Today is the 74th (or 75th, I've seen it referred to both ways) annual Republic Day in India. Usually spectators line up to watch dancers from all over the nation gather in New Delhi every year on this day to dance in the huge National Arena and all along a five mile parade route, (not so much, this year.)
It's Australia Day today (formerly known as Foundation Day in Australia) as well and commemorates the establishment of the first settlement at Port Jackson, now part of Sydney, in 1788. (The fleet was led by Captain Arthur Philip, who went on to establish the Colony of New South Wales, the first penal colony in Australia.) The day was filled with drinking, merriment and sodomy -
Unfortunately, more and more Australians are reconsidering the holiday and are now beginning to view it as a 'Day of Mourning' because of the massacres and treatment Indigenous people experienced at the hands of the British settlers after the arrival of the First Fleet.
On January 26, 1979, Le Freak was on the top of the American charts.
It's nice to think there's a connection.
January 26, 1967 -
The Star Trek episode, Tomorrow is Yesterday in which, the crew of the Enterprise is flung back in time to the sixties, where they must correct the damage they have caused to the timeline, premiered on this date on NBC TV.
This is one of the rare occasions in which it can be seen that the middle finger on actor James Doohan's (Scotty) right hand is missing. He took great pains to conceal its absence during the series, but he is leaning on that hand - with only three fingers visible - when he informs Captain Kirk that the engines can be repaired, but that there is nowhere for them to go in the 20th century.
January 26, 1970 -
Simon and Garfunkle's fifth and last studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, was released on this date. The album went on to be the biggest selling ever for Columbia Records.
The title song, Bridge Over Troubled Waters, is one of the most-covered songs ever. In the '70s, so many people sang a version that it became a bit of a joke, the punch line being that most renditions were terrible, as the song is very hard to sing with any competence. Years later, the Lynyrd Skynyrd song Free Bird reached a similar level of musical ubiquity.
January 26, 1973 -
Elton John's sixth studio album, Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player, was released on this date. It was his second straight No. 1 album in the US.
According to Elton John: The Definitive Biography, here's how the album got its title: While in Los Angeles, Elton was introduced to the legendary comedian Groucho Marx. They hit it off, but Groucho was always giving Elton a hard time about his name, insisting that he must have it backwards and really be John Elton. After Groucho refused to lay off the name thing at a party, Elton threw up his hands and said jokingly: "Don't shoot me, I'm just the piano player."
January 26, 1974 –
Ringo Starr's song, You’re Sixteen, hit #1 on this date.
Richard Perry, who worked with Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Ray Charles and many other stars, produced this track. He said that producing Ringo's album was the "greatest thrill" of his career.
January 26, 1979 -
The sitcom McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H for, Hello, Larry, created by Dick Bensfield and Perry Grant, premiered on NBC TV, on this date. (TV Guide ranked the sitcom #12 on their 50 Worst Shows of All Time in 2002.)
Since it was cancelled, the show has become a metaphor for low-quality and failure. It has also been held up as an example of how a show can be doomed by network interference, retooling and time slot shifting.
January 26, 1979 -
Turnabout, a sitcom developed by Steven Bochco and Michael Rhodes, and starring John Schuck and Sharon Gless, premiered on NBC TV, on this date.
It lasted seven episodes, before being cancelled due to poor ratings. This was in part due to airing after the poorly rated Hello, Larry, and competing with the CBS hit Dallas.
January 26, 1979 -
Dukes of Hazzard premiered on CBS television with One Armed Bandits - (A shipment of slot machines is hijacked.)
High comedy indeed.
January 26, 1980 -
Three months after the 1979 release of his second album, simply-titled Prince, Prince made his debut on American Bandstand on this date.
While he delivered confident performances of I Wanna Be Your Lover and Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad, the 'shy' artist struggled to answer Dick Clark’s questions.
January 26, 1994 -
The pilot episode of Babylon 5, Midnight on the Firing Line premiered on TNT Network on this date.
Michael O'Hare's struggles with schizophrenia caused him to miss an increasing amount of work as the first season progressed. Creator J. Michael Straczynski offered to hold production so O'Hare could get the help he needed. O'Hare refused, feeling it wouldn't be fair for the cast and crew to be left without work for so long. He and Straczynski mutually agreed to have O'Hare leave at the end of the season. Bruce Boxleitner replaced O'Hare, and Straczynski used the "trap door" storyline at the beginning of the second season to explain Sinclair's absence. He also honored O'Hare's request to keep the real reason for his departure a secret until after O'Hare died in October 2012.
January 26, 2001 -
The Columbia Pictures film The Wedding Planner, starring Jennifer Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, and Alex Rocco, premiered in the U.S. on this date.
Jennifer Love Hewitt was developing a separate film with the same premise for her to star in but was forced to cancel the project when this film was released.
Another unimportant moment in history
Today in History:
January 26, 1885 -
General Charles George “Chinese” Gordon (Charlton Heston), an extremely popular and influential figure in the British Empire and governor-general of Sudan, was killed on the palace steps in the garrison at Khartoum by the forces of Muhammad Ahmed, El Mahdi on this date.
Unfortunately for Gordon, immediate after he was stabbed to death, he was decapitated and his head was paraded around for several hours until it was presented as a trophy to Muhammad Ahmed. I'm still unsure what size trophy case you display that in?
January 26, 1913 –
Jim Thorpe, the World's Greatest Athlete, relinquished his 1912 Olympic medals for being a professional athlete. He was paid for playing two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics, thus violating the amateur rules at that time.
His Olympic medals were reinstated posthumously by an act of Congress in 1983.
January 26, 1958 -
Ellen DeGeneres, actress, comedian and former Cover Girl spokes model, was born on this date.
So kids remember, while it's not OK to ignore your staff being abused, it doesn't suck to while away your retirement in a multi-million dollar estate.
January 26, 1961 -
President Kennedy appointed Janet Travell as his personal physician, making her the first female presidential physician (as well as possibly the only woman he did not sleep with) on this date.
It was later found that she prescribed over five painkillers to the president at one time, as well as a variety of sleep aids and orthopedic shoes. The real original Dr. Feelgood.
January 26, 1962 -
Mafia boss Charles Lucky Luciano died of natural causes at the Naples airport. On the day of his fatal heart attack, Luciano had plans to sell the rights of his life's story to a movie maker. Luciano dropped dead as he was about to shake hands. The Mob disliked the idea and had tried unsuccessfully to change his mind. It has been hypothesized that Luciano's heart attack was a result of poisoning by the Mafia.
He was buried in St. John's Cemetery in Queens, New York after a federal court ruled his burial on United States soil could not be blocked on the grounds that a corpse is not a citizen of any country and is therefore not subject to immigration control or deportation laws.
January 26,1979 -
70-year-old multibillionaire Nelson Rockefeller was stricken by a massive heart attack while giving dictation to his 27-year-old research assistant, Megan Marshack on this date. Some time after that event, Marshack had called her friend, news reporter Ponchitta Pierce, to the townhouse and it was Pierce who phoned 911 approximately an hour after the heart attack.
Much speculation went on in the press regarding a personal relationship between Rockefeller and Marshack. Rockefeller's will left Marshak $50,000 and the deed to a Manhattan townhouse.
January 26, 1984 -
A magnesium flash bomb at Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles ignited Michael Jackson’s hair during the filming of a Pepsi television commercial, causing third-degree scalp burns.
It is later reveals that unscrupulous doctors prescribe a full but highly unorthodox regiment of pedophilia to ease the singer’s wounds.
January 26, 1996 -
Insane madman millionaire John E. Du Pont shot Olympic wrestler David Schultz three times, killing him on this date. A two day police standoff follows at the Foxcatcher estate and wrestling compound, with SWAT teams biding their time under the assumption that Du Pont, an expert marksman, possessed an arsenal at his disposal (see Foxcatcher.)
Mr. Du Pont later died in prison. Perhaps Mr. Du Pont has gone to a better place where greasing yourself up and rolling around a mat with another person in nothing but a jock strap or a unitard is not considered a crime against nature.
January 26, 1998 -
U.S. President Bill Clinton denied, on television, having had sexual relations with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
The president must have skipped class that day.
January 26, 2004 -
A decomposing sperm whale exploded while in transport in Tainan City, Taiwan on this date. The whale was being moved to a laboratory for study when a critical build-up of gas caused it to explode, covering people and shop fronts in Tainan City with whale viscera.
Though decomposing whales are regularly exploded with dynamite to clear beaches, it is thought to be the first time a whale exploded in a city. You may have had a bad day but you never had to go home to change because you were covered in whale viscera.
And so it goes
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