because a few months earlier her brother Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped and when she found out that part of the plot involved a kidnapping she decided to back out. Interestingly, it would have been her motion picture debut.
July 11, 1969 -
The Rolling Stones released Honky Tonk Women on this date.
The Stones started recording this as a country song based on Hank Williams' Honky Tonk Blues. They made it into a rocker for release as a single and released the country version, Country Honk, a few months later on Let It Bleed.
July 11, 1969 -
Co-incidentally, David Bowie, released his single Space Oddity, supposedly in conjunction with the July 20th Apollo 11 moon landing, on this date.
In 1980, Bowie released a follow-up to this called Ashes To Ashes, where Major Tom once again makes contact with Earth. He says he is happy in space, but Ground Control comes to the conclusion that he is a junkie.
July 11, 1970 -
Three Dog Night started a two-week run at No.1 in the US with their version of the Randy Newman song Mama Told Me Not To Come, which was also a No.3 hit in the UK.
Randy Newman explained in a 2017 interview with Rolling Stone: "It's a guy going to a party, and he's a little scared. The first line ("Will you have whiskey with your water or sugar with your tea") was a vague connection to acid. I don't remember being thrown off by that stuff then. If I was that unsophisticated - which is possible - I wouldn't admit it."
An interesting beach read for today
Today in History:
July 11, 1533 -
The Church of England came into being on this date. The story of its origins is shrouded in sex and therefore important.
Henry such a devout Catholic that he earned the title "Defender of the Faith" without even stepping into the ring. His first wife, whom he'd married before taking the throne, was Catherine of Aragon, who earned the nickname "Catherine of Aragon." Catherine was an excellent queen until she didn't have a son, at which point things changed.
By the 1530s Henry had realized he was married to a bad queen. He was now about 40 years old and therefore decided to get a convertible couch and a new wife.
The convertible caused no problems, but the changing of wives required the official permission of the Pope, who, being Catholic himself, refused to grant a divorce.
Henry divorced her anyway, and on July 11, 1533, the Catholic Church seceded from the Church of England in retaliation.
The Pope having withdrawn, Henry made himself the head of the Church of England. Because he was still the Defender of the Faith, he wrote the Act of Supremacy. This Act proved that the Church of England was better than the Catholic Church, that King Henry VIII was better than any Pope, and that a Single White King was back in the market.
Sir Thomas More had been the Lord Chancellor of England, and knew Henry as well as any man alive. He therefore refused to swear to the Act of Supremacy, and on July 6, 1535, became Sir Thomas Somewhat Less.
At this point in his career, Henry began marrying and divorcing women on a regular basis. The divorce process was expedited now that Papal authority was no longer a consideration. In fact, Henry turned the entire process into a game: his wives would be blindfolded and asked to produce a male heir.
It came to be known as "Bluff King Hal," and several centuries later it served as the inspiration for the popular French game, "Hungry Hungry Guillotine."
July 11 1804 -
Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr duel in Weehawken, New Jersey after Hamilton allegedly slandered Burr during a political dinner in New York. Hamilton was shot in the liver and died the next day.
Meanwhile, Burr lives on to finish his term in office and is eventually tried for treason after attempting to raise an army and seize land for himself, either in Mexico or the Louisiana Territory.
July 11, 1859 -
Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities was published on this date.
The book, would become the best-selling, original English language novel of all time, with more than 200 million copies sold.
July 11, 1893 -
Japanese businessman Kokichi Mikimoto perfected his technique for creating hemispherical cultured pearls, producing the world's first cultured pearl on this day.
In the next 12 years, he would hone his technique, making spherical pearls that were indistinguishable from the perfect specimens rarely found in nature.
July 11, 1936 -
The Triborough Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic, on this date.
Built at the height of the Great Depression, the creation of the Triborough Bridge put thousands of struggling people to work. It also was New York City's first bridge specifically designed for automobiles.
July 11, 1960 -
The novel To Kill a Mockingbird, written by Harper Lee (the book is her only published work, until recently) was published, on this date.
The novel quickly became a classic and won the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1961.
July 11, 1979 -
The derelict space station Skylab finally returned to Earth, ignominiously breaking into 500 separate fragments which are swallowed by the Indian Ocean. That was, except for the ones which crashed into Woorlba Sheep Station, near Balladonia in Western Australia.
Shortly thereafter, President Jimmy Carter telephoned the prime minister of that country to apologized for scattering NASA litter on his nation.
Oops. (Leading up to the event, Electric Light Orchestra took out ads in trade magazines dedicating their new single, Don't Bring Me Down, to Skylab.)
July 11, 1997 -
Bodybuilder and wannabe actor Jonathan Norman was arrested for trespassing on Steven Spielberg's estate in Malibu, California on this date. Believing that the film director "wanted to be raped," Norman had brought along a kit containing handcuffs, duct tape, nipple clamps, chloroform, and a stun gun.
And so it goes.
1 comment:
Sir Thomas Somewhat Less, indeed
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