Today is the first day of Summer, also known as the Summer Solstice. It's the longest day of the year (and the shortest night). Everyone pat themselves on the back (now without gloves!) for having made it through the protracted lock down.
The actual moment of the solstice occurred at about 10:57 a.m. EDT, while the sun sat directly above the Pacific Ocean to the west of Hawaii. Don't brag about the weather tomorrow; remember that it's the beginning of Winter in Australia. (Given most of the restrictions are being lifted in many places, the usual naked run may be mandatory - please celebrate responsibly.)
June 21,1955 -
The David Lean movie, Summertime starring Katharine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi premiered in New York on this date.
Once the script was in hand, the cast and crew made its way to Venice to begin prepping the locations. David Lean had accepted the job of directing it in part because of a desire to no longer do soundstage work but work on locations outside. He remarked that working on a soundstage made it feel as though one was working in a "pitch-black mine . . . I prefer the sun." He set out about Venice, picking out locations and taking pictures. Lean would fall in love with Venice and later live there part of every year.
June 21, 1961 -
Walt Disney Productions released the original The Parent Trap starring Hayley Mills, (and Hayley Mills), Maureen O'Hara, and Brian Keith, in the US theatres, on this date.
The screenplay originally called for only a few trick photography shots of Hayley Mills in scenes with herself. The bulk of the movie was to be shot using a body double. When producer Walt Disney saw how seamless the processed shots were, he ordered the script reconfigured to include more of the visual effect.
June 21, 1969 -
In an ill-advised attempted to make the British royal family seem more 'approachable', the BBC airs the documentary Royal Family, on this date.
Created at the behest of Queen Elizabeth, eager to humanize the Royal Family at a time of social upheaval, it only aired twice. The Queen concluded that it demystified them too much. For decades, no publicly available recordings existed, except for a few short clips, until the entire film was leaked to YouTube in January 2021. The programm was broadcast again by the BBC, in September 2022, to mark the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
June 21, 1977 -
Martin Scorsese's homage to movie musicals - New York, New York, premiered on this date.
Producer Irwin Winkler said that during filming, Robert De Niro would constantly be walking around with a copy of the book Raging Bull. Raging Bull became the next film that De Niro and Martin Scorsese made together. It was also produced by Winkler and Robert Chartoff.
June 21, 1977 -
Marvin Gaye's song Got To Give It Up, reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100, replacing Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, on this date.
This song was the subject of a landmark court case filed by Marvin Gaye's estate in 2013 against the writers of Robin Thicke's hit Blurred Lines. Gaye's family argued that Blurred Lines sounded too similar to Got To Give It Up" and in 2015 a jury agreed, awarding a stunning $7.3 million in damages. Gaye, who died in 1984, left the copyrights to his songs to his children, so the beneficiaries in the case are his kids Marvin III, Frankie and Nona.
June 21, 1982 -
Paul McCartney released the single Take It Away from his album Tug of War, on this date.
The video looks like it's about the discovery of McCartney's group Wings, although they had broken up by then. The song is Paul McCartney's most successful as a solo artist in the early '80s.
June 21, 1985 -
Walt Disney released the only directorial effort by film editor Walter Murch, Return to Oz, starring Nicol Williamson, Jean Marsh, Piper Laurie, and Fairuza Balk, on this date.
In order to include the ruby slippers as part of this film, Disney had to pay royalties to MGM, the studio which had produced The Wizard of Oz. The ruby slippers did not appear in L. Frank Baum's original novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; they were invented for the 1939 film to better take advantage of the newly developed Technicolor process.
June 21, 1988 -
Robert Zemeckis' incredible advance in animation, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, opened in NYC on this date.
Since the movie was being made by Disney's Touchstone Pictures, Warner Brothers would only allow use of their biggest toon stars, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck, if they got as much screentime as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. For that reason, they were always in pairs, such as the piano battle between Daffy and Donald and the parachute scene with Bugs and Mickey. This was continued with Porky Pig and Tinkerbell at the end of the movie. This is the first (and only, as of 2020) time cartoon characters from Walt Disney and Warner Brothers have appeared together on-screen.
June 21, 1991 -
Walt Disney Pictures and Touchstone Pictures released the superhero film, The Rocketeer, starring Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly, Alan Arkin, Timothy Dalton, Paul Sorvino, and Tiny Ron Taylor, in the US, on this date.
Dave Stevens, the writer/artist of the original graphic novel, gave the film's production designer Jim Bissell and his two art directors his entire reference library pertaining to the Rocketeer at that time period, including blueprints for hangars and bleachers, schematics for building the autogyro, photos and drawings of the Bulldog Cafe, the uniforms for the air circus staff, and contacts for locating the vintage aircraft that were to be used. Stevens remembers that they "literally just took the reference and built the sets".
Another job posting from The ACME Employment Agency
Today in History:
June 21, 1854 -
The first Victoria Cross was awarded to Charles Davis Lucas, an Irishman and mate aboard the HMS Hecla for conspicuous gallantry at Bomarsrund in the Baltic. (The medal was made from metal from a cannon captured at Sebastopol.)
Lucas tossed a live Russian artillery shell overboard before it exploded. During his long naval career, he ultimately ascend to the rank of Rear Admiral before retiring in 1873. He died in 1914 at the age of 80.
June 21, 1877 -
The Molly Maguires, ten Irish immigrants who were labor activists, are hanged at Carbon County Prison in Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania.
Author and Judge John P. Lavelle of Carbon County said of this, "The Molly Maguire trials were a surrender of state sovereignty...A private corporation initiated the investigation through a private detective agency. A private police force arrested the alleged defenders, and private attorneys for the coal companies prosecuted them. The state provided only the courtroom and the gallows."
June 21, 1893 -
The first Ferris Wheel debuted at the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, on this date. The Ferris Wheel was designed by George W. Ferris, a bridge-builder from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
The exposition commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus's landing in America. The Chicago Fair's organizers wanted something that would rival the Eiffel Tower. Gustave Eiffel had built the tower for the Paris World's Fair of 1889, which honored the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution.
June 21, 1905 -
It would have been the 118th birthday of Jean-Paul Sartre today.
But what the hell does he care; he's dead and it doesn't mean anything anyway.
June 21, 1913 -
Georgia 'Tiny' Broadwick was the first woman to make a successful parachute jump from an aircraft on this date. Glenn L Martin flew her up to 2000 feet above Griffith Park in Los Angeles, CA.
In 1914, she demonstrated parachutes to the U.S. Army, which at the time had a small, hazard-prone fleet of aircraft. The Army, reluctant at first to adopt the parachute, watched as Tiny dropped from the sky. On one of her demonstration jumps, the static line became entangled in the tail assembly of the aircraft, so for her next jump she cut off the static line and deployed her chute manually, thus becoming the first person to jump free-fall.
June 21, 1982 -
Using an innovative Jodie Foster defense, John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan, on this date.
June 21, 1985 -
Ettore ‘Hector’ Boiardi - that jovial, mustachioed Italian chef, better known as Chef Boyardee, died on this date. In Italy, Hector started as a chef’s apprentice at age 11. In America, he took jobs in Greenbrier, West Virginia and New York City, and by age 17 had become a chef at New York’s Plaza Hotel alongside his brother, Mario (his other brother, Paul, was a waiter). Hector eventually became the Plaza’s head chef.
Boiardi went on to open a restaurant, Il Giardino d’Italia in Cleveland. The restaurant became an instant success, with lines frequently stretching down the block. He and his brother Paul, helped popularity Italian products in America after a former customer, named John Hartford, who happened to be the president of A&P supermarkets, encouraged them to sell their family pasta sauce. Chef Boy-ar-dee (they hyphenated the name to help with pronunciation) was soon on shelves at A&P supermarkets across the country.
June 21, 1989 -
The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Texas v. Johnson that flag burning is indeed protected speech under the Constitution,
prompting Congress to put forth an endless series of amendments to ban the activity.
June 21, 1997 -
The first Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) game was played on this date, with the New York Liberty taking on the Los Angeles Sparks at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California.
A crowd of 14,284 watched as Sparks guard Penny Toler scored the first basket in WNBA history. The Liberty defeated the Sparks 67-57.
And so it goes.
1 comment:
I once lived in a small apartment building, where the landlord put a sign on the front door that said "No Soliciting." I modified it to read "No Solsticing." Nobody noticed.
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