"Common People" by Pulp

As a poor person who's always aspired to be wealthy and powerful, I've never been able to understand these rich people who seem to have a yen for poverty. It's like they think squalor is glamourous or something, and maybe because it's so different from luxury for some people it can be. Well, I'm here to tell you: seediness may be sexy but squalor sucks. Then again, knowing you have an out when it all gets too much might be the necessary ingredient that I'm missing*.

Class Tourism - or, if you're on an old school trip, slumming - is apparently something Pulp frontman and birthday boy Jarvis Cocker obviously knows all too well, as evidenced by the skillful execution of Common People, a pop song which, in the British tradition, is actually about something.

The song is about a classmate of Cocker's at St. Martin's College, one of the most prestigious art schools in the world, who yearned to see how the other ninety-nine percent lived, thanks in part to the greed of her 1%; the video also features an early appearance by tabloid bait Sadie Frost.

*Also, as I've been told - again and again - just because a person has good stuff like money, fame, or looks doesn't automatically make their life better blah blah blah...
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Happy Birthday Cheri Oteri

Funny lady Cheri Oteri hit on the formula for success early on in her tenure at Saturday Night Live: some spot-on impressions (Barbara Walters, Mariah Carey, Robin Byrd and Judge Judy), a few indelible original characters (Collette 'drug lady' Reardon and Nadeen - 'simmer down now!'), a winning personality, and the willingness to put them all across fearlessly.

Oteri was fortunate to be joined in the cast by Molly Shannon and Ana Gasteyer, but she did most of her funniest work opposite Will Ferrell. Whether as Arianna (one half of The Spartan Cheerleaders) or vapid morning show hostess Cass Van Rye, Oteri benefited at least as much as Gasteyer did from her chemistry with Ferrell.

Despite notable guest appearances in film and on television since leaving SNL in 2000, Oteri has yet to find herself a more permanent roost; Hollywood rumour has it that she's been developing a sitcom idea with J.J. Abrams. Here's hoping it makes more sense than Lost.

It may just be that Oteri's decided to take some time off following the murder of her father in April 2008 by his friend and sometime roommate, country music songwriter Richard Fagan*.

In the meantime, why not enjoy the best of her work from SNL on DVD?

*Google News had no mention of the crime, despite its celebrity connection. What is this world coming to? After a little more sleuthing the story turned up on the blog You Thought So! and in a Nashville Police Department media release...
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"Back In Your Head" by Tegan and Sara

Back in Your Head was released in 2007 as part of Tegan and Sara's fifth studio album, The Con; born on this day in 1980, the Canadian duo is probably the world's only band comprised of identical twin lesbians - and more's the pity I say!

While I am a relatively recent convert to their cult, they are clearly hugely popular in Vancouver since everyone here who isn't a baby dyke is a fan of them (myself included); then again, I like lesbians of every kind, and always have. Just not in a sexual way, like most of you pervs.

Still, wouldn't it be great if they had brothers? Identical twin homo brothers who sing songs this cool? Oh yeah...
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Brian Epstein: The Fifth Beatle?

Over the years numerous men claimed that they were or were purported to be the mythical fifth member of noted four-piece beat combo The Beatles: Stuart Sutcliffe, Pete Best, George Martin, Derek Taylor and Neil Aspinall are among them. Still, no less a figure than Paul McCartney himself has said: 'If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian.' So there you go...

Born on this day in 1934 in Liverpool, Brian Epstein was gifted with two strikes against him (being both Jewish and gay) it was more or less inevitable he would end up in show business, since in those days allegedly respectable people would freely associate with neither, but since actors and their ilk were considered far from respectable (especially amongst themselves) he could easily excel in that milieu without much prejudice.

In November 1961, Epstein - who'd dropped out of Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) after three terms - attended a gig at Liverpool's Cavern Club; there he saw a band who'd been generating a great deal of buzz (especially with the staff of Bill Harry's Mersey Beat magazine) with a fresh sound, each member of which was possessed of immense personal charm, who continued to impress him backstage as they had on it. A month later he proposed managing them, and despite the fact that he had no experience in artist management within six weeks the contracts were signed.

The Beatles went on to enjoy a modicum of success, in large part due to the wheeling and dealing of Brian Epstein, who began by working with the band's wardrobe. He later engineered their cracking of the US market - unleashing the so-called British Invasion there in February 1964 with their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show - all of which went fairly well until the band's outspokenness started to draw controversy. Following the band's last concert at San Francisco's Candlestick Park in August 1966 and their withdrawal from touring, Epstein's influence over the band waned. Epstein died of a drug overdose in August 1967; whether this was an accident or not has been the subject of considerable controversy ever since.
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In Memoriam: Frances Farmer

That a person's life story later becomes a cautionary tale is seldom much consolation to the one who's had to live it; I doubt Frances Farmer took much solace in the fact that the morass of mental illness she was forced to slog through may have saved others from the same stigma she suffered - anymore than Evelyn Keyes or Carole Landis did - but the fact remains that it did.

Born in Seattle on this day in 1913, Farmer was a precocious child with a pronounced rebellious streak and an instinctive feel for leftist politics in an era when none of these things was likely to win her many friends. While still in high school in 1931 she won $100 for an essay she wrote called God Dies; the reaction to her essay, when it was finally published in Scholastic Magazine, greatly dismayed Farmer - 'for the first time I found how stupid people could be' she later said. Yet it was nothing compared to the crap she was fated to take at the hands of studio executives, critics, and the movie-going public.

Having graduated from West Seattle High School to the University of Washington, Farmer won another contest in 1935 - this time from the leftist newspaper The Voice of Action; first prize this time was a free trip to the Soviet Union. Returning to the US via New York City, it was Farmer's intention to pursue a stage career. Instead she took a screen test, and was offered a 7-year contract by Paramount Pictures talent scout Oscar Serlin.

In short order she was cast in a pair of popular B-movies, married actor Leif Erickson, starred opposite Bing Crosby, and made a sensation in the 1936 film Come and Get It, based on the novel by Edna Ferber; Farmer's unhappiness with the shallowness of Hollywood manifested itself quite quickly, a situation which wasn't helped by her worsening alcoholism. She was first arrested in October 1942, and did not go peaceably; from there things quite quickly went from bad to worse to Hell...

Frances Farmer's mental and emotional deterioration was skillfully and sensitively portrayed by Jessica Lange in the 1982 film Frances. Farmer's undergoing surgery for a lobotomy was later admitted to be 'fictionalized'; despite the fact that she did undergo various radical treatments while committed to Western State Hospital, including electro-convulsive and insulin shock therapy, there's no proof she was ever lobotomized.

Although Farmer attempted a comeback in 1957, the public was more interested in her as a former (and potentially current) nutcase and curiosity than an actress; an appearance on This Is Your Life is as awkward an experience for the viewer as it must have been for Farmer herself. She died of cancer in August 1970, at the age of 56; in the years since she has been memorialized in the Nirvana song Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle, from their 1993 album In Utero, among others.
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"California Earthquake" by Cass Elliot

This is not the song I wanted to play here - that would have been Make Your Own Kind of Music - but such are the vagaries of YouTube that the vid you might be looking for isn't always available when you need it. That was the case, anyway, on this day in 2007 when I first posted this; I have since posted it to mark the July 1974 death of Cass Elliot.

Anyway, this song's good too, and shows both her and her voice to their best advantage. Plus it's obscure, which I personally love; California Earthquake made it all the way to #67 in 1968.
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In Memoriam: "Mama" Cass Elliot

There's a special place in my heart - and thus a place of honour at the Pop Culture Institute - for anyone who defies the prevailing looksism of their times and becomes a success despite it; Cass Elliot - born on this day in 1941 - was one such person.

In an age of waif-like hippie chicks, Cass was not one; though she exhibited a brave face and a healthy attitude, it had to have hurt to see the men she loved continually pass her over for thinner women, then come crying to her when things didn't work out. I know it's always pissed me off.

Not only was Cass successful with The Mamas & the Papas, she also had a thriving solo career, beginning in 1968. It was not to last. Cass died of a heart attack in July 1974; she did not, according to the popular myth, choke on a ham sandwich.

She is survived by, among others, a sister named Leah Kunkel and a daughter Owen Vanessa Elliot.
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"Cry" by Godley & Creme

Birthday wishes go out today to Lol Creme of Godley & Creme fame, who went solo together after quitting the band 10cc; the song Cry was their biggest international hit, no doubt helped along in part by this startling video, which features a number of interesting faces being morphed together.

Creme, along with Kevin Godley (whom he met in the late 1950s), in fact directed a number of pioneering music videos, including Synchronicity II by The Police, the notorious Girls on Film by Duran Duran, and my personal favourite (of these, at least) Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
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Happy Birthday Fred Willard

My first exposure to all around funny guy Fred Willard was from his appearances on the uncategorizable variety show Real People, which ran on NBC from 1979 to 1984; little did I know then that not only had he been a fixture in American comedy since 1963, but would continue to be watching him to this day...

Willard's first big exposure came through his involvement with famed comedy troupe The Second City; he auditioned for the ensemble alongside fellow legend Robert Klein. Willard's first television break came from sitcom pioneer Norman Lear, who cast him in Fernwood 2 Night, opposite longtime friend Martin Mull. He also hosted Saturday Night Live in 1978, the night the musical guest was Devo. He later guest-starred on Roseanne, playing Martin Mull's husband with his usual dumb, deadpan aplomb.

Lately, when not trading barbs with Jay Leno on The Tonight Show, Willard has an enviable position in the company of players lucky enough to work with Christopher Guest, whose films - This is Spinal Tap, Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, and A Mighty Wind - are winners all.
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"Rock 'N' Roll High School" by The Ramones

On what would have been the 59th birthday of Dee Dee Ramone, I've decided to post one of my favourite songs by The Ramones; let's face it, it was either this song - 1979's Rock 'n' Roll High School - or The KKK Took My Baby Away, either of which would have done the job.

I chose Rock 'n' Roll High School, though, because it had a) a slightly better video, and b) a tie-in to the 1979 Roger Corman film of the same name, one of that legendary producer's rare forays out of the exploitation/horror genre and into musical comedy. It was followed by a sequel, Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever (1991) which without even having seen it I feel safe in saying wasn't as good as the original, since they never are, are they?

Alas, there will be no sequels of Dee Dee Ramone or indeed of The Ramones either; less than a decade after the band's 1996 break up, three of its founding members - bassist and principal songwriter Dee Dee, lead singer Joey Ramone, and guitarist Johnny Ramone - were all dead.
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In Memoriam: Greta Garbo

So inscrutable was she that no one quite knew for sure what the great Greta Garbo ever wanted, except to be left alone - which she'd said so often to reporters off screen that her screenwriters eventually began writing the line into her scripts...

The taciturn Swede seemed to turn her dissatisfaction with everyone and everything into her stock-in-trade, making herself even more alluring even as she was pushing you away. As such she has become a symbol of ambivalence and antipathy, especially where fame and adoration are concerned.

Born on this day in 1905, she met famed director Mauritz Stiller in 1922; Stiller worked with the girl until she became a woman - if you catch my meaning - before casting her in his 1924 silent film Gösta Berlings saga, based on the novel by Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf. The brighter lights of Berlin called, and the newly rechristened Garbo went to appear in the 1925 film Die freudlose Gasse, by G. W. Pabst - it's English name, the utterly prescient The Joyless Street.

Shortly thereafter, Garbo sailed to America, with half of that country's news photographers seemingly in tow; her arrival in Manhattan was front-page news around the world, and her train journey across the strange new land in which she found herself was breathlessly covered by all levels of media. She arrived in Hollywood, and thus the brightest lights of all, in September 1925 still aged only 19, at which point she was rushed into production on her first film for MGM, The Torrent.

Garbo made a few hugely successful silent films before the silent cinema died the death it had coming to it; as one of the few silent stars to make a successful transition to sound, however, her star rose even higher. 1930's film version of Eugene O'Neill's Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie was trumpeted with the tagline 'Garbo Talks', and audiences were enthralled by what they heard. Although the film is clunky to watch, and even the best-restored extant prints of it aren't in the best of shape, Garbo's serious performance is almost as compelling as Marie Dressler's comic one, despite its low-key nature; for all its faults the film, naturally, has pride of place in the collection held here at the Pop Culture Institute.

Once they got Garbo talking, however, they had difficulty shutting her up; since the studios were making oodles off her, they didn't even mind the increasingly exorbitant paycheques she was demanding. Despite the relatively short duration of her career (which she called a halt to in 1941) her filmography is jam-packed with classics: Mata Hari (1931), Grand Hotel (1932), Queen Christina (1933), Anna Karenina (1935), Camille (1936), and Ninotchka (1939). It all ended with George Cukor's Two-Faced Woman, the only one of her films that could be considered a flop.

Following her departure from Hollywood Garbo mainly lived in New York City, in a habit of increasing reclusion; her last onscreen appearance as such was in Sidney Lumet's 1984 film Garbo Talks, in which she did not appear in the least, except as a kind of phantom on whom all the action was centred. Greta Garbo died in Manhattan in April 1990, and her ashes were interred in Sweden's Skogskyrkogården Cemetery; her estate, estimated at $20 million US, went to her niece Gray Reisfield.
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Remembering... Ernie Coombs

Seeing as most of us Generation X-ers were virtually raised by television, I would be remiss if I failed to observe the anniversary of the passing of one of my favourite babysitters growing up, Ernie Coombs. Alongside gender ambiguous tyke Casey and mute dog Finnegan, Coombs entertained and educated several generations of Canadian children. For five years at least his show Mr. Dressup was appointment television for little me; even when I was an older kid, if I found myself home sick from school and channel surfing, I would stop and watch what was going on in that lovely, calm world of his - even if, following the retirement of Judith Lawrence and the inevitable disappearance of Casey and Finnegan with her, there was for me an insurmountable emotional void in the show.

Although born in Maine in November 1927, Coombs moved to Canada after understudying another famous children's entertainer Fred Rogers; it's a little-known fact that Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was developed in Canada before moving to PBS. The two giants even worked together from 1964-7 on a CBC show called Butternut Square, before Rogers relocated his neighbourhood south and Coombs took on his more famous persona. In no time at all, Canada embraced Coombs as one of its own, and he officially became a citizen in 1994, which he was when he died on this day in 2001.

Many of my lifelong manias developed as a result of Mr. Dressup, including creative play, wearing stylin' outfits, a fondness for puppetry, and the desire to live in a treehouse.
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Samuel Johnson: My Word!

For anyone whose stock in trade is words - even a blogger - Samuel Johnson is a towering figure. If all he'd ever done was compile a Dictionary of the English Language he'd have earned his place in history; as it is, he was also journalist, poet, essayist, moralist, novelist, literary critic, biographer, and editor. So prolific and admired was he that his biography, James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, is either a consummate tribute to a man of enviable accomplishment or else something of an epic reacharound, depending on your point of view.

Born on this day in 1709, Johnson was a precocious child who rose above his humble beginnings - writing for the yellow presses of London's Grub Street - having already overcome scrofula (for the treatment of which he received the royal touch at St James's Palace by Queen Anne herself in March 1712 - unsuccessfully it turns out) and despite a lifelong battle with what has been posthumously diagnosed as Tourette syndrome.

Given that Boswell's biography of him is essentially a phone book, I doubt Blogspot has the bandwidth* to let me replicate it here; suffice it to say, Johnson was more than a man of letters - he was a celebrity, and this was back in the days before every third person was a celebrity!

Samuel Johnson's pop culture presence reached its apex when he was portrayed by Robbie Coltrane in the third series of Blackadder, in the episode entitled Ink and Incapability in September 1987.

*And I know I don't have the stamina.
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"Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen" by Baz Luhrmann

When Australian director Baz Luhrmann adapted a two year-old newspaper column entitled Wear Sunscreen by Chicago Tribune journalist Mary Schmich in 1999 surely even he couldn't have known the global reach those words - alongside Bill Barminski's video - would soon have.

In the days leading up to Y2K, when seemingly half the world had the other half convinced it was all going to come an end because of a single line of programming somewhere on a computer, those of us in the latter group clung to whatever soothing words we could get our ears around, and not just to drown out the blathering of apocalyptards* either.

It's posted here today on the occasion of Luhrmann's birthday, as well as in honour of the delightful second summer that September often brings to Vancouver - a time in which it's important to remember that even though it's cooler, it's still important to wear sunscreen...

*Apocalyptard - any damn fool who thinks the world's gonna end while I still have outstanding student loans.
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Cassandra Peterson: Mistress of Elvira

Two paragraphs into Cassandra Peterson's bio I was blown away by the abundance of information contained therein; there's too much of it, in fact, to include here. For a dozen years before her Elvira persona was born and made her famous she'd already lived an awesome life. Although she is best known as a witchy, bitchy horror host the fame it afforded her was more a reward for an interesting and varied career than a premeditated act.

Born on this day in 1951, by 1969, at the age of 17, she'd become the youngest showgirl in Las Vegas - as confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records - when she worked at The Dunes. She briefly dated Elvis Presley, appeared in the 1971 film Diamonds Are Forever playing - what else? - a showgirl, and even moved to Italy to front a rock band called I Latins Ochanats. That's where she met director Federico Fellini who cast her in his 1972 film Roma; she also appeared in the 1974 film The Working Girls, and posed for the cover of Tom Waits' 1976 album Small Change.

Returning Stateside she toured gay clubs with a novelty act called Mamma's Boys before joining famed LA-based comedy troupe The Groundlings in 1979; it was there the personality of Elvira was more or less born. At the same time she was an on-air personality at LA radio station KROQ.

The story of the creation of the Elvira character resides at the eye of a veritable pop culture hurricane; while Elvira was ostensibly based on Maila Nurmi's Vampira (brilliantly lampooned paid tribute to by Lisa Marie in Tim Burton's 1994 film Ed Wood) Vampira was herself based on Charles Addams' Morticia Addams, although the television version of Morticia (played by Carolyn Jones from 1964-6) and the movie version (popularized by Anjelica Huston) both imbued her with Nurmi's sexiness which was not present in the original Addams Family cartoons as they appeared in The New Yorker*.

Elvira was clearly an idea whose time had come; not only had punk given way to goth as the principal costume of disaffected teenagers, but the exploitation movies of the previous three decades were then being embraced ironically by jaded Baby Boomers and the up-and-coming cynics of Generation X alike. Elvira presided over all of it with a campy quip and a killer cleavage, having shot to almost instant fame simply by being at the right place at the right time. Her persona, though, had at least one unintended benefit; owing to the heavy makeup and wig she wore, at the height of the ensuing craziness Peterson was able to go out in public as herself without being bothered in the least!

*No one's quite sure what Daryl Hannah was getting at when she played Morticia in the 1998 film Addams Family Reunion, although Ellie Harvie did better with the character on TV in The New Addams Family. But I digress...
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Rita Rudner on "The Late, Late Show" with Craig Ferguson

Birthday wishes go out today to Rita Rudner, who started out in show business as a dancer, appearing in the original productions of such shows as Follies and Mack & Mabel; at the age of 25 she switched to comedy, and the rest is the stuff of legend. As one of the few clean comics working, Rudner's wide-eyed ditzy persona is belied by the laser-sharpness of her logic.

Since 2001, Rudner has performed almost exclusively in Las Vegas, where her shows have sold nearly a million tickets; seeing as I cannot get to Vegas to see her, I thought I'd post this clip of her in conversation with TV's Craig Ferguson instead.
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In Memoriam: Anne Bancroft

In Mike Nichols' 1967 film The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman as Ben Braddock uttered the famous line 'Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?' to Anne Bancroft, who famously played Mrs. Robinson. Even without her intentionally provocative answer, it should have been patently obvious to everyone in the audience that Anne Bancroft had spent her entire career trying to seduce us - and succeeded at every attempt.

From her 1952 debut in the film Don't Bother to Knock (opposite such big guns as Marilyn Monroe, Richard Widmark, Jim Backus, and Lurene Tuttle) through The Miracle Worker, The Pumpkin Eater, The Turning Point, Agnes of God, and Torch Song Trilogy (with many stops along the way and since besides) it's clear that Anne Bancroft not only managed to seduce us onscreen but off it as well.

Born on this day in 1931, Anne Bancroft's death in June 2005 was met with all the usual lamentations that generally accompany a star's death, only with actual sincerity; it's at this time the Pop Culture Institute would like to once again extend its condolences to her widower, Mel Brooks.
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"She's A Beauty" by The Tubes

Birthday wishes go out today to Fee Waybill - not only a founding member of The Tubes but possessed of one of the more fascinating names in American music; to my mind a Fee Waybill either belongs in the exotic bird house of your local zoo or ought to be signed in the presence of the UPS driver.

A n y w a y... She's a Beauty was the band's biggest hit, appearing first on their 1983 album Outside Inside; oddly enough for a song this cool, it was produced by noted Canadian schlockmeister David Foster. Naturally the original video is unavailable - thanks this time to the visionaries at Virgin-EMI - but I guess this live performance sums up the experience of the song pretty well. Appropriately enough, it can easily be dedicated to the women whose birthdays we also celebrate today: Anne Bancroft, Rita Rudner, Cassandra Peterson, and even Hildegard von Bingen!
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Remembering... Hildegard von Bingen

Hildegard von Bingen is frequently cited as the world's first composer, and she certainly is history's first if not the world's; as the first composer whose biographical details are well-known (or indeed, known at all) she was also the first one who had the bright idea to stop signing her works Anon., for which act of extreme hubris she is still remembered today.

Born sometime in 1098, I'd like to say she rose above the constraints of her noble birth to pursue a life in the Church. Alas, the truth is considerably sadder... A sickly child - her parents' tenth, in fact - from a young age she began to experience visions; on All Saint's Day 1112 she was abandoned at the convent of Disibodenberg and thereafter raised by the abbess, Jutta.

After Jutta's death in 1136 Hildegard was unanimously elected abbess in her stead; as Mother Superior she founded the convents of Saint Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. She also corresponded with popes Eugene III and Anastasius IV, Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa, and her male colleagues in the clergy such as Bernard of Clairvaux. She was also widely traveled - another unusual pastime for a woman of the Middle Ages - and spread her teachings across Europe as a kind of early evangelist.

Owing to the superstitious tenor of the times, Hildegard was reticent when it came to discussing her visions; after her confidante Jutta died she only shared her experiences with Volmar, who served at one time or another as her tutor, confessor, secretary, and scribe. One such vision she received exhorted her to 'See and speak! Hear and write!' and so she did; makes a nice change from those people who hear voices telling them to chop up the dog into small bits or else become lawyers. Of her works, about 80 survive; one of the best known of these is a morality play called Ordo Virtutum, or Play of the Virtues, which is unique in that it is written entirely for the female voice and has just one male part - the Devil, who cannot sing because he is corrupt. Sounds like just the thing for the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival...

Interest in her was revived in the 1990s, when it was decided that all the women written out of history should be written back in again. That's when celebrity neurologist Oliver Sacks diagnosed Hildegard as suffering from migraines - which can cause hallucinations if severe enough - in his book Migraine. Ah, but who or what gave her the migraines? And why did she channel her pain into works of uncommon beauty? Science, for all its answers, still cannot fathom the least part of the human soul...
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POPnews: September 17th

[September 17th has been Constitution Day in the United States since 2004; which is ironic, seeing that since George W. Bush took office in 2001 (and I do mean took) the Constitution hasn't been observed - along with the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention, and most of the Ten Commandments... I could go on but thankfully he didn't!]
1577 - Following the sixth phase of the French Wars of Religion the Peace of Bergerac was signed between France's King Henri III and the Huguenots; it replaced the Edict of Beaulieu, which was thought to be too favourable to Protestants.

1630 - The city of Boston, Massachusetts was founded, ten days after having its name changed from Shawmut.

1778 - The Treaty of Fort Pitt was signed, making it the first formal treaty between the United States and an American First Nation - in this case the Lenape or Delaware tribe.

1787 - The US Constitution was signed at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia.

1859 - Joshua A. Norton proclaimed himself Emperor Norton I of the United States in - where else? - San Francisco.

1862 - The Allegheny Arsenal explosion resulted in the single largest civilian disaster during the American Civil War.

1900 - Filipinos under Juan Cailles defeated Colonel Benjamin F. Cheatham's Americans at Mabitac during the Philippine-American War.

1908 - Lt. Thomas Selfridge became the first airplane fatality when the Wright Flyer piloted by Orville Wright crashed at Fort Myer, Virginia.

1914 - Andrew Fisher became Prime Minister of Australia for a third term.

1916 - Baron Manfred von Richthofen - the famous Red Baron - won the first of more than 80 aerial victories over the French town of Cambrai.

1920 - The National Football League was organized in Canton, Ohio.

1939 - German U-boat U 29 sank the British aircraft carrier HMS Courageous.

1948 - The Lehi - radical Zionists who were also known as the Stern Gang after their founder, Avraham Stern - assassinated the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte, who was appointed by the United Nations to mediate between Arab nations and Israel during that phase of the Arab-Israeli conflict marked by the establishment of the Jewish state. The killing was directed by Yehoshua Zettler and carried out by a team led by Meshulam Makover, although the fatal shots were fired by Yehoshua Cohen; also thought to be involved were Shmuel Rosenblum, David Ephrati, and Yitzhak Markovitz.

1949 - The Canadian steamship and passenger liner SS Noronic caught fire while docked at Pier 9 in Toronto Harbour shortly after 2:30 AM, with an eventual loss of between 118 and 139 lives; most of the 524 passengers and 171 crew on board were American.

1956 - Television was first shown in Australia, apparently.

1972 - The first episode of the television series M*A*S*H - appropriately enough, entitled M*A*S*H the Pilot - aired on CBS; based on the Robert Altman film of the same name (which was itself based on a book by Richard Hooker), the series eventually aired 251 half-hour episodes over 11 years. Many of the episodes, including the pilot, were written by the late Larry Gelbart.

1978 - The Camp David Accords were signed by Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egypt's President Anwar El Sadat, as facilitated and witnessed by US President Jimmy Carter.

1983 - Vanessa Williams became the first black Miss America.

1993 - The blatantly racist British National Party's Derek Beackon won a council seat in the East London district of Millwall.
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