May 9 History, Trivia and Fun Facts |
May 9 History Highlights |
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Television and the Public Interest |
| “When television is good, nothing; not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers; nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite each of you to sit down in front of your own television set when your station goes on the air and stay there, for a day, without a book, without a magazine, without a newspaper, without a profit and loss sheet or a rating book to distract you. Keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland.” “You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly, commercials many screaming, cajoling and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you’ll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few. And if you think I exaggerate, I only ask you to try it.” |
May 9 is… |
| Butterscotch Brownie Day Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day Europe Day Lost Sock Memorial Day Peter Pan Day |
May 9 Birthday Quotes |
“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” “Be mild with the mild, shrewd with the crafty, confiding to the honest, rough to the ruffian, and a thunderbolt to the liar. But in all this, never be unmindful of your own dignity.” “You’ll come to see that a man learns nothing from winning. The act of losing, however, can elicit great wisdom. Not least of which is how much more enjoyable it is to win. Its inevitable to lose now and again. The trick is not to make a habit of it.” “I’ve done some low-budget movies and I’ve done some big-budget movies, and the big-budget movies were always kind of disorganized.” “Dagwood Bumstead was a great unrecognized hero of American literature. He showed up every day, he got knocked down every day, he never got to eat his sandwich every day, the dog jumped on him every day, his wife was giving him a hard time and he showed up every day.” |
May 9 Birthdays |
| 1800 – John Brown, American activist (died in 1859) 1860 – J.M. Barrie, Scottish novelist and playwright (died in 1937) 1874 – Howard Carter, English archaeologist and historian (died in 1939) 1918 – Mike Wallace, American journalist and media personality (died in 2012) 1936 – Albert Finney, English actor (died in 2019) 1940 – James L. Brooks, American director, producer, and screenwriter 1946 – Candice Bergen, American actress 1949 – Billy Joel, American singer-songwriter and pianist 1961 – John Corbett, American actor 1979 – Rosario Dawson, American actress |
May 9 History |
1662 – Famous puppet Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England. 1671 – Thomas Blood, disguised as a clergyman, attempted to steal England’s Crown Jewels. 1865 – The patent (#47,631) was issued to Richard Jordan Gatling for the Gatling gun, which was the first to successfully combine reliability, high firing rate, and ease of loading into a single device. 1882 – William F. Ford was issued a patent (#257,487) for his stethoscope. 1887 – Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show opened in London, England. 1893 – The first motion picture exhibition was presented by Thomas Edison in Brooklyn, New York to an audience of 400 people at the Dept of Physics, Brooklyn Institute, Brooklyn, NY using his Kinetograph. 1914 – Although referred to since the late 1800s, US President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first Mother’s Day holiday on this date. 1926 – Richard Byrd and Floyd Bennett made the first flight over the North Pole. 1950 – L. Ron Hubbard (Lafayette Ronald Hubbard) published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. 1955 – Harpo Marx appeared in a very special I Love Lucy Episode. 1955 – West Germany joined NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). 1958 – Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo has its world premiere in San Francisco. 1960 – The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the world’s first commercially produced birth-control bill-Enovid-10. 1961 – Newton Minow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, referred to television as the “vast wasteland” 1970 # 1 Hit May 9, 1970 – May 29, 1970: The Guess Who – American Woman / No Sugar Tonight 1978 – Broadway Show – Ain’t Misbehavin’ (Review) May 9, 1978 May 9, 1981/19** Birthday (fictional) Lisa Simpson, The Simpsons, TV 1992 – The Golden Girls aired their series finale. 2001 – In Ghana, 129 football fans died in the Accra Sports Stadium Stampede Disaster. 2015 – Russia staged a large military parade in Moscow’s Red Square to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Victory Day. #1 Hit May 9, 2020 – May 15, 2020: The Scotts– The Scotts, Travis Scott, and Kid Cudi |
Today’s Random Trivia and Shower Thoughts |
| TV Quotes… “Just one more thing …” (Columbo) on Columbo. I know what rotten eggs smell like, but I’ve never actually smelled rotten eggs. A Roman walks into a bar and asks for a Martinus. “You mean a martini?” the bartender asks. The Roman replied, “If I wanted a double, I would have asked for it!” When I buy a pizza, it comes in a sturdy corrugated box. When I buy a cake, it comes in a flimsy box that tries to kill the cake. The number 14233221 describes itself; it has one four, two threes, three twos, and two ones. “What you see is what you get!” – Geraldine (The Flip Wilson Show) #TVQuotes A group of Raccoons is called a Gaze. What if the wires going to the two earbuds were different colors so it was easier to untangle? When Bobby pins are used in a formal setting, they should be called Robert pins. #etiquette About 25% of the film ‘Jaws’ was shot from water level so audiences could better relate to treading water. “She had the face of an angel, smiling with sin, the body of Venus, with arms.” #songlyrics “I’m Larry, this is my brother Darryl, and my other brother Darryl” – Larry (Newhart) #TVQuotes |
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