On this day in history, May 25, 1935, Babe Ruth hits his 714th home run
Celebrated athlete's home run record would stand for nearly 40 years.


American baseball player George Herman Ruth (1895-1948) was known as "Babe" Ruth.

On this day in history, May 25, 1935, at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, baseball great Babe Ruth hit his 714th home run — a record for career home runs that would stand for almost 40 years.

"This was one of Ruth’s last games, and the last home run of his career," noted History.com of the accomplishment.

"Ruth went four for four on the day, hitting three home runs and driving in six runs."

 

1787: U.S. forming a 'more perfect union' is debated in Philadelphia
What's at stake for Philadelphia's Constitutional Convention is no less than the formulation of a system to lead a newly born nation into a mature, and revolutionary, form of government. George Washington presides over a gathering of minds to hammer out the details.

 

25 May 1940

Adolf Hitler continued to hold off his tanks from engaging on an offensive even though those armored divisions were merely 10 miles from Dunkirk, France. At Calais, France, Heinz Guderian obediently, albeit frustratingly, ordered his tanks to halt per Hitler's orders, but the field commanders continued to push back the British and French troops. In the evening, British Expeditionary Force commanding general Lord Gort began to fall back to Dunkirk. On the same day, the French Army relieved 15 generals of their commands.

 

On This Day In History
May 25, 1994
Pennsylvania man buried with his beloved Corvette

On May 25, 1994, the ashes of 71-year-old George Swanson are buried (according to Swanson’s request) in the driver’s seat of his 1984 white Corvette in Irwin, Pennsylvania.

Swanson, a beer distributor and former U.S. Army sergeant during World War II, died the previous March 31 at the age of 71. He had reportedly been planning his automobile burial for some time, buying 12 burial plots at Brush Creek Cemetery, located 25 miles east of Pittsburgh, in order to ensure that his beloved Corvette would fit in his grave with him. After his death, however, the cemetery balked, amid concerns of vandalism and worries that other clients would be offended by the outlandish nature of the burial. They finally relented after weeks of negotiations, but insisted that the burial be private, and that the car be drained of fluids to protect the environment. “George wanted to go out in style, and, indeed, now he will,” commented Swanson’s lawyer in a report from The Associated Press. “We agree that this is rather elaborate, but really it’s no different than being buried in a diamond-studded or gold coffin.”

According to the AP, Swanson’s widow, Caroline, transported her husband’s ashes to the cemetery on the seat of her own white 1993 Corvette. The ashes were then placed on the driver’s seat of his 10-year-old car, which had only 27,000 miles on the odometer. Inside the car, mourners also placed a lap quilt made by a group of women from Swanson’s church, a love note from his wife and an Engelbert Humperdinck tape in the cassette deck, with the song “Release Me” cued up and ready to play. The license plate read “HI-PAL,” which was Swanson’s go-to greeting when he didn’t remember a name. As 50 mourners looked on, a crane lowered the Corvette into a 7-by-7-by-16-foot hole.

“George always said he lived a fabulous life, and he went out in a fabulous style,” Caroline Swanson said later. “You have a lot of people saying they want to take it with them. He took it with him.”

 

May 26

1908 - At Masjad Soleyman in Southwest Persia the first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East. The rights were acquired by the United Kingdom.

1927 - Henry Ford and Ford Motor Company produce the last ( 15 million) Ford Model T( Tin Lizzy).

1967 - EMI rush released The Beatles album "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" in London and a few select markets in the U.K.
It would go on to be the #1 album for 15 weeks in the US and 22 weeks in the UK.

1907 - John Wayne was born.

2005 - Eddie Albert( Oliver Wendell Douglas on Green Acres) passed away

 

May 26 was the date of two Beatles events, one year apart:

1966: The Beatles went to Abbey Road Studios in London and recorded 'Yellow Submarine.' The water sound effects were supplied by John Lennon blowing bubbles in a bucket of water, and later , Lennon shouted "Full speed ahead Mister Captain!"

The song reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100, beaten out of the top spot by The Supremes' 'You Can't Hurry Love.'

2 years later, it would become a hit movie directed by George Dunning, and written by Lee Minoff, Al Brodax, Jack Medelsohn and Erich Segal. Yellow Submarine began its voyage to the screen when co-writer Al Brodax, who had previously produced nearly 40 episodes of ABC's animated Beatles TV series, approached Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, with a unique vision for a full-length animated feature.



1967: The Beatles released the landmark album 'Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', in the UK. When it was later released in the U.S., it became the first Beatles album where the track listings were exactly the same for the UK and U.S. versions.

Recorded over a 129-day period beginning in December 1966, the album is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time as well as one of the first 'concept' albums. As of 2011, it had sold more than 32 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums in history.

The album was proposed in November of the previous year by Paul McCartney. On a flight to London, McCartney told his bandmates of his idea for a song involving an Edwardian military band that formed the impetus of the Sgt. Pepper concept and expanded into an entire album representing a performance by the fictional band.

Can't show the album cover because of underage people like Shirley Temple who appear on it.

 

Woke up, got outta bed, dragged a comb across my head.

 

1897: Tale of a toothy Transylvanian arrives at booksellers
Irish author Bram Stoker's novel of Gothic horror, 'Dracula,' is published in London. Readers are hooked by the bloodthirsty tale, and the story makes an ideal yarn for invasion literature fans, but the count's allure will really take flight decades later with the advent of cinema.

 

On this day in history, May 26, 1907, iconic actor John Wayne is born in Iowa
'The Duke,' known for epitomizing the American West, won the Best Actor Oscar for 'True Grit'.


American actors John Wayne and Constance Towers on the set of "The Horse Soldiers," directed by John Ford.

On this day in history, May 26, 1907, John Wayne, the iconic actor who is known for epitomizing the American West, is born in Winterset, Iowa.

Named Marion Robert Morrison, Wayne at age six moved with his family to Glendale, California, according to History.com.

As a teen, he delivered newspapers in the mornings, while after school he played football and made deliveries for local stores.

It was while living in Glendale that he acquired the nickname, Duke, says John Wayne’s official site.

The family dog Duke, an Airedale, was his constant companion. Local firefighters knew the dog’s name and started calling the young man "Duke" as well.

The name stuck, says the same source.

Upon graduating from high school, Wayne hoped to attend the U.S. Naval Academy, but when that school rejected him, he accepted a full scholarship to play football at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, notes History.com.

In the summer of 1926, Wayne’s football coach set him up with a job as an assistant prop man on the set of a movie directed by John Ford, recounts the same source.

"Ford started to use Wayne as an extra, and he eventually began to trust him with some larger roles. In 1930, Ford recommended Wayne for Fox’s epic Western, ‘The Big Trail.’ Wayne won the part, but the movie did poorly, and Fox let his contract lapse," according to History.com.


During the next eight years, he starred in more than 60 low-budget movies, mostly in roles as cowboys, soldiers and other rugged men of adventure, says Britannica.

Wayne achieved genuine "star stature" when Ford cast him as the "Ringo Kid" in the classic western "Stagecoach" in 1939, the same source points out.

"After that film his place in American cinema was established and grew with each successive year," recounts Britannica.

 

On This Day In History
May 26, 1960
United States charges Soviets with espionage

During a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Henry Cabot Lodge charges that the Soviet Union has engaged in espionage activities at the U.S. embassy in Moscow for years. The charges were obviously an attempt by the United States to deflect Soviet criticisms following the downing of an American U-2 spy plane over Russia earlier in the month.

On May 1, 1960, a highly sophisticated (and supposedly invulnerable) U.S. spy plane, the U-2, was shot down over the Soviet Union. Although U.S. officials at first denied the existence of any such spy planes, the Soviets gleefully produced both the wreckage of the plane and its pilot, Francis Gary Powers. Embarrassed U.S. officials, including President Dwight D. Eisenhower, were forced to publicly admit that the United States was indeed spying on the Soviet Union with the high altitude planes. However, the U.S. government consistently declared that it was doing nothing that the Soviets themselves were not doing. As evidence of that charge, Henry Cabot Lodge brought the issue before the U.N. Security Council. There, he produced a wooden reproduction of the Great Seal of the United States. Nestled inside was a small listening and transmitting device. Lodge claimed that the seal had been presented to the U.S. embassy in Moscow in 1945 by a group of Russian citizens. In 1952, a security sweep of the embassy discovered the listening device. Lodge went on to note that more than 100 other such devices had been found in the U.S. embassies in Russia and other communist-bloc countries during the last few years. The Soviet representative on the Security Council chuckled often during Lodge’s presentation and then asked, “From what plays were these props taken and when will it open?”

Despite the U.S. charges of Soviet espionage, nothing could undo the damage of the downed U-2 spy plane, the subsequent denials, and the public embarrassment suffered by Eisenhower and other U.S. officials when they were caught in a lie. Just 10 days before Lodge’s presentation in the Security Council, a summit meeting between Eisenhower and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev ended with each side exchanging angry accusations about spying and bad faith.

 

Well not this day!!!!! But yesterday Ronnie James Dio released the album Last in Line 41 years. Thank You. R.I P.

 

Celebrate our Fallen Heros

May 27

1679 - Habeas Corpus Act is passed in England strengthening s person's right to defend themselves against unlawful arrest and imprisonment.

1905 - Battle of ,Tsushima. Japanese fleet destroyed the Russian East Sea Fleet.

1940 - Operation Dynamo. The British and Allied forces begin the evacuation of Dunkirk.

1977 - The Sex Pistols release "God Save the Queen" sparking controversy and leading to a banof the song by the BBC.

1794 - Cornelius Vanderbilt was born

1837 - Wild Bill Hickock was born.

1923 + Henry Kissinger was born.

 

On May 27, 1949, an mostly unknown, unemployed 22-year-old model and aspiring actress posed for a nude photo shoot in Los Angeles. Having turned down many offers to pose nude, she accepted only when her situation became desperate as her contracts with 20th Century Fox and Columbia had not been renewed.

The $50 she was paid was exactly what Marilyn Monroe needed to get back her car which had been impounded.

Tom Kelley, the photographer, agreed to Marilyn's demands that he never tell anyone she had posed in the nude and that he take the pictures in a way to make her unrecognizable. Kelley, Monroe said, promised that no one would ever know except for himself and his wife Natalie, who acted as his studio assistant and set up the red velvet backdrop.

The ensuing famous picture was included in the infamous 'Golden Dreams' calendar, and in March of 1952, journalist Aline Mosby broke the story that Marilyn Monroe, who was by then a hot new Hollywood starlet, was in fact the girl in the nude calendar.

The photo, which took on the title of 'Golden Dreams' will go on to become the most famous calendar photo in history and the principal attraction in the first issue of Playboy magazine.

Rather than destroying Monroe’s budding movie career, as she had feared, it only increeased her notoriety and spawned much public attention.

The calendar:


The photo announcing Marilyn as Playboy's first 'Sweetheart of the Month'

 

On this day in history, May 27, 1937, the Golden Gate Bridge, 'noblest structure of steel,' opens to public
First enjoyed by pedestrians, the Golden Gate Bridge opened to vehicles the next day.


The Golden Gate Bridge in 2023. The iconic span opened to the public on this day in history in 1937.

The Golden Gate Bridge, a modern feat of engineering during the Great Depression, opened to the public on this day in history, May 27, 1937.

"The biggest task that ever challenged the genius, courage and will of man has been accomplished," wrote J. Lawrence Toole in the official souvenir program for the bridge's opening.

"After nearly a century of dreaming, decades of talk and five years of heroic labor, the bridge stands here, the noblest structure of steel upon this planet," he said.

"The Golden Gate Bridge Fiesta," a week-long series of events to celebrate the bridge, began at 6 a.m. on May 27, said the souvenir program.

"With eager expectation, San Franciscans and the citizens of the Redwood Empire have looked forward to this day when the mighty Golden Gate Bridge would be opened to the traffic of the world," said a welcome message from San Francisco Mayor Angelo Joseph Rossi printed in the program.

 

1942: 'Dorie' Miller awarded the Navy Cross
For heroics that saved the lives of many fellow USS West Virginia crewmen during the Pearl Harbor attack, Messman Third Class Doris 'Dorie' Miller is the first Black service member to receive the Navy Cross. For the next two years he'll serve bravely in the Pacific theater before perishing in the USS Liscome Bay's catastrophic sinking.

 

27 May 1940
German tanks and aircraft maintained pressure on the Allies in France, pushing them back four miles toward the coast and placing Dunkirk, France within artillery range; meanwhile, the first 7,669 British troops were evacuated from Dunkirk.

Troops of the German 3rd SS Panzer Totenkopf Division, commanded by Hauptsturmführer Fritz Knöchlein, massacred 97 British prisoners of war by machine gun fire at the village of Le Paradis in France. Two survivors of the massacre would later provide testimony during the post-war war crimes trials against Knöchlein.

King Leopold III of Belgium offered surrender terms to Germany and decided to remain in the country. Germany responded at 2200 hours, demanding an unconditional surrender.

Adolf Hitler agreed to allow limited use of tanks within thirteen miles of Dunkirk but remained adamant that Dunkirk was to remain the Luftwaffe's job.

27 May 1941
At 0710 hours, battleship Bismarck sent in what would become her last radio report. She was sighted by battleships HMS King George V and HMS Rodney at 0844 hours, and their guns fired 3 minutes later, hitting Bismarck and quickly disabling her guns. Heavy cruisers HMS Norfolk and HMS Dorsetshire joined in on the attack shortly after. After receiving about 400 gunfire hits from the British ships and several torpedo hits from HMS Dorsetshire, Bismarck's crew set off scuttling charges in the boiler room to scuttle her. She sank at 1039 hours; 2,091, most of her crew, were killed.

27 May 1942
Carrier USS Yorktown arrived at Pearl Harbor at 1420 hours. 1,400 dock workers were assigned to attempt to repair her damage from The Battle of the Coral Sea in time to join Enterprise and Hornet for the impending Midway battle.

 

On This Day In History
May 28, 1998
Comic Phil Hartman killed by wife

On May 28, 1998, the comedian and actor Phil Hartman, famous for his work on Saturday Night Live and NewsRadio, is shot to death by his wife, Brynn, in a murder-suicide. He was 49.

In 1986, Hartman earned a spot on the long-running NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. In his eight years on the show, Hartman became known for his spot-on impersonations of a variety of celebrities, notably President Bill Clinton. He also made frequent guest appearances on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 1989, Hartman shared an Emmy Award for his writing contributions to Saturday Night Live. He went on to set a record for the most appearances (153) as one of the show’s regulars.

Hartman joined the cast of the TV sitcom NewsRadio in 1995. He played the egotistical anchorman of an AM radio news station in New York City through four seasons of the show’s five-year run. The ensemble cast also included Dave Foley, Maura Tierney and Andy Dick. Hartman also notably provided the voices for a number of characters, including the has-been actor Troy McClure and the incompetent lawyer Lionel Hutz, on the acclaimed animated series The Simpsons.In addition to his TV work as an actor and pitchman (for MCI, McDonald’s and Cheetos, among others), Hartman appeared on the big screen in Blind Date (1987), Jingle All the Way (1996) and Small Soldiers, released after his death.

Off-screen, Hartman was popular among his Hollywood colleagues and known for being completely different from some of the more unlikable characters he had portrayed. The murder-suicide, which shocked fans and friends alike, occurred early on the morning of May 28, 1998, at the couple’s home in the Los Angeles suburb of Encino. According to news reports, Brynn, Hartman’s third wife (two previous marriages ended in divorce) had a history of drug and alcohol problems. The couple had two children.

 

May 28
1491 - Joan of Arc is accused of relapsing into heresy by donning male clothing again, falsely justifying her execution.

1588 - King Phillip II dispatches thee Spanish Armada under Duke of Median - Sidonia from Lisbon, Portugal to invade England.

1830 - US President Andrew Jackson signs the Indian Removal Act. This is a key la w leading to the forced removal of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole tribes out of Georgia and surrounding states,setting the stage for
the Trail of Tears.

1887 - Multi athletically talented Jim Thorpe is born

2014 - Maya Angelou passed away.

 

On May 28, 1998, I was visiting a client on Ventura Blvd in Encino CA, and was on foot, waiting to cross a small side street when I noticed down that block a throng of police cars and EMT vehicles.

After work, I saw on the news that the crowd had been at comic actor Phil Hartman's house. He had been shot and murdered by his wife Brynn in the early hours of that morning. She then committed suicide.

Hartman was well known from his work on Saturday Night Live and NewsRadio, a few movies and several character voices on The Simpsons.

RIP, Phil Hartman.









I hadn't noticed this from yesterday, but I'm not changing my post.

 

On this day in history, May 28, 1888, Jim Thorpe, 'greatest athlete in the world,' is born
Thorpe was first Native American to win an Olympic gold medal for US.


Jim Thorpe, seen here in 1910, was born on this day in history, May 28, 1888.

Two-time Olympic gold medalist and Pro Football Hall of Fame member James Francis "Jim" Thorpe came into this world on this day in history, May 28, 1888.

Born in a one-room cabin in the geographical area that is now Oklahoma, Thorpe was raised by Hiram and Charlotte Vieux Thorpe on the Sac and Fox reservation, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

Thorpe was given the Native American name "Wa-tho-huck," meaning "Bright Path" in Sac and Fox language.

This name would quickly turn prophetic, as Thorpe would establish himself as one of the athletic superstars of the 20th century.

In 1903, Thorpe moved from Oklahoma to Pennsylvania to attend the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, said the Oklahoma Historical Society. While at the Carlisle Indian School, Thorpe flourished as an athlete, although his sports career had a rather unorthodox start.

Coached by future College Football Hall of Fame inductee Glenn S. "Pop" Warner, Thorpe joined the school's track and football teams, said the Oklahoma Historical Society's website.

Thorpe's entry into track and field began in 1907, the Smithsonian Magazine notes. While walking across campus, Thorpe saw the track team practicing the high jump.

Thorpe, who was 5'8" at the time, asked if he could try to jump the bar, which was set at 5'9", said the Smithsonian Magazine.

Wearing "overalls and a hickory work shirt," Thorpe cleared the bar — and set the rest of his life in motion.

In the 1912 Olympic Games, Thorpe competed in the decathlon and pentathlon, winning both, despite his shoes going missing on the second day of the decathlon. Wearing mismatched shoes, Thorpe's time in the 1500-meter run would go unbroken for 60 years, noted the Smithsonian Magazine.

King Gustav V of Sweden, the patron of the Games of the V Olympiad, told Thorpe, "You sir, are the greatest athlete in the world."