Unique New York

Today is International Tongue Twister Day. (Or at least I think it is, there seems to be some controversy on the date.) Tongue twisters have technically been around since as early as the 19th century when John Harris published Peter Piper’s Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation, which included a twisty tongue tango for every letter of the alphabet. And while the book was meant to help children learn the fundamentals of speech mechanics, its titular twister garnered quite the attention and inspired a lot of lore about its namesake.



Try saying - Rory the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural brewery..


I'm so sorry, I nearly forgot that today is Diwali, , one of the biggest and brightest of all the Hindu celebrations.

An ancient festival celebrating the triumph of light over dark and good over evil; the day is also significant in other religions including Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism.



Diwali is derived from the Sanskrit word, “deepawali”, meaning “row of lights”. The day is also the beginning of the Hindu New Year.


November 8, 1934 -
The Looney Tunes short, Buddy's Circus, directed by Jack King and starring Buddy, was released on this date.



It was the 50th film in the Looney Tunes series and the twelfth cartoon to feature Buddy.


November 8, 1941 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Saddle Silly, directed by Chuck Jones was released on this date.



The Pony Express was an American express mail delivery service using a relay of horses between Missouri and California.


November 8, 1949 -
Robert Rossen's adaptation of Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer winning novel, All The King's Men, starring Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge, and Joanne Dru, premiered in New York City on this date.



To prepare for the role of Willie Stark, Broderick Crawford watched newsreels of Huey Long, the former Louisiana senator and governor on whose life the novel was loosely based. But, according to Broderick Crawford, "During the filming, we never mentioned the name of Huey Long on the set. That was the unspoken law at the studio."


November 8, 1962 -
Lewis Milestone's second major Hollywood telling of the Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando, Trevor Howard and Richard Harris, premiered on this date.



Richard Harris agreed to take a third-billed role in this film purely to work with Marlon Brando. However, Brando's on-set behavior soured his adoration of the star. Harris would later describe the production as "nightmarish" and "a total fucking disaster".


November 8, 1964 -
Judy Garland and her daughter, Liza Minnelli appeared together at the London Palladium on this date. The program was broadcasted in the UK and U.S. on December 1, 1964; and the album Live at the London Palladium became a classic on Capitol Records.



The show marked Judy Garland's final public appearance, and her only live appearance with daughter Liza Minnelli.


November 8, 1964 –
A stalwart of the 4:30 Movie slot, Fate is the Hunter, directed by Ralph Nelson, and starring Glenn Ford, Nancy Kwan, Suzanne Pleshette and Rod Taylor, was released on this date.



The fictional airliner in this movie is a DC-7, substantially altered to look like a contemporary jet airliner, but not resemble any that actually existed. Because of the plot, no airline or aircraft manufacturer would have anything to do with the movie, and any resemblance to an actual aircraft would invite litigation.


November 8, 1971 -
Led Zeppelin released their untitled fourth album, on this date.



And kids remember, according to the Consumer Protection and Toxic Materials Committee of the California State Assembly, if you play Stairway to Heaven backwards, you can hear:



So, don't play you albums backwards (some of of you younger bunkies have no idea what albums are.)


November 8, 1975 -

David Bowie makes his US television debut on the CBS variety show Cher, on this date.



Bowie performed both on his own as well as with Cher, which included an odd and interesting six and a half minute duet medley.


November 8, 1978 -
Richard Attenborough's masterful adaptation of William Goldman's thriller, Magic, starring Anthony Hopkins, Ann-Margret, and Burgess Meredith premiered in the US on this date.



Gene Wilder was the original choice for Corky, and director Richard Attenborough and writer William Goldman wanted him, but producer Joseph E. Levine refused, on the grounds he wanted no comedians in the movie to distract from the serious nature of the story.


November 8, 1979 -
The program, The Iran Crisis: America Held Hostage, premiered on ABC-TV on this date.



The show was planned to be temporary, but it evolved into Nightline in March of 1980.


November 8, 1989 -
Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, Henry V, starring Kenneth Branagh, Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian Holm, Emma Thompson, Alec McCowen, Judi Dench, Robbie Coltrane, Brian Blessed, and Christian Bale, premiered on this date.



Kenneth Branagh was the last actor to receive an Academy Award nomination for his role in a Shakespearean film until Denzel Washington was nominated for his performance in The Tragedy of Macbeth, 32 years later. Branagh and Washington worked together on Much Ado About Nothing, another Shakespearean film.


Another album from the discount bin at the The ACME Record Shoppe


Today in History:
November 8, 1431 -
Vlad III the Impaler (Vlad Dracula), Transylvanian prince, inspiring the name of the vampire in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, was probably born on this date.



People had better things to do back then (like find something to eat or keep warm) than keep track of the birth date of some sadistic royal person.


November 8, 1519 -
The Aztecs and their leader, Moctezuma, foolishly welcomed Hernando Cortez and about 300 Spanish soldiers, 18 horses and thousands of Mexico's native inhabitants who had grown resentful of Aztec rule marched unmolested into Tenochtitlán, the capital city of the Aztec empire, on this date.




The Aztec ruler Moctezuma, believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl, whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of these strange visitors with courtesy--at least until it became clear that the Spaniards were all too human and bent on conquest.

Oops.


November 8, 1789 -
Elijah Craig, a Baptist minister, from Georgetown, Kentucky, distilled the first sour-mash whiskey for public sale on this date.

His customers from the surrounding area called his product Bourbon County Whiskey - after the county of its origin.


November 8th, 1895 -
Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays on this date, when he discovered treated cardboard he was using in routine experiments glowed in certain situations – the result of radiation hitting the surface.



During subsequent experiments he found that objects of different thicknesses interposed in the path of the rays showed variable transparency to them when recorded on a photographic plate.


November 8, 1917 -
And now another episode of That Wacky Russia Revolution!

In late autumn 1917 The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky started the November Revolution (in October), overthrew the provisional government and announced that Russia was a socialist country.



On this date in order to celebrate that the November Revolution was firmed ensconced in November, Lenin was chosen as President of Russia, the world's first communist leader. One of his first acts as its leader was to sign a peace treaty with Germany that ended Russia's participation in the First World War.


November 8, 1923 -
Adolf Schicklgruber, failed artist and World War I veteran, launched his first attempt to seize power with a failed coup in Munich, Germany, that came to be known as the Beer-Hall Putsch. He proclaimed himself chancellor and General Erich Ludendorff dictator.



No one really taken him too seriously at the time. Unfortunately, he wasn't joking.


November 8, 1949 -

It is still a surprise when people tell me that I've had an influence on them, particularly when it's someone I really respect.







Bonnie Raitt, American blues singer, guitarist, songwriter, was born on this date.


November 8, 1950 -
The world’s first battle in which a jet plane shoots down another jet plane took place on this date, early in the Korean War during a raid near the Yalu River, which separates Korea and China. A group of about ten Soviet MiG-15 jet fighters approach the American bombers and were confronted by the four U.S. fighter jets escorting the bombers, Lockheed F-80 “Shooting Stars.”



Within about five minutes one MiG was destroyed, another was damaged, and the rest were in retreat. None of the U.S. jets were damaged. U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Robert Brown was credited with being the first pilot to take down another jet fighter.


November 8, 1954 -

I like words. Words are places, rooms, distant airs, thin and tropical. They make us feel and imagine we are more than our bodies.







Rickie Lee Jones, The Duchess of Coolsville, two-time Grammy Award-winning vocalist, musician, songwriter and producer, was born on this date.


November 8, 1957 -
Britain tested its first hydrogen bomb, called Operation: Grapple X, over Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean, on this date. (The U.K. had become an actual thermonuclear power with the detonation of Grapple X.)



It was a bit more powerful than they expected and caused infrastructure damage and destroyed some buildings on the island. I'm guessing this finally answers the question for me: No, I do not wish to spend Christmas (or any time for that matter) on Christmas Island.


November 8, 1994 -
Sometimes you have to be cruel... in order to be even crueler..



Michael O'Donoghue writer for National Lampoon magazine and the first head writer for Saturday Night Live, died on this date, of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 54, after a long history of what were thought to be chronic migraine headaches.

And so it goes

You must have some place better to be

This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree arrived in New York City this morning.

The 76-foot Norway Spruce from West Edmeston, New York was cut down Thursday morning and loaded on a truck. The spruce made the 243-mile trip from Rebecca Decker family home to Manhattan on the back of a flatbed truck. The official lighting ceremony with be on December 2 - avoid the area at all cost.


Today is a celebration of Bittersweet Chocolate with Almonds

November 7, 1932 -
The Buck Rogers in the 25th Century radio show, notable as the first science-fiction program on radio, first hit the airwaves as a 15-minute broadcast on CBS Radio on this date.



The show related the story of Anthony Buck Rogers finding himself in waking up in the 25th century, after having been held in suspended animation for almost 500 years.


November 1, 1936 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Don't Look Now , directed by Tex Avery was released on this date.



This is the first Warner Bros. cartoon in which you hear Tex Avery's actual voice .


November 7, 1951 -
The under-rated British film-noir (based on a Graham Greene novel and screenplay written by Graham Greene,) directed by John Boulting, Brighton Rock, starring Richard Attenborough, Hermione Baddeley, and William Hartnell opened in the US on this date.



Filming actually took place in Brighton using hidden cameras in amongst the real-life crowds. This was mainly because the Brighton authorities objected to the way their town was being depicted as a haven for gangsters.


November 7, 1955 -
The neo-realist film classic, Umberto D., was released in the US on this date.



This is the first and only film for non-actor Carlo Battisti, who plays the leading role in the film. His real occupation was that of a Professor of Linguistics at the Università degli Studi di Firenze.


November 7, 1956 -
An early masterpiece from Fellini, I Vitelloni, was released in the US on this date.



The part for Sergio Natali was originally offered to the great Italian director, Vittorio de Sica. He politely declined as he was concerned that the character's homosexuality might mark the director himself as a homosexual.


November 7, 1963 -
The comedy that features one of the largest collections of American comedians ever brought together, It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, premiered on this date. (Family lore has it that my father laughed so hard while watching this movie in the theatre that he fell out of his seat.)



For the intermission of the premiere engagement at the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood, the filmmakers recorded messages supposedly sent over police radios describing what was happening to various characters. These messages were played not only in the auditorium during the intermission but at the concession stand and even in the bathrooms.


November 7, 1969 -
The opening track from Led Zeppelin II, Whole Lotta Love, was released as a single on this date. It was the first single the band released. The B-side of the single was, Living Loving Maid. It became their highest chart topper, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Charts.



When this song became a hit in America, the UK division of the band's label, Atlantic Records, pressed copies of a shortened version of the song to release there, but Jimmy Page quashed that idea when he heard the 3:12 truncated edit ("I played it once, hated it and never listened to the short version again," he told the Wall Street Journal). The band issued a press release stating: "Led Zeppelin have no intention of issuing 'Whole Lotta Love' as a single as they feel it was written as part of their concept of the album." The American single is the same version as found on the album.


November 7, 1970 -
The live action/ animation film, The Phantom Tollbooth, directed by Chuck Jones, Abe Levitow, and Dave Monahan, and starring Butch Patrick and the voice talents of Mel Blanc, Daws Butler, Candy Candido, Hans Conried, June Foray, Patti Gilbert, Shepard Menken, Cliff Norton, Larry Thor, and Les Tremayne, was released on this date.



This film was made in 1967-68, but it wasn't heavily promoted due to MGM's financial problems and frequent management changes. When it was finally released in 1970, the studio only showed it for two weeks, as a weekend matinee. It was not a box-office success.


November 7, 1975 –
The pilot for the series Wonder Woman, The New Original Wonder Woman TV movie starring Lynda Carter premiered on ABC-TV, on this date.



Lynda Carter received a standing ovation from the cast and crew the very first time she walked onto the set wearing the Wonder Woman costume.


November 7, 1979 -
Loosely based on the life of Janis Joplin, the film, The Rose, starring Bette Midler, was released on this date.



Mark Rydell would only agree to direct if he could cast Bette Midler in the lead. Before that, Midler had only appeared in bit parts, and was known primarily as a nightclub singer.


November 7, 1997 -
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment released the comedy Bean, directed by Mel Smith and starring Rowan Atkinson, Peter MacNicol, Pamela Reed, Harris Yulin, Sandra Oh and Burt Reynolds, on this date.



The producers were initially looking for an unknown actor to play General Newton. But being a fan of the series, Mr. Bean, Burt Reynolds asked for a role, and was then cast to appear as Newton.

Don't forget to tune in to The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour today


Today in History:
Maria Sklodowska was born in Warsaw, Poland, on November 7, 1867. Poland was controlled by Russia at the time, so Maria was referred to as Manya, causing her mother to die. This left Manya and her four older siblings in care of their father, who was caught teaching Polish and therefore prohibited from earning money.

To help support her father, Manya began tutoring a family in the country outside Warsaw. Her sister Bronya moved to Paris to study medicine and become a famous doctor, so Manya sent money to her, also. This allowed Bronya to marry another medical student and begin practicing medicine in Paris.

Bronya and her husband invited Manya to live with them in Paris and study at the Sorbonne, where she could call herself Marie. This appealed to the young woman, who quickly earned master's degrees in physics and mathematics. She enjoyed Paris so much she couldn't bear to return to Poland and to understand her attraction to Paris she began a study of magnetism.

To conduct her magnetism research she needed a larger lab, however, so she married a Frenchman named Pierre and used his. One of Pierre's friends had been experimenting with Uranium, which piqued Marie's curiosity. She began experimenting with it herself, and ultimately discovered something she called "radio-activity." This eventually led to her discovery of Radium, for which she received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1911.



Marie Curie's research would eventually culminate in the development of the atomic bomb, but unfortunately she died before having the opportunity to see the full flowering of her hard work.


November 7, 1872 -
The cargo ship Mary Celeste sailing from New York, never reached Genoa. Four weeks later it is found completely abandoned, whereabouts of the ten man crew unknown.



The ship's cargo was alcohol, so you decide.


November 7, 1874 -
The famous political cartoonist Thomas Nast (a staunch Republican) first used an elephant to symbol for the Republican Party on this date.

He choice the elephant because of the animal's great size, intelligence, strength, and dignity.


November 7, 1885 -
Construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the first transcontinental railroad across Canada, was completed with the driving of the "last spike" by CPR railroad financier Donald Smith in Craigellachie, British Columbia on this date.



Despite rising costs, a political scandal that toppled Sir John A. Macdonald’s government and the death of at least 600 Chinese railway workers, the CPR — linking Eastern and Western Canada - was completed 5 years ahead of schedule.


November 7, 1916 -
Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to hold a high government office in the United States when on this date she was elected to the United States House of Representatives from the state of Montana.



A lifelong pacifist, she was the only legislator to vote against American involvement in both World War I and World War II.


November 7, 1940 -
The newly completed Tacoma Narrows Bridge, opened barely four months before, swayed and collapsed in a 42 mile-per-hour wind on this date.



There were no casualties except a dog trapped in a car stranded on the bridge. A rescue was attempted (by the man with the pipe), but the frightened animal would not leave the car.


November 7, 1943 -
Roberta Joan Joni Mitchell, Canadian singer-songwriter and painter, one of the most influential female musicians of the late 20th century, was born on this date.



Her many hit songs include Both Sides Now, Chelsea Morning, Big Yellow Taxi, River, Help Me, and Free Man in Paris were all recorded before she was 32.


November 7, 1962 -
Richard M. Nixon, 49, who had been in politics for 16 years, failed in a bid to become governor of California, held what he called his last press conference, telling reporters, "You won't have Nixon to kick around anymore," on this date.



Nixon was able to come back from his defeat and be elected president of the United States just six years.


November 7, 1965 -
The Pillsbury Doughboy made its first appearance on this date.



You may refer to the creature as IT; marketing may call it a Doughboy but there is no evidence of genitalia.


November 7, 1983 -
An anonymous phone called notified the White House authorities that a bomb had been placed close to the Senate chamber by the "Armed Resistance Unit" and was set to explode. The Senate chamber was empty at the time, and nobody was injured.



The bomb did, however, cause about $250,000 in damage. Six Resistance Conspiracy members were arrested for the bombing five years later.

A portrait of Daniel Webster, received the explosion’s full force. The blast tore away Webster’s face and left it scattered across the Minton tiles in one-inch canvas shards. Quick thinking Senate curators rescued the fragments from debris-filled trash bins. Over the coming months, a capable conservator painstakingly restored the painting to a credible, if somewhat diminished, version of the original.


November 7, 2000 -
Hillary Clinton ran and won the election to become the junior senator from New York (although she had never lived in the state previously,) on this date, becoming the first First Lady in US history to seek and win a political office.



She was re-elected to the Senate in 2006. And oh yeah, she ran for president a couple of times.


November 7, 2000 -
The US Presidential election of the "hanging chad" occurred. The controversial Presidential election decision between Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush ended up being addressed by the US Supreme Court in December in the Bush v. Gore case.



The issue surrounded voting irregularities in Florida and how the 25 electoral votes from that state would be decided. One of the more memorable issues had to do either with voter errors or machine errors that left the paper ballots with "hanging chads" that weren't punched through, making it difficult to ascertain the voter's true intention. Bush won the election, which was the closest race since the election of 1876 between Rutherford B. Hayes and Samuel J. Tilden. This election also made Bush the fourth president in US history to win the electorate vote without winning the popular vote.


Go check to see if you need to clean the table linens

And so it goes

Extra Word of the day

Lethologica -



temporary, frustrating inability to retrieve a specific word or name from memory - commonly known as the "tip-of-the-tongue" phenomenon.


November 6, 1814 -
It's National Saxophone Day. Adolphe Sax, instrument maker and inventor of the saxophone, was born in Belgium.



Hey, you come up with something new every day. You may go on with your day.


November 6, 1937 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Little Red Walking Hood, directed by Tex Avery was released on this date.



This is the first appearance of two earlier characters that later evolved into Elmer Fudd and Granny.


November 6, 1947 -
Meet the Press, the longest-running show on network TV, premiered on NBC-TV on this date.



Meet the Press made its initial debut two years earlier – as a radio program American Mercury Presents: Meet the Press with Martha Rountree and Lawrence Spivak as producers.


November 6, 1948 -
Sylvester in his prime - Kit for Cat, directed by Friz Freleng and co-starring Elmer Fudd and Sylvester the Cat, premiered on this date.



The actors in the radio drama, Mel Blanc and Bea Benaderet, call each other by their real first names, Melvin and Beatrice.


November 6, 1965 -
A very sill spy spoof, Dr Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, directed by Norman Taurog, and starring Vincent Price, Frankie Avalon, Dwayne Hickman, Susan Hart and Jack Mullaney, was released on this date.



In the midst of the extensive, wacky vehicle chase about halfway through the movie, the various characters pass a movie marquee reading The Girl in the Glass Bikini. That title also appears in the end credits, being promoted as a sequel to star Annette Funicello, Deborah Walley, Harvey Lembeck, and Aron Kincaid. A sequel was made, but none of the promised actors appeared in it and the title was changed to Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs.


November 6, 1965 –
The Rolling Stones song Get Off of My Cloud became their second song to hit #1 on the Billboard charts on this date.



There was a bit of controversy over this song, as it sounded like it could be about drugs. Some radio stations shied away from the song.


November 6, 1968 -
The Columbia Pictures cult classic film (although it's not what they wanted,) Head, directed by Bob Rafelson, starring The Monkees, Victor Mature and with cameos by Jack Nicholson, Teri Garr, Carol Doda, Annette Funicello, Frank Zappa, Sonny Liston, Dennis Hopper and Toni Basil, premiered to an unsuspecting public on this date.



The Coca-Cola Company reportedly wasn't amused at The Monkees' take on then-current Coke commercials (desert wanderer Micky Dolenz faces off against an uncooperative soda machine, as a jingle plays), and tried to get an injunction against the movie. When the movie reappeared on cable and home video in 1986, Columbia Pictures was owned by Coca-Cola, and the issue apparently forgotten.


November 6, 1975 -
The Neil Simon comedy, The Sunshine Boys, directed by Herb Ross, and starring Walter Matthau, George Burns, Richard Benjamin, Lee Meredith, F. Murray Abraham, Carol Arthur, Jennifer Lee, Rosetta LeNoire, Howard Hesseman, Ron Rifkin and Fritz Feld, was released on this date.



Jack Benny was signed for the role of Al Lewis. Ill health forced Benny to back out of the project, due to being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Benny recommended his friend George Burns to replace him. This was the first feature film for George Burns for 36 years. Burns had not appeared in a movie since Honolulu released in 1939.


November 6, 1981 -
One of Terry Gilliam's critically acclaimed features, Time Bandits, premiered on this date.



Ruth Gordon was cast as Mrs. Ogre but was injured before production. Katherine Helmond was originally slated to play the role in heavy make-up to look like her husband, but then decided it would be funnier if Mrs. Ogre was an ordinary person. Terry Gilliam agreed.


November 6, 1987 -
Richard Attenborough's biopix about South African civil rights leader Steven Biko, Cry Freedom, starring Denzel Washington, and Kevin Kline, premiered in the US on this date.



The film was shot in Zimbabwe, rather than South Africa, due to the political unrest and sensitivities that were present there at the time.


November 6, 1987 -
Twentieth Century Fox released the film version of Bret Easton Ellis' iconic 80s novel, Less Than Zero, starring Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, Robert Downey Jr., and James Spader, on this date.



Bret Easton Ellis hated the film initially. He admits that the film bears no resemblance to his novel but that it captured "a certain youth culture during that decade that no other movie caught", and felt that it was miscast with the exceptions of Robert Downey Jr. and James Spader.


November 6, 1990 -
Madonna released her her ninth #1 hit, Justify My Love, on this date. MTV immediately banned the video which immediately piqued interest in the song.



Lenny Kravitz helped Madonna write and produce this sultry song, where Madonna whispers most of the lyrics. It was the first single from her highly anticipated Immaculate Collection compilation album, and created plenty of sales-generating controversy for the singer, who was known for pushing the limits of sexual content.


November 6, 1996 -
Anthony Minghella's adaptation of the novel by Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche and Kristen Scott Thomas premieres in Los Angeles on this date.



Ralph Fiennes' burn make-up took five hours to apply every day. Fiennes insisted that the full body make-up be applied even for the scenes where only his head would be filmed.


November 6, 1998 -
Todd Haynes take on the early days of 70s glam rock in Britain, Velvet Goldmine, starring Ewan McGregor, Christian Bale, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Toni Collette, Eddie Izzard, and Alastair Cumming, went into limited release in the US on this date.



The film was originally supposed to feature some of David Bowie's music, hence the title, which was a Bowie song from the 1970s; however, when Bowie learned that the script for the film was partially based on the unauthorized biographies Stardust: The David Bowie Story written by Henry Edwards and Tony Zanetta and Backstage Passes written by Bowie's ex-wife Angie Bowie, he threatened the producers with a lawsuit. Bowie's songs were, therefore, not used, and the script was partially re-written to avoid unnecessary resemblance between Bowie and the Bowie-style character Brian Slade.


November 6, 2003 -
Richard Curtis' romantic comedy, Love Actually, starring Hugh Grant, Liam Neeson, Colin Firth, Laura Linney, Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Keira Knightley, Martine McCutcheon, Bill Nighy, and Rowan Atkinson premiered in the US on this date.



When casting the part of Sarah, writer and director Richard Curtis auditioned a great many British women, but kept saying, "I want someone like Laura Linney." The casting director eventually snapped and said, "Oh, for fuck's sake, get Laura Linney then." Linney then auditioned and got the part.


Another unimportant moment in history


Today in History (There will be a quiz at the end) -
November 6, 1860 -
US President Abraham Lincoln became the first Republican to be elected President on this date. He beat out three other candidates and won 40 percent of the popular vote.



By the time he was inaugurated in March of 1861, however, seven states had seceded from the Union and had elected Jefferson Davis as their president. The American Civil War began about a month later.


November 6, 1893 -
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the greatest Russian composer of all time, was having the worst month in his life. Rumors of his homosexuality had become so well known that a coterie of his former classmates got together and forced him to drink cholera tainted (arsenic) water. Shortly after meeting with his 'old friends', Tchaikovsky suffered from acute diarrhea and stomach pains.



Tchaikovsky refused to call a doctor, and tried to carry on with his day, taking cod liver oil in an attempt to ease his stomach. Within days he was much worse, and a doctor diagnosed him with cholera. The mortality rate for cholera at that time was more than 40%, but he seemed to get better, then he would get worse again with more pains and cramps. Eventually his kidneys failed, a priest was called, and he died on this date.

The take away lesson from this is: avoid reunions with 'old friends'.


On November 6, 1911, Maine became a dry state on this date.

How a state with 3500 miles of shoreline could dry out in a single day is beyond me, but I can't always expect to understand the historical information I gather. It may just have been a really low tide.


November 6, 1917 -

Hey kids here another episode of the Wacky Russian Revolution:



For some reason, Lenin and Trotsky take control of Petrograd to direct the October Revolution (even though it's November in most of the world.)


On November 6, 1923, the price of a loaf of bread in Berlin was reported to be about 140 billion German marks.

And yet when we think of fine baking, we tend to think of France -

clearly, we have done the Germans a disservice.


November 6, 1989 -
Today is the Feast of St. Katharine, the patron saint of the victims of long draw out campaign battles (see Pat Nixon, the Methodist saint.)

Kitty Dukakis, wife of Massachusetts Gov. Michael S. Dukakis, was hospitalized after ingesting rubbing alcohol on this date.


Place your pie orders.

(We should be back on track.)



And so it goes

The season unofficially begins in the city

Rockefeller Center is getting ready to get into the Christmas spirit when the 76 feet tall, 50 feet wide, 12 tons, and approximately 75-year-old Norway Spruce will be cut down this morning. The tree has been donated by Rebecca Decker (in memory of her husband who passed away in 2020) from West Edmeston, New York.

The tree will make the over 243-mile journey by flatbed truck to Manhattan and arrive on Saturday, November 7 where it will be erected at Rockefeller Center. Crews will start decorating the tree and wrapping more than 50,000 multi-colored, energy-efficient LED lights. Then it will be topped with a Swarovski star with 3 million crystals and 70 glass spikes, shining with an intensity of 106,000 lumens. This year’s official lighting ceremony will take take place on Wednesday, December 2nd and will be broadcast nationally as part of NBC’s Christmas at Rockefeller Center; the host and performers have yet to be announced.

As always, we here at ACME warn you to avoid the area at all cost.


November 5, 1932 -
Hollywood's love of Oriental Exoticism reached it full flower when MGM released the film The Mask Of Fu Manchu, starring Boris Karloff and Lewis Stone premiered on this date.



In filming the scene where Fu Manchu injects his mind control drug into Terry Granville's neck, Boris Karloff actually pushed the syringe into a baked potato, which was lying on the table next to Charles Starrett's head, out of camera range. However, each time Karloff pressed the plunger down, the potato would explode. This happened on several takes, until Karloff and Starrett couldn't do the scene without laughing. Director Charles Brabin finally gave up and dismissed the two actors for the day, saying, "Never mind! We'll shoot it tomorrow morning!"


November 5, 1938 -
A very funny (but very un PC) B and W Looney Tunes Cartoon, Porky in Egypt, directed by Bob Clampett, premiered on this date.



The camel steals the cartoon. Unfortunately, the camel never followed up his star turn in this one.


November 5, 1938 -
The Merrie Melodies short, You're an Education, directed by Frannk Tashlin was released on this date.



This was the last cartoon directed by Frank Tashlin in the 1930s. He left the studio in 1938 to become a gag writer at Walt Disney Productions. Following the 1941 Disney strike, he moved to Screen Gems as a director and producer before returning to Leon Schlesinger Productions in 1942


November 5, 1943 -
Robert Siodmak first feature for Universal Studios, Son of Dracula, from a script by his brother Curt and starring Lon Chaney, Jr., premiered on this date.



While filming, Louise Allbritton and co-star Robert Paige were constantly playing jokes on their cast mates. One day, Pat Moriarity and Paige were filming a scene where they flip open her character's coffin. They were astonished upon opening the lid to find Allbritton inside, completely naked.


November 5, 1953 -
Jean Negulesco romantic comedy, How to Marry a Millionaire, starring Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, Betty Grable, William Powell, David Wayne, Rory Calhoun, and Cameron Mitchell premiered on this date. The film was 20th Century Fox's first film to be shot in the new CinemaScope wide-screen sound process, although it was the second CinemaScope film released by Fox after the biblical epic film The Robe.



How to Marry a Millionaire helped make an auspicious introduction for Fox's CinemaScope process to audiences and usher in a new era of widescreen entertainment. The film went on to become the fourth highest grossing Hollywood film of 1953.


November 5, 1956 -
The Nat King Cole Show debuted on NBC-TV on this date. The Cole program was the first of its kind hosted by an African-American.



In the 1956 season, the show had a 15-minute running time. It was expanded to a 30-minute segment in 1957. The show originally aired without a sponsor, but NBC agreed to pay for initial production costs; it was assumed that once the show actually aired and advertisers were able to see its sophistication, a national sponsor would emerge.Unfortunately, none did. Cole famously said of the doomed series, "Madison Avenue is afraid of the dark."


November 5, 1964 -
An unsung minor masterpiece, Seance on a Wet Afternoon, premiered in the US on this date.



In an early draft of the screenplay, Billy and Myra were both male, with Director Bryan Forbes planning to cast Alec Guinness and Tom Courtenay as the homosexual couple. Courtenay agreed to play the role but Guinness, however, turned it down. Forbes decided then to completely re-write the screenplay.


November 5, 1965 -
The classic French New Wave film Pierrot le Fou, directed by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina, premiered in France on this date.



Despite continual claims that Godard shot the majority of his films without scripts or preparation, actress Anna Karina has subsequently claimed that they were in fact very carefully planned out to the smallest of details, with an almost obsessive level of perfectionism.


November 5, 1966 -
The Monkees' Last Train To Clarksville topped the pop-singles charts on this date.



This was written by Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, a songwriting team who came up with many songs for the Monkees. They also wrote songs for Chubby Checker and Jay and the Americans. Boyce and Hart wrote this as a protest to the Vietnam War. They had to keep this quiet in order to get it recorded, but it is about a guy who gets drafted and goes to fight in the war. The train is taking him to an army base, and he knows he may die in Vietnam. At the end of the song he states, "I don't know if I'm ever coming home."


November 5, 1967 –
A forgotten neo-noir film, The Incident, directed by Larry Peerce and starring Victor Arnold, Robert Bannard, Beau Bridges, Ruby Dee, Robert Fields, Jack Gilford, Mike Kellin, Ed McMahon, Gary Merrill, Donna Mills, Tony Musante, Brock Peters, Thelma Ritter, Martin Sheen, Jan Sterling, and Diana Van der Vlis, was released on this date.



The New York Transit Authority denied permission to film even background shots on its property, but the filmmakers shot them anyway. Cinematographer Gerald Hirschfeld and an assistant rode the subway with a hidden camera, and when its sound was noticed, they stopped and came back later to finish the job. Hirschfeld said in an interview that he filmed in black and white in order to get "the most realistic style of photography possible"; test shots were taken in muted color but they were deemed to distract from the desired somber effect.


November 5, 1974 -
The Eagles hit, Best of My Love, was released on this date. It did not reach #1 spot until March 1, 1975.



This song is often played at weddings and anywhere else one wants to demonstrate affection, but it's really a breakup song: "You see it your way, and I see it mine, and we both see it slipping away." No happy ending here, just a guy who gave it his best, but things didn't work out.


November 5, 1976 -
An early John Carpenter police drama Assault on Precinct 13, starring Austin Stoker ,Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, Tony Burton, Martin West, Charles Cyphers, and Nancy Kyes, was released on this date.



John Carpenter has acknowledged that Night of the Living Dead was an influence on the marauding street gang. Like George A. Romero's zombies, they're completely dehumanized. They hardly talk and almost seem supernatural in their ongoing resilience.


November 5, 1988 –
The Beach Boys' (except for Brian, whose therapist Eugene Landy wouldn't let him participate, but that's another story,) single, Kokomo goes to No. #1 on the Billboard charts, on this date.



Music producer Terry Melcher, son of Doris Day and intended target of the Manson family murders, wrote this song with the help of John Phillips, who was a former member of The Mamas And The Papas, along with Beach Boy Mike Love, and Scott McKenzie, who had a hit in 1967 with San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair).


November 5, 1993 -
James Ivory's masterful adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel, Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson, premiered on this date.



It was while shooting Mr. & Mrs. Bridge in Kansas City that Remak Ramsay, who was reading The Remains of the Day novel, while playing a part in the movie, gave the book to director James Ivory to read, thinking that its subject and setting might intrigue Ivory.


Another little known Monopoly card


Today in History:
On November 5, 1492, Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal that, in the interior of Cuba, there was a great deal of land "sowed with a sort of beans and a sort of grain they call Mahiz, which was well tasted, baked, dried, and made into flour."



Given how things worked out for them, the Native people should have kept maize to themselves.


November 5, 1605 -
Remember, remember the 5th of November



The Gunpowder Plot of 1605, or the Powder Treason, as it was known at the time, was a failed attempt by Guy Fawkes and a group of provincial English Catholics to kill King James I of England, his family, and most of the Protestant aristocracy in a single attack by blowing up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening on this date.



The conspirators had also planned to abduct the royal children, (who were surprisingly Protestant, as well) not present in Parliament, and incite a revolt in the Midlands. the conspirators were captured before the plot could take place. They were all drawn and quartered.



On November 5th each year, people in the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries and regions celebrate the failure of the plot on what is known as Guy Fawkes Night, Bonfire Night, Fireworks Night, Cracker Night or Plot Night by getting drunk and setting things on fire.


November 5, 1895 -
George B. Selden was a lawyer and inventor who was granted the first U.S. patent (Patent No. 549,160) for an automobile, which he invented in 1877.

The idea of a horseless carriage was in the air during George's youth, but its practicality was uncertain. In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden, a prominent Republican attorney, moved to Rochester, New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester before dropping out to enlist in the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, Union Army. This was not to the liking of his father who after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale. George did not do well at Yale in his law studies, preferring the technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific School, but did manage to finish his course of study and pass the New York bar in 1871 and joined his father's practice. He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, with whom he had four children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine.

Selden's father, Henry Selden, was chosen by Abraham Lincoln to be Vice President, but he turned it down (and in light of Lincoln's assassination, Henry Selden would have otherwise been the next American President).

He defended Susan B. Anthony in her 1873 trial for unlawfully voting as a woman (had she only voted as a honey badger, there would have been no problem.)

Who knew?


November 5, 1895 -
On that same day, the Prince of Wales, shortly to become King Edward VII and master of almost one-fifth of the land area of the planet, was roused from a nap after a long afternoon of whore mongering and a heavy lunch, remarks in a speech, 'We are all socialists nowadays'.

As anticipated, his mother Queen Victoria was not amused.


November 5, 1911 -
Roy Rogers, singing cowboy (Happy Trails, Roy Rogers Show), was born on this date.



He was born as Leonard Franklin Slye in Cincinnati where his father worked in a shoe factory. He died in 1998 at age 86.


November 5, 1971 -
Elvis Presley kicked off a 15-date North American tour at the Metropolitan Sports Center in Bloomington, MN, on this date. Announcer Al Dvorin uttered the well known phrase: "Elvis has left the building" at the end of the show.



He was asked to make the announcement in an effort to quiet the fans who continued to call for an encore.

So now you know


November 5, 2007 -
China's first lunar satellite, Chang'e 1, was launched on October 24, 2007, and successfully entered the Moon orbit on this date.



It orbited the Moon for more than one year as part of the first stage of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program.


With 90 days between the equinox on September 22 and the solstice on December 21, we are halfway through the relevant seasons



(Autumn or Fall in the northern hemisphere; Spring in the southern hemisphere) on this day.


While you are considering that, keep this in mind:

Make your plans, as you see fit.


And so it goes

Now what?

Shockingly enough, polls were right and there was a Blue Tsunami. Have a moment to celebrate - then get back to the job at hand!

It's National Easy Bake Oven Day. Established in 2017, the day commemorates the anniversary of the release of the iconic toy in 1963.



The original 1963 version was not a cheap toy mid you. In fact, it cost a hefty $15.95. That might not sound like a lot, but adjusting for inflation, it amounts to $127. Despite the price, the Easy-Bake Oven sold half a million units in its first year on the market, thanks largely to it's was featured at the 1964 World's Fair. Bunkies, think of all the fun you can have with two 100 watt bulbs.


November 4, 1939 -
The Looney Tunes short, Pied Piper Porky, directed by Bob Clampett and starring Porky Pig, was released on this date.



The title refers to the Pied Piper of Hamelin, a legend about the abduction of many children from the town of Hamelin, Germany and used in stories written by the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning.


November 4, 1939 -
The Merrie Melodies short, Fresh Fish, directed by Tex Avery was released on this date.



The opening pokes fun at Santa Anita, a popular Los Angeles adjacent racetrack and Hollywood hangout.


November 4, 1948 -
The controversial (for the time) film about life inside a mental institution, The Snake Pit, directed by Anatole Litvak, starring Olivia de Havilland, Mark Stevens, Leo Genn, Celeste Holm, Beulah Bondi, and Lee Patrick, premiered on this date.



Stephen King has said that watching this film on TV as a child deeply disturbed him and made him feel that he could suddenly go insane, directly contributing to his macabre interests and subsequently his writings.


November 4, 1960 -
The Daniel Mann’s adaptation of John O’Hara’s 1935 novel, Butterfield 8, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Laurence Harvey, and Eddie Fisher premiered on this date.



David Janssen was supposed to play the part of Steve Carpenter but Elizabeth Taylor demanded that the studio cast her new husband, Eddie Fisher, instead.


November 4, 1967 -
Motown released the Smokey Robinson and The Miracles hit, I Second That Emotion, on this date.



Smoky Robinson and Al Cleveland teamed up to write several more hits for the group, including Special Occasion, Yester Love, and Baby, Baby Don't Cry.


November 4, 1970 -
David Bowie, third studio album, The Man Who Sold the World, was released on this date in the US.



This album is one of Bowie's least known, but over the years many fans have come to appreciate it and a lot of bands have covered songs from it, including Lulu, Midge Ure, Nirvana, John (Cougar) Mellencamp, and Simple Minds, among others


November 4, 1972 -
Johnny Nash single I Can See Clearly Now hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts,on this date, becoming the first reggae tune to top the chart.



Nash wrote this song himself. He recorded it in London with members of The Average White Band, who in 1974 had a hit of their own with Pick Up The Pieces.


November 4, 1978 -
Bunkies, let the warm feelings wash over you, even though the skinny white boy is singing, - place one hand on your monitor and the other hand upon the afflicted area. He is channeling the healing powers of Rev. Al Green. Feel his power emanate and pulsate through your loins.



The Talking Heads released their version of the Al Green classic Take Me To The River, on this date. (Someone fetch me a cold compress - I need a moment to compose myself.)


November 4, 1981 –
The Fall Guy starring Lee Majors, Douglas Barr, and Heather Thomas, premiered on ABC, on this date.



Since Lee Majors started his acting career by hanging out with stuntmen, and occasionally working as one, he made sure real stuntmen got plenty of work on the show.


November 4, 1983 -
Paul Simon, sixth solo album, Hearts and Bones, was released on this date.



For the Hearts And Bones album, Paul Simon took a different approach to his songwriting. He explained in a 1990 interview with SongTalk magazine: "The language starts to get more interesting in Hearts and Bones. The imagery started to get a little interesting. What I was trying to learn to do was to be able to write vernacular speech and then intersperse it with enriched language. And then go back to vernacular. So the thing would go along smoothly and then some image would come out that was interesting and then it would go back to this very smooth, conversational thing. By the time I got to Graceland, I was trying to let that kind of enriched language flow naturally, so that you wouldn't really notice it as much. I think in Hearts and Bones you could feel it, that it was coming."


November 4, 2005 -
Walt Disney Pictures released Chicken Little, voiced by Zach Braff, Garry Marshall, Don Knotts, Patrick Stewart, Amy Sedaris, Joan Cusack, Wallace Shawn, Harry Shearer, Fred Willard, Catherine O'Hara, and Adam West, on this date. It was the second in-house Disney film completely created with computer animation, the first being Dinosaurs in 2000.



During the opening sequence, when the water tower ball crushes three cars, their horns sound off the M-O-U-S-E portion of The Mickey Mouse Club theme.


November 4, 2016 -
Netflix premiered the incredibly successful series about a young woman forced to take over a multinational business after the unexpected death of her beloved father, The Crown, starring, Claire Foy, Matt Smith, Vanessa Kirby, Victoria Hamilton, Jared Harris, John Lithgow and Eileen Atkins, on this date.



It is explained that the woman dressed as a nun, Princess Alice of Battenberg, is the mother of the Duke of Edinburgh. What is not explained is why she dressed that way: during the early 1930s, after going into exile and poverty with her family, she converted to Greek Orthodoxy, suffered a breakdown, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and was institutionalized in a sanatorium. After her release she was separated or estranged from most of her family for many years. During World War II she hid a Jewish family from the Nazis (and was eventually posthumously named one of the 'Righteous Among the Nations' for her actions), and after the war she founded and joined an order of Greek Orthodox nuns, the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary.


Another episode of ACME's Little Known Animal Facts.


Today in History:
November 4, 1847 –
Scottish physician, James Young Simpson, one of Queen Victoria's private physicians, discovers the anaesthetic properties of chloroform.



Chloroform is a colorless toxic chemical substance, which with an acrid, sickly sweet smell and taste, sends people off to sleep as they inhale. During an experiment with friends on this date, a Miss Petrie, Simpson's niece, tried chloroform. She fell asleep soon after inhaling it while singing the words, "I am an angel!"


November 4, 1869 -
The first issue of the scientific journal Nature was published on this date. The debut issue featured an article describing some recent work by Charles Darwin—and Darwin himself wrote in two subsequent issues.

The multidisciplinary British publication has also published important work on living primates, including that of Jane Goodall on chimpanzee tool use. The world’s most cited scientific journal, it is one of the few remaining academic sources that publishes original research across a wide range of scientific fields.


November 4, 1899 -
Sigmund Freud's book, Interpretation Of Dreams, in which he argued that understanding dreams can give an insight into our personality, was published on this date.



It was slow to take off, the first edition selling only 351 copies in its first six years. However, in time it became the book that gave Freud worldwide recognition.


November 4, 1916 -
America's premier journalist and favorite 'uncle' Walter Cronkite was born on this date.



The term ‘anchor’, a central and authoritative news presenter, was coined to describe his coverage of the 1952 presidential election. His spontaneous emotional reaction to the news of President Kennedy's death cemented his relationship with the US public. And his coverage of the Vietnam War was one of the leading reasons for President Johnson's decision not to seek re-election.


November 4, 1922 -
It was on this day that a British man named Howard Carter made one of the greatest archeological discoveries of all time by discovering the tomb of King Tutankhamen (Boris Karloff).



Three months later, Carter opened the sealed doorway and found they led to the burial chamber of the ancient Egyptian Boy King Tutankhamun.



Tut has been making his tour and putting a curse on those damn limeys who disturbed his eternal rest for nearly a century.


November 4, 1928 -
Arnold Rothstein, mobster and the man who fixed the 1919 World Series, was having a bit of bad luck. Rothstein had just finished playing a marathon three day game of poker with some 'business associates'.

Realizing that his losses totaled a staggering $320,000.00, Rothstein quit the game and refused to pay his debt. The Brain, as he was known by his associated suspected the game might not be on the up and up. His associates took umbrage at the accusation and 'arranged' to have Rothstein have an allergic reaction to some bullets at the Park Central Hotel in NYC on this date.

The gangster, a man of honor, refused to identify his killers on his deathbed. Had he only thought things might not be on the up and up playing cards with men named George "Hump" McManus and Titanic Thompson, things may have gone differently for him.


November 4, 1952 -
The US established the National Security Agency (NSA) on this date.



The NSA (is supposed to) serve as an intelligence agency of the US, gathering and analyzing foreign intelligence documentation and other forms of communication, usually involving encrypted information that requires decoding. (Just lift the receiver up off the phone and whisper, 'Happy Birthday', they'll hear you.)


November 4, 1960 -
After previously being a secretary, Jane Goodall was hired to study primates at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania. She observed on this date, two chimps pick up small twigs, strip off the leaves, and use them as tools to fish for termites in the ground for a snack.



This was the first time that an animal was observed to modify an object to create a tool to use for a specific purpose.


November 4, 1963 -
At a Beatles command performance (present: Queen Elizabeth,the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret), John Lennon utters the remark: "Will the people in the cheaper seats clap their hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."



If you look very closely behind the Queen Mother, I believe Princess Margaret flipped John off.


November 4, 1979 -
The US Embassy in Tehran was stormed by "students", holding 52 hostages for 444 days.



The incident propels Ted Koppel and his magnificent hair onto the national scene with a long series of repetitive Nightline: America Held Hostage specials.


November 4, 1995 -
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, 73 years old, was killed by a right-wing, 27 year old Israeli law student, Yigal Amir, at a Tel Aviv peace rally.



Shimon Peres assumed the post of acting Prime Minister.


November 4, 2008 -



Senator Barack Obama of Illinois was elected the 44th president of the United States, the first African American to hold that position, on this date.

And so it goes