POPnews (US) - August 15th

[In addition to one of the most accomplished inventors in history, the so-called 'Wizard of Menlo Park' was a master showman.]
1877 - Legend has it Thomas Edison made the first sound recording, of himself reading Mary Had A Little Lamb; then again, it may have been made on August 12th, or in December of that year. Despite keeping careful diaries, Edison was as notoriously cagey when it came to relating the facts surrounding his discoveries as he was ruthless in the elimination of his competitors.

1914 - Julian Carlton - the handyman of American architect Frank Lloyd Wright - set fire to the living quarters of Wright's Wisconsin home, Taliesin, then murdered seven people on the property with an axe - including Wright's lover Mamah Borthwick Cheney, her two children John and Martha, the foreman Thomas Brunker, a draftsman named Emil Brodelle, landscape gardener David Lindblom, and Ernest Weston, the son of Wright's carpenter William Weston. Two victims survived the spree - William Weston and another draftsman named Herb Fritz. While the elder Weston helped to put out the fire that almost completely consumed the residential wing of the house, Carlton hid in the unlit furnace. He would survive the fire but died in jail six weeks later; his wife Gertrude (hired as Wright's cook) also survived, having escaped the burning building through the basement. She later denied having any foreknowledge of her husband's murderous intent. Wright was spared because he was at work on the Midway Gardens project in Chicago (an innovative apartment building which was demolished in 1929).

1965 - The Beatles played to nearly 60,000 fans at New York City's Shea Stadium, marking the birth of stadium rock.

1977 - The Big Ear - a radio telescope operated by The Ohio State University as part of the SETI project - received a radio signal from deep space; the event was named the 'Wow! signal' for a notation made by a volunteer on the project.

1995 - Shannon Faulkner became the first female cadet matriculated at The Citadel military academy in South Carolina, but dropped out in less than a week due to the savagery of the misogyny she encountered there. Many pundits at the time had the nerve to be shocked that the US military seemed to be harbouring violent men with dangerous attitudes about women which were then hastily covered by the claim that their opposition to Faulkner's attendance was based on 'tradition'.
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Now Showing: Will Rogers and Wiley Post

In conducting a routine search for a video to include alongside the previous post - about the deaths of Will Rogers and Wiley Post, on this day in 1935 - I ran across this snippet of documentary about the pair, culminating in their fatal flight between Fairbanks and Point Barrow in Alaska.

Despite the cumulative effect of ancient technology, less than perfect archival techniques, and YouTube's puny bandwidth, I think this goes a long way towards putting the careers of both Rogers and Post into their proper perspective. Both men were giants of their day, and had they not died when they did I am certain they'd have been even more famous than they are today.
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Pop History Moment: The Final Flight of Wiley Post and Will Rogers

At the time of their deaths on this day in 1935, Wiley Post was as beloved for his aeronautical derring-do as his friend Will Rogers was for his insights into world affairs. As seen here, that's Rogers in the hat and tie, standing on the wing.

They died just outside Barrow, Alaska in an entirely preventable disaster, at the outset of a flight around the world. There are three monuments to the friends there; the airport in Barrow is named for them, and there are a pair of markers closer to the crash site, one of which they share with Alaska's victims of World War II.
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

The hardest working royal in the business, The Princess Royal today turns 60; often criticized for her brusque manner - which the more diplomatic amongst us* might refer to as 'no-nonsense' - Her Royal Highness has spent her entire life in the service of the Nation, the Commonwealth, and indeed the world through various charitable patronages, most notably Save The Children.

She even represented the United Kingdom at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, where she competed in an equestrian event riding the Queen's horse Goodwill. Her attendance of the Games sparked a minor controversy, however, when it was announced that she would be the only competitor who didn't have to submit to a sex test; then again, as the first royal to ever compete in an Olympic Games, and seeing as she'd spent every single day of her life in the public eye, she was in a unique position of scrutiny none of her fellow athletes could claim for themselves.

The Princess Royal was also the first member of the Royal Family to have been the subject of a kidnapping attempt, in March 1974; Her Royal Highness was instrumental in thwarting Ian Ball, her would-be captor, an event which drew headlines around the world.

Seemingly combining the slavish attention to duty of her mother with the facility for controversy of her father, the Princess Royal was first married (at Westminster Abbey, to Captain Mark Phillips) in November 1973 with all the pomp befitting the only daughter of the Queen. The marriage produced two children, son Peter and daughter Zara (herself an accomplished equestrian), and ended semi-amicably in 1992, following which Her Royal Highness quietly married Timothy Laurence. They reside at Gatcombe Park, which under her stewardship has developed into a centre for equestrian excellence.

The Princess Royal has had several notable brushes with the tabloid press... Her heavy-footededness behind the wheel has resulted in fines and the loss of points on her driving license. In 2002 she was convicted under the Dangerous Dogs Act 1991 for the anti-social behaviour of her bull terrier Dotty, who attacked two boys while the Princess and her husband were walking through Windsor Great Park; Dotty also killed one of the Queen's prized corgis, possibly Pharos, during the Royal Family's annual Christmas holiday at Sandringham.

Recent years, however, have seen several far more positive events; in December 2006 her daughter Zara was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the same title The Princess Royal herself earned in 1971, and in May 2008 she was the beaming mother of the groom when her son, Peter Phillips, married Candian-born Autumn Kelly at St George's Chapel, within the historic walls of Windsor Castle.

*In other words, brown-nosers.
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"Woodstock" by Joni Mitchell

In honour of Woodstock - the three day rock festival which opened at Max Yasgur's farm on this day in 1969 - here's Joni Mitchell, performing a latter-day version of her song Woodstock, which is widely considered the festival's theme; the festival itself, of course, is considered one of the defining moments of the Baby Boom generation.

The song first appeared on her 1970 album Ladies of the Canyon, and was later a big hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young after it was included on their 1970 album Déjà Vu*. Mitchell had been dating Graham Nash at the time, and heard about Woodstock from him; she didn't attend it herself - a decision she later regretted - having been told by her manager that an appearance on The Dick Cavett Show would be better for her career.

Joni Mitchell first performed Woodstock at the Big Sur Folk Festival in September 1969, a performance captured in the film Celebration at Big Sur; this performance is taken from the 2003 documentary Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind.

 *In fact, that whole sentence was a kind of deja vu...
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POPnews - August 15th

[Queen of Georgia in her own right from 1184 to 1213, Tamar
was later made a saint of the Georgian Orthodox Church.]

778 CE - The Battle of Roncevaux Pass occurred, during which the heroic Roland - foremost among the paladins of Charlemagne - was killed; the story of his demise was later chronicled in the epic poem Song of Roland, which became the favoured chanson de geste of medieval troubadours.

1040 - Scotland's King Duncan I was killed in battle by his cousin and closest rival Macbeth; in an interesting coincidence Macbeth also died on the same day in 1057, when he was himself killed at the Battle of Lumphanan by Malcolm III, one of Duncan's sons. As interesting as the actual story is, though, it wasn't interesting enough to stop that noted bullshit artist William Shakespeare from distorting the facts beyond all recognition for his play Macbeth.

1185 - Queen Tamar of Georgia consecrated the cave city of Vardzia.

1248 - The foundation stone of Cologne Cathedral - reputed to contain sacred relics of the Three Wise Men - was laid by Archbishop Konrad von Hochstaden; the impressive edifice was finished in August 1880, 632 years less one week later.

1261 - Michael VIII Palaeologus was crowned Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople alongside his infant son Andronikos II Palaiologos, having recovered the city from the Latin Empire earlier that day.

1461 - The Empire of Trebizond surrendered to the forces of Sultan Mehmet II, marking the real end of the Byzantine Empire; Emperor David, who had effected the handover, was exiled forthwith and later murdered.

1517 - Eight armed Portuguese vessels led by Fernão Pires de Andrade met officials of the Ming Dynasty at the Pearl River estuary, marking the first direct contact between Europeans and Chinese.

1519 - Panama City was founded by Pedro Arias de Ávila.

1534 - Saint Ignatius of Loyola and six classmates took their initial vows - in the crypt of Paris' Chapel of St. Denis - that would lead to the creation of the Society of Jesus in September 1540.

1537 - The city of Asunción, in Paraguay, was founded by Juan de Salazar de Epinosa.

1540 - Arequipa, today the second city of Peru, was founded by Garcí Manuel de Carbajal, an emissary of Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro.

1843 - Tivoli Gardens - one of the world's oldest extant (and still-intact) amusement parks - opened in Copenhagen; founded by Georg Carstensen, it had been granted a charter by King Christian VIII, who had the good sense to realize that a contented populace doesn't engage in rebellion.

1914 - The Panama Canal was officially opened - nearly two years ahead of schedule - with the passage through its locks of the ship Ancon.

1945 - The Empire of Japan - in the person of Emperor Hirohito - formally surrendered in accordance with the terms of the Potsdam Declaration, bringing the War in the Pacific to a close, and an end to World War II; the event was celebrated for years in Allied countries as V-J Day.

1948 - The Republic of Korea was established, south of the 38th Parallel north.

1961 - Cheered on by spectators from the West, Conrad Schumann successfully fled from East Germany while on duty at the corner of Ruppinerstraße and Bernauerstraße where he'd been guarding the construction of the Berlin Wall (which was then just a low fence topped with barbed wire).

1962 - James Joseph Dresnok defected to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, running across the Korean DMZ to do it; Dresnok still resides in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

1974 - Yuk Young-soo, the First Lady of Korea, was assassinated by Mun Se-gwang with a bullet intended for the President, Park Chung-hee.

1975 - During a military coup in Bangladesh Sheikh Mujibur Rehman was killed along with all of his family members, except Haseena Wajid, who later served as the country's Prime Minister.
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"Dentist!" by Steve Martin

Since the definitive video record of Steve Martin's only charted pop hit King Tut was on Saturday Night Live (and is therefore being zealously kept off of YouTube by Lorne Michaels' web-crawling minions) I've decided to go with my second choice of Steve Martin's best performances to fill this video slot; still, as these things go, this is a pretty sensational number to have to settle for.

Dentist! is just one of the many entertaining, Fifties-esque numbers in the 1986 musical Little Shop of Horrors; as funny as the song is, though, Martin's even funnier subsequent scene with Bill Murray is just showing off. In the film Martin plays a sadomasochistic dentist* named Orin Scrivello DDS, whose torment of his girlfriend Audrey (Ellen Greene) spurs Seymour (Rick Moranis) to try to kill him; in the end of course...

Well, I'd hate to ruin the ending for you by providing the spoiler in case you're one of the unlucky few who have yet to see the film, but suffice it to say, the phrase 'die laughing' is entirely apropo on several levels.

*Or is that a rhetorical tautology?
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Happy Birthday Steve Martin

If ever a guest host of Saturday Night Live was in danger of becoming an honorary cast member Steve Martin would be; he's hosted a record 15 times, tied with Alec Baldwin and three times more than John Goodman. Unlike his two rivals, though - who both entered the Five-Timers Club in 1994 - Martin passed that landmark during the show's third season, as long ago as 1978.

Yet for all his success as an actor and stand-up comedian, Martin considers himself a writer first, as evidenced by his recent work, including several high-profile pieces for The New Yorker and the novels Shopgirl (2001) and The Pleasure of My Company (2003).

(For the record, I have no idea who Wendell is; I just liked the photo, and thought the odd inscription added a touch of whimsy. Because if there's one thing this proceeding needs, it's more whimsy... ~ MSM)
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In Memoriam: Alice Ghostley

One of the most distinct faces (not to mention voices) in the history of television belonged to Alice Ghostley, a veteran character actress whose career spanned the first fifty years of the medium; from her early appearances on shows like Bewitched and Mayberry R.F.D. to the defining role of her career - that of Bernice Clifton on Designing Women - Ghostley was less an actor than a brand, and if one had a role which called for a slightly befuddled older lady with a tart tongue she was your go-to gal...

Naturally enough, Ghostley's talent was too large to remain confined to such a small screen; she won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play in 1965 for her role as Mavis Parodus Bryson in Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, and in 1978 replaced Dorothy Loudon as Miss Hannigan in the original Broadway run of Annie. Among her many movie roles was a memorable turn in Mike Nichols' 1967 film The Graduate, in which she appeared with Marion Lorne, the actress she was hired to replace in Bewitched following Lorne's death in May 1968. She was also in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - playing Stephanie Crawford, the fussy aunt of Dill Harris - and had a small but funny part as Mrs. Murdock (the shop teacher) in Grease. Ghostley even got the chance to accept an Academy Award - albeit on behalf of her friend Maggie Smith, who was awarded Oscar gold in 1970 for her performance of the title role in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Ghostley's reward for years of yeoman service on sitcoms - including Good Times, Maude, One Day at a Time, The Odd Couple, What's Happening!!, The Golden Girls, and Evening Shade among many others - was the coveted feature role on Designing Women, an opportunity rife with potential for hit-and-run wisecracking previously filled by Meshach Taylor's Anthony Bouvier . She took to it with her usual elan, earning herself an Emmy nomination in 1992.

Alice Ghostley - born on this day in 1923 - finally fulfilled the promise of her surname in September 2007, four years after the death of her husband of fifty years, Felice Orlandi.
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"Filthy/Gorgeous" by Scissor Sisters

Birthday wishes go out today to Ana Matronic, the female component of Scissor Sisters; here she's given more to do than usual, with amazing results. While the accompanying video doesn't clearly show whether or not she's filthy, it definitely does show how gorgeous she is!

Filthy/Gorgeous originally appeared on the band's eponymous debut album, released in 2004*; the track was the fourth and final single from the album, and released in January 2005. Two videos were made by pseudo-pornographer John Cameron Mitchell - a raunchy one and a tame one; thanks to the heroic quantities of porno I've watched, I can't tell which one this is. I suspect even his raunchy version would leave me as nonplussed as though I were watching a soap opera. Nevertheless, I enjoyed it for what it was, even though it bears a better resemblance to sci-fi than porno.

Alas, this version eliminates Ana Matronic's spoken monologue in the middle of the song, which has always been my favourite bit of it; try though I might, I've been unable to find a video with it in...

All of which leaves me wondering: Is there a plot to silence Ana Matronic?

*February 2nd in the UK, July 27th in the US...
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"A Good Heart" by Feargal Sharkey

Birthday wishes go out today to the man partially responsible for one of the more wonderful one-hit wonders of the Eighties, Feargal Sharkey.

Written by accomplished hit-maker Maria McKee, it was nonetheless Sharkey's version of A Good Heart which went to the top of several international pop charts, including Australia and The Netherlands as well as the UK; although McKee wrote the song about her relationship with Benmont Tench - keyboard player with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - like any good pop song its message is universally relatable. It probably helps that for the first few weeks it was in heavy rotation almost everyone thought it was being sung by a woman, anyway.

The track achieved its greatest notoriety when Sarah Ferguson said it was her favourite in an interview on the eve of her wedding to Prince Andrew; the fact that it disappeared from the radio almost overnight is entirely a coincidence.

A n y w a y... Try as he might, Sharkey's quaver was unable to make so much as a peep with his follow up, You Little Thief, which - get this! - was written by Benmont Tench in reply to Maria McKee's original salvo and is also, in my arrogant opinion, a much better song. To quote Bart Simpson: 'George Burns was right... Show business is a hideous bitch goddess.'
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POPnews - August 13th

[As this map shows, the Aztec city of Tenochtitlan was a marvel of
civil engineering; alas, it was built by ignorant pagans, and so
it had to go. Currently it - and Lake Texcoco, in which it was
built - now reside several layers beneath Mexico City.]
1521 - Hernan Cortes finally succeeded in capturing the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, having destroyed much of it in the process of a ten-week siege; the city would be rebuilt - albeit far less efficiently - along the lines of a Spanish city, and many of Mexico City's problems today (chief among them a copious and stable water supply) can be traced to this event.

1553 - Michael Servetus was arrested for heresy in Geneva at the instigation of John Calvin; although Servetus was many things - including one of the most learned men of science and medicine of his day - he hadn't yet learned that being smart was (and still is) a pretty good way to fall foul of religious authorities, whatever their denomination. Following a brief show trial, Servetus would be burned at the stake on October 27th (which I'm sure is what Jesus would have done).

1704 - During the War of the Spanish Succession, English and Austrian forces commanded by the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy were victorious over those of France and Bavaria led by Duc de Tallard, Ferdinand de Marsin, and Maximilian II Emanuel at the Battle of Blenheim. For his efforts, Marlborough was awarded the Park of Woodstock by Queen Anne and given £240,000 to build a house within it; to this day Blenheim Palace is the only palace in Britain not held in trust for the Nation by the Royal Family, and still serves as the seat of the Dukes of Marlborough.

1792 - France's King Louis XVI was formally arrested by the National Tribunal, declared an enemy of the people, and imprisoned at the Temple; he would soon be joined there by his queen Marie Antoinette, his heir (the erstwhile Louis XVII), his daughter Princess Marie-Thérèse, and his sister Madame Élisabeth.

1814 - The Convention of London - a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United Provinces - was signed by Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh and Hendrik Fagel in London.

1913 - Otto Witte may or may not have been crowned King of Albania; his training as an acrobat, which should have more than qualified him to rule, somehow didn't, although his megalomaniacal fantasies later made him something of a celebrity in Germany*.

*Who knew Germans could be so entertained by the megalomaniacal fantasies of a mad man? Go figure...

1918 - Opha Mae Johnson became the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps; more than 300 others followed her on that first day alone.

1920 - During the Polish-Soviet War the Battle of Warsaw began; it took the army of the Second Polish Republic - commanded by Józef Piłsudski, Tadeusz Rozwadowski, and Władysław Sikorski - twelve days to defeat the Red Army troops of Leon Trotsky, Mikhail Tukhachevski, and Semyon Budyonny.

1937 - The Battle of Shanghai - the first of the twenty-two major engagements fought between China's National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War - began.

1940 - The second phase of the Battle of Britain began, when Luftwaffe fighters bombed British coastal airfields as part of Unternehmen Adlerangriff, or Operation Eagle Strike.

1960 - The Central African Republic declared its independence from France.

1961 - Berliners awoke to find their city divided.

1968 - Alexandros Panagoulis attempted to assassinate the Greek dictator Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos in the town of Varkiza, south of Athens.

1973 - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1977 - At the so-called Battle of Lewisham protesters opposed to Britain's far-right National Front clashed with the neo-fascist group during an attempted march from New Cross to Lewisham in southeast London; despite employing their fancy new riot shields for the first time ever in the UK outside of Ulster - shields which would become a common enough sight in British streets over the next decade - 55 of the more than 3,000 members of the Metropolitan Police on hand that day were among the 111 injured, while more than 200 arrests were made from among the more than 5000 National Front supporters present and the 400 or so members of the Socialist Workers Party opposed to them taking their bigoted, ignorant hate-mongering to the streets.

1979 - The roof of the uncompleted Rosemont Horizon near Chicago collapsed, killing 5 workers and injuring 16.

1985 - Three-year-old Jamie Gavin became the youngest person ever to receive a heart-lung transplant, at London's Harefield Hospital.

1991 - The Prince of Wales resigned as patron of the Museum of Scotland all a-flap over architecture or some damn thing.

1996 - Belgian sex offender Marc Dutroux, his wife Michelle Martin, and Michel Lelièvre were arrested on suspicion of kidnapping 14-year-old Laetitia Delhez; all were eventually found guilty in June 2004, and sentenced to terms of life, 30, and 25 years, respectively.
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"Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits

Today's birthday wishes go out to Mark Knopfler, guitar god and lead singer of Dire Straits, who together almost single-handedly held back the simultaneous punk and New Wave onslaught on the record charts at the end of the 1970s...

Sultans of Swing was the first single from that band's eponymous* 1978 first album, Dire Straits, which began climbing the charts around the world early in 1979. The song features all of the hallmarks for which Dire Straits later became rightly famous, including a moody sound, literate lyrics, and of course the nimble fingers of one Mark Knopfler. His (and, indeed, their) ample abilities are on display here in their (and, indeed, his) performance from Wembley Stadium during Live Aid in July 1985.

*Not to mention redundant, much like this sentence.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of Cleopatra

On this day in 30 BCE the much-mythologized Cleopatra VII, Queen of Egypt, committed suicide following a series of military defeats during the Final War of the Roman Republic; these culminated with the Battle of Actium, following which her lover Mark Antony was also defeated by Octavian, who then invaded Egypt and became the first Roman Emperor for his trouble. Mark Antony beat her to the grave by a scant eleven days. Cleopatra took the extreme measure she did rather than being paraded through Rome in chains, which was the favoured means of pre-execution humiliation at the time; her fellow queen Boadicea did much the same thing, only without the same high-quality PR her Egyptian counterpart had.

It seems like ever since the moment she died, the greatest writers of their day (and the series of hacks who wrote the Bible besides) have fallen all over themselves describing her beauty, reign, and death; in fact, Cleopatra is one of a handful of historical figures for whom a pop culture cottage industry has been created.

Chief among her artistic champions is William Shakespeare, who fiddled with the facts so well he could have had a great career writing biopics in Hollywood; for instance, he's the one who first said that she died by pressing an asp to her breast. Prior to 1609's Antony and Cleopatra most chroniclers agree that the snake bit her on the arm. A close second - in terms of theatrical cachet, at least - is Caesar and Cleopatra, by George Bernard Shaw; like Shakespeare, Shaw's work was later adapted for the movies.

In addition to plays, numerous movies, operas, novels, poems, and paintings* have all extolled Cleopatra's supposedly extraordinary beauty; fittingly, she's also been portrayed in movies by some of the most beautiful actresses who've ever lived - women such as Theda Bara, Claudette Colbert, Vivien Leigh, Rhonda Fleming, Elizabeth Taylor, and Amanda Barrie - any of whom could have (and a number of whom actually did) cause great men to lose their minds over them. She was even played by both Ginger Grant and Lovey Howell in a single episode of the first season of Gilligan's Island, entitled Angel of the Island. Despite this, no contemporary descriptions of her appearance exist.

Still, living as she did at a time when few women exerted power, it's no wonder that we're still talking about her; accuracy aside, cultural depictions of Cleopatra have always been made to suit the political timbre of the times rather than from some slavish devotion to historical fact, and likely will be for a long time to come.

*Including the one shown above, by Reginald Arthur, painted in 1892.
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"Hazel" by Ronnie Dawson

Today's birthday wishes are also tinged with wishful thinking; rockabilly music legend Ronnie Dawson - born on this day in 1939 - died of throat cancer in 2003, having spent most of his life using it to help fill the world with music. How's that for irony?

Initially signed to Dick Clark's Swan Records, the so-called Blonde Bomber's career was almost ruined by the payola scandal in the 1950s; latterly he found a greater degree of fame in the UK, where considerable crossover between rockabilly and skiffle strengthened, rather than weakened, each genre. He was also a respected session musician, playing drums as well as guitar on such classic tunes as Hey! Baby by Bruce Channel and Hey Paula by Paul and Paula.

While Hazel was a Number One hit in Philadelphia, it was denied national exposure by coming out at just the wrong moment - namely when Dick Clark was forced to divest himself of all his music industry holdings aside from American Bandstand, leaving Dawson without a contract. Dawson later disowned the song, so strong was his lingering bitterness over the turns of events which had befallen him...
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POPnews - August 11th

[Despite a life lived with a zeal for dissipation, Babe Ruth was also the consummate athlete - which contradiction is as surely the source of his legend as his feats of prowess (whether on the field or the barstool) alone.]

3114 BCE - The Long Count calendar - used by several pre-Colombian Mesoamerican civilizations, notably the Mayans - began.

355 CE - Claudius Silvanus proclaimed himself Roman Emperor against Constantius II despite being accused of treason.

1711 - The first race meeting was held at Ascot; the first race run that day, with a purse of 100 guineas, was called 'Her Majesty's Plate'. In attendance, then as now, was the Queen; in this case, though, it was Queen Anne.

1755 - Charles Lawrence issued orders to remove the Acadians from Nova Scotia, beginning what we now know as the Great Upheaval.

1786 - Captain Francis Light established the British colony of Penang in Malaysia which, in that fine British tradition, he instantly renamed Prince of Wales Island.

1804 - Holy Roman Emperor Francis II assumed the title of the first Emperor of Austria.

1858 - The first ascent of the Eiger was made, by Christian Almer and Peter Bohren and Charles Barrington; the 3,970 m (13,025 ft) peak is one of the most famous in the Bernese Alps, and today features the Jungfraubahn railway, which runs along a tunnel inside the mountain and which terminates at Europe's highest railway station.

1918 - The Battle of Amiens - the opening operation of the Hundred Days Offensive that would bring about the end of World War I - ended.

1919 - The constitution of the Weimar Republic was adopted.

1929 - Babe Ruth became the first baseball player to hit 500 home runs in his career when he knocked one over the fence at League Park in Cleveland, Ohio.

1934 - Alcatraz opened as a federal prison; the island had previously been a military prison from the Civil War era forward, housing inmates as early as 1861.

1952 - Hussein was proclaimed King of Jordan.

1960 - Chad declared its independence from France.

1965 - Rioting began in Watts, a predominantly black neighbourhood in Los Angeles. The insurrection lasted 6 days in total, eventually claiming the lives of 34 people (28 of them black); the injured included 773 civilians, 90 LAPD officers, 136 firemen, 10 national guardsmen, and 23 persons from other governmental agencies. 118 of those injured were injured by firearms. In all 600 buildings were damaged or destroyed, and it took the involvement of the National Guard to bring the violence to an end.

^{Further reading...}

1970 - The spork was trademarked.

1971 - British Prime Minister Edward Heath captained his own 42-foot yacht Morning Cloud to victory in the Admiral's Cup; he'd previously won the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race in 1969, the year he purchased the craft.

1982 - Britain's Ronnie and Reggie Kray - notorious gangsters and twin brothers - were released from jail under massive security to attend their mother's funeral at Chingford, in the London borough of Waltham Forest.

1984 - South African runner Zola Budd sparked an international controversy when she appeared to trip American Mary Decker during the final of the 3,000-metre race at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

1999 - The so-called Salt Lake City Tornado - only the second tornado in the recorded history of Utah - tore through the downtown district of the city, killing one.
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Pop History Moment: The Queen Visits Ulster (1977)

[Hillsborough Castle is the official royal residence in Northern Ireland.]
Refusing to be dissuaded by threats of terrorist thuggery, the Queen was determined to visit Belfast and Coleraine during her Silver Jubilee tour; arriving on this day 1977 - her first visit to Northern Ireland since 1966 - it took as many as 35,000 auxiliary troops and police to protect her, making it the largest royal security operation to date.

While Her Majesty inspected an honour guard of the Ulster Defence Regiment, conducted an investiture, and attended a garden party for several thousand guests, the Duke of Edinburgh toured Belfast's legendary Harland and Wolff Shipyard on the first day of the two-day visit. Despite threats by the IRA to give the Queen 'a visit to remember' the goodwill tour - which began with a brief helicopter trip to Hillsborough Castle - went off without a hitch.

Her next visit to Ulster, however, wouldn't be until 1991...
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"Tshinanu" by Kashtin

Birthday wishes go out today to Florent Vollant*, one half of Canada's Innu blues-rock duo Kashtin (the other half being Claude McKenzie); although the band's name literally means 'tornado on the horizon' in the Innu-aimun language, it was chosen because it sounded like 'cashed in' - a reference to charges that they'd sold out, made mainly by jealous losers who had neither the ability nor the opportunity to do so themselves.

Though their career as a duo was short their influence has been mighty; formed on the Maliotenam reserve in northern Quebec prior to 1988, Vollant and McKenzie recorded their first album Kashtin together in 1989, a second entitled Innu in 1991, and a third Akua Tuta in 1994 before going their separate ways (although they have occasionally reunited to perform together). In that short span of years Kashtin toured the world, winning fans wherever they went.

Since the band's hiatus, Vollant has recorded two solo albums as well: Nipaiamianan in 1999, and Katak in 2003.

*In the video, he's the one with the mustache.
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In Memoriam: Norma Shearer

Born in Montreal on this day in 1902, young Norma left that fair city at the age of 16 when her mother, Mrs. Shearer - disgusted at the business reversals which had befallen Mr. Shearer and therefore all of them - took herself and her two daughters* and moved to New York to get into show business, leaving her son Douglas (eventually a Hollywood legend himself) behind with his father.

One of the first stars ever put under contract to MGM, Norma Shearer was signed by Irving Thalberg in 1924; she would later marry him, and together they would direct her career masterfully, taking her from 'girl next door' to 'good girl gone bad' to Queen of Hollywood until his own untimely death in September 1936.

Having made her last film in 1942, at the top of her career, Norma Shearer died in June 1983.

*The Shearer's other daughter was named Athole.
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Happy Birthday Justin Theroux

I could list Justin Theroux's film and television credits (which are extensive) here; I could also go into those causes he supports (which are good ones) here as well. I could even go so far as to attempt some fancy syntax about the actor's art or the beauty of a soul shining through, fooling myself into believing that I've pulled one over on you...

But let's face it. You all know why he's here. It's right there in that picture, as surely as it was in his guest appearance as one of Carrie Bradshaw's boyfriends (and Valerie Harper's son!) in a classic 1999 episode of Sex and the City entitled Shortcomings, or even in his combination star-turn cameo as a villainous DJ in the 2001 film Zoolander.

In my defense: if he wasn't talented or activist, he wouldn't be quite so hot. There's an awful lot of cute out there these days, and on its own it don't buy jack no more. Yes, I'm talking to you, Josh Hartnett...

Theroux looks to be joining what could be called his family business... His uncle is Paul Theroux, the esteemed travel writer whose novel The Mosquito Coast was later made into a film; one of the nephew's recent projects was the Ben Stiller vehicle Tropic Thunder, which screenplay Justin Theroux co-wrote, although there are no plans I can discover to turn it into a book.  He also wrote the screenplay to Iron Man 2; he was suggested for the job to director Jon Favreau by none other than its star Robert Downey, Jr..

Having played John Hancock in the HBO mini-series John Adams in 2008 and someone cleverly named Justin on NBC's sleeper hit sitcom Parks and Recreation, Theroux is scheduled to make a return to acting on the big screen with the film Your Highness, which is slated for release in April 2011.
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Happy Birthday Eric Bana

Equally skilled at comedy, drama, and action, Eric Bana is a very versatile* actor indeed...

Bana got his first break in 1993 courtesy of the sketch comedy show Full Frontal, which aired on Australia's Seven Network; after leaving that in 1996, he broke into movies with the biopic Chopper (2000) portraying Mark Brandon 'Chopper' Read. Despite a role in Black Hawk Down (2001), most people first heard of Bana when he played Bruce Banner in the Ang Lee directed film Hulk (2003).

Since then he has leant considerable muscle - acting and otherwise - to such films as Troy (2004), Munich (2005), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), and Star Trek (2009).

*Is it wrong that I had a little accident from describing Eric Bana as versatile? And if it was wrong, do I want to be right? ~ MSM
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POPnews - August 9th

[Such a douchebag was US President Richard Nixon that when he was finally driven from office, tainted by scandal - on this day in 1974 - he didn't even have the courtesy or good sense to look upset.]
48 BCE - During what was known as Caesar's Civil War the leader of the Roman Republic's Populares faction, Julius Caesar, decisively defeated Pompey and his Optimates faction at the Battle of Pharsalus - which had been conveniently located near Pharsalus, in central Greece - after which Pompey fled to Egypt.

378 CE - A large Roman army led by Emperor Valens was defeated by the Visigoths at the Battle of Adrianople; Valens was killed in battle on the day along with over half of his army, making the engagement a stunning victory for the Visigoth commanders Fritigern, Alatheus, and Saphrax in the ongoing Gothic War.

1048 - Pope Damasus II died in Rome, following a reign of only 23 days; he would be succeeded by Leo IX, who - say what you will about him - at least managed to hang on for five years.

1173 - Work began on the Tower of Pisa, which would take two centuries to complete; the amazing thing is that it was completed at all, seeing as it began to lean in 1178, following the completion of its third story.

1483 - The Sistine Chapel was opened in the Vatican; renowned for the quality of its decoration, the Sistine Chapel is also the site of the Papal conclave, at which every new Pope has been chosen since 1492.

1842 - The Webster-Ashburton Treaty was signed, establishing the US-Canada border east of the Rocky Mountains.

1877 - At the Battle of Big Hole a small band of Nez Percé Indians in Montana led by Chief Joseph and Chief Looking Glass clashed with the US Army commanded by John Gibbon and Oliver Otis Howard during the Nez Perce War, a smaller sub-war of the greater conflict called the Indian Wars.

1892 - Thomas Edison received US Patent 480,567 for a two-way telegraph.

1902 - Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were crowned in Westminster Abbey; their coronation, originally scheduled for June 26th, had to be postponed because of His Majesty's bout with appendicitis. The service would be the last major rite conducted by the aged Archbishop of Canterbury, Frederick Temple, who died just four months later.

1907 - Robert Baden-Powell's first Boy Scout encampment concluded at Brownsea Island in Dorset's Poole Harbour.

1930 - Betty Boop made her cartoon debut, in the Fleischer Studios's Talkartoon Dizzy Dishes, directed by Dave Fleischer and produced by Max Fleischer.

1936 - Jesse Owens won the fourth and final of his gold medals at the Games of the XI Olympiad in Berlin, making him the first American to win four medals at an Olympiad.

1942 - Mahatma Gandhi was arrested in Mumbai for his involvement in Indian independence, having a movement called Quit India; held for two years at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune, it was during this incarceration that his wife Kasturba died.

1945 - The Japanese city of Nagasaki was devastated by an atomic bomb.

1965 - Singapore seceded from Malaysia, thus gaining its independence.

1969 - Charles Manson and his followers murdered Sharon Tate (the wife of director Roman Polanski), coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Wojciech Frykowski, celebrity hairdresser Jay Sebring, and Steven Parent at 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles.

1974 - President Richard Nixon became the first US President to resign from office, due to his complicity in Watergate; his Vice-President, Gerald Ford, became President the same day.

1986 - Freddie Mercury played his final concert with Queen, at Knebworth.

1993 - Albert II was sworn is as Belgium's new king - having succeeded his father Baudouin I, who died on July 31st.
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"Numb" by U2

Birthday wishes go out today to The Edge*, for more than thirty years now a member of earnest stadium anthemizers U2... Despite the band's utterly Dublin-esque Irish cred The Edge was born at London's Barking Maternity Hospital to Welsh parents; he and his family moved to Ireland in 1962, when The Edge was just one year old (although he was then still too squishy to be The Edge, and so they called him David).

In addition to playing guitar for U2 - and thus being instrumental in imbuing the group with its distinctive sound, a clearly winning combination of soaring melodies and ringing chords - The Edge also plays keyboards and sings backing vocals. One time, though, when he performed lead vocals for the band is on the song Numb; taken from the band's 1993 album Zooropa, Numb was the album's lead single, and the song's video (directed by Kevin Godley of Godley & Creme fame) features him in all his scrummy goodness, being backed up (for a change) by Bono and Larry Mullen, Jr.. Oh yeah, and Adam Clayton's in there somewhere too, no doubt lurking behind the looped sample from the Leni Riefenstahl film Olympia which gives the tune its backbone.

*Or just 'Edge' - although I've made my feelings known in the past how much I love a name and/or title with a definite article in it...
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Happy Birthday Princess Beatrice

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I can scarcely believe it myself; the fifth lady in the Royal Family is 22 today! It seems like only yesterday I was sequestering myself indoors on a gorgeous summer's day alternately hunched over the radio or pacing my room, awaiting the news that she'd been born... In other words, my usual ritual when a royal birth is pending!

Having overcome her parents' divorce and dyslexia in the years since - all of which she had to do very much in the public eye - Princess Beatrice is poised to take on a role as a senior royal, unlike her shy younger sister Princess Eugenie, whose intentions toward her royal role have yet to be made clear. Much of the credit, it must be said, for her having turned out so well belongs with her parents - The Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York - whose divorce was probably among the most civil in British history, likely because they never once forgot that their primary responsibility having had children was being parents. It's enough to make one want to add a verse or two to that grand old nursery rhyme The Grand Old Duke of York...

At the time she was born much was made of how propitious was the birth of Princess Beatrice; having come into the world on the eighth day of the eighth month gave her at least as many advantages as being born royal - at least according to Chinese mythology, for whom the number eight is especially lucky; that she was also born in 1988 and the Year of the Dragon only confirmed it. The real confirmation, of course, has been the passage of years, and in watching her blossom from a rambunctious tot to a very regal yet very real young woman.
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"One Step Beyond" by Madness

Birthday wishes go out today to Chris Foreman (Chrissy Boy to his friends) guitarist and founding member - with Mike Barson and Lee Thompson, in 1976 - of second wave ska pioneers Madness.

One Step Beyond is the title track of the band's 1979 debut album, and was their first single; it was originally performed by ska musician Prince Buster as the b-side to his 1967 single Al Capone.

The video was primarily shot in the Hope and Anchor Pub, located in the London borough of Islington, which was at the time a prime venue in the pub rock movement; Chas Smash appears in the video, even though he was not then a member of the band, because he'd recorded the majority of the vocals in the song, including the intro (which sometimes was and sometimes wasn't included in radio play).
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