Today is the last day of Lent - you have one more day of having to give up something (or one could have done something extra.)
A mid-1950s construction worker involved in the demolition of the J. C. Wilber Building finds a box inside a cornerstone. He opens it to reveal a singing, dancing frog (that came to be called Michigan J. Frog,) complete with top hat and cane.
According to the cartoon, One Froggy Night (1955), the box also contains a commemorative document dated April 16, 1892.
April 16, 1932 -
The Music Box, moment by moment one of the funniest Laurel and Hardy sound movies, premiered on this date.
The idea for the film came to a Hal Roach comedy writer in 1927 when he passed a long flight of stairs in the Silverlake area of L.A. and thought it would be a good idea to have Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy trying to move something heavy up them.
April 16, 1962 -
This is the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite
Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards as anchorman of The CBS Evening News on this date.
April 11, 1964 -
Needing one more song for his album, Dean Martin records Everybody Loves Somebody, which his friend Frank Sinatra recorded in 1947 and several other singers tried in the '50s.
In 1964, Dean Martin was finishing up recording his Dream with Dean album and had completed 11 songs. Albums always had 12 songs in the US, so Dean asked his conductor and piano player, Ken Lane, if he had something else for him. Ken said he had an old song he had written - Everybody Loves Somebody. Dean liked it and recorded it with just Ken, a bass player, a guitar and drums. The reaction to the cut on the album was so great that Dean went back into the studio and re-recorded it for a single release with a full orchestra and background singers. It was such as hit that it knocked A Hard Day's Night out of its #1 spot on the charts. It became Dean's theme song for his TV show the next year in 1965.
April 16, 1964 -
The Rolling Stones released their first, eponymously named album in the UK on this date.
When London Records released the Stones’ debut album in the US, it came with a slightly different album cover. The photo was the same, but the band’s name featured prominently on the front, along with a subtitle: England’s Newest Hit Makers.
April 16, 1973 -
In order to fulfill a contractual obligation with Lew Grade, Paul McCartney appeared in his first TV special (since the disastrous Magical Mystery Tour,) James Paul McCartney, on this date.
Although it was very highly anticipated – McCartney received a cover story on TV Guide – the reviews were dreadful. The New York Times dismissed it as “a series of disconnected routines strung together with commercials for Chevrolet.” The Washington Post was nastier, taking Linda to task as not being her husband’s artistic equal. “Mrs. McCartney’s previous careers … do not qualify her to perform in public,” according to the Post’s critic.
April 16, 1977 -
David Soul one half of TV cop show Starsky & Hutch, went to No.1 on the US singles chart (as well as the UK charts,) with Don't Give Up On Us, his only US hit, on this date.
This was written by Tony Macaulay, who co-wrote four other UK #1s: Baby Now That I've Found You for the Foundations, Let The Heartaches Begin for Long John Baldry, Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) for Edison Lighthouse and Silver Lady for David Soul.
April 16, 1978 -
Directed by Marvin Chomsky and written by Gerald Green, Holocaust, starring Fritz Weaver, Joseph Bottoms, Michael Moriarty, David Warner, Tovah Feldshuh, Rosemary Harris, Ian Holm, George Rose, Meryl Streep, James Woods, Blanche Baker, and Sam Wanamaker, recounts the Nazi genocide of European Jewry through two fictional families in Berlin: the Weisses, who are Jewish, and the Dorfs, who are Christian, premiered on NBC on this date.
When this was aired on German television, it included the "Krystallnacht" scene, where people were smashing the windows of synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses. When that segment was shown, police station switchboards were flooded with confessional calls from people who had participated in the actual event, calling to confess their participation. The Statute of Limitations had run, however, and no action could be taken despite their confessions. Subsequently, the West German Government altered the relevant laws to extend the time limits, to enable the prosecution of such perpetrators.
Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today.
Today in History:
April 16, 1178 BC -
... The sun has been obliterated from the sky, and an unlucky darkness invades the world. - Theoclymenus
A solar eclipse may have marked the return of Odysseus, legendary King of Ithaca and one of the most recurrent characters in Western literature, to his kingdom after the Trojan War on this date.
April 16, 1865 -
President Abraham Lincoln lay in state on this date. Two days previously, he receives a cranial gunshot wound from a member of the nation's most famous acting families, John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln died the following day, primarily from ill-advised attempts to extract the bullet lodged in his brain.
Incredibly, Mr. Seward survives a stabbing to the face and neck. The president's death came only six days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War.
So once again, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
April 16, 1866 -
Dmitry Karakozov, a minor nobleman from Kostroma attempted to assassinate Tsar Alexander II of Russia at the gates of the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg on this date.
April 16, 1889 -
Charles Spencer Chaplin, Jr, actor, writer, songwriter, composer, film producer and director was born on this date.
When Chaplin arrived in the United States with the Fred Karno troupe on October 2, 1912, in his second trip to America, according to Ellis Island immigration records, he had $45 in his pocket. He listed his half-brother Syd Chaplin, as his next of kin. Though his mother was still alive, she was in a mental hospital. Sailing with him was fellow Karno troupe member Arthur Stanley Jefferson - later to be known as Stan Laurel.
April 16, 1912 -
In 1911, Harriet Quimby earned the first US pilot's license issued to a woman. Less than a year later, Quimby, in a Bleriot monoplane, became the first woman to fly solo over the English Channel on this date.
Her achievement was overshadowed in the press however, by reports of the sinking of the Titanic.
April 16 1912 -
The remains of the R.M.S. Titanic came to rest at the bottom of the sea on this date. The unsinkable ship sank after being torn by iceberg. Of a total of 2,208 people, only 712 survived; 1,496 perished.
If the lifeboats had been filled to capacity, 1,178 people could have been saved. Of the first-class, 203 were saved (60%) and 121 died. Of the second-class, 118 (44%) were saved and 159 were lost. Of the third-class, 178 were saved (25%) and 588 perished. Of the crew, 212 were saved (24%) and 679 perished. The majority of deaths were caused by victims succumbing to hypothermia in the 28 °F (-2 °C) water. Of particular note, the entire complement of the 35-member Engineering Staff (25 engineers, 6 electricians, two boilermakers, one plumber, and one writer/engineer's clerk) were lost.
The entire ship's orchestra was also lost. Led by violinist Wallace Hartley, they played music on the boat deck of the Titanic that night to calm the passengers. It will probably forever remain unknown what this orchestra selected as their last piece. Based on evidence from various sources some argue it was Nearer my God to Thee while others say it was Autumn.
April 16, 1917 -
Following the February Revolution (which occurred in March,) Nicholas II chose to abdicate in March 1917 (which was actually March at the time.) Vladimir Lenin was in exile in Switzerland at the time, (we believe Lenin really was in Switzerland.)
A passer-by informed him about the Russian Tsar's abdication, so Lenin and a group of his followers returned to Russia in a train provided by the Germans to take the reins of the Russian Revolution. They were greeted at St Petersburg (which was known as Petrograd at the time,) station on this date in 1917 by a great reception.
April 16, 1939 -
Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O'Brien, one of the leading pop singer and entertainer of the 1960s was born on this date.
The uniqueness of Dusty Springfield's voice was described by Burt Bacharach as: "You could hear just three notes and you knew it was Dusty."
April 16, 1943 -
LSD was first synthesized on April 7, 1938 by Swiss chemist Dr. Albert Hofmann at the Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, Switzerland, as part of a large research program searching for medically useful ergot alkaloid derivatives. Its psychedelic properties were unknown until five years later, when Hofmann, acting on what he has called a "peculiar presentiment," returned to work on the chemical. He attributed the discovery of the compound's psychoactive effects to the accidental absorption of a tiny amount through his skin on this date.
Here is an excerpt from Dr. Hofmann's diary concerning this day -
... Last Friday, April 16,1943, I was forced to interrupt my work in the laboratory in the middle of the afternoon and proceed home, being affected by a remarkable restlessness, combined with a slight dizziness. At home I lay down and sank into a not unpleasant intoxicated-like condition, characterized by an extremely stimulated imagination. In a dreamlike state, with eyes closed (I found the daylight to be unpleasantly glaring), I perceived an uninterrupted stream of fantastic pictures, extraordinary shapes with intense, kaleidoscopic play of colors. After some two hours this condition faded away....
Oh wow, the colors, the lights, man.
April 16, 1947 -
The French freighter Grandcamp, loaded with ammonium nitrate fertilizer, exploded at a port in Texas City, Texas on this date. The blast caused other explosions at a nearby chemical plant, spreading fires across oil refineries along the port.
An estimated 600 people were killed by the blast and the ensuing fires which swept the port and the surrounding town. The accident is considered the worst industrial accident in US history because of the high number of fatalities.
On a personal note, I want to wish Michael and Stephanie a very Happy Anniversary.
And so it goes.
Indeed, how was the play Mrs. Lincoln?
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