Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori! -
(Anyway, did you find the coin in the King Cake? )
So begins forty days (remember that the six Sundays between today and Easter don't count as part of the 40 days) of prayer, fasting, contemplation and community service and not the Lentil season, which is marked by forty days of legume eating and gas passing (but that's another story.)
It's also National Margarita Day. Margarita, in spanish it means Daisy
Remember, we've just come off a three-day weekend - celebrate responsibly.
February 22, 1934 -
Frank Capra's romantic comedy It Happened One Night, starring Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert, premiered at Radio City Music Hall on this date.
Clark Gable gave the Oscar he won for his performance in this movie to a child who admired it, telling him it was the winning of the statue that had mattered, not owning it. The child returned the Oscar to the Gable family after Clark's death.
February 22, 1935 -
The Fox Film Corporation film, The Little Colonel, starring Shirley Temple, Lionel Barrymore and Bill Robinson, premiered in the US on this date. The film featured the famous stair dance sequence, making Shirley Temple and Bill Robinson Hollywood's first interracial dance couple. This scene was cut when the film played in the southern United States.
Shirley Temple memorized every line of dialogue in this movie, and while filming a scene with Lionel Barrymore, the veteran actor forgot a line. When Temple prompted him, Barrymore flew into a such a rage that one crew member took Temple away for fear that Barrymore might harm her. He later apologized to her, and they remained friends for many years.
February 22, 1956 -
Elvis Presley's song Heartbreak Hotel debuted on the Billboard pop chart at No. 68, on this date.
Elvis was 21 years old when this song was released in 1956. He had released a few singles and gained a large following in the South, but Heartbreak Hotel made him a national sensation. It was his first #1 hit on the US Billboard Pop chart, and it also topped the Country chart. Over the next seven years, he always had at least one song in the Top 10 on the Pop chart.
February 22, 1956 -
The film widely considered the worst film produced by a major studio in the 50s, The Conqueror, directed by Dick Powell and starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan, Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead, and Pedro Armendáriz, premiered in the US on this date.
The film was shot downwind from a nuclear test site and is considered the cause of cancer and death of many of the cast and crew.
February 22, 1977 -
The single New Kid in Town, the first release from the album Hotel California, was the Eagles' first to be certified gold for selling more than 1 million copies on this date.
Glen Frey mentioned in an interview at the time that the song was about Steely Dan whom the band saw as a new and upcoming group that was possibly taking over the spotlight from the Eagles (there has been some dispute as to whether or not Glen Frey was joking.) Given that the two bands shared a manager (Irving Azoff) and that the Eagles proclaimed their admiration for Steely Dan, this was more friendly rivalry than feud.
February 22, 2001 -
Mira Nair's wonderful Monsoon Wedding, opened in both Los Angeles and New York on this date.
The movie won the Golden Lion, the highest prize at the Venice Film Festival 2001.
Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency
Today in History:
Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company - George Washington
Unfortunately for him, England had been tenaciously clinging onto the Julian calendar - they wanted none of that Papist Gregorian calendar crap. But England finally wanted to get with the times, so in 1752, Parliament adopted the Gregorian calendar. Many prominent colonists supported the new system; including Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. Washington updated his own birthday from the old February 11th to the Gregorian February 22.
But wait, there's more - the calendar switch of 1752 included another significant change. Under the Julian system, the year began on March 25. That means a colonist who went to bed on March 24, 1700, would wake up on March 25, 1701. The new Gregorian rules set the start of the year to January 1st. This created some confusion, since anyone who was born between January 1st and March 25th in the old system would have the wrong birth year in the new one - thus George's new birthday was February 22, 1732.
So you have to wish the Father of Our Country birthday greetings for the third time this month.
Much heavy drinking ensued.
On February 22, 1862, Jefferson Davis was officially inaugurated for a six-year term as the President of the Confederate States of America in Richmond, Virginia.
I guess his mother was proud of him.
February 22, 1902 -
Sen. Elizabeth Warren pours herself a cold one somewhere, opining the events that occurred on this date
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/01/01/08/8010424-0-image-a-12_1546331684343.jpg After years of souring relations between the two Democrats from South Carolina, Sen. John McLaurin took to the Senate floor on this date and claimed that his state’s senior senator, “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman, had spread a “willful, malicious and deliberate lie” about him. Tillman, who was standing nearby, then “spun around and punched McLaurin squarely in the jaw,” according to an official write-up of the incident on the Senate webpage.
February 22, 1925 -
I just kind of conjured them up out of my subconscious and put them in order of ascending peculiarity.
The gothic illustrator and professed 'child hater' Edward St. John Gorey was spawned on this date.
February 22, 1974 -
A failed assassination attempt on President Nixon took place on this date. Samuel Joseph Byck, an unemployed tire salesman, attempted to hijack a plane and crash it into the White House to kill President Nixon.
When police stormed the plane, he committed suicide. No one else was injured, and Nixon was unaffected, although he did resign several months later.
February 22, 1980 -
During the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, the United States hockey team defeats the Soviet Union hockey team 4-3 on this date.
It is considered to be one of the greatest upsets in sports history (the Miracle on Ice.)
February 22, 1987 -
Andy Warhol died of complications after gallbladder surgery, though the details are hazy. The official cause was listed as cardiac arrhythmia, but speculation includes his fear of hospitals as well as possible Cefoxitin allergy. Mr. Warhol is best known for painting pictures of Campbell's Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe, although never together.
His work can be seen in museums and galleries around the world to this very day.
Campbell's Soup cans can still be found in the canned goods section of your favorite supermarket to this very day.
February 22, 1994 -
CIA agent Aldrich Ames and his wife were charged by the United States Department of Justice with spying for the Soviet Union on this date.
Somehow by 1989 Ames had acquired the unexplained wealth from his spying and did very little to conceal the spying, he somehow managed to evade being caught for five more years.
February 22, 1997 -
The first cloning of an advanced mammal, a sheep known as Dolly, was announced in the news media, on this date. Dolly, actually born on July 5, 1996, was cloned from a mammary cell -
Dolly was purportedly named after Dolly Parton.
I guess that's a compliment.
February 22, 2002 -
Charles Martin Chuck Jones, director of many of the classic short animated cartoons starring Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, the Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote, died on this date.
At 85, Chuck signed a long-term contract with Warner Bros. to supervise the animation department. His thoughts on the contract were: "At 85 you can only think ahead for the next 50 years or so."
Bunkies, on a personal note: I am having some surgery today and may be away from my computer for the next couple of days. If all goes well, I should be back as silly as ever.
And so it goes.
Heal well and quickly.
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