Today in History: Oct. 20

According to Roger Patterson and his friend, Robert “Bob” Gimlin, the 950-plus frames of film they captured of a hairy creature wandering around in the great outdoors was shot on this date in 1967. The “Bigfoot film” is 49 today.

As with everything else that concerns this story, even the actual date of the filming remains unverified. Further, the original film stock itself was lost at some unrecorded point in time as it changed hands between film companies that tended to go out of business, as small independent film companies often do.

Was the film an honest-to-goodness recording of a real Bigfoot, a creature that has never been proved to exist? Or was it an honest recording of an honest-to-goodness attempt by otherwise unknown parties to play a hoax on the filmmakers? Or were the filmmakers in on a hoax and happy participants in it?
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Today in History: Oct. 19

British forces led by Lord Cornwallis surrendered to the allied American and French forces in Yorktown, Virginia, on this date 235 years ago. This ended the Revolutionary War, but not completely, as skirmishes continued through the next year. Lord Cornwallis’ forces surrendered to General George Washington and the American forces but Lord Cornwallis himself sent his sword to the French forces to declare that his surrender was to the French not the new American army.

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Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, which every American high school graduate hears one portion of (the “Trio” section), was introduced on this date in 1901 by the Liverpool Orchestral Society. Elgar conducted it himself.

Below the jump, a 1931 film of Sir Edward conducting an orchestra at the opening of the Abbey Road Studios, London, on November 12 1931. You hear him greet the players: “Good morning gentlemen. Glad to see you all. Very light programme this morning. Please play this tune as though you’ve never heard it before.”
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Today in History: October 18

Rock’s so good to me. Rock is my child and my grandfather.—Chuck Berry

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry.’—John Lennon

He has not performed live at Blueberry Hill, his St. Louis, Missouri, nightclub, since the summer of 2014, according to his website, but if that means Chuck Berry has retired, he hasn’t let anyone know about it. That summer, he was honored with the Polar Music Prize.

Chuck Berry is 90 today. Perhaps it is to his liking that there are no celebrations scheduled in his honor today, no live performances, no career-spanning television network extravaganza. Because without the man himself cutting a duck walk across the stage while unleashing one of his immortal guitar riffs, what would we have? What we have is the music:
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