… came under National Park Service administration on this date in 1965. It had been set aside in 1957.
May 10, 1869 the Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined their rails at Promontory Summit, Utah Territory and forged the destiny of a nation. Golden Spike National Historic Site shares the stories of the people and settings that define the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad.
“Professor” Irwin Corey, The World’s Foremost Authority, is 100 today.
Ken Burns is 61.
William Powell was born on this date in 1892. He was nominated for three best actor Academy Awards — The Thin Man (1934), My Man Godfrey (1936) and Life with Father (1947). Powell was Nick Charles and Myrna Loy was Nora Charles in the six Thin Man films.
The “It Girl” Clara Bow was born on this date in 1905. A huge star when movies didn’t talk, her career wound down quickly and unhappily after sound. As with many other silent film stars, it was a new medium that necessitated less physical acting, the reason they had become big stars to begin with. The clip is from It (1927).
Charlie Christian was born on this date in 1916. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990 (the fifth group).
Charlie Christian elevated the guitar as a lead instrument on par with the saxophone and trumpet in jazz and popular music. His single-string technique established a solo style that was carried on by such contemporaries as T-Bone Walker and emulated by later disciples like B. B. King and Chuck Berry. Born in Bonham, Texas, on July 29th, 1919, and raised in Oklahoma City, Christian was influenced by country music and jazz, an odd hybrid of influences that can be heard in his recorded works, such as “Seven Come Eleven,” with the Benny Goodman Sextet. Unfortunately, his recording career lasted less than two years, as he was brought down in his prime by tuberculosis, dying on March 2, 1942, in New York. Though his life was short, his hornlike, single-note style, which capitalized on innovations in amplification technology, revolutionized and redefined the role of the electric guitar in popular music. The reverberations from Christian’s pioneering efforts have echoed down the decades, through Western swing, rockabilly and rock and roll to the present day.”
Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer were married 33 years ago today.
First posted here nine years ago today. All true.
A CIA manager once told me about life under cover. He went by his regular name, lived in a regular neighborhood, etc., but as far as anyone knew he worked for the Navy. In fact, he told me, one time his car broke down and his neighbor insisted on giving him a ride to work at the Washington Navy Yard (in southeast Washington, D.C.). The neighbor kept insisting and he finally had to accept.
After being left off at the Navy Yard the CIA employee had to figure how to get back across the Potomac to Virginia to his “real” office. He was further away than when he started.
In other instances we were often amused when we held a meeting that included CIA or other “under cover” agency personnel. The sign-in sheet consisted of names like Cindy D., Bob L., Frank C., etc.
Lastly, my particular favorite under cover story. After visiting a “secret” location for business and being well treated, I composed a short thank you note to the man in charge. I addressed it to him by name. I ran the draft past my staff member who was liaison with that agency. The staff member came back, saying the note was great except that the man’s name was classified because he worked undercover. So we sent the thank you without the name.
His actual name was John Smith.
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”
Henry David Thoreau, who was born 197 years ago today.
Today is the birthday
… of Bill Cosby. He’s 77.
… of Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. She’s 71.
… of Gaius Julius Caesar, born on July 12th around 100 BCE (some say July 13th). Caesar was named for his father, Gaius Julius Caesar III, and he had two sisters, both named Julia. If Caesar was named for a caesarean section, it was an ancestor’s birth, not his. The explanation for the name that Julius Caesar himself seemed to favor was that it came from the Moorish word caesai for elephant.
Caesar, of course, died on March 15, 44 BCE. Caesar never said “Et tu, Brute?” That’s Shakespeare (though not original with him). Some contemporaries said Caesar did say “καὶ σύ, τέκνον,” Greek for “You too, child.” If he said it, it may have been intended as a curse (this will happen to you) as much as a feeling of abandonment by Brutus.
It was Julius Caesar who fixed the calendar at 365 days with a leap day every fourth year. His formula had to be tweaked in 1582 with three less leap years every 400 years, but it stands pretty much as Caesar established it, the Julian Calendar, in 46 BCE.
Henry David Thoreau was born on this date in 1817; George Eastman, the inventor of roll film, in 1854; George Washington Carver in 1864; Jean Hersholt in 1886 and Buckminster Fuller in 1895. Hersholt was in 140 films, most famously as Heidi’s grandfather with Shirley Temple. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named its service award for Hersholt, who was president of the Academy and longtime president of the Motion Picture Relief Fund.
Oscar Hammerstein II was born on July 12th, 1895. Hammerstein won eight Tonys and two Oscars — for “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” and “It Might as Well Be Spring.”
The view from the frontyard last weekend.
Nate Silver: “… We’re launching a national, 64-restaurant Burrito Bracket. We’ve convened a Burrito Selection Committee. We’ve hired an award-winning journalist, Anna Maria Barry-Jester, to be our burrito correspondent. She’s already out traveling the country and sampling burritos from every establishment that made the bracket.
It’s a little crazy, but we think it needs to be done. …”
Reports so far [UPDATED Monday, June 9] —
In Search of America’s Best Burrito
The Search For America’s Best Burrito Starts in California
Western States Are a New Frontier in the Search For America’s Best Burrito
The Search For America’s Best Burrito Turns to the Northeast
The Search For America’s Best Burrito Heads to the Land of Sweet Tea
Our Mexican-Food Expert Says: ‘The Diversity of Burritos Is Mind-Blowing’
Our Cultural Historian Explains Why Arizona Is ‘Ground Zero of Burritoness’
Chef David Chang Explains Why Yelp Probably Won’t Lead You to Your Favorite Burrito
Our Food Writer Says the South Has Burrito Variety, But Perhaps Not Burrito Greatness
It was on June 7 in 1776 that the idea of independence was first officially proposed in the Continental Congress. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia introduced and John Adams seconded the following:
Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.
That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation.
The vote on the resolution was set aside until July 1st — it actually occurred on July 2nd. On June 11th Congress appointed the Committee of Five to draft a formal declaration of independence — John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Robert R. Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.
June 7: Resolution introduced
July 2: Resolution approved (12 colonies for; New York abstained, later voted for)
July 4: Declaration of Independence approved
On the Fourth of July we celebrate the birth announcement, not the birth.
… first looked west from Cumberland Gap into what is now Kentucky on this date in 1769. The Kentucky Historical Society celebrates June 7 as “Boone Day.”
Boone was not the first person through Cumberland Gap; he wasn’t even the first European-American. He was, however, instrumental in blazing a trail, which became known as the Wilderness Road.
According to the National Park Service:
Immigration through the Gap began immediately, and by the end of the Revolutionary War some 12,000 persons had crossed into the new territory. By 1792 the population was over 100,000 and Kentucky was admitted to the Union.
During the 1790s traffic on the Wilderness Road increased. By 1800 almost 300,000 people had crossed the Gap going west. And each year as many head of livestock were driven east. As it had always been, the Gap was an important route of commerce and transportation.
Levi Stubbles was born in Detroit 78 years ago today. As Levi Stubbs for more than 40 years he was the lead vocalist of The Four Tops.
The Four Tops were one of soul music’s most popular and long-lived vocal groups. This quartet from Detroit endured for more than 40 years without a single change in personnel. …
The Four Tops consisted of lead singer Levi Stubbs, first tenor Abdul “Duke” Fakir, second tenor Lawrence Payton, and baritone Renaldo “Obie” Benson. Working closely with the in-house songwriting and production team of Brian Holland, Lamont Dozier and Eddie Holland, the Four Tops cut some of Motown’s most memorable singles during the label’s mid-Sixties zenith. The list of classics recorded by the Four Tops during this fruitful period includes “Baby I Need Your Loving,” “I Can’t Help Myself,” “It’s the Same Old Song,” “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” “Standing in the Shadows of Love” and “Bernadette.” Between 1964 and 1988, the Four Tops made Billboard’s Hot 100 chart 45 times and its R&B chart 52 times. Twenty-four of their singles made the Top 40, and seven of those entered the Top 10.
While their career took off at Motown, the Four Tops had a significant prehistory before arriving at the label, having already logged nearly a decade in show business. Stubbs and Fakir attended Pershing High School in Detroit’s North End, while Payton and Benson attended Detroit’s Northern High School. The four young men met at a friend’s birthday party, where they first sang together. …
It’s Stubbs who sings:
Now if you feel that you can’t go on
Because all of your hope is gone
And your life is filled with much confusion
Until happiness is just an illusion
And your world around is tumbling down
Darling reach out
C’mon girl
Reach on out for me
Reach out for me
You will note it was never Levi Stubbs and the Tops, unlike Smokey Robinson and the Miracles or Diana Ross and the Supremes. Stubbs had the opportunity to lead or go solo, but he stayed loyal to his friends for life. He died in 2008.
Unlike what happens to other great battles, the passing of the years and the retelling of the story have softened the horror of Omaha Beach on D Day.
. . .
In everything that has been written about Omaha until now, there is less blood and iron than in the original field notes covering any battalion landing in the first wave. Doubt it? Then let’s follow along with Able and Baker companies, 116th Infantry, 29th Division. Their story is lifted from my fading Normandy notebook, which covers the landing of every Omaha company.
Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Forces:
You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.
Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.
But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory.
I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.
Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.
Dwight D. Eisenhower
The Chinese army crackdown on the protests in and around Tiananmen Square was 25 years ago today. According to estimates by the Chinese Red Cross (accepted at the time by the U.S. State Department) some 2,600 protesters and military were killed and another 7,000 wounded.
This declassified State Department cable (June 22, 1989) provides the account of a witness to the violence on the night of June 3-4. The students believed that the military would be firing rubber bullets. The witness tells that “he had a sickening feeling when he noticed the bullets striking sparks off the pavement near his feet.”
This second declassified cable provides an hour-by-hour chronology of the events of the night of June 3-4, 1989.
While difficult to read, these documents tell the story as American diplomats reported it.
NewMexiKen took this photo in Tiananmen Square just three years after the events there. The building in the background is the Great Hall of the People. At left is the Monument of the People’s Heroes.
SECTION 1. The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
SECTION 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Congress sent the 19th Amendment to the states for ratification on this date in 1919. By August of 1920, the necessary 36 states (of 48) had ratified the amendment and it went into effect.
It’s interesting to note the 12 states that had not yet ratified, including several that had rejected the amendment.
Not that long ago.
For comparison, the 15th amendment, ratified 50 years earlier.
SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
And the 26th, ratified in 1971.
SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States, who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age.
SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
. . . is 80 today.
Boone had grandchildren at the same school NewMexiKen’s children attended nearly 40 years ago. He showed up at “Back to School Night” once or twice, and I have to admit he was about the handsomest, youngest looking grandpa you’d ever see. Of course, he was only 41 or 42.
It’s hard to believe I was ever so young I thought 41 was old enough that someone could “look good” for 41?
Only Elvis sold more records than Pat Boone in the late 1950s.
George Washington engaged in his first military action 260 years ago today, May 28, 1754.
Washington arrived at the Great Meadows, as the Fort Necessity area was than called, on May 24. Although the meadow was nearly all marsh, he believed it “a charming field for an encounter” and ordered his men to set up an encampment. Three days later, after hearing that a group of French soldiers had been spotted about seven miles away on Chestnut Ridge, Washington and 40 men set out to find them. At dawn on May 28, the Virginians reached the camp of Tanacharison, a friendly Seneca chief known as the Half King. His scouts then led them to the ravine about two miles to the north where the French were encamped.
The French, commanded by Joseph Coulon de Villiers, Sieur de Jumonville, were taken by surprise. Ten were killed, including Jumonville, one was wounded, and 21 were made prisoner. One man escaped to carry the news back to Fort Duquesne. Washington’s command suffered only one man killed and two wounded.
Fearing “we might be attacked by considerable forces,” Washington undertook to fortify his position at the Great Meadows. During the last two days of May and the first three days of June, he built a circular palisaded fort, which he called Fort Necessity.
Source: Fort Necessity National Battlefield
The action at what came to be called Jumonville Glen sparked the world war that we know as the French and Indian War.
For his part, Washington loved it: “I fortunately escaped without any wound, for the right wing, where I stood, was exposed to and received all the enemy’s fire, and it was the part where the man was killed, and the rest wounded. I heard the bullets whistle, and, believe me there is something charming in the sound.”
The title to the post is a quotation from Horace Walpole.
This story from Jill first published here 10 years ago today.
[Three-year-old] Mack and I picked out some lovely ripe cherries at the market today. We’re going to chop them up and put them in homemade ice cream.
At lunch I diced some of them and gave them to [8-month-old] Aidan.
He grabbed a couple and stuffed them in his mouth. Immediately, his eyes shot to me with an expression that perfectly conveyed two thoughts:
“My God, but I do love you, woman.”
and
“Exactly what else have you been keeping from me?”
Hubert Humphrey was born in Wallace, South Dakota, on this date in 1911. Humphrey was first elected mayor of Minneapolis in 1945 and U.S. Senator in 1948. Senator Humphrey introduced his first bill in 1949; it became law in 1965 and we know it as Medicare. Humphrey became Vice President with the election of President Lyndon Johnson in 1964. After Johnson withdrew from the 1968 campaign, and after Robert Kennedy was killed, Humphrey was nominated as the Democratic candidate for President. He lost to Richard Nixon in one of the closest elections in history. Some commented that with the vote trending as it did, had the election been one or two days later Humphrey would have won.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Herman Wouk is 99 today. Wouk served in the United States Navy during World War II, background for his great novel The Caine Mutiny. Other works include Majorie Morningstar, Youngblood Hawke, and The Winds of War and War and Remembrance.
Henry Kissinger is 91. They say the good die young.
Lou Gossett Jr. is 78 today. Gossett won the Oscar for best supporting actor for his portrayal of Gunnery Sgt. Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman and an Emmy as the slave Fiddler in Roots.
Roz is 53 today. That’s actress Peri Gilpin of Frasier.
Todd Bridges is 49 today. “Watchoo talkin’ ’bout, Willis?”
Best-selling mystery author Tony Hillerman was born in Sacred Heart, Oklahoma, on this date in 1925; he died in Albuquerque in 2008. The Shape Shifter was the 18th and last in Hillerman’s series centered on Navajo Tribal policemen Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee. Hillerman told us that:
Leaphorn emerged from a young Hutchinson County, Texas, sheriff who I met and came to admire in 1948 when I was a very green ‘crime and violence” reporter for a paper in the high plains of the Panhandle. He was smart, he was honest, he was wise and humane in his use of police powers–my idealistic young idea of what every cop should be but sometimes isn’t.
. . .Jim Chee emerged several books later. I like to claim he was born from an artistic need for a younger, less sophisticated fellow to make the plot of PEOPLE OF DARKNESS make sense–and that is mostly true. Chee is a mixture of a couple of hundred of those idealistic, romantic, reckless youngsters I had been lecturing to at the University of New Mexico, with their yearnings for Miniver Cheever’s “Days of Old” modified into his wish to keep the Navajo Value System healthy in universe of consumerism.
John Cheever was born on this date in 1912.
He wrote for more than 50 years and published more than 200 short stories. He’s known for writing about the world of American suburbia. Even though he was one of the most popular short-story writers of the 20th century, he once said that he only earned “enough money to feed the family and buy a new suit every other year.”
In 1935 he was published in The New Yorker for the first time, and he would continue to write for the magazine for the rest of his life. His stories were collected in books including The Way Some People Live (1943) and The Enormous Radio and Other Stories (1953). The Stories of John Cheever, published in 1978, won the Pulitzer Prize and became one of the few collections of short stories ever to make the New York Times best-seller list.
The Writer’s Almanac (2008)
Cheever died in 1982.
Sam Snead was born on May 27th in 1912. Snead won 82 PGA events; seven majors — three Masters, three PGA Championships and a British Open. Great as he was, he never won the big one.
Vincent Price, an actor noted primarily for his horror and suspense roles, was born 103 years ago today.
Rachel Carson was born on this date in 1907. Carson’s writing, most notably Silent Spring (1962), was instrumental in establishing environmental awareness. Silent Spring lead to a ban on DDT and the creation of the EPA.
Mystery writer Samuel Dashiell Hammett was born on this date in 1894. Hammett departed from the intellectualized mysteries of earlier detective novels (Sherlock Holmes for example) and transformed the genre with his less-than-glamorous realism. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.
Hammett actually was a detective with Pinkerton for a few years just before World War I. Contracting TB during military service, he realized his health would keep him from resuming as a detective. He turned to writing. He published his first story in 1922, and then about 80 more, many in the popular pulp crime magazine Black Mask. Hammett’s first novel was Red Harvest, published in 1929. His most famous character, Sam Spade, made his appearance in Hammett’s third novel, The Maltese Falcon (1930). (It was the third—and only successful—attempt to turn that novel into a film when Humphrey Bogart played the role in 1941.) The Thin Man (1934) was the last of Hammett’s novels.
By the early-thirties, Hammett was established and famous. He began a relationship with playwright Lillian Hellman that lasted for 30 years despite his drinking and womanizing. Though both eventually divorced their spouses, they never married. Hammett served in the Army in World War II, enlisting as a private at age 48. His involvement in left-wing politics and unwillingness to testify about it before Congress however, and the continued drinking, diminished his stature. Hammett died in 1961.
James Butler Hickok was born May 27, 1837. As Wild Bill Hickok, he was killed while playing poker at Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, at age 39. It’s said he was holding a pair of aces and a pair of eights, all black (but most doubt the tale).
Hubert Humphrey was born 103 years ago today. He was, I think, a genuinely great American politician.
Among the many then secret documents I came across at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library when I was an archivist there long ago, was a lengthy single-spaced typewritten memo from Vice President Humphrey to President Johnson. Humphrey had been to Vietnam and wanted to report his observations directly. Because the document was secret I couldn’t keep a copy, but I remember Humphrey being perceptive about what was really happening.
But mostly I remember the P.S. — the Vice President of the United States apologized to the President of the United States for the typing. Humphrey said he’d come into the office on Sunday and no one was available, so he had typed the memo himself.
In 1868, Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a memorial day “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.”
The first national celebration of the holiday took place May 30, 1868, at Arlington National Cemetery, where both Confederate and Union soldiers were buried. Originally known as Decoration Day, at the turn of the century it was designated as Memorial Day. In many American towns, the day is celebrated with a parade.
…In 1971, federal law changed the observance of the holiday to the last Monday in May and extended the honor to all soldiers who died in American wars. A few states continue to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30.
Brent Musburger is 75.
Stevie Nicks is 66 today.
Finally, the platinum edition of Fleetwood Mac came together in 1975 with the recruitment of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. The San Francisco duo had previously cut an album together as Buckingham-Nicks. Drummer Fleetwood heard a tape of theirs at a studio he was auditioning, and the pair were drafted into the group without so much as a formal audition. This lineup proved far and away to be Fleetwood Mac’s most durable and successful. In addition to the most solid rhythm section in rock, this classic lineup contained strong vocalists and songwriters in Buckingham, Nicks and Christine McVie. Male and female points of view were offered with unusual candor on the watershed albums Fleetwood Mac (1975) and Rumours (1977).
Lenny Kravitz is 50. Helena Bonham Carter is 48.
John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison 107 years ago today. (His middle name was later changed to Mitchell so his parents could name their next son Robert.)
In more than 200 films made over 50 years, John Wayne saddled up to become the greatest figure of one of America’s greatest native art forms, the western.
The movies he starred in rode the range from out-of-the-money sagebrush quickies to such classics as “Stagecoach” and “Red River.” He won an Oscar as best actor for another western, “True Grit,” in 1969. Yet some of the best films he made told stories far from the wilds of the West, such as “The Quiet Man” and “The Long Voyage Home.”
In the last decades of his career, Mr. Wayne became something of an American folk figure, hero to some, villain to others, for his outspoken views. He was politically a conservative and, although he scorned politics as a way of life for himself, he enthusiastically supported Richard M. Nixon, Barry Goldwater, Spiro T. Agnew, Ronald Reagan and others who, he felt, fought for his concept of Americanism and anti- Communism.
The New York Times [Obituary, 1979]
Photographer Dorothea Lange was born on May 26th in 1895. That’s her most famous photo, “Migrant Mother,” taken in 1936.
Dancer Isadora Duncan was born on this date in 1877.
Engineer, designer of the Brooklyn Bridge, Washington Roebling was born on May 26th 1837. And, according to the Smithsonian Civil War Studies :
From a hot air balloon on a sunny late-June morning in 1863, Roebling was the first to spy Robert E. Lee’s army heading toward Gettysburg. During the ensuing battle, when General Warren ordered that Little Round Top be reinforced, Roebling helped place the first cannon, which effectively defended the site and directly contributed to the subsequent Union victory. He was awarded three brevets for gallant conduct and ended his military career as a Colonel.
Roebling’s wife Emily was the younger sister of General Gouverneur K. Warren, hero of Gettysburg. Roebling served on Warren’s staff.
James Arness — Marshall Dillon — was born May 26, 1923. He died in 2011.
The first woman in space, Sally K. Ride, was born on May 26, 1951. She died in 2012.
Levon Helm was born May 26, 1940. It’s his voice you know from “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Up on Cripple Creek,” “Rag Mama Rag,” and “The Weight.” He died in 2012.
The Band, more than any other group, put rock and roll back in touch with its roots. With their ageless songs and solid grasp of musical idioms, the Band reached across the decades, making connections for a generation that was, as an era of violent cultural schisms wound down, in desperate search of them. They projected a sense of community in the turbulent late Sixties and early Seventies – a time when the fabric of community in the United States was fraying. Guitarist Robbie Robertson drew from history in his evocative, cinematic story-songs, and the vocal triumvirate of bassist Rick Danko, drummer Levon Helm and keyboardist Richard Manuel joined in rustic harmony and traded lines in rich, conversational exchanges. Multi-instrumentalist Garth Hudson provided musical coloration in period styles that evoked everything from rural carnivals of the early 20th century to rock and roll revues of the Fifties.
Norma Deloris Egstrom was born on May 26th in 1920. We know her as Peggy Lee. Miss Lee began with the Benny Goodman band in 1941, then recorded on her own beginning later in the 1940s. Her signature song is Little Willie John’s “Fever,” recorded by Lee in 1958. She also wrote a number of songs, including “He’s a Tramp” and “The Siamese Cat Song” for Lady and the Tramp. Lee received a supporting actress Oscar nomination for her performance in Pete Kelly’s Blues. She died in 2002.
Harold J. Smith was born in Branford, Ontario, on this date in 1912. He was a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation (Canadian Mohawk). Harry Smith boxed Golden Gloves and played lacrosse. Eventually he found his way to movies and then television where, as Jay Silverheels, he played Tonto in The Lone Ranger TV series, 1949-1957. He died in 1980.
Ben Alexander was born on this date in 1911. A veteran actor who began at age 5, Alexander is best known for playing Detective Frank Smith on the first TV run of Dragnet in the 1950s. (Harry Morgan had the Jack Webb’s sidekick role in the second run.) Alexander has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Al Jolson was born Asa Yoelson in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, on May 26, 1886. The biggest star on Broadway and vaudeville even before the movie The Jazz Singer in 1927, by the 1930s he was America’s most famous and highest paid entertainer. It can be said, that as Elvis Presley married country and blues, Al Jolson wedded Jewish performing style with jazz, blues and ragtime, and so made “race music” acceptable to the wider audience.
Mamie Robinson Smith was born on May 26th in 1883. She was a vaudeville performer and the first African American singer to make vocal blues recordings. Smith’s “Crazy Blues” — a Grammy Hall of Fame record and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Song That Shaped Rock and Roll — was recorded in 1920. It sold over a million copies in its first year. She was billed “Queen of the Blues” — but of course, Bessie Smith came right behind and Bessie was “Empress of the Blues.”
Legend and a number of historical accounts have it that on this date in 1626, Manhattan Island was purchased from the Canarsee Delawares by the Dutchman Peter Minuit. Most accounts state that Dutch beads were part of the deal.
The only known document specifically relating to the acquisition was written in Amsterdam late in 1626 as a report to the board of the West India Company. It said, in part:
They [the crew and passengers of a returning ship] report that our people are in good heart and live in peace there; the women have also borne some children there. They have purchased the Island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders; ’tis 11,000 morgens (about 22,00[0] acres) in size.
60 guilders has been estimated as worth from $24 to $300. Manhattan is actually about 15,000 acres, not 22,000.
The late bead historian Peter Francis argued in his prize-winning 1986 article “The Beads That Did Not Buy Manhattan Island” that, because this contemporary report does not mention beads, we cannot assume that beads were part of the transaction. According to Francis, beads were added to the story by Martha J. Lamb in her History of the City of New York (1877). It was only from then on that Dutch beads became part of the story. And, as a result, making the Delawares seem even more ignorant in light of Manhattan’s growing importance and wealth.
NewMexiKen however, wonders whether “for the value of 60 guilders” does not imply trade goods rather than coin. What use would Dutch money have been to the Delawares? And, if the transaction was strictly for money, why not report “for 60 guilders” rather than the vague “for the value of 60 guilders”? Trade goods were used in the purchase of Staten Island in August 1626 according to a copy of the deed – “Some Diffies, Kittles, Axes, Hoes, Wampum, Drilling Awls, Jew’s Harps, and diverse other wares” [Diffies are cloth]. What does “Wampum” mean in this Dutch account if not beads? The word “Wampum” comes from the Narragansett for white shell beads.
More than likely the Delawares assumed they were “leasing” the use of the land. Permanent title would not have occurred to them. And $24 to $300 for a lease (whether in cash or goods) would not have been unattractive.
As the result of war, the Dutch traded New Amsterdam to the English in 1667 for what is now Suriname (Dutch Guyana).
Robert Allen Zimmerman was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on May 24th 73 years ago. That’s Bob Dylan, of course.
From the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:
Bob Dylan is the uncontested poet laureate of the rock and roll era and the pre-eminent singer/songwriter of modern times. Whether singing a topical folk song, exploring rootsy rock and blues, or delivering one of his more abstract, allegorical compositions, Dylan has consistently demonstrated the rare ability to reach and affect listeners with thoughtful, sophisticated lyrics.
Dylan re-energized the folk-music genre in the early Sixties, brought about the lyrical maturation of rock and roll when he went electric at mid-decade, and bridged the worlds of rock and country by recording in Nashville throughout the latter half of the Sixties. As much as he’s played the role of renegade throughout his career, Dylan has also kept the rock and roll community mindful of its roots by returning to them. With his songs, Dylan has provided a running commentary on our restless age. His biting, imagistic and often cryptic lyrics served to capture and define the mood of a generation.
For this, he’s been elevated to the role of spokesmen – and yet the elusive Dylan won’t even admit to being a poet. “I don’t call myself a poet because I don’t like the word,” he has said. “I’m a trapeze artist.”
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Tommy Chong, he’s Chong of Cheech and Chong, is 76.
Walter “Radar” O’Reilly, that is Gary Burghoff, is 71.
Patti LaBelle is 70 today.
Alfred Molina is 61.
Rosanne Cash is 59. She was born a month before her father released his first record, “Cry, Cry, Cry.”
Kristin Scott Thomas is 54.
Michael Chabon is 51 today.
Criticized by one reviewer for not being ambitious enough, Chabon decided he needed to go in a new direction. About that time, he said: “I found one remaining box of comics which I had saved and I’d been dragging with me for 15 years. When I opened it up and that smell came pouring out […] I was struck by […] a sense of my childhood self that seemed to be contained in there.” Soon he wrote The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000), an epic story about 1940s comic book creators. The novel moves from the ghetto of Nazi-occupied Prague to the bohemian nightlife of New York City.
John C. Reilly is 49. “Shake ‘n Bake.”
Victoria was born on May 24, 1819. She was the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son of George III. None of her uncles had legitimate children who survived, so when her uncle William IV died in 1837, she became queen at age 18. Her reign lasted until 1901; the longest of any British monarch (Elizabeth II can catch her next year). She had nine children and is Elizabeth II’s great great grandmother.
Victoria Day has been celebrated in Canada since 1845. The holiday is now the Monday before May 24th, unless Monday is May 24th. (It was May 19th this year.)
The first passenger railroad in the U.S. began service between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland, on May 24th in 1830. That’s 13 miles.
The first telegraph message was transmitted by Samuel F. B. Morse on May 24th in 1844. Sent from Washington to Baltimore it said, “What hath God wrought!”
The Brooklyn Bridge opened on May 24th in 1883.
The first Major League Baseball night game was played in Cincinnati on May 24, 1935. The Reds beat the Phillies 2-1. The Reds played seven night games that year (one against each National League opponent).
“Mary Had a Little Lamb,” a poem by Sarah Josepha Hale, was published in Boston May 24, 1830, by Marsh, Capen & Lyon. It was inspired by an actual event. The Mary was Mary Sawyer who did take a lamb to school. (A witness may have written the first stanza.) Hale was an influential author and editor, known foremost for being a principal in establishing Thanksgiving as a holiday.