Today in 1959
Blossom Dearie, Ann-Margret, Bruno Kirby, Jay Leno and Saddam Hussein celebrated birthdays.- Hugh Downs hosted the 181st episode of Concentration. It is not known how many clues got stuck while turning.
- Harry Truman delivered a lecture on “The Constitution” at Columbia. Somewhere in Wyoming, 18-year-old Dick Cheney chortled.
- Senator John F. Kennedy criticized a federal student-loan program that required loyalty oaths. “Few high school graduates today are members of the Communist Party,” he joked.
- Nelson Rockefeller was on the cover of Look magazine, in a story asking whether he could “knock off Nixon”. Another cover headline asked, “Does every American want to be a snob?”
- “Because of the special importance of petroleum reserves to hemisphere security,” President Eisenhower wrote to a fellow head of state, “officials of our two governments have, as you know, been discussing ways to assure, without prejudice to other oil-producing nations and without disruption of established trade patterns, the continued health and vigor of all hemisphere oil industries.” The letter was addressed to Rómulo Betancourt of Venezuela.
- The Canadian Supreme Court, in Lord’s Day Alliance v. Attorney-General of British Columbia, let stand a law that allowed the Vancouver Mounties to play baseball on Sundays.
- The Washington Senators beat the Kansas City Athletics, 8-3, in KC. Harmon Killebrew scored one run for the Senators.
- KLOE-TV began broadcasting in Goodland, Kansas. The first CBS program of the day was Captain Kangaroo. Contrary to legend, Frank Zappa was not the son of Mr. Greenjeans, although Mr. Greenjeans did play bass with Fred Waring. And Fred Waring did put up the money for the Waring Blender. Fred Waring and Kevin Bacon are both from Pennsylvania.
- God played a cruel trick on us.
Happy birthday?
@mellbell: Both Jessica Alba and Penelope Cruz say “yes” – and Kim Gordon, too!
Kangaroo was promoted to Captain after single-handedly wiping out a bunker full of hand-puppets.
Happy Birthday, Nojo!
@Serolf Divad:
He also nuked the land of Make-Believe because he didn’t want that non-profit bastard Mr Rogers steal his money.
Happy birthday Stinque Overlord.
Happy birthday. BTW. It gets worse from here.
Happy birthday. Killebrew was awesome.
A half-century? Oh boy. Thats fucking old. Older than the vast majority of humans who ever lived ever got to be. Your body has not evolved to live this long, its unnatural. Old old old.
I have 2 years to go.
@Prommie: And here I thought I had a year on Nojo. I still have 14 months for scientists to reveal their “50 is the new 25” elixir.
Anyone read Sally Forth today? Appropriate…
@Nabisco: Is it Steve Earl who titled his autobiography “If I Knew I was Going to Live This Long I Would Have Taken Better Care of Myself?”
With me it would be “if I knew that they weren’t going to find cures for all the ailments I was courting with my lifestyle before they caught up with me, I would have taken better care of myself.”
¡Feliz cumpleaños, Nojo!
@Nabisco: You get superpowers when you turn 58. Specifically, the ability to forget what people are asking you to do.
Three of the five people listed in the first bullet point are dead and one was recently hospitalized. I hope you’re a redhead, nojo.
Happy birthday!
DEVELOPING HARD: SPECTER JUMPS SHIP, RUNNING AS DEM IN 2010. ZOMGWTFBBQ!
Many happy returns of the day!
@chicago bureau: Wow. About time.
Doesn’t that make 60, if Al Frankin ever gets seated? Talk about a birthday present!
Here’s to 1000 more, Nojo!
TJ/ first (unconfirmed) swine flu case in Pennsyltucky. Watch the wires; she’s a Canuck, returning from Cancun, arrived drunk….developing.
@chicago bureau: Unfreakin believable. He’s hated more by the Dems than the Rethugs, but we’ll take the seat, gracias.
@chicago bureau: WOW!
Coleman is never gonna concede now.
@Nabisco: Ah ha!! See? Napolitano was right about Canuckistanian terrorists! Seal the border! Build a wall!
@chicago bureau: I’m not that excited – you have nuts like Ben Nelsen who may or may not vote with the rest. Also, I wonder if there will be a Dem who jumps to R? It would be insane, but then so are a few Dem senators.
@Tommmcatt the Wet Sprocket: Indeed, happy b-day!
@everyone: Thanks!
Live slow, die old, and burn the corpse.
@nojo: We didn’t wake you, did we?
@Nabisco: The cake set off my smoke alarm.
@nojo: Mmmm, cake….
THAT explains the hamsters I saw at dawn, facing west and saluting.
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