Today in History

[GHT]

On this day in 1620, The Mayflower sails from Plymouth, England, bound for the New World with 102 passengers. The ship was headed for Virginia, where the colonists, half religious dissenters, and half entrepreneurs, had been authorised to settle by the British crown. However, stormy weather and navigational errors forced the Mayflower off course, and on November 21 the Pilgrims reached Massachusetts, where they founded the first permanent European settlement in New England in late December.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

90 years ago today was the premiere of The Jazz Singer, the first movie with recorded music and dialogue.

 

[Fading Fast]

90 years ago today was the premiere of The Jazz Singer, the first movie with recorded music and dialogue.

If you're worried today about a robot taking your job, you now know how every successful silent film star felt about the advent of sound in 1927: career-oblivion risk was very real.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The talkie transition was a question mark for everyone -- actors, writers, directors, producers, distributors, and exhibitors all saw everything they did suddenly and completely upended over a period of about three years. I can't think of a single other industry that underwent so complete an upheaval over so short a period of time. Even the transition from radio to television took the better part of a decade.

The thing with "The Jazz Singer," though, is that it was mostly a silent picture -- and not an especially good one. Remove the song sequences and you're left with a mawkish, sappy melodrama that looks like something left over from 1916 when viewed next to any of the better silent pictures of 1927. Jolson's next picture, "The Singing Fool," was even worse -- except for Jolson himself it had nothing going for it at all. But the sheer thrill of seeing Jolson -- "The World's Greatest Entertainer" -- blasting out of the screen carried both pictures. Watch him doing "Toot Toot Tootsie" in "The Jazz Singer" and just try to say you don't feel his charisma, even 90 years removed. He wasn't the Elvis of his time -- Elvis was the Jolson of *his* time.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

The talkie transition was a question mark for everyone -- actors, writers, directors, producers, distributors, and exhibitors all saw everything they did suddenly and completely upended over a period of about three years. I can't think of a single other industry that underwent so complete an upheaval over so short a period of time. Even the transition from radio to television took the better part of a decade.

The thing with "The Jazz Singer," though, is that it was mostly a silent picture -- and not an especially good one. Remove the song sequences and you're left with a mawkish, sappy melodrama that looks like something left over from 1916 when viewed next to any of the better silent pictures of 1927. Jolson's next picture, "The Singing Fool," was even worse -- except for Jolson himself it had nothing going for it at all. But the sheer thrill of seeing Jolson -- "The World's Greatest Entertainer" -- blasting out of the screen carried both pictures. Watch him doing "Toot Toot Tootsie" in "The Jazz Singer" and just try to say you don't feel his charisma, even 90 years removed. He wasn't the Elvis of his time -- Elvis was the Jolson of *his* time.

Fun Fact: The first person to perform The Jazz Singer's iconic song My Mammy was not Jolson but William Frawley of later I Love Lucy fame.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And what a lot of people didn't realize even then was that that song was intended to be a satire of drippy sentimental "Southern" songs. But it ended up being taken much more seriously than it ever should have been.

"The Jazz Singer" and "The Singing Fool" ended up inspiring a whole string of similar pictures during the early talkie period, stories about show-business personalities striving for success against a background of family strife and heart-tugging personal tragedy -- "Mother's Boy," "The Rainbow Man," "Is Everybody Happy," "My Man," "Blaze O' Glory, " "Say It With Songs," "Puttin' On The Ritz," ad infinitum. These films didn't have any particular genre name during their time, but modern-day critics have fixed them with the tag "mammy pictures." You'll know them if you see them.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

General Robert E. Lee died on this date, Oct. 12, 1870. RIP.

 

[Fading Fast]

General Robert E. Lee died on this date, Oct. 12, 1870. RIP.

Not commenting on the politics of it, but if he is aware of what's going on today, I very much doubt he's RIP.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

1945: Desmond Doss, whose story was told in the movie Hacksaw Ridge, is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The first conscientious objector to be accorded the honor.

 

[scotrace]

I just saw Hacksaw Ridge last week, and if even 20% of it was true, he richly deserved it and more. "Let me find just one more, Lord." I wept like a baby.

 

[GHT]

On this day in 1812, the Battle of Queenstown Heights was fought. The British forces defeated the United States forces in their attempt to invade Canada.

 

[1mach1]

Today in 1903.

The Joint Commission, set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, rules in favor of the United States. The deciding vote is Britain's, which embitters Canada. The United States gains ports on the panhandle coast of Alaska.

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[MisterCairo]

Today in 1903.

The Joint Commission, set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, rules in favor of the United States. The deciding vote is Britain's, which embitters Canada. The United States gains ports on the panhandle coast of Alaska.

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[1mach1]

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

 

[Fading Fast]

Today in 1903.

The Joint Commission, set up on January 24 by Great Britain and the United States to arbitrate the disputed Alaskan boundary, rules in favor of the United States. The deciding vote is Britain's, which embitters Canada. The United States gains ports on the panhandle coast of Alaska.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

By this time, 1903, when it was decided, did the disputed area have any gold left? Was there any oil to subsequently be discovered?

 

[1mach1]

By this time, 1903, when it was decided, did the disputed area have any gold left? Was there any oil to subsequently be discovered?

Very good question. Unfortunately, I do not know the answer. I too was wondering if the gold and oil had all be found at that point or not.

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[Tiki Tom]

Little remembered, the time when America aided and abetted the overthrow of a friendly little kingdom that it had good relations with. Later, Hawai’i was absorbed by the USA.

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/...l&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

[Harp]

Later, Hawai’i was absorbed by the USA.

O.T.: Best surfing in Hawaii is at the Marine Beach, Kaneohe, Oahu.
...further rumination beyond cursory federal annexation and eventual admittance
to statehood; whatever partisan stripe held therein, is the assimilation of the Hawaiian race
within settled ethnic/racial strains over the past several centuries to the extent that
the aboriginal blood trace of native Polynesian descent may be 'absorbed' almost entirely.

 

[Hurricane Jack]

Jefferson Davis died on this date, Dec 6, 1889. RIP.

 

[Foch]

On December 6th, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, ending the institution of slavery. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” With these words, the single greatest change wrought by the Civil War was officially noted in the Constitution.