Ridley's Believe It Or Not May 14 History Stars and Stripes Forever Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not—May 14, 2015 Trust your Thursday is proving to be a great one. As always, I  hope you enjoy the holidays and observances (came very close to getting skunked today), factoids of interest, music videos of The Crossroads, Stars and Stripes Forever, and Splish Splash and relevant quotes from George Bernard Shaw and Benjamin Waterhouse , looking forward to a couple buttermilk biscuits to  go with your meal, blessed  with a positive attitude even though you know you may have to wade through tons of spam in your inbox, and secure in the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable event like Fathers’ Day, birthdays, weddings, or anniversaries, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem at a great price tailored to the event and the recipient. You need only contact me for details.
       1. The Stars and Stripes Forever Day—celebrating the march written by John Phillip Sousa on board a ship in the Atlantic returning to the U.S. on Christmas Day in 1896 and first performed in Willow Grove Park outside of Philadelphia on this day in 1897. By Act of Congress it has become the National March of the United States.  Here is a great music video of the U.S. Marine Corps Band playing the Stars and Stripes Forever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-7XWhyvIpE
       2. National Underground America Day—started by architect Malcolm Wells in 1974 to commemorate those Americans whose homes are underground or at least dug into hill side. Given the recent photos of total devastation of above ground structures by tornados and the loss of life, going underground might not be such  a bad idea.
       3. 1996 Number One Song—celebrating the number one song in 1996 on an eight  week run The Crossroads  by Bones Thugs-N-Harmony, hip hop, gangsta rap band formed in 1992 and unfortunately still performing. Here is a link to a music video of Bones Thugs-N-Harmony performing The Crossroads: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMYAEHE2GrM
       4. National Buttermilk Biscuit Day—celebrating the tasty buttery flavorful biscuit and to add value to Ridley's Believe It Or Not-This Day In History alerting readers to the fact that at Popeye’s Louisiana Fried Chicken and Church’s Chicken, one gets a free biscuit to celebrate the day. The granddaddy of biscuits and fried chicken, KFC may not be participating in the giveaway.
       5. Real Men Take Baths—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1936 of pop singer Bobby Darin who recorded such classics and Splish Splash, Mack the Knife, and Beyond the Sea  and who died far too early and the age of 37 due to chronic heart problems. Here is a music video of Bobby Darin performing Splish Splash in a suit and tie but rocking well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMCsc4Iqvqc
On this day in                                                            
       a. 1796 Edward Jenner administered the first small pox inoculation; 184 years later the World Health Organization declared that mankind had eradicated this deadly and scarring virus.
       b. 1913 New York approved the formation of the Rockefeller Foundation created by John D. Rockefeller with a 100 million dollar grant (2.385 billion dollars in today’s money).
       c. 1961 in a sign that maybe we have made progress in climbing out of the pit of racial bias, a Freedom Riders’ bus was firebombed in Anniston, Alabama and  the riders were attacked by an angry mob. 
       d. 1973 Skylab, the United States’ first space station was launched.
       e. 2013 in Nigeria President Jonathan Goodluck declared a state of emergency in the states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe due to terrorist activities of Boko Haram, a radical Islamic group notorious for killing Christians and selling young girls into slavery.
Reflections on vaccinations as the vaccination rate for infectious diseases in the U.S. is probably at an all time low and California considers removing the religious belief exemption allowing parents to opt out of vaccinations for their children, one pro and one con: “At present, intelligent people do not have their children vaccinated, nor does the law now compel them to. The result is not, as the Jennerians prophesied, the extermination of the human race by smallpox; on the contrary, more people are now killed by vaccination than by smallpox.” George Bernard Shaw, great Irish author and playwright, but a little light on medicine.
“I attained a triumph so complete that it is now rare to meet an American with marks of small pox on his face... Benefits are valuable according to their duration and extent... but the benign remedy Vaccination saves millions of lives every century, like the [gift] of the sun, universal and everlasting.” [Remark made near the end of his life]” Benjamin Waterhouse, physician and co-founder of the Harvard Medical School and the first to use the cowpox vaccine developed by Edward Jenner in the U.S. after testing it on his four children (it worked).
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© May 14 , 2015 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
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