Spring Can, Really Hang, You Up The Most

Although winter doesn't seem to want to end this year, it appears to be officially over.



While you're balancing those eggs (and the new thing to balance is brooms) today remember that it's the Vernal Equinox at  7:02 a.m. (EDT) today.




That means it’s spring. Take off your clothes.



And avoid opening up a 1,000 year old book while you're on a picnic (if you know what's good for you.)


March 20, 1992 -
Crossing one's legs would never be the same - Basic Instinct starring Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, premiered on this date.



According to Sharon Stone, director Paul Verhoeven asked her to remove her underwear for the leg-crossing scene, as he said they were too bright and reflected at the camera. Stone agreed to do so under the assumption that her genitals weren't visible. It was only at an early preview that Stone discovered Verhoeven chose to use this specific shot.

Who knew it was that easy to get someone's underwear off?


Today in History:
March 20,  1413 -
During his lifetime it had been predicted that King Henry IV would die in Jerusalem. The king himself took this to mean that he would die on Crusade.  Rather wisely he kept away from entering the holy city – wouldn’t you?



As it happened on this date, Henry visited the Abbot of Westminster's house and has a massive coronary as he entered the Jerusalem Chamber in Westminster Abbey.


On March 20, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte entered Paris and began his "Hundred Days" rule, which lasted 94 days.



Days were measures in the metric system back then.


March 20, 1828 -
It's the birthday of playwright Henrik Ibsen, born in Skien, Norway on this date. He was a small time cherry herring bootlegger and an assistant stage manager for a new theater, where it was his job to produce a new drama each year based on Norway's glorious past. He produced a number of plays, but none got any attention (owning much to the fact that while it was true that Norway did have a past - most of it was quite boring. None of it was glorious.) Overworked, under paid and very cold, he applied to the government for a stipend to study the fjords. The government decided to give him one to to travel abroad, and off he went. He spent the next 27 years living in Italy and Germany, pining for the fjords.



He found that by leaving his homeland, he could finally thaw out and see Norway clearly, and he began to work on creating a true Norwegian drama. At a time when most people were writing plays full of sword fights and murders, Ibsen started to write plays about relationships between ordinary people. The type of people that have terrible social diseases, suicidal tendencies, murderous intent in their heart, incestuous thoughts and old lechs - the ordinary people of Norway.

He used dialogue rather than monologues to reveal his characters' emotions, and he stopped writing in verse. He said, "We are no longer living in the age of Shakespeare. ... What I desire to depict [are] human beings, and therefore I [will] not let them talk the language of the gods." Except he said that in Norwegian.



One of Ibsen's first important plays was A Doll's House (1879), about a woman named Nora who refuses to obey her husband and eventually leaves him, walking out of the house and slamming the door in the final scene. When it was first produced, European audiences were shocked, and it sparked debate about women's rights, divorce and home improvements across the continent. It also changed the style of acting. At the time, most actors were praised for their ability to deliver long poetic speeches and avoiding bumping into the furniture, but Ibsen emphasized small gestures, the inflection of certain words, and pauses, and he inspired a new generation of actors to begin embodying the characters they played.

A Doll's House made Ibsen a celebrity across Europe. His play Ghosts (1881) came out two years later. It's frank depiction of pottery making further scandalized the theatre going population.

Henrik Ibsen said, "You should never have your best trousers on when you go out to fight for freedom and truth. You should also never wear them when mucking out the toilets of the theatre. Have you seen what these actors eat?"

There is only one known picture in which Ibsen smiles. And yes, he was passing gas at the time.


March 20, 1899 -
Martha M. Place, the first woman to be honored with a warm seat in the electric chair, for the bloody murder of her 17 year old stepdaughter Ida, died at Sing-Sing Prison on this date.

Having never executed a woman in the electric chair, those responsible for carrying out the death warrant devised a new way to place the electrodes upon her. They decided to slit her dress and place the electrode on her ankle. Edwin Davis was the executioner. According to the reports of witnesses, she died instantly (having a large amount of electric course through your body normally results in ones death).

The governor of the State of New York Theodore Roosevelt was asked to pardon Place, but he refused. "Bully!"

Martha Place was buried in the family cemetery plot in East Millstone, New Jersey without religious observances.


March 20, 1917 -
Does anybody here remember Vera Lynn?




Dame Vera Lynn,  actress and singer, who was enormously popular during World War II, was born on this date. In 2009 she became the oldest living artist to make it to No. 1 on the British album chart, at the age of 92.


March 20, 1928 -
Remarkably, Fred Rogers was born today in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood,



and not some other place.


March 20, 1969 -
Small town musician (John Lennon) marries small time conceptual artist (Yoko Ono) on this date.



I wonder what ever happened to them.


March 20, 1995 -
The last words of Thomas J. Grasso, executed in Oklahoma by lethal injection on this date: "I did not get my Spaghetti-O's, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this."

Duly noted Mr. Grasso.



And so it goes.

So why are the baby aspirins named after him?

It's the Feast of St. Joseph, stepdad to Jesus and patron saint of selling your home.

Remember to go out and have the very delicious Sicilian pastry that bears his name. It's so good, it brings you that much closer to God.

Also, if you live in Capistrano,



remember the swallows are coming back today, eat you pastries indoors.


March 19, 1921 -
The German silent film classic, Das Kabinett Des Docktor Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - wait a minute, I know that title from somewhere), starring Werner Kraus and Conrad Veidt premiered in the US on this date.



Weeks before the initial release of the film, posters with the tag-line "Du mußt Caligari werden!" (You have to become Caligari!) were put up in Berlin without the slightest hint that they were promotion for the upcoming movie.


March 19, 1947 -
Another Bob Hope film (at the peak of his career), My Favorite Brunette, opened in Los Angeles on this date.



Bob Hope wanted Bing Crosby's cameo as Harry so much that he paid him $5,000 to appear. For a long time, this was the highest salary any actor was paid for one line of dialogue.  The sum was later donated to a charity.


March 19, 1958 -
The film based on the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical, South Pacific, was released on this date.



Concerned that the film's lush tropical settings would appear unnatural in Technicolor, and partially to cover up the fluctuations in weather during the shoot, director Joshua Logan hoped to soften the effect by filming several scenes through the newly available colored filters. He later indicated he considered this to be the biggest mistake he had made in his filming career. He wanted the filters to be subtler, but he says that the film processing lab had made them more extreme than he liked. There was no time to re-shoot without them or replace them because the film was a roadshow and tickets had been booked months in advance.


March 19, 1962 -
Luis Buñuels sacrilegious masterpiece, Viridiana, opened in the US on this date.



Initially banned in Spain and completely denounced by the Vatican.  The script was initially approved by the Spanish authorities with a few minor changes. They had no opportunity to view the finished film until it played at the Cannes Film Festival where it won the Palme d'Or. Nevertheless they were sufficiently horrified by what they saw to ban the film.


Today in History:
March 19, 1943 -
Francesco Raffaele Nitto, better known as, Frank 'The Enforcer' Nitti, one of the top henchmen of Alphonse "Big Al" "Scarface" Capone and later the front man for the mob Capone created, the Chicago Outfit, was having a very bad day. Many top members of the Chicago Outfit were indicted for extortion. The Outfit was accused of trying to strong arm some of the largest Hollywood movie studios. The studios had cooperated with The Outfit to avoid union trouble stirred up by the mob.



The day before his scheduled grand jury appearance, Nitti shared breakfast with his wife in their Riverside, Illinois home at 712 Selborne Road. As his wife was leaving for church, Nitti told her he planned to take a walk. After his wife left, Nitti began to drink heavily. He then loaded a .32 caliber revolver, put it in his coat pocket, and walked five blocks to a local railroad yard. Two railroad workers (William F. Sebauer and Lowell M. Barnett) spotted Nitti walking on the track of an oncoming train and shouted a warning. They thought the train hit him, but Nitti had managed to jump out of the way in time. Then two shots rang out.



The trainmen first thought Nitti was shooting at them, but then realized he was trying to shoot himself in the head. The two bullets went through his hat. Nitti finally sat on the ground against a fence and, with the railroad workers watching from a distance, shot himself in the head on this date.


March 19, 1945 -
The Third Reich's World Tour was drawing to an abrupt close. And the band members are understandably depressed. The ever wacky and truly evil bastard Adolf Hitler issued his so-called "Nero Decree" on this date, ordering the destruction of German facilities that could fall into Allied hands.



Albert Speer, gave himself a birthday present today (avoiding the noose at the Nuremberg trials) and does everything he can to stop this from happening, in direct defiance of Hitler. Speer knew he had some precedent, Hitler also had decreed that Paris should be left a smoking ruin the previous summer, but Dietrich von Choltitz thought better of his Fuhrer's order.


March 19, 1957 -
Elvis Presley was touring and has a vision. Before he immediately act upon it, St. Elvis wolfed down seven fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches and agreed to purchase the 14 acre Graceland estate from Ruth Moore for $100,000 on this date.



It is now his cemetery. Or is it?


March 19, 1982 -
The guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne, Randy Rhoads, died during the Diary of a Madman tour after the plane he is flying in buzzes the band's tour bus and clips the wing of the plane, crashing into a nearby farmhouse.



Kids, once again, repeat after me, drugs are bad.


March 19, 1987 -
Televangelist Jim Bakker resigns his PTL ministry after it is revealed he was delivering a little too much spiritual healing to former church secretary and future Playboy playmate Jessica Hahn.

Some $265,000 in ministry funds had been used to keep Hahn quiet about a one-time sexual encounter in 1980.


March 19, 2003 -
President George W. Bush announced on this date, the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a military mission to rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein.   The American led coalition began with the launch of U.S. cruise missiles and precision-guided bombs aimed at Saddam Hussein near Baghdad.



The war was internationally unpopular from the start, and lost a lot of popularity in America after Bush's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were found to be unsubstantiated.


March 19, 2005 -
John Zachary DeLorean former American engineer and executive in the U.S. automobile industry, and drug dealer died on this date.



He quit GM in 1973 to launch the DeLorean Motor Car Co. in Northern Ireland. Eight years later, the DeLorean DMC-12 hit the streets. 8,900 cars were built.



And so it goes.

Hopefully your hangover isn't too bad

It's Oatmeal cookie day. 

Given the amount of drinking many of you probably did yesterday, a little extra fiber in your diet today wouldn't be the worst idea in the world.


March 18, 1924 -
The Thief of Bagdad, the Douglas Fairbanks swashbuckler adventure film which tells the story of a thief who falls in love with the daughter of the Caliph, was released on this date.



In the scenes with the giant ape, the guards are played by children. When the ape is out of sight the guards are played by adults. It was done to make the normal-sized ape appear bigger.


March 18, 1938 -
The under appreciated Ernst Lubitsch film, Bluebeard's Eighth Wife premiered on this date.



 At their first production meeting, Ernst Lubitsch posed this question: How do the boy and girl get together? Billy Wilder promptly suggested that the opening scene should be in the men's shop of a department store. "The boy is trying to buy a pajama," he extemporized glibly, "but he sleeps only in the tops. He is thrifty so he insists on buying ONLY the tops. The clerk says he must buy the pants too. It looks like a catastrophe. Then the girl comes into the shop and buys the pants because she sleeps only in the pants." Ernst Lubitsch and Charles Brackett were enchanted with this idea. Months later, they discovered that Billy Wilder himself was a pajama tops-only sleeper and had been contemplating this idea for months, waiting for a chance to use it in a comedy.


March 18, 1964 -
In his first outing as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, Peter Sellers stars in The Pink Panther, premiered on this date.



The film was intended to have David Niven's character Sir Charles Lytton as the main character. However, Peter Sellers' portrayal of Inspector Clouseau was so loved by the crew (and later by the audience) it became his character this film and the sequels focused on.


March 18, 1967 -
The Beatles' Penny Lane single goes #1 on this date.



This song and Strawberry Fields Forever were intended for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, but Capitol Records decided to release the two songs as a single, partly to regain popularity from John Lennon's "The Beatles are bigger than Jesus" comment.


March 18, 1968 -
Mel Brook's screamingly funny first film, a sendup of Broadway, The Producers, premiered in New York City on this date.



Mel Brooks based the character of Max Bialystock on a real Broadway producer he knew who used to seduce little old ladies in exchange for checks that were supposedly to produce his latest play, which would usually be called "Cash."


Today in History:
March 18, 1314 -
Jacques de Molay, Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burned at the stake during the final purge of the Templars in France on this date.



Among the things de Molay admitted to the Inquisitor panel (though possibly coerced) were the obligation of Templars to deny Christ when they joined, and a sacrament that involved spitting on a crucifix.

Oh that wacky life during the Middle Ages.


March 18, 1584 -
Ivan IV of Russia died on this date. He is better known by his nickname: Ivan the Terrible. He was the first king of Russia to call himself a Caesar, probably in the hopes that Shakespeare would write a play about him. He also replaced the sale of beer and mead with vodka at state-run taverns.



He couldn't pronounce Caesar, however, so he simply called himself "zar," and subsequent arguments over whether that should be spelled czar, tsar, zar or tzar became so heated that they eventually resulted in Russian History.


March 18, 1913 -
(Once again kids follow along, it's complex.)
Itinerant sailor and general layabout Philip Mountbatten's (nee Philip Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg) grandfather, Christian Wilhelm Ferdinand Adolf Georg of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (sibling to a king and two queens) was out on an afternoon stroll. This, in and of itself, is not remarkable, except for the fact that this minor Danish/ German prince had changed his name to George and became the King of Greece. Wilhelm/ George, like most royalty, went out for an afternoon stroll without any pocket change (royalty and presidents don't carry money.)



Alexandros Schinas, an alcoholic vagrant asked the King for some spare change and shot him in the back went the King refused to give him money. Wilhelm/ George died en route to the hospital,

Alexandros died five days later after he 'accidentally' fell out of a window at police headquarters.

So kids let this be a lesson to you, if you find yourself the ruler of a European nation - the change you carry, may save your life.


March 18, 1965 -
Cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov performed the first spacewalk on this day. He stayed outside his ship for 12 minutes, held to the ship by a tether.



By the time his walk was over, his spacesuit had inflated so much in the vacuum of space that he could barely get back inside the ship. With a bit of quick thinking, he opened a value to allow some of the suit’s air to bleed off without venting all of it, only barely getting back into the capsule in time.


March 18, 1970 -
Country Joe McDonald (of Country Joe and the Fish) is convicted on obscenity charges after he asks for an F, a U, a C and one other letter at a concert in Massachusetts.



The song was meant as a satire of US government attitudes toward the Vietnam War. Country Joe MacDonald released it at the height of the war after he had been discharged from the US Navy for several years. He wrote it in about 30 minutes after it popped into his head.


March 18, 1980 -
A significant percentage of the Soviet space program's scientists were killed when a Vostok rocket explodes on the launch pad on this date.

50 people died at the Plesetsk Space Center.



And so it goes.

May the Good Lord take a liking to you,... but not too soon!

The Feast Day of St. Patrick is celebrated on March 17.



St. Patrick is considered the father of Celtic Christianity. He founded more than three hundred churches, drove the snakes out of Ireland, invented green beer, and coined the popular slogan, Kiss me, I'm Irish.

The Citizenry of Chicago is encouraged to drink cheap green beer early and often before St. Patrick's Day so the Chicago River can be dyed with their vomit.



I find few things more scenic than 40 tons of green dye dumped in a river of raw sewage



I don't need an Irish holiday to spend the weekend binge drinking. 

Since sometimes the wearin' o the green doesn't make you happy



Watch the The Fighting Sullivans instead.


March 17, 1756 -
St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in New York City for the first time (at the Crown and Thistle Tavern). The patrons finally sober up and six years later, the celebration evolves into a parade (the first in NYC) and the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York City is the largest celebration of the holiday in the world (drawn more revelers than any parade for the holiday in the whole of Ireland.)


March 17, 1972 -
John Water presents Divine to an unsuspecting world: Pink Flamingos, premiered in Baltimore on this date.



The dog feces in the infamous final scene are real. According to director John Waters, the dog was fed steak for three days beforehand.


Today in History:
March 17, 965 -
Pope Leo VIII died of a stroke during sexual congress with a prostitute on this date.

Perhaps a fine way for a man to die, but not a very appropriate choice for the Bishop of Rome. (it's OK if you hum to yourself, Back in the saddle again.)


March 17,  1905 -
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, niece of President Theodore Roosevelt, married her fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt in New York on this date.

Apparently, Roosevelt confuses himself with British Royalty by marrying his distant relative.  FDR jokes with friends that, "Only on St. Patrick's Day can you marry your cousin". 


March 17, 1919 -
Nathaniel Adams Coles, the premiere singer and jazz pianist was born on this date.



Cole's popularity allowed him to become the first African American to host a network variety program, The Nat King Cole Show, which debuted on NBC television in 1956. The show fell victim to the bigotry of the times, however, and was canceled after one season; few sponsors were willing to be associated with a black entertainer.


March 17, 1939 -
After German troops crossed the Czech border, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain threw all his years of careful diplomacy out the window and accused Adolf Hitler of breaking his word.



He instantly regretted having let these angry words slip, however, and subsequently resigned.


March 17, 1942 -
John Wayne Gacy, part time clown, serial killer, and sodomizer of dozens of boys, was born in Chicago on this date. His father was convinced Gacy was a "sissy", but friends and family didn't really suspect anything untoward was afoot until his 1968 arrest for coercing a teenage boy employee into committing multiple homosexual acts.

It's always a clue.


March 17, 1966 -
A U.S. midget submarine, the Alvin, located a missing hydrogen bomb which had fallen from an American bomber into the Mediterranean off Spain on this date. Oops. Most famously, the Alvin was involved in the exploration of the wreckage of RMS Titanic in 1986. Launched from her support ship RV Atlantis II, she carried Dr. Robert Ballard and two companions to the wreckage of the great liner. RMS Titanic sank while attempting to transit the North Atlantic Ocean, after striking a large iceberg in 1912.



Alvin, accompanied by a small remotely operated vehicle (ROV) named Jason Jr., was able to conduct detailed photographic surveys and inspections of the Titanic's wreckage. Many of the photographs of the expedition have been published in the magazine of the National Geographic Society which was a major sponsor of the expedition.


March 17, 1999 -
Six members of the International Olympic Committee are expelled for corruption, all from poor third world countries. They received bribes from Salt Lake City totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, a practice that had been going on for years.

It should also be noted that the IOC Vice President at the time was named Dick Pound.


March 17, 1960 -
My good friend John (another fraternity brother) was born on this day. Not to be confused with his cousin, John, who was also born but not on this day.


March 17, 1970 -
My actual fraternal brother was born at Jewish Memorial Hospital in Upper Manhattan. As was noted at the time, he must be a lucky kid as he was a Puerto Rican baby born in a Jewish Hospital on an Irish holiday.

Happy Birthday guys.



And so it goes.

Boo - did that help?

It's National Hiccup Day today

It's also known as synchronous diaphragmatic flutter or singultus

Now you know.


March 16 -
Today is the celebration of St. Urho's Day, Patron saint of Finnish vineyard workers. Attributed to him is the miracle of banishing grasshoppers from Finland which he accomplished with a few choice Finnish phrases, thereby saving the season's grape crop.



But in reality a bunch of very drunk people made this up in 1956.


March 16, 1926 -
I've had great success being a total idiot.



Joseph Levitch, comedian, actor, producer, writer, director, singer, Légion d'honneur recipient and the dollar sign in Dean Martin eyes, was born on this date.


March 16, 1934 -
An (almost) all singing Popeye cartoon, The Man on the Flying Trapeze, premiered on this date.



"The Daring Young Man On The Flying Trapeze" is based on a real person: Jules Leotard. He was a former law student who ran away from home and joined a circus as an adolescent. Young Jules was the first performer to wear the skin-tight suit of clothes that would later be named after him; he died of tuberculosis aged only twenty-eight.


March 16, 1954 -
Max Ophüls beautifully acted film, La Ronde, premiered in the US on this date. (Psst kids, the films about the transmission of syphilis, really.)



The film was nominated for two Academy Awards; for Best Writing and Best Art Direction. This is a must-see film - find time to watch it today..


March 16, 1954 -
Elia Kazan's powerful family drama, East of Eden, premiered in Los Angeles on this date (this is the only one of the "big three" James Dean films to be released before his death.)



It's hard to remember how innovative James Dean's acting was in the '50's. Dean would provoke Raymond Massey off-camera so that the elder actor would hate him and he could get into character easier.


Today in History:
March 16 1190 -
More than 150 and perhaps as many as 500 Jews, secured in Clifford's Tower at York, died from suicide and massacre after they are sieged by townspeople under Richard Malebys. Malebys was a nobleman who owed money to the Jews; after their siege all records relating to moneylending were destroyed.

This was seen as a warm-up for the Crusaders invasion of the Holy Land. It is the largest massacre of Jews in the history of the United Kingdom.


March 16 1792 -
At a masquerade ball, a disgruntled Captain Jacob Johan Ankarstroem shot Swedish King Gustav III near the heart with a bullet composed of lead and carpet tacks, on this date. It took him almost two weeks to die and for his effort the bad Captain is drawn and quartered.

Shakespeare never wrote about Gustavus, probably because Gustavus was born well after Shakespeare's death, but Giuseppe Verdi (or his stage name, Joe Green) wrote an opera about the affair called Un Ballo in Maschera ("A Bull in Mascara"). As punishment, the Captain is decapitated, drawn, and quartered.

Ouch!!!


March 26, 1926 -
Robert H. Goddard, fueled the first hopes of space travel when he successfully launched the world's first liquid-fueled rocket at Auburn, Massachusetts on this date.



The rocket traveled for 2.5 seconds at a speed of about 60 mph, reaching an altitude of 41 feet. The rocket was 10 feet tall, constructed out of thin pipes, and was fueled by liquid oxygen and gasoline .


March 16 1949 -
It's Erik Estrada's birthday today.



Reason enough to live another day.


March 16 1978 -
Italian Red Brigades kidnapped former Italian Premier Aldo Moro on this date, in order to obtain the release of imprisoned comrades.

Moro was murdered and his body was later found on May 9, 1978.


BTW -

Here's an early St. Patrick note:
Save money this St. Patrick's Day by passing out as fast as humanly possible



And so it goes

A Shout Out

The wonderful website Mental Floss has created their own Youtube channel.  Their first video has just been released -  50 common misconceptions debunked.



To repeat, the most important facts to take away from the video - Dr. Ruth was a sniper for the Israeli Army, Julia Child probably was a spy for the OSS, forerunner of the CIA and DO NOT EAT BATTERIES.


March 15, 1941 -
The first of three appearances of Cecil Turtle, Tortoise Beats Hare, premiered on this date.

 
Cecil is one of the very few characters who was actually able to beat, Bugs Bunny and the only one to do so three times in a row and at the rabbit's own game.


March 15, 1946 -
Columbia Pictures released Charles Vidor's film-noir classic, Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth and Glen Ford on this date.



Rita Hayworth had to wear a corset while shooting "Put the Blame on Mame," as she had given birth to her first daughter, Rebecca Welles, months before filming.  Her experience on the film led her to tell people, "men go to bed with Gilda; they wake up with me."


March 15, 1956 -
The landmark science-fiction film, Forbidden Planet (think The Tempest in Outer Space) , premiered on this date.



This movie was filmed on the same sound-stage on which the movie The Wizard of Oz had been filmed seventeen years earlier; the set of Altaira's garden is a reuse of the Munchkin Village set from The Wizard of Oz.


March 15,1972 -
The greatest film ever about pasta sauce making and risk aversion management, The Godfather, premiered in New York City on this date.



Paramount senior management, dissatisfied with the early rushes, considered replacing Francis Ford Coppola with Elia Kazan with the hope that Kazan would be able to work with the notoriously difficult Marlon Brando. Brando announced that he would quit the film if Coppola was fired and the studio backed down. Paramount brass apparently did not know of Brando's dismay with Kazan over his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee in the 1950s.


Today in History:
March 15, 44 BC -
Julius Caesar, already warned to be wary on this the Ides of March by the astrologer Spurinna, was assassinated with pointy knives by a group of Senators, including Brutus and Cassius, at the Pompey theater.



They were angry at him because he had crossed the Rubicon. Later Marc Antony borrowed everyone's ears and told them that Brutus was an honorable man, which upset them so much they had a Civil War.



Sixteen centuries later, more or less, William Shakespeare immortalized the story and eventually Marlon Brando got to play Marc Antony, so everyone was happy in the end.



Caesar is also celebrated because he wrote a famous book called The Garlic Wars, which begins with the famous line, All garlic is divided into three cloves. It also includes the line - veni, vidi, vinci, the exact meaning of which is still a matter of debate but, if my own Latin studies are worth anything, probably involves Druids and hollandaise sauce.


March 15, 1812 -
Luddites attack Frank Vickerman's wool processing factory at Taylor Hill in West Yorkshire, resulting in general destruction and attempted arson.

The rampaging Luddites were incensed because his machines replaced workers, but Vickerman was primarily targeted because of involvement in an Anti-Luddite committee.

So now you know more about luddites than you thought you ever would (remember, smash the iPods.)


Today's episode of Oh, that Wacky Russian Revolution:
At two o'clock in the morning on March 15, 1917 the Tsar sent word to Petrograd that he was awfully sorry about the war and starvation and everything, but that he had some really good ideas about what they could do now, was looking forward to working with them, believed that healthy debate was a symptom of good government, and so on.

The new government (which had recently moved to Moscow) told him to blow it out his ass.



And so at three o'clock in the afternoon, Nicholas abdicated in favor of his son (who had measles).

The new government told him and his son to blow it out their asses.



At 11:15 pm, Nicholas signed a proclamation that both he and his son (who had measles) would abdicate in favor of his brother, the Grand Duke Mikhail.



The next day, the new government told Nicholas, his son (who had measles), and the Grand Duke Mikhail to blow it out their asses. (It seems that they were anally fixated.)


March 15, 1950 -
New York City suffering through a persistent drought, hired for $100 a day - a very large sum in those times, particularly for a scientist - Dr. Wallace E. Howell, a meteorologist to make rain, on this date.  Dr. Howell, who had participated in early scientific research into cloud seeding, set up shop at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn, using a police airplane to sprinkle silver iodide crystals into clouds over the Catskill watershed.

The rains came and the reservoirs began to rise. There was even a mid-April snowstorm, referred to in the papers as ''Howell's snow.'' By 1951, the crisis had passed and Dr. Howell was laid off in February of 1951.



And so it goes.

This is truly a Red Letter Day

Twinkies and other Hostess snacks could be back on shelves by this summer after a successful $410 million bid for the business.



So all of you hoarding those Twinkies may pace yourselves a little more easily.


If that was not enough - Today is Pi Day!



Pi Day is celebrated by math enthusiasts ( read - lonely shut-ins) around the world on March 14th. Pi was first used as a mathematical symbol in 1706 by William Jones.






Albert Einstein's parents conveniently arranged for him to be born on Pi Day in 1879.


March 14, 1940 -
The first of the seven Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour "Road" films, The Road to Singapore, premiered in NYC on this date.



During a lunch break, Bob Hope threw a handful of the soap suds at Dorothy Lamour and soon Bing Crosby became involved. The fight ended when Lamour cornered Hope and Crosby and threw all she had at them. The director was not particularly pleased because it would take hours to repair their hair, makeup, and clothing.


March 14, 1969 -
The Walt Disney studio put the film, The Love Bug, starring 'Herbie,' a loveable Volkswagen bug with a personality, into general release on this date.



When beginning production of the film, Disney set up a casting call for about a dozen cars, and kept them outside the studios for the crew to examine during their breaks. Among the lineup were Toyotas, Volvos and of course, the pearl white Volkswagen Beetle. When the crew walked by to inspect the cars, they would kick the tires and grab the steering wheel to see how it handled. However, when they came across the Volkswagen, they began to pet it, and so the Beetle got the job.


Jimmy Fallon is growing on me -



And that Timberlake kid isn't too bad either.


Today in History:
March 14, 1794 -
Eli Whitney was granted a patent for the cotton gin on this date

While it is potable, gin flavored with juniper berries is still a better choice for a very dry martini.


March 14, 1883 -
History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce

Karl Marx died of pleurisy in London on this date. While his original grave had only a nondescript stone, the Communist Party of Great Britain erected a large tombstone, including a bust of Marx, in 1954.


March 14, 1889 -
German Ferdinand von Zeppelin patents his Navigable Balloon on this date.

He did not speak with Paul von Hindenburg about it at the time.


Today on March 14 1932, one of the greatest notes was written:
George Eastman, the founder of Kodak Corporation, killed himself after a long illness on this date.



His suicide note states "To my friends: My work is done. Why wait?" All in all, terse but to the point.


March 14, 1942 -
Mrs. Anne Miller was near death at New Haven Hospital, suffering from a streptococcal infection, before doctors Orvan Hess and John Bumsfield decided to use an experimental treatment - penicillin, on this date.  This was the first time penicillin was successfully used to treat a patient.

Although Dr. Alexander Fleming had proven that penicillin was an effective antibacterial in 1928, few doctors seemed interested in using the common mold as a medicinal tool. Supplies were limited at the time, nearly half of the total supply produced were used on Mrs. Miller. She survived, living to be 90 years old and penicillin became widely used.

As I am deathly allergic to the drug and I don't like twinkies, so this isn't a particularly red letter day for me.



And so it goes.


Before I let you go - Be nice to your spouse or this could happen to you:



Or just remember to put the extra roll under the sink.

In case this comes up in conversation today

The metal end of a pencil is called -

a FERRULE.  Now you know.


As of this morning  - still no pope.  In 1268, a conclave began that lasted nearly three years - 33 months, to be exact.


March 13, 1949 -
Donald Fauntleroy Duck's birthday is officially recognized as June 9, 1934, the day his debut film was released, but in The Three Caballeros, his birthday is given as simply Friday the 13th. In Donald's Happy Birthday, the cartoon gives his birthday as March 13.



In 2005, Donald received his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6840 Hollywood Blvd.


March 13, 1954 -
It's Rocky's third appearance in a Bugs Bunny cartoon (and the funniest) - Bugs and Thugs, premiered on this date.



Near the end of the film, Bugs' office has a sign that says "-Member- Detective Guild, Local 839". Local 839 of the IATSE was the Animation Guild, whose members made the cartoon.


March 13, 1956 -
One of John Ford's greatest westerns, The Searchers, starring John Wayne (giving his finest performance) premiered on this date.



Natalie Wood was still a student in high school when this film was being made, and on several occasions both John Wayne and Jeffrey Hunter had to pick her up at school on days when she was required on the set. This caused a good deal of excitement among Wood's female classmates.


March 13, 1968 -
The Beatles release the single Lady Madonna in the UK on this date.



This was the last Beatles release on Capitol Records (US), or Parlophone (UK). All future releases were on Apple Records, the label The Beatles created.


Today in History:
March 13, 1781 -
Scottish astronomer Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus on this date, which he first mistook for a comet.



It is the first planet discovered with the aid of a telescope. (If you are alone, by all means, feel free to twitter like a small child.)


March 13, 1881 -
An anarchist Nikolai Rysakov, from the radical group People's Will threw a bomb which disrupts Czar Alexander II's motorcade. Startled but unharmed, Alexander thankeds God for his deliverance, another anarchist Ignacy Hryniewiecki, yelled "It is too early to thank God" and throws a second bomb, causing severe injuries from which Alexander bleeds to death several hours later.



(Nicholas II, Alexander grandson, was one of the unfortunate witnesses to Czar's gruesome death.)

March 13, 1911 -
Today is the birthday of L. Ron Hubbard (the "L" is for Lafayette.) Mr. Hubbard invented Dianetics, which eventually led to Scientology, causing Scientologists and Personality Tests.



Scientologists are easily distinguished from Jehovah's Witnesses in that they don't ask you subscribe to The Watchtower and they can often be seen in major motion pictures.


March 13, 1917 -
Today on Oh That Wacky Russian Revolution:
The imperial guard, acting on the orders of the dissolved Duma, which had not been dissolved, took the Tsarina and her children (who had measles) into custody. A day later, England and France acknowledged the Executive Committee of the Duma as the official government of Russia.

Meanwhile, Nicholas II had taken a train to Pskov. He knew the revolutionaries would be unlikely to pursue him somewhere so difficult to pronounce.

That evening in St. Petersburg, the Executive Committee of the Duma met with the Petrograd Soviet and agreed that the Russian Cabinet should be dissolved, and also the Tsar.

They established a joint government, with Prince Grigori Lvov at its head, nicely countering the Czar's difficult pronunciation ploy. They put the Russian Cabinet in prison, next to the Russian Credenza.



And so it goes.

The Gammarelli tailors are at the ready

As the cardinals, solemnly line up this afternoon to enter  the Sistine Chapel to fulfill their holy (and only real) obligation - pick a new pope

It's helpful to remember this happened on this date:

March 12, 2000 -
Pope John Paul II asked God's forgiveness for the many wrongs committed by the Roman Catholic Church on this date. The pardon he requested divided into seven categories of Church sin, including sins against the Jews, against native peoples of the world, the crimes of the Inquisition, and general crimes against humanity.

This pardon was requested only for past sins, and apparently did not ask for it to apply to the Church's many, many, many ongoing sins.  Let's hope the cardinals keep in mind that the new pope may have to ask God to forgive them for so much more.

For those of you in the know - once they identify the new pope; he does not have to sit in the sedia stercoraria, and they do not do the 'grope the pope' anymore (go ask an old lady at church or go google it.)


March 12, 1912 -
Juliette Gordon Low organized the Girl Guides, which later became the Girl Scouts of America, at the 1848 Andrew Low House in Savannah, Ga. on this date.



On July 3, 1948, President Harry S. Truman signed a bill authorizing a stamp in honor of Juliette Gordon Low. The stamp was one of the few dedicated to women.


March 12, 1953 -
John Huston's very off-beat comedy starring Humphrey Bogart, Beat the Devil, premiered in New York City on this date.



Humphrey Bogart was involved in a serious automobile accident during production of this film, which knocked out several of his teeth and hindered his ability to speak. John Huston hired a young British actor noted for his mimicry skills to rerecord some of Bogart's spoken lines during post-production looping. Although it is undetectable when viewing the film today, it is Peter Sellers who provides Bogart's voice during some of the scenes in this movie.


March 12, 1971 -
Robert Wise's taut Sci-Fi Thriller, The Andromeda Strain, opened on this date.



Michael Crichton wrote the rough draft for the novel from which this film is adapted while he was still a medical student. He was inspired after a conversation with one of his teachers about the concept of crystal-based life-forms.


March 12, 1971 -
John Lennon released Power to the People in the United Kingdom on this date.



Power to the People was a popular phrase in the 1960s and early '70. It indicated a need for individuals to take control from governments and institutions, which is something Lennon advocated. He said of the song: "I wrote 'Power to the People' the same way I wrote 'Give Peace A Chance,' as something for the people to sing. I make singles like broadsheets. It was another quickie."


Today in History:
March 12, 1888 -
The day before started off seemingly fine - the temperature was mild as a light rain began to fall on March 11th, 1888. And then the weather changed. The rain became heavier and by the next day, the rains changed to heavy snow and buried the unprepared city in drifts of up to thirty feet deep! The temperature plunged and winds reached over eighty miles per hour.



On the first day of 1888 blizzard, Roscoe Conkling, former congressman and US Senator (from NY) was at his law office at 10 Wall Street. Despite the severity of the storm, Conkling decided to walk from his office to his club on Madison Square, even though it was 6:00 PM and already dark.

He made it up Broadway as far as Union Square where he (as he later put it): “got to the middle of the park and was up to my arms in a drift…. For nearly twenty minutes I was stuck there and I came as near giving right up and sinking down there to die as a man can and not do it.” But somehow Conkling freed himself and continued up Broadway to Madison Square, where the people at the New York Club could “scarcely believe” he had walked from Wall Street.

Conkling developed a slight cold a few day later and a few weeks later on April 18th, became one of most famous victims of the blizzard. Conkling friends immediately set about to memorialize him with a statue in Madison Square Park. (Apparently the city fathers balked at commemorating Conkling in Union Square amidst George Washington and Abraham Lincoln - he was not that well liked.) Aside from the statue, Roscoe Conkling's greatest legacy was perhaps silent film star Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, who was reportedly named for Conkling by Fatty's father, who thought that his son was the product of an affair between his wife and Conkling.


March 11, 1921 -
At the end of the Second World War, America dropped two atomic bombs on Japan. Each bomb killed so many people so quickly and made the world so safe for peace-loving democracies that America began feeling pretty good about things and forgot all about being Depressed, etc. This caused the hula-hoop, the soda fountain, and Annette Funicello.



Not everyone could master the hula-hoop, however, and the alienation experienced by those who couldn't resulted in the development of an American counterculture.



Scoffing the traditional values of mainstream America, the counterculturalists experimented with bold new ideas. They forsook the established middle-class pleasures, such as wine, woman, and song, in favor of radical new ones, such as sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll.

Born 92 years ago today, Jack Kerouac was a child of the Depression and a veteran of the second world war. He was therefore torn between these competing value systems and roamed the country aimlessly in search of grammar and punctuation.



The adventures described in On the Road were based loosely on his real-life travels with the infamous Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters, whose insatiable appetite for borscht led Kerouac to dub them "The Beet Generation."


March 12, 1918 -
Today episode on the Wacky World of the Russian Revolution -

Russia's peasants and workers are still exhausted by the war and its attendant famine. The Tsar and Tsarina are past caring about their suffering - they were under arrest The Russia's peasants and workers are still furious with the government, which had become two governments and therefore twice as bad. And they were tired of all this nonsense about March being February, St. Petersburg being Petrograd, the Czar being Tsar, and all those crazy, mixed-up fronts.



So what does the country do - move the capital from Petrograd to Moscow on this date


March 12, 1932 -
Ivar Kreuger, the so-called Swedish Match King, (at one time, he controlled two thirds of the worldwide match production) committed suicide in Paris on this date, leaving behind a financial empire that turned out to be a massive Ponzi scheme.



The 'Kreuger crash’ shook Wall Street and led to a 1933 Securities Act, which strengthened disclosure requirements for all companies selling stock.

Madoff was a piker compared to Kreuger.


March 12, 1938 -
Germany enters Austria in the Anschluss, to annex it as part of Grossdeutchland.



Oh those wacky Germans and their World Domination Tour.


March 12, 1945 -
...I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are still truly good at heart. I simply can't build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness; I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too; I can feel the sufferings of millions; and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again ... I must uphold my ideals, for perhaps the time will come when I shall be able to carry them out....



Anne Frank died at Auschwitz on this date.


March 12, 1955 -
Bird Lives.

Charles Parker, Jr., one of the most influential jazz musicians, died on this date while while watching Tommy Dorsey on television.



Due to many years of drug and alcohol abuse, the coroner who performed his autopsy mistakenly estimated Parker's 34-year-old body to be between 50 and 60 years of age.



And so it goes.

I never noticed the theme before

March 10, 222 -
Most of you with teenagers think that yours are the worst, but no, Ancient Rome had the worst by far, the Emperor Elagabalus.

His real name was Varius Avitus Bassianus but as he developed an intense interest in worshippng the Syrian god Elagabal, became High Priest of the cult and so had his name changed to Elagabalus. After the death of his grandfather, father and cousin within a year, Elagabalus, all of 14, found himself the Emperor of the known world (this is not to say, the millions of people living in Asia, Africa, Australia and the New World, even had a clue who this snarky teen was.) Rather than even thinking of governing, Elagabalus immersed himself in heavy drinking and self-worship (very intense sodomy - it is rumored that he had engaged in a sexual act ever hour he was awake for the entire four years he was Emperor - think about it - he had sex over 23,000 times in four years), leaving the affairs of the state mostly in the hands of his grandmother Julia Maesa.



Elagabalus was probably the first famous transsexual, rumored to have consulted his physicians about an early version of a sex-change operation. Having found this impossible, he took a series of male lovers, chosen by the enormous size of their private parts. When Elagabalus was enjoyably getting buggered, he also was getting drunk. Legend has it that he and his friends had gotten so drunk that when Elagabalus had a shower of rose pedals dropped on his dinner guest, many of them had suffocated under the weigh of the flowers.



Finally the Pretorian gaurd had enough of Elagabalus notorious excesses (but let's be clear about this; like most of the GOP, the Roman elite professed a disgust of homosexuality yet vigorously engaged in it,) and on this date, hunted down the young reprobate in a private bathroom and executed him on this date, as he tenaciously clung to his mother.


Speaking of transvestites -
March 11, 1967 -
Pink Floyd released one of the best songs about underwear stealing transvestites, Arnold Layne on this date.



Some believe that Arnold Layne was actually based on a real person, and that he routinely stole underwear from the mothers of Syd Barrett and bassist Roger Waters during their childhood days in Cambridge.


And yet more tales of cross dressing
March 11, 1970 -
Federico Fellini's take on ancient Rome, Fellini - Satyricon (Another movie had registered the title Satyricon first. Federico Fellini fought to use the title for his movie but lost the case. Subsequently the title was changed to Fellini - Satyricon) premiered in the US on this date.



When asked why both the leading roles were played by foreign actors and not Italians, Federico Fellini replied. "Because there are no Italian homosexuals." (oh you very silly Fellini and you lived so close to the Vatican.)


March 11, 1956 -
Laurence Olivier's version of William Shakespeare's Richard III became the first film to have its U.S. premiere in theaters and on TV simultaneously, when NBC-TV broadcast the film on the same day it had its U.S. premiere in New York, on this date.



Olivier based his characterization of Richard on a much-despised theatrical director named Jed Harris. Years later he learned that the animators at Disney used Harris for the basis of the Big Bad Wolf.


Today in History:
March 11, 1302 -
This is Romeo & Juliet's wedding day, according to Shakespeare.



I've seen all of these websites that can offer to help you plan a romantic wedding 'just like Romeo and Juliet', does that mean you have to kill yourself shortly after the honeymoon?


March 11, 1669 -
After a series of premonitional earthquakes near Mount Etna, the largest volcano in Europe spectacularly erupts, destroying the Sicilian town of Nicolosi and killing 20,000 people.



Where there no virgins to toss into the volcano to appease the gods back in 1669?


March 11, 1811 -
Ned Ludd (not a real person) led a group of workers in a wild protest against mechanization on this date.  Members of the organized bands of craftsmen who rioted against automation in 19th century England were known as Luddites and also Ludds. The movement, began near Nottingham as craftsman destroyed textile machinery that was eliminating their jobs. By the following year, Luddites were active in Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lancashire and Leicestershire.



Although the Luddites opposed violence towards people (a position which allowed for a modicum of public support), government crackdowns included mass shootings, hangings and deportation to the colonies. It took 14,000 British soldiers to quell the rebellion. The movement effectively died in 1813 apart from a brief resurgence of Luddite sentiment in 1816 following the end of the Napoleonic Wars.



I'm still waiting for the anti-tweeting movement - Smash the I-Pads!


March 11, 1818 -
Frankenstein, "The Modern Prometheus," was published on this date. The book started out as basically a scary story told on a rainy night. That is, if you are telling scary stories to England's greatest romantic poet and his best friend, Europe's most notorious clubfooted, bisexual poet.



The book, by 21-year-old Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, is frequently called the world's first science fiction novel.


More on the Wacky Russian Revolution
On March 11, 1917 the Russian Cabinet finally became indignant and tried to dissolve the Duma, but the Duma refused to dissolve. The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies also refused to dissolve, even though the Cabinet had not asked them to dissolve.

(The Cabinet could not ask them to, because the Cabinet had determined that The Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Peasants' Deputies did not exist.)


March 11, 1927 -
Samuel Roxy Rothafel opened The Roxy Theatre in New York City, a 6,214 seat movie theater at 153 West 50th Street at 7th Avenue, on this date. It was designed by Chicago architect Walter W. Ahlschlager.

The opening night film was The Love of Sunya produced by and starring Gloria Swanson. The Roxy was overshadowed by the opening of Radio City Music Hall in the Rockefeller Center in NYC in 1932.

The Roxy closed and was demolished in 1960, and Swanson was famously photographed on October 14, 1960 by Time-Life photographer Eliot Elisofon in the midst of the ruins during the theater's demolition.


March 11, 1931 -
F. W. Murnau (born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe,) one of the most influential German film directors of the silent era, was out for a relaxing drive with his fourteen-year old Filipino valet Garcia Stevenson, when Mr. Murnau failed to heed one of the basic tenets of auto safety - it was rumored that Murnau decided to perform fellatio on the young driver.

Mr. Murnau and Mr Stevenson were involved in a car crash and both died on this date.

Kids, let this be a lesson to us all - for heaven's sake, please pull over if you decide to fellate the driver of your automobile.


March 11, 1950 -
... Well, Toodles, do I get my home back, or do I have to get tough?



A very funny Bugs Bunny cartoon, directed by Chuck Jones, Homeless Hare, was released on this date.


March 11, 1957 -
Charles Van Doren, darling of the American public, lost to Vivienne Nearing on the rigged TV quiz show Twenty One when both are asked to name the kings of Norway (Olav V) , Denmark (Frederick IX) , Sweden (Gustaf VI Adolf), Jordan (Hussein) , Iraq (Faisal II) , and Belgium (Baudouin).



Doren "missed" - the king of Belgium.


March 11, 1958 -
A B-47 bomber drops a nuclear bomb in the town of Mars Bluff in South Carolina. While it did not detonate a nuclear explosion, conventional explosives within the bomb left a 75 foot crater, destroying one house and damaging five others.



The government has to send out hundreds of 'oops' letters to the town's residents.


March 11, 1969 -
Levi Jeans added Bell Bottoms to their line of Jeans which had become fashionable as part of the hippie counterculture movement.



Though the actual creation of the first pair of bell-bottoms is unknown, the first mention of bell-bottom pants was in 1813 in reference to the uniforms of U.S. Navy sailors.


March 11, 2004 -
In Madrid, Spain, a series of 10 bombs hidden in backpacks exploded in quick succession at 3 stations, blowing apart four commuter trains on this date. 191 people were killed and over 1,450 wounded. Spanish leaders were quick to accuse Basque terrorists but a shadowy group claimed responsibility in the name of al-Qaeda.



On October 31, 2007, three lead defendants were convicted of murder. Four other top suspects were acquitted of murder but convicted of lesser charges. In all 21 of the 28 defendants were convicted. On July 17, 2008, a Spanish court cleared four of the 21 people charged for crimes related to the train bombings. In 2009, seven people were indicted for helping the bombers flee.


March 11, 2011 -
Two years ago today, an earthquake and a tsunami sparked one the most severe atomic accident since Chernobyl at the Fukushima  Daiichi power plant in Japan.



Over 81,000 jobs were lost due to the tsunami and two years later, 315,000 refugees of the tsunami remain in limbo.



And so it goes

There ought to be a Moonlight Saving Time

In case you forgot to set the clocks ahead, we'll wait. Here's a short film explaining Daylight Savings Time -



Do you need some more time (did you get the clock on the stove? Do you still have a VCR?) Here's another short film -



Alright, you can either continue reading or go back to bed for an hour.

you'll have one less hour for drinking today - start earlier.


Ah, to be young and dumb -



Remember, the last kid wasn't grounded.


March 10, 1938 -
Bette Davis won her second Academy Award and re-ignited her sagging career when Jezebel, premiered in New York City on this date.



An old rumor is that the role of Julie was offered as compensation to Bette Davis when she lost the opportunity to play Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind. This rumor is completely false, since the role of Scarlett had not yet been cast until long after Jezebel had been filmed.


March 10, 1940 -
Carlos Ray Norris, the world's greatest living human being was born on this date.



Chuck Norris can blow bubbles with beef jerky.


March 10, 1972 -
Universal Pictures released the science fiction film Silent Running, directed by Douglas Trumbull and starring Bruce Dern, on this date.



The haunting music for the film was written by Peter Schickele, who is known primarily for his classical music parodies under the name of P.D.Q. Bach.


Today in History:
March 10, 1876 -
It was on this date in 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell conducted the first successful experiment on a radical new technology. He put a "transmitter" in one room of his home and a "receiver" in another. He connected them with wire. He then shouted into the mouthpiece of the transmitter, "Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you."



A moment later, his assistant, who had been waiting in the room with the receiver, came into Bell's room and said he had heard and understood everything.



When Alexander Graham Bell finished his invention of the telephone, he noticed he had two missed calls from Chuck Norris.



The invention didn't enjoy much commercial success because the market for persons with out-of-earshot assistants named Watson was not as large as Bell had hoped, but it did serve as a major stepping-stone to one of Bell's most significant inventions, the Watson Detonator.


March 10, 1948 -
The State owned Communist newspaper reports that the Czech foreign minister Jan Masaryk was thrown from a window at his apartment in Prague under mysterious circumstances on this date.

Authorities rule his death was a "suicide" and then decide to rule the death as accidentally because he seems to have "fallen while sitting in a yoga position on a window sill to combat insomnia". But most likely he was suffocated first, judging from the fact that he had lost control of his bowels and the deep nail marks on the window sill.

I hate when that happens.


March 10, 1948 -
...I don't want to live. I want to love first, and live incidentally.....

Author and artist, Zelda Fitzgerald died in a fire at Highland Hospital, NC, along with eight other inmates on this date.



She was locked in on the 3rd floor while undergoing insulin-induced coma therapy.

I really hate when that happens.


March 10, 1974 -
Second Lt. Hiroo Onoda of the Imperial Japanese Army surrenders to Philippine authorities on this date. He believed World War II was still underway and continued a 30 year guerrilla battle with other islanders. His final capitulation came when his senior officer, Maj. Taniguchi, ordered his surrender.



Upon return to the Japanese homeland, Onoda was treated as a hero, but had difficulty coping with his "postwar" life.


March 10, 1977 -
Roman Polanski gave a 13 year old girl Quaaludes and has sex with her during a photo shoot at Jack Nicholson's home on this date. He later fled the country to avoid statutory rape charges.



He would currently be living in Los Angeles (and probably having more fun) if he just went into the bathroom and auditioned his hand puppet alone.


March 10, 1977 -
Astronomers James L. Elliot, Edward W. Dunham and Douglas J. Mink discover rings around Uranus on this date.



Allow yourself to giggle like a school girl.


March 10, 1980 -
Jean Harris shot and killed her unfaithful lover, cardiologist Herman Tarnower, co-author of The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet in his Purchase N.Y. home on this date.

She was granted clemency on December 31, 1992 by Governor Mario Cuomo after she served 12 years of a 15 year sentence. Harris was released in January 1993. Mrs Harris died this past December.

Sometimes, diets make you a little cranky



And so it goes.


Before I let you go - here's a great supercut of films that break the 'fourth wall' by Leigh Singer.



The montage includes 54 different films.  See how many you can name before the end credits?