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June 19, 1976 –HBO launched the series, Standing Room Only (SRO) with a taped special by Bette Midler on this date. The original HBO presentation was shown “complete and uncut, minus any editing or interruption” (per the June 1976 HBO On Air guide), lasting nearly two-and-a-half hours. When it was shown on broadcast television laterContinue reading “Bette Midler Show Live at Last premiered”

June 19, 1934 –The Federal Communications Commission, perhaps the most wicked body of do-gooders ever to exist in the United States, was created. These are the clowns that perfected the fine art of capricious and arbitrary.

Can you hear those glasses chilling? We might never know how utterly charming, brilliant and entertaining we are were it not for martinis. I’m not talking a cup of cheap gin splashed over an ice cube. I’m talking satin, fire and ice; Fred Astaire in a glass; surgical cleanliness, insight.. comfort; redemption and absolution. I’mContinue reading “I will be celebrating all day”

June 19 –It is a great art to saunter – Henry David Thoreau Today is known as World Sauntering Day, sometimes referred to as International Sautering Day. Created by W.T. Rabe in response to the jogging craze; it was his thought that the day would be a reminder to slow down.

June 18, 1977 –Fleetwood Mac’s third single from their album Rumours, Dreams, hit the no. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100. Dreams sold more than one million copies and was the band’s only No. 1 hit. Stevie Nicks recalled to The Daily Mail October 16, 2009: “I remember the night I wrote ‘Dreams.’ IContinue reading “Dreams topped the charts”

June 18, 1948 – Goodbye to our old 78’s A CBS employee named Edward Wallerstein walked into a room at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York with Goddard Lieberson, the president of Columbia Records and publicly unveiled its new long-playing phonograph record, the 33 1/3, on this date. Unlike the standard 10-inch 78 rpm record,Continue reading “Just take those old records off the shelf”

June 18, 1969 –Sam Peckinpah’s violent western elegy, The Wild Bunch, premiered on this date. Robert Ryan’s incessant complaints about not receiving top billing so annoyed director Sam Peckinpah that he decided to “punish” Ryan. In the opening credits, after freezing the screen on closeups of William Holden’s and Ernest Borgnine’s faces while listing them,Continue reading “The Wild Bunch premiered”

June 18, 1956 –The pilot episode for the quiz show To Tell the Truth premiered on CBS on this date. The series debuted on CBS on December 18, 1956. The series outlasted most of the others of the period, especially after the 1958 quiz-show scandal, partly because every contestant was supposed to be untrustworthy.

European history would have been dramatically different if only for a higher fiber diet. One of the most decisive battles in the history of Europe was fought in Belgium on June 18, 1815, as a resurgent Napoleon Bonaparte launched his last military offensive against the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian Marshal Blücher. Nearly 50,000Continue reading “It all connected (and yes, this will all be on the test.)”

June 18, 1971 – The Nike “swoosh” logo was created in 1971 by a graphic design student Carolyn Davidson and was purchased by Blue Ribbon for $35. The intention was to convey motion in its design. it was first used by Nike on this date. (She was later given around 500 shares in the companyContinue reading “With a flick of a pen”