Thursday, April 10, 2008

Good Bye Katie, we hardly wanted ye.

It appears that we will have more than just a new president come this January. America's sweetheart, Katie Couric, will be getting the bum's rush by CBS after the inauguration, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal this morning.

Maybe she could get a job with Dan at the HD network no one watches.


Here is your Today in History -

April 10, 1848 -
250 people die in a bridge collapse in Yarmouth, England. They had gathered on the suspension bridge to watch a clown boat be pulled by a flock of geese. Nothing good comes from clowns.



April 10, 1912 -
"When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident ... or any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort." -Edward J. Smith (1907), the future captain of the RMS Titanic. The RMS Titanic leaves port in Southampton, England for her first and last voyage.



April 10, 1917 -
133 people are killed in an explosion at the Eddystone ammunition factory in Chester, PA. Satan is immediately implicated, with one official declaring the blast to be "the result of a diabolical plot conceived in the degenerate brain of a demon in human guise." It later turns out to have been caused by poorly-maintained powder loading machinery. Satan writes an Op-Ed piece for the Times complaining about his perceived negative image in the media.

April 10, 1919 -
Mexican Revolution leader Emiliano Zapata is ambushed and shot dead by government forces in Morelos. Dubya's grandpappy did not attempt to steal his skull.




April 10, 1925 -
"... Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning----

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."



F. Scott Fitzgerald publishes his third. Among various titles considered were Among Ashheaps and Millionaires, Gold-Hatted Gatsby, The High-Bouncing Lover, On the Road to West Egg and Fitzgerald's favorite Trimalchio's Banquet based on a character from the Roman character Trimalchio from the Satyricon. At the last moment Fitzgerald agreed with his editor Max Perkins on the title, The Great Gatsby. The novel was not popular upon initial printing and sold fewer than 25,000 copies during the remaining fifteen years of Fitzgerald's life. Fitzgerald was very disappointed about this happening. Much alcohol consumption and dissipation ensued.

April 10, 1964
The Polo Grounds are demolished and a public housing project was erected on the site. Demolition of the Polo Grounds began in April of that year with the same wrecking ball that had been used four years earlier on Ebbets Field. The wrecking crew wore Giants jerseys and tipped their hard hats to the historic stadium as they began the dismantling. It took a crew of 60 workers more than four months to level the structure.



And so it goes

No comments: