Today is National Cereal Day. On this date, Dr. John Kellogg served corn flakes for the first time to his patients at his hospital in Battle Creek, Michigan. Dr. Kellogg wanted Americans to eat corn flakes because he thought the bland food would reduce the desire to commit carnal sins. They wouldn’t be sold commercially until 1906. Corn flakes did not put a stop to self love.
In honor of National Cereal Day remember to have the true Breakfast of Champions in celebration today!
March 7, 1936 -
Walt Disney's Mickey's Grand Opera, premiered on this date.
I'm not a big Disney fan (especially Mickey Mouse) but this one is pretty funny. Donald Duck underwent a major face lift after this cartoon.
March 7, 1955 -
Peter Pan, the first full-length Broadway production broadcast in color, (starring Mary Martin and the show's original cast) was broadcast on this date.
It was so well received that the musical was restaged again live for television on January 9, 1956. Both of these broadcasts were produced in color, but only black-and-white kinescope recordings survive.
March 7, 1960 -
After a month’s absence, Jack Paar had re-appeared as the host on The Tonight Show on this date.
He had walked off in protest against censorship before returning to his position as host of this production. He had made a joke about a “water closet” (European bathroom), which most likely would have been considered mild according to the standards set today.
March 7, 1962 -
The Alain Resnais' enigmatic masterpiece, L'Année dernière à Marienbad (Last Year at Marienbad), opened in the US on this date.
The film is included in both The Fifty Worst Films of All Time (And How They Got That Way) by Harry Medved and Randy Lowell and 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, edited by Steven Schneider.
March 7, 1964 -
John Frankenheimer's under-appreciated almost documentary-like thriller set set during WWII, The Train, premiered on this date.
Burt Lancaster took a day off during shooting to play golf when the production was about half completed. On the links, he stepped in a hole and re-aggravated an old knee injury. In order to compensate for the injury, John Frankenheimer had Lancaster's character shot in the leg, thus enabling him to limp through the rest of the shooting.
March 7, 1975 -
Felix finally moves out of Oscar's apartment at 1049 Park Ave. when The Odd Couple aired the final episode Felix Remarries, on this date.
While this was the final first-run episode that aired, Your Mother Wears Army Boots was the last episode that was filmed.
March 7, 1980 -
Michael Apted's Loretta Lynn biopic, Coal Miner's Daughter, starring Sissy Spacek, Beverly D'Angelo, Tommy Lee Jones and Levon Helms premiered in US theatres on this date.
Beverly D'Angelo and Sissy Spacek did all their own singing. Director Michael Apted also wanted Spacek to sing all of the songs live, feeling he could capture the realism in all of the performing scenes. Luckily Sissy Spacek and Beverly D'angelo were both accomplished singers in their own right and could easily handle this request.
March 7, 1983 -
New Order released their song Blue Monday, as a 12-inch on the Factory Records label on this date.
The title is not mentioned in the lyrics, which is true of many New Order songs. The band took the song's name from an illustration in the Kurt Vonnegut book Breakfast Of Champions, which Stephen Morris was reading. One of its illustrations read: "Goodbye Blue Monday," referring to the invention of the washing machine improving housewives' lives.
March 7, 1986 -
This was a Red Letter Day for Daniel Day Lewis.
Lewis was relatively unknown in the US at that time and critics raved about how great the range of his talent was to play such vastly different characters. (It's called acting)
March 7, 2014 -
Another home movie by Wes Anderson and his pals, The Grand Budapest Hotel, starring Ralph Fiennes, F. Murray Abraham, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Saoirse Ronan, Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, and Owen Wilson, when into limited release worldwide on this date.
According to writer, producer, and director Wes Anderson, the cast stayed in the same hotel, the Hotel Börse in Görlitz, Germany during principal photography. He insisted all make-up and costume fittings happen in the hotel lobby to speed up filming. The owner of the hotel appeared in this movie as an extra working the front desk of The Grand Budapest Hotel. After filming ended for the day, the crew often returned to find him at the front desk of their own hotel.
Another ACME Safety Film
Today in History:
March 7, 1876 -
Alexander Graham Bell receives US Patent #174,465 for his revolutionary new invention - the telephone.
Elisha Gray, Antonio Meucci and Thomas Edison all claimed to have invented the telephone first, and the issue is still a source of controversy.
Another episode of The Crazy Mixed-Up Russian Revolution
March 7, 1917 -
Russia's 1917 February Revolution began on March 7, which was then the middle of February, in the city of St. Petersburg, which was then Petrograd, in what was then Russia, but would soon be the Soviet Union.
Tsar (or Czar) Nicholas II of the Romanov (or Romanoff) line had been away from St. Petersburg (or Petrograd) most of the winter, leading his army against the German Empire's Eastern Front (or Russia's Western Front).
Russia's peasants and workers had become exhausted by the war and its attendant famine and were exasperated by the Tsarina's indifference to their suffering. They were furious with the government, which had become two governments and therefore twice as bad. And they were tired of all this nonsense about March being February, St. Petersburg being Petrograd, the Czar being Tsar, and all those crazy, mixed-up fronts.
In short, the peasants were revolting. And so these poor bastards began a series of riots and strikes that eventually led to what is now known as the February Revolution.
It was a bleak moment for the House of Romanov, which like most monarchies had endured through the centuries largely as a result of its soldiers' willingness to shoot people.
One Year later:
On March 7, 1918 the Bolsheviks changed their name to the Russian Communist Party.
Bolsheviks is Russian for majority, as opposed to Mensheviks, which means minority. The Mensheviks, however, were in fact the majority party in 1918, and the Bolsheviks the minority, so the name change helped ease the work of journalists, who had become so confused they'd begun writing stories about children and ducks.
March 7, 1923 -
... And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
The popular poem by Robert Frost, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, was first published on this day in The New Republic.
March 7, 1933 -
Charles Darrow, for some reason claims that he invented The Monopoly board game on this date. Thank your rich Uncle Pennybags.
(Quite truthfully, the history of the Monopoly game is so complicated, for legal reasons, just go with this date, don't ask about Elizabeth Magie's 'The Landlord Game' and her patent of March 23, 1903.)
March 7, 1964 -
I'm shy. I am. I mean, if I get around, you know, in a room of a bunch of people especially I - you know, I don't know or - it takes me a while to warm up. I'm - and the real me, I'm not as witty as, you know, as the comic Wanda. The comic, she's had time to work on some things.
Wanda Sykes, actress, comedian, and writer, was born on this date.
March 7, 1945 -
Gen. George Patton urinated in the Rhine after the U.S. Third Army took the bridge at Remagen on this date.
So remember, you can't slap a soldier for cowardice but you can piss in your enemy's river.
March 7, 1965 -
Protesting the shooting death of Jimmie Lee Jackson (a 26-year-old church deacon from Marion,) by an Alabama State Trooper, a group of more than 600 Civil Rights marchers trying to get to the state capitol in Montgomery, was broken up in Selma, Alabama, on this date.
Coverage of the riot, which was broken up by state troopers with tear gas and whips, was one of the first to get major coverage in the Civil Rights movement and put the national spotlight on the issue.
March 7, 1988 -
Trans actress Divine (Harris Glenn Milstead,) who appeared in several John Waters films, died from sleep apnea on this date. Divine was about to join the cast of Married with Children when she unexpected stopped breathing.
The producers of Married With Children sent flowers to the funeral, along with a humorous card that read, If you didn't want to do the show, you could have just SAID something!
March 7, 1999 -
The screen is a magic medium. It has such power that it can retain interest as it conveys emotions and moods that no other art form can hope to tackle.
Stanley Kubrick, who directed 13 films, including Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey, died in Hertfordshire, England, at age 70 on this date.
And so it goes.
Our little town boasts a very cool and funky coffee shop called Goodbye Blue Monday. It's a popular hangout for townies and college kids alike. I am indebted to the good Dr for teaching me the origin of the name.
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