Franklin Roosevelt,
first U.S. president to visit a foreign country during wartime, and Winston Churchill met in Casablanca. But
will they always have Paris? Benito Mussolini was arrested. The
Pentagon, the largest building in the world, was completed. Chiang Kai-shek became president of
China. FDR named Dwight Eisenhower
Supreme Commander of Allied Forces. Italy surrendered. Nazis advanced on
Amsterdam where they killed Jews, homosexuals and communists. They also raided a Jewish old folks home, (no
doubt a major threat to the “homeland”).
Pope Pius XII welcomed the
German ambassador to the Vatican. In the
U.S., the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. Race riots broke out in New York,
L.A., Detroit and Beaumont, Texas. “Amos
‘n’ Andy” radio show was cancelled after 4,000 shows. “Sorry, Wrong Number, “with
Agnes Morehead, was a major radio
success. Jimmy Durante, Garry Moore,
Groucho Marx and comic book
character, Archie, premiered on
radio. Oklahoma opened on Broadway. Joe DiMaggio enlisted in the military. Antibiotics
were developed, as was the “Pap” test. Oklahoma
opened on Broadway. The Pulitzer Prize
for Drama went to Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Your Teeth. The Pulitzer for
Literature went to Dragon’s Teeth by Upton Sinclair. We also read The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas,
So Little Time by John C. Marquand, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty
Smith, The Human Comedy by William Saroyan, Hungry Hill by Daphne Du
Maurier and Mrs. Parkington by Louis Bromfield. At the movie houses we
watched Sahara, Death Valley Rangers, Shadow
of A Doubt, Jane Eyre, The Outlaw, Batman, and The Song of
Bernadette. We listened to “Paper
Doll” by The Mills Brothers. “Pistol
Packin’ Mama” by Al Dexter and His
Troopers, “You’ll Never Know” by Dick
Haymes, “I’ve Heard That Song Before” by Harry James, “There Are Such Things” by Tommy Dorsey and Frank
Sinatra, “That Old Black Magic” by Glenn
Miller, and “Sunday, Monday and Always” by Bing Crosby. We lost Leslie Howard, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Nikola
Tesla, Frank Nitti, Beatrix Potter, Stephen Vincent Benet and Fats
Waller. We gained Mick Jagger, Robert De Niro, George Harrison, Janis
Joplin, Jim Morrison, Christopher Walken, Joe Namath, Fabian, John Kerry, David Soul, Joni Mitchell, Penny
Marshall, Ben Kingsley, Malcolm McDowell and Randy Newman. If you were around, what were you doing during
this year of the water sheep?
2 comments:
I didn't see THE OUTLAW until several years later, in what they used to call "a re-release." I was probably 10 or so. It was quite an education, but what I mainly remember is that I found it a really boring movie. My father was fold of "Pistol Packing Mama" and would sing a verse or two occasionally. A good memory.
Perhaps it was Mae West, but it seems to me that it was Jane Russell who ushered in the big bosom years. By the way, congratulations on your new mystery novel, Half in Love with Artful Death.
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