Today is Milk Chocolate Day. American eat on average 12 lbs of chocolate per year; The Swiss
on the other hand eat a little more than 26 lbs a year (that works out to about 450 bars of
chocolate.)
If you don't keep this increase in choco-gorging, the terrorist have won.
(Psst, I've mentioned this before - it is a conspiracy organized by a large Mid
Western Syndicate of Big Sugar corporations and dentists.)
July 28, 1932 -
The first film to feature the theme of Zombie-ism, White Zombie starring Béla Lugosi premiered
in NYC on this date.
According to friends of Bela Lugosi, the actor always regretted that he had taken the role of
"Murder" Legendre for only $800 while the film was quite successful at the box office for
Edward Halperin and Victor Halperin.
July 28, 1948 -
Bud and Lou's biggest box-office success, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, opened on this
date, (this was one of my favorite childhood films.)
Bobby Barber was employed for the film as a "court jester". It was his job to keep the energylevel up through a series of practical jokes and deliberately blown takes. Often when Lou Costello expected Lon Chaney Jr. to come through the door, Barber would run in wearing a hat and cape and immediately run back out. Bela Lugosi enjoyed Barber's antics as long as he was not the victim.
July 28, 1954 -
The Elia Kazan classic, On the Waterfront, premiered in New York on this date.
Shortly after the film's debut in 1954, the AFL-CIO expelled the East Coast longshoremen's union because it was still run by the mob.
July 28, 1954 -
One of Humphrey Bogart's best late work, The Caine Mutiny, premiered in New York on this
date. (Bogart was already seriously ill with esophageal cancer, although it would not be
diagnosed until January 1956.)
Humphrey Bogart's tour-de-force performance in the climactic courtroom scene was so powerful, that it completely captivated the onlooking film technicians and crewmen. After the scene's completion, the company gave Bogart a round of thunderous applause.
July 28, 1973 -
Bill Graham produced the Summer Jam at Watkins Glen Rock Festival at the Watkins
Glen International Raceway, that featured the Allman Brothers, the Band, and the Grateful
Dead.
The concert drew some 650,000 people, the single largest paying crowd in concert history.
July 28, 1973 -
Grand Funk Railroad releases their biggest hit We're An American Band on this date.
Grand Funk was one of the best-selling bands of the '70s, and this was their biggest hit.Critics were often very harsh, especially Rolling Stone magazine, but they had a huge fan base and got lots of radio play.
July 28, 1988 -
The second film in the autobiographical series (Trilogy, The Long Day
Closes,) from the phenomenal Terence Davies, Distant Voices, Still Lives opened in the
US on this date. Please find time to watch this film.
After an initial meeting, Terence Davies felt Pete Postlethwaite was not impressed with him as director nor the set up of the production and was sure he was going to say no to the film. However, his producer told him not to worry and when they showed Postlethwaite the trilogy of earlier films Davies had made, he agreed to star.
Another failed ACME product
Today in History:
July 28, 1540 -
King Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard on this date.
To celebrate his nuptials, Henry had his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell, executed.
It must have been some reception.
July 28, 1794 -
Maximilien "The Incorruptible" Robespierre who had dominated the Committee of Public
Safety during the 'Reign of Terror,' was having an extremely bad day. The day before,
lobsters throughout France drove around Paris, protesting of his dictatorial ways and staged the
Coupe of Thermidor, relieving him of his power.
Maximilien Robespierre was relieved of his head and guillotined for having ravaged the
French meteorological cycle with his nefarious Rain of Terror on this date.
July 28, 1835 -
King Louis Philippe of France survived an assassination attempt by Giuseppe Maria Fieschi, who
rigged 25 guns together and fired them all with the pull of a single trigger,
killing approximately 18 people but not his intended target
Fieschi was wounded in the attack and the King spared no expense in tending to the other victims
of his trigger happy would be assassin. Once Fieschi was deemed medically fit, he was tried,
condemned to death and was guillotined on February 19, 1836.
Perhaps he should have spent more time on the practice range.
July 28, 1841 -
James Boulard and Henry Mallin pull the decomposed body of a young woman from the Hudson
River near Hoboken, New Jersey. Mary Cecilia Rogers, who worked at a popular cigar store, was initially thought to have been killed in the course of a brutal gang rape, but ultimately
it seems more likely that she died from a botched abortion.
Years later, novelist Edgar Allen Poe adapts the sensational news story about 'The
Beautiful Cigar Girl' into the short story The Mystery of Marie Roget.
July 28, 1914 -
One month after the recent assassination of the Archduck Franz Ferdinand in
Sarajevo, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia, on this date.
World War One was underway. In just four years, it would claim 8.5 million lives and leave 21.2
million wounded, and lay the groundwork for an eventual rematch.
Sometimes family feuds just get out of hand.
July 28, 1945 -
A US Army B-25 bomber crashes into the Empire State Building between the 78th and 79th floors. An engine plunges down an elevator shaft, sparking a fire in the basement. Eleven people in the building were killed, in addition to the three man bomber crew. Elevator operator Betty Lou Oliver survived a plunge of 75 stories inside an elevator, which still stands as the Guinness World Record for the longest survived elevator fall recorded. (Kids, please, do not try this at home.)
And as of this morning, from down the street from my home, I can see that it's still
standing.
(And folks - Please, this clip doesn't prove or disprove any 9/11 Conspiracies.)
July 28, 1957 -
A C-124 Globemaster II cargo plane of the US Air Force left Dover AFB in Delaware, carrying
three nuclear weapons jettisoned its precious cargo into the Atlantic, somewhere east of
Delaware and New Jersey, on this date. The bombs were never recovered.
Remember every time you go to a beach off the Jersey Shore, a 200 foot radioactive mutant Blue
Crab is lurking somewhere, beneath the waves.
And so it goes.
the Coupe of Thermidor indeed
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