ALSO TODAY IN 1829 - Greater London’s Metropolitan Police went into action. There was much opposition to the act of Parliament that authorized the police force. Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel had requested the act (the police were called ‘Bobbies’ in honor of him). The Bobbies first official headquarters were at Scotland Yard; and Scotland Yard became the official name of the police force. 1920 - Radios for 10 bucks! That’s what Joseph Horne Company’s department store in Pittsburgh, PA was selling. The radios were advertised in The Pittsburgh Sun for $10 and up. One could get a ready-made radio in a box with headphones and tuning knob. This way, one could do away with the Quaker Oats round box and the cat’s whisker wire, which was a pain in the butt to tune. 1930 - “This is Lowell Thomas.” Those words were spoken for the first time as a young Lowell Thomas made his debut on CBS Radio. He replaced Floyd Gibbons on the nightly (6:45 p.m.), 15-minute newscast. Thomas, who started as a reporter for the New York Daily News (at age 19), was heard on the radio for the next 46 years. 1930 - “Ba, ba, ba, boo. I will, ba ba ba boo ... marry you!” ‘Der Bingle’, better known as Bing Crosby, America’s premier crooner for decades, married Dixie Lee. 1940 - Double or Nothing, a radio quiz show, was first heard on the Mutual Radio Network. Each time contestants answered questions correctly, their winnings would double -- from $20 to $40 to the big payoff of $80. If they gave an incorrect answer, they were gone! Nobody bet on how long the show would last. Good thing. It kept going for a dozen years. Among the sponsors: Feen-A-Mint, Chooz breath candy and Campbell’s soup. 1946 - Mystery fans remember when The Adventures of Sam Spade debuted on CBS radio this Sunday night. (It had aired in the summer of 1946 on ABC on Friday nights.) The Adventures of Sam Spade, with Howard Duff playing Spade, became a big hit in the Sunday night radio lineup. And now a word from our sponsor: “Use Wildroot Cream Oil, Charlie ... it keeps your hair in trim...” 1947 - Dizzy Gillespie presented his first Carnegie Hall concert in New York, adding a sophisticated jazz touch to the famous concert emporium. Diz would become one of the jazz greats of all time. His trademark: Two cheeks pushed out until it looked like his face would explode. But, as the hepcats said, “Man, that guy can blow!” 1951 - The University of California defeated the University of Pennsylvania 35-0 at Franklin Field in Philadelphia. It was the first network football game to be televised in color -- on CBS. 1953 - Danny Thomas, who many now remember as Marlo’s dad and Phil Donahue’s father-in-law, is also remembered for many things that influenced television. At the suggestion of his friend, Desi Arnaz, Thomas negotiated a deal that would allow him to retain ownership rights to his programs, like Make Room for Daddy, which debuted this day on ABC-TV. Later, in 1957, the show would move to CBS under the Desilu/Danny Thomas Productions banner. The rest is, literally, TV history. His success allowed him to give something back to the world, in the form of his philanthropic efforts to build St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital in Memphis. “All I prayed for was a break,” he once told an interviewer, “and I said I would do anything, anything, to pay back the prayer if it could be answered. All I needed was a sign of what to do and I would do it.” And so it was. 1960 - My Three Sons was welcomed into U.S. homes on ABC-TV. Fred MacMurray, who was a movie actor, had a difficult time making the adjustment to the small screen. But adjust he did, and My Three Sons endured so well that CBS bought the successful hit for somewhere between seven and ten million dollars in 1965. 1977 - It was the most-watched prize fight in history, as Muhammad Ali beat Ernie Shavers (in a decision) to claim the heavyweight championship boxing crown. The bout was televised from New York City’s Madison Square Garden and was officiated by the first woman official of a heavyweight title boxing match. Ali “floated like a butterfly ... stung like a bee” before an estimated 70 million viewers -- on NBC-TV. 1982 - The first of seven deaths was reported in the Chicago area from Tylenol capsules laced with cyanide. Later, Johnson and Johnson introduced a triple sealed, tamper resistant Tylenol bottle. 1983 - On the Great White Way, A Chorus Line became the longest-running show on Broadway, with performance number 3,389. Grease, the rock ’n’ roll production, had been the previous box-office champ since 1980. 1984 - Elizabeth Taylor, undergoing rehabilitation at the Betty Ford Clinic and overcoming a nagging weight problem, was voted as the world’s most beautiful woman in a Louis Harris poll released this day. 1986 - Mary Lou Retton, who stunned audiences with perfect 10 scores in the Olympics of 1984, called it quits from the wide world of gymnastics. 1996 - The Nintendo 64 video game system known as the first ‘true’ 64-bit system, hit North American shelves. That first day, Nintendo sold 500,000 systems, with the Mario64 game selling the same with it. Needless to say, Nintendo’s system was a big sucess. 2000 - Movies released in the U.S.: Beautiful, with Minnie Driver, Joey Lauren Adams, Hallie Kate Eisenberg, Kathleen Turner; Best in Show, starring Jennifer Coolidge, John Michael Higgins, Michael Hitchcock; The Broken Hearts League, Timothy Olyphant, Zach Braff, Dean Cain, Andrew Keegan; and Remember the Titans, starring Denzel Washington, Will Patton and Wood Harris.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Sep 2013 12:38:38 +0000
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