Friday-Sunday, November 11-13, 2005

Veteran's Day through the years...

November 11th was originally known as 'Armistice Day' when World War I came to an end in 1918. Let's look back at this date and see what transpired through the years:

1885) George Patton, perhaps our greatest general was born on this date...

1918) World War I ended when the Allies and Germany signed an armistice...

1921) The Tomb of the Unknowns was dedicated at Arlington Cemetary by U.S. President Harding...

1938) Kate Smith sang Irving Berlin's "God Bless America" for the 1st time on network radio...

1940) The Jeep makes its debut...

1942) During World War II Germany completes its occupation of France...

1972) The U.S. Army turns over its base at Long Bihn to the South Vietnamese army. This event symbolized the end of direct involvement in the Vietnam War by the U.S. military...

1984) President Reagan accepts the Vietnam Veterans Memorial as a gift to the nation from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund...

1993) A bronze statue is dedicated in Washington, DC to honor more than 11,000 American women who served in the Vietnam War...

1996) The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund unveils "The Wall That Heals", a half-scale replica of the memorial that will tour communities throughout the U.S...

More November 11 Memories...

1944) The Rangers set an NHL record of 25 games without a win...

1946) The New York Knicks play their 1st home game at Madison Square Garden (they lose 78-68 to the Chicago Stags)...

1958) Hank Ballard & the Midnighters record the original version of "The Twist"...

1963) Brian Epstein and Ed Sullivan sign a 3-show contract for Beatles appearances on the Sunday night show...

1972) Berry Oakley of the Allman Brothers is killed in a motorcycle accident one year and 13 days after Duane Allman met the same fate, just 3 blocks away (Oakley was 24)...

1981) Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela becomes the 1st rookie ever to win the Cy Young Award (less than a month later he wins Rookie of the Year honors)...

1984) 13-year old Gary Coleman undergoes his 2nd kidney transplant in Los Angeles (he had his 1st transplant at 5)...

1986) Sperry Rand and Burroughs merge to form "Unisys", becoming the 2nd largest computer company...

1989) Melissa Etheridge and Joe Cocker entertain Germans celebrating the newly destroyed Berlin Wall...

1990) Derrick Thomas of Kansas City sets an NFL record with 7 sacks in a 17-16 Chiefs win over Seattle (Thomas will die at 33 in February, 2000 from injuries that paralyzed him in a car crash)...

2000) A cable car crammed with skiers caught fire in an Alpine tunnel in Austria, killing 155...

2002) 38-year old Barry Bonds wins an unprecedented 5th MVP award (we're not sure whether or not he was on steroids then)...

Happy Birthday To...

1922) Author Kurt Vonnegut Jr...

1925) Jonathan Winters...

1937) Warner Wolf...

1960) Stanley Tucci...

1962) Demi Moore...

1964) Calista Flockhart...

Commentary...

Traditionally this is the holiday honoring veterans that draws the smallest crowds on 5th Avenue and it's a damn shame. Let's remember that this day of remembrance was originally dedicated to World War I veterans but was changed to honor veterans of all wars and both the living and dead deserve that tribute. Especially the living. Please do your part to remember those that died so that we may live and honor those that survived to preserve our freedom...

Saturday, November 12, 2005...

At 9:16am on November 12, 2001, flight 587, an Airbus A300-605R crashed in Belle Harbor, Queens shortly after taking off from JFK Airport on a flight to Santo Domino in the Dominican Republic. All 260 people aboard the flight and 5 on the ground were killed. There were no survivors...

This is part of an NTSB statement issued after the crash: "Because this crash occurred 2 months after 911, there was initial concern that it might have been the result of an international criminal act. The Board found no such evidence, nor did any law enforcement agencies"...

The official ruling from the NTSB was that "the pilot's excessive rudder pedal inputs led to the crash of American Flight 587". Some personal observations will follow in my commentary...

More November 12 Memories...

1920) Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis is elected baseball's 1st commisioner...

1933) The first known photo of the "Loch Ness Monster" is taken...

1941) WOV and WNEW swap call letters...

1958) "Tom Dooley" by The Kingston Trio is #1 (the song is a century old Blue Ridge Montains tune originally called "Tom Dula")...

1966) Donovan releases "Mellow Yellow"...

1970) The Doors make their last appearance with Jim Morrison in New Orleans...

1979) Barefooted Eagles kicker Tony Franklin boots a 59-yard field goal to help Philadelphia beat Dallas on Monday Night Football...

1982) Yuri Andropov is elected to succeed the late Leonid Brezhnev as general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee...

1985) After 18 years and several name changes, the group Starship tops the charts for the 1st time with "We Built This City" (there is a misconception that this song is about New York, it is not. The song is dedicated to the city of San Francisco which is often referred to by natives as "The City")...

1993) H.R. Haldeman, former Nixon White House chief of staff dies at 67...

1996) Jonathan Schmitz is convicted of second-degree murder for shooting Scott Amedure, a gay who'd revealed that he had a crush on Schmitz on "The Jenny Jones Show"...

1997) Ramzi Yousef is found quilty of masterminding the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center...

1998) Daimler-Benz completes a merger with Chrysler to form Daimler-Chrysler...

2001) American Airlines flight 587 crashes in Belle Harbor, Queens killing 265 (feature story)...

2002) Stan Lee files a lawsuit against Marvel Entertainment Inc. claiming he was cheated out of millions after creating Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk and Daredevil...

Happy Birthday To...

1939) Ruby Nash Curtis (Ruby & the Romantics)...

1943) Brian Hyland...

1944) Booker T. Jones...

1944) Al Michaels...

1945) Neil Young...

1961) Nadia Comaneci...

1966) David ("Friends") Schwimmer...

1970) Tonya Harding...

Commentary...

When that American Airlines plane went down in Belle Harbor I was working at WCBS-FM and had a direct line of sight to the tremendous amount of smoke created by the crash, being in the Viacom Building on Broadway, some several miles away from the Rockaway section of Queens. First and foremost, everyone thought this was an act of terrorism occuring so closely after 911. The weather was clear as a bell and the way the plane suddenly fell out of the sky shortly after takeoff was puzzling...

Both the FAA and NTSB had reason enough to believe the possibility existed, doing what we can only hope was a thorough investigation but coming to the conclusion that there wasn't any...

Doubts remain to this day...

Sunday, November 13, 2005...

November 13th through the years...

1805) Viennese butcher Johann George Lehner invents a recipe and calls it the "frankfurter"...

1927) The Holland Tunnel connecting New York and New Jersey beneath the Hudson River opens to the public...

1940) Walt Disney's "Fantasia" has its world premiere at New York's Broadway Theater...

1942) The minimum draft age is lowered from 21 to 18...

1956) The Supreme Court strikes down laws calling for racial segregation on public buses (thank you Rosa Parks)...

1960) Sammy Davis Jr. marries Swedish actress May Britt...

1961) The Tokens release "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"...

1965) "Fever" by the McCoys is released (lead singer is Rick Derringer)...

1968) The Beatles' animated film "Yellow Submarine" premieres...

1971) "Old Fashioned Love Song" by Three Dog Night is released...

1977) The comic strip "Li'l Abner" by Al Capp appeared in newspapers for the last time (I had the pleasure of knowing Al Capp who had a wooden leg. The cartoonist, who wrote material for the morning show at WRKO in the 60s used a thumb tack to keep the sock on his artificial leg and needed solitude when he created. A strange but very creative man)...

1979) Former California Governor Ronald Reagan announces his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination while in New York...

1979) 76er Darryl Dawkins shatters the fiberglass backboard doing a monster dunk in Kansas City and 3 weeks later shatters another one in Philadelphia. This pattern continues giving sportscasters video highlights for years...

1986) President Reagan publicly acknowledges that the U.S. sent "defensive weapons and spare parts" to Iran but denies this was payment to free U.S. hostages...

1992) Elton John performs in Mexico City for 90,000 fans...

1993) In college football's game of the year, Lou Holtz coached Notre Dame beats Bobby Bowden's #1 ranked Florida State Seminoles 31-24. Both teams had 16-game winning streaks going into the game played at South Bend...

1995) Atlanta's Greg Maddux wins his 4th straight Cy Young Award, something no other pitcher has done before or since...

1997) "The Lion King" opens at the New Amsterdam Theater on Broadway...

1998) "The Wizard of Oz" is released on the big screen by Warner Brothers 59 years after its original release...

1998) President Bill Clinton settles with Paula Jones to the tune of $850,000...

1999) Lennox Lewis becomes the 1st British heavyweight champ in 100 years with a unanimous 12 round decision over Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas...

Happy Birthday To...

1934) Garry Marshall...

1947) Joe Mantegna...

1949) Whoopi Goldberg...

1954) Chris Noth...

1963) Jets QB (again) Vinny Testaverde...

1967) Jimmy Kimmel...