CigarBanter

Advanced search  
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 12

Author Topic: 9/20/2014  (Read 25916 times)

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #15 on: September 20, 2014, 03:36:19 AM »

In the autumn of 1975, NBC premiered a brand-new late-night comedy-variety program that in addition to launching the careers of John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd and an entire generation of comic actors, would also give America its first exposure to some of the era's greatest up-and-coming musical acts. That show, however, was not called Saturday Night Live—at least not at first. That name was already taken by a program that premiered a month earlier than NBC's Saturday Night on a competing network, ABC. NBC's Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell made its first broadcast on this day in 1975, featuring a heavily hyped performance by a pop group Cosell compared openly to the Beatles: Scotland's tartan-clad teenybopper sensations the Bay City Rollers.

The Bay City Rollers were making their U.S. television debut in headlining the premiere of Howard Cosell's Saturday Night Live on September 20, 1975, but they were already an enormous phenomenon in the UK, where their every move was being greeted by the kind of hysteria not seen since the height of Beatlemania. All over Great Britain in 1975, teenage girls were dressing in the Rollers' trademark plaid, snapping up records like "I Only Want To Be With You" and "Saturday Night" and screaming dutifully whenever the shag-sporting heartthrobs showed their faces in public. It was scenes exactly like this in 1963 England that inspired Ed Sullivan to bring the Beatles to America for their historic television debut in February 1964. In September 1975, however, the magic would prove more fleeting for Mr. Cosell and his would-be British invaders.

Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell would last only three months before being cancelled, though its host would continue his unique career in broadcasting for another two decades with ABC Sports. The Bay City Rollers, meanwhile, learned the hard way about the risks inherent in staking their success on the affections of the Tiger Beat demographic. Millions of American preteens did go mad about plaid and the irresistible stutter-step rhythm of "Saturday Night," but like most first crushes, Rollermania was intense but brief. Within 18 months of their television debut and their unofficial anointment as America's most kissable new stars, Alan, Derek, Eric, Woody and Les of the Bay City Rollers were at least two crushes old for their once-loyal fan base, whose school binders now proclaimed their love for new acts with names like Shaun Cassidy and Andy Gibb.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #16 on: September 20, 2014, 03:41:14 AM »

On this day in 1881, Chester Arthur is inaugurated, becoming the third person to serve as president in that year.

The year 1881 began with Republican Rutherford B. Hayes in office. Hayes served out his first and only term and officially turned over the reins of government to James A. Garfield, who happened to be a close friend of his, in March 1881. Just four months into his term, on July 2, Garfield was shot by a crazed assassin named Charles Guiteau. Guiteau claimed to have killed Garfield because he refused to grant Guiteau a political appointment. Garfield sustained wounds to his back and abdomen and struggled to recover throughout the summer. Though it appeared he would pull through in early September, the autopsy report revealed that the internal bullet wound contributed to an aneurism that ultimately killed Garfield on September 19.

The next day, Vice President Chester Arthur was sworn in as president. Strangely, Garfield's assassin wrote to the new president from jail, taking credit for vaulting Arthur into the White House. According to President Hayes, Arthur's administration was best known for "liquor, snobbery and worse." He served only one term from 1881 to 1885.

This was the second time in American history that three men served as president in one year; a similar situation occured in 1841, when Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler all held the office.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #17 on: September 20, 2014, 03:42:20 AM »

On September 20, 1973, Billie Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in a widely publicized exhibition tennis match dubbed the "Battle of the Sexes." The 55-year-old Riggs, a tennis champion from the late 1930s and 40s who was notoriously skeptical of women’s talents on the tennis court, branded the contest the "Battle of the Sexes."

Bobby Riggs first proposed a male-female match-up to Billie Jean King, then 28, whom he dubbed the "leading women’s libber of tennis," in 1972. King ignored the offer, but Australian Margaret Court, 30, who had won 89 of her last 92 matches and was the leading money-winner on the women’s professional tour at the time, accepted. Leading up to this first "Battle of the Sexes" match, Riggs loudly and consistently belittled women’s tennis and its players to the media while Court, occupied with raising her one-year-old son, said little.

On May 13, 1973, Bobby Riggs and Margaret Court faced off in the $10,000 winner-take-all challenge. The match, held on Riggs’ home turf, was televised internationally. To the surprise of many, Riggs defeated Court easily, 6-2, 6-1. The moment the match ended, Riggs again challenged Billie Jean King. This time, she accepted, and their $100,000 winner-take-all match--dubbed by some "the libber vs. the lobber"--was set for September 20, 1973.

A sell-out crowd of 30,492 people, the largest ever for a tennis match, filled the Houston Astrodome while millions more in 36 countries tuned in on television to watch King, a five-time Wimbledon champion, all but chew Riggs up and spit him out. The older man lacked the energy and stamina to keep up with her aggressive serve-and-volley game, and she prevailed easily, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3. At a news conference after the match, Riggs explained the loss: "She was too good, too fast. She returned all my passing shots and made great plays off them. . . . I was trying to play my game, but I couldn't."

After Riggs’ death at age 77 in 1995, King complimented her former rival and his probably accidental contribution to the advancement of sexual equality: "Our ‘Battle of the Sexes’ match helped to advance the game of tennis and women everywhere."
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #18 on: September 20, 2014, 03:43:31 AM »

military spokesmen defend the use of defoliants in Vietnam at a news conference in Saigon, claiming that the use of the agents in selected areas of South Vietnam had neither appreciably altered the country's ecology, nor produced any harmful effects on human or animal life.

However, a paper released at the same news conference by Dr. Fred T. Shirley, a U.S. Agriculture Department expert, suggested that U.S. officials in Saigon were underestimating the extent of ecological damage caused in Vietnam by defoliating agents and that they had caused "undeniable ecological damage" and that "recovery may take a long time." Defoliation had been used in Vietnam since 1961 to reduce the dense jungle foliage so communist forces could not use it for cover, as well as to deny the enemy use of crops needed for subsistence. During a nine-year period ending in 1971, over 19 million gallons of three major herbicides (Agents Orange, White, and Blue) would be used in Vietnam. As part of Operation Ranch Hand, conducted from 1962 to 1970, specially equipped C-123 aircraft sprayed these herbicides in a 300-foot swath about eight and half miles long. It was also applied by helicopter, truck, and hand sprayers. The heaviest use of the defoliants was in the III Corps Tactical Zone north of Saigon and along the Cambodian and Laotian borders. The use of these agents was controversial, both during and after the war, because of the questions about long-term ecological impacts and the effect on humans who were either sprayed or handled the chemicals. Beginning in the late 1970s, Vietnam veterans began to cite the herbicides, especially Agent Orange, as the cause of health problems ranging from skin rashes to cancer and birth defects in their children. Similar problems, including an abnormally high incidence of miscarriages and congenital malformations, have been reported among the Vietnamese people who lived in the areas where the defoliate agents were used.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #19 on: September 20, 2014, 03:44:10 AM »

The USAF reveals that U.S. planes have been mining the coastal rivers and canals of northern Quang Tri province below the DMZ, the first mining of waterways within South Vietnam. This was an attempt to impede further reinforcement of North Vietnamese forces in the area and to remove the threat to the newly recaptured city of Quang Tri.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #20 on: September 20, 2014, 03:45:04 AM »

On September 20, 1918, 32-year-old Colonel George S. Patton of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) writes to his father from the Western Front in France, recounting his experiences during the American-led offensive against the Germans at Saint-Mihiel earlier that month.

Patton had previously served in Mexico in 1916 under General John J. Pershing during the U.S. army's pursuit of Mexican rebel Pancho Villa. The following year, after the U.S. declared war on Germany, the young officer traveled to France as Pershing's aide. At Saint-Mihiel, Patton was put in command of the light-tank brigade. The attack marked the AEF's first major offensive operation as an independent army during World War I, as well as the first time the U.S. had used tanks in battle.

"Dear Papa," Patton began his letter, "we have all been in one fine fight and it was not half so exciting as I had hoped, not as exciting as affairs in Mexico, because there was so much company. When the shelling first started I had some doubts about the advisability of sticking my head over the parapet, but it is just like taking a cold bath, once you get in, it is all right." In the rest of the letter, Patton chronicles his experience in battle alongside a brigade commanded by General Douglas MacArthur (later the commander of all Allied forces in the South Pacific during World War II) and his movement on foot across the battlefield, evading German shells and surveying the damage inflicted by the battle. As Patton finally concluded, "This is a very egotistical letter but intersting [sic] as it shows that vanity is stronger than fear and that in war as now waged there is little of the element of fear, it is too well organized and too stupendous."

Later wounded in the leg by a German machine-gun bullet, Patton was evacuated to a military hospital, where he enjoyed a full recovery. He returned home safe from France, receiving a Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart for his service in World War I. Two decades later, as a general, Patton would play a leading role in World War II, becoming one of the most famous and controversial military figures in U.S. history.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #21 on: September 20, 2014, 03:45:42 AM »

On this day in 1943, British submarines attempt to sink the German battleship Tirpitz as it sits in Norwegian waters, as Operation Source gets underway. The Tirpitz was the second largest battleship in the German fleet (after the Bismarck) and a threat to Allied vessel movement through Arctic waters.

In January 1942, Hitler ordered the Germany navy to base the Tirpitz in Norway in order to attack Soviet convoys transporting supplies from Iceland to the U.S.S.R. The Tirpitz also prevented British naval forces from making their way to the Pacific. Winston Churchill summed up the situation this way: "The destruction or even crippling of this ship is the greatest event at the present time.... The whole strategy of the war turns at this period on this ship...."

Attacks had already been made against the Tirpitz. RAF raids were against it in January 1942 failed to hit it. Another raid was made in March; dozens of RAF bombers sought out the Tirpitz, which had been reinforced with cruisers, pocket battleships, and destroyers. All of the British bombers, once again, missed their target.

Sporadic attacks continued to be made against the German battleship, including an attempt in October 1942 to literally drive a two-man craft up to the ship and plant explosives on the Tirpitz's hull. This too failed because of brutal water conditions and an alert German defense. In 1943, the battleship Scharnhorst joined the Tirpitz, creating a threat to Allied shipping that caused all convoys to the Soviet Union to be temporarily halted. Finally, in September, six midget British subs set out to take the Tirpitz down for good. The midgets had to be towed to Norway by conventional subs. Only three of the six midgets made it to their target. This time, they were successful in attaching explosives to the Tirpitz's keel—and did enough damage to put it out of action for six months. Two British commanders and four crewmen were taken captive by the Germans and spent the rest of the war as POWs.

Ironically, the mighty Tirpitz fired its guns only once in aggression during the entire war—against a British coaling station on the island of Spitsbergen.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #22 on: September 20, 2014, 03:57:49 AM »

Drive-Thru Confessional
-------------------------


The elderly priest, speaking to the younger priest, said, "It was a good idea to replace the first four pews with plush bucket theater seats. It worked like a charm. The front of the church always fills first now."

The young priest nodded, and the old priest continued, "And you told me adding a little more beat to the music would bring young people back to church, so I supported you when you brought in that rock'n'roll gospel choir. Now our services are consistently packed to the
balcony."

"Thank you, Father," answered the young priest. "I am pleased that you are open to the new ideas of youth."

"All of these ideas have been well and good," said the elderly priest, "but I'm afraid you've gone too far with the drive-thru confessional."

"But, Father," protested the young priest, "my confessions and the donations have nearly doubled since I began that!"

"Yes," replied the elderly priest, "and I appreciate that.

But the flashing neon sign, 'Toot 'n Tell or Go to Hell' cannot stay on the church roof.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #23 on: September 20, 2014, 05:53:27 AM »

Time for a double sheesh.
Logged

LuvTooGolf

  • Founding Member
  • Banter Elder
  • *****
  • Posts: 43933
  • Believeland!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #24 on: September 20, 2014, 05:55:26 AM »

Morning Chip.
Logged

South Carolina Redfish

  • Coffee At Sunrise 🌄 and Cocktails At Sunset 🌅
  • Founding Member
  • Post Whore Extraordinaire
  • *****
  • Posts: 55869
  • “Retirement Is Wonderful”
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #25 on: September 20, 2014, 06:07:46 AM »

Good Morning Golfing Dave and LSU. 
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #26 on: September 20, 2014, 06:16:40 AM »

Looks like the two bankers finally woke up.
Logged

LSUFAN

  • Founding Member
  • Esteemed Status
  • *****
  • Posts: 16579
  • Geaux Tigers!
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #27 on: September 20, 2014, 06:17:07 AM »

Good morning Dave and Native.
Logged

South Carolina Redfish

  • Coffee At Sunrise 🌄 and Cocktails At Sunset 🌅
  • Founding Member
  • Post Whore Extraordinaire
  • *****
  • Posts: 55869
  • “Retirement Is Wonderful”
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #28 on: September 20, 2014, 06:20:17 AM »

Looks like the two bankers finally woke up.
Hah yeah i sleep late on weekends sometimes. 
Logged

South Carolina Redfish

  • Coffee At Sunrise 🌄 and Cocktails At Sunset 🌅
  • Founding Member
  • Post Whore Extraordinaire
  • *****
  • Posts: 55869
  • “Retirement Is Wonderful”
Re: 9/20/2014
« Reply #29 on: September 20, 2014, 06:21:29 AM »

Any fun activities planned today Chip? 
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3 4 ... 12