LoveSong1950s

The Space Race · July 20, 1969 Buzz Aldrin on the lunar surface, with the photographer reflected in his visor · NASA photograph, public domain (PD-USGov-NASA), via Wikimedia Commons Americans remember the first step as July 20. Much of the rest of the world remembers July 21, and both are right: Armstrong stepped off the ladder at 10:56 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on the 20th, which was 02:56 Universal Time on the 21st. Almost every account that gets the date wrong is quietly mixing the two. The picture everybody knows is not of Armstrong. It is Aldrin, standing on the Sea of Tranquility, with Armstrong reflected in the gold visor along with the lander and the long shadows of a lunar morning. There are very few photographs of Armstrong on the surface, because he was carrying the camera. They were outside for about two and a half hours, collected 47.5 pounds of rock and soil, and left behind a seismometer, a laser reflector still in use, and a plaque. The flag, as later photogra...

Today in 1950 · Sunday, October 15, 1950 President Truman met by General MacArthur at Wake Island, October 15, 1950 · U.S. Army Signal Corps photo, Truman Library, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons On this day in 1950, on a coral airstrip in the middle of the Pacific, the President of the United States and his Far East commander met face to face — for the first and only time in their lives. Truman had flown 7,000 miles; MacArthur, 1,900. The formal conference at Wake Island ran, by the official record, from 7:36 to 9:12 a.m. — ninety-six minutes — plus another hour and a half of informal talk. The exchange that history remembers took only seconds. Asked what chance the Chinese or the Soviets had of intervening in Korea, MacArthur answered: 'Very little.' He went further — 'we are no longer fearful of their intervention' — reasoning that China had missed its moment. The agenda moved briskly on: Korean reconstruction, prisoners, elections, the Japanese treaty. ...

Story Behind the Song · vol.34 , Track 10 of 15 ▶ The player starts right at this track (39:26). Let it keep rolling for the whole album. The gym is decked in crepe and gold, the punch is sweet, the floor is cold, and the hired band turns up with a broken drum. For a minute the whole evening hangs there, the way school dances do. Then somebody plugs in the jukebox, the class cheers, and the room gives in. That is how the best night anybody remembers actually gets made — not by the plan working, but by the plan failing and something better filling the gap. A nickel in the slot, no orchestra, no fancy hall, just a jukebox glowing on the wall and a corsage he picked himself. Best of all my golden days, the chorus says, and it is talking about a broken drum. Jukebox junior prom, nickel in the slot Jukebox junior prom, dancing what we've got No orchestra, no fancy hall Just a jukebox glowing on the wall — from “Jukebox Junior Prom” Hear the whole album vol.34 run...

Today in 1950 · Saturday, October 14, 1950 The 1950 Tacoma Narrows Bridge — 'Sturdy Gertie' — in a Historic American Engineering Record photograph · Historic American Engineering Record, NPS, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons On this day in 1950, ten years after the most famous bridge failure ever filmed, traffic rolled across the Tacoma Narrows again. The original span — 'Galloping Gertie' — had twisted itself to pieces in a forty-mile wind in November 1940, its death captured on newsreel film that engineering students still watch. Its replacement opened today with a gala celebration and a nickname of its own: 'Sturdy Gertie.' The new bridge was everything its predecessor wasn't. Where Gertie's shallow, solid plate girders had caught the wind like a sail, the new span breathed through a 33-foot-deep open Warren truss. Four traffic lanes replaced two; cable capacity rose from 28 to 36 million pounds; the anchor blocks weighed 54,000 tons. The ...

Story Behind the Song · vol.34 , Track 9 of 15 ▶ The player starts right at this track (35:20). Let it keep rolling for the whole album. Maple Lane is four blocks end to end, and walking her home takes an hour, because they go slow on purpose and stop at every fence and gate to find another reason to wait. Anyone who has been eighteen understands the arithmetic exactly. The song is built from small inventory: streetlamps flickering on at eight, porches counted, neighborhood dogs named, fireflies rising off the logs. Nothing happens. Everything is happening. Every leaf a lantern and every step a song — and the wish underneath the whole thing is that the road would be longer. Moonlight on Maple Lane, take me home again, down the road where it all began. Moonlight on Maple Lane, silver on the street Moonlight on Maple Lane, right beneath our feet Every leaf a lantern and every step a song And I could walk this road my whole life long — from “Moonlight on Maple Lane” ...

Today in 1950 · Friday, October 13, 1950 Bette Davis as Margo Channing in the trailer for All About Eve (1950) · 20th Century-Fox trailer screenshot, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons On this Friday night in 1950, at the Roxy in New York, 'All About Eve' had its world premiere — and the movies got their sharpest portrait of ambition ever put on film. Joseph L. Mankiewicz's backstage drama gave Bette Davis the role of her life as Broadway star Margo Channing, Anne Baxter as the adoring fan dismantling her idol from within, and George Sanders as the critic Addison DeWitt, narrating the whole feast of knives. The Roxy tried something novel for the run: scheduled performances with no late seating — and abandoned the policy after one week, because 1950 audiences were simply used to wandering into movies whenever they pleased. The picture itself proved harder to walk away from. It collected a record fourteen Academy Award nominations — one more than 'Gone with the ...