March 16, 2013

Born on this date
Happy Birthday, Kathy Fisher and Tanya!

770 years ago
1243

Abominations
Following their successful siege of Montségur, French royal forces burned about 210 Cathar Perfecti--monks who held to dualistic and gnostic doctrines--and unrepentant credentes (ordinary followers of the Cathar, or Albigensian movement).

110 years ago
1903

Born on this date
Mike Mansfield. U.S. politician and diplomat. Mr. Mansfield, a Democrat, represented Montana's 1st District in the U.S. House of Representatives (1943-1953) and represented the state in the U.S. Senate (1953-1977), serving as Senate Majority Whip (1957-1961) and Senate Majority Leader (1961-1977). He was one of the first prominent politicians to oppose U.S. military involvement in Vietnam, offering his advice to Prsidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon. Mr. Mansfield served as United States Ambassador to Japan (1977-1988), holding the office longer than anyone else, and earning great respect. He died on October 5, 2001 at the age of 98.

Died on this date
Roy Bean, 77 or 78. U.S. judge. Mr. Bean was a saloonkeeper and Justice of the Peace in Val Verde County, Texas from 1882 until his death, and referred to himself as "The Law West of the Pecos."

75 years ago
1938

Basketball
NCAA
National Invitational Tournament @ New York
Final
Temple 60 Colorado 36

This was the first year for the NIT, the first post-season tournament, played at Madison Square Garden. The NCAA championship playoffs began a year later.

60 years ago
1953

Diplomacy
Yugoslavian President Marshal Josef Tito arrived in London to begin a five-day visit. He was the first Communist head of state to visit Great Britain.

Baseball
American League owners, meeting in Tampa, voted 6-2 to reject St. Louis Browns' owner Bill Veeck's plan to sell his team to Baltimore brewer Jerry Hoffberger and move the team to Baltimore.

50 years ago
1963

Hit parade
#1 single in Australia (Kent Music Report): Hey Paula--Paul and Paula

#1 single in France: Tous les Garçons et les Filles--Françoise Hardy (9th week at #1)

#1 single in Italy (FIMI): Come te non c'è nessuno--Rita Pavone

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Junge, komm bald wieder--Freddy Quinn (11th week at #1)

#1 single in the U.K. (New Musical Express): Summer Holiday--Cliff Richard and the Shadows (2nd week at #1)

#1 single in the U.S.A. (Billboard): Walk Like a Man--The 4 Seasons (3rd week at #1)

U.S. Top 10 (Cash Box)
1 Walk Like a Man--The 4 Seasons (2nd week at #1)
2 Rhythm of the Rain--The Cascades
3 Our Day Will Come--Ruby and the Romantics
4 Ruby Baby--Dion
5 Hey Paula--Paul and Paula
6 The End of the World--Skeeter Davis
7 Blame it on the Bossa Nova--Eydie Gorme
8 You're the Reason I'm Living--Bobby Darin
9 What Will Mary Say--Johnny Mathis
10 One Broken Heart for Sale--Elvis Presley

Singles entering the chart were Over the Mountain (Across the Sea) by Bobby Vinton (#64); You Don't Love Me Anymore (And I Can Tell) by Rick Nelson (#75); On Broadway by the Drifters (#84); Young Lovers by Paul and Paula (#85); Locking Up My Heart by the Marvelettes (#87); Never by the Earls (#93); Mecca by Gene Pitney (#95); Don't Wanna Think About Paula by Dickey Lee (#96); Amy by Paul Petersen (#98); Puff the Magic Dragon by Peter, Paul and Mary (#99); I Will Follow Him by Little Peggy March (#100); Sax Fifth Avenue, with versions by Johnny Beecher and the Buckingham Road Quintet and the Jack Cole Quintet (also #100); and What are Boys Made Of by the Percells (also #100).

40 years ago
1973

Hit parade
#1 single in New Zealand: You're So Vain--Carly Simon (4th week at #1)

#1 single in West Germany (Media Control): Mama Loo--Les Humphries Singers

Economics and finance
The U.S.A. and 13 other major trading nations reached an agreement on a loosely-formed package of measueres designed to ease the problem of excess U.S. dollars abroad.

Disasters
At least 24 passengers were killed and 13 injured when a train derailed on a bridge in central Cuba.

30 years ago
1983

Died on this date
Arthur Godfrey, 79. U.S. radio and television personality. Arthur Godfrey was the biggest money-producing star the Columbia Broadcasting System has ever had, and the biggest television star CBS ever had. In terms of ratings and hours on the small screen, he was television's biggest star in the 1950s, and maybe the biggest TV star ever. Mr. Godfrey began his broadcasting career in radio in the 1920s, but it was after being seriously injured in a car accident in the early 1930s that he began to make an impact. While recuperating, he noticed that the formal announcing style employed by radio announcers was unsuitable for home listening. Mr. Godfrey decided that when he returned to the airwaves, he would speak as though he were talking to a friend at home. This style led to a position as morning announcer for CBS-owned WJSV in Washington, D.C., where President Franklin D. Roosevelt was among his listeners. Mr. Godfrey's informal style extended to commercials; his kidding of sponsors and looseness with scripts only helped sales of the products he was pitching, and gave the impression that he wouldn't endorse a product that he didn't use himself. He's been credited as being the man who taught radio and television how to sell. In addition to pitching commercial products, Mr. Godfrey became an aviator, and was credited by Eddie Rickenbacker with doing more to boost air travel than anyone since Charles Lindbergh. He got into trouble a couple of times in the 1950s for buzzing control towers. Mr. Godfrey's emotional broadcast of President Roosevelt's funeral in April 1945 was picked up by the national CBS network, and he was given his own national Monday-Friday morning show called Arthur Godfrey Time. In 1946 he added to his workload with a prime time show titled Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts; this show ran on radio for 10 years, and was supplemented by a television version of the show that began running in December 1948 for a half hour on Monday nights. Among the acts that were boosted to stardom on this show were Steve Lawrence, the Smothers Brothers, the McGuire Sisters, Vic Damone, Beverly Sills, Lenny Bruce, Don Adams, Tony Bennett, Eddie Fisher, Connie Francis, Patsy Cline, Pat Boone, Marilyn Horne, Roy Clark, and Lesley Uggams. Wally Cox and the Chordettes were both signed to recording contracts after appearing on the same show in 1948. However, Mr. Godfrey rejected Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, and the Orioles. Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts was in the top 10 in the ratings through 1954, and was the #1 show in the 1951-52 season. It remained in the top 20 through 1956-57, and slipped badly just at the end, due largely to changing audience tastes. The show went off the air in 1958. As if that wasn't enough, Arthur Godfrey and his Friends, another prime time show, went on TV in January 1949, running for an hour on Wednesday nights until June 1957, and for a half hour on Tuesday nights from September 1958-April 1959. This show was also a top 10 ratings success for years, peaking at #3 for the 1952-53 season. One of the "friends" was pop singer Julius LaRosa, who's remembered today mainly for the fact that Mr. Godfrey fired him on the air on October 19, 1953, subsequently claiming that Mr. LaRosa "lacked humility." This incident attracted much criticism for Mr. Godfrey, putting his folksy public image at odds with his private controlling personality. A TV writer named Al Morgan wrote a novel called The Great Man, a thinly-veiled book about Arthur Godfrey that was made into a successful movie in 1956, starring Jose Ferrer. All this time, Arthur Godfrey Time had continued on radio and (since 1948) on television. The radio version ran for three hours; the TV version ran for an hour, later expanded to 90 minutes. That adds up to 15 1/2 hours per week on radio, and 9 hours per week on television, with big ratings. In 1959 Mr. Godfrey was diagnosed with lung cancer, and gave up his shows while undergoing surgery and radiation. Treatment was successful, but his time as a TV star was over. Arthur Godfrey Time returned, but only on radio; the show ended its run in April 1972. Mr. Godfrey appeared in a few television specials for CBS, the last of which aired on March 28, 1973. He promoted environmental causes, and continued to do commercials. The only thing I can remember seeing him in was an ad in his last year or so for an insurance company aimed at senior citizens ("Get some peace of mind!"). I don't remember the name of the company. The Sunday after Mr. Godfrey's death, Andy Rooney, one of his former writers, delivered a moving tribute to him in his 60 Minutes segment. In his 1999 book Sincerely, Andy Rooney, Mr. Rooney made the following comment:

For reasons I don't understand, some people make the history books and others don't. It has no direct relation to accomplishment. Fame has a life of its own. Some people become legends, known long after they've departed. Others, equally famous in life, are all but forgotten shortly after they die. Godfrey is destined to be one of those. He'd hate it.

Film critic Roger Ebert echoed that opinion in a movie review about five years ago when he said that one can go within a 200-mile radius of Chicago and not meet anyone who's ever heard of Arthur Godfrey.

Fred Rose, 75. Polish-born Canadian politician and traitor. Born Fred Rosenberg in Lublin in what is now Poland, Mr. Rose was a Communist who was elected to the House of Commons as a candidate for the Labour-Progressive Party in a by-election in the Montreal-area riding of Cartier in 1943. The Communist Party of Canada had been outlawed early in World War II, and disguised itself under the Labour-Progressive banner. Mr. Rose was re-elected in 1945, but soon after, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, defected, carrying documents showing evidence of a Soviet spy ring in Canada. Mr. Rose was accused of leading the ring of 20 agents, and was sentenced to prison for enough time to deprive him of his seat in Parliament. He was expelled from the House of Commons on January 30, 1947, and was released from prison in 1951. Mr. Rose returned to his native Poland in 1953 and remained there for the rest of his life. One of Mr. Rose's supporters during his time as an MP was future Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Radio
The Transmitter Ismaning, the last remaining wooden radio transmitting tower in West Germany, was blown up. It had stood at its location in Bavaria since 1934.

25 years ago
1988

Hit parade
#1 single in Sweden (Topplistan): Allt som jag känner--Tone Norum and Tommy Nilsson (5th week at #1)

War
The day after Iran claimed to have captured the Iraqi town of Halabja, a stronghold of Kurdish separatists, Iraq attacked the town with explosives and chemical weapons, killing 3,200-5,000 of its own citizens. The attack was seen as punishment to the Kurds for supporting the Iranians. Iranian doctors said that mustard gas and cyanide gas were used in the attack.

U.S. administration spokesman Marlin Fitzwater announced that up to 2,000 Nicaraguan Sandanista troops had crossed the border into Honduras to attack a Contra base camp. He said that U.S. President Ronald Reagan had ordered 3,200 U.S. troops to Honduras. Earlier that day, Mr. Reagan had received a letter from Honduran President Jose Azcoma requesting aid, while not specifying what kind of aid was wanted. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega denied that Nicaraguan troops had crossed the Honduran border.

World events
The Panamanian government reported that five officers had been arrested for attempting to seize military headquarters that morning.

Terrorism
At the funeral in Belfast for three Irish Republican Army members who had been shot and killed by British troops on March 6, a man later captured and identified as a Protestant attacked the crowd of 10,000 mourners with grenades and an automatic pistol, killing three and injuring at least 50.

Diplomacy
Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir met in Washington with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, but apparently made no concession on the issue of trading land for peace with the Palestinians.

Scandal
Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter of the U.S. National Security Council were indicted on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States for their role in the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages affair of 1986.

Protest
150,000 Armenians in Lebanon went on strike to show solidarity with Soviet Armenians.

20 years ago
1993

Died on this date
Johnny Cymbal, 48. U.K.-born U.S. singer and songwriter. Mr. Cymbal reached #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the spring of 1963 with the single Mr. Bass Man. Teenage Heaven (1963) made it only to #58 in the Hot 100, but reached #1 in Sweden. Late in 1968, recording under the name Derek, he reached #11 with the single Cinnamon. His songwriting credits included Mary in the Morning; Somewhere in the Country; and Rock Me Baby. He died of a heart attack.

Diplomacy
Boston Mayor Raymond J. Flynn said that U.S. President Bill Clinton would appoint him as U.S. envoy to the Vatican.

10 years ago
2003

Died on this date
Rachel Corrie, 23. U.S. political activist. Miss Corrie, a member of the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement, was in Israel as part of a college assignment to connect her home town of Olympia, Washington with the Gaza Strip city of Rafah as sister cities. With seven other ISM members, she was protesting an attempt by an Israeli army bulldozer to raze a Palestinian home, and after a three-hour standoff, was run over by the bulldozer. Israeli authorities claimed that Miss Corrie's death was accidental, while eyewitnesses and those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause claimed her killing was deliberate, and used her as a symbol of their cause.

Diplomacy
U.S. President George W. Bush, U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, and Spanish Premier Jose Maria Aznar met in the Azores and declared that their diplomatic efforts to avert war against Iraq would end the next day.