July 11th

According to Those Were The Days, today is BOWDLERIZE DAY! Thomas Bowdler was born on this day in 1754 and the word is a testimonial to his life's work. To bowdlerize means self-righteously butchering a literary work to make it acceptable to the prudish. He should be remembered (or at least scorned) by everyone who values free speech. Sadly this man has been copied by many but few have shown his devotion.

Dr. Bowdler gave up his medical practice to practice surgery on the works of William Shakespeare. He removed all those words “...which cannot with propriety be read aloud in a family” or which are “...unfit to be read aloud by a gentleman to a company of ladies.” He removed all the words and expressions which he considered to be indecent or impious from his ten volumes of Shakespeare’s writings.

But that wasn’t enough to satisfy Bowdler. He moved on to Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and then he boldly bowdlerized the Old Testament. In doing so, he irritated a lot of people - so many that his name became synonymous with these acts.

On July 11, 1767 John Quincy Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. The sixth President of the United States and the son the second president John Adams was the first president to serve in Congress after his term of office and the only former president to sit in the House of Representatives. John Quincy Adams was elected to eight terms, serving as a Representative for 17 years, from 1831 until his death.

In 1804 the duel was with guns and Burr won. You think politics are tough now? On this day in American history Vice President Aaron Burr mortally wounded former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton during a pistol duel in Weehawken, N.J.

On July 11, 1859 the great bell inside the famous London clock tower, chimed for the very first time. Today Big Ben celebrates 150 years of bongs.

In 1899 E. B. White, the American writer of essays and children's books, was born. Following his death on Oct. 1, 1985, his obituary appeared in The Times. (Go to obit.) (Other Birthdays)

On this day in 1905 a group of African American intellectuals and activists, led by W.E.B. Dubois, founded the Niagara Movement in Niagara Falls, Canada to to fight racial discrimination in the US.

In 1914 Babe Ruth pitched for a win in his first major league game for the Boston Red Sox. Ruth made $2,900 his rookie season. Just six years later, his paycheck was worth $125,000 when he became a member of the New York Yankees.

Happy Birthday Napalm. It's sort of like gasoline jelly and on this day in 1945 U.S. Army forces tried it out on human beings for the first time. Several thousand pounds of fire that sticks to you was dropped on the Japanese forces still holed up on Luzon in the Philippines.

In 1964 18-year-old Millie Small who was known as the ’Blue Beat Girl’ in Jamaica, her homeland reached number two on the pop music charts. If you listen carefully to her hit tune My Boy Lollipop you’ll hear Rod Stewart playing harmonica.

On July 11, 1979, the abandoned United States space station Skylab made a spectacular return to Earth, burning up in the atmosphere and showering debris over the Indian Ocean and Australia. (Go to New York Times article.)

In 1977, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work to advance civil rights.

In 1978, The Longest Walk ended in Washington D.C. The transcontinental walk for Native American justice, began with 30,000 marchers on February 11 from Alcatraz Island, California. Thirty years later the Longest Walk2 walked to the White House.

In 1983 the longest strike in the history of the United Auto Workers began at the Ohio Crankshaft Division of Park-Ohio Industries Inc. Despite arrests, firings and scab labor, the UAW Local 91 members hung tough and in 1992 won a fair contract.

In 1985 Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros became the first major-league pitcher to earn 4,000 strikeouts in a career as he led the Astros to a 4-3 win over the New York Mets. Danny Heep, formerly of the Astros, gave Ryan his milestone by fanning on three straight pitches.

In 1987 the United Nations Development Fund proclaimed July 11th to be World Population Day. The event that caused this was the birth of Matej Gaspar, an eight-pound baby boy born in Zagreb Supposedly the five billionth inhabitant of Earth. The Day of Six Billion came on October 12, 1999 and as we wish Matej Gaspar a happy twenty-second birthday the world population is 6.77 billion.

On this day in 1989 Actor Laurence Olivier died at age 82.

"Living is strife and torment, disappointment and love and sacrifice, golden sunsets and black storms. I said that some time ago, and today I do not think I would add one word." — Laurence Olivier

On this day in 1995 President William J. Clinton announces "normalization of relations" with Vietnam.

IN 2000 the 25th Anniversary Collector's Edition "Jaws" was released.

Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down the pond chasin' bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin', little tenderizin', an' down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that'll bring back your tourists, put all your businesses on a payin' basis. But it's not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I'll find him for three, but I'll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you've gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don't want no volunteers, I don't want no mates, there's just too many captains on this island. Ten thousand dollars for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.

One year ago Today: On the day that oil prices reached a record high of $147.27 a barrel, IndyMac Bank's assets were seized by federal regulators. Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the cardiovascular surgeon who pioneered such procedures as bypass surgery, died in Houston at 99.