via Mental Floss
Fifty-one years ago today, a plane crashed shortly after taking off from Clear Lake, Iowa, killing all four people aboard. They were pilot Roger Peterson, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. Richardson, known as “The Big Bopper.” February 3rd, 1959, became known as The Day the Music Died.
Valens, Richardon, and Holly were on tour with a show called “The Winter Dance Party Tour” with Dion and the Belmonts. The tour bus was so cold and miserable that one band member reportedly developed frostbite. Buddy Holly had had enough, and decided to charter a plane in Clear Lake to fly to Fargo, North Dakota for the next gig. Dwyer Flying Service was hired for $36 a seat, and the plane was ready to leave after the show at the Surf Ballroom. Waylon Jennings, a backup singer for the show, relinquished his seat on the plane to Richardson because he was running a fever. Another backup singer, Tommy Allsup, lost his chance to fly in a coin flip with Valens.
| Wiki entry: Buddy Holly Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll.". His works and innovations inspired and influenced both his contemporaries and later musicians, notably The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean, and Bob Dylan, and exerted a profound influence on popular music. Holly was in the first group of inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Holly #13 among "The Fifty Greatest Artists of All Time". |  |
Earlier I noticed the "Today in History" feed in the right-hand column mentioned Private Slovik
| From TheFreeDictionary.com: Eddie Slovik Edward Donald Slovik (February 18, 1920 – January 31, 1945) was a private in the United States Army during World War II and the only American soldier to be executed for desertion since the American Civil War. Although over twenty-one thousand soldiers were given varying sentences for desertion during World War II—including forty-nine death sentences—only Slovik's death sentence was carried out. |  |
 | I've been interested in this case since I first saw The Execution of Private Slovik ,an excellent made-for-TV movie from 1974 starring Martin Sheen as Slovik. There's a portion of that movie that's always stayed with me, when Slovik realizes he really is going to be executed. It's a heart-breaking scene as the brilliant actor Sheen, in a panic, repeats the priest's prayers. The execution scene following is anti-climatic because of it. (as well as on another level, but I wouldn't want to spoil that bit) |
From Texas on the Potomac
 | On this date in 1945, during World War II, First Lt. Audie Murphy single-handedly stopped German troops from advancing on his unit, killing 50 of them. In eastern France, near the village of Holtzwihr, Murphy and his men came under siege by six German tanks and 250 infantrymen. Murphy, who grew up on a sharecropper's farm in Hunt County, told his men to fall back into the woods. Murphy climbed atop a burning tank destroyer with a machine gun. Though he was shot in the leg while he stood, he remained atop the tank for an hour, stopping troops on three sides. Thanks to Murphy's efforts, he and his men successfully led a counterattack that drove the Germans from Holtzwihr. For his act, Murphy was awarded the Medal of Honor. He became the nation's most decorated soldier before he turned 21. When Murphy returned to the United States, he began an acting career and starred in more than 40 films. Murphy died in 1971, at the age of 46, when the private plane in which he rode crashed near Roanoke, Va. He is buried in Arlington Cemetery in Washington, DC. |
| Wikipedia Entry IMDB listing for the movie. Murphy's other movies, mostly Westerns. |  |
Today is the anniversary of the performance at San Quentin in 1968.
Short vid, but I didn't like the others, sorry.
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From Today in History
The Ardennes Offensive, called Unternehmen: Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine) by the German military, officially named the Battle of the Ardennes by the U.S. Army, and known to the general public as the Battle of the Bulge, started on 16 December, 1944. Wacht am Rhein was supported by subordinate operations known as Bodenplatte, Greif, and Währung. Germany's planned goal for these operations was to split the British and American Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp, Belgium, and then proceeding to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis Powers’ favor.
The Ardennes offensive was planned in total secrecy, in almost total radio silence. Although Ultra, the Allies’ reading of secret German radio messages, suggested a possible German offensive, and the United States Third Army predicted a major German offensive, the attack still achieved surprise. The degree of surprise achieved was compounded by the Allies' overconfidence, their preoccupation with their own offensive plans, poor aerial reconnaissance, and the relative lack of combat contact in the area by the U.S. 1st Army. Almost complete surprise against a weak section of the Allies’ line was achieved during heavy overcast, when the Allies' strong air forces would be grounded. The “bulge” was the salient that the Germans initially put into the Allies’ line of advance, as seen in maps presented in contemporary newspapers.
Most of the American casualties occurred within the first three days of battle, when two of the U.S. 106th Infantry Division’s three regiments were forced to surrender. The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest of the battles that U.S. forces experienced in World War II; the 19,000 American dead were unsurpassed by those of any other engagement. For the U.S. Army, the battle incorporated more troops and engaged more enemy troops than any conflict before that time. The German objectives ultimately were unrealized. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as German survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Read more about the Gettysburg Address
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The last episodes of King of the Hill aired tonight. -sniff-
A description at Hulu.com sums up the premise of the show the best, I think:
KING OF THE HILL depicts the life and times of HANK HILL (Mike Judge), his family and their neighbors in the fictional suburb of Arlen, Texas, the heartland of America. A hard-working, loyal family man and proud Texan, Hank is assistant manager of Strickland Propane. He's a blue-collar Everyman who sees himself as the voice of common sense and reason in a world of incompetent sales clerks, meddling bureaucrats and do-good liberals.
From Wiki:
King of the Hill was an American animated series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels, that ran from January 12, 1997 to September 13, 2009 on FOX. It centers on the Hills, a small-town Methodist family in Arlen, Texas. It attempts to retain a realistic approach, seeking humor in the conventional or mundane aspects of everyday life.
Judge and Daniels conceived the series after a run with Judge's Beavis and Butt-head on MTV, and the series debuted on the Fox Network on January 12, 1997, becoming a hit early on. The series' popularity has also led to syndication around the world, including every night on Cartoon Network's late night programming block Adult Swim. The show has risen to become one of FOX's longest-running series, and the second longest-running American animated series, behind The Simpsons. In 2007, it was named by Time magazine as one of the top 100 greatest television shows of all time. The title theme was written and performed by The Refreshments. King of the Hill has won two Emmy Awards and has been nominated for seven since its inception.
My sense that the September 11th attacks would transcend partisan politics lasted less than a few days. That may sound cynical, but after counting myself as one of them for over a decade, I know how the Left thinks and I knew what was coming.
Within days of the attacks, it began. Without a word, those who had endlessly looped the video of the beating of Rodney King stopped airing footage of Americans jumping to their deaths from the burning World Trade Center. Not long after, those who would later sear the images of a few misfits at Abu Ghraib into the hearts and minds of the enemy, began the inevitable murmurs of “being responsible” when it came to airing footage of passenger planes exploding into the towers.
Soon, and predictably, the footage all but disappeared.
Step one at chipping away at our resolve was complete, and all in the name of a few sophisticates doing what was best for us.
What followed was also expected.
The Leftists, these Enablers of Evil, stopped at nothing. Skewed coverage, front-page CIA leaks, taking it to the streets, Hollywood’s unholy brand of patriotism…The list is as endless as the dirty work was relentless. And yet, as they wielded their worst, 50 million people in two countries were liberated and we have not been attacked again … because of something else we’ve come to expect.
The valor and bravery of those charged with keeping us safe: The United States Military, the CIA (especially the interrogators), the FBI, our first responders and finally, something that was not expected…
The mettle of President George W. Bush.
“He kept us safe” is not an argument of last resort after the other side has finished ticking off well-rehearsed talking points, it is why George W. Bush is a great man.
He Kept Us Safe.
And while he did, while the Enemy Within rained hell on him, this uncommonly decent man stood firm as he grew old before our eyes.
Where this country would be had he not possessed such unexpected grit is unthinkable.
And we now know what it is to live with the unease of him not being there.
God bless the men and women who guard the wall. God bless President Bush. God bless the grand and noble experiment that produced them.
Just now noticed that ToTG has reached a hundred countries on our Flag Counter thanks to a recent visitor from Kenya.
Please, be proud for me. I don't have much else to brag about, gimme this one.
Visible from space, a smoke plume rises from Manhattan after two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center. This photo was taken of metropolitan New York City the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, from aboard the International Space Station. "Our prayers and thoughts go out to all the people there, and everywhere else," said Station Commander Frank Culbertson of Expedition 3, after the attacks.
Image Credit: NASA
Know what day it is today? It's the ninth of September -the ninth month- of '09, a rare occurrence, but even more rare will be nine minutes and nine seconds after nine a.m. this morning:
09:09.09 09/09/09
It even works on the European method of the date, reversing the month and day from how the United States does it.
You can read Why 09/09/09 Is So Special or what Wiki says about all the things that have happened on the regular years of each September 9 .
Here's some more information about the date:
* 09-09-09 is also the last of the single-digits dates for quite a while - 92 years to be precise.
* It is also the upside-down number of "the beast" - satan = 666, of course.
* The day itself falls on a Wednesday and both Wednesday & September have 9 letters.
I bet a lot of folks will play zero and nine on their lotteries, which will mean it would be strange if the numbers came up together...and will also mean a lower payout because so many people played those numbers. I dunno about the "666" deal, never was sure about that, but it's probably true that the devil is having an easy time in this evil world, probably can do it standing on his head, maybe that's why "999" is "666" upside down.
Anyway....
Weird, huh?
An old joke that I wish I had remembered last week.
There once was a young girl potato who had potato parents who loved her and tried to give her everything she needed or wanted. They bought her the best clothes, bought her a nice car and sent her to the best schools.
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