Happy Flitch Day

Every year on this day, since about 1104, any married couple who could prove they had been faithful and loving to one another for one year was awarded half a pig, known as a flitch of bacon.



However, very few couples would actually "bring home the bacon!"


It's both National Ice Cream Day and National Daiquiri Day.



 

It's been very hot the past few days, so either one of these are appropriate to celebrate (although, I have to believe Hemingway never knowingly had a slice of Cookie Puss cake.)


If you felt like screaming "It;s a twister, it's a twister", yesterday afternoon, you had good cause - I don't remember seeing hail like we had yesterday in a very long time.

Hopefully you're windshield didn't get cracked; up and down my block, many of the car owners are unhappy campers.


Today in history:
July 19, 1692 -
Five Salem witches are hanged for the crime of witchcraft, based primarily on the accusations of little girls who were bewitched.

Eventually, the village executes a total of 20 witches.


July 19, 1870 -
France attempted to declare war on Russia. Due to a typographical error, however, France inadvertently declared war on Prussia and caused the Franco-Prussian war. This eventually led to the creation of Germany, which led to World War I, World War II, and the volkswagen.

Moral: always proofread.


July 19, 1937 -
The Nazis opened Entartete Kunst, the Degenerate Art show, in Munich. The traveling exhibition offers up Expressionism for ridicule, carefully arranged by (offensive) subject.



The German youth are not admitted, lest they become tainted.


July 19, 1952 -
During a series of UFO sightings in Washington, D.C. occurring over July 13-29, unidentified objects are picked up on D.C.'s National Airport radar system. Sightings in the region are so extensive the Air Force is prompted to hold a press conference. Conveniently, these are all "radar mirages" resulting from "temperature inversions."



Keep watching the skies.


July 19, 1966 -
Frank Sinatra marries Mia Farrow in Las Vegas on this date.



Ava Gardner's famous comment on the union: Hah! I always knew Frank would end up in bed with a little boy!

Ouch.



And so it goes.


Before I let you go: According to the website Boingboing, fundimentalists have made it easy to figure out if you could be the devil's plaything. Do you engage in any one of the following activities:


Scientology,
Remote viewing,
Cyberpunk culture,
Vegetarianism,
Lord of the Rings,
Lycanthropy,
Postmodernism,
Alt "comix",
Marijuana & Pot parties,
LSD/shrooms,
Video games,
Harry Potter,
Dungeons & Dragons,
Halloween,
Fornication,
Skull & Bones,
Rock Music,
heavy metal, 
Burning Man,
Twilight films,
Goth culture
Yoga


Who knew Tommy Chong, Dubya and Tom Cruise could be lumped into one group?

It's time to strip down, get naked and dance around the house!

July 18, 1929 -
It's Screamin' Jay Hawkins Birthday.



Don't ask, just do it.


Today in History:
July 18, 64 -
Most of imperial Rome was burned to the ground because Emperor Nero had been playing the fiddle. This resulted in the persecution of Christians, many of whom were believed to have encouraged him.



You know how those early Christians love their city burning, fiddle playing, crazed Emperors.



Yes, I'm aware that Nero wasn't even in Rome at the time of the fire. At this time, I do not believe even the stringent libel laws in England cover this.


July 18, 1870 -
At the end of Vatican I, Catholic popes are proclaimed infallible by chapter four of the papal bull Pastor Aeternus. The pope's declarations on matters of faith are protected from error by the Holy Spirit. In a nutshell: whatever he says about the scripture, goes.



This is an interesting doctrine, considering how often St. Peter is himself contradicted by the Gospels.


July 18, 1913 -
Richard "Red" Skelton, was born in Vincennes, Ind., on this date. During a career that stretched through medicine shows,vaudeville, motion pictures, radio and television, the gentle Skelton created a host of characters from the silent tramp Freddie the Freeloader to the Mean Widdle Kid, who coined the catch phrase, "I dood it!"



In a People Magazine interview late in his life, Skelton admitted that he fudged his officially accepted birth year, but did not elaborate. The year 1910 is sometimes given instead of 1913, but Skelton's biographer Arthur Marx claims that the comedian told close associates he was really born in 1906.


July 18, 1925 -
Today marks the 87th anniversary of the publication of Adolf Hitler's best-selling political memoir, Mein Kampf (or, in English, "I'm Crazy and I'm Gonna Kill You"). The book remains extremely popular with genocidal sociopaths and is therefore experiencing a renaissance of sales.



The book's original title was Four-and-a-Half Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice.

Taking him at his word and assuming the little lance-corporal really had struggled against lies, stupidity, and cowardice for 54 months, one has to ask, in light of his later activities, if maybe lies, stupidity, and cowardice aren't so bad.


July 18, 1939 -
Hunter S. Thompson's birthday is today.



He was once considered, armed, and dangerous. Now he is no more than soot on the window sills of his and his neighbors homes. Dr. Thompson founded the Gonzo school of journalism in the 1970s; graduates from that school can today be seen every night on cable news.

Dr. Thompson inspired the character "Uncle Duke" in the comic strip Doonesbury, by former Canadian Prime Minister Gary Trudeau.

(Uncle Duke first appeared in Doonesbury on July 8, 1974.) Several movies have been made about Dr. Thompson's life and work and psychotic episodes. He is perhaps the only American journalist to have been played on-screen by both Bill Murray



and Johnny Depp.




July 18, 1947 -
British seized the Exodus 1947 ship of Jewish immigrants to Palestine on this date. The British Royal Navy intercepted the ship President Warfield, which had been renamed Exodus by its passengers, forcing the 4,000 Jewish would-be immigrants aboard back to Displaced Person camps in Germany.

   

Britain was still the ruling power in Palestine, which was being wracked by conflict resulting from Jewish national aspirations. The return of the Jewish immigrants, many of them survivors of Nazi persecution, heightened anti-British sentiment among Jews in Palestine and elsewhere.


July 18, 1966 -
In Los Angeles, the beaten corpse of Bobby Fuller was found sprawled across the front seat of his mother's Oldsmobile. Fuller, whose band The Bobby Fuller Four released the hit I Fought The Law, was found to have died from "forced inhalation of gasoline."



Technically, Fuller died from huffing... although circumstances point to murder.


July 18, 1969 -
Driving home from a party on Chappaquiddick Island, Senator Ted Kennedy's car goes over the side of Dike Bridge and flips over into a pond. Kennedy manages to free himself from the automobile, but his passenger, one Mary Jo Kopechne, drowns.



For some reason, Kennedy tells no one about the accident for at least an hour, and waits until the following morning to notify local police.


July 18, 1976 -
Romanian Nadia Comaneci became the first gymnast to receive a perfect-ten score in 1976 Olympic competition.



In 2000, Comaneci was named as one of the athletes of the century by the Laureus World Sports Academy.


July 18, 1988 -
Rock and Roll performer/ heroin addict Nico wipes out on her bicycle on Ibiza and dies from a brain hemorrage - that combined with a lack of medical treatment.




And so it goes.


Before I let you go - For some bizarre reason today, July 18th, is National Caviar Day. In the middle of July, no less!

While it's normal to wash down fish roe with champagne or iced vodka, but why not down shots of iced Bombay Sapphire. (I'm not a paid spokesperson but am more than willing to be.)

Masticate, don't masterbate

Do you or someone you love get that funny feeling in their pants when at inappropriate locales - why not chew Handzoff?

Also comes in a handy cream formula - just rub into the affected area.  Just remember, don't rub too hard - it's only a brief step from rubbing it in to rubbing one off..


July 17, 1955 -
That place is my baby, and I would prostitute myself for it. - Walt Disney

Disneyland, the happiest place in the world, opens in Anaheim, California on this date.  Things didn't go so well on that first day.




A 15 day heat wave raised temperatures up to 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, due to a plumbers strike, few water fountains were operating in the hot weather. Asphalt still steaming, because it had been laid the night before, literally "trapping" high heeled shoes. To add to the chaos, a gas leak forced the closing of several sections of the park.

If things didn't turn around, I shudder at the thought of Ole Walt, having to walk the street in matching lipstick, handbag and stiletto, offering to 'go around the world' for 20 bucks to pay back his loans.


In this country, don't forget, a habit is no damn private hell. There's no solitary confinement outside of jail. A habit is hell for those you love. And in this country it's the worst kind of hell for those who love you. - Billie Holiday







Today is the 53th anniversary of the death of Billie Holiday.


July 17, 1943 -
Originally released in B & W (re-release as a color version in 1968 & 1990,) Porky Pig's Feat premiered on this date. A rare appearance for Porky Pig, Daffy Duck & Bugs Bunny (his only appearance in a theatrical black and white film.)



This is the first time the Raymond Scott composition Powerhouse is used in a Warner Bros. cartoon.


July 17, 1956 -
The musical version of The Philadelphia Story, High Society, starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly & Frank Sinatra, premiered on this date.



The song True Love, written by Cole Porter especially for the movie, was a million seller and both Grace Kelly and Bing Crosby were awarded platinum records for the song. This is the only platinum record ever given to sitting royalty as Grace Kelly had become Princess Grace by the time it was awarded.


July 17, 1959 -
Alfred Hitchcock's superlative North By Northwest, starring Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint, premiered on this date.



James Stewart was very interested in starring in this movie, begging Alfred Hitchcock to let him play Thornhill. Hitchcock claimed that Vertigo's lack of financial success was because Stewart "looked too old". MGM wanted Gregory Peck, but Hitchcock instead cast Cary Grant, who, ironically, was actually 4 years Stewart's senior.


July 17 1999 -
Nickelodeon 'officially' premiered their most successful animated series, Spongebob Squarepants on this date.





(Sorry but these versions are all that are available)

Created by a marine biologist and animator named Stephen Hillenburg, the cartoon gained popularity in its second season and continues that popularity today. It's the highest-rated show on the Nickelodeon television network.


Today in History:
July 17 1913 -
On this date, audiences attending the silent film A Noise from the Deep observed Mabel Normand striking Fatty Arbuckle in the face with a pie. It was purportedly the first use of the pie-in-the-face routine in film history.

It may not seem that remarkable when you consider how much history there'd been in film prior to 1913, but it was an important milestone nonetheless.

The act of hitting someone in the face with a pie was itself nothing new. Hieroglyphics engraved on the sarcophagus of the ancient Egyptian King Amenhotep III, for example, depict that merry lord hurling pies of polished stone at his subjects with such force that they were frequently decapitated.

Thucydides and Herodotus both make mention of a great pie battle at Salamis, with the latter observing that "it was a moment of much hilarity until someone hit Xerxes."

Plutarch describes the wanton Messalina "grinding her pie in the face of a slave."

The merriment of the ancient world gradually succumbed to the joyless monotony of the middle-ages, however and pie facials were neglected for centuries. The mirth did not resume until 1518, when Martin Luther nailed Pope Leo X with a cream-covered blueberry pie - the first documented case of torte reform.

Roughly a century later, Shakespeare introduced the routine to Elizabethan audiences with memorable pie-in-the-face scenes in King Lear, Hamlet and Othello. Scholars have recently unearthed a draft of what Shakespeare clearly intended to be his comedic masterwork, Two Bakers of Venice.

After Shakespeare's pioneering work in the field, the pie-in-the-face became a staple of popular entertainment. Seen in this context, the celebrated Arbuckle pie facial was just one more step on a very long journey.



Indeed, being struck in the face by baked goods is likely to remain the most hilarious thing in the world for centuries to come.


July 17, 1917 -
Britain's King George V issues a royal proclamation changing his family's surname from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor.

Thus, everyone is fooled into believing that a bunch of inbred Germans are really English. Which is convenient, because England just so happens to be at war with the other side of the family, Germany.

(Yes, they're cousins, identical cousins - King George V and Tsar, Czar, Csar Nicholas II)

Speaking of George's cousin, Russian Czar Nicholas II was murdered with his family and servants by the Bolsheviks at Yekaterinburg on this date in 1918. (It's too bad his cousin, George V was more concerned with changing his Germanic surname then saving his cousin.)



This included his daughter Anastasia, who may not actually have been killed with the rest of them but was almost certainly killed along with the rest of them despite persistent rumors to the contrary--even in the face of almost insurmountable evidence suggesting otherwise (except when interpreted differently). Even if she wasn't dead then, she's certainly dead now. This has been scientifically proven by scientists who ought to know.


July 17, 1918 -
The RMS Carpathia, famous for rescuing 705 survivors from the RMS Titanic six years earlier, sank off the coast of Ireland after being torpedoed by a German U-boat, on this date.



While 5 crew member were killed in the attack, 57 passengers and the remaining 218 crew members survived to board lifeboats off the sinking vessel.


July 17, 1936 -
General Francisco Franco, low level Spanish Evil Stooge, seizes control of the Canary Islands (in the misguided belief that Spain could become a world power by controlling the supply of small yellow birdies), signaling the start of the three-year Spanish Civil War.

And he's still dead.


July 17, 1938 -
On this date, Douglas Corrigan took off from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field for a cross-country flight to the west coast in his nine-year-old, single-engine Curtiss Robin airplane.



Twenty-eight hours later he landed in Dublin, Ireland, thus earning himself the nickname "Wrong Way Corrigan" and becoming the patron saint of baggage handlers.


July 17, 1947 -
Jackie Robinson was playing his historic first season with the Dodgers, the Yankees finally lost after 19 straight victories and Perry Como topped the Billboard charts with “Chi-Baba, Chi-Baba (My Bambino Go to Sleep)” and Jack Kerouac began his “On the Road” trip, on this date. He left his mother’s apartment in Ozone Park and wound up on the West Side IRT local, passing Columbia, where he had dropped out, and got off the train at the 242 Street terminal. At 242 Street, (near Van Cortlandt Park) he boarded a trolley for Yonkers, transferred to another for as far as it would go, then hitchhiked farther up the Hudson. He wanted to take the “long red line called Route 6” that he had seen on a map, and the nearest place for him to join it was the Bear Mtn Bridge.



When he got there, he discovered that little traffic passed through that semi-wilderness, and while waiting futilely for a ride, he got drenched in a thunderstorm. Humiliated by his “stupid hearthside idea that it would be wonderful to follow one great red line across America,” he ended up taking a bus back to NYC and another all the way to Chicago. He took a third bus to the Chicago suburbs and began hitchhiking to Denver, to see friends he had made in NYC, including Neal Cassady.



Such is the stuff of great literature - a subway ride that many of you loyal readers have made countless times, is transformed into the the opening trip of the classic novel of the Beat Generation, On the Road.


July 17, 1952 -
It's David Hasselhoff's (noted 'actor', 'singer', talent judge, hamburger connoisseur and drunk) birthday!



Yay for David! Yay for Germany!

(David shares his birthday with Angela Merkel born two years later in 1954 - co-incidence, you be the judge.)


July 17, 1968 -
Premiere of the drug-induced, Big Blue Meanie-infested cartoon Beatle film Yellow Submarine, at the London Pavilion on this date.



The scene in which the boxing dinosaur is smoking a Cigar (it has a band) is a parody of the long-running series of ad for Hamlet Cigars. "Happiness is a cigar called Hamlet" was a long-running campaign for Hamlet Cigars, lasting until tobacco advertising on television was banned in the UK in 1991.



And so it goes.

So glad it rained yesterday

I was getting worried that we'd have to strain our own urine soon.



I'm not sure I'm ever going to be that thirsty.


July 16, 1948 -
John Huston's version of Maxwell Anderson's play, Key Largo, starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall premiered in New York on this date.



The film version of Key Largo has very little to do with Maxwell Anderson's original play. All the characters in the play had their names changed in the film version. This was very unusual for a play written by Anderson, who was then one of the most highly regarded American playwrights, and whose best-known plays had, on the whole, been filmed faithfully.


July 16, 1951 -
One of the best adaptations of a Charles Dickens' novel, David Lean's Oliver Twist was released in the US on this date.



Banned on inital release in both Israel and Egypt; in Israel for being anti-Semitic, and in Egypt for making Fagin too sympathetic.


July 16, 1958 -
Help me, help me ....

The classic Vincent Price Sci-Fi film, The Fly, opened in San Francisco on this date.



This became the biggest box office hit for director Kurt Neumann, but he never knew it. He died a month after the premiere, and only a week before it went into general release.


Today in History:
July 16, 1054 -
The 'Great Schism' between the Western and Eastern churches began over rival claims of universal pre-eminence. (In 1965, 911 years later, Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras I met to declare an end to the schism.)



Remember kids, there's no schism like a great schism.


Mary Baker Eddy was born on this date in 1821.



Ms. Eddy invented Christian Science, and was elected to the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1995 for having been the only American woman to found a worldwide religion without exposing her breasts.


July 16, 1860 -
A decree from Emperor Norton I of San Francisco, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico, ordered the dissoltion of the United States of America on this date.



(More on the good Emperor next month.)


July 16, 1945 -
...If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One - I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds....



Code-named Trinity, the first experimental plutonium bomb (The Gadget) was detonated in a United States test of an atomic explosion at Alamogordo Air Base, Los Alamos, New Mexico on this date. The explosion yields the equivalent 18,000 tons of TNT.


July 16, 1951 -
The Catcher in the Rye was published 61 years ago today. The book contained secret code words by means of which its author, J.D. Salinger, was able to communicate diabolical commands to his evil minions. (Exactly fourteen years later, the tunnel connecting France and Italy through Mont Blanc was opened to the public. Draw your own conclusions.)

Salinger was a one-hit wonder. (He did write several other books, but these are of interest only to insomniacs and those with wobbly furniture.) The Catcher in the Rye was published in 1951, and Salinger subsequently hid himself away in the hills of Vermont, emerging from this self-imposed cloister only once, briefly, to serve as Prime Minister of Canada and to appear as a corpse at his own funeral. For nearly half a century, The Catcher in the Rye has captured the imagination of the American teenager like no other book without pictures.



Holden Caulfield, the hero and narrator of Salinger's slim classic, may be the finest portrait of twentieth-century American teenage angst bequeathed to posterity.

Either him or Archie, it's hard to say.



July 16, 1969 -
The 363-foot-tall Apollo 11 space vehicle was launched from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, at 9:37 a.m., on this date



It carried Mission Commander Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr.


July 16, 1973 -
In testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities (the Ervin Committee on Watergate), former presidential assistant Alexander Butterfield disclosed that President Richard Nixon had tape recorded all of his conversations in the White House and Executive Office Building.



Bad, Nixon, bad.


July 16, 1999 -
Stanley Kubrick final film, Eyes Wide Shut, was released on this date.



In order for the film to be given an R rating in America, some scenes contain computer-generated people in the foreground obscuring some of the more explicit sexual action. Although some claimed this to be a perversion of Stanley Kubrick's work, Kubrick had already proposed the use of computer-generated imagery prior to his death, should the MPAA deny the movie its desired R-rating.


July 16, 1999 -
It hard to believe but 13 years ago today, John F.Kennedy Jr. was killed along with his wife Carolyn and sister-in-law Lauren Bessette when the aircraft he was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.



He was flying a Piper Saratoga II HP from Essex County Airport in New Jersey to Martha's Vineyard. Kennedy and his wife were traveling together to the wedding of his cousin Rory in Hyannis, Massachusetts, while Lauren was to have been dropped off at Martha's Vineyard en route.



And so it goes.


Before I let you go,  many think today's political environment is toxic. On this date in 1964, accepting the Republican presidential nomination in San Francisco, (darling of the Tea Baggers) Barry M. Goldwater said "extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice" and that "moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

It's hot and sticky

and I'm behind schedule with some things today, so please enjoy this rebroadcast (of sorts)


July 15 1956 -
Every man its prisoner... every woman its slave!

Although not in the same league as Plan 9 from Outer Space, It Conquered the World was released upon an unsuspecting public on this date.



Peggie Castle was originally cast as Joan Nelson, but had to pull out of the project shortly before filming began. She was replaced by Sally Fraser, who did it as a favor for director Roger Corman, a friend, even though she was five months pregnant at the time.

The film was shot in five days. Imagine, how much greater it was be if they had a sixth day to shoot!


July 15, 1998 -
The Farrelly Brothers career saving romantic comedy, There's Something About Mary premiered on this date.



The studio was initially reluctant to allow Ben Stiller - the Farrelly Brothers' first choice - to star, so the brothers decided upon a then unknown Owen Wilson instead. When the studio was even more reluctant to let Wilson star, they agreed to allow the Farrellys to cast Stiller.


Today in History:
July 15, 1606 -
Rembrandt van Rijn was born in Leiden, Holland, on this date.

His father was a miller and his mother was a stay-at-home mom.



He is best known for his mastery of chiaroscuro and impasto, but his calamari was nothing to sneeze at.


July 15, 1799 -
The Rosetta Stone is an Ancient Egyptian artifact which was instrumental in advancing modern understanding of hieroglyphic writing. The stone is a Ptolemaic era stele with carved text. The text is made up of three translations of a single passage, written in two Egyptian language scripts (hieroglyphic and Demotic), and in classical Greek.



It was created in 196 BC, discovered by the Napoleonic expeditionary forces in 1799 at Rashid (a harbour on the Mediterranean coast in Egypt which the French referred to Rosetta) and contributed greatly to the decipherment of the principles of hieroglyphic writing in 1822 by the British polymath Thomas Young and the French scholar Jean-François Champollion.

Feel free to impress your friends with this bit of knowledge.


July 15, 1857 -
During an uprising, the group of British women and children being held by rebels in Chawnpore, India are cut to pieces with knives and hatchets. Then their remains are tossed into a well.



When British forces finally retake Chawnpore, the captured rebels are taken back to the house where the slaughter took place. Then they are forced to lick the floors clean, after which they are hanged.

I hate to think what the penalty was for not rewinding video tapes.


July 15 1864 -
A train containing hundreds of Confederate prisoners passing through Shohola, PA crashes head on with a coal train on this date.

The trains were off schedule because of an escape attempt. 74 people, mostly prisoners, died.


July 15, 1869 -
During war with Prussia, French ruler Napoleon III commissions Hippolye Mege Mouries to find a butter substitute. A patent for margarine is issued, it being based on beef fat instead of milk fat.

He called it Margarine (but you can call it Oleo) because the French word for pearl was margarite and he apparently had difficulty distinguishing butter from pearls -



a handicap that goes a long way toward explaining his many divorces.



But even with the tactically superior spread, the war is still lost.


July 15, 1904 -
A small town Russian alcoholic doctor quietly succumbs to consumption, while in another room, his relatives sit around the house and wistfully bemoaning the lost opportunities of their lives. An old family retainer serves tea to the unkowning mourners. Off in the distance, the guitar string of a peasant guitar breaks, on this date.



Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, died on this date but not as described above. As he lay dying of tuberculosis, in a German Spa, Chekhov called out for his doctor. The doctor examined him and prescribed him a glass of champagne. Chekhov finished his glass, commented on the taste, lay back down and died.




And so it goes

Bon Fete de la Federation

Or in English: Happy Pre-Regicide followed by the sad decline of France as a World Power Day!

July 14 1789 -
Paris was not a happy city in 1789. Paris has never been an especially happy city, especially for those who don't speak French, but in that fateful year, it was especially grouchy. And it wasn't just the city, but the whole country. All of France was being cranky and irritable, and all the other countries were like, "What?"



Finally the queen said they should eat cake and the nation snapped. The people rose up in protest and, it being time for the French Revolution, they stormed the Bastille (Bastille) on July 14, 1789.



A mob of 20,000 people storms Bastille Prison in Paris, killing its personnel and freeing all seven prisoners incarcerated therein: four forgers, an accomplice to murder, the Marquis de Sade (yes that guy), and an insane Irishman. The warden is decapitated and his head carried around on a pike. So begins the French Revolution.



It quickly became clear that the peasants were revolting. (Not that anyone ever thought they were all that attractive.) The storming of the Bastille gave way to a Rain of Terror, a meteorological cataclysm in its own right, which eventually caused Napoleon and led to both Waterloo and Able Was I Ere I Saw Elba, all of which have been covered in previous postings and can therefore be ignored for the time being. Eventually the French (who had always been winers) immersed themselves in Bourbon.


Another PSA from your friends at ACME



Next up, how to put down a communist insurrection during your dinner party.



Today in History:
On July 14, 1867, Alfred Nobel first demonstrated his newest invention: dynamite. Mr Nobel spent the rest of his life blowing things up in the interests of world peace.



Sadly, world peace was not achieved in his lifetime. Upon his death he therefore endowed a foundation with billions of dollars to give prizes to men and women of future generations who brought the world closer to peace by blowing things up.

At the rate things have been blowing up lately, world peace is obviously just around the corner.


July 14, 1881 -
In the Summer of '81, at the New Mexico home of his friend Pete Maxwell, notorious outlaw Billy the Kid (Paul Newman/ Kris Kristofferson) steps into a darkened bedroom and is shot dead by sheriff Pat Garrett (Thomas Mitchell/ James Coburn). Billy's last words are "Quién es?" (Who is it?).



How Jane Russell's breasts are involved in this story is another matter completely.


July 14, 1902 -
One day after workmen noticed a large crack in the structure, the Belltower of St. Mark's collapsed into a hill of white dust, on this date.



Ten years later, the city of Venice erects an exact duplicate of the tower on the same spot.



July 14, 1918 -
Arguably one the the greatest film directors ever, Ingmar Bergman, was born on this date.







In an interview in 2004, Bergman said that he was "depressed" by his own films and could not watch them anymore.


July 14, 1933 -
The iconic Popeye the Sailor, appeared in his first eponymously titled cartoon, on this date.  (Kids, Betty's not wearing a bra - so avert your eyes.)



Popeye's theme song was never intended to be used in any movie. It was a quick sketch done by Sam Lerner to show Dave Fleisher how the song he intended to write could go. Instead, Fleischer snatched up the song, paid him for it, and used it in the completed musical.



And so it goes.

Yes Henri, we cannot escape ourselves

The further adventures of Henri, le Chat Existential



I wish all cats could be as profound as Henri.



Dedicated to the One I Love, by The Shirelles, was released on this date in 1959.



This was originally recorded by The 5 Royales in 1958. The Shirelles' version first peaked at #83 in 1959, but when it was re-released in 1961 it went to #3.  Normally, Shirley Owens Alston was the Shirelles' lead singer. However, on this song, Doris Coley Kenner sang lead.



Today in History
July 13, 1793 (Décade III, Quintidi de Messidor de l'Année 213 de la Révolution) -

French revolutionary writer Jean Paul Marat was stabbed to death in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, on this date, as she gives him a list of names to be guillotined. The assassination inspired the famous painting by Jacques Louis David; Corday was executed four days after slaying Marat.



After the heavy blade fell, an executioner's assistant named Francois le Gros (Fat Frank) picked up the severed head by the hair and brimming with Revolutionary fervor slapped Corday's cheek. Several eyewitnesses saw her face flush red with anger, not just one cheek but both cheeks. Some though they perceived disgust curl her lips.


July 13, 1846 -
Horace Greeley advises his readers to 'Go west young man'  on this date.



I'm not sure but I don't think this is what Mr. Greeley had in mind.


July 13, 1946 -
It's Richard Anthony Marin's birthday today.



Smoke 'em if you got 'em.


July 13, 1955 -
Ruth Ellis (Miranda Richardson) was last English woman executed by hanging on this date.



Ten days before she had shot her lover, race car driver David Blakely (Rupert Everett), Ellis suffered a miscarriage after Blakely, the baby's father, punched her in the stomach.

She was having a bad day.


July 13, 1977 -
Starting at about 9 pm on this date, four lightning strikes on high-voltage transmission lines within the course of about half-an-hour knocked out electricity and plunged millions of residents of New York City into a 25 hour black-out .



The 1977 blackout, unlike the 1965 and 2003 blackouts, resulted in city-wide looting and other disorder, including arson. About 4,500 people were arrested during the riots, which resulted in damage estimated at $61 million.


July 13, 1985 -
27 years ago, I had only recently patented the long birthday weekend....




(still the greatest recorded live rock & roll performance of all time.)



We brought the 'big TV' out into my father-in-law's backyard and joined the other 1.5 billion people who tuned into Live Aid on this date.


July 13, 1985 -
President Ronald Reagan has a polyp removed from his colon on this date.

The polyp, named Larry, is living comfortable at the Reagan ranch keeping Nancy company. George H.W. Bush got a free taste of the Presidency for a day and got hooked.


July 13, 1994 -
Jeff Gillooly (with his fabulous 70's porn 'stache,) Tonya Harding's ex-husband, was sentenced to two years in prison for his role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan.

He serves six months.


On July 13, 1994, Germany's Constitutional Court ended the ban on German troops fighting outside the country.

(On July 14, 1994, France's Constitutional Court ended their ban on running like hell.)



And so it goes.

Let there be drinking in the saloons

It's Manhattanhenge time again. It was great foresight on the part of our beloved city forefathers to lay out the city in such a way that this happens every year just around my birthday.

Once again, the sun will be perfectly lined up with the east-west streets of New York. So get outside and enjoy it.


July 12, 1960 -
In 1955, a French electrician named André Cassagnes got an idea for a new toy after seeing how an electrostatic charge could hold aluminum powder to glass. He worked up a prototype for the toy—based on the design of a television screen—in his basement workshop and called it L’Ecran Magique, or the magic screen.



The first Etch-A-Sketch went on sale on this date.


July 12, 1984 -
Madonna's Like a Virgin video premiered on MTV on this date and became an instant hit.



Not sure what to make of it but Madonna broke down on stage last week while singing this song.  Did she suddenly just realize that she'll still having to sing this song 28 years later?


Today in History:
July 12, 100 BCE -
Julius Caesar was born on this date. He is famous for fighting the Garlic Wars and dying of the unkindest cut. His death so shocked the people of Rome that they buried him instead of praising him, although this may have been because he was a Proud Man.



Interesting to note that in between, fighting across most of Europe, Julie baby was quoted as saying, "It is better to create than to learn! Creating is the essence of life."


July 12, 1843-
Mormon numero uno Joseph Smith discloses a divine revelation instructing his followers to take multiple wives, in what the LDS Church calls "plural marriage" but everyone else calls polygamy.



The Mormons are ultimately forced to disclaim the practice in September 1890.


July 12, 1908 -
Milton Berle was an Emmy-winning American comedian who was born Milton Berlinger, on this date. As the manic host of NBC's Texaco Star Theater (1948-1955), he was the first major star of television. He became known as Uncle Miltie to millions during TV's golden age.



That's all well and good but the real reason you want to know about Uncle Miltie is his prodigious member.



Now try getting that out of your mind's eye.


July 12, 1912 -
The first foreign-made film to premiere in America, Queen Elizabeth (Les Amours de la Reine Élisabeth), starring Sarah Bernhardt premiered on this date in NYC.



Rumors that Bernhardt performed in the film uniped are untrue.  Bernhardt did lose her leg to gangrene in 1915.


July 12, 1962 -
The Rolling Stones, (so more precisely, the group that became) gave their first concert on this date. The
concert was held in London at the Marquee Club. Yes, that makes the Stones 50 years old.




At the time, the band was called The Rollin' Stones — they got their current name in 1963. One of the most successful groups in history, the band has sold more than 200 million albums and was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989.


July 12, 1979 -
Bonanno boss Carmine Galante, the "cigar problem", was whacked at Joe and Mary's Restaurant in Brooklyn. Galante dies with a cigar still in his mouth.

Almost everyone in the New York mob feared the ruthless crime boss, so the killing was sanctioned by the consensus of Paul Castellano, Joe Bonanno and Santo Trafficante.


July 12, 1979 -
It is "Disco Demolition Night" at Chicago's Comiskey Park, where baseball tickets cost only $.98 if the purchaser brings along a disco record for the bonfire.



During the second game of the doubleheader, thousands of vinyl LPs fly onto the field, generating enough chaos that the White Sox are forced to forfeit.


July 12 birthdays include:
Henry David Thoreau (1817)




George Washington Carver (1861)



(God bless you Dr. Carver, for your work on alcohol.)


Oscar Hammerstein II (1895)




R. Buckminster Fuller (1895)




"Curly" Joe DeRita (1909)




Bill Cosby (1937)




Richard Simmons (1948)




Me (1960)




Kristi Yamaguchi (1971)




On a personal note: It's another anniversary of my 39th birthday. I very happy that I'm not even remotely young enough to be picked for the Hunger Games.



And so it goes.


Before I let you go:
There are 166 days until Christmas.

There are 162 days until End of Days (according to the Mayans.)

Sphenopalatine Ganglioneuralgia

Yea verily, we should give heavenly thanks - 7/11 is celebrating their name day (so to speak) by giving away Slurpees to the "brain freeze" fearless public.



Child services has demanded that I stop advising readers to drink a quarter to a half of your free slurpee (it's going to be the small one) and add your favorite alcohol.  No matter how delicious kids - alcohol is not an acceptable addition to Slurpees for underage drinkers.


July 11, 1942 -
A classic 40's Merrie Melodies cartoon, Bugs Bunny Gets the Boid was released on this date.



Beaky Buzzard's voice and mannerisms are modeled after radio character and ventriloquist dummy Mortimer Snerd, created by Edgar Bergen. Because of this, he was originally given the informal name of 'Snerd Bird' before he acquired the name of Beaky Buzzard.


July 11, 1965 -
One of the 60's best Beach movies, Beach Blanket Bingo opened today.



Nancy Sinatra was the original choice to play Sugar Kane. However, she backed out just before production was supposed to begin because a few months earlier her brother Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped and when she found out that part of the plot involved a kidnapping she decided to back out. Interestingly, it would have been her motion picture debut.


July 11, 1969 -
The Rolling Stones released Honky Tonk Women on this date.



The Stones started recording this as a Country song based on Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues." They made it into a rocker for release as a single and released the country version, "Country Honk," a few months later on Let It Bleed.


July 11, 1969 -
Co-incidentially, David Bowie, released his single Space Oddity,  supposedly in conjunction with the July 20 Apollo 11 moon landing, on this date.



When the BBC used this during coverage of the moon landing, there was a great fear that if the missions in space didn't go well, this song would suddenly become inappropriate.


Today in History:
July 11, 1533 -
The Church of England came into being on this date. The story of its origins is shrouded in sex and therefore important.

Henry VIII assumed the English throne in 1509, an energetic young man of seventeen. He immediately decided to have a male heir. This became the enduring theme of his reign and he consequently came to be known as The Son King (or, to his detractors, The Heir Head.)



Henry such a devout Catholic that he earned the title "Defender of the Faith" without even stepping into the ring. His first wife, whom he'd married before taking the throne, was Catherine of Aragon, who earned the nickname "Catherine of Aragon." Catherine was an excellent queen until she didn't have a son, at which point things changed.



By the 1530s Henry had realized he was married to a bad queen. He was now about forty years old and therefore decided to get a convertible coach and a new wife.

The convertible caused no problems, but the changing of wives required the official permission of the Pope, who, being Catholic himself, refused to grant a divorce.

Henry divorced her anyway, and on July 11, 1533, the Catholic Church seceded from the Church of England in retaliation.



The Pope having withdrawn, Henry made himself the head of the Church of England. Because he was still the Defender of the Faith, he wrote the Act of Supremacy. This Act proved that the Church of England was better than the Catholic Church, that King Henry VIII was better than any Pope, and that a Single White King was back in the market.

Sir Thomas More had been the Lord Chancellor of England, and knew Henry as well as any man alive. He therefore refused to swear to the Act of Supremacy, and on July 6, 1535, became Sir Thomas Somewhat Less.

At this point in his career, Henry began marrying and divorcing women on a regular basis. The divorce process was expedited now that Papal authority was no longer a consideration. In fact, Henry turned the entire process into a game: his wives would be blindfolded and asked to produce a male heir.



It came to be known as "Bluff King Hal," and several centuries later it served as the inspiration for the popular French game, "Hungry Hungry Guillotine."


July 11 1804 -



Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and sitting Vice President Aaron Burr duel in Weehawken, New Jersey after Hamilton allegedly slandered Burr during a political dinner in New York. Hamilton was shot in the liver and died the next day.



Meanwhile, Burr lives on to finish his term in office and is eventually tried for treason after attempting to raise an army and seize land for himself, either in Mexico or the Louisiana Territory.


July 11, 1859 -
Charles Dickens' novel, A Tale of Two Cities was published on this date.



The book, would become the best-selling, original English language novel of all time, with more than 200 million copies sold.


July 11, 1936 -
The Triborough Bridge in New York City was opened to traffic, on this date.




Built at the height of the Great Depression, the creation of the Triborough Bridge put thousands of struggling people to work. It also was New York City’s first bridge specifically designed for automobiles.


July 11, 1979 -
The derelict space station Skylab finally returns to Earth, ignominiously breaking into 500 separate fragments which are swallowed by the Indian Ocean. That is, except for the ones which crash into Woorlba Sheep Station, near Balladonia in Western Australia.



Shortly thereafter, President Jimmy Carter telephones the prime minister of that country to apologize for scattering NASA litter on his nation.

Oops.


July 11, 1997 -
Bodybuilder and wannabe actor Jonathan Norman is arrested for trespassing on Steven Spielberg's estate in Malibu, California. Believing that the film director "wanted to be raped," Norman had brought along a kit containing handcuffs, duct tape, nipple clamps, chloroform, and a stun gun.

I never realized that Steven liked nipple clamps, he seemed more like a butt plug man to me.



And so it goes.

We've safely stowed away the wayback machine

We got home late yesterday and have been playing catch up with a great many things.  Mr. Teeny has left our house a wreck.  CDs flung around the home and not back in their correct jewel cases.  Soiled linens (don't ask with what) wadded up and strewn about the bedrooms.  Cigar ashes abound and burns in the coffee table.

I'm not sure what if anything the following video shows



but it does make me slightly uneasy and very much in search of a good raw bar.


July 10, 1916 -
Charlie Chaplin further develops his 'Tramp' character with the release of  The Vagabond, on this date.



look for this - Charlie loses his hat outside the bar, is seen inside wearing it, then picks it up where he lost it when he leaves. When he escapes from the gypsy, he is hatless at first, but the next shot shows the hat suddenly back in place.


July 10, 1942 -
RKO Radio Pictures released Orson Welles' butchered masterpiece, The Magnificent Ambersons, on this date.



Orson Welles suspected that author Booth Tarkington based the lead character George on Welles himself for a variety of reasons: Tarkington was a friend of the Welles family, Welles had a reputation for being a spoiled, difficult child and Welles's full name was George Orson Welles, so he was called George or Georgie while growing up.


July 10, 1965 -
The Rolling Stones topped the pop-music charts with (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, on this date.



Mick Jagger wrote all the lyrics except the line "Can't get no satisfaction." The lyrics deal with what Jagger saw as the two sides of America, the real and phony. He sang about a man looking for authenticity but not being able to find it. Jagger experienced the vast commercialism of America in a big way on their tours, and later learned to exploit it, as The Rolling Stones made truckloads of money through sponsorships and merchandising in the US.


Today in History:
July 10, 1958 -
The first parking meter was installed in England on this date in 1958, along with the second through 625th. It took nearly two dozen years for the parking meter to travel across the Atlantic: the first American parking meter had been installed in Oklahoma City on July 16, 1935.

It was invented by Oklahoma City's Carl C. Magee, the head of that city's chamber of commerce, as part of an effort to free more parking spaces for daytime shoppers. Downtown parking spaces had typically been taken by office workers who left their cars parked on the street all day, making it difficult for shoppers to find open spaces and thereby causing incalculable pain and suffering. (Double-parking was not invented until 1963.)



I, personally, considers the parking meter one of the great instruments of totalitarian control, and cannot understand how conspiracy theorists who lose sleep over Roswell, the Masons, and black helicopters can walk blithely past dozens of parking meters every day.



Current estimates ("wild guesses") suggest there are now more than five million of these coercive devil machines deployed across the United States. They absorb millions of dollars in small change every day, and generate still more ill-gotten revenue by means of fines levied against persons who refuse to kneel before them.



I urge my readers to recall the words of Alexander Hamilton, who observed in the Federalist Papers that "no people are free who must pay for municipal parking."

The first concrete-paved street was built 113 years ago today in Bellefountaine, Ohio.

Paved streets are good. I have no problem with paved streets, unless they're lined with parking meters.


July 10, 1856 -
Inventor and electromechanical genius Nikola Tesla, the man who invented the 20th century, was born to Serbian parents in what is now Croatia on this date.



Remember, if we could only harness the free floating electricity, we could do away with the electric companies.




July 10, 1954 -
Neil Tennant, musician, singer and songwriter and the other half of the electronic dance music duo Pet Shop Boys, was born on this date (and not 1985, as I posted earlier.)




July 10, 1985 -
Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was blown up by in Auckland Harbor, killing a photographer, on this date.



After the New Zealand government determines that French secret agents were responsible, the French Defense Minister resigns and the agents are jailed.



And so it goes.

It's Nikola Tesla Day Tomorrow

Well it's not really but it should be

This is Television worth watching



I don't get why Robin is so much older than Batman?


Today in History:
On the Fourth of July in 1850, President Zachary Taylor snacked on cherries and milk while attending a ceremony at the Washington Monument. It was a hot day, and the heat made him sick.

He got sicker and sicker and died on July 9.

He remains the only U.S. president to have died from indigestion (with the posible exception of Warren G Harding, who may or may not have been poisoned by his wife - which could be considered death by extreme indigestion - but that's another story.)



His last words were, "I regret nothing, but I am sorry to leave my friends."

I firmly believe he actually regretted eating the cherries-and-milk that caused his fatal indigestion, but I'm not going to quibble with a man's dying words.


July 9, 1945 -
... dirty money always brings sorrow and sadness and misery and disgrace. Said by a man who never took a bribe.



During a newspaper strike, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read the daily comic strips aloud on WNYC radio on this date.


July 9, 1956 -
America's favorite actor, Thomas Jeffrey Hanks was born on this date.



Let's hope someday, Tom finds himself and successes in a career.


July 9, 1964 -
Once again, she seems to have made it to another one.



Courtney Michelle Love, rock musician and actress, was born on this date.


July 9, 1982 -
Michael Fagan, dressed in jeans and a dirty t-shirt, and bleeding from a fresh cut on his hand, walks into the private bedroom of Queen Elizabeth II while she is asleep and her personal guard out walking her dogs. Fagan had scaled the wall surrounding Buckingham Palace and gained entry without triggering any alarms. The two carry on a 12-minute conversation, while the intruder holds a jagged broken ashtray, before somebody finally apprehends him.



Who knew that Queen could carry on a 12 minute conversation with one of her subjects?



And so it goes.

The wayback machine travels both ways

Better late than never


July 8, 1932 -
W.C. Fields very funny political satire, Million Dollar Legs, opened on this date.



Writer Joseph L. Mankiewicz was inspired to write this film by the wild events of the 1928 Olympic games held in Amsterdam, particularly by an Albanian pole-vaulter who took to the field wearing a pair of goatskin shorts.


July 8, 1964 -
Probably Jerry Lewis' best directorial effort, The Patsy, premiered on this date.



This is the only Jerry Lewis solo film that mentions Dean Martin by name. Ed Sullivan includes Martin & Lewis in a list of famous acts that made their debuts on his show.


July 8, 1958 -
The center of the Hollywood Universe was born today in 1958.



Remember even you are only a few degrees away from Kevin Bacon.


Today in History:
July 8, 1115 -
Peter the Hermit died on this date. Peter is notable for his invention of The Crusades and never bathing. He whipped up support for the first Crusade as an attempt to dislodge the Seljuk Turks from Jerusalem: over three hundred thousand Christians perished in less than a year, during which they destroyed hundreds of villages throughout Europe and Asia Minor and killed tens of thousands of European Jews and fellow Christians on their way to a holy land they never reached.



As a result of this astonishing success, the Crusades were serialized and ran for several centuries.


July 8, 1776 -
In Philadelphia, the Liberty Bell rings out from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall), summoning citizens to the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, by Colonel John Nixon.



The bell had the inscription: proclaim liberty throughout all the land onto all the inhabitants thereof. An interesting aside - On July 8, 1835, the Liberty Bell cracked (again) while being tolled during the funeral procession for Chief Justice John Marshall. It was never rung again.


July 8, 1800 -
The first smallpox vaccine was administered on this date in the US. Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse (no relation to Price) of Massachusetts introduced Edward Jenner's method of vaccination of cowpox serum to his five-year-old son Daniel and a household servant.

Neither ever contracted smallpox and the vaccination was determined to have been an udder success.


July 8, 1856 -
The crank-operated machine gun was patented on this date by C.E. Barnes of Lowell, Massachusetts, and the revolving gun turret was invented exactly six years later by Theodore Timby.

Both inventions enabled mankind to kill itself off with unprecedented ease and efficiency, thereby launching the modern era.


July 8th was a Sunday in 1881, so when a hot young man entered Edward Berner's drugstore in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and ordered an ice-cream soda, his request was denied. Ice-cream sodas could not be served on the Sabbath owing to the ancient Mosaic injunction against them.



The hot young man pleaded his case so eloquently, however, that Berner felt sympathetic and came up with a compromise: he plopped a scoop of ice-cream into a dish and poured the chocolate-flavored syrup directly over it.



This religious dodge quickly became popular and came to be known as the Ice Cream Sundae. (The spelling was later changed to conceal the heretical origins of the dish.) Since that glorious day, hundreds of millions of Americans have consigned themselves to Hell.


July 8, 1932 -
Gooba, Gaba, Gooba Gaba, One of us, One of us ...

Tod Browning's groundbreaking horror movie Freaks, featuring genuine carnival sideshow performers, premieres at the Rialto theater in New York on this date.



The film opened to critical outrage and was later banned by the British government for 30 years. In the United States, this film was banned in a number of states and cities. Although no longer enforced, some of the laws were never officially repealed. Therefore, it is still technically illegal for this film to be shown some areas of the USA.


July 8, 1969 -
The U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game Twister. (Yes smartpants, the game came out in 1966 but the patent wasn't issued until this date.)



Remember kids, if you are going to play nude Twister - always use protection.


July 8, 1976 -
Former President Richard M. Nixon is disbarred by the New York Bar Association. Nixon attempted to resign voluntarily, as he had from the California and U.S. Supreme Court bars, but New York refused to accept his resignation unless he acknowledged that he had obstructed justice during the Watergate coverup.

Bad, Nixon, Bad.



And so it goes.

Hey, I should let you know

In the slim chance you've thought of checking out the hovel while we're all in the wayback machine - my neighbors have told me that Mr. Teeny appears to have broken into to reserve supply of gin by the telltale glistening mountain of empty Bombay Sapphire bottles outside my front door.  That and the swearing and random shootgun blasts emanating from behind the mountain.

Consider yourself warned.


 Today is -
Father-Daughter take a walk together day,

Bonza Bottler Day. An excuse to celebrate. This happens every month when the day and the date are the same number. (May 5, June 6, July 7, etc.).

The holiday was invented by Elaine Fremont in 1985 (who died in a car accident in 1995.) Her friends and family have been keeping her holiday alive by posting announcements of the holiday every year (I didn't know Ms. Fremont but I like the idea,)

Chocolate Day (Chocolate is first introduced in Europe.)

Remember kids, chocolate is a vegetable - eat up.

And National Strawberry Sundae Day -

Remember it's Richard Starkey birthday today. And all he has to show for it is a photograph.



And believe me, he still won't sign it for you.


July 7, 1984 -
The single Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood became Britain's all-time best-selling single (at the time) on this date.



This was banned by some UK radio stations for offensive lyrics, which helped make it a hit. In the US, the lyrics were not considered controversial, as they could be interpreted many different ways. Somehow, "When you want to suck to it" was ambivalent enough to keep it on US radio.


Today in History:
July 7, 1456 -
A retrial verdict acquitted Joan of Arc of heresy 25 years after her death on this date.



The pile of ashes that was Joan was unsurprisingly silent upon hearing the news.


July 7, 1865 -
Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt, convicted co-conspirators of the Lincoln assassination were hanged in the Old Arsenal Penitentiary on this date.



Unfortunately, the conspirators dropped about five or six feet, which proved insufficient to break their necks. They were allowed to hang for 25 minutes to ensue the job, if not done well, was at least completed. Mary Surratt became the first woman executed by the United States.


July 7, 1928 –
Wonder no more where the expression came from -

Sliced bread is sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company of Chillicothe, Missouri, on this date.



It is described as “the greatest forward step in the baking industry since bread was wrapped".


July 7. 1946 -
Our favorite, germophobe, bisexual billionaire Howard Hughes was puled out, barely alive, from the fiery wreckage of an XF-11 reconnaissance plane that Hughes was testing over Beverly Hills, by, William Durkin, a US Master Sergeant, who happened to be in the area, on this date.



Hughes' injuries were extensive;including a crushed collar bone, 24 broken ribs and numerous third-degree burns. Miraculuosly, he survives, although he is never quite the same. It's believed that Hughes' long-term addiction to codeine was a result of his convalescence from this near fatal accident.


On July 7, 1947, something crashed and was recovered near Roswell, New Mexico. This 'recovery' has become the subject of intense speculation, rumor and questioning. There are widely divergent views on what actually happened and passionate debate about what evidence can be believed. The United States military maintains that what was recovered was a top-secret research balloon that had crashed.



Many UFO proponents believe the wreckage was of a crashed alien craft and that the military covered up the craft's recovery. The incident has turned into a widely-recognized and referred to pop culture phenomenon, and for some, Roswell is synonymous with UFOs. It likely ranks as the most famous alleged UFO incident.

Remember, the Truth is out there.


July 7, 1952 -
During her first Atlantic crossing, the SS United States crossed the finish line in the great race for the fastest Atlantic crossing ever.



To this day, no other liner has ever come close to her speed record in that maiden crossing - in a record 82 hours, 40 minutes.


On July 5, 1954, Elvis Presley recorded That's All Right, at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis.



Two days later, Presley made his radio debut when Memphis, Tenn., station WHBQ played his first recording for Sun Records, That's All Right on this date, July 7, 1954.


July 7, 2005 -
Four bomb explosions struck London's transport system during the morning rush on this date. Three Underground trains were hit within half an hour, and a double-decker bus joined the toll, thirty minutes later. A group calling itself "The Secret Organization of al-Qaida in Europe" posted a claim of responsibility, saying they were in retaliation for Britain's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over fifty people were killed and more than 700 injured.  Please take a moment out of your dat today to remember the families of the victims.



And so it goes.