Please rise, while reading this

September 8, 1892 -
"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

The Pledge, which was written by Baptist minister Francis Bellamy, was published on this day in The Youth's Companion children's magazine.

(Rev. Bellamy did not include the words "Under God"; they were included by Congress 62 years later.



School's began having children recite the pledge on October 12th that same year.

(you may be seated.)


Please read a newspaper, a magazine, the back of an oil stained envelope with a recipe from your grandmother, today is International Literacy Day.



At the very least, you could read the crap I purport to write every day.



And here's a word from the opposition - The dumb as dirt party.


September 8, 1951 -
Tony Bennett's first hit Because of You topped the charts on this date.



The song was written by Arthur Hammerstein (uncle of Oscar Hammerstein II) and Dudley Wilkinson in 1940.


September 8, 1966 -
Star Trek debuted on NBC-TV, with the airing of an episode titled The Man Trap on this date. (The series had to overcome calls from within the network to cancel the series before it even aired.)



The NBC show has since spawned multiple TV series, as well as comics, toys and a movie empire. Fans of the franchise, called Trekkies, often cite the show as an inspiration for technological inventions like the cell phone and computerized tablets.


September 8, 1966 -
That Girl starring Marlo Thomas premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The train in the opening sequence of the series was shot at Secaucus Junction, in Secaucus, NJ. It was filmed out of the back of the train as it headed northwest, then the film was reversed, making it appear to be heading towards Newark. That is why traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike (running parallel to the right, with Laurel Hill in the background) is moving backwards.


September 8, 1973 -
Marvin Gaye started a two week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with Let's Get It On, on this date.



Originally written by 1950s one-hit-wonder Ed Townsend (For Your Love in 1958), the song originally addressed the author's desire to get on with life after beating alcoholism. Marvin Gaye completely changed the lyrics (and meaning) to the song after meeting Janis Hunter, the woman who would become his second wife.


September 8, 1986 -
The first nationally syndicated episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show, went on the air on this date. The topic for the premiere show was "How to Marry the Man or Woman of Your Choice".



Oprah Winfrey used the show as an educational platform, featuring book clubs, interviews, self-improvement segments, and philanthropic forays into world events. It was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and was nationally syndicated from 1986 to 2011.


September 8, 1994 -
At the MTV Video Music Awards, Beastie Boy Adam Yauch (MCA), in character as "Nathanial Hornblower," rushes the stage when R.E.M.'s Everybody Hurts beats Sabotage for Best Direction.



It's the first such intrusion at the VMAs. Frequent Beastie Boys collaborator Nathaniel Hörnblowér has an impressive resume. He directed classic Beasties videos (including So What Cha Want and Pass the Mic) as well as the rap trio’s 2006 live concert film, Awesome; I Fuckin’ Shot That!. He is even credited for the iconic photograph on the cover of Paul’s Boutique.


September 8, 1997 -
The first episode of the legal dramedy Ally McBeal premiered on FOX, on this date.



Peter MacNicol does not appear in the pilot, though he's in the second episode as a guest star. He joined the regular cast later in the first season.


September 8, 1999 -
Sam Mendes' scathing comedy, American Beauty, Starring Kevin Spacey, Annette Bening, and Thora Birch, premiered in Los Angeles on this date.



Executive producer Steven Spielberg read the script on a Saturday night. When he arrived at the DreamWorks offices on the following Monday morning, he said, "Let's make this movie and let's not change a word."


September 8, 2001 -
(Ear worm allert -) Kylie Minogue released the single Can't Get You Out Of My Head, with a "la la la" chorus that does indeed burrow into the brain, on this date.



For most Americans, this was the first they heard from Minogue since 1988, when her cover of The Loco-Motion hit #3. She became an international sensation that year, but in the '90s her support was concentrated in the UK and in her home country of Australia. Can't Get You Out Of My Head put her back on the charts in many more territories.


September 8, 2015 -
Stephen Colbert debuted as the new host of CBS's The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on this date. (It was a stretch but he felt that he was up to the challenger.)



The Ed Sullivan Theater (where the show is taped) underwent an extensive renovation during the time between David Letterman's retirement and Stephen Colbert's debut as host of the Late Show. In addition to the talk show set receiving an overhaul, several architectural features of the theater were restored. The theater's ornate domed ceiling, which had been hidden behind air ducts and sound buffers, was uncovered, and the ornate stained-glass windows, which had been removed and placed in storage during the Letterman era, were re-installed.


Another failed ACME Product


Today in History -
September 8, 337 -

Constantine the Great's three sons, Constantine II, Constans and Constantius II, named themselves Caesars and divided the Roman Empire between them on this date.



But it was nearly sixteen hundred years before Sid Caesar himself was born, on September 8, 1922.


September 8, 1504 -
Michelangelo's David, was unveiled in Florence on this date.



If you were staring too hard, you'll notice that Dave has got a turtleneck. The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.



Now put your eyes back in your head.


John Endicott arrived in Naumkeag, Massachusetts, as the leader of a group of Puritan Grumps who had purchased land patents from the Plymouth Council in England on this date in 1628.

A previous group of settlers had established themselves in Naumkeag in 1626 but had no patent and were therefore Villainous Heretics. They gladly surrendered their claim in the face of the newcomers' Superior Moral Virtue, which came in a variety of gauges.



Later Naumkeag became Salem and developed witches, ultimately resulting in a profitable cottage industry.


September 8, 1664 -
The Dutch surrendered the city of New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York, on this day. The English navigator Henry Hudson claimed credit as the city's discoverer in 1609, when he sailed into its harbor and up the river that now bears his name, looking for a passage to India. Hudson was sailing for the Dutch West India Company, so it was the Dutch who moved in and settled the area in 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock.



Forty years later, New Amsterdam became a city; its population, 800. In the 1660s the Dutch and English were at war, and on September 8, 1664, a fleet sent by the Duke of York seized the city and changed the name to New York.



There are many in the Congress who have been trying to give the city back to the Dutch, the English or the Indians for that matter ever since.


September 8, 1930 -
3M of St. Paul, Minnesota begins marketing Scotch brand cellulose tape, the first waterproof, transparent, pressure-sensitive tape on this date.



The arrival of Scotch tape changed present-wrapping practices worldwide.


September 8, 1934 -
The luxury liner Morro Castle, en route from Havana to NYC, caught fire and ran aground at Asbury Park, NJ on this date. 134 people were killed.



The crew of the cruise ship let a small blaze get out of control and commandeered most of the spots in the lifeboats. Only 15 passengers survived as compared to 119 crew.

Remember, tip your service staff.


September 8, 1935 -
Dr. Carl Austin Weiss confronted Senator Huey Long in a narrow corridor of the State House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Weiss drew a .32 caliber pistol and fired one slug into Long's abdomen on this date.



The Senator's bodyguards immediately made Swiss cheese out of Weiss, riddling him with 61 bullets. Long was rushed to the hospital, where he died two days later.


September 8, 1974 -
President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard M. Nixon, out of respect for Nixon's family. "Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."



Later polling will indicate that this move will ultimately deny Fords being elected president in his own right. A majority of Americans will remain convinced that a dirty deal had been struck between Ford and Nixon, giving Ford the top spot and Nixon the pardon. Not to add to any sort of conspiracy theory or anything but 10 years earlier, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission.


September 8, 1974 -
In Idaho, daredevil Evel Knievel climbed into his (really just a rocket on wheels) and hit the ignition on this date.



The vehicle manages to clear the quarter-mile-wide canyon, but then the parachute deploys prematurely and prevailing winds push him back into the chasm.

Total ripoff.


September 8, 1974 -

Leonard Matlovich appeared in his Air Force uniform on the cover of Time magazine on this date. He challenged the ban against homosexuals in the US military and was given a "general" discharge by the Air Force after publicly declaring his homosexuality.



His suit dragged on until 1980 when a federal judge ordered Matlovich reinstated. Instead of re-entering the Air Force, Matlovich accepted a settlement of $160,000. Matlovich became a gay rights activist and died from AIDS related symptoms in 1988.


September 8, 1993 -
The restless, refrigerated popicle-like remains of President Ferdinand Marcos, whose corpse spent several years exiled in Hawaii, returned, like MacArthur, to the Philippines for its final resting place.

Luckily, Imelda had her husband preserved, so they are finally able to put him on display just like Lenin, Mao and Pol Pot -- under glass in a mausoleum of his very own.



And so it goes.