Tagged: New York
CURTAIN UP, PLAY BALL!
May 5th in history:
Carnegie Hall in New York opened on May 5th, 1891, with a concert conducted by the composer of “The Nutcracker,” Pyotr Tchaikovsky.
The hit musical “Damn Yankees,” about a middle-aged man who becomes a baseball star through a pact with the devil, opened on Broadway on May 5th, 1955.
The first perfect game in modern baseball history occurred on May 5th, 1904, when Cy Young pitched the Boston Americans to a win over the Philadelphia Athletics.
KING ME!
May 1st in history:
May 1st seems to be a big day for “kings” …
On May 1st of 1328, the Treaty of Edinburgh-Northampton recognized the Kingdom of Scotland as independent from the Kingdom of England. That declaration was reversed exactly 379 years later – May 1st, 1707 – when the Act of Union joined the Kingdoms of Scotland and England to form Great Britain.
King Kamehameha I established the Kingdom of Hawai’i on this date in 1785.
The star of “Blue Hawaii,” Elvis Presley (the King of Rock and Roll), married Priscilla Beaulieu in Las Vegas on May 1st, 1967.
The Empire State Building, a popular hangout of King Kong, was dedicated in New York on May 1st, 1931.
An obituary of Jack Paar called him the original “King of Late Night,” as host of the “Tonight Show” in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Paar was born on this date in 1918. Paar inherited the “Tonight” job from Steve Allen, whose TV shows often featured comedian Louis Nye, born 100 years ago today in 1913. Nye’s TV work included a recurring role as Sonny Drysdale on “The Beverly Hillbillies”.
LEAVE THE GUN, TAKE THE BATMOBILE
April 25th in history:
Two members of the Corleone family from the “Godfather” movies have real-life birthdays on April 25th: Al Pacino (1940) and Talia Shire (1946).
In 2003, Pacino’s portrayal of Michael Corleone in “The Godfather Part II” was chosen as one of the 50 greatest movie villains of all time by the American Film Institute. The same AFI survey listed Batman as one of the 50 greatest movie heroes. The character of Batman was introduced in Detective Comics #27, published on April 25th, 1939.
On the “Batman” TV series of the 1960s, the Batmobile displayed four different license plates issued by Gotham City, including “BAT-1.” On this date in 1901, New York became the first state in the U.S. to require cars to carry license plates.
Actor Hank Azaria, born on this date in 1964, has never played a Batman villain, but the Spiderman villain Venom is one of many voices he has done for animated TV series. Among Azaria’s regular character voices on “The Simpsons” are Comic Book Guy, and Moe the bartender, said to be based on Al Pacino.
ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER
April 24th in history:
The first fatal accident during a space mission happened on this date in 1967. Soyuz 1, the Soviet Union’s first manned space flight in two years, crashed upon landing after two days in orbit. The crash killed the lone crew member, Vladimir Komarov, who was on his second space mission. The capsule’s parachute apparently failed to open properly.
The Hubble Space Telescope was launched successfully on this date in 1990, aboard the space shuttle Discovery.
New Yorkers could get high in the sky without leaving the ground on April 24th, 1913, on the day that the Woolworth Building opened in Manhattan. You could see a long distance from the top of the skyscraper, which was 792 feet tall…the tallest building in the U.S. for nearly 20 years, until the Empire State Building was constructed.
The movie musical “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” starred Oscar-winner Barbra Streisand, who was born on April 24th, 1942. Streisand’s character in the movie believes she has been reincarnated. Another winner of the Best Actress Oscar, Shirley MacLaine, is a real-life believer in reincarnation. MacLaine, also a star of screen musicals such as “Can-Can” and “Sweet Charity,” came into the world as Shirley Beaty on this date in 1934.
FROM START TO FINISH
April 21st in history:
According to legend, the twins Romulus and Remus founded the city of Rome on April 21st in 753 B.C.
The Seattle World’s Fair opened on this date in 1962. April 21st of 1965 was the opening date of the second year of the New York World’s Fair.
Nobody saw Rosie Ruiz at the starting line of the Boston Marathon on April 21st, 1980, but many people saw her cross the finish line, seemingly setting a women’s record. Ruiz was disqualified after witnesses reported that she wasn’t seen running in the 26-mile race until about the last mile.
TAKING A TRIP
April 16th in history:
On April 16th, 2004, the cruise ship Queen Mary 2 began its first trans-Atlantic crossing from England to New York.
The sinking of the Titanic in 1912 overshadowed the trip made by Harriet Quimby on April 16th of that year. Quimby became the first woman to fly over the English Channel on that day, making the trip in just under an hour.
The next-to-last manned flight to the moon, Apollo 16, was launched on this date in 1972.
And April 16th is the birthday of the composer of “Moon River,” Henry Mancini (1924).
SOMEWHERE, OVER THE OUTFIELD
April 8th in history:
Two songwriters associated with Judy Garland or Liza Minnelli were born on April 8th. Composer Fred Ebb (born April 8th, year disputed) teamed with lyricist John Kander on “Cabaret” and “New York, New York” – both musical movies starring Minnelli. And “Yip” Harburg (1896) wrote the lyrics for “Over the Rainbow” and the other songs in the movie “The Wizard of Oz.”
It was somewhere over the left centerfield fence at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta that Hank Aaron’s 715th home run landed on April 8th, 1974. The Braves slugger broke Babe Ruth’s career record during Atlanta’s home opener of the season. Aaron eventually hit 755 homers…a record that stood until August of 2007, when Barry Bonds surpassed it.
We don’t know whether the Venus de Milo would bat left-handed or right-handed. The famous armless statue of the goddess Venus (or Aphrodite) was discovered on this day in 1820, on the island of Milos.
PRESIDENTS ON TV AND IN THE MOVIES
April 7th in history:
The first publicly-seen television broadcast between two U.S. cities happened on April 7th, 1927. The link between New York and Washington featured President Calvin Coolidge’s Secretary of Commerce, who would be president himself just two years later: Herbert Hoover.
President Richard Nixon announced on April 7th, 1969, that he would increase the U.S. troop withdrawals from Vietnam.
That announcement came on the 30th birthday of two famous men whose careers would be tied to Vietnam and Nixon. Director Francis Ford Coppola set the novel “Heart of Darkness” in Vietnam for his war epic “Apocalypse Now.” And TV personality David Frost conducted a famous series of 1977 interviews with former President Nixon, which were dramatized in the play and movie “Frost/Nixon.”
Also born on April 7th: Daniel Ellsberg (1931), famous for releasing the Pentagon Papers revealing government decisions about the Vietnam War, and another movie director, Alan Pakula (1928), who made “All the President’s Men,” about the Washington Post reporters who uncovered many details about the Watergate scandal in the Nixon White House.
NEW YORKERS AND GOING GREEN
March 17th in history:
Eliot Spitzer had been governor of New York for just over a year when he resigned on this date in 2008, after a prostitution scandal in which he admitted to being a client of an escort agency.
New Yorkers like to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a big parade in Manhattan. The Irish holiday was celebrated in New York City for the first time on March 17th, 1756.
St. Patrick’s Day is the birthday of two actors who have starred in movies and TV shows about New York City: Kurt Russell (born 1951), who played Snake Plissken in the action drama Escape from New York; and Gary Sinise (1955), Mac Taylor from “CSI: New York,” also known as Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump.
TAKING FLIGHT
March 1st in history:
On March 1st, 1962, an American Airlines flight from New York to Los Angeles with 95 people aboard crashed into Jamaica Bay just after takeoff from Idlewild Airport on Long Island. No one survived. It was the worst crash involving a U.S. commercial airliner up until that time.
The crash happened on the same day that astronaut John Glenn was being honored in New York with a ticker-tape parade, for being the first American astronaut to orbit the Earth. Fellow Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton turned 38 that day. Slayton was scheduled to fly on the next Mercury mission, but a medical problem grounded him, and kept him from flying in space until 1975.
Other famous people associated with flying were born on March 1st. They include:
Bandleader Glenn Miller (born 1904), lost on a plane flight while serving in World War II;
Actor Robert Conrad (birth year in dispute, either 1929 or 1935), who played World War II pilot Pappy Boyington on “Black Sheep Squadron,” but is best known as secret agent James West on “The Wild Wild West”;
And Ron Howard (1954), who directed the space drama Apollo 13. Before becoming an award-winning director, Howard played Opie Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show” and Richie Cunningham on “Happy Days.”
