Commercial Success

Shadoe Stevens, the television personality and former DJ on my favorite radio station, KROQ, celebrates his 63rd birthday today. Like Jim Varney, who got his start in television commercials, Stevens was also an advertising personality, gaining immediate local attention as Fred Rated, the manic fast-talking spokesman for the old Federated Electronics chain in Los Angeles.

This montage of some of his commercial spots gives one an idea why:

Poetic Outlaw

Charles Bolles, the infamous  Black Bart, a gentleman stagecoach robber and poet, committed his last hold-up on this date in 1883, but came away with nothing (he was shot at by a stagecoach passenger and dropped the cash box).

The video below is only remotely associated with Bart, but I'm going to put it up anyway:

Bolles was arrested a short time later and served four years (of a six-year sentence) in San Quentin prison.  His criminal career was fictionalized by William Henry Rhodes in 1871, which is probably one of the reasons Black Bart is still remembered today.

Sunny and Mild

The United States National Weather Service makes its first forecast on this date in 1870:

Posting will be likely light the next few days...something has come up that will need to be attended to sometime between now and Wednesday, so I'm not sure if I'll have much of an opportunity to write. Things should return to more of a normal pace by the end of the week.

Bridging the Continents

A bridge across the Bosphorus,  one of the two narrow straits that separates Southern Europe from Asia (the other being the Hellespont), was first constructed in 490 BC under the orders of Darius I of Persia, to allow the emperor to transport his troops across the straits into Europe to attack Thrace. Mandrocles of Samos was charged with this task, and he constructed a bridge of boats to satisfy the Persian emperor's demands, which enabled the Persians to conquer Thrace and Macedonia.

 Persia under Darius the Great (Darius I). Thrace is on the upper left.  The Bosphorus lies just southeast of the ancient city of Byzantium. Click the image to enlarge.

Almost 2,500 years would pass before a permanent crossing would be built, the 3,524 foot long suspension bridge known as the First Bosphorus Bridge, which was completed on this date in 1973.

Celebrating in Song

Today marks the birthday of the late great Ziegfeld Follies star, Fanny Brice (1891-1951), who left burlesque to join the Follies in  1910,  and from there went on to gain international fame as a comedienne, singer, actress, and radio star. This song, My Man, was a big hit for Brice in 1921:

Other Technological Nuisances

...the future of Crowd Control is here...

The Mosquito alarm,  a device that transmits a high-frequency sound (at 17.4  kHz), is marketed as an anti-loitering tool--its annoying pitch  is intended  to keep young people from congregating  in a specific area.  The Mosquito is said to be inaudible to most adults, but I can hear the sound it produces fairly clearly, and I'm well into adulthood (and the sound is bothersome). Can you hear it? Have a listen:

Technological Nuisances

Don't get me wrong, I own one, and purchased my first device right after they came out, but the Apple iPod, which was introduced on this day in 2001, has made my train commutes miserable since.  It's a rare day when there isn't at least one jackass playing his device so loud that one can hear it clear on the other end of the train car. So naturally, I'll be the first customer in line when some enterprising techie develops an iPod Zapper.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs discusses the device below near the time of its release:

Sage Advice

Grace Bedell,  an 11-year-old girl living in Westfield,  New York, writes a letter to the United States Presidential candidate, Abraham Lincoln, on this date in 1860 and suggests that he grow a beard.  In his reply to the girl, Lincoln was non-committal, but a month later he was first seen sporting his now well-known whiskers.

Note: the image of Bedell (above) was created when she was a young adult.

Return of the Little Fellow

John Roland Reuel Tolkien's  classic tale, The Hobbit,  which was first published today in the year 1933, will be coming to theaters soon in two films directed by Guillermo del Toro. Here is an alleged (you can't always be sure on youtube) trailer for the first film:

How Could They?

This day in 1994:  the baseball season is cancelled because greedy players and owners can't settle their differences,  bringing about a premature end to the 1994 season.  As a result, fans face their first year without a World Series since 1904.  One hundred years earlier, fans were also deprived of the chance to see these two pitchers duel it out, when the Giants refused to play a series against the Americans:

Christy Mathewson, New York Giants (National League)

Denton "Cy" Young, Boston Americans (American League)

Both right-handers reached the Hall of Fame. Young still holds the record for victories to this day with 511; Mathewson has 373.  The bonus video below shows Mathewson warming up:

Silent Names

The late Harpo Marx, the 'silent' member of the Marx Brothers, was a famed pantomine, and spoke in only one of the comedy team's movies (At the Circus), when he mimicked a sneeze. Most fans of the Marx Brothers have never heard his voice, but he does speak for a short spell near the end of this short clip.

The above is from an interview with Harpo Marx's son, Bill. Harpo, more in character below with his brother Chico, demonstrated his trademark style in this short slapstick scene from their 1933 comedy, Duck Soup:

Weekend Transit

This Walt Disney cartoon was released to theaters today in 1927, and marked the first big screen appearance of Oswald the Rabbit (no, I don't know who he is either).  This little travel tome is titled Trolley Troubles:

An Early Voyage

Science fiction hit the big screen for the first time in in France today in the year 1902, when the film,  A Trip to the Moon, was screened in public.  The clips below show the movie almost in its entirety (it was only 14 minutes long), with a new soundtrack dubbed in:

The film was directed by George Méliès.

On Your Mark

The first annual Soap Box Derby, a race for youngsters using gravity-driven cars (i.e. downhill racers) was held today in 1934 in Dayton, Ohio, at the behest of newspaper photographer, Myron Scott. John A. Fasier won the first championship, for a prize of $50 (compared to the top prize of $5,000 today). The event had been an overwhelming success, so in the following year, the Derby was moved to its current home in nearby Akron, which had better hills, and an official set of rules was devised. The Soap Box Derby has since become a tradition, and is a popular annual event. In the 1950's and 1960's, it was one of the highest attended sports venues in the United States.

Let's have a look at some footage from the 1930's documenting the race:

Originally, the Soap Box Derby was limited to boys; today both boys and girls can compete.

Dates to Remember

According to legend (and wikipedia),  the first beauty pageant was held in Folkstone, England on this day in 1908. However, P.T. Barnum held a contest in the mid-1800's (creating a firestorm of public protest),  Isabella of Castile  stole a number of hearts before she carried away her prize of Ferdinand, and Cleopatra took her crown using guile and charm back when the Senate still met in Rome.  And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Helen, who looked so tantalizingly delicious in a tiny bikini that armies of men from around the Aegean would sail to Troy hoping to see her.

We won't go back that far in time today, but since I confused my days up and wrote about topics related to the 15th instead of the 14th, I'm going to take a breather and spend the day eyeing the babes. So to start the morning off, here's a peek at a 1967 Miss Universe clip: