On September 19…
“It has become too easy to see that the luckless men of the past lived by mistakes, even absurd beliefs, so we may well fail in a decent respect for them, and forget that historians of the future will point out that we too lived by myths.”
~Herbert J. Muller
1864 – At the Third Battle of Winchester: Union troops under General Philip Sheridan defeated a Confederate force commanded by General Jubal Early. With over 50,000 troops engaged it was the largest battle fought in the Shenandoah Valley and was not only militarily decisive in that region of Virginia but also played a role in securing Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1864.
1881 – Eighty days after Charles J. Guiteau – a disgruntled and possibly insane man who had unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the U.S. consul in Paris – shot him, President James A. Garfield died of complications from his wounds.
1957 – The United States detonated a 1.7 kiloton nuclear weapon in an underground tunnel at the Nevada Test Site, a 1,375 square mile research center located 65 miles north of Las Vegas. The test, known as Rainier, was the first fully contained underground detonation and produced – according to government reports – no radioactive fallout.
1959 – In one of the more surreal moments in the history of the Cold War, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – visiting the U.S. for a summit meeting with President Dwight Eisenhower – exploded with anger when he learned that he was not allowed to visit Disneyland (for security reasons).
1962 – The Virginian premiered on NBC, beginning a nine-year run. It was the first western to air in 90-minute installments.
1965 – The F.B.I. premiered on ABC. The show, starring Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Inspector Lewis Erskine, ran for nine seasons.
1970 – The Mary Tyler Moore Show premiered on CBS, beginning a seven year run. It is generally regarded as one of the most outstanding television series in history.
1973 – 26-year-old musician Gram Parsons died of a drug overdose (morphine and tequila) in a California motel room. His death inspired one of the more bizarre automobile-related crimes on record: Two of his friends stashed his body in a borrowed hearse and drove it into the middle of the Joshua Tree National Park, where they doused it with gasoline and set it on fire.
Parsons played with The Byrds on their seminal album Sweetheart Of The Rodeo before forming the Flying Burrito Brothers and later released two celebrated solo albums.
1976 – When two Imperial Iranian Air Force F-4 Phantom II jets flew out to investigate an unidentified flying object, both independently lose instrumentation and communications as they approach, only to have them restored upon withdrawal. One of the aircraft also reported suffering temporary weapons systems failure, while preparing to open fire.
1985 – Representatives from the Parents Music Resource Center (including Tipper Gore) three musicians – Frank Zappa, John Denver and Dee Snider – and Senators Paula Hawkins and Al Gore testified before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on the subject of obscenity in rock music.
Zappa blasted the PMRC’s stated goal of increasing parental control over the access of children to music deemed to have violent, drug-related or sexual themes via labeling albums with Parental Advisory stickers.
“The PMRC proposal”, he said, “is an ill-conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any real benefits to children, infringes the civil liberties of people who are not children, and promises to keep the courts busy for years dealing with the interpretation and enforcement problems inherent in the proposal’s design.”
1990 – The Martin Scorsese-directed and Mafia-inspired film Goodfellas, starring Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci, opened in theaters around the United States. The movie earned six Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director. Pesci won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance as the psychotic mobster Tommy DeVito.
1995 – The Washington Post published a 35,000-word manifesto written by the Unabomber, who since the late 1970s had eluded authorities while carrying out a series of bombings across the United States that killed 3 people and injured another 23.
After reading the manifesto, David Kaczynski realized the writing style was similar to that of his brother, Theodore Kaczynski, and notified the F.B.I. On April 3, 1996, Ted Kaczynski was arrested at his isolated cabin near Lincoln, Montana, where investigators found evidence linking him to the Unabomber crimes.
And Finally … for those who want to play great oldies from the 50s, 60s and 70s, here’s the link to the Streamingoldies media player (remember to move that green volume line on the player all the way to the right once you click the link!
http://streamingoldies.com/player/
Compiled by Ray Lemire ©2016 RayLemire.com. All Rights Reserved.