Good News in History, July 2

101 years ago today, Wisława Szymborska was born in Poland. This poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature penned over a dozen poetry books that won numerous prizes from cultural organizations and civic ones. Her wit and irony belied her Communist education and upbringing, and though her body work remained small by the time she had died in 2012, it was not for want of trying—rather only for the presence of “a trash can” in her house. READ some of her work… (1923)

In the New York Times Book Review, Stanislaw Baranczak, who translated many of her poems into English wrote, “The typical lyrical situation on which a Szymborska poem is founded is the confrontation between the directly stated or implied opinion on an issue and the question that raises doubt about its validity. The opinion not only reflects some widely shared belief or is representative of some widespread mind-set, but also, as a rule, has a certain doctrinaire ring to it: the philosophy behind it is usually speculative, anti-empirical, prone to hasty generalizations, collectivist, dogmatic and intolerant.”

The below are select stanzas from a translated work dated to 2001 from her poem The End and the Beginning.

After every war
someone has to clean up.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We’ll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

MORE Good News on this Day:

• Vermont became the first American state to abolish slavery (1777)
• North and South Vietnam united after being divided since 1954 (1976)
• 45 helium balloons and a lawn chair lifted Larry Walters to 16,000 feet (1982)
• Michael Jackson became the first artist to have five number-one singles from one album when ‘Dirty Diana’, ‘I Just Can’t Stop Loving You’, ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ and ‘Man in the Mirror’ went to the top of the US charts from the LP ‘Bad’ (1988)
• Vicente Fox was elected President of México, the first from an opposition party, ending the Institutional Revolutionary Party’s 71-year reign (2000)
• Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon (2002)
• India’s high court decriminalized homosexuality striking down a 150-year colonial ban against gay sex between consenting adults (2009)

Happy 35th birthday to the soccer forward and highest-paid women’s athlete, Alex Morgan. As of publication, she has won 206 caps for the US Women’s National Team, and has scored 121 goals. While her career has never seen her stay at the same club for more than 3 seasons, her time with the USWNT has been a prosperous one indeed, earning her two World Cup wins, international publicity as one of the leading faces of the women’s game, and a spot on the cover of FIFA 2016 alongside Lionel Messi.

Playing with New York, Seattle, Portland, Orlando, and San Diego in the US, Morgan also made several moves to play overseas including to the feminine champions Olympic Lyonnais, and London’s Tottenham Hotspur. Neither move lasted more than a single season, but Morgan was instrumental in Lyon’s victory in the French Cup that year by scoring 7 goals in between the quarter and semi-finals.

As a leader of the USWNT at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Morgan scored five goals in the opening group game against Thailand to equal the World Cup single-game goals record set by Michelle Akers in 1991. Morgan also registered three assists in the game. The team’s 13–0 scoreline set a new record for margin of victory in a World Cup match.

In that edition of the tournament final, she won a penalty that was converted by teammate Megan Rapinoe to win the fourth FIFA Women’s World Cup for the USA.

Off the field, Morgan teamed with Simon & Schuster to write a middle-grade book series about four soccer players: The Kicks. The first book in the series, Saving the Team, debuted at number seven on The New York Times Best Seller list in May 2013. (1989)

Happy 77th Birthday to Larry David, head writer and co-creator of Seinfeld. Starting with a history degree from the University of Maryland, the Brooklyn-raised comedian went on to Seinfeld fame and later wrote and starred in HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm. That show’s seventh season featured the cast of Seinfeld returning in a story arc involving Larry’s attempt to organize a Seinfeld reunion TV special.

David’s work on Seinfeld won him two Primetime Emmy Awards in 1993, for Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing in a Comedy Series. Formerly a comedian himself, he went into television, including for SNL. He has been nominated for 27 Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. He was voted by fellow comedians and comedy insiders as the 23rd greatest comedy star ever in a 2004 British poll to select “The Comedian’s Comedian.”

As legendary as Seinfeld was, Curb was, in another way, on another level. Up until the fifth season, every episode was based on a very undetailed outline of activities, in which the actors would improvise the dialogue and choices in the scenes where details were lacking based on the story outline, direction, and their creativity.

David has said that his character in the show, a fictionalized version of himself, is what he would be like in real life if he lacked social awareness and sensitivity. The character’s numerous and frequent social faux pas, misunderstandings, and ironic coincidences are the basis of much of the show’s comedy and have led to the entry into the American pop culture lexicon of the expression “Larry David moment”, meaning an inadvertently created socially awkward situation. WATCH the Top 10 Cringe-Worthy Moments from Curb… (1947)

53 years ago today, Brian May, Roger Taylor, John Deacon, and Freddie Mercury performed their first show together as Queen at Surrey College, England.

It was Mercury who suggested the band’s name, and the art school student illustrated their logo which combined the members’ zodiac signs and appeared on all the Queen LPs.

Queen’s third LP in 1974 produced their first US hit, Killer Queen, but it was the next album, Night at the Opera that solidified them as one of the top pop-rock bands with songs like Bohemian Rhapsody and You’re My Best Friend. Other hits include Somebody to Love, Another One Bites the Dust, Crazy Little Thing Called Love, and the stadium anthems We Will Rock You and We Are the Champions.

Mercury (whose real last name was Bulsara and was of Indian Parsi descent) died of AIDS a few years after his final concert in 1989, and his operatic rock legacy was portrayed in the 2018 film Bohemian Rhapsody. WATCH a short bio with great concert footage…  (1971)

On this day in 1964, the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law by U.S. President Johnson outlawing all segregation on the basis of race. The legislation, first proposed by President Kennedy, would protect constitutional rights and outlaw discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, and racial segregation in schools, employment, and public accommodations.

And on this day 19 years ago, Live 8 Concerts rocked 10 cities, including London, Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin, Johannesburg, Rome, and Moscow, designed to put pressure on G8 countries to address poverty and debt in Africa.

Hundreds of millions of people saw the Bob Geldof-produced events in person, on TV, or online. As a result, five days later, the G8 leaders pledged to double levels of aid to poor nations from $25 to $50 billion by the year 2010. Included in the all-star line-ups were Pink Floyd, (reunited with former bassist/vocalist/lyricist Roger Waters for the first time in over 24 years), U2, Paul McCartney, Madonna, Chris Martin, Dave Matthews, Stevie Wonder, Will Smith, and Robin Williams–covering Queen’s We Will Rock You. DVD sets are available online. (2005)

44 years ago today, the comedy film Airplane! premiered.

Written and directed by David and Jerry Zucker, along with Jim Abrahams, it won Golden Globe nominations and starred Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, and Peter Graves. A perfect parody of the disaster film genre—particularly the drama Airport 1975—Airplane! is a fast-paced slapstick comedy, with visual and verbal puns, gags, and obscure humor.

The film’s reputation has grown substantially since its release, and was marked for preservation by the United States National Film Registry at the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

The plot revolves around civilians trying to land a jet plane after an in-flight meal causes food poisoning and the pilots are incapacitated. The above photo shows the plane’s autopilot, a large inflatable pilot doll named “Otto”, which might be able to get them to Chicago, but cannot land the plane. WATCH a few scenes… (1980)

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