JULY 8 — 1871 — First reading of Declaration of Independence; 1980 Jumbotron debuts at Dodger Stadium; 1947 Roswell Incident launches UFO conspiracy; 1920 Happy Birthday D.E. Herrick, father of legendary Jackalope
JULY 8
1871 – First public reading of the Declaration of Independence.
The Declaration was written by local Philly printer John Dunlap. Copies were made and sent to all thirteen states by horseback. German newspaper Pennsylvania Statsbote was the first newspaper to announce the news. The Philadelphia Evening Post was the first newspaper to print the entire text of the Declaration of Independence.
On July 8, it was publicly read by Col. John Nixon of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety. It was publicly read else are, in Trenton NJ, Easton, PA, new York city, Princeton, etc. And According to gurukul.american.edu., In Baltimore, on July 29, the town was illuminated and “the effigy of our late King was carted through the town and committed to the flames amidst the acclamations of many hundreds. The just reward of a Tyrant.”
1863 – The Siege of Pt. Hudson. Forty days and nights in the Wilderness of Death, as it was known. Union General Nathaniel Banks V Confederate commander Gen. Franklin Gardner. The result: Union victory. According to civilwar.org, In cooperation with Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s offensive against Vicksburg. Banks army moved against the Confederate stronghold at Pt. Hudson on the Mississippi River.
On May 27, after their frontal assaults were repulsed, the Federals settled into a siege which lasted for 48 days. Banks renewed his assaults on June 14 but it wasn’t much of a fair fight; with Banks 30,000 men against Gardner’s 6,000 or so men. . On July 9, 1863, five days after the Confederates lost Vicksburg, Gardner surrendered, opening the Mississippi River to union navigators from its source to New Orleans.
1980 – Jumbotron debuts in America at Dodger Stadium.
That’s right, Ken Griffey Sr. wasn’t the only MVP at the 1980 MLB All-star game. Mitsubishi created a 20-28 foot television screen at the time known as Diamond Vision. The Jumbotron, Gigatron, Megatron, or Jumbovision, whichever you prefer, Not exactly the ABC LED screen at Times Square, but that the time it was the world’s largest television set. It didn’t use LEDs, it used modules of cathode ray tubes. I’ve heard the purpose of the Jumbotron initially was to show replays so the audience could see it closeup like at home, but Major League Basteball decided not to because it was feared that if an umpire made a really really bad call there would be a riot. As if we’re talking about a soccer match in Niceragua. C’mon folks, lighten up. It’s a game.
In addition to instant replays, the Jumbotron has had dozens of purposes. They come in very handy at a concert or other spectator event, they advertise products, and most important: the Kiss Cam! Little is known about the origins of the Kiss Cam other than it probably started in California during the early 80s. But you saw that one coming, right?
Now the only thing the Kiss Cam does is focus on a guy and a girl sitting next to each other in the stands. You know the drill. The crowd cheer on the couple, and if they kiss, they get more cheers! If not, they get booed. Once in Brazil during the Olympics, President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle wound up on the Jumbotron, and when he turned his head to kiss her she didn’t reciprocate! The two people can be anyone, a brother and sister,yuk, an actual couple, or two strangers who just happen to have tickets next to each other. Yes, strangers have kissed under pressure of the Kiss Cam. It’s like the whole world’s watching so you better start smooching. To really make it interesting, stadium staff will often pose as a fan in the crowd that reject the kiss or marriage proposal.
It’s always a crowd favorite. In 2000, when two women kissed, Danielle Goldey and Meredith Kott, they were escorted by police out of the stadium. In California no less! Since then the issue of same-sex couples kissing on the cam has been heated. In August 2011 during a Giants Cubs game, two men wound up on the Kiss cam hugging warmly. Two years later, the Dodgers held their first LBGT night at the park, featuring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles singing the National Anthem, and in the stands, cheering on her Dodgers, Danielle Goldey.
1898 – Soapy Smith’s cons finally catch up to him.
…Jefferson Randolph Smith, a very well known scoundrel originally from Georgia, swindled town folks from Denver To St. Louis to Texas to the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska. Wanna know why they call him soapy? He ran a shell game on a street corner in Denver beginning in 1879. He would sell bars of soap wrapped in paper for five dollars.
Many of us wouldn’t pay $5 for a bar of soap today! So why did people do it way back then? Because he told them that some of the bars had a $100 bill, and as the crowd watched he would plant someone in the audience to go in on the con. This plant would open the soap, find the $100 bill and get really excited. Nothing up my sleeve! Soapy also helped to rig voting in local elections and run protection rackets, though he was non-violent, a kindler, gentler criminal if you will.
He went to Alaska where there was a gold rush near Skagway. One of his alleged cons was a made up telegraph in which people could pay to send messages to their loved ones. Of course, there was no telegraph, but not everyone knew that, especially newcomers. Anyway, the cons finally caught up with Soapy, and he got drunk on July 8, 1898 and tried to bring a shotgun into a meeting he wasn’t invited to, wound up in a confrontation with a guard and they basically shot each other. Soapy’s great grandson has a website dedicated to him, check it out.
1947 — Roswell Incident launches UFO controversy.
That’s because the headlines on the Roswell Daily Record read: RAAF Captures Flying Saucer on Ranch in Roswell Region. The Air Force came out and said it was a weather balloon, but the locals who saw the decries new better.
No wonder! The debris they did on the farmer’s ranch find, ultra-lightweight and super strong metal fiber optic cables and fireproof fabrics. These days of course you see this material in all sorts of applications, but at the time, few people had seen this material. The debris was picked up and hauled away by the Roswell Army Air Force.
After the weather balloon story came out, the entire story fizzled, until the late 1970s. Nuclear physics Stanton Freeman interviewed Jesse Marcel, who accompanied those armored trucks that hauled off the debris. He said it was unlike anything he’d ever seen. Then throughout the 80s more books and interviews came out from locals interviewed, making the rose well Incident the biggest little green man from outer space a government core up. In fact, Project Mogul, a top secret mission during 1947, was to put microphone in balloons s in the high altitudes of earth. You see, much like underwater, soundwaves can travel for thousands of miles in the upper atmosphere.
The United States of course was doing everything it could at the time to gain the upper hand in the nuclear race with the Soviet Union. When the army showed up on this day in 1947, in all probability they were grateful it wasn’t a technology produced by the Soviets. But there are still many who believe they were little green men and that there was a cover up.
This is why every year the town of Roswell has a 4 day alien landing festival. Lectures, exhibits, , galleries, and conspiracies that range from interesting and somewhat plausible to sheer madness good time that’s truly out of this world. I go to Roswell whenever I can, but that’s because most of my in-laws live there and nothing to do with the event.
I’m sure it’s a blast. I don’t know, maybe instead of going to my next family reunion in Roswell I’ll duck into the festival and join the best alien costume contest. I suppose I’d buy into the whole alien thing, if for one reason because I know for a fact that if I lived on another planet, I too would travel galaxies for that delicious Hatch chili. Or does Roswell have the better chili?
1990 – Trailing 7-0, Brewers Brewer tie Angels and then score 13 in 5th to win 20-7
1920 — happy birthday Douglas Eugene Herrick, father of the Jackalope!
Well, his DNA isn’t actually traced to this jackrabbit antelope inbred, but that’s how Mr. Herrick is known. However, sightings of antlered-rabbits go back to Germany and Sweden since the 16th century. John Colter, the first white settler in present day Wyoming, supposedly sighted the first jackalope, and according to legend, this killer rabbit with deer antlers could imitate human voices.
At least, that’s what cowboys who sang songs around the campfire at night claimed to hear jackalopes signing along. Or maybe it was the echo from a nearby canyon, who knows. Now, I’m not going to walk into a saloon in Casper, order some whiskey and start spouting off whether I think the jackalope is real or not, for the same reason I is not going to knock over that row of Harley Davidsons parked outside like dominos. It’s just a bad idea.
But.
Supposedly, this whole jackalope nonsense just started one day when Douglas Herrick came back from hunting for the day with his brother Ralph, and tossed a dead jackrabbit in front of a pair of deer horns, and brother Ralph made the quote that made this legendary, and the quote is, you ready for this:? :it looked like a rabbit with horns on it.” Unquote. In the 1940s, the town of Douglas achieved national status as jackalope Capital of the World, and these days in June the town celebrates Jackalope Day with mini-monster truck obstacle races, the Greased Pig Run, and you can even get a jackalope hunting license issued by the Douglas Chamber of Commerce as long as you have an IQ of 72 or less, true story, and hours are restricted to midnight and 2 a.m. on June 31st. No, I don’t know if they’re nocturnal.
In case you want to get a closer look, there’s an eight foot concrete jackalope in the center of downtown Douglas.
1970 – From LA, happy birthday Beck, considered one of the most creative and idiosyncratic music’s of the 1990s and 2000s alternative rock.