Today in History

[GHT]

The 17th century saw a lot of blood letting:
On this January 30th in
1606 Sir Everard Digby, Thomas Winter, John Grant and Thomas Bates who, along with others, had tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in November 1605 were hanged, drawn and quartered for their part in the 'Gunpowder Plot'.

1649 The executioner Richard Brandon beheaded King Charles I at Whitehall.

1661 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, was exhumed and formally executed, after having been dead for two years! Ironically, it took place on the anniversary of the execution of King Charles I, the monarch who Cromwell himself had deposed 12 years previously.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1948, Ghandi was assassinated in New Delhi.

On this day in 1930, Gene Hackman was born. Many happy returns.

On this day in 1923, Sidney Bechet cut his first record.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Bechet's "New Orleans Feetwarmers" sessions should be part of every well-rounded musical education.

On this date in 1936, the new owners of the Boston Braves, coming off a miserable season that saw the club lose 115 out of 154 games, fall into receivership, and nearly have its ballpark turned into a dog-racing track, decided that the players weren't the problem, the name of the team was. So they turned to the Boston sporting press for suggestions for a new name -- and thus were born the Boston Bees. Bzz bzzz bzzz. And Braves Field was renamed "The Bee Hive." Bzz bzzz bzzz. You can imagine how this all went over with cynical Boston sports fans, who had plenty of other perfectly good names for the Braves. The team reclaimed its proper name in 1941.

 

[MissMittens]

Today in 1933, Paul Hindenburg, President of Germany, named Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany.

Subsequently, on this day in 1945, the Allied Forces hung out their washing on the Siegfried Line after overrunning it in Germany.

 

[3fingers]

Today in 1933, Paul Hindenburg, President of Germany, named Adolf Hitler as the Chancellor of Germany.

Subsequently, on this day in 1945, the Allied Forces hung out their washing on the Siegfried Line after overrunning it in Germany.

So much for the thousand year Reich.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1606, Guy Fawkes, on the day of his execution, having been sentenced to be hung, drawn & quartered for treason for the 'gunpowder plot'...jumped ? fell? from the ladder leading up to the noose & broke his neck, thus sparing him the agony that was to follow. He didn't escape all punishment though as he had been severely tortured before hand. His dead body was still quartered & the body parts distributed to the four corners of the kingdom (as was the custom) & displayed as a warning to any potential would be traitors.

On ths day in 1937, American composer & musician, Philip Glass, was born.

 

[MissMittens]

Today in 1865 the US House of Representatives approved a constitutional amendment abolishing slavery.

In 1943 on this day, what was left of the German 6th Army, surrendered to the Russians, ending what became known as the Battle for Stalingrad.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1961, four-year-old Ham the Chimp became the first hominid in space, riding a Mercury capsule atop a Redstone missile in a fifteen-minute suborbital flight from Cape Canaveral. Ham was terrified by the experience, and after recovery, when his handlers tried to force him back into the capsule seat for the benefit of news photographers, he ferociously resisted. He lived for the next seventeen years in what amounted to solitary confinement at the National Zoo in Washington before he was released to a zoo in North Carolina where he was allowed to associate with other chimps. He died there in 1983.

Two and a half months after Ham's flight, Soviet test pilot Yuri Gagarin became the second hominid in space.

 

[Peacoat]

In Vietnam in 1968, the Tet Offensive began as Viet Cong and North Vietnamese soldiers attacked multiple military and civilian locations throughout South Vietnam. That was 51 years ago, and I remember it as if it were yesterday.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 2003, the space shuttle Columbia, broke up entering the Earth's atmosphere, killing all 7 members of the crew.

On this date in 1887, Hollywood, was officially registered with the Los Angeles county court office.

On this date in 1968, Nixon announced his candidacy for the presidency.

On this day in 1790, Chief Justice John Jay, presided over the first session of the U.S. supreme court.

On this day in 1896, Puccini's opera, La Bohème, was premiered in Turin, Italy.

On this day in 1814, Lord Byron's poem, 'The Corsair' was published.

 

[MissMittens]

Today in 1587, Elizabeth I signed a death warrant for Mary, Queen of Scots.

Today in 1960, four Black students staged a sit-in at a segregated lunch counter in Greensboro, NC.

 

[Peacoat]

On this day in 1896, Puccini's opera, La Bohème, was premiered in Turin, Italy.

I've seen La Bohème several times. The ending is always the same: Everyone is poor and Mimi always dies. Puccini needs to rewrite the ending so that Mimi is cured of her consumption, the apartment is well heated and everyone becomes successful. That's probably too much to ask of an opera that is 126 years old, so I would settle for Mimi being cured.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1929, MGM released the first all-talking-all-singing-all-dancing musical picture, "The Broadway Melody," starring Bessie Love and Anita Page as a Duncan Sisters-like vaudeville act looking for their big break and Charles King as the sappy hoofer-songwriter who gets involved with them in a romantic triangle. The picture introduced such perennials as "You Were Meant For Me," "Wedding Of The Painted Doll," and, of course, "The Broadway Melody," and featured an elaborate Technicolor sequence which, except for a few feet, survives today only in black and white.

"Broadway Melody" was the first talkie to win a Best Picture Academy Award, and while it creaks to modern audiences, there is still magic present if you're willing to see it. Bessie Love, in particular, offers the first really fine performance of the talkie era -- no matter how hokey the material, she sells it for far more than it's worth.

It was the success of this picture that proved screen musicals could work -- and set off a long string of backstage imitations that extends down thru many decades to follow. It might seem cliched today, but this is the film that *started* those cliches. Well worth viewing to anyone with an interest in film history, Twenties show business, or a good tune well performed.

 

[MissMittens]

On this date in 1929, MGM released the first all-talking-all-singing-all-dancing musical picture, "The Broadway Melody," starring Bessie Love and Anita Page as a Duncan Sisters-like vaudeville act looking for their big break and Charles King as the sappy hoofer-songwriter who gets involved with them in a romantic triangle. The picture introduced such perennials as "You Were Meant For Me," "Wedding Of The Painted Doll," and, of course, "The Broadway Melody," and featured an elaborate Technicolor sequence which, except for a few feet, survives today only in black and white.

I had no idea it was even filmed in Technicolor. Did it play in theaters in color at all?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Just the "Painted Doll" number was in Technicolor -- the two color process -- and yes, the sequence was shown that way thruout the original release. The original negative was lost in a vault fire at MGM in 1967, and all that survived of the film for a long time was a reference print which included the "Painted Doll" sequence only in black and white (cheaper to print it that way). A couple years ago a very short fragment of the original color turned out -- only a few seconds running time -- but it does give enough information that the rest of the number could be computer colorized to match the original if the current owners of the film were inclined to do it. Here's a frame from that sequence -- you can see that salmon pink, which recorded very well in two-color, was the predominant hue, with greens, golds and browns well represented as well. Two-color Technicolor could not record blue or yellow, so you wouldn't see those colors, but you could get a sort of watery turquoise and a brownish-yellow if you manipulated stage lighting and costume design enough.

Many, many of that first wave of musicals from 1929-30 used Technicolor sequences, and some of them, starting with Warner Bros. "On With The Show!" in the summer of 1929, were shot entirely in the two-color Technicolor process. Here's almost a full reel of well-preserved two-color Technicolor from Warners' biggest hit of the period, "Gold Diggers of Broadway," which is mostly a lost film except for a few straggling bits and pieces.

The last major-studio feature to be released in the two-color Technicolor process was Warners' "Mystery Of The Wax Museum" in 1933.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1887, saw the first ' GroundHog Day' .... for some inexplicable reason, this fine example of American culture hasn't been exported.

On this day in 1979, Sid Vicious, died of a drug overdose, aged 21.

On this day in 1996, Gene Kelly, died of a stroke, aged 83. Difficult to be sad when watching Gene on the screen.

On this day in 2014, actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, died from mixed drug intoxication, aged 46.

On this day in 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad, ended when the last remaining fighting German soldiers surrended to the Red Army.

 

[LizzieMaine]

On this date in 1893, a beefy, florid-moustached employee of the Thomas A. Edison Company stepped in front of large black box full of whirring gears, stuffed a pinch of snuff up his nose, and sneezed.

Nearly a year went by until "Edison Kinetoscopic Record of a Sneeze" was released to a waiting public on January 7, 1894, no doubt reflecting the extensive post-production work required. A sensation in its day, the production was long considered a lost film until it resurfaced in the files of the Copyright Office in the 1940s, entrancing a whole new generation of cinephiles under its punchier reissue title "Fred Ott's Sneeze."

In the 1950s, French auteur Jean-Luc Godard, writing in "Sight and Sound," praised the unflinching, naked truth of Ott's performance, and experimental playwright/filmmaker Samuel Beckett cast his personal physician Milton K. Hirschberg, M.D. in a tribute film entitled "Cough." In more recent times, director Ridley Scott brought renewed attention to the original film thru his successful reaction-film franchise revolving around a rebooted, up-to-date take on "Fred Ott: Sneezer," widely credited as the series that restored Tom Cruise to his rightful place in the Hollywood firmament. Cruise's take on Ott as a troubled, drug-addicted man driven to desperate, violent actions by his constant paroxysmal stemutation has been hailed as one of rawest yet at the same time most sympathetic performances of our time.

But for film purists, no matter how impressive the moustache Cruise donned for the remake, and no matter how potent the state-of-the-art special effects, the bristling authenticity of the original film remains unsurpassed. Even Ott's own performance in his own followup film, "Fred Ott Holding A Bird" (1894) could not equal the force with which he first exploded onto the nation's screens. Here's to you, Frederick P. Ott (1860-1936), the first and, for many, still the greatest star in the motion picture heavens.

 

[Fading Fast]

Ayn Rand, Born: February 2, 1905

Regardless of your views on her philosophy, the 1949 movie "The Fountainhead," from her novel, is wonderful Golden era / Fedora Lounge time travel with incredible cars, clothes, architecture (Art Deco and Mid-Century on full display) and other period details.

 

[GHT]

Charles Hardin Holly, better known to his millions of fans as Buddy Holly , was killed in a plane crash on this day, 60 years ago.
Since his untimely death at just 22-years-old, there have been countless theories as to what really happened on February 3rd, 1959.

His death even inspired he iconic song, American Pie by Don McLean, who describes his passing as "the day the music died." Holly made the fateful decision to get on board the plane in the middle of the gruelling: "The Winter Dance Party," tour.

Travel time had not been factored into the punishing schedule and Holly wanted to grab some rest and wash his clothes before his next performance. But he was not alone on the plane.

He was sharing the flight with other juggernauts of the rock and roll hall of fame. Ritchie Valens was just 17 when he was killed in the fireball and DJ JP Richardson, known as The Big Bopper, was also a passenger. Chillingly, Valens shouldn't have even been on the plane and had flipped a coin with guitarist, Tommy Allsup, who was originally destined to travel on the flight. At the time he said: "It's the first thing I've ever won."

The plane carrying the superstars hit the ground at 170mph, with the right wing tip making contact first.
It cartwheeled across the field for 540 feet before slamming into a fence. The wreckage was discovered the following day when a second plane was sent to find out what had happened. In the days after the fatal crash, the official explanation was that it had been caused by pilot error.

But the conspiracy theories continue to this day. Tommy had to live with the fact that his life was another's death until he died, in January 2017, at the age of 85.

 

[Lean'n'mean]

On this day in 1989, John Cassavetes, died from cirrhosis of the liver, aged 59.

On this day in 1889, notorious outlaw, Belle Starr, was bushwacked & shot dead, she was just 2 days shy of her 41st birthday.