You might know that today is the feast day of St. Gerard Sagredo of Hungary and he was not having a great day today.
Today is National Punctuation Day (!,?.)
(The Interrobang is a combination of both the exclamation point and a question mark, used thusly: “What are you doing[insert interrobang. Unfortunately, the interrobang isn’t standard in font sets and can’t easily be used in typing.] You've just released the Kraken. ” )
September 24, 1938 -
One of the craziest cartoons Looney Tunes ever produced, Porky in Wackyland was released on this date. You need to watch it a few times to really get everything that's going on in this one.
Among the crazy characters Porky encounters is a creature with three heads arguing amongst themselves. From the haircuts on the three heads, it is clear that this is a parody of The Three Stooges. The character then faces the camera and leans into it in such a way that their round heads form a triangle, and a small character explains to the audience that, "He says his mother was scared by a pawnbroker's sign!"
September 24, 1945 -
Michael Curtiz' tense film noir, Mildred Pierce, starring Joan Crawford and her enormous shoulder pads, was released on this date.
Joan Crawford was nominated and won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Mildred Pierce. She was not at the award ceremony because she was home in bed with pneumonia. However, in the special features of the DVD, her daughter Christina says that she faked her illness. Joan did not think she would win the Academy Award and she did not want to attend the ceremony to be humiliated. It was said that after she heard that she won the award for Best Actress, she jumped out of bed, did her make up and put on her best negligee to meet the press.
September 24, 1958 -
Ladies (and some men), don't you always wears heels, pearls and chic frocks to do the housework? The Donna Reed Show premiered on ABC-TV on this date.
The living room set was later used again as Major Nelson's living room on I Dream of Jeannie. It was also used as the Mitchell's livingroom in Dennis the Menace and in the show Hazel several times.
September 24, 1961 -
Students of Great Comedy lined up around the block to enroll in Whatsamatta U when The Bullwinkle Show moved to primetime on NBC TV on this date.
Production budgets and time restraints were so tight that many times when actors flubbed a line and ad-libbed around it, it was included in the finished cartoon. In one infamous incident, announcer William Conrad couldn't finish the closing lines to the episode with the time limits. Producer Jay Ward then had Conrad read the script once again, and set fire to the bottom of the script as he read. Conrad quickly finished the lines before the flames reached his fingers.
September 24, 1964 -
The first season opening credits were an outrageous parody of the opening credits of The Donna Reed Show, which always began with Donna Reed lovingly passing out lunches to her departing family members as they left the house one by one. Yvonne De Carlo, as Lily Munster, did the same thing.
September 24, 1968 -
The TV show Mod Squad premiered on ABC-TV on this date.
Series creator Buddy Ruskin, a former Los Angeles police officer, used his experiences with a special L.A.P.D. youth squad as the basis for this show.
September 24, 1977 -
Everyone got to order their first drink from Isaac when The Love Boat set sail for the first time on ABC-TV on this date.
The former Pacific Princess was scrapped in 2013 at a Turkish ship recycling yard on the Aegean coast. She was 42 years old, and was decommissioned in 2008. The Izmir Ship Recycling Company acquired the former cruise ship for 2.5 million euros ($2.95 million).
September 24, 1991 -
Nirvana's album Nevermind was released 30 years today on this date.
Within a year of the album's release, much of the hair metal and hard rock that had commanded the airwaves was being phased out in favor of the “grunge” style often attached to Nirvana.
Another unimportant moment in history
Today in History:
September 24, 1896 -
... Life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat; the redeeming things are not happiness and pleasure but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle.
The war ended before Fitzgerald could be sent overseas and shot, however, so he went to New York to become rich and famous. He became neither, so Zelda broke off their engagement.
Fitzgerald then moved back to Minnesota. A year later he became a famous writer. He moved to Connecticut, Zelda married him, and they became drunken celebrity wrecks.
They spent a lot of time in Europe. This lasted until Zelda went mad and Fitzgerald died.
Fitzgerald is best remembered for having said the rich were different, even though Hemingway kept telling him to act like a man and strip down, grease himself up and get into a boxing ring.
Oh yeah, he also wrote several books.
September 24, 1947 -
Majestic 12, a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, was allegedly established by a secret executive order issued by President Harry Truman (who may or may not have been sober at the time) to investigate UFO activity in the aftermath of the Roswell incident.
Conspiracy theorists consider the Majestic 12 major evidence supporting the government-cover-up theories. The FBI has since attempted to debunk any documents associated with the committee. Debate continues to this day about whether or not the committee existed. (And remember, you didn't read any of this here.)
September 24, 1964 -
The Warren Commission report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, (which had occurred on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas,) was presented to President Lyndon B. Johnson on this date.
The report did little to quiet conspiracy theories, but it documented that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone and that the Secret Service had made poor preparations for JFK’s visit to Dallas, had failed to sufficiently protect him, and was not part of a larger-scale plot.
President Johnson never slept another full nights' sleep again.
September 24, 1969 -
The trial of the "Chicago Eight" (later seven) began on this date. Demonstrations began outside the court house, with the Weatherman group proclaiming the "Days of Rage" in protest of the trial. The Chicago Eight staged demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago to protest the Vietnam War and its support by the top Democratic presidential candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. These anti-Vietnam War protests were some of the most violent in American history as the police and national guardsmen beat antiwar protesters, innocent bystanders and members of the press.
Five defendants (Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, David Dellinger and Rennie Davis) were convicted of crossing state lines to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention; the convictions were ultimately overturned.
September 24, 1970 -
Luna 16 was the first robotic probe to land on the Moon and return a sample to Earth. An automatic drilling rig was deployed and 101 grams of lunar soil was collected.
The samples were returned to Earth on this date and marked the first time lunar sampled were recovered by an unmanned spacecraft.
September 24, 1991 -
Theodor Seuss Geisel, an American writer and cartoonist best known for his classic children's books under the pen name Dr. Seuss, including The Cat in the Hat, Green Eggs and Ham, How the Grinch Stole Christmas and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, died on this date.
No greater tribute was given to the Doctor than when the Reverend Jesse Jackson appeared on SNL following his death.
And so it goes
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