This Day In History: January 14, 1967 The Human Be-In, or the Gathering of the Tribes, on January 14, 1967 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park brought hippies, LSD and psychedelia to national attention. It was the harbinger of the celebrated Summer of Love, and made Haight-Ashbury the epicenter of a growing movement of young people ready to follow acid-dropping Harvard […]

This Day In History: January 12, 1943 On January 12, 1943, the U.S. Office of Price Administration let it be known that for the duration of the war the popular hot dog, also known by the German inspired moniker “frankfurter”, would be supplanted by the “Victory Sausage.” It was also announced that the Victory Sausage would be even lighter on […]

This Day In History: January 6, 1975 By the mid-70s, the Beatles had long since broken up and the Rolling Stones were part of the jet-set, cavorting with the likes of Truman Capote and Andy Warhol. The biggest band attracting rock’s main demographic at the time – young, working class males – was indisputably Led Zeppelin. Their legions of fans […]

This Day In History: January 5, 1957 Partly because of the “Better Dead than Red” paranoia that pervaded American politics in the 1950s, Arab nationalism in the Middle East ended up getting lumped in with Communism as something the U.S. was dead set on stamping out. Things came to a head with the Suez Canal Crisis. In 1956, the U.S. […]

This Day In History: January 1, 1660 The fifth of eleven children (and the first child of his parents to survive to adulthood) born to a London tailor, Samuel Pepys ultimately became a senior Naval officer, Member of Parliament, and President of the Royal Society. On the side, he wrote a rather famous diary that would become arguably the most […]

This Day In History: December 28, 1958 The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late), a holiday ditty that people seem to either love or hate with an unbridled passion, went to number one on the Billboard charts on December 28, 1958, and stayed there for three weeks. It was also the only Christmas song to reach the top spot on […]

This Day In History: December 24, 1972 The Bob Hope Christmas Show racked up more than a million miles during WWII, entertaining the troops in the U.S., Europe, the Pacific Theater and North Africa. He brought his show to Korea in the early 1950s and entertained U.S. troops at military bases in Japan throughout the rest of the decade. U.S. […]

This Day In History: December 22, 1956 Gorillas are intelligent animals that live together in small groups, usually led by a single male silverback. The first gorillas kept in captivity were held in stark, concrete cages with metal bars. Lacking any stimulation or entertainment, they became bored and depressed. Needless to say, this wasn’t a prime breeding environment. As such, […]

This Day In History: December 18, 1892 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was riding high from the success of his ballet The Sleeping Beauty when he was commissioned to compose a double-bill program for Imperial Theatres- an opera and a ballet. This included Tchaikovsky’s last opera Iolanta and The Nutcracker, choreographed by Marius Petipa, who collaborated with Tchaikovsky on The Sleeping Beauty […]

This Day In History: December 15, 1892 Jean Paul Getty, more commonly known as J. Paul Getty, was born on December 15, 1896 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The son of a self-made man, George Getty (a blue collared laborer turned lawyer turned oil prospector), J. Paul Getty used a business loan from his father to go on to create a global […]

This Day In History: December 14, 1799 After the Revolutionary War, George Washington looked forward to a quiet retirement as a gentleman farmer in Virginia. But this was not to be as he was repeatedly called back to serve the needs of the new nation he helped create. When he was called to serve as the United States’ first president […]

This Day In History: December 11, 1978 There were many groups that wanted the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi gone from Iran in 1978, and they were rallying around Ruhollah Khomeini to replace him as head of the government. Born in 1902, Khomeini was a scholar and cleric who earned the title of Ayatollah after rigorous religious study. In addition to […]

This Day In History: December 10, 1963 On December 10, 1963, Frank Sinatra received a phone call from a group of co-conspirators who had been holding his son, Frank Jr., hostage since December 8th. They demanded a ransom payment of $240,000 (about $1.8 million today), which Sinatra paid immediately. It was a bizarre crime to say the least. The kidnapping […]

This Day In History: December 8, 1542 On December 8, 1542, Mary, Queen of Scots, renowned for her beauty and quick wit as well as her sad fate, was born at Linlithgow Palace. Her father, James V, was away fighting the English at the time of her birth. He had suffered a crushing defeat to Henry VIII at Solway Moss […]

This Day In History: December 4, 1956 On December 4, 1956, one of the most famous and awe inspiring jam session in history occurred at Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee. Four legendary performers happened to bump into one another, and, as musicians tend to do, sat down to play some tunes. They met completely by chance, the jam session was […]