On this day in 1862 the U.S. Congress authorized the Medal of Honor.
In 1864 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln witnessed the battle where Union forces repelled Jubal Early’s army on the outskirts of Washington, DC.
In 1931 a major league baseball record for doubles was set as the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago Cubs combined for a total of 23.
In 1960 the first Etch-A-Sketch went on sale.
In 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter F. Mondale named U.S. Rep. Geraldine A. Ferraro of New York to be his running mate. She was the first female VP candidate to run on a major party ticket.
Since it’s Mr. Berle’s birthday, we’ll stick with him and his “Bosom Buddy” to start. The playback isn’t the best, but it’s old, so you have that.
It’s also the birthday of Oscar Hammerstein II.
And it’s Bill Cosby’s birthday too. So here’s some old stuff from 1966. I actually owned the album this was on. It used to crack me up. Ladies and gentleman, “The Chicken Heart That Ate Up New York City”.
On this day in 1798 the U.S. Marine Corps was formally re-established by “An Act for Establishing a Marine Corps” passed by Congress. The act also created the U.S. Marine Band. The Marines were first commissioned by the Continental Congress on November 10, 1775.
In 1804 the United States’ first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was killed by Vice President Aaron Burr in a duel. 😯
In 1914 Babe Ruth debuted in the major leagues with the Boston Red Sox.
In 1955 the U.S. Air Force Academy was dedicated in Colorado Springs, CO, at Lowry Air Base.
In 1977 the Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a White House ceremony.
In 1979 the abandoned U.S. space station Skylab returned to Earth. It burned up in the atmosphere and showered debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia.
In 1985 Nolan Ryan (Houston Astros) became the first major league pitcher to earn 4,000 strikeouts in a career.
And in 1998 U.S. Air Force Lt. Michael Blassie, a casualty of the Vietnam War, was laid to rest near his Missouri home. He had been positively identified from his remains that had been enshrined in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington, VA.
Today would be this guy’s birthday. I couldn’t find many clips from the movie, so Broadway it is.
It’s also Jeff Hanna from this band’s birthday.
And this next birthday boy is very good. Can’t say I’m much of a fan of the band and front man he usually plays with, but with Mr. King I like ’em just fine. 😉
On this day in 1778 Louis XVI declared war on England in support of the American Revolution.
In 1821 U.S. troops took possession of Florida. The territory was sold by Spain.
In 1890 Wyoming became the 44th state to join the United States.
In 1900 ‘His Master’s Voice’, the logo of the Victor Recording Company, and later, RCA Victor, was patented. It shows the dog Nipper, looking into the horn of a gramophone machine.
In 1913 the highest temperature ever recorded in the U.S. was 134 degrees in Death Valley, CA. 😯
In 1919 the Treaty of Versailles was hand delivered to the U.S. Senate by President Wilson.
In 1928 George Eastman first demonstrated color motion pictures.
In 1962 the Telstar Communications satellite was launched. The satellite relayed TV and telephone signals between Europe and the U.S.
And in 1984 Dwight ‘Doc’ Gooden, of the New York Mets, became the youngest player to appear in an All-Star Game as a pitcher. He was 19 years, 7 months, and 24 days old.
Not many birthday choices to choose from today, so it’s Random Selection Day. Seriously, I scrolled my Favorites list real fast and just picked wherever it stopped. You’re lucky though, it could have been a lot worse. 🙂
First up, Mr. Keaggy covers the Beatles.
Next up, The Refreshments/aka Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers.
On this day in 1608 the first French settlement at Quebec was established by Samuel de Champlain.
In 1776 Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to a crowd at Independence Square in Philadelphia.
In 1889 The Wall Street Journal was first published.
In 1889 John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain, in the last championship bare-knuckle fight. The fight lasted 75 rounds.
In 1969 the U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game “Twister.”
And in 1970 the San Francisco Giant’s Jim Ray Hart became the first National League player in 59 seasons to collect six runs batted (RBI) during a single inning.
“Cooking is like painting or writing a song. Just as there are only so many notes or colors, there are only so many flavors – it’s how you combine them that sets you apart.”
On this day in 1865 William Booth founded the Salvation Army in London.
In 1892 Andrew Beard was issued a patent for the rotary engine.
In 1935 President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law.
In 1946 the bikini bathing suit, created by Louis Reard, made its debut during a fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris.
In 1950 U.S. forces engaged the North Koreans for the first time at Osan, South Korea.
In 1975 Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title when he defeated Jimmy Connors.
And in 1989 former U.S. National Security Council aide Oliver North received a $150,000 fine and a suspended prison term for his part in the Iran-Contra affair. The convictions were later overturned.
First up with a birthday today,Robbie Robertston, of The Band.
Next up today with a birthday, Huey Lewis, with an appropriate Friday song. 🙂
And then this guy made his first commercial recording in Memphis, Tenn. on today’s date in 1954. He recorded these 2 songs. Took awhile, but I found ’em together. 😉
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
On this day in 1776 Richard Henry Lee’s resolution that the American colonies “are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States” was adopted by the Continental Congress.
In 1850 B.J. Lane patented the gas mask.
In 1881 Charles J. Guiteau fatally wounded President James A. Garfield in Washington, DC.
In 1937 American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart disappeared in the Central Pacific during an attempt to fly around the world at the equator.
In 1939 at Mount Rushmore, Theodore Roosevelt’s face was dedicated.
And in 1976 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty was not inherently cruel or unusual.
Yesterday I completely missed Canada Day. Again, my apologies to our Canadian friends. I know it’s a day late, but this one is for you folks, from one of my favorite Canadian singers. I saw her perform on my only trip ever to Toronto.
Today is Paul Williams’ birthday. No, not him, the other one.
And also Dave Parsons’ of this band. My wife and I went to a concert of theirs at Hershey Park years ago. They are one of the few bands that sound as good live as they do on the radio.Most of their music is on the loud side, so here they are covering a more mild song from the Stones.
Wandering Views 