thursday 13: on this day

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I thought I’d take a break from movie trivia, although I’m fairly certain I’ll be back there eventually, since I love movies. So today, let’s look at some things that happened on this day in history.

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1. the end of an era

On this day, in 1970, Paul McCartney announced the end of the Beatles. His announcement came as part of a press release for his new solo album, and the news created worldwide fervor. Tensions amongst the bandmates were already high, and this didn’t help. It was almost another four years before the dissolution of the band was legally complete, not coming until 29 December 1974.

2. the birth of Colonel Potter

Those who are M*A*S*H fans, like me, know Colonel Potter as the often gruff but always caring commander of the 4077. On this day, the actor who would go on to be that much beloved character was born. Harry Morgan was born in 1915, in Detroit, MI, with the name Harry Bratsberg. His original stage name was Henry Harry Morgan, and some of his earliest credits still list “Henry Morgan” as his name. His acting career spanned six days, between TV and stage and over 100 movies.

photo: M*A*S*H FanDom

3. the death of Anne Perry

Anne Perry, who was famous for her cozy crime fiction, died on this day in 2023 at the age of 84. What many didn’t know was that Anne Perry was also Juliet Marion Hulme. Who was that, you might ask? Well, her claim to fame was that when she was fifteen years old, she was convicted of murder in Christchurch, New Zealand. Also convicted was her sixteen-year-old best friend, Pauline Parker. The two banded together to murder Parker’s mother Honorah on 22 June 1954. She served only five years for the crime, then returned to the UK. She lived in relative anonymity until 1994, when the media surrounding the film Heavenly Creatures, a movie based on the absolutely wild story of Hulme and Parker, outed her.

Here’s the movie trailer, Hulme played by Kate Winslet.

4. space madness

The first photo of a supermassive black hole was released on this day in 2019. It was captured by a network of telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope, which zoomed in on it in the galaxy Messier 87. Black holes are incredibly difficult to see, as their gravity is so great that not even light can escape the boundary at the phenomenon’s edge, also known as the event horizon. But there are some, particularly supermassive ones, that stand out because of the bright discs of gas and other material around them.

photo: Science News

5. Daisy and Jay

On this day in 1925, author F. Scott Fitzgerald released The Great Gatsby. It’s said that the book was inspired by a romance the author once had with Ginerva King, a New York socialite. Although the novel later became arguably his most beloved by fans, it was actually a commercial flop. Several literary critics felt it didn’t live up to his previous work, and by October, it sold less than 20K copies. Even by his death in 1940, the book didn’t see success. It was only later, during WWII, that the book saw a rise in popularity after the Council on Books in Wartime began distributing free copies of it to American GIs serving overseas. This new popularity resettled the book as an American classic.

photo: Wikipedia

4. the tragic voyage begins

In 1912, the RMS Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage from Southhampton, England to New York, secure in its role as the largest and most luxurious ship of the time. And was touted to be unsinkable. But just five days later, its 2,240 passengers (crew and guests alike) discovered the fallacy in that. After striking the notorious iceberg, the ship broke apart and sank, taking with it more than 1,500 of its passengers. Even today, the majority of the ship still likes 12,000 feet below sea level, some 350 nautical miles from Newfoundland, Canada.

photo: World History

5. the ASPCA

In 1866 on this day, the American Society for the Prevention of Animal Cruelty was established in New York City. It was founded by philanthropist and diplomat Henry Bergh. It was the latter that led to the creation of the ASPCA, after President Lincoln appointed Bergh to a diplomatic post in Russia, within the court of Czar Alexander II. During his time in Russia, Bergh was taken aback by the way work horses were treated by their drivers. On his way back to the US in 1865, Bergh paid a visit to London’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which inspired him to secure a charter of it within the US, along with the power to both arrest and prosecute violators of the law. His testimony led to the passing of the charter on this day by the New York State legislature. And nine days later, the first truly effective anti-cruelty law was passed on the federal level.

6. the safety pin

In 1849, on this day, Walter Hunt patented a new invention… the safety pin. He was a mechanic and an inventor from New York, and this now common object was the result of a $15 debt. The inventor needed to earn him the money to pay off said debt, so he twisted metal wire, creating a spring at one end that forced the other end into a clasp. He called it a dress pin. To be fair, it wasn’t entirely new, as the Romans had a similar object, used for jewelry. But Hunts was a vast improvement. He sold the rights to it for just $400 and never made another dime on it. Not a wise business decision, as it has become a staple.

7. the Purple People Eater

Sheb Wooley was born on this day in 1921. Who is Sheb? He was an actor and a singer, probably best known today for his 1958 song “The Purple People Eater,” which was a US #1 hit on Billboard. The song was inspired by a joke Wooley heard from a child of a friend. He composed it within an hour, and later described it as the worst he’d ever written. MGM Records rejected the song at first, saying they didn’t want to be associated with that type of music. But when a record of it popped up at the New York office, the office employees loved it. The front office saw this, reconsidered, and then released it. The voice of the Purple People Eater is a the result of a sped-up recording, while the sound of the toy saxophone is a reduced-speed recording.

8. BANANAS!!

In 1633, the very first bananas went on sale in London. They were displayed in the window of an apothecary owned by Thomas Johnson, known as the father of British field botany. Before him, the banana was an exotic fruit of other lands, but he brought them to England via Bermuda.

9. The Highlanders… or the Yankees?

In 1913, the New York Highlanders played their first MLB game as the New York Yankees. They played the Washington Senators at Griffith Stadium… and lost 2-1. The first ball was through by President Woodrow Wilson.

10. 40th Academy Awards

In 1968, the 40th Academy Awards were held, after being postponed two days due to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Of the 20 acting nominees for that years’ awards, only two were not present… Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. The latter was absent due to his death just months earlier. The two were nominated as Best Actor and Actress for their roles in Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. Tracy’s long-estranged wife was in the audience, due to expectations that Tracy would win posthumously, but he didn’t. Hepburn, however, did win, although her award was accepted by George Cukor. She was filming The Lion in Winter in France at the time.

11. Hedy Lamarr, American citizen

Actress Hedy Lamarr became an American citizen on this day in 1953, born in Vienna in what was then Austria-Hungary. Aside from acting, Hedy Lamarr is also the “mother of Wi-Fi” because of her work on frequency-hopping tech, which is the precursor to modern wireless tech like Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth. At the beginning of WWII, she and George Antheil (himself an author, musician, composer and inventor) invented a radio guidance system for the Allies, used for torpedoes. The system used spread spectrum and frequency hopping to eliminate the threat of radio jamming by the Axis powers. It wasn’t used in operational systems until after the end of WWII. Lamarr also invented other things, like an improved stoplight and a tablet for water which would dissolve and create a flavored carbonated beverage.

photo: Wikipedia

12. Take Me Home

John Denver’s famous song “Take Me Home, Country Roads” was certified Platinum on this day in 2017. When it released in on 12 April 1971, it was the first Denver song to hit the charts, quickly peaking to #2.

13. reveal by arson

On this day in 1834, there was a fire at the LaLaurie mansion in New Orleans, Louisiana. Today, the mansion is thought to be one of the most haunted buildings in the city. And for good reason. It is believed that Madam LaLaurie, a NOLA socialite, was a serial killer who tortured and murdered the enslaved people within her household. Funeral registers between 1830-1834 show at least a dozen deaths, although the causes are not known. There were several investigations into her treatment of her household, especially after a little girl fell to her from the roof of the mansion in an attempt to escape LaLaurie and her whip. What had the girl done? Snagged her hair while brushing it. LaLaurie tried to hide it, but police found the body in a well on the property. Police fined her and forced her to sell her remaining slaves. She got around the order by selling them to her relatives and friends, then sneaking them back into her mansion. But it all blew up when a fire at the mansion exposed a torture chamber within the home, along with a 70-year-old enslaved women chained in the kitchen. That woman later admitted to setting the fire to escape LaLaurie. She took authorities to the attic where there were seven slaves tied in place with spiked iron collars. But LaLaurie never paid for her outrageous crimes. Instead, she and her husband fled by boat, and the butler, who had also been involved, ended up taking the heat.

photo: Wikipedia