Manhattan's grid was originally proposed in 1811, by Gouverneur Morris, surveyor John Rutherfurd, and New York State Surveyor General Simeon De Witt, four years after the city council appointed them "Commissioners of Streets and Roads," charged with master-planning the city's expansion from its dense base on Manhattan's southern tip.
Because of the work of the The Commissioners' Plan of 1811, the orderly plan of the grid like layout of most of Manhattan occurred, we were able to see the spectacular setting of the sun which aligns with the east-west streets, fully illuminating every single cross-street for the last fifteen minutes of daylight (best bet according to The New York Times is actually tomorrow at 8:18 P.M. EDT - please be careful to watch out for the traffic.)
Today is also Menstrual Hygiene Awareness Day. The German based NGO WASH United wanted to raise awareness that over 1.25 billion women who do not have access basic sanitary conditions during their period. Given the fact that a little more than half the world's population are women and on any given day, more than 800 million women between the ages of 15 and 49 are menstruating, it is an issue that effects everyone.
After what I've been through, discussing this was a breeze.
May 28, 1929 -
Warner Bros released the film On With the Show! on this date. It was the first movie shown to be fully in color and fully in sound. (The color version of the film seems to have been lost; there is only a B & W print in existence.)
It was the second movie produced by Warner Brothers, and helped start the Technicolor revolution.
May 28, 1953 -
Walt Disney's first animated 3-D cartoon in Technicolor, Melody, premiered on this date
Originally there was going to be an entire series of Adventures in Music shorts but in fact, only one other was made: the Academy Award-winning Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom.
May 28, 1966 –
Percy Sledge's song When A Man Loves A Woman hit no. 1 on the Billboard charts on this date.
Trained musicians can tell that the horns on this song are out of tune, and this didn't escape the ear of Jerry Wexler at Atlantic Records. He sent back the original version so this could be fixed, but the fix never made it to the shelves. David Hood, who became the bass player in the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, has been quoted as saying: ",Wexler thought the horns on the original version were out of tune - and they were - and he wanted them to change the horns. They went back in the studio and changed the horns, got different horn players to play on it. But then the tapes got mixed up and Atlantic put out their original version. So that's the hit."
May 28, 1966 -
Ike and Tina Turner released the classic song River Deep, Mountain High, on this date. (Although this is credited to Ike and Tina Turner, Ike had no part in the recording process. Turner was paid $20,000 up front to made sure that he was not in the studio during the sessions.)
This was written specifically for Tina Turner to sing. Phil Spector made very dense recordings that required a strong vocalist to cut through, and he knew Turner and her flamethrower voice could handle it.
May 28, 1982 -
Roxy Music release their eighth and final album, Avalon, on this date.
Avalon was Roxy Music's most successful studio album. It stayed at number one on the UK Albums Chart for three weeks, and stayed on the chart for over a year.
May 28, 1989 -
Marvin Young (Young MC, who is now 55 years old) an economics major at University of Southern California released his Grammy Award winning album, containing the hit Bust A Move, on this date.
The main sample in this song is a loop from a song that came out in 1970 called Found A Child by a Seattle Funk group called Ballin' Jack.
May 28, 1990 -
The short-lived summer replacement, (which was actually very funny,) The Dave Thomas Comedy Show, debuts on CBS-TV, on this date.
There were only five episodes shot but the show had a lot of his friends and Second City pals on the show, with each show featuring a big name guest star. These were John Candy, Dan Ackroyd, Chevy Chase, Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara.
May 28, 1993 -
The action comedy Super Mario Bros., a live adaptation of the popular Nintendo game starring Bob Hoskins as Mario and John Leguizamo as Luigi, debuts in US theaters, on this date. The movie is a huge flop but is noted for its stunning visual effects.
In his 2007 autobiography John Leguizamo states he and Bob Hoskins hated working on the film and would frequently get drunk to make it through the experience. Both men apparently knew the movie would turn out bad, so they simply tried to make the best of it. He also stated he felt one of the biggest reasons the movie turned out the way it did was because the directors wanted a more "adult" movie while the studio, considering the source material, was looking for a children's film.
May 28, 1999 -
The definitive Rom Com, Notting Hill, directed by Roger Michell, and starring Julia Roberts, Hugh Grant, Rhys Ifans, Emma Chambers, Tim McInnerny, Gina McKee, and Hugh Bonneville, opened in the US on this date.
During the birthday dinner scene, Anna Scott is asked how much she made on her last film, and her reply is $15 million. This is the amount Julia Roberts was paid for her role in this movie.
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
May 28, 1503 -
The Treaty of Everlasting Peace between Scotland and England was signed culminating in the marriage of James IV of Scotland and Margaret Tudor (sister of Henry VIII) on this date.
Once again the European sense of time prevails and the treaty would actually last only 10 years.
On May 28, 1743, Joseph Ignace Guillotin was born in France on this day. Later he became a doctor. As a politically active humanitarian, he was understandably disturbed by the grisly executions of the French Revolution. He was sure people could be killed more efficiently, and he proposed a device to do just that (Antoine Louis devised the gismo.)
Dr Guillotin probably died of natural causes and was not eventually guillotined (as many believe,) thus robbing us of the possible existence of a moral to his story.
(Readers seeking morals, however, are advised as always to conduct their searches elsewhere.)
May 28, 1892 -
The Sierra Club was founded, with naturalist John Muir its first President, on this date.
It would later become the United States' largest grassroots environmental organization.
May 28, 1897 -
Jell-O was introduced, fifty-two years after Peter Cooper (inventor of the Tom Thumb engine) received the first U.S. patent for a gelatin dessert, on this date. Pearl B. Wait, a carpenter and cough medicine manufacturer from LeRoy, New York, produces varieties in strawberry, raspberry, orange, and lemon fruit flavors, dubbed Jell-O by his wife, May Davis Wait.
When sales turn out to be poor, Wait sells his Jell-O business for $450 to his neighbor, Orator F.Woodward, who had founded the Genesee Pure Food Co. two years earlier. Success will come slowly, but with Woodward’s creative sales and sampling strategies, Jell-O began will begin to catch on. In 1902, when he launches his first advertising campaign in Ladies’ Home Journal, sales will reach $250,000. So remember there's always room for the juice of boiled calves hooves.
May 28, 1908 -
Ian Lancaster Fleming, the writer of the James Bond character, was born in London, on this date.
Serving as a naval intelligence officer during the Second World War, he drew largely on this experience to create the character of James Bond, an international man of mystery, working at the highest levels of British intelligence.
May 28, 1930 -
The Chrysler Building, the premier Art Deco skyscraper in New York City, had it's opening ceremony, on this date. Standing 1,047 feet (319 meters) high, it was briefly the world's tallest building before it was overtaken by the Empire State Building in 1931. With the construction of One World Trade Center, it was been again relegated to the third tallest building in New York City.
Van Alen secretly obtained permission to build a spire that was hidden inside the building during construction. The spire, measuring 125 feet (58.4 meters) long and composed of Nirosta stainless steel, was hoisted to the top of the building on October 23, 1929. The added height allowed the Chrysler Building to surpass both 40 Wall Street and the Eiffel Tower as the tallest building and the tallest structure in the world. It was also the first man-made structure to stand taller than 1,000 feet (305 meters). The steel chosen to cap the building was Krupp KA2 "Enduro" Steel (you may buy me a drink after you win a bar bet with that bit of knowledge).
In less than a year, the Chrysler Building was surpassed in height by the Empire State Building. Van Alen's satisfaction was further muted by Walter Chrysler's refusal to pay his fee.
May 28, 1944 -
The thrice married, former prosecutor, businessman, transvestite, former Republican mouthpiece for an inveterate liar from the state of New York, and inveterate drunkard and butt dialer Sir Rudolph William Louis Giuliani III, was born on this date.
I have nothing else to say about this man - I hope he has some sort of hobby to occupt himself while he is in jail, in the future.
May 28, 1959 -
America launched a Jupiter rocket on this date, containing a rhesus monkey named Able and a squirrel monkey named Miss Baker. After experiencing nine minutes of microgravity, the capsule successfully returns to Earth with both monkeys intact.
However, Able died during surgery to remove his electrodes. Able was then stuffed and mounted and is now on display at the Smithsonian Institute of Air and Space Museum.
There is no truth to the rumor that Miss Baker went on to carry on a long term dalliance with President Kennedy and Frank Sinatra.
May 28, 1972 -
The virtually exiled King Edward VIII, (styled the Duke of Windsor by his brother King George VI in 1936,) died on this day in 1972 in Paris. He was buried at Windsor Castle. It was the first time that his widow, the Duchess was a royal guest of the Queen.
According to Sarah Bradford, the royal biographer, the Queen Mother, who had for 36 years resented the fact that the Duke's undying love for the horse faced, possible transvestite Mrs. Simpson had put her husband on the throne right at the threshold of war and had condemned him to an early death (She conveniently forgot that her husband was a very heavy smoker from early adulthood and that his family was prone to cancer), was very solicitous about the senile Duchess and took care of her during the funeral. The Queen did not weep for her uncle, but, strangely enough, when the Duchess followed him in death 14 years later, the Queen did weep at her funeral.
May 28, 1987 -
German teenager Matthias Rust lands his Cessna in Moscow's Red Square, buzzing the Kremlin on the way in.
He serves 18 months in prison for this prank, which also costs the commander of the Soviet Air Command his job.
Oops.
And so it goes.
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