Author Archives: dcaligari

July 23, 1885 –One of the most famous residents of West 122th Street and Riverside Drive made a most fateful decision on this date. He decided to give up the ghost. In 1881, Ulysses S. Grant, American general, the eighteenth President of the United States and famous horseback riding drunk, purchased a house in NewContinue reading “So that’s whose buried in Grant’s Tomb”

July 23, 1962 –Telstar relayed the first publicly transmitted, live, trans-Atlantic television program, featuring CBS’s Walter Cronkite and NBC’s Chet Huntley in New York, and the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby in Brussels. The first broadcast was intended to have been remarks by President John F. Kennedy, but the signal was acquired before the president was ready,Continue reading “The first trans-Atlantic broadcast”

July 22, 1934 –John Dillinger was shot dead outside Chicago’s Biograph Theatre, on this date in history. And one of the most bizarre urban legends was born. According to the rumor, J Edgar Hoover, pug ugly head of the FBI and notorious transvestite, rushes to Chicago to see the corpse, Dillinger, Public Enemy No. 1,Continue reading “We swear it’s not at a special exhibition near you”

July 22, 1951 – Two Russian dogs, Dezik and Tsygan, were the first canines to make a sub-orbital flight in history on this date. The Russian space program used dogs quite often to determine whether a particular space mission would be safe for humans. Little know fact: the real reason Nikita Khrushchev slammed his shoeContinue reading “It’s the first episode of Dogs In Space”

July 22, 1959 –Either considered the worst or greatest film ever made, Ed Wood Jr’s sci-fi classic, Plan 9 from Outer Space, starring Bela Lugosi, Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon, Tor Johnson, Vampira and narrated by Criswell, opened in the US on this date. The film played for years in relative obscurity (to some) on late-nightContinue reading “Plan 9 from Outer Space”

July 22, 1967 –The Toho Studio released King Kong Escapes (Kingu Kongu no gyakushû,) directed by Ishiro Honda in Japan on this date. (Despite the master villain being named Dr. Who, this film has no connection to Doctor Who.) As a children’s film, Toho pressured the filmmakers to show more gore in the monster fights.Continue reading “King Kong Escapes”

July 21, 1899 –Ernest Hemingway was born on this date. He was young at the time of his birth. It was fine to be young. He drove an ambulance in the first world war. It wasn’t called the first world war then. It was called the war. It was one of those times when peopleContinue reading “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”

July 21, 1969 –Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin blast off from the Moon after twenty-one and a half hours on the surface and return to the command module piloted by Michael Collins on this date. The lunar module’s lower section, left behind, has a plaque mounted upon it, reading, “Here menContinue reading “Walkin’ on the moon”

July 21, 1943 –Twentieth Century Fox’s musical spectacular, Stormy Weather, starring Lena Horne, Bill Robinson, Cab Calloway, Katherine Dunham, Fats Waller, Fayard Nicholas, Harold Nicholas, Ada Brown, and Dooley Wilson, premiered in the US on this date. Two musical numbers were deleted from the release print: Good-for-Nothin’ Joe (music by Rube Bloom, lyrics by TedContinue reading “Stormy Weather”

July 20, 1969 –52 years ago today, in a live transmission from the Moon, viewed by 720 million people around the world, Neil Armstrong stepped foot onto the Moon. It was a brave thing to do (and unfortunately caused Buzz Aldrin to have his post-Apollo 11 period of alcoholism and depression.) It was also theContinue reading “Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed.”