Socialist Robert Owen on This Day in History

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This Day in History: Welsh textile manufacturer Robert Owen was born on this day in 1771. While a successful businessman, he was also a believer in Socialism, and may have even coined the term. About 200 years ago Robert Owen bought land in Ohio to set up a Socialist community. While American may be thought of as a Laissez-Faire country back then, it was also a hotbed of Socialist experimentation, particularly in Ohio. Owen called his community "New Harmony" but like all such Socialist communities, they all failed...usually within 2 years. As Alexander Winston wrote: "They couldn’t run anything properly—flour mill, saw mill, tannery or smithy—and their only solution to problems of production was to write another constitution or make another speech. The industrious soon tired of supporting the idle. From the Nashoba, Tennessee Owenite settlement, leader Frances Wright informed Owen that 'cooperation has nigh killed us all,' and departed. Within two years every Owenite venture, fourteen in all, disintegrated."

Historic Failures of Applied Socialism in Ohio by Daniel J Ryan 1920

https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2016/04/historic-failures-of-applied-socialism.html

Early American Communism, 1910 Article

https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2016/08/early-american-communism-1910-article.html

The Early Failures of Socialism

https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2019/03/the-early-failures-of-socialism.html

The Horror Movie "The Car" on This Day in History

The horror movie "The Car" starring James Brolin was released on this day in 1977. Brolin would star in another big horror flick right after this, The Amityville Horror with Margot Kidder, who actually died on this very day in 2018. I've always loved horror movies involving vehicles. There is Steven Spielberg's "Duel" with the creepy 1955 Peterbilt...and Joy Ride (2001) has yet another scary Peterbilt truck (1986 Peterbilt 350 EXHD). Then there is 1983's Christine starring a 1958 Plymouth Fury. Who can forget the 1941 Chevy truck in Jeepers Creeper...and the best part of 1986's Maximum Overdrive may not be the Happy Toyz Truck, but the AC/DC soundtrack.

Now we need a good scary movie featuring a locomotive.

Yogi Berra on This Day in History

This Day in History: Yogi Berra was born on this day in 1925. While he may have a baseball player and coach, history will remember him most for his malapropisms as well as pithy and paradoxical statements, such as "It ain't over 'til it's over." Other Yogi-isms are: "90 percent of baseball is mental; the other half is physical." "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded." "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." "Thank you for making this day necessary." "It's déjà vu all over again." "You can observe a lot by watching." "Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours." "I really didn't say everything I said." "A nickel ain't worth a dime anymore" "If you can't imitate him, don't copy him." "We made too many wrong mistakes." "You better cut the pizza in four pieces because I’m not hungry enough to eat six." "The future ain’t what it used to be." "If the people don’t want to come out to the ballpark, nobody’s going to stop them." "You’ve got to be very careful if you don’t know where you are going, because you might not get there." "Even Napoleon had his Watergate." "It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much." "It ain’t the heat, it’s the humility." 

The Song "If I Were a Carpenter" On This Day in History

Robert Plant's "If I Were a Carpenter"

This Day in History: The Four Tops entered the Top 40 with their version of "If I Were a Carpenter." It was earlier released by Tim Hardin who wrote the song. It was also a hit for Bobby Darin, Joan Baez, Johnny Cash and June Carter, Bob Seger, Leon Russell and then Robert Plant. This was however not the most recorded song. Some of the most recorded songs are: Burt Bacharach's "The Look of Love," "Over the Rainbow," "Imagine," "Summertime," "Cry me a River," "Eleanor Rigby," and the Beatles song "Yesterday" has been covered more than 2200 times, the most recorded song of all time.

Elvis singing Yesterday

Rocker Bill Haley & His Comets on This Day in History

This Day in History: Bill Haley & His Comets release "Rock Around the Clock", the first rock and roll record to reach number one on the Billboard charts on this day in 1954. In my mind, this is the first Rock and Roll song, but many would disagree. Perhaps it is Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight" (1947), maybe it is Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88" (1951), or it could be Elvis's "That's All Right, Mama" (1954). I just finished listening to Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint" (1949) and I would say that is definitely Rock and Roll, and it was later covered by Bill Haley.

Jimmy Preston's Rock the Joint

The Locomotive City of Truro on This Day in History

This Day in History: The steam locomotive "City of Truro" became the first steam engine in Europe to exceed 100 mph on this day in 1904. The fastest train now is the Japanese SCMaglev bullet train which reached a speed of 375 mph (603 km/h).

Watch the SCMaglev

It was once believed that "women’s bodies were not designed to go at 50 miles an hour,” on a train and that “[female passengers’] uteruses would fly out of [their] bodies as they were accelerated to that speed.”

They actually had a train demolition derby of sorts in Crush Texas in 1896. 40,000 paid spectators assembled to watch 2 trains collide (on purpose). Despite the deaths and injuries, the event was considered a success and train collisions became main events at state fairs across the country.

Economist Friedrich Hayek on This Day in History

Road to Serfdom Audiobook

This Day in History: Economist Friedrich Hayek was born on this day in 1899. He is best known for writing The Road to Serfdom which went on to sell 2 million copies, an outstanding achievement for an economics book.

Milton Friedman once said of Hayek: "There is no figure who had more of an influence, no person had more of an influence on the intellectuals behind the Iron Curtain than Friedrich Hayek. His books were translated and published by the underground and black market editions, read widely, and undoubtedly influenced the climate of opinion that ultimately brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union."

President Ronald Reagan listed Hayek as among the two or three people who most influenced his philosophy, and Margaret Thatcher often carried one of his books into Parliament with her.

Download the book here:

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.218162/page/n3/mode/2up