Today's Birthday

Bonnie Raitt - Nov 8, 1949

Today's Today

Oct 9, 1940 - Dec 8, 1980

Today's Today

Happy 78th birthday, Linda Ronstadt.

This is pretty insightful… Linda Ronstadt called it almost 40 years ago.

pic.twitter.com/ZdknAioSkO

— Lennie Appelquist (@lenapple) July 12, 2022

"There's two kinds of people in the world - those who love Linda Ronstadt, and those who've never heard that voice." --Willie Nelson

A Birthday

January 1887

Geronimo  (born: Goyaałé - the one who yawns) June 16, 1829 - February 17, 1909

Geronimo was a prominent leader and medicine man from the Bedonkohe band of the Ndendahe Apache people. From 1850 to 1886, Geronimo joined with members of three other Central Apache bands – the Tchihende, the Tsokanende (called Chiricahua by Americans) and the Nednhi – to carry out numerous raids, as well as fight against Mexican and U.S. military campaigns in the northern Mexico states of Chihuahua and Sonora and in the southwestern American territories of New Mexico and Arizona.

Geronimo's raids and related combat actions were a part of the prolonged period of the Apache–United States conflict, which started with the American invasion of Apache lands following the end of the war with Mexico in 1848. Reservation life was confining to the free-moving Apache people, and they resented restrictions on their customary way of life. Geronimo led breakouts from the reservations in attempts to return his people to their previous nomadic lifestyle. During Geronimo's final period of conflict from 1876 to 1886, he surrendered three times and eventually accepted life on the Apache reservations. While well-known, Geronimo was not a chief of the Bedonkohe band of the Central Apache but a shaman, as was Nokay-doklini among the Western Apache. However, since he was a superb leader in raiding and warfare, he frequently led large numbers of 30 to 50 Apache men.

In 1886, after an intense pursuit in northern Mexico by American forces that followed Geronimo's third 1885 reservation breakout, Geronimo surrendered for the last time to Lt. Charles Bare Gatewood. Geronimo and 27 other Apaches were later sent to join the rest of the Chiricahua tribe, which had been previously exiled to Florida. While holding him as a prisoner, the United States capitalized on Geronimo’s fame among non-Indians by displaying him at various fairs and exhibitions. In 1898, for example, Geronimo was exhibited at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska; seven years later, the Indian Office provided Geronimo for use in a parade at the second inauguration of President Theodore Roosevelt. He died at the Fort Sill hospital in 1909, as a prisoner of war, and was buried at the Fort Sill Indian Agency Cemetery, among the graves of relatives and other Apache prisoners of war.

 Geronimo was not a chief, but a medicine man of the Bedonkehe band of the Chiricahua Apache. He would eventually become their leader because he believed, like Cochise before him, that his people deserved freedom. Geronimo had been one of Cochise’s most devout warriors. He had helped him take captives after the Bascom Affair and had fought alongside him during the Battle of Apache Pass. Mangas Coloradas had been Geronimo’s chief, and Geronimo had been present at Mangas' death.

Geronimo was born on the Gila River in New Mexico, not far from the Gila Cliff Dwellings. His birth name, Goyakla, meant "one who yawns." He would go on to become a brilliant war leader. While Cochise was a noble leader, Geronimo was more of a rogue.

As a young man, Geronimo had lost one of his wives, some of his children, and his mother to a massacre carried out by Mexican soldiers. He would never forgive the Mexican people for this nor forget his hate for them. Geronimo felt he had little purpose after this event. One night, atop Bowie Peak, he heard Ussen’s voice on the wind say to him, “You will never die in battle, nor will you die by gun. I will guide your arrows.”

Geronimo believed this to be true for the rest of his life, and for good reason. He petitioned to Chief Cochise and Chief Mangas to campaign deep into Mexico to avenge his family’s death. Geronimo told them he would lead the battle as he did not care whether he lived or died. It was during this campaign that Geronimo would get the name he is known by today.

During the battle, Geronimo did not fire arrows from cover as many of the other Apache did. Instead, he ran zig-zag at the Mexican soldiers so as not to be hit by their bullets. He would then kill them with a knife and take their rifles back to other Apache warriors, as he did not know how to use a rifle at this point. The Mexican soldiers began to shout "Geronimo!" to warn each other of his charges. The origins of this word are still unknown. The Chiricahua Apache began to chant the name in enthusiasm and intimidation.

Geronimo was a complicated man. Many Americans at the time dubbed him as “the worst Indian that ever lived.” He was quick-tempered and paranoid; nervous, but very, very lucky. He was deceitful and cruel, prophetic and brilliant, ambivalent and even sometimes a little sheepish. His contradictory yet effective nature makes him one of the most fascinating characters of the Apache Wars.

Ft Sill OK - 1909

A Birthday

Dusty Springfield would've turned 85 today

April 16, 1939 - March 2, 1999

Today's Today

After a ten-year absence, the two-dollar bill was reissued, released on April 13th, 1976.

To commemorate the event, somebody (from Tennessee I'm guessing), put a stamp on his souvenir and went all the way to Charlottesville (Jefferson's quasi hometown) to have the Post Master cancel it for them.

Happy birthday to one of the more interesting people who played a big part in the founding of USAmerica Inc.

Thomas Jefferson

April 13, 1743 - July 4, 1826

Bona fide hero

Writer of "... all men are created equal ..."

Slave-owning (and slave-raping) asshole

Human-American

Happy Birthday

John Astin

John Allen Astin (born March 30, 1930) is a retired American actor and director who has appeared in numerous stage, television and film roles, primarily in character roles. He is best known for starring in The Addams Family (1964–1966), as patriarch Gomez Addams, reprising the role in the television film Halloween with the New Addams Family (1977) and the animated series The Addams Family (1992–1993).

Astin starred in the TV film Evil Roy Slade (1972). Other notable film roles include West Side Story (1961), That Touch of Mink (1962), Move Over, Darling (1963), Freaky Friday (1976), National Lampoon's European Vacation (1985), Teen Wolf Too (1987) and The Frighteners (1996). Astin was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for his directorial debut, the comedic short Prelude (1968).

Astin has been married three times. His second wife was actress Patty Duke, and Astin is the adoptive father of Duke's son, actor Sean Astin.

Yesterday's Today

Happy 90th, Mr Nelson

Today's Birthday

    Steven Wright - Dec 6, 1955

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

When I was a kid, we had a quick-sand box in the backyard. I was an only child ... eventually.

Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

The other day I was going through some old papers, and I found a diary I kept when I was first born. It said:

Day 1 - Still recovering from the move.

Day 2 - Everyone talks to me like I'm an idiot.

I have an inferiority complex, but it’s not a very good one.

Today's Birthday

Stevie Ray Vaughn

Stephen Ray Vaughan was an American musician, best known as the guitarist and frontman of the blues rock trio Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Although his mainstream career only spanned seven years, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians in the history of blues music, and one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Born and raised in Dallas, Vaughan began playing guitar at age seven, initially inspired by his elder brother, Jimmie Vaughan. In 1972, he dropped out of high school and moved to Austin, where he began to gain a following after playing gigs on the local club circuit. Vaughan joined forces with Tommy Shannon on bass and Chris Layton on drums as Double Trouble in 1978 and established it as part of the Austin music scene; it soon became one of the most popular acts in Texas. He performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1982, where David Bowie saw him play. Bowie contacted him for a studio gig which resulted in Vaughan playing blues guitar on the album Let's Dance (1983), before being discovered by John Hammond who interested major label Epic Records in signing Vaughan and his band to a record deal. Within months, they achieved mainstream success for the critically acclaimed debut album Texas Flood. With a series of successful network television appearances and extensive concert tours, Vaughan became the leading figure in the blues revival of the 1980s. Playing his guitar behind his back or plucking the strings with his teeth as Jimi Hendrix did, he earned fame in Europe, which later resulted in breakthroughs for guitar players like Robert Cray, Jeff Healey, Robben Ford, and Walter Trout, amongst others.

During the majority of his life, Vaughan struggled with drug and alcohol addiction. He also struggled with the personal and professional pressures of fame and his marriage to Lenora "Lenny" Bailey. He successfully completed rehabilitation and began touring again with Double Trouble in November 1986. His fourth and final studio album In Step reached number 33 in the United States in 1989; it was one of Vaughan's most critically and commercially successful releases and included his only number-one hit, "Crossfire". He became one of the world's most highly demanded blues performers, and he headlined Madison Square Garden in 1989 and the Beale Street Music Festival in 1990.

On August 27, 1990, Vaughan and four others were killed in a helicopter crash in East Troy, Wisconsin, after performing with Double Trouble at Alpine Valley Music Theatre. An investigation concluded that the cause of the accident was pilot error and Vaughan's family later filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Omniflight Helicopters which was settled out of court. Vaughan's music continued to achieve commercial success with several posthumous releases and has sold over 15 million albums in the United States alone. In 2003, David Fricke of Rolling Stone ranked him the seventh greatest guitarist of all time. Vaughan was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, along with Double Trouble bandmates Chris Layton, Tommy Shannon, and Reese Wynans.

I'm Cryin'

Little Sure-Shot

"When a man makes a difficult shot, they call it marksmanship.

When a woman makes the same shot, they call it a trick."

Annie Oakley (born Phoebe Ann Mosey; August 13, 1860 – November 3, 1926)

Because of poverty following her father's death, Annie did not regularly attend school as a child, although she did attend later in childhood and in adulthood. On March 15, 1870, at age nine, she was admitted to the Darke County Infirmary along with her sister Sarah Ellen. According to her autobiography, she was put in the care of the infirmary's superintendent, Samuel Crawford Edington, and his wife Nancy, who taught her to sew and decorate.

Beginning in the spring of 1870, she was "bound out" to a local family to help care for their infant son, on the false promise of fifty cents per week (equivalent to $10 in 2020) and an education. The couple had originally wanted someone who could pump water, cook, and who was bigger. She spent about two years in near slavery to them, enduring mental and physical abuse. One time, the wife put Annie out in the freezing cold without shoes, as a punishment because she had fallen asleep over some darning. Annie referred to them as "the wolves". Even in her autobiography, she never revealed the couple's real names.

- snip -

Annie began trapping before the age of seven, and shooting and hunting by age eight, to support her siblings and her widowed mother. She sold the hunted game to locals in Greenville, such as shopkeepers Charles and G. Anthony Katzenberger, who shipped it to hotels in Cincinnati and other cities. She also sold the game to restaurants and hotels in northern Ohio. Her skill paid off the mortgage on her mother's farm when Annie was 15.

- more -

Today's Tweet

Speaking of birthdays

In honor of Dr. Fauci's 80th birthday tomorrow, I proclaim Thursday, December 24, 2020, “Dr. Anthony S. Fauci Day” in Washington, DC.

We are incredibly proud to count Dr. Fauci among the many DC residents who are sacrificing so much to keep our communities healthy and safe. pic.twitter.com/UqvS4sebMf

— Mayor Muriel Bowser (@MayorBowser) December 23, 2020 

 

250 Years Ago

Beethoven was born in 1770. He's recorded baptized on December 17th, but no one is sure as to the actual date of his birth.

So, I'm a little late, but happy birthday, Ludwig.

Today's Birthday

Eunice Newton Foote (July 17, 1810 – September 30, 1888)

American scientist, inventor, and women's rights campaigner from Seneca Falls, New York. She was the first to suggest that changing the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would change its temperature, in her paper 'Circumstances affecting the heat of the sun's rays' at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in 1856. Because women were not yet allowed to present papers to the Association at that time, Professor Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution spoke on her behalf. In the process, although her experiments did not clearly differentiate between the effect of incident solar radiation and that of long-wave infrared, she detected the root cause of what we now call the greenhouse effect.

Today's Today

Happy birthday to August Landmesser.

Happy Birthday

Seems like a great way to start Black History Month.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
and yet must be —

the land where every man is free.

The land that’s mine — the poor man’s, Indian’s, Negro’s, ME —
who made America,
whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
whose hand at the foundry, 

whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Langston Hughes (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. He moved to New York City as a young man, where he made his career.

He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form called jazz poetry. Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance in New York City. He famously wrote about the period that "the negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue".

Happy Birthday

Django Reinhardt

Jean Reinhardt (23 January 1910 – 16 May 1953) stage name Django Reinhardt, was a Belgian-born Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer, regarded as one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century. He was the first jazz talent to emerge from Europe and remains the most significant.

Oops - Just Missed

A hero

On 26 September 1983, just three weeks after the Soviet military had shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007, Petrov was the duty officer at the command center for the Oko nuclear early-warning system when the system reported that a missile had been launched from the United States, followed by up to five more. Petrov judged the reports to be a false alarm,[1] and his decision to disobey orders, against Soviet military protocol,[2] is credited with having prevented an erroneous retaliatory nuclear attack on the United States and its NATO allies that could have resulted in large-scale nuclear war. Investigation later confirmed that the Soviet satellite warning system had indeed malfunctioned.

Now imagine this while Cult45's in charge.

Today's Birthday

August 29, 1924 Dinah Washington, hall of fame blues and jazz singer, was born. Three of her recordings have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame as having “qualitative or historical significance.” pic.twitter.com/YbTkCQ7Ww8

— Merrell R. Bennekin (@MerrellBennekin) August 29, 2018

Dinah Washington:

Today's Birthday

Lefty Cooper

Andrew Lewis Cooper (April 24, 1898 – June 3, 1941), nicknamed "Lefty", was an American left-handed pitcher in baseball's Negro Leagues. He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2006. An alumnus of Paul Quinn College in Waco, Cooper played nine seasons for the Detroit Stars and ten seasons for the Kansas City Monarchs. The Texan was 6 feet 2 inches (188 cm) tall and weighed 220 pounds (100 kg; 16 st).

In defiance of a threatened five-year Negro league ban for contract jumping, Cooper joined a 1927 barnstorming team that toured Hawaii and Japan. He spent most of his later career with the Monarchs. Cooper is the Negro league record holder for career saves. In a 1937 playoff game, he pitched 17 innings. Cooper served as manager or player-manager for the Monarchs from 1937 to 1940, leading the team to the pennant three times during those four seasons.