Friday, January 2, 2009

(Weekend Edition) January 2 - 4, 2009

10 Timeline Memories:
  1. 1847] The name game: Yerba Buena (CA) is wisely renamed San Francisco (1/3) otherwise Tony Bennett would be singing “I left my heart in Yerba Buena”…
  2. 1872] Busted: Brigham Young, 71-year old leader of the Mormon Church is arrested on a charge of bigamy for having 25 wives (1/2). Your commish had the over on 24…1968] Newark (NJ) police confiscate an entire shipment of John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s “Two Virgins” LP which showed full frontal nudity of the couple on the album. The albums are wrapped in plain brown paper and placed at retail (1/2). Anyone have the original album???
  3. 1885] Scalpel!: Dr. William Grant performs the first successful appendectomy on Mary Gartside (1/4), only to discover that her gall bladder was supposed to be removed…
  4. 1929] Inherit the network: 27-year old William S. Paley becomes CBS President, inheriting the Tiffany network from his father (1/3)…
  5. 1935] Guilty as charged: Bruno Hauptmann goes on trial on charges of kidnapping and murdering the Lindbergh baby (1/2). Hauptmann is found guilty and executed in New Jersey…1979] The trial of ex-Sex Pistol Sid Vicious for the October, 1978 murder of girlfriend Nancy Spungen opens in Manhattan (1/2). Vicious will die from a heroin overdose and not live to hear the verdict…
  6. 1965] Broadway bound: Alabama QB Joe Namath signs a 3-year contract worth $427,000 with the New York Jets while standing under the goalpost of the Orange Bowl where his team lost to Texas one day earlier (1/2)…
  7. 1967] “Happy Trails“: Jack Ruby, 55, the man that shot JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, dies in a Dallas hospital of a pulmonary embolism (1/3). His secrets about the assassination died with him. This clip is titled “The Men Who Killed Kennedy”..1980] Larry Williams of “Short Fat Fannie” and “Bony Maronie” fame is found dead in his Los Angeles home (1/2). A gunshot wound to the head is never confirmed as a suicide…
  8. 1973] The worst sale of a sports franchise: This award goes to CBS which sells the Yankees to a Cleveland group headed by George Steinbrenner for $10 million (1/3). CBS bought the team for $13.2 million…
  9. 1993] The comeback kid: Backup Buffalo Bills QB Frank Reich overcomes a 32-point deficit to beat Houston 41-38 in OT in a Wild Card playoff game (1/3). It’s the biggest comeback in NFL history. Reich did the same thing in college at Maryland as a backup to Boomer Esiason
  10. 2007] I am woman hear me roar: Nancy Pelosi is the first female elected to the post of Speaker of the House (1/4). Somewhere, Tip O’Neill gets stinking rotten drunk…For more on January 2 - 4: C L I C K:

http://melphillipsnowandthen.com