CRIMINAL / RECORDS

November 24 in history:

A one-of-a-kind crime in the sky happened on this date in 1971, aboard a Northwest Orient jet.  A passenger who bought a ticket under the name “Dan Cooper” hijacked a flight between Portland, Oregon and Seattle, suggesting that he had a bomb inside a briefcase.  Cooper was given parachutes and $200,000 in cash after the plane landed.  He then jumped out of the plane after it took off again.  Investigators have never figured out what happened to the hijacker, who became known as “D.B. Cooper”, but some of the ransom money did turn up in the woods years later.

Millions of Americans witnessed a real-life crime on live TV when tavern owner Jack Ruby shot and killed Lee Harvey Oswald in front of reporters and television cameras at the Dallas jail on November 24th, 1963.  It was just two days after Oswald was arrested for the assassination of President Kennedy.

The three major networks suspended all regular programming for four days after Kennedy’s death.  One of the cancelled programs that was scheduled for the night of November 24th was a special recapping the 1963 Grammy Awards, at which the Album of the Year award went to the Vaughn Meader satire of Kennedy, “The First Family”.

Marvin Hamlisch won four Grammys for 1974, including Best Pop Instrumental Performance for his recording of “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin, from the movie “The Sting”.  The film’s ragtime score led to a revival of Joplin’s songs.  Many musicians celebrate November 24th of 1868 as Joplin’s birthday, but now it is believed he was born sometime in 1867.

LEADERS OF THE WORLD

November 22 in history:

On the last day of his life, John F. Kennedy was thinking about the 1964 election.  President Kennedy and his wife, Jackie, were making a political trip through Texas on November 22nd, 1963.  The president had appearances scheduled that day with Vice President Lyndon Johnson in Fort Worth, Dallas, and Austin.  Kennedy only got to attend the breakfast in Fort Worth.  Gunfire broke out as the president’s motorcade was leaving downtown Dallas on the way to a luncheon.  Kennedy and Texas Governor John Connally, riding with their wives in an open car, were hit by bullets, and taken to Parkland Hospital.  Within a short time, Kennedy was dead, Johnson was president, and the world was in mourning.

While in Fort Worth, Kennedy made a phone call to wish John Nance Garner a happy 95th birthday.  Texas native Garner served two terms as Vice President under Franklin Roosevelt.  French President Charles de Gaulle turned 73 on that Friday in ’63.  The following Monday, de Gaulle was in Washington to join other world leaders at Kennedy’s funeral.

A future “King” who became a queen of the tennis court turned 20 on the day JFK was shot.  Billie Jean King was still single, and known as Billie Jean Moffitt, in 1963.  That summer, she had reached the finals of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time, finishing second in the women’s singles at Wimbledon.

A few hours before the Kennedy shooting, “The CBS Morning News,” anchored by Mike Wallace, aired a story about a new rock-and-roll band creating a stir in England.  That may have been the first time many Americans heard about the Beatles.  The story on CBS coincided with the release that day of a new album by the Fab Four in the UK, called “With the Beatles.”  An album with most of the same songs was sold later in the US under the name “Meet the Beatles.”

In later years, the Beatles recorded songs with references to politicians such as British Prime Ministers Harold Wilson and Edward Heath.  The first English woman to serve as Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, stepped down because of a political power struggle on November 22nd, 1990.  Thatcher had held that post for 11 years.

MARY HAD A LITTLE GUN

November 21 in history:

Thomas Edison became famous for many of his inventions, but the first one that caught on was the phonograph.  Edison announced the development of the sound recording device on November 21st, 1877.  His machine could both record sound on a metal cylinder and play it back.  Edison discovered that the phonograph worked when he recorded “Mary had a little lamb…”

The phonograph eventually led to other recording devices, such as the VCR.  No doubt, video recorders all over the U.S. were being used on November 21st, 1980, to tape the season premiere of “Dallas.”  It was the first new episode in eight months, since the cliffhanger episode in which bad guy J.R. Ewing was shot and wounded by an offscreen attacker.  The answer to the popular question “Who shot J.R.?” was…his mistress Kristin Shepard, played by Mary Crosby.  That night, “Dallas” set an American ratings record, broken three years later by the last episode of “M*A*S*H.”

“Dallas” was still on the air in 1989 when quarterback Troy Aikman joined the Dallas Cowboys.  He spent his entire NFL career with the Cowboys, leading them to three Super Bowl titles in four years.  Aikman was born November 21st, 1966.

DO YOU BELIEVE?

September 21 in history:

A letter about Santa Claus appeared in the newspaper in September…on this date in 1897.  The New York Sun printed the letter from 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon, which asked “Is there a Santa Claus?” The famous response by editor Francis P. Church included the answer, “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.”

In “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” little Cindy Lou Who believed that the Grinch was Santa Claus. “Looney Tunes” animator Chuck Jones, born on September 21st, 1912, made the 1966 TV version of “Grinch.”

Looney Tunes characters starred with basketball legend Michael Jordan in the movie “Space Jam,” which featured a cameo appearance by Bill Murray. The former “Saturday Night Live” star was born on this day in 1950. Murray’s hit movies include “Caddyshack,” “Ghostbusters,” and “Groundhog Day,” and he got an Oscar nomination for best actor in “Lost in Translation.”

Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith claimed he wrote the Book of Mormon by translating golden plates revealed to him by an angel named Moroni. Smith had his first vision of the angel on September 21st, 1823.

A musical called “The Book of Mormon” would become a Broadway hit in 2011.  A big hit musical from the 1940s, “Annie Get Your Gun,” was revived on September 21st, 1966, in New York.  The show’s original star, Ethel Merman, once again played Annie Oakley in the new version.

Mary Martin starred in the touring company of “Annie Get Your Gun” when Merman was performing in the original Broadway run. September 21st was the birthday of Martin’s son Larry Hagman (1931), who starred on TV in “Dallas” and “I Dream of Jeannie.”

I GET KNOCKED DOWN, THEN I GET UP AGAIN

March 21st in history:

On March 21st, 1871, Otto von Bismarck became the first chancellor of the German empire, when Prussia unified with other states to form Germany. Bismarck had been the prime minister of Prussia before that.

During a ski-jumping contest in West Germany on this date in 1970, a Yugoslavian jumper named Vinko Bogataj wiped out at the end of the ramp and tumbled into the crowd. Bogotaj recovered, and became famous when his spill was used to illustrate “the agony of defeat” in the opening credits for “ABC’s Wide World of Sports.”

Olympic athletes in America experienced the agony of not competing in the Moscow Summer Games, after President Jimmy Carter announced that the U.S. would boycott the Games, to protest the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.  On March 21st, 1980, Carter met with U.S. Olympians, urging them to respect his declaration of a boycott.

As a result of the boycott, NBC cancelled its plans to cover the Moscow Olympics.  Meanwhile, Americans had a different game to hold their attention in the summer of 1980…trying to guess “Who shot J.R.?”  On the same day of Carter’s meeting with the athletes, the popular CBS series “Dallas” ended its season by showing J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman) being shot and wounded by someone offscreen.  When the shooter’s identity was revealed the following November, a record TV audience in the U.S. tuned in for the answer.  Hagman was starring in a cable TV revival of “Dallas” when he died in 2012…and the writers killed off J.R. by shooting him, again.

DEATH AND TAXES

March 14th in history:

Warren G. Harding made history on March 14th, 1923, as the first president to file an income tax report.  This was 10 years after the 16th Amendment was ratified, legalizing income taxes in the U.S.

Harding died of an illness later that year, the third year of his presidency.  John F. Kennedy also died in his third year as president.  Just after his assassination, Kennedy was buried in a simple grave at Arlington Cemetery.  On this day in 1967, Kennedy’s body was moved to a more elaborate gravesite.  Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and two Kennedy children also are buried at the site, with the graves of Senators Robert and Edward Kennedy nearby.Two days after JFK was killed, Dallas bar owner Jack Ruby shot and killed suspected assassin Lee Harvey Oswald on live TV.  On this day in 1964, Ruby was convicted of Oswald’s murder.

President Kennedy set a national goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s.  Astronauts Frank Borman and Eugene Cernan both orbited the moon on different Apollo flights, and Cernan actually walked on the moon during the last manned lunar mission, Apollo 17.  Both men were born on March 14th: Borman in 1928, and Cernan six years later.