I can’t get no

“Do you know that the Rolling Stones are actually lowering their ticket prices for the upcoming tour? I guess they finally realized a lot of their fans are on a fixed income.”

Leno

Or fire their weapons

“And now the state of New Jersey is now considering a law that would ban smoking while driving. Authorities say that people who smoke while driving are not able to properly concentrate on their cell phone conversations or the movie playing in the back seat.”

Leno

If you saw Jaws …

or read it, you will remember the harrowing story Quint (Robert Shaw) tells of surviving the sinking of the cruiser Indianapolis. It was on this date 60 years ago that the ship, which had carried the Hiroshima atomic bomb, was torpedoed by the Japanese. According to the U.S. Navy:

The ship capsized and sank in twelve minutes. Survivors were spotted by a patrol aircraft on 2 August. All air and surface units capable of rescue operations were dispatched to the scene at once, and the surrounding waters were thoroughly searched for survivors. Upon completion of the day and night search on 8 August, 316 men were rescued out of the crew of 1,199.

Shark attacks began with sunrise of the first day and continued until the survivors were removed from the water almost five days later.

The Navy web site includes oral histories with Indianapolis Captain McVay and Japanese submarine Captain Hashimoto. The Discovery Channel has a wealth of material.

The site dedicated to the Indianapolis is perhaps the best source.

Henry Ford …

was born on a farm in Dearborn, Michigan, on this date in 1863. Though a tinkerer, Ford’s claim to fame is not for inventing the automobile but, as the Library of Congress tells us, for the mass production of them.

From the time he was a young boy, Ford enjoyed tinkering with machines. Farm work and a job in a Detroit machine shop afforded him ample opportunities to experiment. He later worked as a part-time employee for the Westinghouse Engine Company. By 1896, Ford had constructed his first horseless carriage which he sold in order to finance work on an improved model.

Ford incorporated the Ford Motor Company in 1903, proclaiming, “I will build a car for the great multitude.” In October 1908, he did so, offering the Model T for $950. In the Model T’s nineteen years of production, its price dipped as low as $280. Nearly 15,500,000 were sold in the United States alone. The Model T heralds the beginning of the Motor Age; the car evolved from luxury item for the well-to-do to essential transportation for the ordinary man.

Ford revolutionized manufacturing. By 1914, his Highland Park, Michigan plant, using innovative production techniques, could turn out a complete chassis every 93 minutes. This was a stunning improvement over the earlier production time of 728 minutes. Using a constantly-moving assembly line, subdivision of labor, and careful coordination of operations, Ford realized huge gains in productivity.

In 1914, Ford began paying his employees five dollars a day, nearly doubling the wages offered by other manufacturers. He cut the workday from nine to eight hours in order to convert the factory to a three-shift workday. Ford’s mass-production techniques would eventually allow for the manufacture of a Model T every 24 seconds. His innovations made him an international celebrity.

“History is more or less bunk. It’s tradition. We don’t want tradition. We want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker’s damn is the history we make today.” Henry Ford

Oddly enough, the man who said history was more or less bunk established one of the great historical museums — the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.