Good News in History, June 14

98 years ago today, sumptuous singer Nat King Cole recorded The Christmas Song, written by Mel Tormé and Bob Wells, for the first time. It is still today, lo-fi be darned, one of the most preferred versions of this icon of iconic yuletide tunes. While it’s a little early in the year for Christmas songs, YouTube has the man singing the song on his short-lived variety show, The Nat King Cole Show. READ more and watch the video… (1946)

At Cole’s behest, and over the objections of his label, Capitol Records, a second recording was made in August utilizing a small string section. This version became a massive hit on both the pop and R&B charts.

According to Tormé, the song was written in July 1945 during an exceptionally hot summer. It was in an effort to “stay cool by thinking cool” that the most-performed (according to BMI) Christmas song of all time was born. “I saw a spiral pad on his (Wells’s) piano with four lines written in pencil”, Tormé recalled. “They started, ‘Chestnuts roasting…, Jack Frost nipping…, Yuletide carols…, Folks dressed up like Eskimos.’ Bob didn’t think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics.”

MORE Good News on this Day:

• It is Flag Day in America, honoring the day 244 years ago when “The Stars and Stripes” design was adopted by the U.S. Congress as the national flag (1777)
• Whiskey was distilled from corn maize for the first time by the clergyman Rev. Elijah Craig, who called the liquor Bourbon because the reverend lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky (1789)
• Trade unions were legalized in Canada (1872)
• The Supreme Court ruled schoolchildren could not be compelled to salute the flag of the United States if doing so would conflict with their religious beliefs (1943)
• Phil Jackson, coach of the Los Angeles Lakers, broke Red Auerbach’s record by winning his 10th NBA title (2009)
• President Obama became the first sitting US president to visit Puerto Rico in 35 years (2011)

Happy 65th birthday to the radically cool bassist Marcus Miller. Along with a very successful solo career, he has worked closely with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clarke, and Victor Wooten. He has collected a lifetime achievement award, Grammy, and was appointed a UNESCO Artist for Peace.

He has played bass on over 500 recordings, appearing on albums by such artists as Michael Jackson, Beyoncé, Herbie Hancock, Mariah Carey, Eric Clapton, The Crusaders, Wayne Shorter, McCoy Tyner, Frank Sinatra, George Benson, Dr. John, Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Joe Walsh, Jean-Michel Jarre, Grover Washington Jr., Donald Fagen, Bill Withers, Bernard Wright, Kazumi Watanabe, Chaka Khan, LL Cool J, and Flavio Sala.

He has also scored or helped score around 2 dozen films. (1959)

868 years ago today, the city of Munich was founded on the banks of the Isar. This great European city of arts and letters, of the sciences, of architectural beauty and piety, and which has become a modern metropolis of clean streets, stratospheric living standards, and wide-ranging green spaces, was settled ironically through an act of vandalism and theft. Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony and Duke of Bavaria, wanted to control the salt trade coming north from Salzburg, and so he burned down a bridge and toll booth belonging to an influential catholic Bishop, and rebuilt the same at the very heart of the modern city, known today as “Marienplatz.”

When Bavaria, prior to WW1, was an independent kingdom, many of their Monarchs brought about prosperous periods for the realm and are remembered fondly for turning Munich into a cultural, scientific, and innovative powerhouse. Today, many of their monuments are iconic tourist sites, such as Nymphenburg Palace, and the Neuschwanstein Castle.

Among her many favored sons are Werner Herzog, the famous film director, German association football royalty, Philip Lahm and Franz Beckenbauer, composer Richard Strauss, and many Nobel laureates, including Arno Penzias, who discovered the Cosmic Microwave Background. (1156)

58 years ago today, the Vatican abolished its list of prohibited books going back to 1557. The list still included authors like Descartes, Pascal, Voltaire, Rousseau, Balzac, Milton, Locke, Swift, Kant, Spinoza, de Balzac, Francis Bacon, Zola, Sartre, and Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables. (1966)

Also on this day, 12 years ago, Ringo Starr’s boyhood home in Liverpool was saved from demolition when Beatles fans and city residents successfully lobbied to save the house.

The run-down three-bedroom Victorian was marked for demolition in the low-income Dingle neighborhood, but the Liverpool City Council agreed to give locals the opportunity to fix up the properties. (2012)

And on this day in 1938, Superman first appeared in Action Comics #1, the first edition of the superhero comic book by DC Comics. The comic book hero created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster leapt tall buildings in a single bound, and ignited an unbroken print run of 904 numbered issues—the first one selling for 10 cents. Considered the most valuable comic book in the world, a copy recently sold for more than $3 million dollars.

On this day 115 years ago, Burl Ives, the genteel American folk singer, banjoist, and actor was born in Illinois. Beloved as the narrator Sam the Snowman in the Rankin/Bass animated Christmas special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, his recordings of Holly Jolly Christmas and Silver and Gold became Christmas standards since the annual special first aired in 1964.

The balladeer with the velvet voice co-starred with Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and won a 1958 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Big Country. Besides his autobiography, The Wayfaring Stranger, Ives is the author of Burl Ives’ Songbook, Sea Songs of Sailing, Whaling, and Fishing, Tales of America, and The Wayfaring Stranger’s Notebook. WATCH this powerful scene that won him the Academy Award… (1909–1995)

(Check out his appearance on The Johnny Cash TV show, and his affable chat with the host.)

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