But please, feel free to bludgeon someone to death with a leg of lamb and serve it to the police when they come to investigate, in his honor, if you so choose. Save a serving for me (I'll bring the homemade tzaktiki.)
March 12, 1941 -
One of Frank Capra's most iconic films, Meet John Doe, starring Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, and Edward Arnold, premiered in New York and Los Angeles on this date.
Frank Capra didn't want anyone to play John Doe except Gary Cooper, who agreed to the part (without reading a script) for two reasons: he had enjoyed working with Capra on Mr. Deeds Goes to Town and he wanted to work with Barbara Stanwyck.
March 12, 1953 -
John Huston's very off-beat comedy, Beat the Devil, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morley, Peter Lorre and Bernard Lee, premiered in New York City on this date.
Humphrey Bogart challenged Truman Capote to an arm-wrestling bout and lost. When Bogart challenged him a second time, Capote insisted they wager $50, which the writer won by defeating the actor again. After a third match--and another victory for Capote--the evening degenerated to full-body wrestling and Capote again reportedly was triumphant. "He put Bogie on his ass," John Huston later said. "He was a little bull."
March 12, 1971 -
Robert Wise's taut Sci-Fi Thriller, The Andromeda Strain, opened on this date. (A fun film to watch while you're self-quarantining.)
This movie was made before the era of CGI, forcing the filmmakers to rely totally on practical effects. For example, the rotating holographic display of the facility layout was created using a projector and a simple of piece of cardboard that was raised as each level was added.
March 12, 1971 -
John Lennon released Power to the People in the United Kingdom on this date.
Around the time this song was recorded and released, film cameras were constantly recording John and Yoko for the Imagine documentary. Among the footage is John Lennon giving this concise explanation of the song's meaning: "The people are the government, and the people have the power. All we have to do is awaken the power in the people."
March 12, 2001 -
The Chris Isaak Show, a television sitcom which follows a fictionalized version of the life of American rock musician Chris Isaak, premiered on Showtime on this date.
The character of Mona is based on a real woman at the Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco known as "Dolphina". In the 1930s, a magician worked the joint and rigged up a series of mirrors that would project an image of anyone who was lying on a rotating table in the basement up into the fish tank located behind the bar.
March 12, 2002 –
The Fox Searchligh Pictures sleeper hit Bend It Like Beckham, starring Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, went into limited release in the US on this date.
Many of the wedding guests in the movie were relatives of director Gurinder Chadha, and they added realism by throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the scenes, treating the shoot as if it were a real wedding.
March 12, 2002 -
The Chris Wedgee's film, Ice Age, starring Ray Romano, John Leguizamo, Denis Leary, Jack Black, and Cedric the Entertainer premiered in this date in the US.
John Leguizamo tried 30 different voices for Sid. After viewing a documentary about sloths, he learned that they store food in their mouths; this led to him wondering what he would sound like with food in his mouth. After attempting to speak as if he had food in his mouth, he decided that it was the perfect voice for Sid.
March 12, 2007 -
Amy Winehouse made her US television debut on the Late Show with David Letterman performing Rehab on this date.
On August 14, 2007, Winehouse entered The Causeway Retreat, a rehab center in Essex, England, with her new husband (and fellow addict), Blake Fielder. Addiction specialists know that admitting a couple to rehab together is a bad idea, but The Causeway was not an ethical institution: it was shut down amid a host of violations in 2010. Winehouse did a few more stints in rehab to treat her drug and alcohol addiction, but it was ultimately unsuccessful. She was found dead in her London home on July 23, 2011.
Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today
Today in History:
March 12, 538 –
After a year and nine days, the First Siege of Rome during the Gothic War ended when, Vitiges, king of the Ostrogoths retreated to the Gothic capital of Ravenna, in the Emilia-Romagna region of Northern Italy, leaving the city in the hands of the victorious Byzantine general, Belisarius, on this date.
But what the hell do you care.
March 12, 1888 -
The day before started off seemingly fine - the temperature was mild as a light rain began to fall on March 11th, 1888. And then the weather changed. The rain became heavier and by the next day, the rains changed to heavy snow and buried the unprepared city in drifts of up to thirty feet deep! The temperature plunged and winds reached over eighty miles per hour.
On the first day of 1888 blizzard, Roscoe Conkling, former congressman and US Senator (from NY) was at his law office at 10 Wall Street. Despite the severity of the storm, Conkling decided to walk from his office to his club on Madison Square, even though it was 6:00 PM and already dark, rather than pay the outrageous rate of $50 for a cab ride.
He made it up Broadway as far as Union Square where he (as he later put it): “got to the middle of the park and was up to my arms in a drift…. For nearly twenty minutes I was stuck there and I came as near giving right up and sinking down there to die as a man can and not do it.” But somehow Conkling freed himself and continued up Broadway to Madison Square, where the people at the New York Club could “scarcely believe” he had walked from Wall Street.
Conkling developed a slight cold a few day later and a few weeks later on April 18th, became one of most famous victims of the blizzard. Conkling friends immediately set about to memorialize him with a statue in Madison Square Park. (Apparently the city fathers balked at commemorating Conkling in Union Square amidst George Washington and Abraham Lincoln - he was not that well liked.) Aside from the statue, Roscoe Conkling's greatest legacy was perhaps silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who was reportedly named for Conkling by Fatty's father, who thought that his son was the product of an affair between his wife and Conkling.
March 12, 1912 -
Juliette Gordon Low organized the Girl Guides, which later became the Girl Scouts of America, at the 1848 Andrew Low House in Savannah, Ga. on this date.
Mrs. Low rented a carriage house for "club rooms" for the Girl Guides on the property of a prominent family in Georgia, the Nash family. Ogden Nash, 10 years old in 1912, grew up to be a well-known poet; he immortalized "Mrs. Low's House" in one of his poems. The Nash family continued to pay rent for the carriage house even after it was converted for use by the Girl Guides, becoming one of the first financial supporters for the fledgling movement.
On May 29, 2012, the centennial of the Girl Scouts was commemorated when Low was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
March 12, 1918 -
Today episode on the Wacky World of the Russian Revolution -
March 12, 1922 -
At the end of the Second World War, America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. Each bomb killed so many people so quickly and made the world so safe for peace-loving democracies that America began feeling pretty good about things and forgot all about being Depressed, etc. This caused the hula-hoop, the soda fountain, and the young Annette Funicello.
Not everyone could master the hula-hoop, however, and the alienation experienced by those who couldn't resulted in the development of an American counterculture.
Scoffing the traditional values of mainstream America, the counterculturalists experimented with bold new ideas. They forsook the established middle-class pleasures, such as wine, woman, and song, in favor of radical new ones, such as sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll.
Born 100 years ago today, Jack Kerouac was a child of the Depression and a veteran of the second world war. He was therefore torn between these competing value systems and roamed the country aimlessly in search of grammar and punctuation.
The adventures described in On the Road were based loosely on his real-life travels with the infamous Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, whose insatiable appetite for borscht led Kerouac to dub them "The Beet Generation."
March 12, 1932 -
Ivar Kreuger, the so-called Swedish Match King, (at one time, he controlled two thirds of the worldwide match production) committed suicide in Paris on this date, leaving behind a financial empire that turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme.
The 'Kreuger crash’ shook Wall Street and led to a 1933 Securities Act, which strengthened disclosure requirements for all companies selling stock.
March 12, 1938 -
Germany enters Austria in the Anschluss, to annex it as part of Grossdeutchland.
Oh those wacky Germans and their World Domination Tour.
March 12, 1945 -
...The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be....
Anne Frank was thought to have died at Auschwitz on this date.
March 12, 1955 -
Bird Lives.
Due to many years of drug and alcohol abuse, the coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.
March 12, 1969 -
Paul McCartney married Linda Eastman on this date.
George Harrison and Patti Boyd missed the ceremony because they had been arrested earlier that day when a very large amount of hashish was found in their home. I guess their wedding gift never got to the newlyweds.
The World Wide Web turns 33 today (or not, please you get your own blog and post what you want.)
When Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal, his boss was the first of many people who didn’t get it initially. His manager described the web as “vague but interesting”.
March 12, 2000 -
Pope John Paul II asked God's forgiveness for the many wrongs committed by the Roman Catholic Church on this date. The pardon he requested divided into seven categories of Church sin, including sins against the Jews, against native peoples of the world, the crimes of the Inquisition, and general crimes against humanity.
Hey, before you go, we lose an hour of sleep tonight - Daylight Saving Time (leave the last S off for saving) starts at 2 AM tomorrow morning, so don't forget to turn all those clocks, microwaves, DVD players, etc. ahead.
Please do this work yourself:
the time you save may be your own.
And so it goes.
Not everyone could master the hula-hoop, indeed.
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