Betcha didn't want know

“Public opinion: May it always perform one of its appropriate offices, by teaching the public functionaries of the State and of the Federal Government, that neither shall assume the exercise of powers entrusted by the Constitution to the other.”



James K. Polk was plagued by diarrhea all through his one term as president. He finally died of what he called "a derangement of the stomach bowels.”


September 7, 1954 -
Roberto Rossellini's masterpiece, Journey to Italy (Viaggio in Italia,) starring Ingrid Bergman and George Sanders, is released on this date.





The character portrayed by George Sanders complains several times in the film that he is bored. In real life, the suicide note Sanders left behind in 1972 said in part "Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored."


September 7, 1963 -
The first animated cartoon series to be imported from Japan, Astro Boy was broadcast on NBC-TV on this date.



The Japanese version originally didn't have a theme song, it wasn't until the success of the American theme song that they came up with one for the Japanese version.


September 7, 1967 -
The Flying Nun, starring Sally Field as a nun who finds that she can fly, debuted on ABC-TV on this date.



Critics, comedians, and others overlooked the fact that, in a sixties TV environment that did not yet fully embrace diversity, The Flying Nun is one of the few, if not the only, prime time sitcom of the era taking place in an impoverished community among Hispanic people.


September 7, 1968 –
The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (which only lasted 31 episodes,) starring Bingo, Drooper, Fleegle, and Snorky, premiered on NBC, on this date.



The show originally was going to be called The Banana Bunch. However, there was a children's book already released with that title and the author wouldn't give permission to Hanna-Barbera to use it. Also, the name change had further repercussions as Kellogg's, who was the show's sponsor, was going to sell cereal with the Banana Bunch name and when the name changed happened Kellogg's was forced to abandon their plans even though they had already printed 1.25 million boxes with the cereal's name.


September 7, 1979 -
ESPN, the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, made its debut on cable TV.



The first program on the air, Sports Center lasted a half-hour, consisting mainly of videotaped highlights and following its conclusion that night, the network aired a slow-pitch softball game along with other programming, including wrestling and college soccer.


September 7, 1985 -
David Bowie and Mick Jagger's cover of the Martha Reeves and The Vandellas 1964 hit Dancing In The Street hit No.1 on the UK singes chart, on this date



The video was broadcast at Live Aid after Queen's historic set at Wembley Stadium. After it ended, Bowie started his live performance. Jagger went on much later from the Philadelphia stage.


September 7, 1987 -
Pink Floyd released their first album without founding member Roger Waters, A Momentary Lapse of Reason, in the UK, on this date.



Pink Floyd had split up in 1983 after releasing the album The Final Cut. In 1985, Waters told their record company he was done with the band, which he thought would retire Pink Floyd. It didn't. The following year, David Gilmour and drummer Nick Mason reinstated keyboard player Rick Wright as a full member (Waters demoted him to session man) and announced they would be continuing as Pink Floyd. Waters tried to stop them, but his legal efforts failed. Convinced the album would fail, he sniped at his former bandmates in the press, wondering how they could make anything of value without him.


September 7, 1993 –
The Chevy Chase Show landed with a thud, out of the gate, when it premiered on Fox, on this date. The show was cancelled six weeks later.



Lucie Salhany, the then-chairwoman of Fox Broadcasting, announced on October 17, 1993, that the network had decided to cancel the show "in the best interests of both its affiliated stations and its star." Salhany spoke about Chevy Chase's first episodes: "He was very nervous. It was uncomfortable and embarrassing to watch it." Chase issued a statement regarding the cancellation, in which he called the talk-show format "very constraining." Chase had never intended the show to be a long-term series, even if it had been successful, and admitted in an interview that he would "never be tied down for five years interviewing TV personalities."


Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency


Today in History:
September 7, 1533 -
Elizabeth I was born on on this date. She was crowned at 25 and remained on the throne for 44 years, which helps explain why she remained a virgin all her life.



She is best known for having ordered the destruction of the Spanish Armadillo and the invention of Shakespeare.


September 7, 1915 -
Former-cartoonist Johnny Gruelle received a patent (US patent #47,789) his Raggedy Ann doll on this date.

Gruelle created Raggedy Ann for his daughter, Marcella, when she brought him an old hand-made rag doll and he drew a face on it. From his bookshelf, he pulled a book of poems by James Whitcomb Riley, and combined the names of two poems, The Raggedy Man and Little Orphant Annie. He said, "Why don’t we call her Raggedy Ann?"


September 7, 1927 -
Philo T. Farnsworth (all of 21 years old) succeeded in transmitting an image through purely electronic means by using an image dissector on this date.



He used an "image dissector" (the first television camera tube) to convert the image into a current, and an "image oscillite" (picture tube) to receive it.



When the simple image of a straight line was placed between the image dissector and a carbon arc lamp, it showed up clearly on the receiver in another room. His first tele-electronic image was transmitted on a glass slide at his laboratory at 202 Green Street in San Francisco. He went on to have his first public demonstrate of his invention to the press a year later, on September 3, 1928.


It's the birthday of singer and songwriter Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holly, born in Lubbock, Texas, on this date in 1936. By the age of 13, Holly was playing what he called "Western Bop" at local clubs. He was 19 when an agent discovered him and signed him to a contract with Decca Records.



The following year, Holly returned to Lubbock and, with three friends, formed The Crickets, who then released That' ll Be The Day, which sold over a million copies. Buddy Holly's career was short: He died in February of 1959 in a plane crash in northern Iowa. Soon after, an English band that admired The Crickets decided to call themselves The Beatles.


September 7, 1936 -
The last Tasmanian Tiger, the Thylacine was the largest known carnivorous marsupial of modern times, died at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania, Australia, on this date.



This dog-like marsupial was systematically exterminated as an undesirable predator of farm animals.


September 7, 1940 -
Nazi Germany began its initial blitz on London during the World War II Battle of Britain on this date. The German Luftwaffe blitzed London for the first of 57 consecutive nights on this date. Germany launched the aerial bombing of London that Adolf Hitler believed would soften Britain for an invasion.



The invasion, "Operation Sea Lion," never materialized. The Luftwaffe lost 41 bombers over England. The blitz only strengthened Britain's resistance. The defense of London was for the Royal Air Force what Churchill called "their finest hour."


September 7, 1978 -
Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, died in his London residence from an overdose of chlormethiazole edisylate, a prescription drug used to treat alcoholism.



Moon's flat, #12 Curzon Place, was the same spot where Cass Elliot died of a heart attack in 1974 (and not from choking on a ham sandwich, smarty pants.)


September 7, 1978 -
Walking to the bus stop, BBC journalist Georgi Markov suddenly felt a sharp pain in his right calf. A KGB assassin had jabbed him with an umbrella tip, rigged to inject a tiny platinum sphere. The pellet is laden with ricin, a castor-based toxin with no known antidote. Markov died in the hospital four agonizing days later.



Oh those wacky KGB agents.


September 7, 1996 -
Standing up through the open sunroof of a BMW 750 sedan, rap artist Tupac Shakur was talking to some women at a Las Vegas street intersection when a white Cadillac pulls alongside. Gunfire erupts, and Shakur was shot four times. He died in the hospital a week later.



Although quite dead, or so we are led to believe, he still has quite impression record sales.


September 7, 2003 -
... I missed jazz, kind of. And by the time I came to it in life, it was too intimidating to enjoy thoroughly.



Warren Zevon, Grammy Award-winning American rock singer-songwriter and musician, died at age 56, on this date.



And so it goes.