I dont’ know what you might be doing today, but 511 years ago today Michelangelo started working on his statue of David. He was 26 years old. When I was 26 years old I was excited for two for one beers at William’s Pub in Uptown, Minneapolis.

Advantage: Michelangelo.

Now see? Who said this site puts up nothing but scantily clad women? By the way, if they ever do another David and Goliath movie, here’s guessing Michael Fassbender has gotten too big for the part.

Nikita Khrushchev was appointed the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union today in 1953, just one day after  36-year old John F. Kennedy married 24-year old Jacqueline Bouvier. Khrushchev and Kennedy would become two of the main players at the height of the cold war.

The WHA officially formed on this day in 1971. Put together by promoters Dennis Murphy and Gary Davidson (the same two who formed the ABA), the renegade league looted the NHL for star players including Bobby Hull, Bernie Parent and Gerry Cheevers. Everyone of age recalls the Quebec Nordiques and the Cincinnati Stingers, but can you say you remember the Dayton Arrows or the Miami Screaming Eagles?

I don’t know if the inmates were huge NHL fans or not, but the Attica prison riots also happened today in 1971. The riots ended with 29 dead, 19 prisoners and 10 guards.

September 13 was a big day for two of the best baseball players of the 1960’s (or ever), Willie Mays hit his 500th HR today in 1965 and Frank Robinson got his 500th on the same day in 1971.

Fiona Apple was born today in 1977 and on her 3rd birthday the show Solid Gold debuted on national television. Solid Gold enjoyed a eight year run, counting down the top ten songs of the week accompanied by the Solid Gold Dancers. The show was a big deal in it’s infancy, but by the time MTV got rolling, it seemed like a relic. Apple, of course, is famous for starting an MTV awards speech with, “This world is bullshit…” Maybe she’d watched too much Solid Gold.

It was today in 1988 that Bon Jovi released the follow up album to their smash Slippery When Wet. New Jersey immediately hit the top of the charts and the album had five top 10 singles, more than any other hard rock album in history. Bad Medicine, I’ll Be There For You, Lay Your Hands on Me, Born to Be My Baby and Living in Sin made sure the Jersey boys weren’t going to be one-album wonders. For you deep trackers, Wild Is the Wind most certainly should have been a hit.

Finally, it was today in 1996 that Tupac Shakur died in Las Vegas, six days after being the victim of a drive-by shooting following a Mike Tyson fight outside the MGM Grand.

Come back tomorrow and I promise at least one scantily clad woman.

– Bill Hubbell

“The pain, the outrage, the loss – these never fade. The amount of journalism, however, must.” So wrote Margaret Sullivan this morning as the Public Editor of the New York Times. Sullivan is right, of course, how can she not be? Remember the 2,977 victims. If you’re old enough, you remember where you were and how you felt. We honor the victims by occasionally remembering what it means to be alive and to act accordingly.

Henry Hudson discovered Manhattan Island on September 11, 1609, and the native people living there. While Hudson was the first to map the island, Andre Agassi was the first to conquer the island as an unseeded player, winning the 1994 U.S. Open final on this day over Michael Stich in straight sets. It was a strange tournament that saw 13 of the 16 seeded men gone by the fourth round.  It capped the first of quite a few “comebacks” in Agassi’s colorful career. The middle picture below is Andre circa 1994.

Savannah State (I mean Canada) declared war on Germany on this day in 1939. Canada was also unseeded in the World War, but came out on the winning side.

Pete Rose slapped a single to left center field today in 1985. It was the 4,192nd hit of Rose’s career, passing Ty Cobb on the all-time hits list.

Speaking of Savannah State, the Florida Marlins lost their 100th game on this day in 1998. Savannah State, however, didn’t win the national championship the year before. The Marlins, or what was left of them, became the first team to say, “we can’t afford to to try to win again,” and completely dismantled the 1997 World Series champs.

Birthday wishes go out to many today, including football coaching legends Bear Bryant and Tom Landry, as well as Brian De Palma and Harry Connick Jr. However, we’ll give the birthday picture to our first legitimate crush, who turns 50 today. By legitimate crush, I mean that in my 14-year old brain she and I were a legitimate possibility. There had been crushes before, but the Farrah’s, Cheryl Ladd’s and Olivia Newton-John’s were too old and wise for me. This crush, at least I thought, needed only a couple of dominoes to fall to actually happen.

She was the “it” girl in the spring of 1980 and it seemed on the cusp of huge stardom. Alas, she got tagged as a “troubled actress” soon after and her career and my crush were derailed. A decade later she was diagnosed as bipolar, and earlier this year she came out as a lesbian. Oh well, I’d still fight Canada.

– Bill Hubbell

Cal Ripken Jr. played in his 2,131st straight game on September 6, 1995, breaking Lou Gehrig’s record that stood for 56 years and most deemed unbreakable. Ripken would add three more years to the record, finally voluntarily sitting out a game in 1998, leaving his record at 2,632 games. Because this is the internet, and by law we have to find something negative in any event that’s ever happened, we’ll just say that Chris Berman got to do the national broadcast of the game and leave it at that.

You might be wondering what the number one song on the charts was the day Ripken broke the record. You weren’t? Of course you weren’t, but I’m going to tell you anyway, cuz it’s some shit. It was Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing.” 

On the subject of perseverance, 490 years ago today the Spanish ship Victoria made it back home and became the first ship to circumnavigate the world. It was the only one of five ships that set out that made it all the way and just 18 of 265 people who left on the voyage made it back alive. The expedition was planned by Ferdinand Magellan and took roughly three years. Magellan was killed two years into the trip in the Philippines.

It was this day in 1847 that Henry David Thoreau packed up and left Walden Pond. Thoreau lived there for two years, an experiment on several levels that he turned into his book, “Walden, Life in the Woods”. Upon leaving Walden Pond, Thoreau moved in with his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family. I’m guessing their dinner conversation was a little more high-brow than what you might find at the Kardashian home.

Another life experiment type of thing ended today in 1992, when hunters found the body of Christopher McCandles in an abandoned bus, 25 miles west of Healy, Alaska.

Louisa Ann Swain of Laramie, Wyoming became the first woman to ever vote in a U.S. general election today in 1870. 142 years later and women can finally join Augusta National. 

This smells like something ESPN would do: On September 6, 1912, in a purposely set up matchup of superstar pitchers, the Red Sox Smokey Joe Wood bested the Senators Walter Johnson 1-0 to win his 30th game of the season. The only run was scored when Tris Speaker and Duffy Lewis hit back to back doubles. The first double would have been a run-of-the-mill fly out, but landed in an area that had been cordoned off by rope to contain the overflow crowd at Fenway Park. At least Chris Berman wasn’t involved.

“Rhinestone Cowboy” reached number one on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart today in 1975. It became the first song to sit on top of the Country and Hot 100 charts simultaneously in 14 years.

Happy Birthdays to New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, NBA Champion Kevin Willis, Emmy winner Elizabeth Vargas and Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan, who all turn 50 today.

– Bill Hubbell

“You know when I was a kid, my father used to say, ‘Our greatest hopes and our worst fears are seldom realized.’ Our worst fears have been realized tonight. They’ve now said that there were 11 hostages. Two were killed in their rooms yesterday morning, nine were killed at the airport tonight. They’re all gone.”

Jim McKay spoke those words 40 years ago today, after PLO terrorists had killed 11 Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympic Games in Munich.

Three years later in Sacramento, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was arrested for trying to assassinate President Ford.

On September 5, 1957, Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” was published. The book has long been a manifesto, or at least a talisman, for the “beat” generation. After years of stops and starts in Hollywood, a movie version is coming out in December of this year.

Yes, Kristen Stewart is in it, but no, there are no vampires or evil witches. I don’t think.

1986 and 1987 said goodbye to two television icons, Merv Griffin aired his last show in ’86, and American Bandstand was canceled this day in ’87.

The writing (or video, as it were) was on the wall for American Bandstand, the show where teens danced to the popular hits of the day. MTV revolutionized the medium and after seeing videos like Dire Straits, “Money For Nothing”, Bandstand now looked like a relic. Dire Straits actually won the VMA best video on this day in 1986.

Deion Sanders homered for the New York Yankees in a lopsided win over the Seattle Mariners today in 1989. Five days later Deion returned a punt 68 yards for a touchdown in his NFL debut for the Atlanta Falcons.

Bob Sheppard was the PA announcer for the New York Yankees for the last time five years ago today. “The voice of God” was the stadium voice for the Yankees for 56 years. His voice lives on in his taped introductions of Derek Jeter. 

Happy 72nd birthday to a woman Playboy magazine called, “the most desired woman of the 1970’s”, Raquel Welch.

– Bill Hubbell

It was September 4, 1781 that the city of Los Angeles was founded by 44 Spanish settlers. By September 15th of that year, half of the women in the Spanish settlement had gotten boob jobs and all but one of them had slept with Antonio Banderas’ great great great grandfather, who was the lead in most of the settlement’s plays, but had talked about wanting to direct. By October 1st, five of the original 44 had second homes in Palm Springs to help them unwind and get away from the madness. By Halloween half of the Spanish settlers had moved back to their small towns because Los Angeles was “just too fake.”

It was 55 years ago today that the Ford Motor Company released the Edsel. There have been much bigger flops (many from the city above), but the Edsel has pretty much held them all off and remains the standard bearer for bad ideas. As these things go, the cars are now collector’s items and some mint condition models are worth over $100,000.

What isn’t a flop at all is Google, which was founded 14 years ago today. You’ve already used google 10 times today. Google brings you almost all the information in this post. (Except the part about the older Banderas, I got that from a guy I know who’s brother’s buddy is one of the door guys at Chateau Marmont.) Google was a pretty good idea by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who met at Stanford and are now both worth around 17 billion.

“Beth” was released by KISS on this day in 1976. Written years earlier by drummer Peter Criss, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley were against putting the song on the album “Destroyer”, but the group’s manager insisted. The very un-KISS like song was of course their top climbing single ever, making it all the way to #7 on the Billboard charts.

The Oakland A’s won their 20th consecutive game on this day in 2002. As seen in the movie, “Moneyball“, the A’s blew a 10 run lead before Scott Hatteberg won the game with a walkoff homer in the bottom of the 9th. No word on any “Moneyball 2: Moneyballer” yet, but the current club looks like it’s on it’s way to the playoffs with an even more nondescript roster than the 2002 team. I’m thinking John Cusack for Bob Melvin and Chris Hemsworth for Josh Reddick.

Beyonce turns 31 years old today and her hubby was part of the coolest thing that happened this weekend.

– Bill Hubbell