Marked This Day

On this day in 1852, Emma Snodgrass and a female accomplice were arrested for wearing pants in Boston. Emma had been arrested a few times before this occasion for the same reason. Over the next year she became a media sensation with papers reporting on any sighting of "The Girl in Pantaloons." I’m honestly quite amazed there were not more women that joined her stylistic choice. I’m not exactly sure what standard female attire was in 1853, but I’d assume it contained petticoats and corsets and gowns buttoned up to the neck so that no forbidden decolletage would peek out. Pants seem a lot more comfortable to me than all that. I mean the kilt is freeing in its own right, but a comfortable pair of pants are hard to beat. A good pair of shorts in the summer, perhaps. But I can’t imagine what they would have done to Ms. Snodgrass had she dared to wear shorts. I also can’t imagine going through life with the name Snodgrass. I’m not trying to diminish her statement for women’s equali...

On this day in 1902, Oscar "Battling" Nelson fought Christy Williams at Hot Springs in Arkansas. The fight was noteworthy because, similar to the machismo-filled psychology of “A Boy Named Sue,” this one poor bastard was named Christy by his father. But more so than having an apparent clairvoyant Johnny Cash fan naming one of the fighters, this particular boxing match was epic because there were 51 knockdowns that occurred. 51. As in how many states the US would have if they ratified Puerto Rico or conquered Canada and made it one big state. Williams knocked down Nelson 9 times, which would be pretty damn good for your average fight. But Nelson knocked down Williams 42 times before finally KOing him in the 17th round. 42 times. As in the number that according to the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the answer to the meaning of life. Or the number no one is allowed to wear in baseball because Jackie Robinson was a badass. Or the number of National Championships Alabama clai...

On this day in 1906, Reginald A. Fessenden was responsible for what is thought to be first radio broadcast of music or entertainment purposes. Fessenden used an alternator-transmitter to broadcast a phonograph record by Handel and then played the violin himself before finishing up by reading a passage from the bible. Radio and music have gone together ever since. Granted, there have been some dark times recently. There was the whole Creed infatuation on modern rock stations in the early 2000s. That was unfortunate. Sadly, I haven’t listened to radio in almost ten years, because of stations propensity to take a perfectly good song and play it till it sounds like a loop of Lloyd Christmas’ most annoying sound in the world. Or take they take a perfectly awful song and play it nonstop because they probably got paid off by the record company and pretty soon your ears are bleeding. And now with all the streaming sites and satellite radio, Fessenden’s revolutionary broadcast has gone the way ...

On this day in 1972, the last eight survivors of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 that crashed in the Andes Mountains were rescued, more than two months after the crash. They survived in large part because they were zombies. They weren’t actually zombies, but they did resort to cannibalism. But only of the passengers that had already died. They were basically reverse zombies. And I’m not judging one little bit. I cannot fathom the horror and desperation of being stranded in a barren mountainside where food options were non-existent. From all accounts of the survivors, the decision was not made lightly nor with relish. No one was killed in order for others to satiate hunger. It was just people doing what they had to do to survive. The will to live is an extraordinary desire in most human beings. So much so that in certain situations people resort to unspeakable acts. It is understandable. And, as I’ve stated, it is absolutely human. Someone with a strong will to survive values life. Perha...

On this day in 1882, Edward Hibberd Johnson strung some special Christmas tree bulbs that he had made for him while he was the VP of the Edison Electric Light Company on his Christmas tree at his home in New York. Prior to this invention people used candles to light up their trees. Candles. As in fire. On a tree. I think I would just appreciate the tree during the day time. So Edward H. Johnson, who otherwise would have been known as a mere footnote for hiring Thomas Edison, became the Father of Electric Christmas Tree Lights. It’s not the most life-changing invention of all time, but its cultural significance is right up there with the George Foreman Grill. And while I’m certain somebody would have figured that using fire in such close proximity to wood was probably a bad idea, I think the sooner that was established the better. So Eddie Johnson is a-okay in my book. There is probably also some poignant phrase that could be written about the invention of lights on what is traditionall...

This day in 1958 was the first radio broadcast from space. President Eisenhower’s pre-recorded message of America’s wish for peace and goodwill went out to the world. The satellite’s batteries died after twelve days in space and it burned up when it reentered Earth’s atmosphere, but that message will always be the first transmitted from space. I don’t think you can really criticize Ike’s message. At least not without sounding like a horrible person. I mean who faults somebody for wishing for world peace? Granted the wish has become a bit cliché what with endless stream of beauty pageant androids ending every answer with a wish for peace on Earth. But you can’t really fault a President on a momentous occasion. Thomas Jefferson could. But TJ could fault anyone for anything. He was once stuck at a four-way cross-section and clearly didn’t not have the right-of-way but proceeded anyway, only to have his horse spooked by the horse and rider who actually understood the rules of a four-way st...

On this day last year it was announced that two winning tickets had been purchased for the Mega Millions Lottery drawing the day before which was worth 648 million dollars. A woman from Atlanta claimed her prize on this same day, but the second ticket went unclaimed for almost a month. There were multiple theories as to why someone would not jump at 324 million dollars instantly. Psychologists postulated that the winner could be mourning his/her former life. Because becoming a multi-millionaire overnight would certainly change your life. I thought maybe the guy or girl was just smart. If I ever won the lottery, I’d tell no one. You might notice some nicer things start to pop up around me. But I’d tell you that I got a good deal on the Batmobile. That solid gold toilet with the seat warmer? A gift. And yes it would be pretty hard to explain how I could afford that yacht to sail around the world with either Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Watson, Rita Ora, or that girl in yoga pants at the groce...

There comes a time for every person when he/she starts looking around and begins wondering if the whole marriage/relationship thing is going to happen for him/her. Stereotypically this happens to women before it happens to men, which might have to do with biological clocks, but frankly, to me, the female gender is a mystery wrapped in an enigma kind of like why Tarzan doesn’t have a beard or what the best thing before sliced bread was. Eventually, no matter gender, if you’re single long enough you start wondering if maybe it was all a game of musical chairs and you’re really slow. Perhaps you’ve seen every one of your friends tie the knot, or you think that 40 is getting a little old to go to Cancun for Spring Break, or you’re the last of your bloodline and don’t want to see the billion dollar empire you created with your bare hands be taken over by some chump with hair plugs and a fake tan who will no doubt liquidate the business and live fat and happy off its carcass. Well put those ...

(Babar gets it). What do Shannen Doherty and Larry King have in common? I’m sure there are a few things, but one of them is that December 16th was a stopping point for both of them. On this day in 1993 Shannen got the boot from 90210 , and in 2010 Larry taped his last episode of Larry King Live . Of course there were vastly different reasons for these occurrences. People were tired of working with Shannen because she was difficult and rumored to be abusing drugs. Larry was tired of working with people because he was ancient and being that nice on camera really takes a toll. I’ll bet he was cursing out little babies by the end of his run. Shannen’s pictorial in Playboy was also supposedly a no-go with the show execs, while there’s a possibility Larry retired to use pictorials in Playboy to find his 8th wife. The point is that two titans of television overlapped like ships passing in the night. If that night were actually two nights, and if those two nights occurred 17 years apart, and t...

On this day in 1966, Audouin Dolfus discovered the tenth moon of Saturn which was named Janus after the Roman God of beginnings and transitions. There is a bit more to the story as Janus has pretty much the same orbit as the 11th moon of Saturn, Epimetheus, so no one is really sure if Dolfus saw Janus or Epimetheus, but I am more concerned about this tradition of naming celestial bodies after Roman and Greek Gods. I get it. It makes sense what with abundant gods present in Greek and Roman mythology and the abundant stars, planets, and moons out there. But I’m just thinking that Audoin, and every astronomer with naming rights, missed an opportunity. Name it Janice, not Janus. That’s right, I’d name it after a girl. Multiple reasons why one might do this. Perhaps Janice is a heavenly creature who makes you the center of her orbit. Plus that’s like at least 10 Get Out of Jail Free cards. Even for big stuff. Forgot the anniversary? Maybe, but you did name a moon after her. Of course it cou...

On this day in 1953, Chuck Yeager hit Mach 2.43 in a Bell X-1A rocket plane meaning he flew 2.43 times faster than the speed of sound which is about 761.2 mph. Kind of crazy that we were capable of going that fast 60 years ago. Twice as fast as the speed of sound, or in laymen’s terms, pretty damned fast. We’re not talking The-Flash/Barry-Allen fast, but Mach 2.43 is still ridiculously fast. And while Yeager was in a heavy machine made of aluminum, if the ability to move that fast, or even faster as the record has undoubtedly been broken over the last 60 years, if that ability were to be bestowed on one individual a la The Flash/Barry Allen, my vote would be for one Chazz Reinhold of Wedding Crashers fame. I’m quite glad he didn’t have the power in the movie so I could fully enjoy the meatloaf scene, but think about useful it would be for ole Chazz? In the time it took him to yell, “Meatloaf” to his mother he could have gotten it 2.43 times faster. He could zip to funerals and maximiz...

So it’s December 11, 1719 in New England. You’re minding your own business, maybe stoking the fire so your nether regions don’t get frostbite, when you look outside and see green, blue, and red light floating in the sky. You promptly lose your shit and think the world is ending. Not that I can blame you. This was the first recorded sighting of the Aurora Borealis or the Northern Lights. And while I’m not sure what the average IQ was in 1719, I’m certain that people didn’t have the context of knowing there was a perfectly natural scientific explanation for why the sky was changing colors. Johnny Blacksmith couldn’t just pop on Google and discover that "an aurora is a natural light display brought about by energetic charged particles outside the atmosphere colliding with atoms from the upper atmosphere which causes ionisation of the atmospheric particles and results in optical emissions" (thank you, History Channel and Wikipedia). Basically a bunch of stuff you can’t see crashe...

This day in 1995 was the worst single-day snowstorm in Buffalo’s history. 38 inches fell in just 24 hours burying the city in snow and shattering the previous record of 25 inches. I believe most meteorologists would call that a crapload of snow--though I’m sure the forecast called for clear skies. I get that people move to Buffalo with an expectation that it’s going to be pretty damn cold, and the white stuff will be falling rather frequently. But 38 inches in one night? You don’t expect that. That’s like marrying a super-superficial significant other. You expect that she/he is entering the union because you’re richer than Croesus, and she/he will be taking full advantage of the perks that come along with your wealth. But you go along with it because he or she is really hot and you can’t take it with you. And maybe you love her/him. Except when you get back from the honeymoon in Bali, her/his whole extended family has moved into the pool house. You were willing to shower her/him with g...

On this day in 1974, Johnson Van Dyke Grigsby, at the age of 89, shuffled out of prison to freedom for the first time in 66 years. That is a long time to be in prison. Not sure I would last a week. Too pretty. Undersized as well. But mostly too pretty. Grigsby, a black man, was convicted of murder after knifing the white James Brown in 1907, and entered the prison system in 1908. So Grigsby’s life breaks down as follows: The first 22-23 years of his life were lived outside of confinement until a poker game went bad and he stabbed Brown (his story about how this occurred changed over the course of his prison term). The next 66 years--locked up. Then he spent 17 months free before voluntarily going back to prison after finding life on the outside strange and boring. Then he left for good at age 91 in 1976 and lived the next 11 years as a free man. So Grigsby lived to be 101 and only about 35 of those years were spent in freedom. Not getting into the issue of culpability and whether Grigs...

On this day in 1980, John Lennon was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman. Chapman voluntarily stayed at the scene reading The Catcher in the Rye waiting to be apprehended, later saying that the book was his statement. I am not really sure what he meant by that. Catcher is one of the few books that I have read more than once, and I am not certain why conspiracists and killers feel such a connection to a sophomoric, spoiled character such as Holden Caulfield. The feelings of ostracism and the self-entitlement and passive-aggression perhaps. I don’t know. But before I get all book-reporty here, let’s just agree that Chapman was probably a nutter, though he did refuse to plead insanity. The real tragedy of course is the loss of one the most gifted songwriters in music history. Lennon and McCartney wrote some of the best songs in history, and that’s coming from someone who was always more of a Stones guy. And John was no slouch on his own. I don’t think there has been a more thought pro...

This day in 1952 was the first of the Great Smog or Big Smoke of ‘52. Not to get all meteorological on you, but an anticyclone and cold weather powered up like two rapscallions teaming up into a more sinister organized crime unit to collect a crapload of airborne pollutants to form a layer of fog thicker than Mr. Magoo’s glasses. Or thicker than Kim Kardashian’s posterior--just to keep things hippy--er I mean hip. Not that the Great Smog was any joking matter. In fact, it’s one of the worst things I can imagine happening from a health standpoint. Because Londoners were used to fog. So there was no panic. People were just kind of ho-hum ‘bout the whole thing, not realizing that the fog was actually deadly. It was basically The Karate Kid of weather events (the original with Ralph Macchio; not the mistake with Will Smith’s kid that I regret to say I actually watched). The smog came in all innocent looking like Daniel-san before he met Miyagi, but then it stalled in that anticyclone thin...

People used to believe some messed up stuff, but looking back you can understand why they came to certain conclusions. Like without any existing knowledge of heavenly bodies, it seems a perfectly reasonable explanation that there was a Sun God who brought the dawn each day. Thinking that the earth was flat? Not all that crazy to think without knowledge of perspective. And it’s also fairly easy to see how things could have gotten embellished. Think about it. You’re a squire in the Middle Ages entrusted with delivering a sword to a knight two kingdoms over, but you, being rather irresponsible and, truthfully, a bit of a smarmy squire, lose the sword in a poker game trying to impress the rather handsome bar wench at the local tavern. But besides smarm and irresponsibility, you know that everyone loves a good tale, and if it keeps your head off the chopping block, what’s the harm? So you tell a little fib that you were attacked by a flying, fire-breathing animal that looked like a giant li...

On this day in 1984, Harry Stevens got married to Thelma Lucas. Neither one of them was famous; they weren’t star-crossed lovers, or part of a political union. But this was not your garden variety wedding. In 1984, Harry Stevens had been breathing air since 1881. He became the oldest groom in recorded history when, at 103 years young, he married spring-chicken Thelma Lucas (84) at the Caravilla Retirement Home in Wisconsin. (Record was later broken by 106 year old Chinese man). Harry proved that love isn’t just for the young and that you’re never too old keep living. He also helped reinforce the stereotype/belief/scientific fact that men age better than women as well as the double standard that it’s perfectly fine for a male to be romantically involved with a woman 19 years his junior, but if you flip that script and reverse it? People would have had pitchforks ready if the Thelma had been the cradle-robber. But the main thing is that these two love birds found each other in the twili...

There are plenty of funny movies out there. Most of the time they’ll give you a little chuckle and brighten your day for an hour or two before you mindlessly shuffle back into your day trying ignore the fact that your body is in a constant state of functioning decay. But every now and again a movie comes along that is so spit-out-your-drink funny, it becomes part of your make-up and reminds you how great life can be just through sheer joy and humor. Airplane! Blazing Saddles . Young Frankenstein . Dumb and Dumber. There’s Something About Mary . Superbad . Well on this day in 1988, one such movie premiered. The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! Now I was too young to remember the very short TV Series, but that didn’t matter. Funny is funny, and you don’t need any backstory to crack up at Frank Drebin. So full of wisdom, that Drebin. I saw Naked Gun before Airplane! so it has a special place in my heart. It’s funny how that matters. For instance, because Rocky IV is the fi...

This day is more of an arbitrary celebration than an actual commemoration of an event. This is the day that we celebrate the invention, rather customization, of a great American game. On a December day in 1929, and let us just say it was December 1st to avoid further confusion, Edwin S. Lowe, a New York toy salesman who had the misfortune of starting his own company right before the stock market crash, came upon a country carnival outside of Jacksonville, Georgia. One booth was packed with people playing “BEANO.” Lowe saw an opportunity and brought the game back with him to New York, changing the name to BINGO when a friend got so excited he had won he shouted out Bingo instead of Beano--allegedly. Though that claim can be disputed, the game certainly thrived from that point on, and still does big business in America. Plus the word itself has infiltrated common lexicon, which as a wordie I find even more interesting than the fact that a hard-luck toy salesman repurposed a really old It...