A Brief History On June 24, 1949, NBC premiered the first Western themed TV show, an adaptation of a character created by Clarence E. Mulford in 1904, Hopalong Cassidy. Digging Deeper The character, played by William Boyd on television, was a tough cowboy who had a funny walk due to an old injury from being shot in the leg. Prior to the TV show, Boyd appeared in 66 films between 1935 and 1948 as Cassidy. The TV show started out showing edited versions of the films before transitioning to fresh material. Airing until 1952, Hopalong Cassidy broke major TV ground…
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A Brief History On June 22, 1918, a passenger train carrying US military troops plowed into the rear end of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus train that had stopped on the tracks for repairs. Sadly, 86 of the over 250 circus people died and 127 were injured, making the Hammond Circus Train Wreck one of the worst in US railroad history. Digging Deeper The name of the wreck derives from the location, near Hammond, Indiana. The driver of the troop train had fallen asleep and missed at least two warnings about the stopped train ahead. Luckily, the relatively fragile wooden circus cars…
A Brief History On June 21, 1973, the US Supreme Court handed down a decision in Miller v. California, establishing a way to determine if something is “free speech” guaranteed by the 1st Amendment or if it is obscene. Digging Deeper Referred to as the “Miller Test,” SCOTUS determined that three factors must be present for some sort of expression to be considered obscene and not covered under “free speech.” These three factors are: “Whether ‘the average person, applying contemporary community standards’, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, Whether the work depicts…
A Brief History On June 19, 1960, the first auto race under the NASCAR banner was run at Charlotte Motor Speedway in North Carolina. NASCAR is the premier stock-car racing circuit in the US and the world, as its official name, National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, implies. Digging Deeper While Europe was the venue of many prestigious stock-car races early in the 20th Century, the US took the lead on the sport with the emergence of Daytona Beach as a mecca for fast drivers. While originally using actual production model cars, hence the name of the sport, in…
A Brief History On June 12, 1981, movie goers were treated to a film of action, adventure, romance, supernatural, and comedy, when Raiders of the Lost Ark was released, the first of the Indiana Jones movie franchise that now includes four complete films and the upcoming The Dial of Destiny, due for release in the US on June 30, 2023. Dr. Jones does not crack the top 20 money making list, but here are a few that do: Digging Deeper The Marvel Cinematic Universe, the most prolific franchise, with 31 films and the highest grossing total yet. Star Wars, boasting…