This Day in History

[Gravdigr]

On this day:

1963 - The first Monterey Folk Festival took place over three days in Monterey, California. The festival featured Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Peter Paul and Mary. The 1967 Monterey Rock festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by Jimi Hendrix and The Who as well as the first major public performances of Janis Joplin. It was also the first major performance by Otis Redding in front of a predominantly white audience.

1964 - Bob Dylan made his first major concert UK appearance when he played at the Royal Festival Hall in London with an afternoon show listed as a ‘Folksong Concert’. Dylan's 18-song set included the live debut of Mr. Tambourine Man and took place on a Sunday afternoon. In the interval, Dylan received a telegram from John Lennon seeking a meeting which never materialized.

1966 - During a UK tour, Bob Dylan appeared at The Free Trade Hall in Manchester. This was the concert where a member of the audience shouted out ‘Judas’ at Dylan unhappy with the singer's move from acoustic to electric. Dylan replied with "You’re a liar", the entire concert was eventually officially released in The Bootleg Series by Sony Music in 1999.

1971 - [Tony Orlando &] Dawn were at No.1 on the UK singles chart with 'Knock Three Times', the group's first of two UK No.1's. Singer Tony Orlando had retired from singing when he was persuaded to front Dawn for studio recordings.

1975 - Elton John was awarded a Platinum Record for sales of a million copies of the LP 'Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy', the first album ever to be certified Platinum on the day of its release.

1987 - A fire destroyed Tom Petty's house in Los Angeles, the cost was estimated at $800,000.

1996 - US blues guitarist Johnny Guitar Watson died of a heart attack while on tour in Yokohama, Japan. According to eyewitness reports, he collapsed mid guitar solo. His last words were "ain't that a bitch."

2006 - Paul McCartney and his wife Heather Mills admitted that they had given up the fight to save their marriage, saying that after four years together, they were going their separate ways.

2012 - Donna Summer, the 1970s pop singer known as the Queen of Disco, died of lung cancer, an illness she believed she contracted from inhaling toxic particles released after the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York.

2013, Bob Dylan was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Dylan, who was unable to attend the New York ceremony, said he felt "extremely honoured" and "lucky" to be admitted.

[xoxoxoBruce]

1983 – The U.S. Department of Energy declassifies documents showing world's largest mercury pollution event in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (ultimately found to be 4.2 million pounds), in response to the Appalachian Observer's Freedom of Information Act request.

Union Carbide lost 2.4 million pounds of mercury into the air, soil and water at Oak Ridge? Nonsense, UC is an honorable American Corporation, like Monsanto, and LePage. Just ask the people in Bhopal.

Plus the slanderous accusation that Gerald Ford, Antonin Scalia, Richard Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld, tried to kill the Freedom of Information Act, is unpardonable.

[Gravdigr]

Today is May 18.

This date is observed as International Museum Day, as well as World AIDS Vaccine Day.

Today is also Day of Remembrance of Crimean Tatar Genocide. I didn't know about Crimean tatars...I knew about Irish taters...


Events

332 – Constantine the Great announced free distributions of food to the citizens in Constantinople. Welfare is born.

1291 – Fall of Acre, the end of Crusader presence in the Holy Land.

1593 – Playwright Thomas Kyd's accusations of heresy lead to an arrest warrant for Christopher Marlowe.

1652 – Rhode Island passes the first law in English-speaking North America making slavery illegal.

1756 – The Seven Years' War begins when Great Britain declares war on France.

1860 – Abraham Lincoln wins the Republican Party presidential nomination over William H. Seward, who later becomes the United States Secretary of State.

1896 – The United States Supreme Court rules in Plessy v. Ferguson that the "separate but equal" doctrine is constitutional.

1896 – Khodynka Tragedy: A mass panic on Khodynka Field in Moscow during the festivities of the coronation of Russian Tsar Nicholas II results in the deaths of 1,389 people. The cause was the rumor that beer & pretzels were in short supply. No shit.

1926 – Evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears in Venice, California.

1933 – New Deal: President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an act creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.

1944 – World War II: Battle of Monte Cassino: Conclusion after seven days of the fourth battle as German paratroopers evacuate Monte Cassino.

1953 – Jackie Cochran



becomes the first woman to break the sound barrier.

1966 - During his 1966 world tour, Bob Dylan and Robbie Robertson from The Band were filmed singing several songs in a hotel room in Glasgow, Scotland, the footage turning up in the film Eat The Document. The film was originally commissioned for the ABC television series Stage '66, but after Dylan edited the film himself ABC rejected it as 'incomprehensible for a mainstream audience'.

1974 - Ray Stevens started a three week run streak at No.1 on the US singles chart with the novelty song 'The Streak' which capitalized on the then popular craze of streaking.

1980 – Mount St. Helens



erupts in Washington, United States, killing 57 people and causing $3 billion in damage.

1990 – In France, a modified TGV train



achieves a new rail world speed record of 515.3 km/h (320.2 mph).

1994 – Israeli troops finish retreating from the Gaza Strip after occupying it, giving the area to the Palestine to govern.

2009 – The LTTE are defeated by the Sri Lankan government, ending almost 26 years of fighting between the two sides.

2011 - John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for the 1967 Beatles song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds' sold for $237,132 (£145,644) at an auction in the US.



1048 – Omar Khayyám, 1822 – Mathew Brady, 1850 – Oliver Heaviside (Kennelly–Heaviside layer), 1892 – Ezio Pinza, 1897 – Frank Capra, 1911 – Big Joe Turner♪ ♫, 1912 – Richard Brooks (director Blackboard Jungle, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Elmer Gantry), 1912 – Perry Como♪ ♫, 1920 – Pope John Paul II, 1922 – Kai Winding♪ ♫, 1928 – Pernell Roberts, 1930 – Fred Saberhagen (author Berserker stories/books), 1931 – Don Martin (Mad's Maddest Artist), 1946 – Reggie Jackson, 1947 – Gail Strickland (The Drowning Pool), 1948 – Joe Bonsall♪ ♫(The Oak Ridge Boys), 1950 – Mark Mothersbaugh♪ ♫(Devo), 1952 – George Strait♪ ♫, 1955 – Chow Yun-fat (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, John Woo movies), 1969 – Martika♪ ♫, 1970 – Tina Fey, 1975 – Jack Johnson♪ ♫, 1979 – Jens Bergensten (co-designed Minecraft)



1675 – Jacques Marquette, 1808 – Elijah Craig (invented Bourbon, PBUH), 1955 – Mary McLeod Bethune, 1973 – Jeannette Rankin,

1980 – Victims of Mount St. Helens eruption:

Reid Blackburn, American photographer and journalist David A. Johnston, American volcanologist and geologist
Harry Truman, owner/operator of Mount St. Helens Lodge

1981 – William Saroyan, 1990 – Jill Ireland, 1995 – Elisha Cook, Jr., 1995 – Alexander Godunov, 1995 – Elizabeth Montgomery, 2012 – Peter Jones(Crowded House), 2012 – Alan Oakley (designed the Raleigh Chopper)



2013 – Steve Forrest, 2017 – Roger Ailes (founder of Fox News)

[Gravdigr]

"Half the free world’s mercury was in Oak Ridge: Union Carbide and the Atomic Energy Commission and successor agencies “LOST” 10% OF IT."

4.2 million pounds, not 2.4. Just sayin'.

[glatt]

Mercury is pretty dense though, so it's not like 4.2 million pounds of it is a lot. That's like one jar.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

"Half the free world’s mercury was in Oak Ridge: Union Carbide and the Atomic Energy Commission and successor agencies “LOST” 10% OF IT."

4.2 million pounds, not 2.4. Just sayin'.

Picky picky picky.

[Gravdigr]

[sexobon]

They were visionaries anticipating casual Fridays.

[Gravdigr]

Don't listen to Bruce.

He still calls 'em dungarees.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

May 21

1502 – The island of Saint Helena is discovered by the Portuguese explorer João da Nova.

1758 – Ten-year-old Mary Campbell is abducted in Pennsylvania by Lenape during the French and Indian War. She is returned six and a half years later.

1863 – Organization of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, Michigan.

1871 – Opening of the first rack railway in Europe, the Rigi-Bahnen on Mount Rigi.

1881 – The American Red Cross



is established by Clara Barton in Washington, D.C.

1917 – The Great Atlanta fire of 1917 causes $5.5 million in damages, destroying some 300 acres including 2,000 homes, businesses and churches, displacing about 10,000 people but leading to only one fatality (due to heart attack).

1924 – University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a "thrill killing".

1927 – Charles Lindbergh touches down at Le Bourget Field in Paris, completing the world's first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic Ocean.

1932 – Bad weather forces Amelia Earhart to land in a pasture in Derry, Northern Ireland, and she thereby becomes the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

1934 – Oskaloosa, Iowa, becomes the first municipality in the United States to fingerprint all of its citizens.

1936 – Sada Abe is arrested after wandering the streets of Tokyo for days with her dead lover's severed genitals in her handbag.

1946 – Physicist Louis Slotin is fatally irradiated in a criticality incident during an experiment with the demon core



at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

1976 – The Yuba City bus disaster occurs in Martinez, California. Twenty-nine are killed making it the deadliest road accident in U.S. history.

1979 – White Night riots in San Francisco following the manslaughter conviction of Dan White for the assassinations of George Moscone and Harvey Milk.

1980 – Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back



is released in theaters.

1981 – Irish Republican hunger strikers Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara die on hunger strike in Maze prison.

1996 – The ferry MV Bukoba sinks in Tanzanian waters on Lake Victoria, killing nearly 1,000.

2005 – The tallest roller coaster in the world, Kingda Ka



opens at Six Flags Great Adventure in Jackson Township, New Jersey.

2011 – Radio broadcaster Harold Camping predicted that the world would end on this date.

2014 – The National September 11 Museum opens to the public.

Births

1878 – Glenn Curtiss; 1898 – Armand Hammer; 1901 – Sam Jaffe; 1904 – Robert Montgomery, Fats Waller; 1916 – Harold Robbins; 1917 – Raymond Burr; 1921 – Andrei Sakharov; 1923 – Ara Parseghian; 1924 – Peggy Cass; 1941 – Ronald Isley (The Isley Bros.); 1948 – Leo Sayer; 1951 – Al Franken; 1952 – Mr. T; 1959 – Nick Cassavetes; 1960 – Jeffrey Dahmer; 1966 – Lisa Edelstein (Dr. Cuddy on "House"); 1967 – Chris Benoit; 1972 – The Notorious B.I.G.

Deaths

1542 – Hernando de Soto; 1952 – John Garfield; 1965 – Geoffrey de Havilland (designed the de Havilland Mosquito); 1988 – Sammy Davis, Sr.; 1995 – Les Aspin; 1996 – Lash LaRue; 2000 – Sir John Gielgud; 2003 – Alejandro de Tomaso; 2013 – Leonard Marsh (co-founded Snapple)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Gravdigr

Don't listen to Bruce.

He still calls 'em dungarees.

Nope, I call 'em pants, cause it's all I own.

[Gravdigr]

1966, The Castiles (with Bruce Springsteen on vocals) appeared at Freehold Regional High School in New Jersey. They were performing at their own high school for the very first time. All five members of the band were Juniors at Freehold High School.

1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young released the protest single Ohio, written and composed by Neil Young in reaction to the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, when unarmed college students were shot by the Ohio National Guard. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis.

1979, Elton John started a tour of Russia, when he played the first of eight concerts making him the first Western star ever to do so.

1980, A thief brook into Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the recording studio built by Jimi Hendrix and stole five Hendrix gold records for the albums ‘Are You Experienced’’, ‘Axis: Bold as Love’, ‘Cry of Love’, ‘Rainbow Bridge’ and Live at Monterey.

1980, Joe Strummer of The Clash was arrested at a much-troubled gig in Hamburg, Germany, after smashing his guitar over the head of a member of the audience; he was released after an alcohol test proved negative.

1983, David Bowie went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Let's Dance', featuring blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. It was Bowie's first single to reach number one on both sides of the Atlantic. The music video was made by David Mallet on location in Australia including a bar in Carinda in New South Wales, featured Bowie playing with his band while impassively watching an Aboriginal couple’s struggles against metaphors of Western cultural imperialism.

2006, Madonna played the first of three sold out nights at The Los Angeles Forum in California, the first dates on her Confessions Tour. The 60-date tour grossed over $260 million, becoming the highest grossing tour ever for a female artist.

[BigV]

Demon core. and Stevie Ray Vaughan with David Bowie both extremely interesting!

Thank you Gravdigr.

[BigV]

Traveled over the Skagit River on that bridge this weekend. Definitely thought about the accident that broke the bridge. Crossed safely this time. Whew!

[Gravdigr]

Today is May 24.


Today In Music History

1963, US blues guitarist and singer Elmore James died of a heart attack aged 45. James wrote 'Shake Your Money Maker', which was covered by Fleetwood Mac in 1968. Known as "The King of the Slide Guitar", James influenced Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Keith Richards.

1966, Captain Beefheart appeared at the Whisky a Go Go. West Hollywood, California. Supported by Buffalo Springfield and The Doors.

1968, The Rolling Stones released the single 'Jumpin Jack Flash' in the UK, the track gave them their seventh UK No.1 hit. Keith Richards has stated that he and Jagger wrote the lyrics while staying at Richards' country house, where they were awoken one morning by the sound of gardener Jack Dyer walking past the window. When Jagger asked what the noise was, Richards responded: "Oh, that's Jack – that's jumpin' Jack."

1969, Bob Dylan's album Nashville Skyline peaked at No.3 in the US chart. The singer's ninth album, it also scored Dylan his fourth UK No.1. The album featured 'Lay Lady Lay', which became one of Dylan's biggest pop hits, reaching No.7 in the US, his biggest single in three years.

1969, The Beatles with Billy Preston started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Get Back', the group's 17th US No.1. Credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston", it was the Beatles' only single that credited another artist, 'Get Back' was also the Beatles' first single release in true stereo in the US.

1970, Peter Green played his last gig with Fleetwood Mac when they appeared at the Bath Festival, Somerset, England.

1974, American composer, pianist, and bandleader Duke Ellington, died of lung cancer and pneumonia aged 75.

1974, David Bowie released his eighth studio album Diamond Dogs. The cover art features Bowie as a striking half-man, half-dog grotesque painted by Belgian artist Guy Peellaert. It was controversial as the full painting clearly showed the hybrid's genitalia. Genitalia!!!

1975, Earth Wind and Fire went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Shining Star', the group's first and only US No.1.

1980, Genesis fans turning up at the Roxy Club box office in Los Angeles to buy tickets for a forthcoming gig were surprised to find the band members Phil Collins, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford selling the tickets themselves.

1991, Founder member of The Byrds Gene Clark died of a heart attack aged 49. Wrote The Byrds hits 'I'll Feel a Whole Lot Better', and 'Eight Miles High'.

1999, Queen singer Freddie Mercury, who died in 1991, was honoured on a new set of millennium stamps issued by the Royal Mail. Mercury, who featured on the 19p stamp, was a keen stamp collector, and his collection was bought by the Post Office in 1993. The stamp marked his contribution to the Live Aid charity concert in 1985, and caused controversy by featuring a small portion of Queen’s drummer, Roger Taylor, in the background - UK stamps by tradition only carry pictures of living persons who are members of the Royal Family.

2009, Billy Joel was being sued by his former drummer for hundreds of thousands of dollars in unpaid royalties. Liberty Devitto, claimed that Joel hadn't paid him proper royalties for 10 years of his work. Devitto was Joel's drummer from 1975 until 2005, when he said he was abruptly thrown out of the band. He said: "People get fired, they get severance or insurance for a certain period of time. I didn't even get a phone call. It was cold."

2010, Paul Gray, the bassist with US metal band Slipknot, was found dead in a hotel in Des Moines, Iowa. The body of the 38-year-old musician was found by an employee at the hotel in a suburb of the city. Police said foul play was not suspected, but an autopsy would be carried out. The nine members of Slipknot wore masks in public and referred to other bandmates by numbers; Gray was number two.