It's National Bologna Day
Just don't ask how they make it.
October 24, 1962 -
A taut thriller with the underlying theme of an afternoon tea party gone horribly wrong - The Manchurian Candidate, starring Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh, and Henry Silva, premiered on this date.
Frank Sinatra broke the little finger of his right hand on the desk in the fight sequence with Henry Silva. Due to on-going filming commitments, he could not rest or bandage his hand properly, causing the injury to heal incorrectly. It caused him chronic discomfort for the rest of his life.
October 24, 1969 -
The original version of Brokeback Mountain, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katharine Ross, premiered on this date.
Paul Newman's charity for children with serious medical conditions is named Hole in the Wall Camp after Butch's gang.
October 24, 1970 -
One of the greatest character actresses, Nancy Walker, made her first appearance in one of her most famous roles, Ida Morgenstern, in the The Mary Tyler Moore Show episode Support Your Local Mother on this date.
This episode's guest star Nancy Walker and the preceding episode's guest star John Schuck each landed regular roles on the following year's popular NBC Mystery Movie series McMillan & Wife.
October 24, 1971 -
Don McLean's second album, American Pie, is released by United Artists Records, on this date.
The album reached number 1 within two weeks of release and was certified gold within six months, spending almost a year on the Billboard album charts.
October 24, 1973 -
The series about bald, dapper, New York City policeman, Kojak, starring Telly Savalas, premiered on CBS-TV on this date. (Here's a gimme piece of trivial - Telly was Jennifer Aniston's godfather.)
Telly Savalas is seen throughout the series both sucking on his lollipop and smoking. In real life, Telly Savalas was trying to quit smoking. The lollipop was used to cut back on smoking. His character Kojak even admitted once that he smoked too much and sucked on lollipops every day except on Sundays.
October 24, 2004 -
Reprise Records released the third studio album from My Chemical Romance, The Black Parade, on this date.
The concept of the album is "The Patient", who dies of cancer at an early age. According to lead singer Gerald Way, death comes in the form of your most powerful memory, and for "The Patient" that memory is a parade he went to with his father, which explains the album title. Throughout the album, you can kind of see into the mind of someone in a lot of pain. The previous My Chemical Romance album, Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge, dealt with demons, and this seems to be a continuing trend, but in a more mature way.
October 24, 2006 -
Taylor Swift released her self-titled debut studio album, on this date. Swift was 16 years old at the time of the album's release.
The album went on the top the Country Albums Chart for 24 non-consecutive weeks selling over seven million copies. The album also became the longest-charting album on the Billboard 200 of the 2000s decade, remaining on the chart for 277 weeks in total.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
October 24, 1601 -
Tycho Brahe, nobleman, astronomer and alchemist, died from politeness on this date. He was fabulously wealthy and had a dwarf court jester sit under the table at dinner to amuse him. Tycho lost his nose in a duel and had a metal one made which he famously wore for the rest of his life. He also had a pet moose, who died from a drunken fall (I can't make this stuff up.)
Brahe went to a party at a friend's house and drank heavily, bound by the etiquette of the day, Tycho couldn't leave the table until his host did -not even to go to the bathroom. When he finally left the table he found he could not go; his bladder was blocked from waiting too long. He lingered for days in utter agony for days until he died on this date.
Traditionally it's believed he died from urine poisoning. Recent analysis of hair taken from his remains shows that he must have ingested a large dose of mercury about 20 hours before his death, possibly as a medicine for his illness or perhaps he was poisoned - some believe by his famous student Johannes Kepler, who worked for him at the time and was appointed his successor as imperial mathematician.
October 24, 1836 -
(Please follow along on your flow charts - this will be on the test) Mankind was not fully mankind until it learned how to set things on fire. That happened a long time ago and enabled such hallmarks of early civilization as cooked meat, heated homes, and flaming heretics. Only in the past few hundred years has mankind learned how to start fires quickly and easily.
A variation on this firestarter was introduced in England in 1828, patented by Samuel Jones. It was called the Promethean, and consisted of a glass bulb of sulphuric acid. The bulb was coated with potassium chlorate, sugar, and gum, then wrapped in paper. To ignite the Promethean, one broke the glass bulb against one's teeth. Dentists loved it, but the public remained wary.
Germans began manufacturing small phosphorus matches in Germany in 1832. Like so many other German inventions, however, these tended to ignite with a series of explosions that spread fire about one's feet. They also exploded when stepped on. This dampened their popularity among the arson-averse public.
Finally, on this date, a patent was issued in the United States to Alonzo D. Phillips for the manufacture of friction matches and called them Locofocos.
October 24, 1901 -
Anna Edson Taylor, a 63-year-old widow, was the first woman to go safely over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The barrel was four and a half feet high and three feet across. Ms. Taylor went over Niagara Falls and dropped 175 feet.
She made the attempt for the cash award offered, which she put toward the loan on her Texas ranch and help her make a fortune touring the world. Although the stunt did indeed receive international attention, Taylor reaped a few financial rewards but died in poverty after twenty years as a Niagara street vendor.
October 24, 1929 -
The stock market began a catastrophic collapse and this day became know as Black Thursday nearly 13 million shares traded hands and stock prices plummeted.
This ultimately led to the Great Depression. Scientists around the world desperately sought a cure for the millions of Depressed peoples on every continent. Researchers from the National Socialist Society eventually demonstrated that the people of Germany, Italy and Spain were Depressed because their trains didn't run on time, and fascism was invented to address this shortcoming.
Having resolved their train schedules, however, fascists discovered that many people were still unhappy. This was found to have been the result of Socialism (remember, National Socialist are not Socialists i.e. Communist), which was incompatible with fascism, and persons who failed to become happy were subsequently shot.
This caused the Spanish Civil War, which was so successful it inspired World War II, after which everyone felt much better.
October 24, 1931 -
The George Washington Bridge opens to public traffic, linking New York City with New Jersey. The bridge became a famous New York landmark and has been featured in many movies and TV shows. The toll to cross the bridge was to be temporary -- just to cover costs.
But it costs and costs and costs when you have to keep repairing and painting a bridge that big -- so, the bridge toll continues. And the bridge is still being painted. But there are no traffic studies today
October 24, 1945 -
The UN officially came into existence on this date, upon the ratification of their Charter by the five permanent members of the Security Council — the US, the UK, France, the Soviet Union and the Republic of China—and by a majority of the other 46 signatory countries.
The first meetings of the General Assembly, with 51 nations represented,[a] and the Security Council took place in London beginning in January 1946. Debates began at once, covering topical issues such as the presence of Russian troops in Iranian Azerbaijan, British forces in Greece and within days the first veto was cast. British diplomat Gladwyn Jebb served as acting secretary-general.
October 24, 1947 -
In a very UN-American fashion, Neo-Nazi and American Isolationist Walt Disney testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee on this date.
Disney named employees he believes to be Communists, ranting about how Communists were infiltrating the unions he has to deal with, and how "Commie groups began smear campaigns against [him]."
October 24, 1946 -
The V-2 rocket (which was a spoil of war, but that's another story...) was launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, on this date. It carried a 35-millimeter motion picture camera that captured a new frame every second and a half. The rocket soared to an altitude of about 65 miles before falling back to Earth.
Both the rocket and the camera were destroyed after crashing into the Earth at a speed of about 340 miles per hour. But the film survived because it was protected inside a steel case. The film was grainy, black and white, and low resolution, providing more symbolic value than actual, but the picture was a significant start to America’s space program.
October 24, 1960 -
At the Soviet Union's Baykonur space facility, an R-16 ballistic missile exploded on the launch pad, incinerating 165 people on this date.
Included among the dead was Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death is covered up as having occurred in a plane crash.
October 24, 2008 -
Stock exchanges around the world experience the worst declines in their history, with drops of around 10% in most indices. The day became known as Bloody Friday
It brought the financial institutions everywhere to their knees and much more led to investors losing billions of dollars of their investment, some their entire life's savings.
October 24, 2016 -
The singer Bobby Vee died age 73. Vee was best know for his No. 1 hit Take Good Care of My Baby in the summer of 1961. He had 38 chart hits, ten of which reached the Top 20.
Unfortunately Vee's career began in the midst of tragedy.
On February 3, 1959 - The Day the Music Died - when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper, were killed in an airplane. Vee then 15 years old, and a hastily assembled band of Fargo schoolboys calling themselves the Shadows volunteered for and were given the unenviable job of filling in for Holly and his band at their next gig. Their performance was a success, setting in motion a chain of events that led to Vee's career as a popular singer.
And so it goes
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