March 1, 1504: The Curious Case of Christopher Columbus and the Disappearing Moon

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Christopher Columbus was not particularly known for his genius. After all, he thought a manatee was a mermaid (January 9) and the Bahamas were India. But in the wee hours of March 1, 1504, he showed himself to be a bit of a clever fellow and quite the showman to boot. Having stopped in Jamaica to make ship repairs during his fourth voyage (chances are, he had finally figured out that this was not India) he befriended the local natives (whom he referred to as the Pakistanis). However, Columbus’ crew was a surly lot and they soon wore out their welcome.

“When are you guys leaving?” the natives asked subtly. Then, when the Europeans refused to leave, the Jamaicans cut off their food and ganja.

The Europeans wanted to slaughter their rude hosts, but Columbus had a plan. He invited the Jamaican leaders to a late night pow wow. After a few rums and tokes, Columbus told his guests that his god was quite annoyed at their behavior and he was going to do something really nasty like smite them all dead. The Jamaicans were quite amused. Columbus then relented on the smiting part, but as punishment he said he would take away their moon. They were still quite amused, but when the moon began to disappear they changed their tune in a hurry, begging Columbus to please return their moon. Columbus said he would return their moon in exchange for all their papayas and all their pot.

It is lost to history how or if Columbus knew the moon would disappear that night. Perhaps it was just a lucky guess. Nevertheless, smug after his performance, Columbus warned the Jamaicans that they’d best behave or he’d send them packing back to India.

February 29, 1948: Hey Kids, What Time Is It?

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Okay, you could be forgiven for answering “It’s Howdy Doody Time.”  Howdy was certainly a pop star of the puppet world. As were Kukla, Fran and Ollie.  But let’s talk importance.  Albert Einstein.  You’ve probably heard of him.  Which puppet show did he watch?  Not only did Einstein watch Time for Beany, he once excused himself from a conference of Nobel prize winners, telling them it was time for Beany.

Time for Beany arrived on the television scene on February 29, 1948, a couple of years after Howdy and Kukla.  The show’s  creator Bob Clampett pointed out that these shows featured puppets as puppets, appearing alongside humans.  He wanted to create a fantasy world that would let audiences lose themselves in the illusion that Beany and his friends were full-sized people and that Cecil the Seasick Sea Serpent was ten feet tall.

In daily 15-minute episodes, Beany, Cecil and Uncle Captain Horatio Huffenpuff sailed the world aboard their ship Leakin’ Lena in search of adventure. A wild array of supporting characters included Carmen Dragon, Mouth Full of Teeth Keith, Hopalong Wong, Tear-along the Dotted Lion, Dinah Saur and the Red Skeleton.  Dishonest John and Dudley Nightshade provided villainy.  Stan Freberg and Daws Butler were the principal puppeteers and voices.

Time for Beany aired until 1955. An animated version, Beany and Cecil, followed during the 60s. https://youtu.be/VfXQs9OUTtk

 

February 28, 1844: Love Story with Cannons

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Cruising down the Potomac on a pleasant day in late winter could serve as the backdrop for romance, despite the fact that your vessel is not a gondola or a sailboat but a U.S. Navy steam frigate, and despite the fact that practically every dignitary in Washington is along for the ride.

Okay, not so romantic, but if you’re the President of the United States, recently widowed, and you’ve just proposed marriage to an enchanting 20-year-old, it may be the best you can do. And so it was, that President John Tyler (Tyler Too of Tippecanoe-And fame), was on board the USS Princeton on February 28, 1844, for a demonstration of a fancy new 27,000-pound cannon lovingly called the Peacemaker. Julia Gardiner, whose yes vote the President was seeking, was there with her sister and father David, a wealthy New Yorker. The co-designer of the cannon, John Ericsson, was on board; so was the Secretary of War, other cabinet members, congressmen, political and business dignitaries, reporters and other various hangers on. An intimate little gathering. One can imagine 400 breaths being held in anticipation of Julia’s answer.

But first we must fire that cannon. Designer Ericsson tried to persuade, pleaded with, the ship’s captain not to actually fire the weapon before such a crowd, fearing it had not been adequately tested. The captain, however, was having none of it; he had a big audience and a big gun, and he was going to have a big bang. The Peacemaker was fired, and it made a jolly big noise, much to the delight of the audience who cheered and applauded and yelled for more (perhaps this is how wars are started). Once more, the cannon was fired and once more the giddy observers whooped, then they all headed below for toasts and libations.

The Secretary of War (being the Secretary of War) was too enthused to settle for just two shots (of either kind). He insisted that the cannon be fired once more in the direction of Mount Vernon, as a tribute to George Washington.  The cannon was fired, and the third time was not a charm. Mount Vernon was left standing, but the cannon itself exploded into the worst peacetime disaster in the nation’s short history, killing several on board including a couple of cabinet members and the father of the would-be bride. While others counted the dead left by the explosion, oddsmakers recalculated the President’s chances of getting the desired answer out of Julia.

The ship docked, and in a brilliant display of presidential heroics, Tyler carried Julia off to safety. Her answer was delayed a bit, but it was an affirmative, and later that year, Julia became Mrs. Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.

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February 27, 1939: Monks, Nuns and Ghosts

Posted on by Richard Daybell

A rectory was built in the English village of Borley, Essex in 1862.  It was badly damaged by fire on February 27, 1939, and demolished five years later.  So what you say.  The Borley Rectory has the reputation of  being “the most haunted house in England.”  That’s what.  Legend has it that a Benedictine monastery stood here in the 14th century.  A randy monk from the monastery was supposedly fooling around with a nun from the next door nunnery, a no-no for the both of them.  Their naughtiness was discovered, the monk was executed, and the nun was bricked up in the convent walls, Edgar Allen Poe style.

The first paranormal incidents began just a year after the Borley Rectory was built, mysterious footsteps moving about the building.  In 1900, the rector’s daughters claimed to have seen a nun, standing about 40 yards from the rectory.  They approached her, but she vanished as they got closer.  Apparitions continued to come and go during the following years including, on one occasion, a ghostly coach with two headless drivers.

On that fateful 1939 evening, the new rector accidentally kicked over an oil lamp, and the building was consumed by flames.  A woman from nearby Borley Lodge claimed to have seen a ghostly nun in an upstairs window during the fire (she did, however try to sell her story).

Psychic researcher Harry Price was the source of the most haunted designation after he visited the rectory and wrote two books about its paranormal activity.  Ghost historians — now there’s an interesting occupation, their conventions must be a hoot — have pretty much discredited Price’s observations, suggesting they were imagined or made up.  No need to call the ghostbusters one would guess.

 

February 26, 1852: WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU SOGGY WHEAT

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Back in the late 19th century, a team of Seventh-day Adventists worked feverishly to create new foods that adhered to the vegetarian dogma of the church. Members of the group experimented with a number of different grains, including wheat, oats, rice, barley, and corn. Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, the superintendent of The Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan and an Adventist, born February 26, 1852, used these recipes for his patients. His diet also eliminated alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine and consisted entirely of bland foods. A follower of Sylvester Graham, the inventor of graham crackers and graham bread, Kellogg believed that spicy or sweet foods would increase passions, and we certainly didn’t want any of those.

An accidental eureka! moment came when Kellogg and his younger brother Will Keith left some cooked wheat to sit while they attended to the sanitarium business. When they returned, they found that the wheat was soggy and stale. Being prudent with their budget, they decided to somehow use it anyway. They forced it through rollers, hoping to obtain long sheets of the dough. To their surprise, what they found instead were flakes, which they toasted and, prudent still, served to their patients. The flakes of grain, which the brothers called granose (as opposed to stale wheat flakes), turned out to be very popular among the patients. The Kelloggs filed for a patent for “Flaked Cereals and Process of Preparing Same” in 1895.

In 1906, Will Keith Kellogg, who served as the business manager of the sanitarium, decided to mass-market the new food. At his new company, Battle Creek Toasted Corn Flake Company, he added sugar to the flakes to make them taste better. This naturally annoyed his brother the Adventist who preferred bland. But Will steamed ahead, undeterred. And he came up with another revolutionary idea – a special prize, the Funny Jungleland Moving Pictures Booklet, free to anyone who bought two boxes of the cereal. He offered this same premium for 22 years. At the same time, John didn’t rest on his Wheaties. He continued to experiment with new grain cereal possibilities trying to come up with that special cereal that would go snap, crackle and pop. He did, and created his next SRO cereal in 1928. Surely Fruit Loops were already there somewhere in the back of his mind.

February 25, 1797: We Have Met the Enemy, and He’s . . .

Posted on by Richard Daybell

In February  1797, a French invasion force, La Légion Noire (“The Black Legion”), under the leadership of Colonel William Tate sailed into Fishguard Bay in Wales.  The somewhat less than elite fighting force of 1400 men, formed partly by emptying French jails, landed on a beach near the small village of Llanwnda.  Men, arms and gunpowder were unloaded, and the ships headed back to France.  The last invasion of England had begun.

Preparations for a battle got underway.  Unfortunately,  the invasion force, having endured years of prison food, prepared by  liberating food and wine from a grounded Portuguese ship, eating and drinking well into the wee hours.  By dawn, the invaders were too drunk to fight.  The wife of a Fishguard cobbler, Jemima Nicholas (who would become known as Jemima the Great), armed with a pitchfork, marched into the enemy camp, captured a dozen Frenchmen, marched them back to the local jail, and went back to find some more.  And the Frenchmen saw British troops, following her, advancing toward them, seemingly numbering in the thousands.  And on February 25, they surrendered.  Turns out, however, that there were no British troops.  The advancing army was actually a few hundred Welsh women dressed in traditional red outfits with tall black felt hats who had come to watch the battle.
Jemima died at the age of 82. in 1832. Her grave in Fishguard was marked with a plaque in 1897, during the invasion’s centennial.

Monkey See . . .

In what would prove to be an endless parade, the first performance by a trained monkey in the United States was said to have been in New York City on February 25. 1751. Folks paid a shilling to watch the little creature dance, cavort, walk a tightrope and generally make a human of himself. Through the years such acts have gotten steadily bigger and better — think Clyde Beatty’s trained lions, dancing elephants, King Kong.

Monkeys have always been a favorite of course. As Haney’s Art of Training Animals pointed out back in 1869, monkeys have an ingrained passion for mimicking human beings (monkey see, monkey do) and they cut a fine figure in fine clothes. “Dressed in male or female apparel, the monkey’s naturally comical appearance is greatly heightened. Thus, one might be dressed to represent a lady of fashion, while another personates her footman, who, dressed in gorgeous livery supports her train. This is elaborated into quite a little scene at some exhibitions. A little barouche, drawn by a team of dogs, is driven on the stage, a monkey driving while a monkey footman sits solemn and erect on his perch behind. A monkey lady and gentleman are seated inside, she with a fan and parasol, he with a stovepipe hat. . . . Each performer is taught what he is to do, the most intelligent monkey being generally assigned the footman’s character.”

Now that’s entertainment.

February 24, 1942: The Bombs Bursting in Air

Posted on by Richard Daybell

It had been less than three months since the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II, and tensions were running high.  And then on the evening of February 24, 1942, in Los Angeles, it appeared that we were being attacked once again.  The United States Navy responded with an anti-aircraft artillery barrage.  The resulting brouhaha lasted through the night with 1,400 shells fired until the Secretary of the Navy announced the end of the air raid.  He also admitted that the entire incident had been a false alarm, a case of “war nerves.”

The attacking force, it seems, was an errant weather balloon, and “once the firing started, imagination created all kinds of targets in the sky and everyone joined in.”  The incident was later derisively dubbed the “Battle of Los Angeles” or the “Great Los Angeles Air Raid.”

A Midsummer Night’s Prayer Meeting

“The Family Shakespeare — in which nothing is added to the original text,censored-shakespeare but those words and expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family. My great objects in this undertaking are to remove from the writings of Shakespeare some defects which diminish their value.”

Thus read an introduction for the 1807 edition of Shakespeare’s works, finally made suitable for general audiences by Thomas Bowdler some 200 years after the Bard was safely buried. Certainly Shakespeare, were he alive, could not have objected to having the defects which diminished their value removed from his works. Shakespeare and family values — together at last.

Bowdler undertook this project, along with his sister Henrietta, thanks to childhood memories in which his father had entertained his family with readings from Shakespeare. Only later as an adult did Bowdler realize that his father had been leaving out some of the naughty parts of the plays, anything he felt unsuitable for the ears of his wife and children. Realizing that not all fathers were clever enough to censor on the spot, Bowdler decided it would be worthwhile to publish an edition which came already sanitized.

Shakespeare no doubt would have thanked Thomas Bowdler who joined him in the hereafter on February 24, 1827.

 

February 23, 1930: Bye Bye Miss American Pie

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Silent film star Mabel Normand died on February 23, 1930, after a short but stellar career as an actress, screenwriter, director and producer. She collaborated with Mack Sennett and appeared with Charlie Chaplin in a dozen films and Fatty Arbuckle in another 17. It was in one of those films,  that she made cinematic history, in a scene that she became associated with for the rest of her career, when she received a pie in the face from Fatty Arbuckle.  This bit of slapstick became a staple in comic films from then on, and it is the rare comedian who has not received at least one pie in the face.

Pie throwing reached something of a peak in 1965 in the film The Great Race.  In a technicolor pie fight scene  that took five days and cost over $200,000 to film, a total 4,000 pies were hurled in just over four minutes.

 

Hanging Around in England

In November 1884, Ellen Keyse was found dead in the pantry of her hangingExeter, England, home. She had been beaten and her throat had been cut. John Lee, who worked for the wealthy victim was charged with the crime. The 19-year-old was found guilty and was sentenced to be hanged on February 23, 1885.  On the day of his comeuppance, Lee was led to the gallows, where his executioners placed a noose around his neck. They pulled the lever that would release the floor under him and drop him to his death. The big oops: John Lee was not dispatched — red faces all around. The apparatus had been thoroughly tested the previous day and had been in fine working order. They tried once again. Nothing. And again. Still a no-go. Flabbergasted, they returned Lee to his prison cell, while they pondered the situation.

The authorities remained mystified, so they did what authorities often do when mystified. They attributed the malfunction to an act of God, and rather than risk God’s anger, they commuted his sentence and removed him from death row. He spent 22 years in prison, and upon being released, promptly set sail for America.

February 22, 1934: Come Back Little Sheba

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Long before Google, searching was a bit more physical, involving explorers, globetrotters and other adventurous types, out to find the Holy Grail, Atlantis, the Northwest Passage, the seven cities of gold, Jimmy Hoffa, Elvis.

On 22 February 1934, adventurous type, French novelist André Malraux set off on a quest to find the lost capital of the Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Old Testament and other religious texts.  His expedition took him to remote deserts of war-torn Saudi Arabia and Yemen, the countries in which scholars deemed it most likely to be located.  As the story goes the Queen of Sheba had heard about wise King Solomon of Israel, and she decided to pay him a visit.  She hopped on her camel and made for Jerusalem, bearing hostess gifts of frankincense*, myrrh and a few precious baubles, the ancient counterpart of flowers and a bottle of wine.  As a guest, she peppered him with questions and riddles testing his wisdom.  In return, he impregnated her.

After several weeks of searching Malraux returned to France and announced that some nondescript Yemeni ruins were indeed the lost city, but no one really believed him.  And they didn’t believe he had spotted Elvis either.

* Just what is this frankincense that was so popular as a gift?  Frankincense is a gummy substance extracted from the trunk of the Boswellia tree.  Its oil when rubbed on evidently makes one healthy, wealthy and wise**.

**And smell good too. (A footnote on a footnote.  How about that?) ***.

***Just for fun, you could create your own footnote.

Not Your Typical Barbarian

You can pretty much be certain you’ve got a turkey on your hands when you’ve got actors such as Susan Hayward, Agnes Moorehead , and John Wayne playing Mongolians, when the entire film is shot in one location in a desert in southern Utah (haven’t we seen that rock before?) and when you have such dialogue as:

“Joint by joint from the toe and fingertip upward shall you be cut to pieces, and each carrion piece, hour by hour and day by day, shall be cast to the dogs before your very eyes until they too shall be plucked out as morsels for the vultures . . . pilgrim.”

The Conqueror, released on February 22, 1956, was the epic story of a 12thconqueror century Mongol warlord who worked his way up the barbarian ladder to become the infamous Genghis Khan. Produced by Howard Hughes, it was meant to be his crowning cinematic masterpiece. The film cost $6 million to film in Cinemascope and Technicolor and is frequently ridiculed in the same breath as Plan 9 from Outer Space, another 50s flop which cost about $2.99 to make. Hughes spent another $12 million to buy back every single print of the film after its disastrous release.

The Conqueror not only destroyed RKO, the studio that made it, but wiped out a good number of the cast and crew. The shooting location turned out to be downwind from Yucca Flats, Nevada, where the government was merrily testing atomic bombs, and the cast and crew received far more than the recommended daily allowance of radioactive fallout. Nearly half of them, including Wayne, were later diagnosed with cancer (although Wayne also smoked six packs a day).

 

 

February 21, 1937: It Was a One-eyed, One-horned Flying Purple Studebaker

Posted on by Richard Daybell

Like so many youngsters of his age, Waldo Waterman looked up at the heavens and wanted to fly. The Wright brothers had already done their thing, and the skies were becoming littered with aviators. In 1909, at the age of 15, Waldo built himself a glider, a year later a powered flying machine. Not quite enough power it turned out; it seems Waldo was mostly adept at crashing things.

But Waldo soldiered on. He studied aeronautical engineering and turned to teaching the theory of flight. Theory was one thing, but Waldo still had the driving desire to build flying machines. In 1932, he introduced his Waterman Whatsit, a flying wing with a cockpit on top and a tricycle undercarriage. It crashed a lot. A few years of tinkering led to an improved flying wing he called the Arrowplane that actually stayed in the air from Santa Monica, California, to Washington DC as part of a government competition to produce a flying machine that would cost under $700 to build.

Nobody could get the cost down that far, but attempts by Henry Ford got Waldo to thinking flying car, and the result was his Arrowbile. The cockpit was now below the wing. It had a radiator grille, a single headlight, automobile type doors and a single Studebaker automobile engine. Its successful maiden flight took place on February 21, 1937, when the Arrowbile, lifted off, landed safely and drove off into the sunset.

Unfortunately, the story kind of peters out here. Only five were ever produced, the five that were bought by Studebaker.

Penance and Pancakes

Shrove Tuesday is a day to reflect upon past indiscretions and seek pancakepenance in preparation for Lent which can be counted on to follow one day later. Shrove Tuesday is also Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday, a day on which some folks, far from reflecting on past indiscretions, seek to find new ones in a wild last blast before Lent. In a few places it’s also International Pancake Day, a day to run through the streets flipping pancakes. It remains to be seen whether this is penance or a wild last blast.

Since February 21, 1950, the International Pancake Day Race has been a rock solid institution in Liberal, Kansas. How this town in oh-so-conservative western Kansas (the last liberal was spotted in 1964) got its name is anyone ‘s guess. Liberal’s pancake race was modeled after the pancake race in Olney, England. The Olney tradition dates back more than 500 years to 1445, when the last liberal was spotted there. She was using up cooking fats (forbidden during Lent) by making pancakes. Hearing the church bells ring, calling everyone to the shriving service, she grabbed her head scarf and ran to the church, forgetting that she was still carrying her skillet and a pancake. This so amused the townspeople that they made it an annual event, women bearing skillets of pancakes racing to see who could get to the church first. (There wasn’t a whole lot happening in England at the time.) The fastest would win a kiss from the church bellringer. The contest, which continues today in both Olney and Liberal, requires runners to wear a traditional apron and scarf and carry a frying pan in which they toss a pancake at the beginning and ending of the race.

Evidently there isn’t a whole lot happening in Kansas either.