Partial to skinny-dipping in the Potomac, John Quincy Adams was once surprised by an enterprising lady reporter, midswim. She forced him into a naked interview. (Quite probably the first and only naked interview any president ever gave, unless Bill Clinton... okay, let's not go there.)
October 20, 1918 -
Rarely seen now, but one of Charlie Chaplin's most popular films at it time, Shoulder Arms, was released on this date.
Many in Hollywood were nervous that one of their most famous peers was going to tackle the subject of WWI. It was released shortly before the Armistice, so it did not help boost national morale, but it did end up as one of Charles Chaplin's most popular films and it was particularly popular with returning doughboys.
October 20, 1939 -
The ninth Marx Brothers film, At the Circus, premiered on this date.
Buster Keaton worked on the film as a gag man. His career was on the downside, and he was forced to work for scale. His complex and sometimes belabored gags did not work well with The Marx Brothers' brand of humor and was a source of friction between the comedian and the brothers. When Groucho called Keaton on the inappropriateness of his gags for the team, Keaton responded, "I'm only doing what Mr. Mayer ("MGM" chief Louis B. Mayer) asked me to do. You guys don't need help."
October 20, 1955 -
Harry Belafonte, advocate for civil rights and humanitarian causes, recorded the famous Day-O (Banana Boat Song) on this date.
This song was first recorded in 1952 by Edric Conner, a musician from Trinidad who sang it with his band The Carribeans as Day De Light. The song re-emerged in 1956 when the folk singer Bob Gibson taught the song to the folk trio The Tarriers (Alan Arkin was a member of the trio,) after hearing it on a trip to Jamaica. Once The Terriers recorded it, the Calypso Craze took off in America, and Belafonte capitalized on the trend: According to BMI, the Calypso album was the first to sell over 1 million copies.
(Now try getting the song out of your head today.)
October 20, 1973 -
One of the rare ballad for The Rolling Stones, Angie became a #1 hit on this date.
Keith Richards wrote this song in Switzerland after the Exile on Main St. album had been approved by the record company, but before it was released. Angie was one of the first songs The Stones recorded for Goat's Head Soup, which they first attempted in Jamaica at the Dynamic Sounds studio in Kingston. They got very little done at these sessions, arriving nightly with armed escort and locking the doors until they were done for the day. Much of the album was done at sessions in Los Angeles and London under more hospitable conditions.
October 20, 1976 -
The Led Zeppelin concert documentary The Song Remains The Same, directed by Peter Clifton and Joe Massot premiered in London and New York, with the band attending the New York opening.
For their three New York performances, the band members wore exactly the same clothes to facilitate seamless editing of the film, except for John Paul Jones who wore three different sets of attire on each of these nights, which created continuity problems.
October 20, 1979 -
Bob Dylan performed his first and only time on Saturday Night Live, on this date. The songs he performed were Gotta Serve Somebody, When You Gonna Wake Up, and I Believe in You.
Dylan debuted I Believe in You when he was on Saturday Night Live that evening. The first time he played it during a full concert was on November 1, 1979, in San Francisco. Since then, he's played it live more than 250 times.
October 20, 1980 -
U2 released their debut album, Boy, produced by Steve Lillywhite, on this date.
It doesn't yield any hits but I Will Follow becomes one of their most popular songs.
Another failed ACME product
Today in History:
October 20, 480 BC -
(Sometimes the world changes in a day) The Athenian fleet, under the command of Themistocles, defeated the Persians in the Naval Battle of Salamis on this date.
That victory will arguably lead to the rise of Greece as a global power and the eventual dissemination of Greek philosophies and ideals, such as democracy, throughout the western world. And as always, there was much roasted lamb consumed and much sodomy engaged in that night.
October 20, 1720 –
Caribbean pirate Calico Jack Rackham, one of the first pirates to use the “Jolly Roger”, was captured by the Royal Navy, on this date.
While the majority of pirate crews used designs that had a depiction of full human skeletons using some weapon, Calico Jack promoted an iconic pirate flag design that today represents a synonym for a naval piracy - black flag with white human skull and two white crossed swords beneath it.
October 20, 1818 -
The International Boundary is commonly referred to as the world's longest undefended border, but this is true only in the military sense, as civilian law enforcement is present. But we're keeping an eye on those sneaky Canadians and their cheese curd fries.
There are some 150 people who live in the Northwest Angle, MN, a spot of land that is separated from the rest of the USA by Lake of the Woods.
Students who live in the Northwest Angle go to school in Warroad, MN, the Angle Inlet School (the only surviving one room school,) and have to cross the international border on their way to and from school each day. It must suck to get a full body cavity search every day before school.
Thank you to our family from the north for your kind words. Now keep to your side of the parallel!
October 20, 1930 -
Death row murderer William Kogut committed suicide in San Quentin prison with MacGyver like ingenuity. He tore the red spots from a deck of playing cards, at the time the red dye used on the pack of cards was made from nitrocellulose, saturated them with water, and jammed them into a length of steel pipe from his bed frame. Kogut placed the bomb on the heater and waited for science to take it's course.
October 20, 1944 -
Gen. Douglas MacArthur stepped ashore at Leyte in the Philippines, 2 1/2 years after he'd said, "I shall return," on this date.
He landed with Sergio Osmena, the president-in-exile, Gen’l. Carlos Romulo, who later served as foreign minister and a boatload of press and photographers to record the event.
October 20, 1947 -
Chaired by J. Parnell Thomas (one of the committee's members was Richard M. Nixon), The House Un-American Activities Committee began its investigation into Communist infiltration of Hollywood.
The resulting hysteria results in the creation of a blacklist in the film industry, preventing certain individuals from working in the business for years.
October 20, 1967 -
Roger Patterson and Robert Gimlin reported that on this date they had captured a purported Sasquatch on film at Bluff Creek, California. This came to be known as the Patterson-Gimlin film, which is purported to be the best evidence of Bigfoot by many advocates.
If only that had named their film - Bigfoot: I want to grab you by your nether regions, perhaps it would have done better box office in it's opening weekend.
Many years later, Bob Heironimus, an acquaintance of Patterson's, claimed that he had worn an ape costume for the making of the film. Organizations such as Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization have suggested that that Heironimus himself is a fraud.
October 20, 1973 -
The Saturday Night Massacre: Richard Nixon fired Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus when they each refuse to fire special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox on this date.
Who was the man who finally fired Cox: Robert Bork - it's that evil beard.
October 20, 1977 -
En route to a gig at Louisiana State University, Lynyrd Skynyrd band members Ronnie Van Zandt and Steve Gaines were killed when their private plane runs out of fuel and crashes into a swamp in Gillsburg, Mississippi. Their record company MCA withdraws the flame-filled cover art for their ironically-named Street Survivors album
Drunken frat boys everywhere cry out in their mournful lamentations, "Play 'Freebird' man".
And so it goes
Also see the geographic oddity that is Point Roberts, Washington. Point Roberts is home to roughly 1,000 US citizens but is not connected by land to the US. The 49th parallel cuts it off like a botched circumcision. Last week we glimpsed Point Roberts from the deck of the ferry that runs between Vancouver and Victoria, BC. During the border closure occasioned by the pandemic, the residents had to get their groceries by boat.
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