It's never too early for Gin O'Clock

Several sources, including the eponymously named Facebook page, lists today as International Gin and Tonic Day. Some cite April 9th as the date, although that is usually seen as National Gin and Tonic Day. I'm up for celebrating on both dates.

(But don't confuse it with World Gin Day which always falls on the second Saturday of June.)



So lift your glass and toast the late queen by drinking your G and T and make the room begin to spin.


October 19, 1966 -
The first pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau (they went on to work together in 11 additional films), The Fortune Cookie, premiered on this date.



This was director Billy Wilder's second film in a row in which one of his lead actors suffered a heart attack. In his preceding film, Kiss Me, Stupid, Peter Sellers' health problem forced Wilder to replace him with Ray Walston. In this film, Walter Matthau suffered his attack midway through production, but shooting was postponed until he recovered. His drastic weight loss from scene to scene is noticeable.


October 19, 1973 -
Columbia Pictures released Sydney Pollack's romantic drama, The Way We Were, written by Arthur Laurents and starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, on this date.



Robert Redford was unhappy with cuts made to the film following a preview. He said, "I think we'd both have preferred a more political Dalton Trumbo -type script, but finally Sydney came down on the side of the love story. He said, 'This is first and foremost a love affair,' and we conceded that. We trusted his instincts, and he was right."


October 19, 1973 -
David Bowie released his seventh album Pin Ups, which features supermodel Twiggy on the front cover, is released on this date.



The album is a collection of cover versions of some of the singer’s favourite songs, including tracks by Pink Floyd, The Pretty Things, The Who, The Yardbirds and The Kinks.


October 19, 1974 –
Billy Preston's single, Nothing from Nothing went to No. #1 on the Billboard Charts, on this date.



The B-side of the single was another song Preston wrote with his songwriting partner Bruce Fisher: You Are So Beautiful, which was later a hit for Joe Cocker.


October 19, 1977 -
Richard Brooks' somewhat lurid look at the 70s dating scene, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, starring Diane Keaton, Tuesday Weld, William Atherton, and Richard Gere, premiered in Los Angeles on this date



Diane Keaton's contract explicitly prohibited the manufacture of any production photograph stills from any "sexually suggestive" frames from the film's print.


October 19, 1984 -
One of the greatest concert movies, the Talking Heads film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathon Demme opens in the US on this date.



Jonathan Demme wanted to shoot additional performance footage on a soundstage made to recreate the Pantages Theater. The band vetoed this idea because they thought the lack of audience response would have hindered the energy of their performance.


October 19, 1985 -
The A-ha single Take On Me went to No. 1 on the U.S. singles chart, making them the first Norwegian group to achieve a No. 1 hit in America.



The song's success might be attributed to its distinctive music video - which features the band in a pencil-sketch rotoscoping animation.


October 19, 1990 –
Kevin Costner's directorial debut, Dances with Wolves, starring himself, Mary McDonnell, Graham Greene, and Rodney Grant, premiered in Washington D.C. on this date.



Kevin Costner's daughter Annie Costner, playing Stands With A Fist as a child, is seen running away from the Pawnee party that killed her family in the dream sequence. She looks back over each shoulder as she runs because Costner told her to look over her right shoulder and she didn't know her right from her left - she was only 6 years old at the time.


Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency


Today in History: October 19, 202 BC - (it's quite silly to think that this is the exact date: Julius Caesar will not be working on his calendar for more than a century. The scribes and historians of the day would have been too involved with the celebratory orgies to note the proper date.)
Battle of Zama: Hannibal Barca and the Carthaginian army are defeated by Roman legions under Scipio Africanus, ending Second Punic War and the advancement of Rome as a major world force.



But what the hell do you care.


October 19, 1879 (I've also seen the date as 10/21/79, 10/22/79, 10/25/79 or 11/03/79 - I'm guessing geniuses can't be bothered when they're filing other people patents under their name every 12 minutes or crushing their competition with false and scurrilous rumors.) -
Thomas A. Edison successfully demonstrates the electric light.



Unfortunately, it took several years to straighten out his first electric bill.


October 19, 1890 -
My favorite self-circumcising, Muslim passing, male brothel habitué, Late-Victorian pornographer and international man of mystery Richard Francis Burton, explorer, British consul, translator, died on this date.

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His wife, Lady Burton, spent several years burning most of his unpublished notes (he had been working on translating the book The Perfumed Garden and its controversy chapters concerning homosexual sex positions - I kid you not,) before published a (highly sanitized) biography of her late husband.


October 19, 1901 -
Alberto Santos-Dumont successfully circled the Eiffel Tower in his Santos-Dumont No. 6 dirigible within a half hour and won a 100,000 franc prize.



An initial ruling said that he failed by 40 seconds because the race wasn’t finished until he touched ground. A 2nd vote granted him the win.

This proved the airship maneuverable and parking was very bad in Paris at the turn of the previous century even for dirigibles.


In the midst of the First World War, Salvation Army volunteers in France found themselves stymied by inadequate supplies and ovens for baking. Unable to prepare the cakes and and pies they so badly wanted to bake for the troops, they came up with the novel idea of frying rather than baking the dough.

Two Salvation Army volunteers (Ensign Stella Young and Adjutant Helen Purviance) came up with the idea of providing doughnuts. This resulted in the appearance of the world's first fried donut on a WWI front on October 19, 1917.



The donut should not be confused with the bagel, despite their physical resemblance. The bagel is boiled and baked, whereas the donut is fried (but sometimes baked.)



Bagels are found in varieties such as onion, garlic, salt, poppy-seed, and sesame-seed, and are frequently consumed with cheese and fish.

Donuts are found in varieties such as glazed, chocolate, chocolate-frosted, strawberry-frosted, powdered, jelly-filled, and sprinkled.

They are rarely consumed with cheese or fish, but they go pretty damn well with coffee (or tea.)


October 19, 1953 -
After Julius La Rosa had finished singing Manhattan on Arthur Godfrey Time, the host (and general scum bag) Arthur Godfrey fired him on the air, announcing, "that was Julie's swan song with us."



Unaware the firing was coming (or what the phrase "swan song" meant), La Rosa tearfully met with Godfrey after the broadcast and thanked him for giving him his "break."


October 19, 1971 -
Look magazine ceased publication with its issue on this date, the victim of a $5 million loss in revenues in 1970, a slack economy, and rising postal rates.

Circulation was at 6.5 million when it closed.


October 19, 1982 -
Maverick carmaker John DeLorean was arrested in Los Angeles with $24 million dollars worth of cocaine in his suitcase on this date.



The case was later thrown out of court when a judge rules that the FBI sting operation constituted entrapment.


October 19, 1987 -
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost more than 22 percent dropping to 1739 making it the 2nd largest percentage drop in history in a single day, This was known as "Black Monday" and signaled other markets around the world to drop during October by 20 percent.



Many believed that some of the automatic computerized sell programs used by large financial institutions may have contributed to the fall as they are triggered automatically when certain events / figures occur in the markets and after this date more safeguards were put in place to stop a similar thing happening in the future.



And so it goes