JULY 17 — 1955 Disneyland opens; 1744 Happy Birthday Gerry (gerrymandering); 1920Gould invents laser; 1905 Oregon and Steel get their meteorite back; 2011 Casey Anthony released from prison
JULY 17
1955 – Disneyland opens.
…Walt Disney, born in Chicago in 1901, was a man truly ahead of his time. Mickey Mouse first appeared in the very first animated film to user sound. The film was called Steamboat Willie, and Disney provided the voice for Mickey. Later on he came up with his first feature-length cartoon, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. These cartoons were huge hits.
Disney wanted to accommodate his fans who came by to visit his studio, but how boring. It was just a studio with his drawings all over the place. So he came up with the idea of a theme park after visiting several of them with his children, and purchased 160-acres of orange groves in Anaheim, about 25 miles southeast of LA and began construction.
Opening day was a day full of surprises! About 14,000 invitation only tickets were sent out and about 28,000 people showed up with counterfeit tickets! Main St. had been freshly repaved that morning and the weather was an unusual 101 degrees. Ladies were losing their shoes in the melting blacktop. Some of Disney’s Hollywood friends showed up to run live TV reports; Art Link letter, Bob Cummings and Ronald Reagan.
Cummings was busted making out with one of the dancers not knowing he was life on the air, then later lost his microphone trying to cover the story about Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. All that was cute and fun until the water situation happened. Seems there was a local plumber strike and water was running out. Disney had to choose between running toilets or water fountains. He chose toilets and the guests got really thirsty. Walt Disney survived the day, however, later calling it Black Sunday.
These days Disneyland in Anaheim is visited by 14 million people a year and takes in nearly $3 billion per year. There are locations throughout the world, of course a much bigger one in Orlando FL, as well as international locations in Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo.
1744 – Happy birthday Elbridge Gerry. He was a Democrat-Republican who served as America’s VP under James Madison. He’s best known for inventing gerrymandering; which is where electoral districts lines are drawn to accommodate the favored party in that area. He’s the only signer of the Declaration of Independence to be buried in Washington DC.
1920 – Happy birthday Gordon Gould. He was the first person to use the word laser. But he didn’t patent it and spent 37 years of his life trying to claim the rights to it.
1905 Oregon Iron and Steel get their meteorite returned.
…The Williamette Meteorite, discovered by OI&S neighbor Ellis Hughes in 1902, is the largest meteorite in North America ever found and the 6th largest in the world. It probably landed in Canada or Montana, then was relocated to the Williamette Valley during the Missoula Floods around 13,000 years ago. Since then it belonged to the indigenous folks of Williamette, namely the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon.
Fast forward to 1902. When Ellis Hughes stumbled across it, he was hoping it would make him a gajillionairre, and then realized this massive iron rock colossus was on his neighbor’s property. Hughes tried to buy the property, but it wasn’t for sale to him. So Hughes constructed a flatbed cart out of wooden logs, took his wife, 15 year old son and old horse, and for three months hoisted it onto the cart and dragged it three-quarters of a mile to his property, built a shack around it, and opened a freak peep show. I suppose it’s not as bad as the story in Creepshow where Stephen Kings makes a cameo in his own movie that finds a meteorite, then touches it and slowly turns into a bush. This story’s almost as bad as that and it’s actually non-fiction.
Hughes charged 25 cents per attendee, but one of his first spectators was his neighbors attorney saying he know Hughes took their rock. Not sure what gave it away except for a giant fresh crater in the ground where a meteorite used to be. He offered to purchase it back for $50 and avoid a lawsuit, but Hughes wouldn’t even hear of it. Oregon Iron and Steel therefore successfully sued Hughes on this day in 1905, and got the rock back just in time to display it at the Lewis and Clarke Exposition in Oregon.
After that they sold it Mrs. William Dodge for $20,600, who in turn donated it to the American Museum of Natural History. The Clackamas Tribe, as well as other indigenous Americans, called it Tamanowas, or Heavenly Visitor. There have been lawsuits to return the rock back to Oregon, but last I heard no such luck.
1990 –Minnesota Twins become 1st team to turn 2 triple plays in a game but still loses to Boston Red Sox 1-0.
2011 –In what Time Magazine calls the social media trial of the century,
…Casey Anthony is released from jail just 12 days after being found not guilty of killing her baby, which was a verdict that shocked America. Either the jury didn’t understand the concept of reasonable doubt, or the prosecution had to rely too heavily on party-girl Casey Anthony’s bad character and judgement because they had been unable to show conclusive evidence of murder. Even though there was duct tape on the mouth of the baby’s decomposed skull.