Saturday Night Live first aired on NBC on October 11, 1975 with George Carlin as its host. It was originally called ‘NBC’s Saturday Night’ because ABC featured a program at the same time titled ‘Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell’. After ABC cancelled the Cosell program in 1976, the NBC program changed its name to Saturday Night Live on March 26, 1977. The show also picked up Bill Murray from Cosell’s show later in 1977.
In Sleeper, when Woody Allen is questioned by future historians about his own time after awakening from suspended animation, they show him a video of Howard Cosell and ask him: “We weren’t sure at first what to make of this, but we developed a theory: We feel that when people committed great crimes against the state, they were forced to watch this.”
Allen’s character answers: “Yes. That’s exactly what it was.”
Howard Cosell was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. During WWII he served in the Army. He reached the rank of Major, which means I would have had to salute him. Cosell was a lawyer in New York City, and one of his early clients was Willie Mays of the New York Giants.
Willie Mays was born in Alabama outside Birmingham in 1931. His parents were 16 years old at the time and divorced when he was three. He became one of the finest baseball players ever and retired in 1973 with a career batting average of .302 and 45 years later still ranks fourth all-time in home runs.
The steam sloop-of-war USS Kearsarge sank the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama off the coast of Cherbourg, France in June 1864 after a four-hour naval battle. Raphael Semmes, captain of the Confederate warship, escaped capture aboard a British yacht, the Deerhound, which had been observing the naval duel nearby.
The Confederate commerce raider CSS Shenandoah was the last rebel vessel to surrender, in November 1865, having sailed from the Pacific around Cape Horn to Liverpool in hopes of a less-hostile reception than could be expected in a US port. Her lowering of the CSA flag in front of a Royal Navy vessel and her captain’s presentation of it to the mayor of Liverpool marked the last official act of the Civil War.
The name ‘Liverpool’ comes from the Old English liver, meaning thick or muddy, and pol, meaning a pool or creek. Natives of the city of Liverpool are referred to as Liverpudlians, and colloquially as ‘Scousers’, a reference to ‘scouse’, a form of stew. The word ‘Scouse’ has also become synonymous with the Liverpool accent and dialect.
“Little Jimmy” Osmond, the youngest Osmond sibling, had a massive hit with the song “Long Haired Lover From Liverpool” in 1972, becoming the youngest person to ever reach number one on the UK Singles Chart aged 9 years 8 months.
Osmond Ingram was a sailor in the United States Navy during World War I who received the Medal of Honor…posthumously. His ship, the USS Cassin, was attacked by the German submarine U-61 off Ireland on October 15, 1917. Gunner’s Mate First Class Ingram spotted the approaching torpedo, realized it would strike close by the ship’s depth charges, thus dooming the ship, and rushed to jettison the ammunition. He was blown overboard when the torpedo struck, thus becoming the United States’ Navy’s first enlisted man killed in action in World War I. The USS Osmond Ingram, a Clemson-class destroyer, served in the United States Navy during World War II.
For US military awards (medals, ribbons, and badges), none is of higher precedence than the Medal of Honor. The next lowest award is the Cross for each branch of service:
Distinguished Service Cross: Army
Navy Cross: Navy and Marine Corps
Air Force Cross
Coast Guard Cross
Many military service men and women, and I would venture a guess that it’s most of us, believe that you basically have to die to be awarded the MoH — most of us believe that most MoHs are awarded posthumously. However that is not the case. According to Wikipedia, there have been 3,517 MoHs awarded, and 621 were awarded posthumously. Doing the math, 2,896 were awarded to living recipients. That’s 82% awarded to living recipients, and 18% awarded posthumously.
Seventeen members of the USS Kearsarge’s crew won the Medal of Honor in the aforementioned June 1864 battle against the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama. One, Joachim Pease, was among the first black sailors in United States Navy history to be awarded the Medal of Honor. In his enlistment papers, he wrote that he had been born on Fogo Island, Newfoundland, Canada.
In 1965, at the age of 14, Janis Ian wrote and recorded her first hit single, “Society’s Child (Baby I’ve Been Thinking)”, about a forbidden interracial romance. Upon its third release in 1967, the song rose to #14 on the Billboard Hot 100. Then in 1975, Ian had another major hit with the release of “At Seventeen”. The song charted at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100, hit #1 on the Adult Contemporary chart and won the 1976 Grammy Award for ‘Best Pop Vocal Performance - Female’.
Later in life Ian has written and published science fiction short stories, been a columnist for the magazine The Advocate, and, in December 2015, she appeared in the series finale of HBO comedy series Getting On playing a patient who refused to stop singing.
By a parliamentary custom that dates back to the English Civil War, the monarch (and her representatives, in Commonwealth realms) are forbidden to enter the lower House of Parliament. The custom is in response to the time Charles I came to the House of Commons with a troop of soldiers to arrest some of the MPs who were opposing him. However, the MPs had been tipped off and had fled to the City of London. Charles commented on their absence: “I see the birds have flown.”
Another parliamentary custom is that on the opening day of a new session of Parliament, the MPs from the City of London are invited to sit on the front bench with the leaders of the Government, in recognition of the valour shown by the residents of the City in sheltering the MPs from Charles.
Not in play: Joachim Pease would have been born in the Crown colony of Newfoundland, as Canada did not exist during the US Civil War and Newfoundland did not join Confederation until 1949.
But Fogo Island has one of the most interesting hotels in Newfoundland.
((Another “only in Newfoundland” story, calling room service in the Fogo Hotel was once a long distance call. When Fogo Island was divided into two telephone exchanges, the hotel would have had a Joe Batt’s Arm phone number, but they opted to keep the Fogo listing. Then when they expanded and added new phone lines, the new numbers were in Joe Batt’s Arm.
I once had a girl friend from Joe Batt’s Arm, and spent a Christmas there with her family.
In the coming total solar eclipse of April 2024, the path of totality will touch 15 US states in this order: TX, OK, AR, MO, TN, KY, IL, IN, OH, MI, PA, NY, VT, NH, and ME. (That’s Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee (just barely), Kentucky, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan (just barely), Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.) Before touching Texas, it will touch 5 Mexican states in this order: NA, SI, DG, CO, and CH. (That’s Nayarit, Sinaloa, Durango, Coahuila, and Chihuahua (just barely).) It will leave North America by touching 6 Canadian provinces in this order: ON, QC, NB, PE, NS, and NL. (That’s Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia (just barely), and Newfoundland and Labrador.)
It’s path through North America can be described as “From Mazatlan to Newfoundland.”
Totality will start in North America almost directly overhead of Francisco Villa, Mazatlan, Sinaloa, Mexico.
gMap — Google Maps
Totality will depart North America almost directly overhead of Puffin Ventures Craft Shop, in Elliston, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada.
gMap — Google Maps
I thought that might be true of Pease - thanks. And that looks like a cool hotel!
In play:
Ohio was the 17th state to join the Union, in 1803. Although some tax protestors have claimed that Ohio did not lawfully become one of the United States then, thus supposedly rendering the Federal income tax null and void, no court to consider the question has agreed with them.
The hotel on Fogo Island was featured in the Netflix streaming of Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby. My recollection is that the one-night room rate was over 2K (USD).
To tie the last two posts together;
The Neoclassical-styled Hotel Metropole opened in 1912 in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio as a 10-story hotel. In 1924 an 11th floor penthouse apartment was added. After spending some time as a lost-income housing center, it was been reborn as a “21c Museum Hotel” and was named the top hotel in America in 2013 by Conde Nast Traveler’s annual reader survey, and 11th in the world.
Cartoonist Thomas Nast is credited with coming up with the elephant as a symbol of the GOP, and popularising the donkey as a symbol of the Democrats. He was not the first to associate the donkey with the Democrats. Some had tried to hang it on Andrew Jackson, but he took it as a point of pride.
Not in play:
I think both statements are true!
Not that I’ve dropped that kind of coin. Have only seen a presentation on the Fogo Inn, which was a part of a regional development project.
Condé Nast is a magazine publishing company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast (1873-1942), a publisher born in New York City and named after his uncle, Condé Benoist. He is buried in Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne NY, close to the graves of NY Yankees Billy Martin and Babe Ruth.