this will be on the test (and Kahlua can send me my check for the advertising space I provided.)
(As always, celebrate as you see fit.)
February 27, 1920 -
A film that we're somewhat familiar with here, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, opened in Germany on this date.
The final look and feel of the film was based as much on low-budget practicalities as it was on creative inspiration and expressionism. Electricity was strictly rationed in post-WWI Germany at the time the film was being shot, so director Robert Wiene ended the film simply painting light beams on backdrops. Shooting on severely confined sets forced him to use unusual camera angles
February 27, 1937 -
An early Porky Pig cartoon, drawn by Tex Avery, Picador Porky, premiered on this date.
(Sorry for the colorized version.) This is the first Warner Bros. cartoon to feature Mel Blanc's voice.
February 27, 1968 -
CBS News anchorman Walter Cronkite's commentary on the progress of the Vietnam War solidified President Lyndon B. Johnson's decision not to seek reelection in 1968. Cronkite, who had been at Hue in the midst of the Tet Offensive earlier in February, said: "Who won and who lost in the great Tet Offensive against the cities? I m not sure." He concluded: "It is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out...will be to negotiate, not as victors but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they could."
Johnson called the commentary a turning point, saying that if he had "lost Cronkite," he'd "lost Mr. Average Citizen." On March 31, President Johnson announced he would not seek reelection.
February 27, 1971 -
Janis Joplin's album released three months after her drug overdose, Pearl hits #1 in the US, where it stays for nine weeks, on this date.
Pearl was Janis Joplin's most commercially successful album, yet it only reached #50 in the UK. Pearl was one of Joplin's nicknames.
February 27, 1979 -
The short-lived anthology series Cliffhangers, starring Susan Anton, Geoffrey Scott, and Michael Nouri, premiered on this date. (The series only aired 10 episodes.)
Of the three short weekly installments (Stop Susan Williams, The Secret Empire, and The Curse of Dracula,) that made up the series Clilffhangers, The Curse of Dracula was the only one of the three stories to be completed by the time Cliffhangers was cancelled.
February 27, 1980 -
During a live telecast from Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, the only Grammy for Best Disco Recording ever, was awarded to Gloria Gaynor, Dino Fekaris and Freddie Perren (the producers of the song) for I Will Survive.
Gaynor told Billboard magazine that it doesn't bother her in the least that she will forever be tied to her signature ode. "From the beginning I recognized it was a timeless lyric that everyone could relate to," said Gaynor, "so I don't get tired of singing it. I'm always freshening it up; changing the beat, the lyrics, modernizing the arrangement - I've even stuck a hip-hop section in the middle of it. I become 295% grade A ham when I do this song because people still love it."
February 27, 1998 -
New Line Cinema released the influential (but little seen) science fiction film Dark City, directed by Alex Proyas and starring Rufus Sewell, William Hurt, Kiefer Sutherland, and Jennifer Connelly, in the U.S., on this date.
Although Alex Proyas wrote the original screenplay, very little of the plot was retained (besides the fact that the lead is wanted for murders). Lem Dobbs wrote the final draft and reformed the plot as it appears in the film with the exception of the special effects sequences. Although the powers of the Strangers were alluded to they would never actually be depicted. David S. Goyer was hired to write the shooting script when they had secured a bigger budget. He added all the action scenes that appear in the film and which show explicitly the operating background of the Dark City.
February 27, 2000 -
Another bio-pix mini-series about America's favorite band, The Beach Boys: An American Family began aired on ABC on this date.
During scenes in which Brian Wilson (Frederick Weller) is demoing I Get Around and In My Room, the real Brian Wilson contributes the vocal, recorded specifically for this film. However, an uncredited Jeffrey Foskett, a member of Wilson's touring band, provides the high notes during the In My Room demo.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
On this date in 280 A.D. (or another date or year, again remember lead cups and constant orgies, do not good calendar keepers make), Emperor Constantine the Great was born.
Constantine took half the Roman Empire and moved it to Byzantium, a little village which he built up into such a magnificent city that it was eventually named after him: Istanbul.
And it's nobody's business but the Turks.
February 27, 1859 -
Censured Congressman Dan Sickles of New York (who escorting a known prostitute into State chambers) shot and killed Philip Barton Key, son of Francis Scott Key and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. The younger Key was having an affair with the congressman's wife at the time.
He was tried on a charge of murder, but was acquitted after a sensational trial involving the first use of the insanity defense in U.S. history.
An interesting aside: Sickle went on to become a Union general and was involved in some of the bloodiest fighting at Gettysburg and lost his own right leg in the battle. He had the leg preserved and sent to Washington D.C., where it was exhibited in a little wooden coffin at the Medical Museum of the Library of Congress. Sickles frequently visited it himself.
February 27, 1902 -
John Steinbeck, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose novels included The Grapes of Wrath, East of Eden, and Of Mice and Men, was born in Salinas, California on this date in 1902.
He won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” Before his death at age 66, he authored 27 books, including 16 novels, six non-fiction books, and two collections of short stories.
February 27, 1932 -
You just do it. You force yourself to get up. You force yourself to put one foot before the other, and God damn it, you refuse to let it get to you. You fight. You cry. You curse. Then you go about the business of living. That’s how I’ve done it. There’s no other way.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor, actress and serial bride was born on this date.
February 27, 1933 -
The Reichstag conveniently went up in flames on this date. A mad Dutchman who was arrested at the scene, Marinus van der Lubbe, may have been partially responsible but if this is so, he is likely someone's patsy. The Nazi Party benefit greatly from the subsequent crack down, and it's suspected that SA stormtroopers set things up for van der Lubbe.
Another important life lesson - bad Germans in leather shorts, beer halls and matches do not mix.
On February 27, 1939, Neville Chamberlain, everyone's favorite legume supporter, recognized General Franco's government on this date. The Fascist regime was on it's way to achieved victory in the Spanish Civil War.
General Franco and Ernest Hemingway are still dead.
February 27, 1951 -
The 22nd Amendment to the American Constitution was ratified by Minnesota, the 36th state out of 48 to ratify, thereby making it the law of the land. The 22nd Amendment states that no person shall be president of the United States more than twice unless they're Harry Truman.
Really, look it up - it says that.
February 27, 1992 -
Trying to get the lid off her McDonald's coffee to add cream and sugar, 79-year-old Stella Liebeck accidentally splashes the 180-degree liquid on herself, causing third-degree burns to the thighs, genitals, and buttocks.
After skin graft surgery and weeks of recuperation, Liebeck asks McDonald's to turn down the temperature of their coffee and pay $20,000 to defray her hospital bills. McDonald's told the old lady go suck an egg, as they had done for a decade of similar burn claims. Ultimately, a jury awards Liebeck $2.9 million in the resulting lawsuit, which immediately triggers a renewed call for legislative tort reform and makes that one expense cup of coffee.
February 27, 2003 -
All of our neighborhoods were a little less beautiful when our good neighbor, Fred McFeely Rogers died on this date.
But let's make the most of this beautiful day.
And so it goes.
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