Read the ramblings of Dr. Caligari. Hopefully you will find that Time does wound all heels.
You no longer need to be sad that nowadays there is so little useless information.
September 15, 1776 - The British occupied Manhattan, on this date. Outraged by the rents, discouraged by the lack of parking and homesick for bubble and squeak and spotted dick, however, they left shortly afterwards, leaving only journalists behind.
September 15, 1830 -
British MP William Huskisson was chatting amiably with the Duke of Wellington at the grand opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway, when all at once the right honorable gentleman distinguished himself for posterity by becoming the first human being in history to be run over by a train. (The Duke of Wellington, on the other hand, is remembered for his Beef.)
September 15, 1864 -
Thirty-four years later, on this date, another hardy British soul, the explorer John Speke, distinguished himself by becoming the first European to see Africa's Lake Victoria and then accidentally shoot and kill himself while hunting partridges (conveniently, the day before he was to debate his finding with his famous exploration partner, Richard Burton - no, not that Richard Burton, the famous self circumciser and translator of 1001 Arabian Nights.)
September 15, 1885 -
P.T. Barnum's prize elephant Jumbo is struck dead by a freight train in St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada. It takes 150 men to haul the carcass up an embankment, from whence it is taken to a taxidermist. The stuffed Jumbo becomes a featured attraction in Barnum's circus.
Goodbye Jumbo.
September 15, 1890 It's the birthday of Agatha Christie (Vanessa Redgrave), born in Devon, England. She was a Red Cross nurse during World War I. She started reading detective novels because she found they took her mind off her troubles and soon after, started writing her own.
Her big breakthrough book was her novel The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which came out in 1926. It was the same year in which Christie had a fight with her husband, fled her own home, and was missing for ten days. There was a nationwide search. It was on the front pages of all the papers. And when she finally turned up, she was famous and all of her books were best-sellers.
September 15, 1928 -
Scottish bacteriologist and noted slob Alexander Fleming accidentally discovered that the mold penicillin had an antibiotic effect, on this date. Had he cleaned his laboratory every night and put all his things away like a good little boy, he never would have discovered penicillin, and half of us would be dead right now.
As I am deathly allergic to penicillin, his discovery has done little for me but I pass this along to you all.
September 15, 1954 - In front of thousands of spectating New Yorkers at 51st and Lexington, Marilyn Monroe performs the now-famous skirt blowing scene during filming for The Seven Year Itch. The event basically boils down to a publicity stunt, as the whole thing gets reshot later on a Hollywood soundstage. Unfortunately, this event is the final straw in the Monroe - Dimaggio marriage and it soon comes undone.
September 15, 1972 - Indictments are brought against the seven Watergate conspirators: McCord, Frank Sturgis, Barker, Martinez, Gonzalez, E. Howard Hunt (noted spy, novelist and possible Kennedy assassin, rumored to have been the man on the grassy knoll), and Liddy (noted rat connoisseur).
Ivan Pavlov was born on this date. Pavlov was a Russian scientist who discovered that dogs drooled whenever bells were rung. Only after his death were his ideas discredited by a group of Swedish scientists who determined that dogs also drooled when bells were not rung. In the decades since, science has repeatedly and conclusively demonstrated that dogs will sometimes drool and sometimes not drool.
September 14 1812 - Napoleon's army invaded the city of Moscow, on this date. He began the invasion of Russia in June of that year, hoping to continue his "One Europe, One Cuisine" Tour. The Russian forces kept retreating, burning the farmland as they went so the French wouldn't be able to draw provisions from the land.
The troops were exhausted and hungry by the time they reached Moscow on this day, in 1812. The gates of the city were left wide open. And as the French came through, they noticed that all over the city small fires had begun. The Russians had set fire to their own city. By that night, the fires were out of control.
Napoleon watched the burning of the city from inside the Kremlin, and barely escaped the city alive. The retreat began across the snow - covered plains, one of the great disasters of military history. Thousands of troops died from starvation and hypothermia.
Of the nearly half million French soldiers who had set out in June on the invasion, fewer than 20,000 staggered back across the border in December.
September 14 1901 - President William McKinley succumbs to his gunshot wound, on this date - the third American president to be assassinated. He had won a landslide victory in the election of 1900. He had gone on a tour of the country, a victory tour, which he ended in Buffalo, New York, where the Pan-American Exposition was being held near Niagara Falls.
McKinley was shaking hands with a long line of people on September 6, when a 28-year-old anarchist from Cleveland named Leon Czolgosz came up to shake his hand. Czolgosz's right hand was wrapped in a handkerchief which concealed a gun. He shot the president twice, hitting him in the abdomen. At first it seemed as though the wound was minor and that McKinley would recover, but he died on this day in 1901. He died, historians believe, because he needed an infusion of fluids and nutrients, and the IV had not been invented yet. It didn't help matters that Teddy Roosevelt kept peeking into his hospital room, shouting, "Is he dead yet? Am I president yet? Bully, bully!!!"
September 14 1927 - Legendary dancer Isadora Duncan is killed in Nice, France when her long silk scarf gets tangled in the rear wheel of the convertible she's riding in. Her neck is broken and an artery severed. Some accounts have her thrown against the pavement and dragged for 100 feet. The freak accident occurs in full view of a number of friends.
Strange but true fact - the mother of famed 40's comedy director, Preston Sturges, was famous for her friendship with Isadora Duncan, even giving her the very scarf that led to Duncan's freakish death. Kids, remember what Gertrude Stein said, "affectations can be dangerous and where the hell are those brownies Alice made."
September 14 1936 - Surgeons Walter Freeman and James W. Watts perform America's first prefrontal lobotomy on a depressed, 63-year-old Kansas woman in Washington, D.C. They successfully create a lethargic dullard, and the duo hails the result for years to come as a medical triumph, despite the fact that two of their next twenty lobotomy subjects end as fatalities.
Here's a easy way you can remember this, "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy."
September 14 1982 - Grace Kelly, American-born princess of Monaco, dies after a high speed car crash the previous day. She and daughter Princess Stephanie were badly injured when their British Rover 3500 plunged into a ravine, tumbling 45 feet. In the official version of events, Grace suffered a mild stroke while driving; however, although rumors persist that 17-year-old Princess Stephanie was actually behind the wheel, there is no truth to the rumor that she was engaging in oral sex with a blind Bolivian hunchbacked midget. So dammit, please stop printing these lies .
Hopefully the people who didn't evacuate will be ok.
September 13 1848 - A 13-pound tamping iron is blown through the head of railroad construction foreman Phineas P. Gage, entering beneath the left cheekbone and exiting the top of his head. The metal bar lands 30 yards away, taking with it much of his left frontal lobe. Gage never loses consciousness, even while the doctors examine his wound. Two months later, he is well enough to return home and resume an active life of work and travel.
The steel rod, along with a cast of Gage's head, and his skull, are now on display at Harvard Medical School's Warren Anatomical Museum.
September 13 1916 - Mary the circus elephant is publicly executed in the Erwin, Tennessee railyard, after killing a drifter named Red Eldridge the previous day. The five-ton animal is hanged from a derrick car in front of 3,000 onlookers, and left hanging for half an hour.
Give the people what they want ...
September 13 1916 - Roald Dahl was born on this date in Llandaff, South Wales. He was sent off to private boarding schools as a kid, which he hated except for the chocolates, Cadbury chocolates. The Cadbury chocolate company had chosen his school as a focus group for new candies they were developing. Every so often, a plain gray cardboard box was issued to each child, filled with eleven chocolate bars. It was the children's task to rate the candy, and Dahl took his job very seriously. About one of the sample candy bars, he wrote, "Too subtle for the common palate." He later said that the experience got him thinking about candy as something manufactured in a factory, and he spent a lot of time imagining what a candy factory might be like.
Today, he's best known for his children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and for the fact he ran off with his children's nanny after his wife, the actress Patricia Neal, recovered from a stroke. But even more interesting, a recently published biography of Dahl, purports that he was a spy for the British government during World War II, paid to sleep with wealthy U. S. women to gain information for the British government. And you thought only 007 had a way with women.
September 13 1971 - After 1,300 rioting prisoners reject a list of proposed concessions because it lacks immunity from prosecution, New York Governor orders an attack to retake Attica prison. In all, 29 prisoners die and 85 are wounded; and 10 hostages are killed. For months thereafter, prisoners receive inhumane beatings from guards.
September 13 1974 - The Rockford Files debuts on NBC television.
Today in History - September 12, 490 B.C., looked like it was going to be a pretty bleak day for Western Civilization. The Greeks, who were not yet Ancient or Classical, were facing a massive invasion of Persians. Persia was not yet part of the Axis of Evil, but was pretty nasty just the same. They had more soldiers than the Greeks, better cavalry, and better weapons. (They did not have ouzo or moussaka, however; it may have been envy of those quintessentially Greek achievements that drove them to invade.)
The General in charge of the Greeks was the Athenian Miltiades, also known as Uncle Milti. In addition to his own Athenians, he had been given Plataean soldiers and the promised support of Spartans. It was the first time the various city-states had prepared to fight together against a common enemy.
Despite his strong defensive footing, entrenched in the hilly terrain of Marathon, Uncle Milti was afraid that the superior numbers of the Persians would allow them to fight through the Greek defenses and destroy Western Civilization. In order to prevent this, he launched an offensive.
It caught the Persians off guard, driving them off the land, into their ships, and back to Persia.
This was the Battle of Marathon, at which Western Civilization was saved for the first time—ensuring a future for diet cola, fat-free potato chips, and pay-per-view sports. (The Battle of Marathon is not related to the Marathon Bar or Marathon Man, but neither of them could have come about without it.)
Here is a special note to the strange people who run marathons. After winning this battle, a runner, the soldier Pheidippides, was send back to Athens to announce the victory. Racing over 26 miles to get back to Athens, Pheidippides delivered the momentous message "Niki!" ("victory"), then promptly collapsed and died, thereby setting a precedent for dramatic conclusions to the marathon and the first sports product endorsement. Remember that the next time you run.
September 12 1609- The explorer Henry Hudson sailed up the river which eventually came to be called the Hudson River, on this date. He was on an expedition for the Dutch East India Company, trying to find a passage to Asia — the Northwest Passage. This was back when Europeans believed that North America was a rather small land mass, and if they could just find a way through it, they could get to the Asian markets. The Dutch were not great masterminds it appears.
Henry Hudson sailed up the river, anchoring his ship at what is now West 42nd Street and the Hudson. He was hoping to get tickets to see Mary Poppins or at least the Lion King When he discovered that he was at least 350 years too earlier and that the only tickets available were the all - Indian version of Fiddler on the Roof, he immediately got back on his boat and went up as far as the site of modern day Albany, turned around, and went back to Amsterdam.
September 12 1878 -
The magnificent phallic symbol Cleopatra's Needle is erected in London on the bank of the Thames. It doesn't really have anything to do with Cleopatra. The obelisk has a twin in New York's Central Park, also named Cleopatra's Needle. It has nothing to do with Cleopatra, either.
September 12 1966 - NBC television premieres The Monkees, a sitcom about four guys in a rock band. When the show becomes a hit, the fictional Monkees somehow release a string of albums, even though three of the actors can't even play their instruments.
September 12 1977 - The body of Steven Biko is discovered on the floor of a jail cell in Pretoria. The South African civil rights activist had been beaten and tortured six days earlier, during an interrogation in Port Elizabeth. Police officials claim that Biko probably suffered the fatal injuries when he "fell out of bed."
September 12 1994 -
After a night of boozing and smoking crack, Frank Corder steals a Cessna P150 and crashes it into the south lawn of the White House. The wreckage tumbles over a tree and a hedge before coming to rest against the West Wing of the Executive Mansion. Corder's flamboyant suicide attack never actually imperiled President Clinton's life, since the First Family was sleeping elsewhere at the time. There is no truth to the rumour that Newt Gingrich bought Frank the boozes and the crack.
... From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame.
- W. H. Auden
"Hold fast the time! Guard it, watch over it, every hour, every minute! Unguarded, it will slip away. Hold every moment sacred. Give each one clarity and meaning, each one its true and due fulfillment."
- Thomas Mann
Today, remember to hug your friends and family, call or write an old friend you haven't spoken to in awhile, say, "hello" to your neighbors or a least say, "Good Morning" to a stranger on the street.
William James O'Reilly, Jr. (born September 10, 1949) is an American television/radio host, author, syndicated columnist, self-proclaimed "traditionalist" political commentator and Stephen Colbert's "Papa Bear". He is the host of the cable news program The O'Reilly Factor.
Since it's Fashion Week - a brief PS to the man wearing the blue blazer, freshly pressed cream linen trousers and plastic flip flops with the very gnarly toes - NO and it's going to take a long time to get that image out of my head.
Today in History -
On September 10, 1419, supporters of the French Dolphin murdered John the Fearless. John's brothers, Thomas the Prudent and Henry the Wary, lived on into old age.
On September 10, 1623, a cargo load of lumber and fur became the first exports in history from North America to England. This ensured the commercial success of the new world, as Europe had long been paralyzed by a shortage of sticks and hair.
September 10, 1898 - Empress Elizabeth of Austria was not a particularly happy royal. Known as the Princess Diana of her day, she was estranged from her husband, Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria (because of the stiffling nature of court life) she lost her daughter, Sophie, in 1857, and her favourite cousin, King Ludwig II of Bavaria, in a tragic fashion. Her brother-in-law, Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was shot by revolutionaries. She never was able to get over her most terrible tragedy, the suicide of her son, Rudolph, in 1889.
She was still known as one of the most beautiful women in Europe well into her 60's. Her decades-long hunger diets coupled with a need for movement and exercise which compelled her to undertake lengthy and strenuous hikes, caused malnutrition and depressions and led finally to suicidal fantasies. The sixty-year old empress was stabbed with a file by a twenty-four year old anarchist, Luigi Lucheni, shortly after noon on September 10, 1898 on the promenade of Lake Geneva as she boarded a steamship for Montreux. After the incident the Empress still walked for a few minutes. Because she was so strictly corseted, she was unaware how seriously she had been wounded. Her last words were "What happened to me?"
September 10, 1932 -
"You must take the A Train To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem..."
It's the 76th Anniversary of the famed NYC transit line.
September 10, 1955 - "Gunsmoke" premieres on CBS TV. The television series ran from September 10, 1955 to September 1, 1975 on CBS for 635 episodes. It had the longest run of any scripted series with continuing characters in American primetime television. William Conrad was the first choice to play Marshall Matt Dillon on TV, having established the role on radio, but his increasing obesity led to more photogenic actors being considered. Losing the role embittered Conrad for years, though he later starred in another CBS television series, Cannon (1971-1975). Denver Pyle was also considered for the role, as was Raymond Burr who was ultimately seen as too heavy-set for the part. Rumors that the role was offered to John Wayne have been largely debunked, although he did apparent in an opening promotional video for the program.
Ah, if only Raymond Burr.
Believe it or not, Mike the Headless Chicken (April 1945 – March 1947) was a Wyandotte rooster (cockerel) that lived for 18 months after its head had been cut off. Thought by many to be a hoax, the bird was taken by its owner to the University of Utah in Salt Lake City to establish its authenticity.
On Monday, September 10, 1945, farmer Lloyd Olsen of Fruita, Colorado, had his mother-in-law around for supper and was sent out to the yard by his wife to bring back a chicken. Olsen failed to completely decapitate the five-and-a-half month old bird named Mike. The axe missed the jugular vein, leaving one ear and most of the brain stem intact. Lloyd wasn't trusted with the knife on the farm after that.
On the first night after the decapitation Mike slept with his severed head under his wing.
September 10, 1977 -
Convicted torture-killer Hamida Djandoubi, an immigrant from Tunisia, becomes the last person executed by France when he is guillotined in Marseilles. He did not survive his execution and there is no notes as to whther or not Djandoubi was buried with his head under his arm.
The Hadron Collider, a machine built to re-create the microseconds after the Big Bang will be switched on tomorrow - leading some scientists to worry that it could mean the end of the world. Since the first collisions are not anticipated until October 21, you have a few weeks until the possible end. So remember, enjoy every sandwich.
Today in History -
September 9 1087 - William the Conqueror dies of internal injuries, sustained six weeks prior in a horse riding accident at Mantes-la-Jolie. The king's funeral did not go well - according to some sources, a fire broke out during the funeral; the original owner of the land on which the church was built claimed he had not been paid yet, demanding 60 shillings, which William's son Henry had to pay on the spot. When the corpulent king was later laid to rest in the foundations of a church, his corpse would not fit in the stone sarcophagus. William's "swollen bowels burst, and an intolerable stench assailed the nostrils of the by-standers and the whole crowd." Don't you just wish they had television back then.
September 9 1890 - 118 years ago today a little boy named Harland was born in Kentucky.
When Harland was six, his father died and his mother was forced to go to work. Little Harland did most of the cooking for his younger siblings. By the age of seven he was a master of the local cuisine.
There was no stopping the ambitious Harland, who had his own highway service station in Corbin, Kentucky, by the time he was forty.
He began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station. He didn't own a restaurant, so he served them at his own dining table. Word of his excellent cooking spread (secret combination of eleven herbs and spices) , and soon he moved across the street to a restaurant that seated 142 people.
His cooking soon became so well known that his state's governor, Ruby Laffoon, made him a colonel.
In an independent 1976 survey, Colonel Harland Sanders was ranked as the world's second most recognizable figure.
September 9 1956 -
Elvis Presley makes his first-ever appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, performing four songs for guest host Charles Laughton. Ed himself had vowed never to have Presley on his show, but Sullivan is at home, recuperating from a severe head injury, from a drunken fall.
September 9 1971 - 1,300 inmates riot inside the Attica Correctional Facility in western New York state, commandeering the prison and taking 40 guards hostage. The national guard stages an assault five days later, killing 42 people in the process (10 of them being captives).
September 9 2003 -
Edward Teller, the "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb" and purported model for Dr. Strangelove (or Kissinger was, take your pick), dies at the age of 95 at his home on the Stanford University campus. His role in the destruction of colleague J. Robert Oppenheimer's career during the McCarthy era resulted in his own ostracism by many of his peers. And no, he didn't utter, "Mein Fuhrer, I can walk" just before his death.
Read a newspaper, a magazine, even the wrapper on a candy bar today.
Today in History -
Constantine the Great's three sons, Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius II, named themselves Caesars and divided the Roman Empire between them on this date in the year 337. But it was nearly sixteen hundred years before Sid Caesar himself was born, on September 8, 1922.
September 8, 1504 - Michelangelo's David, was unveiled in Florence on this date.
If you were staring too hard, you'll notice that Dave has got a turtleneck. The apparently uncircumcised form would be at odds with Judaic practice, but would be consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.
John Endicott arrived in Naumkeag, Massachusetts, as the leader of a group of Puritan Bastards who had purchased land patents from the Plymouth Council in England. A previous group of settlers had established themselves in Naumkeag in 1626 but had no patent and were therefore Villainous Heretics. They gladly surrendered their claim in the face of the newcomers' Superior Moral Virtue, which came in a variety of gauges.
Later Naumkeag became Salem and developed witches, ultimately resulting in a profitable cottage industry.
September 8 1644 - The Dutch surrendered the city of New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York, on this day. The English navigator Henry Hudson claimed credit as the city's discoverer in 1609, when he sailed into its harbor and up the river that now bears his name, looking for a passage to India. Hudson was sailing for the Dutch West India Company, so it was the Dutch who moved in and settled the area in 1614, six years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Forty years later, New Amsterdam became a city; its population, 800. In the 1660s the Dutch and English were at war, and on September 8, 1664, a fleet sent by the Duke of York seized the city and changed the name to New York. There are many in the Congress who have been trying to give the city back to the Dutch, the English or the Indians for that matter ever since.
September 8 1935 -
Dr. Carl Austin Weiss confronts Senator Huey Long in a narrow corridor of the State House in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Weiss draws a .32 caliber pistol and fires one slug into Long's abdomen. The Senator's bodyguards immediately make Swiss cheese out of Weiss, riddling him with 61 bullets. Long is rushed to the hospital, where he dies two days later.
September 8 1966 - Star Trek debuts on NBC, with the airing of an episode titled "The Man Trap." The science fiction show proceeds to suffer in the ratings against established sitcoms Bewitched and My Three Sons. I guess space wasn't the final frontier - TV is.
September 8 1974 - President Gerald Ford pardons Richard M. Nixon, out of respect for Nixon's family. "Theirs is an American tragedy in which we all have played a part. It could go on and on and on, or someone must write the end to it. I have concluded that only I can do that, and if I can, I must."
Not to add to any sort of conspiracy theory or anything but 10 years earlier, Gerald Ford served on the Warren Commission
September 8 1974 - In Idaho, daredevil Evel Knievel climbs into his X-2 Skycycle (really just a rocket on wheels) and hits the ignition. The vehicle manages to clear the quarter-mile-wide Snake River Canyon, but then the parachute deploys prematurely and prevailing winds push him back into the chasm. Total ripoff.
September 8 1993 -
The refrigerated remains of President Ferdinand Marcos, whose corpse spent several years exiled in Hawaii, returns to the Philippines for its final resting place. Luckily, Imelda had preserved her husband, so they are finally able to put him on display just like Lenin, Stalin, and Pol Pot -- under glass in a mausoleum of his very own.
Warren Zevon, Grammy Award-winning American rock singer-songwriter and musician, died at age 56, on this date.
Today in History -
September 7 1533 - Elizabeth I was born on on this date. She was coronated at twenty-five and remained on the throne for 44 years, which helps explain why she remained a virgin all her life. She is best known for having ordered the destruction of the Spanish Armadillo and the invention of Shakespeare.
It's the birthday of singer and songwriter Charles Hardin "Buddy" Holly, born in Lubbock, Texas, in 1936. By the age of 13, Holly was playing what he called "Western Bop" at local clubs. He was 19 when an agent discovered him and signed him to a contract with Decca records. The following year, Holly returned to Lubbock and, with three friends, formed The Crickets, who then released "That'll Be The Day," which sold over a million copies. Buddy Holly's career was short: He died in February of 1959 in a plane crash in northern Iowa. Soon after, an English band that admired The Crickets decided to call themselves The Beatles.
September 7 1978 - Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, dies in his London residence from an overdose of chlormethiazole edisylate, a prescription drug used to treat alcoholism. Moon's flat, #12 Curzon Place, was the same spot where Mama Cass died of a heart attack in 1974 (and not from choking on a ham sandwich, smarty pants.)
September 7 1978 - Walking to the bus stop, BBC journalist Georgi Markov suddenly feels a sharp pain in his right calf. A KGB assassin had jabbed him with an umbrella tip, rigged to inject a tiny platinum sphere. The pellet is laden with ricin, a castor-based toxin with no known antidote. Markov dies in the hospital four agonizing days later.
Oh those wacky KGB agents.
September 7 1996 Standing up through the open sunroof of a BMW 750 sedan, rap artist Tupac Shakur is talking to some women at a Las Vegas street intersection when a white Cadillac pulls alongside. Gunfire erupts, and Shakur is shot four times. He dies in the hospital a week later.
Although quite dead, he continued releasing new albums for many years.
We're waiting for the remnants of Hanna to come sweeping through the NYC metro area. Get your shopping done early and get those rental DVD's for the rest of the day.
Today in History - Although there can be no royalty in the United States, one young woman is crowned each year as Miss America. The first such coronation was held on September 6, 1921. Miss America reigns for one year, at which point she must retire-unless she removes her clothing, in which case she's deposed. (Or is that denuded?)
September 6 1901 -
While shaking hands at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, President William McKinley is shot twice in the abdomen at point-blank range with a .32 caliber revolver. He dies a week later. The assassin, an anarchist by the name of Leon Frank Czolgosz, actually is a lone gunman (for once).
September 6 1951 - During a drinking party in Mexico City, author William S. Burroughs instructs his wife Joan to balance a glass of gin on her head. He then takes careful aim with his new .38 pistol, and unintentionally blows her brains out in front of their friends. The Mexican authorities later charge Burroughs with criminal imprudence.
So kids remember, when a drunken Beat drug addict writer asks you to play "William Tell", Just Say No!!!
September 6 1966 - Parliamentary messenger Demetrios Tsafendas assassinates Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd, considered to be the primary architect of apartheid, by stabbing him in his chest on the floor of the South African legislature. While Verwoerd died shortly thereafter, Apartheid tenatously clung to life until 1994.
She's already won the swim suit competition for sainthood. We're still waiting for the talent portion of the competition. We hear that she might be playing the spoons.
Astroland is closing for good (again.)
For nearly 50 years, it's been the main attraction along Coney Island's famed boardwalk, but on Sunday the fun's over at Astroland.
Co-owner Carol Hill Albert said she's giving up on extending the park's lease after multiple attempts to work out a deal with the developer who owns the 3.1 acre seaside property fizzled out.
Maybe Mother Teresa could intercede with a miracle and the park will open next summer.
Here is your Today in History -
September 5, 1638 - King Louis XIV of France was born on this date.
Like Elizabeth I in England, Louis inherited a struggling kingdom and built it into a major power. Unlike Elizabeth, Louis did not remain a virgin. On the contrary, he produced so many little bastards that he came to be known as the "Son King," which led him to conclude famously "L'etat, c'est moi." ("Kid, I'm your father.")
September 5 1921 - Undiscovered actress Virginia Rappe somehow ruptures her bladder during actor-comedian Fatty Arbuckle's party at the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Three days later, the feverish woman is checked into a maternity hospital, where she dies from peritonitis. Arbuckle is eventually tried for murder, but acquitted. The surrounding scandal virtually destroys Arbuckle's career.
In Verdun, France surrendered to the Prussian army on September 2, 1792. Exactly seventy-eight years later, Napoleon III surrendered to the Prussians at Sedan. Prussia got so excited she decided to become Germany. Surrendering to the Germans eventually became a French institution, like soft cheese and adultery. It was surely with a nostalgic eye, therefore, that Parisiens watched on September 5, 1944, as the first of Germany's V-2 missiles rained down upon them.
September 5 1949 - A former sharpshooter in World War II, pharmacy student Howard Unruh kills 13 neighbors in Camden, New Jersey with a souvenir Luger. He later tells a reporter "I'm no psycho. I have a good mind. I'd have killed a thousand if I had enough bullets." It's good to see that a returning Vet put the G. I. bill to good use.
September 5 1972 - Five Palestinians armed with machine guns sneak into the Olympic Village in Munich. There they take nine Israeli athletes hostage, killing two others in the process. Later, they demand safe passage out of the country and the release of 200 Palestinians from prison in Israel. Ultimately, none of the athletes makes it out alive.
September 5 1975 -
Manson Family member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme almost assassinates President Gerald Ford with a .45 automatic in Sacramento, California. But Fromme is tackled by a Secret Service agent before she can remember to rack a round into the firing chamber.
September 5 1990 -
In his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, LAPD chief Daryl Gates opines: "Casual drug users should be taken out and shot." Note to self: remember not to invite Mr. Gates to any social events.
September 5 1991 - Disgraced children's television star Pee-wee Herman returns to the public eye for the first time after his masturbation arrest, appearing on the MTV Video Music Awards. He opens with the line: "Heard any good jokes lately?"
<a href="http://www.mtv.com/news/">Diddy and Sting Pay Tribute To The Notorious B.I.G.</a> The list continues with the Notorious B.I.G. tribute, the return of Pee-Wee Herman and Bruce Springsteen"s post-9/11 performance. (8.24.08)
September 5 2003 -
It wasn't so happy at the happiest place in the world when one Disneyland guest is killed and 10 others injured when the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad coaster jumps the tracks in Frontierland. Did they get their money back?
In the speech of a lifetime, Sarah Palin electrified the very receptive Republican crowd in the convention hall with her fiery acceptance speech last night. (Who wrote that speech?) The self-styled 'Pit Bull with Lipstick' seems eager to take on the Obama-Biden ticket. Let the games begin.
I don't know but I'm still getting a whole Laura Palmer/ Twin Peaks vibe off of Palin.
Today in History -
September 4, 1882 -
First district lit by electricty (NY's Pearl Street Station).
September 4, 1885 - The world's first cafeteria opens in New York. And if you hurry, there's still some of the original luncheon special available.
September 4, 1886 -
Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who warred against the encroachment of the United States on his tribal lands and people for over 25 years. While outnumbered, Geronimo fought against both Mexican and United States troops and became famous for his daring exploits and numerous escapes from capture from 1858 to 1886. At the end of his military career, he led a small band of 38 men, women, and children. They evaded 5,000 U.S. troops (one fourth of the army at the time) and many units of the Mexican army for a year. His band was one of the last major forces of independent Indian warriors who refused to acknowledge the United States Government in the American West. This came to an end on this date, when Geronimo surrendered to United States Army General Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.
Dubya's grandpappy, the anti-Indiana Jones, somehow figures into this story (you knew he would). In 1918, certain remains of Geronimo were apparently stolen in a grave robbery. Three members of the Yale secret society of Skull and Bones served as Army volunteers at Fort Sill during World War I; one of those three members was Prescott Bush, grandfather of the forty-third President of the United States George W. Bush. They reportedly stole Geronimo's skull, some bones, and other items, including Geronimo's prized silver bridle, from the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery. The stolen items were alleged to have been taken to the society's tomb-like headquarters on the Yale University campus, and are supposedly used in rituals practiced by the group, one of which is said to be kissing the skull of Geronimo as an initiation.
September 4, 1888 - George Eastman patents first rollfilm camera and registers "Kodak."
September 4, 1957 - The Ford Motor Company introduces the Edsel.
September 4, 1976 - George W Bush is arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine for driving with a blood-alcohol level of 0.10 percent. He pays the $150 fine and has his driving privileges suspended for a month. Years later, during Bush's 2000 campaign for President, a WPXT-TV reporter from Portland, Maine uncovers the arrest record just one week prior to election day. It is also revealed that Bush's V.P. candidate, Dick Cheney, had arrests for drunken driving in 1962 and 1963.
September 4, 2000 - During a campaign stop in Naperville, Illinois, Presidential candidate George W Bush turns to running mate Dick Cheney and says, "There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times." Cheney responds, "Oh yeah, he is, big-time." Unbeknownst to the men, their comments are transmitted clearly to the television news feed. Rather than offer a mea culpa to Clymer, Bush later issues this non-apology: "I regret that a private comment I made to the vice-presidential candidate made it onto the public airwaves. I regret everybody heard what I said." Apparently, he's been regretting what everyone has heard from him ever since.
The only traditions of the Royal Navy are rum, sodomy and the lash.
Here's your (abbreviated) Today in History -
On September 3, 301, during an epic game of hide-and-seek, St. Marinus the Stonemason ran up Mount Titano in Italy to hide from the Roman Emperor Diocletian. It was a good hiding spot and he was never found. He started his own country to pass the time and the Republic of San Marino survives to this day.
On September 3, 1189, Richard Lionheart, an enthusiastic sodomite, was crowned King of England. The son of Henry II (no relation to Rocky II) and Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard spent most of his ten-year reign abroad. For two of these years he was imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor, who was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an emperor, but a nasty little man just the same.
When Richard finally returned to English soil he discovered there had been Intrigues, some of which involved his brothers. He therefore crossed the channel and defeated France before dying from an arrow wound to the neck inflincted by an 11 year old boy.
He had only produced one son, and the most crushing defeat of Richard's tragic life was his discovery that the child was a little bastard.
On September 3, 1838, Frederick Douglass escaped slavery disguised as a sailor. Later he wrote about his experiences in a book called The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass, the title of which may have diminished the effectiveness of his disguise. (Publishers thought The Narrative Life of a Burly Black Guy Dressed in a Tight Fitting Sailor Suit would have limited appeal outside certain fetishist circles.)
On September 3, 1939, Germany continued its invasion of Poland even though Britain had asked it very nicely to stop. This upset the British sensibility. They declared war on Germany, the official launch of World War II in Europe.
On this date in 1666, Thomass Farrinor forgot to put out his oven at the end of his shift. Unfortunately, the resulting fire cost him his job as official baker to King Charles II of England and started the Great Fire of London. On the plus side, it burned out of control and destroyed four-fifths of London, thereby ending the Black Plague.
Lydia Kamekeha Liliuokalani was born on this date in 1838. Upon the death of her brother in 1891, she became sovereign Queen of Hawaii. This was considered posing by the American colonials of Hawaii, who reminded her that monarchy was unconstitutional in the United States.
She reminded them that Hawaii was not part of the United States.
This was more than unconstitutional: it was cheeky. She was immediately deposed, then wrote wrote "Aloha Oe" and retired.
USS Shenandoah was the first of four United States Navy rigid airships. She was built from 1922 to 1923 at Lakehurst Naval Air Station, and first flew in September, 1923. She developed the Navy's experience with rigid airships, even making the first crossing of the North American continent by airship.
On 2 September 1925, Shenandoah departed Lakehurst on a promotional flight to the Midwest which would include flyovers of 40 cities and visits to state fairs. Testing of a new mooring mast at Dearborn, Michigan was included in the schedule. While passing through an area of thunderstorms and turbulence over Ohio early in the morning of the 3rd, the airship was torn apart and crashed in several pieces near Caldwell, Ohio. Shenandoah's commanding officer, Commander Zachary Lansdowne, and 13 other officers and men were killed.
Russ Columbo, was an American singer, violinist and actor, most famous for his signature tune, "Prisoner of Love," and the legend surrounding his early death.
On September 2, 1934, Columbo was shot under peculiar circumstances by his longtime friend, photographer Lansing Brown. Columbo was visiting him at the studio one day. In lighting a cigarette, Brown lit the match by striking it against the wooden stock of an antique French dueling pistol. The flame set off a long-forgotten charge in the gun, and a lead pistol ball was fired. The pistol ball ricocheted off a nearby table and hit Columbo in the left eye, killing him almost instantly. Columbo's death was ruled an accident, and Brown exonerated from blame. His funeral mass was attended by numerous Hollywood luminaries, including Bing Crosby and Carole Lombard. Literally, with friends like this, who needs enemies.
September is the ninth month of the year, which is why its name is derived from the Latin septum, meaning seven. (We have previously addressed this problem last month; see "August, the Sixth Month.")
September is Classical Music Month, Fall Hat Month, Honey Month, Baby Safety Month, and Chicken Month, as well as International Square Dancing Month and National Piano Month.
I can find no specific description of National Chicken Month's origins or history. The Director of Communications of the National Chicken Council is Richard L. Lobb, and you can email Mr. Lobb at rlobb@chickenusa.org. Maybe he could tell you more about Chicken Month. He might be especially helpful if you sent him a Happy Chicken Month e-cards from Hallmark.com.
Chickens probably don't celebrate Chicken Month. Chickens don't celebrate anything, and even if they suddenly decided to get a little more festive, I doubt they'd start with a celebration of their being the "simple, smart choice for healthy meals." (Or maybe it would: who knows what lurks in the heart of a chicken?) Chickens would probably appreciate PETA's approach to September, which is a radical call to "Give a Cluck—Chuck the Chicken."
The Delmarva (Delaware) Poultry Industry believes that National Chicken Month—they've added the "National"—is "a time to remind consumers that the Delmarva Peninsula is a leader in supplying wholesome, nutritious, affordable chicken to consumers throughout the United States and around the world, while working to protect the environment and improve water quality here at home." You say you've never heard of the Delmarva Peninsula? Let them tell you about it:
The Delmarva Peninsula is the sixth largest chicken producing area in the nation. Last year, 2,500 local farm families produced 587 million chickens or roughly 1.6 million birds a day. Delmarva-grown chickens are processed and prepared for market in 12 processing plants owned by four of the nation’s top poultry companies.
Thousands of area residents are employed in these plants and in the peninsula’s 15 hatcheries, 10 feed mills, or in a wide variety of other industry-related jobs. A recent economic study reported that each job in the poultry processing industry creates 7.2 jobs elsewhere. Without the poultry industry, every segment of the Delmarva economy would feel the economic impact.
If only for the sake of the Delmarva Peninsula's economic well-being, please honor Chicken Month!
Fast-food retailer El Pollo Loco has a different interpretation of the holiday: "National Chicken Month is an ideal time for the flame-grilled chicken leader to celebrate what it does best," they observed in a September 2003 press release. "Chicken at El Pollo Loco today is prepared the same way Pancho (founder Pancho Ochoa) prepared it many years ago. It’s fitting that we celebrate National Chicken Month by providing our fans exceptional value on the pollo they love."
My favorite find, however, was the advice from "PromoMart E-News." I'm going to cite their Chicken Month suggestions in full:
Now if you look on our Promotional Planning Calendar, you'll see that September is National Chicken Month. At first glance, you might think: I can't do anything with that, but we think you can.
* It's a good year to create a promotion around Herbert Hoover's 1928 presidential slogan "A Chicken In Every Pot." (The whole slogan was, "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage). Add your own twist. For a continuity campaign you might even send out a rubber chicken as the first mailing and a pot as the second. Can tie in with an election year.
* Go with a play on words as though you thought it was National Chicken Month so "We thought we'd just chick en with you to see how you're doing."
* Create a promotion around the use of the word chicken to mean someone who is afraid. National Chicken Month would then be the month honoring all those who are afraid of something. What might your clients be afraid of that you could help them with. Use imprinted packs of corn seed, rubber chickens, farm-related items, etc.
Please, this month as every month, to celebrate responsibly.
Today is Labor Day in the United States.
Grover Cleveland was a very unpopular man back in 1896. He had broken up the Pullman Car strike using United States Marshals and some 2,000 United States Army troops, on the premise that the strike interfered with the delivery of U.S. Mail. During the course of the strike, 13 strikers were killed and 57 were wounded. It didn't win him any friends with the fledging labor movement in America.
In order to throw a bone to Labor, Cleveland supported a holiday honoring workers on the first Monday in Septmber, hoping it would help Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. May 1st was initially proposed but was then rejected because government leaders believed that commemorating Labor Day on May 1 could become an opportunity to commemorate the Chicago Haymarket riots which had occured in early May of 1886.
Cleveland was proven wrong and the Democratic party suffered their worse defeat ever. So remember the cynical origins of the hoiday while you are BBQ'ing this afternoon.
"Labor Day differs in every essential way from the other holidays of the year in any country," explained Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Mr. Gompers elaborated further: "All other holidays are in a more or less degree connected with conflicts and battles of man's prowess over man, of strife and discord for greed and power, of glories achieved by one nation over another. Labor Day. . . is devoted to no man, living or dead, to no sect, race, or nation."
And yet, despite Mr. Gompers's assertions, Labor Day is not a Seinfeldian holiday about nothing. It is, according to Department of Labor, "dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country."
Workers being whom, exactly?
Whenever someone talks about Labor with an audible capital L, I picture a bunch of sweaty, grease-stained steelworkers, or guys in blue overalls and goggles with soldering irons. Their contribution is the oft-cited "sweat of their brows." Union regulations being what they are, though, they seem to be pretty well compensated for that sweat.
The term "Workers" has to include more than steelworkers and welders—otherwise we could just call it "Steelworkers and Welders Day." After all, a worker is just "one who works." I'm a worker (until recently, I was a worker). Almost everyone I know is or was a worker.
The difference seems to be unions. If you belong to a union, you're a Worker or a Laborer (I'm not sure if they have different unions). If you don't belong to a union, you're a lousy lazy-ass—an exploiting bourgeois bastard.
Think what this means: Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford, Selma Hayek, and Madonna are Workers. Your friends who work awful hours at lousy jobs in wretched offices—they're bourgeois scum.
