In 1944, an Arkansas teacher named Mattie Whyte Woodridge began a campaign to establish a national day that would honor teachers.
Today is also National Roast Leg of Lamb Day! Truly, there is no more a noble cause than eating a meal consisting of properly prepared lamb.
Sadly, in a recent survey, 35% of Americans surveyed reported that they had never eaten lamb, and most American each less than a pound of lamb per year. In the Caligari household, we can put away a pound of lamb per seating and happily come back for more. (Don't forget the tzatziki!)
May 7, 1937 -
Leo McCarey's forgotten tearjerker, Make Way for Tomorrow, starring Victor Moore, Beulah Bondi, Fay Bainter, and Thomas Mitchell premiered in Hollywood on this date.
Orson Welles was quoted as saying that the film "would make a stone cry". John Ford, Frank Capra and Jean Renoir were big admirers of the film.
May 7, 1966 –
The Mamas and the Papas song Monday, Monday reached no. #1 on the Billboard charts (their only no. #1 hit) on this date.
While awaiting the release of California Dreamin', band member Denny Doherty was prodding songwriter John Phillips to come up with some new material. Phillips said he would come back in the morning with "A song with universal appeal." Ignoring the sarcastic comments from the group members, Phillips came up with Monday, Monday. It's about the lousy feeling that comes with the end of the weekend and beginning of another workweek.
May 7, 1973 -
George Harrison released the single Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth), off his album, Living in the Material World, on this date.
The song became George Harrison's second US #1 following My Sweet Lord. It pushed Paul McCartney and Wings' My Love from the top position, marking the only occasion that two former Beatles have held the top two chart positions on the Hot 100.
May 7, 1977 -
Hotel California topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart on this date.
Written by Don Felder, Glenn Frey and Don Henley, this song is about materialism and excess. California is used as the setting, but it could relate to anywhere in America. Don Henley in the London Daily Mail November 9, 2007 said: "Some of the wilder interpretations of that song have been amazing. It was really about the excesses of American culture and certain girls we knew. But it was also about the uneasy balance between art and commerce."
May 7, 1984 -
Roger Waters released his first solo album, The Pros And Cons Of Hitch Hiking, with it's iconic and slightly scandalous album cover, on this date.
A film based on the album was proposed and some footage and animation completed by 1985, but this is yet to officially see the light of day.
May 7, 1987 -
Shelly Long made her last appearance as a regular on the NBC series Cheers, on this date.
To keep Shelley Long's departure from the series under wraps, three endings were shot. The aired ending, which had Diane leaving and promising to return in six months, and two additional endings. One had Sam and Diane getting married, and a third ending that the producers have not disclosed to this date.
May 7, 1988 –
Terence Trent D’Arby's (who now performs under the name Sananda Maitreya,) second single from his album Introducing the Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby, Wishing Well reached no. #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.
After a stint in the US Army, D'Arby moved to England and got a deal with CBS Records. For his first single, If You Let Me Stay, he was paired with producer Howard Gray. The other nine tracks, including Wishing Well, were produced by Martyn Ware of Heaven 17.
May 7, 1997 -
The science fiction film The Fifth Element, written and directed by Luc Besson, starring Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich was released in France, on this date. At the time, it was the most expensive European film ever made.
Luc Besson wrote the original screenplay when he was in high school. He had conceived the story of this movie and invented the world of the movie as a child so he could escape his lonely childhood. He began writing the script when he was 16, though it was not released in theaters until he was 38.
May 7, 2005 –
Gwen Stefani third single from her debut album, Love. Angel. Music. Baby, Hollaback Girl reached No. #1 on the Billboard charts on this date. (When my daughters were younger, they thought it hysterical to run around the house singing, 'My shit is bananas'.)
Stefani got the idea for the cheerleader theme when she recalled a comment Courtney Love said about her in an issue of Seventeen magazine: "Being famous is just like being in high school. But I'm not interested in being the cheerleader. I'm not interested in being Gwen Stefani. She's the cheerleader, and I'm out in the smoker shed."
Today's moment of Zen
Today in History:
May 7, 399 BC (according to Plato) -
... Socrates, what is truth?' 'Socrates, what is beauty?' Never once did any of you guys say 'Socrates, hemlock is poisonous.' Thanks a lot, you guys ...
Greek authorities forced philosopher Socrates to end his life by drinking a potion containing hemlock for his teaching methods which aroused skepticism and impiety in his students.
Those must have been some parties, if you get condemned to death afterward.
May 7, 1895 -
In Saint Petersburg, Russian scientist Alexander Stepanovich Popov demonstrated to the Russian Physical and Chemical Society his invention - the first in the world radio receiver.
May 7, 1896 –
Dr. H. H. Holmes, (Herman Webster Mudgett,) con artist and one of America’s first well-known serial killers, was hanged to death in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on this date. (There is no truth to the scurrilous rumor that we were in medical school together.)
Although he was convicted of murdering only one victim, his accomplice and business partner Benjamin Pitezel, it was believed that he also murdered three of Pitezel's children. During his trial, Holmes officially confessed to 27 murders, but later told his lawyer that he had actually killed 133 people
May 7, 1901 -
The general consensus seems to be that I don't act at all.
Gary Cooper, one of Hollywood's original boytoy, iconic actor and womanizer, was born on this date.
May 7, 1915 -
A very minor league Archduck and his wife got themselves killed in the Balkans. Before you you say conflagration, half the world was at war. On February 4, 1915, Germany declared the seas around the British Isles a war zone and any Allied ships in the area would be sunk without warning. King George V's government chose to ignore the warnings, as they were written in German. This seems odd, as George spoke German, his grandfather was German (Prince Albert) and his first cousin was Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Anyway, a German submarine, U-20, sank the Lusitania, killing 1,200, on this date. There were no star-crossed young lovers aboard, however, so instead of making a movie about it, the U.S. had to enter World War I.
May 7, 1920 -
With much fanfare the Treaty of Moscow was signed on this date. Soviet Russia recognized the independence of the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
May 7, 1937 -
The Hindenburg wreckage still lies smoldering having crashed and burned in Lakehurst, New Jersey, killing thirty-six yesterday.
The good news was, it provided a really cool cover for Led Zeppelin's first album and a fairly good basis for a novel by E. L. Doctorow.
May 7, 1954 -
In what was seen as a shocking turn of events in the West, French forces were overrun at Dien Bien Phu, on this date. Many in the West had considered the Viet Cong as a minor threat.
This marked the end of French involvement in Vietnam, and the beginning of serious US involvement in the war.
May 7, 2000 -
Vladimir Putin became the president of Russia (for the first time) on this date.
Putin served eight years as president, and is credited with bringing Russia back from the brink of economic collapse. Now that Putin's American presidency has ended, and he's considered a war criminal, I wonder how history will treat him.
And so it goes.
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