POPnews - August 28th

[Whether or not this photo was actually taken on this day in 1917 only
matters to the sort of people who should never ever use the Internet.]

475 CE - The Roman general Flavius Orestes forced Julius Nepos - de jure ruler of the Western Roman Empire courtesy of his uncle-in-law, Leo I, who was ruler of the Eastern Roman Empire - to flee his capital city, Ravenna, for Dalmatia, where he completed the remainder of his rule... Meanwhile his successor, Romulus Augustus, would allow Rome to fall to Odoacer on his watch in September of the following year.

489 CE - Theodoric, king of the Ostrogoths, defeated the army of Odoacer at the Battle of Isonzo, forcing his way into Italy.

1189 - The Crusaders began the Siege of Acre under Guy of Lusignan.

1565 - The city of St. Augustine, Florida, was founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.

1640 - During the Second Bishop's War King Charles I's English army under Lord Conway lost to a Scottish Covenanter force commanded by Alexander Leslie at the Battle of Newburn.

1789 - William Herschel discovered a new moon of Saturn (its sixth-largest) which was later named Enceladus by his son John Herschel in 1847; it's also known as Saturn II.

1845 - Scientific American magazine published its first issue.

1862 - During the American Civil War Union general John Pope engaged Robert E. Lee as the Second Battle of Bull Run - known in the South as the Second Battle of Manassas - began; the first battle was fought on the same ground in July 1861. Both were Confederate victories, although while the first one lasted a day the second one would stretch out over three.

1879 - Cetshwayo, the last King of the Zulus, was captured by British forces.

1884 - The first known photo of a tornado was taken; given the bulkiness of camera equipment at that time, as a photographer I consider this act to be as brave as it was reckless. History, however, does not record the name of the brave soul responsible for the ground-breaking shot, which was taken about 45 kilometers (22 miles) southwest of Howard, South Dakota.

1907 - United Parcel Service, better known as UPS (and not, apparently, pronounced 'oops') was founded as the American Messenger Service by James E. Casey in Seattle, Washington. Its first delivery? A box of opium, which was still legal in the United States at that time. The name UPS came later - in 1919, to be exact.

1913 - Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands opened the Peace Palace in The Hague.

1917 - Ten suffragists were arrested while picketing in front of the White House.

1924 - Georgian opposition forces, in the guise of the Committee for the Independence of Georgia, staged the August Uprising against the Soviet Union; naturally the movement was ruthlessly suppressed by Sergo Ordzhonikidze on orders from Joseph Stalin.

1953 - Nippon Television broadcast Japan's first television show, including its first TV advertisement.

1963 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his I Have a Dream speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

1964 - A race riot began in North Philadelphia; when it finally ended, after 3 days, although no one had died 341 people were injured, 774 people were arrested, and 225 stores were damaged - many so badly that they never re-opened.

1982 - The first Gay Games were held in San Francisco; the brainchild of Tom Waddell, the Games were later denied the opportunity to call themselves the Gay Olympics because the International Olympic Committee was then (and still is) homophobic.

1996 - The rancorous divorce of the Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales was made final.
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"The Beverly Hills Uplift Society" starring George Burns and Gracie Allen

Beginning in October 1950*, George Burns and Gracie Allen filled the living rooms of America with laughter (even though George would be the first to admit that most of the laughs were Gracie's alone); in all, Burns and Allen appeared in 291 episodes of this classic program, one of the first hits of the television era. In addition to Burns and Allen themselves, the show features the talents of Fred Clark and Bea Benaderet, as well as announcer Harry von Zell.

*Having begun on radio in February 1932.



Sponsored by Carnation Evaporated Milk, this episode was the second of the show's second season, first telecast in October 1951; I love the way the commercial is integrated right into the show, in much the same way product placement has now turned most movies into 90 minute advertisements. The relationship between commerce and entertainment, it seems, has come full circle. Less amusing is the lie that somehow evaporated milk is best for babies; then again, that was the Fifties for you. In those days, breasts were for entertaining men and not nourishing children...



For the life of me, I can't tell what the purpose of the Beverly Hills Uplift Society is, except to keep a lot of society matrons from turning to drink in despair over their own extreme comfort. Still, this episode is a pretty good indicator of the style of humour prevalent in those days, and shows birthday gal Gracie Allen - who died on this day in 1964 - at her dizzy, ditzy best.
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Remembering... Gracie Allen

It's often been said that the only proof necessary of the comic genius of George Burns was in his choice of wife and partner, Gracie Allen; Gracie's genius, of course, was much less subtle, evident in every word she spoke, every face she pulled, and indeed every life she touched.

She was also fortunate enough to be born in San Francisco, prior to that city's Great Earthquake in April 1906; although forced to live through the ensuing devastation as a child, in the fire that followed the quake her birth certificate was destroyed, a fate every actress in Hollywood undoubtedly would relish, even if it did mean having to live in a tent for a couple of years as a kid. Census information, however, indicates she was likely born in 1895.

Burns and Allen met in 1922, when both were performing in vaudeville. Initially Burns gave her the straight lines, setting him up for the jokes; when she ended up getting more laughs out of the setups than he did from the gags, he cannily switched their roles, and history was made. They married in 1926, and by February 1932 had their own radio show. The same year they began appearing together in movies, and for the next 30 years they were among the most popular and durable acts in show business, seamlessly making the transition to television in 1950.

Gracie even ran for President in 1940, conducting a whistlestop tour of the United States on board a train on behalf of the Surprise Party; typically her speeches consisted of such quips as "Everybody knows a woman is better than a man when it comes to introducing bills into the house," lines that lose all their charm when stripped of Allen's priceless style of delivery.

Gracie Allen died of a heart attack on this day in 1964, following a lengthy history of heart problems; those in the know agree that what really happened is through the years Gracie gave all her heart away, and at the end didn't have enough left over for herself...
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Happy Birthday Brian Peckford

Newfoundland has not traditionally been plagued with the best leadership; prior to Confederation in 1949, a series of Whitehall stooges led the nation down the garden path, all the while bankrupting a place so teeming with natural resources that it should never have ended up a have-not province in the first place. Even the man who brought the province into Canadian confederation Joey Smallwood spent most of his time as Premier building up his own legend; when called upon to conduct the province's business, he often did so to Newfoundland's detriment, such as the hot mess of a deal he negotiated with Quebec over Churchill Falls, the Valdmanis affair, and on and on...

Then in 1979, Brian Peckford became Premier. Not only did Peckford battle with Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau over provincial autonomy during the Constitution process, he also tilted at one of his own windbags - er, windMILLS - when he came to blows with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, a fellow Tory. Although he'd supported Mulroney's two pet projects, the Meech Lake Accord and NAFTA, Mulroney's grasping after the revenues of the Hibernia off-shore oil finally got Peckford's Irish up.

Since Peckford left office in 1989, Newfoundland has been gifted with three strong, visionary Premiers. Clyde Wells, who dared to stand up and say that if Quebec was a country, so was Newfoundland - especially since Newfoundland (unlike Quebec) had actually been a sovereign nation prior to becoming Canadian.

Brian Tobin came to the job having ordered, as Fisheries minister, a Coast Guard vessel to fire upon a Spanish trawler stealing fish from Newfoundland waters with gill nets. Having seized those nets he then took them to the United Nations to show the world who was really responsible for over-fishing in the North Atlantic. Currently in Newfoundland's corner is Danny Williams, whose position on Hibernia (not to mention Churchill Falls) is so combative, I'm sure the spinning Smallwood's doing in his grave could power Quebec all by itself. All of it, though, is descended from the leadership of Brian Peckford.
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"New World Man" by Rush

On their own it's inevitable Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart would have each had stellar careers in music; as teenagers, in Toronto's Willowdale neighbourhood in 1968, they formed Rush, and so made Canadian music history together instead!

Alex Lifeson is the only remaining member of Rush's original lineup; on the occasion of his birthday, please enjoy the sweetest riffs in my favourite song of theirs, New World Man from the 1982 album Signals. This live performance of the song is from Rush's 1984 tour in support of that year's album Grace Under Pressure. Their most pointedly anti-US song, New World Man is also their only US Top Forty hit; a similar feat would be achieved a little less than a decade later, when Paul Hyde's America is Sexy - from the album Turtle Island - topped the charts there in 1989 despite lyrics critical of American culture*.

Lifeson's career took on a more actorly tone in 2003, when he appeared in an episode of Trailer Park Boys named Closer to the Heart, after of one of Rush's bigger hits; he also appeared in Trailer Park Boys: The Movie.

*After all, it did have the words 'America' and 'sexy' in the title...
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In Memoriam: Lyndon Baines Johnson

The 36th President of the United States is not my favourite; from all I've read about him, Lyndon Baines Johnson was a better President in theory than in practice, ideally suited to the rough-and-tumble politicking of the Senate, but incapable of the kind of finesse demanded by the Oval Office.

While the Great Society reforms he planned and the War on Poverty he declared came to pass, perhaps no one but he would have had the nerve to twist as many arms as he must have had to do to make it so, which damaged his reputation almost as much as the bigotry he let himself in for by siding with the disadvantaged over those who had a vested interest in keeping them that way.

Following the assassination of JFK in Dallas in November 1963, Johnson was sworn in to succeed him, and won his own election handily the following year. However, his involvement in Vietnam - precipitated by the possibly spurious Gulf of Tonkin Incident - caused his popularity to plummet; he probably would have lost the 1968 election to Richard M. Nixon had he not opted out of the running in March 1968, so you have some idea not only how unpopular he was personally, but how unpopular his ambitious program of civil rights and social welfare reforms had made him with the Establishment as well.

Born on this day in 1908, Johnson died in January 1973, aged only 64; for years smoking, drinking, and stress had weakened his heart. Today his library and museum (which opened in Austin, Texas, in May 1971 with President Nixon in attendance) is the nation's most-visited, hosting over a quarter million visitors a year. While his birthday has been commemorated by Lyndon Baines Johnson Day in Texas since the year he died, LBJ's memory in general has been given some much-needed rehabilitation in recent years by Robert Caro, whose three-volume memoir of LBJ (a fourth is planned) is entitled The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
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FOCUS ON: Man Ray

Man Ray - born Emmanuel Radnitzky on this day in 1890 - pushed the boundaries of art like few before him. His painterly approach to photography is one of the chief reasons photography is considered to be art today; even those gallery owners who still insist on sneering at photography as a non-art* have to give Man Ray his due.

Moving to Paris as a young man, he fell in with both Surrealists and Dadaists, who were prominent in Paris in the years before World War II; he also fell in love with the most famous Muse of her day, Kiki de Montparnasse.

Yet Man Ray's contribution to photography isn't merely aesthetic, but also technical. He was one of the first to paint using an airbrush, for instance. He shot double and triple exposures, and also exhibited photography in three dimensions. The technique he was probably best known for is solarizing, and he also invented the rayograph, a photo made without a camera.

*Still a surprisingly high number.
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Pee-wee Herman Made Me Do It

While Pee-wee Herman famously recorded an entirely sombre Public Service Announcement warning kids about the dangers of crack in the 1980s, I think this clip functions as a warning against an even deadlier, more life-destroying foe - namely prop comedy. After all, crack can kill you, but what will you care - you'll be dead; prop comedy can kill your reputation, and not only that, you have to live with yourself afterwards.

Imagine being constantly being compared to Carrot Top. Nobody wants that. Just say no to prop comedy. Oh, and crack as well. If it helps you to remember, think of crack as the prop comedy of drugs.
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Happy Birthday Paul Reubens

Of all the cretinous villains in the world, few people have been less cretinous and villainous than Paul Reubens; while murderers and rapists run around free, while thugs have been known to occasionally seize the government and demonstrate contempt for both their own constitution and international law with impunity, while genocides and a hundred different forms of hate crime seemingly proliferate unchecked at home and around the world, police in Florida brought down the full force of their authority on a bored actor who, in July 1991, decided to rub one out at a Sarasota porno theatre.

Not a park or a playground, not a mall or a McDonald's - certainly not the men's room at the Minneapolis Airport - but the South Trail Adult Theatre screening of Nurse Nancy.

That the scandal was out of all proportion to the crime is almost a given, especially occurring when it did, just as the tabloid press in America was achieving an almost British intensity; yet the fact that Reubens was ostensibly a children's entertainer seems to have given his critics more than enough ammo to kill his greatest creation Pee-wee Herman.

In the end, it may have all been an extreme example of wish fulfillment; Reubens had grown tired of the character and was thinking of retiring him anyhow. Faced with the prospect of once more squeezing into the tiny suit and potentially becoming a grotesque parody of himself, Reubens found a way out - albeit an embarrassing and highly public one. Paul/Pee-wee's travails were extensively documented in an article for Rolling Stone magazine by Peter Wilkinson.

Reubens has since made numerous appearances in films and on television, beginning with a role as the Penguin's father in Batman Returns (1992); he's also turned up (often in disguise) as the 76th secretary on Murphy Brown, for instance, or as Archduke Gerhard Habsburg on 30 Rock, and so on. Currently, the scuttlebutt on Interweb is that Pee-wee's Playhouse: The Movie is in production and ready to make Pee-wee big again; in the meantime, you'll have to be satisfied with all of Pee-wee's offerings currently available on DVD including all five seasons of Pee-wee's Playhouse.
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Lady Antonia Fraser: Historian Extraordinaire

As a major history and social studies geek, I can barely imagine what my life would be like without the works of Lady Antonia Fraser...

Fraser's writing combines the rigourous research that is the hallmark of quality history with the kind of sensitivity and insight which is currently being applied to the relatively new discipline of 'social history', of which she is a pioneer. Hard-line old school historians may scoff, and refer to Fraser's work as 'revisionist', to which I would respond by waving a bottle of brandy at them until I got their attention and then toss it aside to watch them give chase. This is entirely in keeping with my contempt for ossified academics and their endless recycling of a petrified world-view; history, after all, is in a constant process of revision, so any criticism of so-called revisionist history is both egregious and jejeune*.

Beginning with Mary, Queen of Scots (1969) Fraser has alternated between histories and detective fiction ever since, writing from her quaint fourth-floor study in the Holland Park house she shared until recently with her husband, playwright Harold Pinter, who died in December 2008.

*Two words I first learned from reading - you guessed it! - the works of Lady Antonia Fraser.
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"Love Will Keep Us Together" by the Captain and Tennille

You lucky readers! Not only do you get to enjoy a performance of Love Will Keep Us Together today on Daryl Dragon (aka The Captain)'s birthday, you may even get to enjoy it again on May 8th, the birthday of Toni Tennille.

Unless that is, I decide to post that other Captain & Tennille classic Muskrat Love that day... I can tell already, the suspense is killing you!
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Pop History Moment: The Assassination of Mountbatten

A sunny day, a silver sea... And then the sound - so sharp it seemed to rend both the loveliness of the day and the Shadow V with equal callousness. Once the smoke had cleared off Mullaghmore - on this day in 1979 - three were dead and four were seriously wounded; a day later and the numbers had reversed. Thomas McMahon and 50 pounds of IRA mortar had done their worst.

In the end, her cousin Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma - 'Dickie' to his friends - was the closest Ireland's homegrown terrorists could get to the Queen; mourned as the father he'd never had by both her husband the Duke of Edinburgh and her son and heir the Prince of Wales the Royal Family, upper lips stiff as sailcloth, kept its course.

Also killed in the blast was a teenaged boat boy named Paul Maxwell, as well as one of Mountbatten's twin grandsons, Nicholas Knatchbull, and the Dowager Baroness Brabourne - Mountbatten's daughter's elderly mother-in-law, who died the following day. At the same time it was assassinating Mountbatten the IRA was carrying out what has come to be known as the Warrenpoint Ambush, during which eighteen British soldiers from the Parachute Regiment were killed.

England may have lost one of her most decorated statesmen that day, but she also gained a legend - a knight, fallen on the field of battle, one of the first to occur not at some distant remove of history but in an entirely modern context; that he had fallen at sea served only to make the tale more quintessentially English. A memorial service for Mountbatten - held at Dublin's St. Patrick's Cathedral - was attended by Ireland's President, Patrick Hillery, and Taoiseach, Jack Lynch; his state funeral, meanwhile, was held at Westminster Abbey, and he was later interred at Romsey Abbey.
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"Hey Jude" by The Beatles

Hey Jude is by far the most famous song ever released on this date, and it was The Beatles' biggest hit as well, at least according to Wikipedia*; Paul McCartney wrote it to soothe Julian Lennon, whose father John and mother Cynthia Powell were divorcing owing to John's affair with Yoko Ono.

At more than seven minutes in length, Hey Jude is also the longest number one single in history; it spent a total of 16 weeks on the UK charts in 1968, but was removed from the top spot after two weeks by Mary Hopkin's Those Were the Days, which had been produced by Paul McCartney.

*Meaning that instead of being released on August 26th it was probably released on April 16th, since the contributors to that unique website seem to struggle with such basic rudiments as the date; but I bitterly digress... I was just taking a break from struggling through Wackypedia trying to confirm dates for tomorrow's POPnews.
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In Memoriam: Christopher Isherwood

Every writer writes for some posterity or other, yet few posterities have been as poignant as Christopher Isherwood's...

Berlin in the 1920s was as unique as was the eventual method of its destruction typical. In the capital of the nascent Weimar Republic there existed a sexual liberalism not to be rivalled for half a century; it was there, by some quirk of culture or circumstance - and more than thirty years before Stonewall - arose the first modern gay community.

It was to be short-lived.

What 1930s Berlin didn't manage to incarcerate, torture, or kill from the years of its decadent glory 1940s Berlin saw reduced to rubble. A hundred thousand or more gay men had been arrested in Germany from the rise of Hitler to the end of the Second World War, and as many as 15,000 of them died in prison, often killed for sport. Some of them may have been men with whom Isherwood shared intimate moments; hopefully those memories provided them some solace when it was needed most.

Today a plaque marks the house on Nollendorfstraße where Isherwood once lived, and where some of his assignations must have taken place; exquisite phantoms all now, given blood and breath, sinew and skin, by the words and in the works of one who survived it all - Christopher Isherwood, who was born on this day in 1904.
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Gratuitous Brunette: Jon Hensley

The minute Jon Hensley first appeared as bad boy stable hand Holden Snyder on As the World Turns in 1985 I was riveted to the show; that first summer, as Holden wooed rich girl Lily Walsh (Martha Byrne) with a deadly combination of teenage brooding and pyroclastic hotness, there was very little could budge me from in front of the TV between 1 and 2 in the afternoon, just in case a glimpse of his twink pelt resulted - which it often did!

Born on this day in 1965, Hensley remains on As The World Turns as DILF Holden Snyder.
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"Special" by Garbage

Edinburgh's Shirley Manson - born on this day in 1966 - turned a moribund band with an unfortunate moniker from Wisconsin into a bonafide hit-making machine; after rewriting the lyrics to their existing songs, her debut album with the group went on to sell five million copies and spawned four Top Ten hits.

Special was the third single from the band's second album Version 2.0, released in 1998; the sci-fi themed video was directed by Dawn Shadforth.
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Happy Birthday Your Royal Highness

The Duchy of Gloucester originated in medieval times; until recently, the most famous Duke of Gloucester of them all was probably number three, a man better known to history as Richard III.

Alas, the first six Dukes weren't terribly prolific; only one of them - number five, younger brother of George III - even managed to pass his title on, although in 1834 the title lapsed to the Crown for the fifth time since it was first conferred upon Thomas of Woodstock, the thirteenth child of King Edward III, in 1397.

Only after George V bestowed the title upon his son Prince Henry - the present Duke's father - in 1928 did it manage to survive; not only did the title pass from father to son in 1974, His Royal Highness has both a son and a grandson who stand to inherit in their turn. Interestingly*, neither the Earl of Ulster (the son) or Baron Culloden (the grandson) are royal; this means that the next holder of the title will be the first non-royal Duke of Gloucester ever. However, should the fledgling dynasty crumble the title will become extinct, and revert back to the Crown until such time as it's given another go.

His Royal Highness never expected to become Duke; six weeks after he married Brigitte van Deurs - a Dane - in 1972, his brother was killed in an air crash near Wolverhampton. Despite the personal turmoil this tragedy must have caused, the Duke seems to have taken it all in his stride.

Today the Duke and Duchess travel the UK extensively on behalf of their cousin The Queen, in support of various his-and-hers charitable causes, chiefly architecture and conservation (his) and medicine, education, and social welfare (hers).

*Or not, depending upon what you're into.
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POPnews - August 26th

[Michelangelo's Pietà balances classical ideals with naturalism;
it currently resides at St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City.]

55 BCE - Julius Caesar invaded Britain.

1071 - At the Battle of Manzikert the Great Seljuk Sultanate under Alp Arslan defeated a Byzantine army commanded by Romanos IV, Nikephoros Bryennios, Theodore Alyates, and Andronikos Doukas at Manzikert - an engagement which resulted in the capture and benign eight-day imprisonment of the Byzantine Emperor, who was later released following the signing of a treaty and the payment of a hefty ransom.

1278 - Ladislaus IV of Hungary and Rudolph I of Germany defeated Premysl Ottokar II of Bohemia in the Battle of Marchfield near the Moravian town of Dürnkrut, a battle which would have a profound effect on the geopolitics of Central Europe for centuries by allowing for the rise of the Habsburg Dynasty.

1346 - During the Hundred Years' War, the military supremacy of the English longbow over the French combination of crossbow and armoured knights was established at the Battle of Crécy.

1498 - Michaelangelo was commissioned by Jean de Billheres, Cardinal of Santa Sabina, to create the La Pietà for his crypt in the Chapel of Santa Petronilla; it was later moved to its present location during the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica. The sculpture is considered among the world's foremost works of art, and is the only one of his works Michaelangelo ever signed.

1748 - The first Lutheran denomination in North America - the Pennsylvania Ministerium - was founded in Philadelphia.

1768 - Captain James Cook set sail on his First Voyage from Plymouth, England, on board HM Bark Endeavour; the mission's stated purpose was to observe the transit of Venus from Cape Horn, and then continue on, charting the Southern Hemisphere.

1778 – The first recorded ascent of Triglav, the highest mountain in Slovenia, was undertaken by Luka Korošec, Matija Kos, Štefan Rožič, and Lovrenc Willomitzer at the behest of Baron Sigismund Zois.

1883 - Mount Krakatoa entered the final phase of its cataclysmic eruption, killing more than 36,000 people.

1914 - The German colony of Togoland - which had been invaded by French and British forces on August 7th, during World War I - was forced to surrender; the puny German garrison (a commander and deputy commander, 10 German sergeants, 1 native sergeant and 660 Togolese policemen); meanwhile, half a world away, the British Expeditionary Force at the Battle of Le Cateau on August 26, 1914, during its withdrawal from the Battle of Mons.

1920 - The 19th amendment to the US Constitution took effect, giving women the right to vote.

1939 - The first Major League Baseball game was telecast, a doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and the Brooklyn Dodgers at Ebbets Field.

1962 - Former Romper Room Lady and mother of four Sherri Finkbine returned home to Phoenix having undergone an abortion in Sweden which was denied to her in Arizona. Finkbine had been taking Thalidomide, which at the time was prescribed for morning sickness; during the early stages of her pregnancy it came to light that the medicine had profound physical side-effects for the fetus. In Finkbine's case, the baby girl would have been born without arms and only one leg and may in fact have not been born at all. Following her high-profile abortion, Finkbine went on to have a healthy fifth child. The incident became a made-for-TV movie in 1992, A Private Matter, with Sissy Spacek in the leading role.

1968 - The most tumultuous Democratic National Convention ever opened in Chicago, following the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. in April and the front-runner Senator Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) in June. The candidate chosen, Hubert Humphrey, did not excite the American electorate any more than his running mate Edmund Muskie; they were later massively defeated by Richard M. Nixon.

1972 - The Games of the XX Olympiad opened in Munich.

1977 - The Charter of the French Language was adopted by the National Assembly of Quebec.

1978 - Albino Luciani was elected Pope John Paul I at a papal conclave held, as is traditional, in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel.

1980 - John Birges planted a bomb at Harvey's Resort Hotel in Stateline, Nevada; although the subsequent explosion nearly destroyed the hotel, there were no casualties.

2003 - The final report on the Space Shuttle Columbia explosion was released by NASA; according to official findings, it crashed and burned.
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"Shuffle Off To Buffalo" featuring Ruby Keeler

One of Canada's earliest exports to the dream factories of Southern California was Ruby Keeler - born on this day in 1909; to call her the pride of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, is to discount her popularity in the rest of the country - and indeed the world. Admittedly, Keeler's family moved to New York City when she was three, giving her a tenuous Canadian connection at best, but that's good enough for generations of this country's pundits to claim her as our own.

Here Keeler is seen as the bride in this clip from the sublime early musical comedy, 42nd Street (1933)*, which lit up movie screens just as the Great Depression was darkening many a doorway; choreographed by Busby Berkeley, the number also features the cynical comedy stylings of Ginger Rogers (eating an apple) and Una Merkel (with the banana), performing in the show-within-a-show.

*Receiving probably the world's worst pep talk by the show's director Julian Marsh (Warner Baxter) which is nonetheless one of the most frequently quoted passages from the movie...
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Remembering... Truman Capote

'Happiness leaves such slender records; it is the dark days [that] are so voluminously documented.' So wrote Truman Capote amongst the notes he made for his unfinished and indeed unfinishable magnum opus, Answered Prayers. It's a telling statement, shining light into the darkest days of his life, which came as it was ending; from out of all of life's lessons, one can choose to heed the good or the bad - Capote chose the bad, and so followed a pill-strewn path beside a river of booze to an early grave...

To such a reckless sybarite as Capote, talent was a hindrance, one he overcame with bitterness and apathy; for all that his talent had given him, in the end he chose to return the favour by giving it nothing back in return, at which point it dwindled away till it was gone.

Sensing the end of his life was near, and bullied into the will to live by his well-meaning friends, Capote made his last journey - to California, to visit Joanne Carson - only a few days before he died. It was on this day in 1984 she came to wake him; finding him physically listless she sat with him, whereupon he talked for hours as he drifted into unconsciousness, at which point he died. Although the coroner could find 'no clear mechanism of death', those with poetry in their soul will know that, although he'd once lived with a fervour startling to onlookers, in the end, Truman Capote had simply lost the will to live.

However those who knew him chose to remember him - whether as a bitchy viper or an oddity or an artist of towering talent (and he was indeed all of these and more besides) - the finest memorial he received was Gerald Clarke's detailed, warts-and-all biography, published in 1988.
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Pop History Moment: The Death of The Duke of Kent

As mysteries go, the one surrounding the death of The Duke of Kent - fourth son of England's George V and Queen Mary and therefore uncle to the current Queen - on this day in 1942 is as impenetrable as the fogs which occasionally swirl around the Scottish coastline where the Short Sunderland in which he was travelling en route to Iceland crashed.

In lieu of an official explanation for what His Royal Highness was doing there, all we who dabble in history have to go on are rumour and innuendo; in the case of The Duke of Kent, fortunately, the rumour and innuendo are as thick and juicy as porterhouse steak. So let's tuck in, shall we?

There are those who maintain the Duke was some sort of spy, and seeing as it was wartime and he was a military officer, his death in the line of duty was an effective piece of propaganda to show that the Royal Family suffered from the effects of World War II not unlike many others. That the plane may have been shot down because it was thought to contain Nazi diplomat and Hitler's poodle Rudolf Hess is another theory that, when floated, stays aloft far more efficiently than the plane ever did.

The Prince, of course, was something of a scandal within the Royal Family, well-known in aristocratic circles for liking a bit of cock as well as a bit of coke; certainly, the sympathy for his widow, the sublimely elegant Princess Marina, bears out the image of the long-suffering wife, which she managed to string out into long-suffering widowhood until her own death in August 1968, two days after the 26th anniversary of her husband's untimely demise.
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Tim Burton: A Select Filmography

Why is it whenever I see a picture of Tim Burton - born on this day in 1958 - I hear theremin music? Seriously, this guy makes my little goth heart flutter - and since he's shacked up with Helena Bonham Carter, the Queen of the Goths herself - even more so. Burton's last cinematic offerings were 2009's animated 9 and the much-anticipated Alice in Wonderland (co-starring Johnny Depp) which debuted in Spring 2010.  Next up is Burton's own take on the eerie 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows...

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007)
Corpse Bride (2005)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)
Sleepy Hollow (1999)
Mars Attacks!! (1996)
Ed Wood (1994)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Batman Returns (1992)
Edward Scissorhands (1990)
Batman (1989)
Beetlejuice (1988)
Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985)
Frankenweenie (1984)
Vincent (1982)

(What kind of birthday does one wish the King of the Goths, anyway? Surely not a happy one...)
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In Memoriam: Althea Gibson

Not content to break the colour barrier in women's singles tennis, Althea Gibson - who was born on this day in 1925 - later teamed up with Angela Buxton (who is Jewish) and kicked some serious bigot butt in doubles as well.

Over the course of her career, Gibson won five Grand Slam singles titles, including Wimbledon in 1957 and again in 1958, and 11 doubles, again including Wimbledon three years running (1956-8) paired with Buxton.

Proof that on centre court, the only thing that need be all-white is the uniform.
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The Serious Business of the Funny Pages

For nearly 30 years, from 1948 to 1975, Walt Kelly's Pogo was one of the smartest strips in the funnies...

Laden with trenchant, often political, satire and featuring a cast estimated at over 300 characters, Kelly never shied away from the hot stories of the day like his more anodyne brethren.

In his most memorable battle Kelly took on Senator Joseph McCarthy at the height of his reign of terror as the chair of the House Un-American Activities Committee; he also parodied Kruschev, Castro, Nixon, and Hoover (as in J. Edgar).

In the strip shown at right (prepared for Earth Day in 1971) Pogo and his friend Porkypine meet the problem of litter and environmental degradation head-on, and pull no punches.

Walt Kelly - who died in October 1973 - was born on this day in 1913.
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"I Was Made For Lovin' You" by KISS

From 1979, one of the biggest hits of what has been a very big career for KISS; nearly half a lifetime ago now for lead singer and bassist Gene Simmons, who today turns 61. As big as the band was, they might have been even bigger if only they'd found a way to bring a little theatricality to their act...

I Was Made For Lovin' You first appeared on their album Dynasty, adding a distinctly disco flavour to the band's usual hard rock sound, in keeping with the times; while Paul Stanley handles rhythm guitar and vocal duties (and Ace Frehley lead guitar, with Peter Criss on drums, as usual) Simmons lays down an infectious - some would say contagious - bass riff.
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Ivan the Big Pushy Jerk Just Doesn't Scan

Part of the problem may be in the translation... Not that Ivan Grozny's not a perfectly good name (and, given recent events in the Chechen capital, Grozny is an obvious synonym for terrible). Just that Ivan the Scary or Ivan the Asshat doesn't quite have that kingly ring to it.

The question remains: was he really all that bad?

Oh sure, as a child he was known to defenestrate pets (even though it wasn't called that yet). He introduced serfdom to Russia, essentially enslaving the country's peasant class. He also raped and killed and bullied, apparently as a hobby. In 1581 he assaulted his son's wife (for wearing what he considered inappropriate attire) until she had a miscarriage; when his son found out and got mad, Ivan killed him too. Accidentally, of course.

Okay, so he was a creep. But on the plus side, he... He... Wow, this is harder than I thought it'd be.

He introduced the printing press to Russia (then exiled all the printers when they were critical of him), founded a rudimentary Parliament (in order to grease the palms of nobles and clergy so they'd support him), and opened up Russia to new trading partners, notably the British via the Muscovy Company (no doubt at some profit to himself).

He did order the gorgeous St. Basil's Cathedral to be built... As a tribute to himself for the bloody capture of a neighbouring enemy, the Khanate of Kazan. Of course, then he blinded the architects so they couldn't replicate it.

In the end he died a bully's death; syphilitic, his body loaded with mercury, the first Tsar of Russia was almost certainly murdered. But there must have been a time there, when he was very young, such as on this day in 1530 when he was born or shortly thereafter, when at least his mother loved him.

For all that, his actions point to serious mental illness; one minute filled with towering rage, the next prostrate with religious fervour and supplication. His early writings indicate a boy, orphaned at eight, surrounded at court by poisoners (including the ones who may have killed his parents); wracked by the paranoia wrought by bullying, he overcame his outcast state by outdoing the cruelties of his oppressors.

Again, that's not an excuse, merely a reason.

'What's in a name?' quoth Shakespeare; apparently, in the case of Ivan the Terrible, a good deal of accuracy. Not even the most motivated of revisionist historians could make much of a victim out of this villain; I know, because I tried. Oh, how I tried...
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Happy Birthday Regis Philbin

When they call him Mr. Showbiz, they're not kidding!

With nearly 16,000 hours on television he holds the world record, and not even 2007's bypass surgery could slow him down...

His cohosts - Sarah Purcell, Mary Hart, Kathie Lee Gifford, and now Kelly Ripa - may have a penchant for achieving notoriety, but how many of them would have done it without Reege?
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Now Showing - The Gym Mambo, from "West Side Story"

It's always been one of my favourite movie moments - smack dab in the heart of one of my favourite movies - and what better way to honour the man who wrote its music than by simply enjoying it.

Leonard Bernstein may have lived a conflicted life (which began on this day in 1918) but his work overflowed with resolution, conciliation, and togetherness - as embodied in this number, the Gym Mambo*, from the 1961 film West Side Story. Watch for a brief appearance by John Astin as the principal, as well as the film's other principals, including Rita Moreno.

*Under normal circumstances I wouldn't include a subtitled clip, but it's the only one available for some reason.
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Gratuitous Brunette: Steve Guttenberg

Once upon a time Steve Guttenberg was something of an anomaly in Hollywood; not only was he possessed of a stunningly hot body he was also a gifted comedian. That combination of frat-boy hot and baggy pants funny was very compelling in the 1980s, compelling enough to make me sit through what seemed like a dozen* of those Police Academy movies waiting for that one inevitable shirtless scene in those terrible days before I had regular access to porn.

Nowadays, of course, the hot comic is more commonplace - from Ashton Kutcher to Dane Cook - and Steve Guttenberg doesn't make the scene quite as much as he once did; still, he did turn up on Dancing with the Stars, staying just long enough to be among the first from Season Six to be eliminated. The rest of the time he concerns himself with charitable work, helping homeless youth transition back into society via Guttenhouse.

*There were four.
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Pop History Moment: The Destruction of Pompeii

On this day in 79 CE Italy's Mount Vesuvius erupted, burying the Roman resort towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae under a heap of ash and pumice which was in places as much as 25 metres deep; the residents had been given fair warning, as the mountain began stirring the day before during the Vulcanalia, the annual feast to the Roman god of fire. Among the celebrity dead of the day's disaster was Pliny the Elder who, in the spirit of investigation which was his trademark, was overwhelmed by ash and poisonous gas when he got too close; his body was eventually recovered, two days after the eruption. It was his nephew and heir Pliny the Younger who gave the most poignant and compelling account of the devastation.

While some ruins were discovered in the area by Domenico Fontana in 1599, the cities lay buried and forgotten for 17 centuries, until the site was again rediscovered (this time also by accident) when builders constructing a summer palace for Charles of Bourbon, the King of Naples, found the remains of Herculaneum in 1738. It was upon this happenstance that excavation of the site began in earnest, an effort which is still underway.

Today Pompeii is Italy's most popular tourist attraction, drawing more than 2.5 million visitors annually; it's made a similar impression upon pop culture as well, exciting the imaginations of painters* and writers, including Edward Bulwer-Lytton, whose 1834 historical novel The Last Days of Pompeii was for years the gold standard.

*Including J.M.W. Turner, whose painting Eruption of Vesuvius adorns this post; Turner, however, wasn't painting the historical eruption but a different one, although his hand may have been guided by history here. Still, it's a pretty picture, and since very few paintings from 79 CE remain, it'll have to do.
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In Memoriam: Max Beerbohm

Scion of an ennobled theatrical family (his younger half-brother was Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree) contemporary and colleague of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, Max Beerbohm was among the principal aesthetes of late-Victorian England.

Over the years his distinguished career would run the gamut from music halls to radio, utilizing both the spoken word and the more enigmatic language of the artist's brush; yet whatever he did, Max Beerbohm made a point of using human foible as the springboard for elegant parody.

Born on this day in 1872 and knighted in 1939, when he died in 1956 Sir Max's ashes were interred in the crypt at St. Paul's Cathedral, among the most esteemed phantoms of a grateful nation.
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Happy Birthday Stephen Fry

Charming, erudite Stephen Fry is more than a mere Renaissance Man; he's a four-star culture warrior, a modern-day da Vinci, who might single-handedly bring about a much-needed Renaissance, just in time to save Western Civilization from itself...

An über-avuncular actor, writer, and all around mensch, Fry's work employs comedy to take the piss out of the stuffy, fact to deflate mythology, and honesty to overcome stigma. About his criminal past, personal demons, and often precarious mental health he's always been forthright; he's pompous without being stuffy, smart without being condescending, and embodies complexity while remaining accessible.

Plus he matches the drapes, is friends with the Prince of Wales, and also happens to be gay! What's not to love?

Already a major star in Britain, thanks to the Internet, DVDs, BBC America on satellite TV, and the series Bones on Fox, Stephen Fry looks poised to become a household name around the world as well. About bloody time!
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POPnews - August 24th

[Voyager 2 passed Neptune on this day in 1989;
at 4.3 billion km (2.7 billion miles) from Earth, it's still closer
to the Baseball Hall of Fame than Pete Rose.]
79 CE - The eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried the Roman resort towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae under 2 metres or more of volcanic ash and pumice.

1215 - Pope Innocent III declared the Magna Carta invalid; obviously, interfering in the political affairs of sovereign nations has long been a favourite pastime of the Vatican.

1456 - Legend has it the first printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed in the German town of Mainz.

1572 - On the orders of France's King Charles IX a massacre of Huguenots began, on St. Bartholomew's Day; believed to have been instigated by France's Queen Mother Catherine de' Medici, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre remains the darkest part of the French Wars of Religion.

1690 - Kolkata, India was founded by the British East India Company on the site of three villages thought to have been inhabited for more than two thousand years.

1814 - Canadian forces under the command of British general Robert Ross and Admiral Sir George Cockburn led an invasion of Washington DC which left much of the city - including the White House, Library of Congress, and Capitol Building - in ruins in retaliation for the earlier sacking and burning of York (now called Toronto).

1821 - The Treaty of Córdoba was signed in Córdoba, concluding the Mexican War of Independence from Spain.

1847 - Charlotte Brontë finished writing Jane Eyre.

1891 - The motion picture camera - which he called a Kinetograph - was patented by Thomas Edison.

1931 - Just two years into its electoral mandate, the United Kingdom's Second Labour Government under Ramsay MacDonald resigned en masse as the Great Depression deepened; this led to the formation of the so-called National Government, theoretically comprised of members from all parties but dominated by Labour members, with MacDonald still in charge at Number 10.

1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the United States.

1937 - During the Spanish Civil War, the Basque Army surrendered to the Italian Corpo Truppe Volontarie following the Santoña Agreement.

1950 - Edith Sampson was named the first black woman to represent the US at the United Nations.

1954 - Brazilian president Getúlio Dornelles Vargas committed suicide in the Catete Palace, leaving behind a suicide note known as the Carta Testamento; he was succeeded by João Café Filho.

1967 - Led by Abbie Hoffman, a group of hippies temporarily disrupted trading at the New York Stock Exchange by throwing dollar bills from the viewing gallery, causing a cease in trading as the brokers scrambled to grab them up.

1981 - Mark David Chapman was sentenced to serve 20 years to life for the murder of John Lennon; he's been denied parole a total of five occasions since October 2000.

1989 - Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose was banned from baseball for gambling by Commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti.

1991 - Ukraine seceded from the Soviet Union.

1992 - Hurricane Andrew made landfall in South Florida as a Category 5 hurricane.
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"High On You" by Survivor

Birthday wishes go out today to Jimi Jamison, the second of the band Survivor's three lead singers; Jamison replaced the band's original vocalist Dave Bickler after the latter developed problems with his voice, probably brought on by singing Eye of the Tiger tens of thousands of times*.

High on You was the second single from the band's 1984 album Vital Signs, Jamison's first on the roster, and the follow-up to I Can't Hold Back. The song made it all the way to #8 on the US charts; whether it was helped or hindered by this primo example of 1980s video-making I leave entirely up to you to decide.

Jamison left the band in 1989, later reunited with them for a tour in 2000, but left again in 2006 (when their last album was released) at which time he was replaced by Robin McAuley. In the intervening years, though, he had a minor success with a song unwittingly heard by billions of people; Jamison is the co-author and performer of I'm Always Here, among the many theme songs of the hit TV show Baywatch.

*Only kidding! Bickler developed polyps on his vocal chords, the removal of which required surgery and rest. After a few years on other endeavours, he returned to Survivor - performing with his old bandmates again from 1993-2000.
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