Grand Torino

The VHS system was an invention of JVC. The technology was first introduced in Japan in 1976, and the United States received its first VHS-based VCR system approximately a year later. Though there were a number of early competitors in this field, the war for dominance in the consumer market finally came down to Sony's Betamax technology versus JVC's VHS. By this time, Sony's Betamax already had a jump on the market, as Betamax was unveiled to the public in 1965. The Sony SL-8200 for Betamax was soon facing off against JVC's Vidstar VCR for VHS cassettes, with both options entering the market in 1977. Though competition was stiff between the two incompatible formats, VHS ultimately won consumers over with its longer recording time and lower price tag. VHS and Betamax, though, had some stark differences. JVC's product could record for two hours – enough to record a full-length movie – while Betamax had a recording capability of only an hour. Ultimately, VHS won the battle, and tech lore has it that the porn industry played a big role in that victory. Sony reportedly wouldn't let pornographic content be put on Betamax tapes, while JVC and the VHS consortium had no such qualms.

On November 29, 1990, the U.N. Security Council authorized the use of “all necessary means” of force against Iraq if it did not withdraw from Kuwait by the following January 15. By January, the coalition forces prepared to face off against Iraq numbered some 750,000, including 540,000 U.S. personnel and smaller forces from Britain, France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Japan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, among other nations. Iraq, for its part, had the support of Jordan (another vulnerable neighbor), Algeria, the Sudan, Yemen, Tunisia and the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). Early on the morning of January 17, 1991, a massive U.S.-led air offensive hit Iraq’s air defenses, moving swiftly on to its communications networks, weapons plants, oil refineries and more. The coalition effort, known as Operation Desert Storm, benefited from the latest military technology, including Stealth bombers, Cruise missiles, so-called “Smart” bombs with laser-guidance systems and infrared night-bombing equipment. The Iraqi air force was either destroyed early on or opted out of combat under the relentless attack, the objective of which was to win the war in the air and minimize combat on the ground as much as possible. Did you know? In justifying his invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, Saddam Hussein claimed it was an artificial state carved out of the Iraqi coast by Western colonialists; in fact, Kuwait had been internationally recognized as a separate entity before Iraq itself was created by Britain under a League of Nations mandate after World War I. In addition to Hussein’s incendiary speech, Iraq had begun amassing troops on Kuwait’s border. Alarmed by these actions, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt initiated negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in an effort to avoid intervention by the United States or other powers from outside the Gulf region. Hussein broke off the negotiations after only two hours, and on August 2, 1990 ordered the invasion of Kuwait. Hussein’s assumption that his fellow Arab states would stand by in the face of his invasion of Kuwait, and not call in outside help to stop it, proved to be a miscalculation. Two-thirds of the 21 members of the Arab League condemned Iraq’s act of aggression, and Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, along with Kuwait’s government-in-exile, turned to the United States and other members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for support.

Highpower???

The people on the left coast are plain nuts.

On January 15, 1967, the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League (NFL) smash the American Football League (AFL)’s Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10, in the first-ever AFL-NFL World Championship, later known as Super Bowl I, at Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. Founded in 1960 as a rival to the NFL, the AFL was still finding its way in 1967, and the Packers had been heavily favored to win the game. As 60 million people tuned in to watch the action unfold on television, the Chiefs managed to keep it close for the first half, and by halftime Green Bay was ahead just 14-10. The Chiefs’ only touchdown came in the second quarter, on a seven-yard pass from quarterback Len Dawson to Curtis McClinton. The Packers, however, proceeded to break the game wide open, after safety Willie Wood intercepted a Dawson pass and returned the ball 50 yards to set up a touchdown. Green Bay scored three more times in the second half, as Elijah Pitts ran in two touchdowns and backup end Max McGee–who came on the field after the starter Boyd Dowler was injured on the sixth play of the game–caught his second touchdown pass of the day. Prior to the game, McGee had made only four receptions all season; he made seven that night, for a total of 138 yards. The Packers’ famed quarterback, Bryan Bartlett “Bart” Starr, completed 16 of 23 passes on the night. The score at game’s end stood at 35-10, and Starr was named Most Valuable Player. Fun Facts... The first Super Bowl, which featured the AFL and NFL champions, took place in 1966. The game was originally called the “AFL-NFL World Championship Game,” which wasn’t exactly catchy The game was held at the Los Angeles Coliseum, and even though ticket prices averaged just $12, it was the only Super Bowl that didn’t sell out. Both CBS, which held the rights to broadcast NFL games, and NBC, which aired AFL games, paid $1 million for the rights to televise the first Super Bowl. While CBS produced the feed of the game, each network employed its own broadcast crews. The two networks fought for ratings points as furiously as the two teams on the field, and NBC ultimately emerged with a slightly larger audience. It remains the only joint broadcast in Super Bowl history. When the game resumed after the halftime show, the Packers kicked the ball off to the Chiefs—a play that half the country missed because NBC was still in a commercial break because a previous sideline interview with entertainer Bob Hope had run long. To the displeasure of Lombardi, referees whistled the play dead and told Green Bay to kick the ball off a second time.

Welcome aboard!!!

Nearly 45 years ago, Clint Eastwood and director Don Siegel changed action cinema forever with Dirty Harry, a brutal crime drama about a take-no-prisoners cop who also gets the dirtiest jobs in his city, and the killer he’s trying to bring down. The film was a massive box office hit, divided critics with its apparent political messages, and made Eastwood into the biggest movie star in the world. Now, if you’re feeling lucky, here are 11 facts about the iconic film ... punk. 1. IT ORIGINALLY HAD A DIFFERENT TITLE. Though it’s hard to imagine the film not being identified so strongly by its title character now, back when Dirty Harry was just a developing screenplay by the husband and wife team of Harry Julian Fink and R.M. Fink, it was known as Dead Right. 2. FRANK SINATRA WAS SET TO STAR. The idea that anyone but Clint Eastwood could play Harry Callahan seems strange, but a number of other stars were considered for the title role first, among them Steve McQueen, Robert Mitchum, and Frank Sinatra. Sinatra was actually attached to the film at one point, but pulled out because of an injury to his hand. So Eastwood stepped in, and the rest is history. 3. IT WAS ORIGINALLY SET IN NEW YORK. The original script called for Callahan to be a tough New York City cop, but by the time Eastwood came onboard, and re-teamed with director Don Siegel (they’d already made three films together, including The Beguiled), it was decided that the setting should be San Francisco, a city both men loved. 4. AUDIE MURPHY WAS ALMOST THE VILLAIN. Siegel made the interesting choice of approaching World War II hero-turned-actor Audie Murphy for the role of the sadistic killer known as “Scorpio.” It’s still not clear if Murphy ever considered taking the role, because he died in a plane crash before filming began. 5. TERRENCE MALICK WORKED ON THE SCRIPT. Though Eastwood and Siegel ultimately stuck close to the original script by the Finks, Dirty Harry went through several rewrites before making it to the screen. Among the screenwriters to take uncredited shots at the script was a young Terrence Malick, who had not yet had his breakthrough feature film debut with Badlands. 6. CLINT EASTWOOD’S DIRECTORIAL DEBUT MAKES A CAMEO. While filming Dirty Harry, Eastwood was on the verge of releasing his first film as a director, Play Misty for Me, and the film actually makes a small appearance in the adventures of Harry Callahan. During the iconic bank robbery scene, as Harry crosses the street—under the shower of an exploded fire hydrant—to confront the final robber (and say his famous “Well, do ya, punk?” line), a theater marquee advertising Play Misty for Meis visible in the background. 7. EASTWOOD DID HIS OWN STUNTS. For the scene in which Harry chases down Scorpio, who has kidnapped a busload of children, the character is required to leap from a trestle bridge onto the top of the moving bus. If you watch the scene carefully, you’ll notice that it’s not a stuntman making the leap. Eastwood did it himself. 8. EASTWOOD DIRECTED ONE SCENE HIMSELF. During one night of shooting, Siegel had to miss work because of the flu, leaving the production without a director. So Eastwood took over. The scene in which Harry confronts a suicidal man on the roof of a building was directed by Eastwood. 9. THE FAMOUS FINAL SCENE ALMOST DIDN’T HAPPEN. After dispatching Scorpio in the film’s final moments, Harry takes out his badge and tosses it into the nearby water. Eastwood was initially very uncomfortable with this, fearing that it would signify to the audience that Harry was definitely quitting police work for good. Siegel argued that it instead meant that Callahan was simply frustrated with the policing system that made it so hard for him to get rid of the killer in the first place, but decided to compromise. The director told Eastwood that he could simply draw back his arm as if he were about to throw the badge before thinking twice and putting it back in his pocket. Eventually, though, Eastwood came around to Siegel’s point of view, and threw the badge. 10. CRITICS WERE NOT BIG FANS AT FIRST. Though it’s now regarded as a classic action film, many prominent critics weren’t kind to Dirty Harry upon its initial release, particularly because they felt it glorified Harry’s particular brand of rule-breaking, bigoted policing. Newsweek called the film a “right-wing fantasy,” while legendary New Yorker critic Pauline Kael infamously dubbed it “fascist medievalism.” 11. IT INSPIRED A REAL COPYCAT CRIME. In the film, Scorpio abducts a young girl and buries her alive, then demands ransom money from police. Apparently, this plot actually inspired a real crime. In 2009, a German couple was put on trial for the 1981 abduction and burial of a young girl after an informant turned them in. Reports from the court case revealed that they demanded ransom for her safety, and got the idea from Dirty Harry.

Saweeeeet!!!!

This song is true in my case....

In 1975, Saturday Night Live (SNL), a topical comedy sketch show featuring Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, Garrett Morris, Jane Curtin and Laraine Newman, makes its debut on NBC; it will go on to become the longest-running, highest-rated show on late-night television. The 90-minute program, which from its inception has been broadcast live from Studio 8H in the GE Building at Rockefeller Center, includes a different guest host and musical act each week. The opening sketch of each show ends with one actor saying, “Live from New York, it’s Saturday Night!” Created by the Canadian-born comedy writer Lorne Michaels, SNL has introduced a long list of memorable characters and catchphrases—from Gilda Radner’s Roseanne Roseannada, to the Coneheads, to Billy Crystal’s Fernando (“You look mahvelous”), to Dana Carvey’s Church Lady (“Isn’t that special?”), to bodybuilders Hans and Franz (“We’re going to pump you up”), to Coffee Talkhost Linda Richman (“like buttah” and “I’m all verklempt”)—that have become part of pop-culture history. The show, whose cast has changed continually over the years, has also launched the careers of such performers as Bill Murray, Eddie Murphy, Chris Rock, Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade, Jon Lovitz, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tina Fey. Some SNL sketches have even been turned into feature films, the two most successful examples being 1980’s The Blues Brothers and 1992’s Wayne’s World. The show was originally known as NBC’s Saturday Night because there was another show on ABC called Saturday Night Live with Howard Cosell. However, NBC eventually purchased the naming rights, and since 1977 the edgy comedy program has been called Saturday Night Live. Lorne Michaels served as the show’s producer from 1975 to 1980, followed by Jean Doumanian from 1980 to 1981. Dick Ebersol helmed the show from 1981 to 1985. Michaels returned to the program that year, and has remained executive producer ever since.

Fans of "The Tracey Ullman Show" -- a sketch comedy series that ran on Fox from 1987-1990 -- were in for a treat on April 19, 1987, though they may not have known it at the time. It was during that show that the first-ever "Simpsons" animation aired, with the almost two-minute-long "Good Night" short. As show producer James L. Brooks recently told The Hollywood Reporter, he wanted "Ullman" to feature short animated interstitials, and had liked Matt Groening's "Life in Hell" comics so well he invited the cartoonist to submit some ideas. Groening decided at the last minute to try a whole new idea, and quickly sketched up "The Simpsons," his take on a dysfunctional but ultimately loving family, and named many of the characters after his own family members. They've come a long way since: The earliest drawings were jumpy and crudely-drawn, and the while the characters' mouths looked like they might split their heads in half when they spoke, other visual characteristics (like hair) were essentially already in place. But many refinements were to come: It's hard to imagine the current Bart Simpson having pre-bedtime metaphysical discussions with today's Homer, for example. But it's easy to forget just how subversive the clips were at the time -- animation geared at a more adult audience had been gone from broadcast airwaves for many years, and the cynical, modern tone the show took to something as time-honored as tucking your kids into bed was brand new, even on the upstart Fox network.

Space Invaders is a Japanese shooting video game released in 1978 by Taito. It was developed by Tomohiro Nishikado, who was inspired by other media: Breakout, The War of the Worlds, and Star Wars. The games was one of the forerunners of modern video gaming and helped expand the video game industry from a novelty to a global industry. The game Space Invaders became an immediate hit when it was released in 1978. In the original planning for the game, they had planned to have the aliens be human soldiers. Taito figured that they did not want to send the message that shooting humans was ok, so they changed it to aliens. Shortly after being released, Space Invaders grew in popularity. In 1980, it was licensed for use in the United States. It was released in coin-operated arcades, the Atari 2600, and the Nintendo Entertainment System. Throughout its lifetime it has generated more than 500 million dollars in revenue. Fun facts... The game was so amazingly popular in Japan that it caused a coin shortage until the country's Yen supply was quadrupled. Entire arcades were opened in Japan specifically for this game. Space Invaders, along with Pac-Man and Pong, shares the notorious distinction of being one of the most duplicated, bootleged and/or hacked arcade games.

The Tet Offensive was a series of surprise attacks by the Vietcong (rebel forces sponsored by North Vietnam) and North Vietnamese forces, on scores of cities, towns, and hamlets throughout South Vietnam. The attacks began on January 31, 1968, the first day of the Lunar New Year, Vietnam's most important holiday. It took weeks for U.S. and South Vietnamese troops to retake all of the captured cities, including the former imperial capital of Hue. North Vietnamese leaders believed they could not sustain the heavy losses inflicted by the Americans indefinitely and had to win the war with an all-out military effort. In addition, Ho Chi Minhwas nearing death, and they needed a victory before that time came. The combined forces of the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Regular Army (NVA), about 85,000 strong, launched a major offensive throughout South Vietnam. I was at DaNang loading bombs on these back then.....what a mess it was during those attacks.

Jaws opened across North America on 464 screens amid an unprecedented publicity blitz: $2.5m was spent on promotion, a substantial chunk of which went on TV advertising, still a novelty at that time. Promotional tie-ins, including Jaws-themed ice-creams, were everywhere. I remember being on holiday in the Isle of Man long before the film’s UK opening (it didn’t arrive here until December) and buying the novel, the T-shirt and a garish Jaws pendant, all on the strength of the insane levels of news coverage that the film’s US opening provoked. “Lifeguards were falling asleep at their stations,” remembered the film’s other producer, Richard Zanuck, “because nobody was going in the water; they were on the beach reading their book”. In the first 38 days of its release, Jaws sold 25m tickets; its rentals in 1975 were a record-breaking $102.5m. When adjusted for inflation, the film’s total worldwide box office is now estimated at close to $2bn.

There were no digital cameras, no personal computers, and certainly no Internet in 1973. But there were cell phones. Well, one anyway. On April 3, 1973, from a Manhattan street corner -- 6th Ave. between 53rd and 54th -- Motorola’s Martin Cooper placed the world’s first mobile phone call. To his rival, no less. “I was running the whole Motorola cellular program, I was a division manager at that time, and he was the AT&T equivalent,” Cooper told tech site the Verge last year, on the 39th anniversary of that phone call. “I have to tell you, to this day, he resents what Motorola did in those days.” Cooper called Joel Engel from Bell Systems to tell him that the race to perfect cellular tech was over -- Motorola had done it first. Cooper's exact words on that call weren’t recorded the way Samuel Morse’s first telegraph message was (“what hath god wrought”) or Alexander Graham Bell’s first phone call (“Watson, come here. I want to see you”). He reportedly said something like, "I'm ringing you just to see if my call sounds good at your end." The gadget he used is well known, however. The prototype version that would become the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x weighed 2.5 pounds, had a single-line, text-only LED screen. It would take a decade before Motorola’s DynaTAC finally reached consumer hands. On September 21, 1983, Motorola made history when the FCC approved the 8000X, the world's first commercial portable cell phone. It cost consumers a whopping $3,995 at the time. And the hunk of cream-colored plastic and wires Cooper used looks preposterous next to the sleek modern iPhones and Androids today’s consumers rely upon, of course.

June 9, 1973 - In one of the most awesome displays of dominance in sports history, Secretariat wins the Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, winning the Triple Crown of United States Thoroughbred Racing for the first time since 1948. Hard to put this into context, but when sports writers put the greatest achievements in sporting history in perspective, somewhere on that list, will likely be a non-human participant, and that participant will be Secretariat. By winning the Belmont Stakes and therefore, the first Triple Crown in twenty-five years, Secretariat became a legend in the horse racing world. But it was in the world in general, when the horse won that race in record time, 2:24 flat for the 1.5 mile race, and won by thirty-one lengths, it was perhaps the most dominant sport achievement in history. Over fifty-two percent of the television viewing public watched the race, fifteen million viewers. He had been the prohibitive favorite, at 1 to 10 odds in the five horse race with jockey Ron Turcotte at the helm. The time of the race is still, more than forty years later, the Belmont Stakes record, as well as the American record on dirt for one and one half miles.

A cloud of vapor engulfs the space shuttle Challenger in a picture taken on the morning of January 28, 1986. The disaster claimed the lives of all seven astronauts on board, including high school teacher Christa McAuliffe, and brought NASA's human spaceflight program to an abrupt but temporary halt. MYTH 1: CHALLENGER EXPLODED For example, one commonly repeated myth is that Challenger exploded 73 seconds after launching from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. "The shuttle itself did not explode," said Valerie Neal, space shuttle curator at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. "I think the origin of that myth is that it looked like an explosion, and the media called it an explosion." Even NASA officials mistakenly called the event an explosion as the tragedy unfurled. For example, NASA public affairs officer Steve Nesbitt said at the time that "we have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded." Investigations would later reveal, however, that what actually happened was much more complicated, curator Neal said. The space shuttle's external fuel tank had collapsed, releasing all its liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellants. As the chemicals mixed, they ignited to create a giant fireball thousands of feet in the air. The shuttle itself, however, was still intact at this point and still rising, but it was quickly becoming unstable. "The shuttle orbiter was trying very hard to stay on its path, because it sensed something very irregular was happening underneath it," Neal said. "Finally it broke off the tank and—moving so fast but without its boosters and tank—it couldn't tolerate the aerodynamic forces. "The tail and the main engine section broke off. Both of the wings broke off. The crew cabin and the forward fuselage separated from the payload pay, and those big chunks fell out of the sky, and they further broke up when they hit the water." Read more here. https://www.nationalgeographic.com.au/space/5-myths-of-challenger-shuttle-disaster-debunked.aspx

The killer’s motives remain unknown, but his — or her, or their — technical savvy is as chilling today as it was 30 years ago. On Sept. 29, 1982, three people died in the Chicago area after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol at the outset of a poisoning spree that would claim seven lives by Oct. 1. The case has never been solved, and so the lingering question — why? — still haunts investigators. According to TIME’s 1982 report, Food and Drug Administration officials hypothesized that the killer bought Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules over the counter, injected cyanide into the red half of the capsules, resealed the bottles, and sneaked them back onto the shelves of drug and grocery stores. The Illinois attorney general, on the other hand, suspected a disgruntled employee on Tylenol’s factory line. In either case, it was a sophisticated and ambitious undertaking with the seemingly pathological goal of killing strangers entirely at random. Their symptoms and sudden deaths confounded doctors until the link was discovered, traced back to identical pill bottles that each smelled like almonds — the telltale scent of cyanide. The perpetrator left no margin for error, filling the capsules with poison at thousands of times the amount needed to be fatal. Without a suspect to revile, public outrage could have fallen squarely on Tylenol — the nation’s leading painkiller, with a market share greater than the next four top painkillers combined — and its parent corporation, Johnson & Johnson. Instead, by quickly recalling all of its products from store shelves, a move that cost Johnson & Johnson millions of dollars, the company emerged as another victim of the crime and one that put customer safety above profit. It even issued national warnings urging the public not to take Tylenol and established a hotline for worried customers to call.

The United States presidential election of 1980 featured a contest between incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter and his Republican opponent, Ronald Reagan, as well as Republican Congressman John B. Anderson, who ran as an independent. Reagan, aided by the Iran hostage crisis and a worsening economy at home, won the election in a landslide. Carter, after defeating Ted Kennedy for the Democratic nomination, attacked Reagan as a dangerous right-wing radical. For his part, Reagan, the former Governor of California, repeatedly ridiculed Carter, and won a decisive victory; in the simultaneous Congressional elections, Republicans won control of the United States Senate for the first time in 28 years. This election marked the beginning of what is popularly called the "Reagan Revolution." 1980 Election Results Candidate Party Electoral Votes Popular Votes ✓ Ronald Reagan Republican 489 43,901,812 Jimmy Carter (I) Democratic 49 35,483,820 John Anderson Independent 0 5,719,850 Ed Clark Libertarian 0 921,128

America finally signalled its intention to become fully committed to war in Vietnam with the arrival of 3,500 combat troops just north of Da Nang, on March 8, 1965. Men of the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade were met by South Vietnamese officers, girls carrying leis, sight-seers and four US soldiers holding a sign saying ‘Welcome, Gallant Marines’. It was all much to the dismay of General William Westmoreland, the senior US officer in the country at that time. Both Westmoreland (pictured below) and General Nguyen Van Thieu, chief of the South Vietnamese Armed Forces Council, had asked for the troops to be "brought ashore in the most inconspicuous way feasible".

So for some reason you think I'm promoting a movie launch of something that happened like 41 years ago that most everyone has seen like 10 times. However......if anyone else feels I'm using "clickbait" to somehow fool you into looking at something I am promoting either here or in any of my past posts let me know and I'll delete this post. And if you (BlessTheUSA) see a post from me in the future just don't click on it cause heaven forbid I don't want to waste your time.

What? It did happen in '77....how else would you put it? It's history...

There need to be limits and consequences for continual repeat offenders or else they may as well quite citing people in the first place. For some reason it reminds me of giving trophies for participation rather than winning.

Star Wars was released in theatres in the United States on May 25, 1977. It earned $461 million in the U.S. and $314 million overseas, totaling $775 million. It surpassed Jaws (1975) to become the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982).