Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Happy National Root Beer Float Day

Also known as the “Black Cow,” the root beer float got its start in Cripple Creek, Colorado, in a mining camp. Frank J. Wisner the owner of Cripple Creek Brewing, gets the credit for inventing the Black Cow in August of 1893.



Which means, you know, we get to play that song.

Callooh! Callay! (Adding alcohol to your Black Cow, is between you and your god.)


A quick check of the calendar :





It's the half way point of summer today and there are 141 days until Christmas


August 6, 1926 -
One of John Barrymore's classic silent movies, Don Juan, co-starring a young Mary Astor, opened in NYC on this date.



Mary Astor had a brief affair with John Barrymore during and shortly after the filming of this movie, but they remained good friends thereafter until Barrymore's death.


August 6, 1938 -
... I'm so crazy, I don't know if this is impossible. Woo-hoo!



An early pairing of this comedy duo, Porky and Daffy, was released on this date.


August 6, 1960 -
Chubby Checker performs his version of The Twist on American Bandstand starting a worldwide dance craze. The song soon reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart—and then, again, for a second time in 1962, making it the only song to hit No. 1 twice.



Hank Ballard & The Midnighters tried to get a Twist craze going with their original version of the song, doing the dance at their shows as they toured America (their dance was a little different, with band members lifting a leg to twist). It caught on in Philadelphia and in Baltimore, but was far from the national craze Chubby Checker created when he covered the song.


August 6, 1982 -
Alan Parker's rock-musical interpretation of the classical album, Pink Floyd The Wall, premiered in NYC on this date.



Many of the extras in the Run Like Hell and Waiting for the Worms sequences were actual neo-Nazis cast for realism. Gerald Scarfe became frightened that things were getting out of control when, on one day during filming, several of them showed up with the double-hammer insignia shaved into the sides of their heads. Later, a fascist group did spring up in the late 1980s dubbed the "Hammerskins" with this logo as their insignia, much to the dismay of Scarfe, Parker and Waters, whose intentions were to make the portrayal anti-fascist.


August 6, 1993 -
Sheryl Crow releases her first album, Tuesday Night Music Club on this date. It takes about a year to catch on, but eventually sells over 7 million copies.



Tuesday Night Music Club was Crow's first album, released when she was 31. It took nearly a year for the album to catch on as Crow toured small theaters while she built an audience. She got a lot of exposure in 1994 when she opened for the Eagles on their reunion tour and played Woodstock II. All I Wanna Do was her breakthrough hit, reaching #2 in America on October 8, 1994, 14 months after the album was released.


August 6, 1994 -
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories single, Stay (I Missed You), from the original movie soundtrack to Reality Bites, went to No. 1 on the Billboard Charts on this date.



Long before this song became a hit, Loeb performed it at her shows, where it got a great response and was one of her most requested songs. Said Loeb: "I usually write songs that are more fictional, and for some reason when I sat down to write that song, I let myself write more about how I was feeling at that moment. And that's something I think about a lot as I continue to write music, that the songs that I write that are more personal and without as much editing, are the ones that people connect to more."


August 6, 2015 -
This show isn't ending. This is just a pause in the conversation ...



Jon Stewart gave up his very reluctant mantle as the 'most trusted man on television' when he hosted his final episode (of his more than a decade long career) on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, on this date.


Today's moment of Zen


Today in History:
August 6 is noted historically as the official end of the Holy Roman Empire, which collapsed on that date in 1806 as Emperor Francis II abdicated.

As always, please note, the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, roman or an empire (per se).

Discuss amongst yourselves.


August 6, 1890
At Auburn Prison in New York, murderer William Kemmler became the first person to be executed by electric chair on this date.



The first shock of electricity did not kill Kemmler, and a second shock was required. The second jolt lasted until the smell of burning flesh filled the room, about four minutes. As soon as his charred body stopped smoldering, Kemmler was pronounced dead.

It was not a pretty sight.


August 6, 1911 -
Luck? I don't know anything about luck. I've never banked on it and I'm afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work - and realizing what is opportunity and what isn't.

Lucille Ball, film and television executive, actress and comedian, was born on this date.





A comment from a member of the preview audience of Follow the Fleet about bit-player Ball: "You might give the tall gum chewing blonde more parts and see if she can't make the grade - a good gamble."


August 6, 1926 -
Gertrude Ederle becomes first woman to swim the English Channel. Before setting out from Cap Griz-Nez, France, at 7:09 a.m., Ederle coated her body with layers of lard and petroleum jelly to insulate her from the cold waters.



Only five men had been able to swim the English Channel before Ederle. The best time had been 16 hours, 33 minutes by an Italian-born Argentine, Enrique Tiraboschi. Ederle walked up the beach at Dover, England after 14 hours and 39 minutes. The first person to greet her was a British immigration officer who requested a passport from "the bleary-eyed, waterlogged teenager."

That man's name is no longer remembered but truly he is the spiritual grandfather of the TSA.


August 6, 1930 -
NY state Supreme Court Judge Joseph Force Crater (infamously known in New York tabloids for his alleged corruption and frequent affairs with showgirls,) dined at a West 45th Street steakhouse with a group of friends. Crater had earlier withdrawn $5,150 from a pair of bank accounts. He was last seen at 9:15 p.m., climbing into the cab. Judge Crater was never seen again.



Evidence in 2005 suggested that several men killed the judge and buried him under the Coney Island Boardwalk in Brooklyn.


August 6, 1945 -
The first atomic bomb used in combat was dropped on Hiroshima by the Enola Gay, piloted by Col. Paul Tibbets, on this date.



President Truman ordered the use of the first nuclear bomb, which the military referred to as "Little Boy." Harry had been vice president for only 82 days when President Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945 and didn't even know of the existence of the 9,600 pound bomb until he was told about it upon his assumption of the presidency.



In minutes the massive blast and the firestorm it produced destroyed the majority of the city and killed 66,000 people instantly and a total of as many as 166,000 died over a period of months from the nuclear fallout (a third of Hiroshima's population.)


August 6, 1965 -
One of the crowning achievements of the civil rights movement, The Voting Rights Act, was signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson, 58 years ago on this date.



One of it key aims was to overcome legal barriers at the state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote under the 15th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.


August 6, 1991 -
On December 25, 1990, Tim Berners-Lee (not Al Gore,) successfully connected an http client with an Internet server, thus inventing the World Wide Web.


Less than a year later, on this day, the first website built was at CERN within the border of France, and was first put online.



And so it goes.

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