Today in History

JULY 7th: 1980 "Auf wiedersehen John"
Led Zeppelin played their last-ever concert with drummer John Bonham when they appeared at Eissporthalle, West Berlin at the end of a European tour.
The set included: 'Black Dog', 'The Rain Song', 'Hot Dog', 'All My Love', 'Trampled Under Foot', 'Since I’ve Been Loving You', 'Kashmir', 'Stairway To Heaven' and 'Rock And Roll'.

They finished the show with a 17-minute version of 'Whole Lotta Love'.
The Day Led Zeppelin Played Their Last Concert With John Bonham (ultimateclassicrock.com)

 

JULY 7th: 2006 "Death of a Crazy Diamond"

Syd Barrett died from complications arising from diabetes aged 60.
The singer, songwriter, guitarist was one of the founding members of Pink Floyd, active as a rock musician for only about seven years before he went into seclusion.
He joined Pink Floyd in 1965 but left three years later after one album.
Barrett released two solo albums before going into self-imposed seclusion lasting more than thirty years, with his mental deterioration blamed on drugs.
Syd Barrett - Wikipedia

 

JULY 7th: 2011 - "First Synthetic Organ Transplant"

Surgeons carried out the world's first synthetic organ transplant.
Scientists in London created an artificial windpipe which was then coated in stem cells from the patient.
Crucially, the technique does not need a donor, and there is no risk of the organ being rejected
The world's first synthetic organ transplant was successfully completed by surgeons in Sweden.
The operation took place in June when surgeons transplanted a completely synthetic trachea and covered it in the patient's stem cells.
The thirty-six year old patient was reportedly recovering well a month after the actual operation.
Surgeons carry out first synthetic windpipe transplant - BBC News

 

JULY 9th: 1982 - "An unexpected/uninvited Royal visitor"

30-year-old Michael Fagan broke into Buckingham Palace morning and spent 10 minutes talking with Queen Elizabeth II in her bedroom before being arrested inside the palace at 3 a.m.
Fagan scaled Buckingham Palace's 14-foot-high (4.3 m) perimeter wall, which was topped with revolving spikes and barbed wire, and climbed up a drainpipe before wandering into the Queen's bedroom at about 7:15 am.
Major questions were asked on how he evaded 43 soldiers, 24 police, 350 palace staff members, dog patrols, surveillance cameras, electronic listening devices and other equipment.
Michael Fagan (intruder) - Wikipedia

 

JULY 9th: - "Bill Haley and His Comets"
* 1955 *
Bill Haley & His Comets went to No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Rock Around the Clock', staying at No.1 for eight weeks and becoming one of the biggest selling singles of all time.

* 1956 *
After the June 30th trouble at Asbury Park, Bill Haley and His Comets were denied permission to play at the Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City.
A city ordnance was passed that read: "Rock and roll music encouraged juvenile delinquency and inspired young females in lewd bathing suits to perform obscene dances on the city's beaches."

 

JULY 9th:2007 - "Shaun Ryder arrested for Smoking"

Happy Mondays' frontman Shaun Ryder was in trouble after he smoked several cigarettes on stage during a concert at The Ritz in Manchester.
Smoking had been banned in all enclosed public places in England on 1 July of this year, and anyone flouting the law faced a £50 fine.
- Performers were only exempt from the smoking ban if the "artistic integrity" of their act required it.
Smoking Shaun flouts ban

 

JULY 9th: 1984 "Wing of York Minster Gutted By Fire"

A 760-year-old wing of York Minster, the largest medieval cathedral in Britain, was gutted by a fierce fire started by lightning.
A rescue party save most of the historic and valuable artifacts from the burning cathedral including tapestries and silver candlesticks.
These Bells are still rung by hand and the sound is stunning with the heaviest bell (Great Peter) weighing 10.8 tons .
BBC ON THIS DAY | 9 | 1984: Historic York Minster engulfed by flames

 

Today in History July 9th

1819 Elias Howe, invented the sewing machine, born in Spencer, Massachusetts

1842 American writer Nathaniel Hawthorne marries painter and illustrator Sophia Peabody in Boston, Ma

1850 Zachary Taylor, 12th US President (1849-50) dies in the White House of an unknown digestive ailment

1911 John Archibald Wheeler (first American involved in the theoretical development of the atomic bomb)

1918 101 killed and 171 injured in worst US train wreck, Nashville, Tennessee

Note: Two passenger trains operated by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway, collided head-on,

1960 Christopher J "Gus" Loria, Major USMC/astronaut, born in Newton, Massachusetts

Note: Hometown boy makes good, now up there now with Fig Newton's, and the Stanley Steamer

1971 Henry Kissinger visits the People's Republic of China to negotiate a detente between the US and China

2019 Ross Perot, American businessman, billionaire and presidential candidate (1992, 1996), dies of leukemia at 89

 

JULY 10th: 1979 "A particular place to go"

Musician and singer Chuck Berry was sentenced to four months in prison under the charges of $200,000 worth of unpaid taxes.
He was also required to complete 1,000 hours of community service, which he fulfilled by doing benefit concerts.
Local promoters often paid performers in cash for their appearances. This became cause for the Internal Revenue Service to be skeptical of Berry’s tax returns, accusing him officially of income tax evasion. The singer pled guilty to the charges and received a reduced sentence.
Chuck Berry sentenced to four months prison for tax evasion.

 

JULY 10th: 1985 "Rainbow Warrior is Sunk"

The Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior is sunk when French agents plant a bomb on the hull of the boat while docked in Auckland harbor, New Zealand.
The Rainbow Warrior had been preparing for a protest voyage to the French nuclear test site in the South Pacific.
A bomb sinks the Rainbow Warrior, Greenpeace’s flagship vessel

 

JULY 10th: 1925 "Monkey" Trial (July 10th to 21st)"

John T. Scopes, a science teacher in Tennessee, was charged with violating the state's Butler Act, which made it illegal to teach evolution in Tennessee schools. The trial was based on the charge he did unlawfully and willfully teach in Tennessee schools certain theories that deny the story of the divine creation of man as told in the Bible.
He was found guilty on July 21st and received a $100 fine.
Scopes Trial - Wikipedia

 

JULY 10th: 1962 "TELSTAR"

Telstar was the world's first communications satellite a privately sponsored space launch.
The beach-ball sized satellite sparked a new era of electronic communications.
The mission was a cooperative effort between AT&T and the space agency to demonstrate, “the feasibility of transmitting information via satellite.”
The communications satellite relays the first live transatlantic television signal and the worlds telephone call transmitted through space on July 23rd.
Telstar - Wikipedia

 

JULY 10th: 1973 "Bahamas Independence"

The Bahamas became a free and sovereign country, ending 325 years of peaceful British rule.
However, The Bahamas is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations .
Constitutional safeguards include freedom of speech, press, worship, movement and association. The Judiciary of the Bahamas is independent of the executive and the legislature.
Jurisprudence is based on English law.

 

JULY 11h: 1977 "Dr MLK Presidential Medal of Freedom"

The Medal of Freedom was awarded posthumously to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in a White House ceremony and presented by President Jimmy Carter.
- President Jimmy Carter, left, presents the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Coretta Scotta King, wife of the late Martin Luther King Jr
The citation accompanying the medal was: "Martin Luther King, Jr., was the conscience of his generation. He gazed upon the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. From the pain and exhaustion of his fight to fulfill the promises of our founding fathers for our humblest citizens, he wrung his eloquent statement of his dream for America. He made our nation stronger because he made it better. His dream sustains us yet."
Signed, Jimmy Carter.

MLK awarded Presidental Medal of Freedom

 

JULY 11h: 2019 " Barbie goes Bowie"
Toymakers Mattel announced a new collectable David Bowie doll inspired by his signature Ziggy Stardust fashion. Dubbed Barbie as Bowie, the doll is dressed as the late singer's glam-rock alter ego, complete with a pair of red platform boots and topped with his fiery-red mullet.
Starwoman? Mattel announces David Bowie Barbie dressed as Ziggy Stardust

Barbie David Bowie Doll : FXD84 : Barbie Shop

 

JULY 11h: 1920 "Happy Birthday Юл Бринер"
Born: Yuliy Borisovich Briner July 11, 1920
Vladivostok, Far Eastern Republic, Russian SFSR
(present-day Primorsky Krai, Russian Federation)
Died October 10, 1985 (aged 65) Manhattan, New York City
.
He took lessons from the Y.H.C.A. in China (where his parents had moved) and lived in France.
He learned to do circus work in France and had moved to America with the outbreak of war.
During World War II he worked at the Voice of America and the Office of War Information.
He started acting in the Forties, and made his debut as a Broadway actor.
His most famous role was in Rodgers and Hammerstein's The King and I.
His multiple performances of the play led him to the 1956 film version, for which he won Oscar. He had received a Tony for the same role on Broadway.
The success of The King and I made way for parts in 1958's The Brothers Karamazov, 1959's Solomon and Sheba, 1960's The Magnificent Seven and 1973's Westworld.

Yul Brynner - Wikipedia

 

Today in History July 16th

1945 The world's first nuclear bomb explosion, code-named Trinity

It was conducted by the United States Army at 5:29 a.m. as part of the Manhattan Project. The test was conducted at the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Range, now part of White Sands Missile Range

1999 John F. Kennedy Jr., the son of U.S. President John F. Kennedy, died when the light aircraft he was flying crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Along with his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, and his sister-in-law Lauren Bessette.

 

1585 English secret service discovers Anthony Babington's murder plot against Queen Elizabeth I


1603 English explorer Walter Raleigh is arrested by forces of King James I of England


1774 Captain James Cook arrives in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu)


1814 Matthew Flinders publishes "A Voyage to Terra Australis", detailing his circumnavigation of Australia, first to name the continent Australia. He dies a day later.

1917 Royal Proclamation by King George V changes the name of British Royal family from German Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor

1945 Potsdam Conference: Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill hold 1st post-World War II meeting


1959 Paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey discovers partial skull of a new species of early human ancestor, Zinjanthropus boisei or 'Zinj' (now called Paranthropus boisei) lived in Africa almost 2 million years ago

 

Today in History July 21st

1989 Movie debut of Spike Lee's 'Do the Right Thing': With Danny Aiello, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, Richard Edson.

On the hottest day of the year on a street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, everyone's hate and bigotry smolders over and builds
until it explodes into violence.