Crabs and Beer!

On this day in 1945, at at 5:29 a.m. Mountain War Time, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon was conducted by the United States Army. The test, code-named ‘Trinity’ was of an implosion-design plutonium bomb, or “gadget” – the same design as the Fat Man bomb later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945.

At 05:29:21 MWT the device exploded with an energy equivalent to 24.8 ± 2 kilotons of TNT (103.8 ± 8.4 TJ). The desert sand, largely made of silica, melted and became a mildly radioactive light green glass, which was named trinitite. The explosion created a crater approximately 4.7 feet (1.4 m) deep and 88 yards (80 m) wide. The radius of the trinitite layer was approximately 330 yards (300 m). The 100-foot tower was completely vaporized. At the time of detonation, the surrounding mountains were illuminated “brighter than daytime” for one to two seconds, and the heat was reported as “being as hot as an oven” at the base camp. The observed colors of the illumination changed from purple to green and eventually to white. The roar of the shock wave took 40 seconds to reach the observers. It was felt over 100 miles (160 km) away, and the mushroom cloud reached 7.5 miles (12.1 km) in height.

Famous color photograph of the “Trinity” shot, the first nuclear test explosion.

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Surf and Turf???

Today is the birthday, in 1952, of American musician, multi-instrumentalist and composer Stewart Copeland best known as the drummer for The Police and for his film music soundtracks. He was also a member of Curved Air who had 1971 UK No.4 single ‘Back Street Luv’. The Police scored the 1983 UK & US No.1 single ‘Every Breath You Take’ plus four other UK No.1 singles.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMOGaugKpzs

On this day in 1916, William Boeing and George Conrad Westervelt incorporate Pacific Aero Products (later renamed Boeing). Like many, William Boeing was the son of immigrants who had recently immigrated to the United States.

In 1890, when William was eight, his father died of influenza and his mother soon moved to Europe. Marie enrolled William Jr. and his sister at schools in Switzerland. William Boeing’s mother remarried in 1898 and moved to Virginia. He enrolled at Yale University in 1898, studying in the engineering department but dropped out in 1903 to go into the lumber business.

In 1903, at age 22, Boeing moved to Hoquiam, Washington, in the Pacific Northwest. He prospered in the lumber business during a nationwide construction boom. He was successful in the venture, in part by shipping lumber to the East Coast via the then-new Panama Canal, generating funds that he would later apply to a very different business.

During the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, he saw a piloted flying machine for the first time and became fascinated with aircraft. Boeing took flying lessons and purchased a plane which he assembled. When it was damaged and replacement parts were not available Boeing told his friend, Commander George Conrad Westervelt of the US Navy, “We could build a better plane ourselves and build it faster.”

Portrait of Boeing

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Nothing to add here…

Today is the birthday, in 1946, of American singer Linda Ronstadt who had the 1975 US No.1 single ‘You’re No Good’, and the 1989 UK No.2 single with Aaron Neville, ‘Don’t Know Much’ plus over 15 other US Top 40 hits. She has earned 11 Grammy Awards, three American Music Awards, two Academy of Country Music awards, an Emmy Award, and an ALMA Award. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kp9G0zkorio

Happy Bastille Day! Bastille Day is the common name given in English-speaking countries to the national day of France, which is celebrated on 14 July each year. It is referred to, both legally and commonly, as le 14 juillet in French, though la fête nationale is also used in the press. French National Day is the anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, a major event of the French Revolution, as well as the Fête de la Fédération that celebrated the unity of the French people on 14 July 1790.

Celebrations are held throughout France. One that has been reported as “the oldest and largest military parade in Europe” is held on 14 July on the Champs-Élysées in Paris in front of the President of France, along with other French officials and foreign guests.

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SIGNZZZ

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Today is the birthday, in 1954, of Irish singer Maureen Nolan who with the Nolan Sisters, had the 1980 UK No.3 single ‘I’m In The Mood For Dancing’. They were particularly successful in Japan, becoming the first European act to win the Tokyo Music Festival with ‘Sexy Music’ in 1981, and won a Japanese Grammy in 1992. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbAM2_6jKY0

Today is the birthday, in 1863, of Margaret Murray. She was a British Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935. She was president of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely.

Born in Calcutta, British India, Murray divided her youth between India, Britain, and Germany, training as both a nurse and a social worker. Moving to London, in 1894 she began studying Egyptology at UCL, developing a friendship with department head Flinders Petrie, who encouraged her early academic publications. she took part in Petrie’s excavations at Abydos, Egypt, there discovering the Osireion temple, and the following season investigated the Saqqara cemetery, both of which established her reputation in Egyptology.

Murray became closely involved in the first-wave feminist movement, joining the Women’s Social and Political Union and devoting much time to improving women’s status at UCL. Unable to return to Egypt due to the First World War, she focused her research on the witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials of Early Modern Christendom were an attempt to extinguish a surviving pre-Christian, pagan religion devoted to a Horned God.

Murray’s work in Egyptology and archaeology was widely acclaimed and earned her the nickname of “The Grand Old Woman of Egyptology”. The influence of her witch-cult theory in both religion and literature has been examined by scholars, and she herself has been dubbed the “Grandmother of Wicca”. She died in 1963.

Margaret Alice Murray

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R.I.P. Sam Neill

GOOGLY EYES!

Here’s Juice Newton to get you started this morning…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0DK-0fIKCw

This day in 1925 was the first day of the he State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes, commonly known as the Scopes trial or Scopes Monkey Trial. a high school teacher, John T. Scopes, was accused of violating the Butler Act, a Tennessee state law which outlawed the teaching of human evolution in public schools. Scopes was represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, which had offered to defend anyone accused of violating the Butler Act in an effort to challenge the constitutionality of the law.

Scopes was found guilty and was fined $100 (equivalent to $1,850 in 2025), but the verdict was overturned on a technicality. William Jennings Bryan, a three-time presidential candidate and former secretary of state, argued for the prosecution, while famed labor and criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow served as the principal defense attorney for Scopes. The trial publicized the fundamentalist–modernist controversy, which set modernists, who believed evolution could be consistent with religion, against fundamentalists, who believed the word of God as revealed in the Bible took priority over all human knowledge.

William Jennings Bryan (seated at left) being interrogated by Clarence Seward Darrow, during the trial of the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes

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Bonnie Tyler, the Welsh singer who, with a frosted, teased-up coiffure and a voice both weathered and operatic, soared to No. 1 with “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” one of the titanic pop anthems of the 1980s, died on Wednesday at a hospital in Portugal. She was 75. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcOxhH8N3Bo