This Day In History: Events of Note, Events to Mourn -- With Commentary

Young Mr. Disney with famous his pal Mickey

Walt Disney was trending on Twitter today. He's been dead for quite some time, so it couldn't have been news about his passing. Sure enough, it was news about his coming back to life after being stored in a cryogenic state since his passing in 1966. 

Just kidding. On this day in History Walt Disney was born in 1901.

Upon reading this I had two directions to consider. (1) a blog post about Mr. Disney and his influence, or (2) an overview of other events that took place on this day in history. I'm choosing the latter. 

DID YOU KNOW

ON THIS DAY in history... 

In 1848 the California Gold Rush began. 
California was pretty desolate before that. There used to be three ways to get to the West Coast back before the Transcontinental Railroad. All of them took six months and were fraught with peril. One was was by boat, around the tip of South America, passing through the treacherous Straits of Magellan. The second route was to go by sea down to the Panama Isthmus and do a land passage to the other side. The danger there, of course, was malaria and dengue fever. A third route was equally challenging, by wagon train across the continent. There were no guarantees and many hazards on this journey, too.

Two other big Gold Rush events occurred in our history. One was the Black Hills Gold Rush (1976-77) and the second was the Yukon Gold Rush (1892-1912). Adventurer and author Jack London wrote many stories about the latter. (If you can find it, look for his tale "Lost Face") As for the Black Hills, there is still "gold in them thar hills. (To this day people are still chasing gold in myriad ways, but that's a different story.)

The Bermuda Triangle Event of 1945
Depending on which account you read, on this day in 1945 either four or five U.S. Navy Avenger bombers disappeared approximately 100 miles off the coast of Florida. Flight 19 took off from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station on a routine three-hour training mission. Flight 19 was scheduled to take them due east for 120 miles, north for 73 miles, and then back over a final 120-mile leg that would return them to the naval base. They never returned, disappearing without a trace.

1791--Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart dies in Vienna.
Years ago I made lists of favorite things with one list being favorite short classical compositions. More recently I shared these in story titled 10 Classical Music Favorites of Exquisite Beauty. Two Mozart compositions were on this list. What an amazingly productive genius. He packed so much into such a short life that it seems almost inconceivable.

Publicity still for Bob Dylan's "Heaven's Door" whisky.*

1933--The 21st Amendment ends Prohibition in the United States
13 years earlier the Volstead Act was passed and, as with many decisions, the law of unintended consequences was set in motion. Interestingly, Jack London wrote a novel in support of Prohibition titled John Barleycorn about his enjoyment of and struggles with alcohol. The fourth studio album of the British group Traffic was titled John Barleycorn Must Die. (Interesting.)

1955 - Today was the beginning of the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott led by Dr. Martin Luther King.
Let's pause for a moment of silence because race is still such an issue in this country.

1964 - Lorne Greene's song "Ringo" becomes a No. 1 hit single in the U.S.
It's always interesting when people famous in one discipline do something in another. Dylan making sculpture for example. Or comedian Jonathan Winters making fine art. Greene was one of the four members of the Cartwright family on one of television's longest running Weesterns, Bonanza. At our house it seems like the show was on every Sunday night from 1959 into the early 70's. Off the top of my head I am not sure how many Hollywood stars become rock stars, but I do know that fame as a rock star seems to open doors in Hollywood. Mick Jagger, David Bowie, The Beatles, Madonna come readily to mind. 

1965--The Beatles play their last Liverpool concert
The Fab Four performed at the Liverpool Empire. There were only 5100 tickets and 40,000 applications. That week the #1 hit in the UK was their "We Can Work It Out"/"Day Tripper"... a single that I also had bought around that time.

1968--The Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet was released. 
That year for Christmas I think the one thing I wanted more than anything was Beggar's Banquet. I was into the Stones because all the girls in schools seemed to swoon over The Beatles, so it was a bit of a contrarian attitude. Nevertheless I did have most of the albums by both groups up through the early 70s. And yes, I did get Beggar's Banquet for Christmas that year. The photo inside was so cool!

In 1992, Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" begins a 10 week run at #1 in the UK  

As the saying goes, Ms. Houston had incredible pipes. She sold over 200 million records worldwide and according the Guinness Book of World Records she was the most awarded female artist of all time. What prompted me to include this bit of trivia was seeing that Dolly Parton was the songwriter. It wasn't until I watched the Ken Burns documentary on Country Music that I discovered Ms. Parton was a songwriter and not just a performer. Dolly Parton was the 4th of 12 children born in Eastern Tennessee, her earliest years in a one room house. If I recall correctly, she wrote her first song when she was five. 

* See: Marketing Heaven's Door: Bob Dylan's Foray into the Whiskey Business