(You and Railer13 are both welcome! It’s a fascinating story – Elton admits it was a fairly pathetic suicide attempt, as he’d put his head in the oven, but he’d only turned the gas on “low,” and he’d opened the windows. )
In play:
Musician and composer Wendy Carlos first came to fame in 1968, with “Switched-On Bach,” an album of Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions, played on synthesizers. She later composed several movie scores, including those for A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, and Tron.
At that time that “Switched-On Bach” was released, Carlos was still known by her birth name, Walter, and was seen by the public as male, though she had, by that point, realized that she was transgendered, and had begun the process of gender reassignment. She continued to appear publicly, and record, as Walter Carlos, through the 1970s, though she underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1972. Carlos did not publicly reveal that she had transitioned to female until 1979.
The city of San Carlos CA is about halfway between San Francisco and San Jose. How it got its name isn’t clear, but there are several possibilities. Much of the land at the time belonged to a company called the San Carlos Land Development Company. Also, it was believed that Gaspar de Portolá had first seen the San Francisco Bay on November 4, 1769 from the San Carlos hills, and November 4 is the feast day of St. Charles. Also, the Spanish king at the time was Carlos III, and the first ship to sail into San Francisco bay was named the San Carlos.
Dionne Warwick won her first Grammy, the 1969 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance, for “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.” She told Jet in May 2002 that winning this award was the overall highlight of her career.
Stevie Wonder won the Grammy Award for Best Album in both 1974 (Innervisions) and 1975 (Fulfillingness’ First Finale.)
In 1976, when Paul Simon won the award for “Still Crazy After All These Years,” in his acceptance speech he thanked Wonder for not releasing an album that year.
The next year Wonder released “Songs in the Key of Life” and won the Grammy again.
When Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice won the 1997 Best Original Song Oscar for Evita’s “You Must Love Me,” Lloyd Webber thanked The English Patient, which dominated the Oscars that year, for not having an original song in it.
David Lloyd George, British prime minister in the last years of World War I, had a trick photo frame that could show a portrait of either his wife or his mistress, depending on his mood and who else was in the room.
Phyllis George, born 1949, became a sportscaster in 1974 and joined the CBS cast of The NFL Today with Brent Musberger, Irv Cross, and Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder. She was one of the first women to have a nationally prominent role in television sports coverage. She was formerly Miss Texas 1970, and Miss America 1971 (which didn’t hurt). Irv Cross played cornerback in college football at Northwestern, and then was drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles in the seventh round of the 1961 NFL Draft. In his NFL career he played for the Philadelphia Eagles (1961–1965), the Los Angeles Rams (1966–1968), and the Philadelphia Eagles again (1969). Irv Cross became the first African-American to work full-time as a sports analyst on national television, until 1994.
Phyllis Diller is considered a groundbreaking stand-up comic—one of the first female comics to become a household name. Diller had a large gay following and is considered a gay icon. She was also one of the first celebrities to openly champion plastic surgery, for which she was recognized by the industry.
Phyllis Diller got her public start in 1952, at the age of 35, when she began working in broadcasting at KROW radio in Oakland CA after she moved to Alameda. KROW is now KNEW (960 AM) here.
In 1978, when Oakland A’s owner Charlie Finley was attempting to sell or move the team, the A’s headed into the season without a radio affiliate in Oakland. Two students at the University of California’s student-run station, KALX, approached Finley about carrying the A’s games; he sold the station the rights for $1.
For sixteen games, A’s games ran on the station, with Cal students acting as announcers. As KALX had only a 10-watt transmitter, many fans couldn’t even hear the broadcasts. Once it became clear that the A’s wouldn’t be sold or move in 1978, the radio broadcasts were moved to a bigger station.
KALX’s sports director, Larry Baer, helped to negotiate the deal with Finley, and served as play-by-play announcer for those games. Baer later moved into management with the San Francisco Giants, and has been CEO of the Giants since 2012.
The first baseball game ever broadcast on radio featured the Pittsburgh Pirates hosting the Philadelphia Phillies on August 5, 1921. The game was broadcast by KDKA of Pittsburgh, and the Pirates defeated the Phillies 8-5. The broadcaster was KDKA staff announcer Harold Arlin.
Alpha (Α or α) and omega (Ω or ω) are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, and a title of Christ and God in the Book of Revelation. This pair of letters are used as Christian symbols, and are often combined with the Cross, Chi-rho, or other Christian symbols.
ETA: August, KDKA. and Arlin all contain the letter “A”.
The Alpha-Omega Bomb was a large atomic missile manufactured some time in the late 20th century. 2,000 years later, in the movie “Beneath the Planet of the Apes”, George Taylor recognized it from the symbols (‘ΑΩ’) on the fins, and knew it to be the ‘Doomsday Bomb’. The missile was constructed with a cobalt casing with enough explosive potential that it could literally cause the Earth’s atmosphere to ignite.
The Oldsmobile Omega was a car manufactured and sold from 1973 through 1984. Oldsmobile, founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, closed in 2004, and when it did it was the oldest surviving American automobile marque, and one of the oldest in the world after Peugeot, MAN and Tatra. MAN SE is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, and Tatra is a Czech vehicle manufacturer owned by Tatra Trucks. Tatra produced the first motor car in central Europe, the Präsident automobile, in 1897. MAN stands for Maschinenfabrik Augsburg Nürnberg AG.
The Peugeot family of France began in the manufacturing business in the 19th century, first producing water mills. In 1882, the company began production of bicycles, and it produced its first car in 1889.
During World War I, Peugeot built nearly 63,000 bicycles per year. It also manufactured 9,000 cars and trucks, 1,000 motorcycles, 10,000 plane engines, and 6 million artillery shells.
The Citroën Deux Chevaux (2CV) was produced in France between 1948 and 1990 and originally released with an air-cooled, 375cc, two-cylinder engine with 9bhp capable of 40mph top speed. There’s an old joke that it managed zero to 60mph in ‘about a day’. The original 2CV would get to its top speed of 40mph in about 42-43 seconds.
The Citroen 2CV was originally designed in the 1930s (though it didn’t go into mass production until after World War II), to appeal to French farmers. Up until that point, the rural French had largely been unable to afford cars or trucks, and many were still using carts or bicycles to go to town and market.
The 2CV’s design specifications included being able to carry 4 people, plus 50 kg of cargo, at 50 km / hour, on muddy / unpaved roads. Another design parameter was to allow the user to carry eggs across a muddy field without breakage.
Prior to the rise of the Sumerian civilization, the largest cities on Earth are thought to have been located between the Bug and Dnieper Rivers as part of the Cucuteni-Trypillian civilization in present-day Ukraine. Some of these cities are thought to have had tens of thousands of residents. (Artist’s depiction of such a city.)
Cahokia Mounds near St. Louis MO and across the Mississippi River is considered the largest and most complex archaeological site north of the great pre-Columbian cities in Mexico.
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