Nat King Cole died on this day in 1965

We remember Nat King Cole, who died on this day in 1965.

He started with a trio but became one of the most popular vocalists in the world.  His hits included "Unforgettable", "Mona Lisa" and "Nature boy".

He also recorded a Spanish album in Havana in 1957.  It is one of the nicest Spanish albums ever recorded.  

Cole died in 1965 from cancer but his music lives on.

Frankly, no one can sing a love song like Nat King Cole.    His music is now available in a digital format:  The Very Best Of Nat King Cole & Spanish album.

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1809: Abraham Lincoln born in modern day Kentucky

This is how Abraham Lincoln remembered his birthday:

"I was born Feb. 12. 1809 in then Hardin county Kentucky," wrote Lincoln in June 1860 for Thomas Hicks, "at a point within the now recently formed county of Larue, a mile, or a mile & a half from where Hodgin'sville now is. My parents being dead and my own memory not serving, I know no means of identifying the precise locality. It was on Nolin Creek." [Thomas Lincoln possessed 348½ acres of land when Abraham was born. Abraham's birthplace is approximately three miles south of present day Hodgenville, on Nolin River.] Memorandum Concerning His Birthplace, 14 June 1860, CW, 4:75-76."

The Lincoln Log is a wonderful website. It is a day by day log of the president's life.   

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Abraham Lincoln was born on this day in 1809

Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809.

We will have many celebrations across the land.   Lincoln was a great man.  The Lincoln monument was the highlight of my visit to DC many years ago.

It's hard to pick a favorite quote from Lincoln. I like this one from the 2nd inaugural speech, about a month before his assassination:

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan – to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations."

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).   There are many books about Abraham Lincoln.   Let me recommend this one:

Pres. Ford and those current historians

Pres. Ford's funeral was a big history lesson: Don't bet your farm on current historians because they usually get it wrong.

Pres. Ford is now the great leader who inherited a constitutional crisis, made the difficult but correct decision to pardon Pres. Nixon and had to deal with a tough recession in 1975-76.

Back in '76, cynical Democrats accused Pres. Ford of making a deal with Pres. Nixon on the pardon. In fact, the pardon was not about Pres. Nixon. It was about the US and putting the Watergate scandal behind us.

Maybe he wasn't a Lincoln but he was a very good Ford!

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Remembering President Ford who was born on this day in 1913

President Ford was born on this day in 1913.  He died in 2006.

The 38th president spent much of his post presidency enjoying a well deserved retirement.  He made a few appearances but generally stayed home and enjoyed his wonderful wife and family. 

President Ford often smoked a pipe in public. He may have been the last president to smoke in public.   

Who remembers this from the day he became president:

"I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your President by your ballots.   So I ask you to confirm me as your President with your prayers."    

I remember Pres. Ford making that statement. I think that it went over very well with much of the country.

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ABBA's "Waterloo" wins top song at Eurovision 1974

We've posted about ABBA a couple of times before.  

Back in 1974, ABBA won a European prize and it launched the group.

It took a couple of years for ABBA to click in the US.  However, they did in 1976 and the rest is history.

My first exposure to ABBA was listening to the radio in 1976 and hearing a song called "I do, I do, I do".  Again, I was convinced that they were the best two looking girls in Sweden.  

Click here for ABBA's "Waterloo".  It wasn't really about Napoleon & Waterloo but no one was angry with the girls for their view of history: 

1974: "Eres tu" by Mocedades became a favorite for people learning Spanish

"Eres tu" was the best thing that ever happened to Spanish class teachers.  

In other words, what could be better than a pop song in Spanish that every student wanted to learn?

Mocedades from Spain hit US radio this month and the results were a Top 10 hit called "Eres tu".    It was a great pop song.

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1974: Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford selected to the Hall of Fame

Two great Yankees were selected to the Hall of Fame on this day in 1974.

Mickey Mantle was one of the great power hitters in history:   .298 career batting average, 536 HR and 1,509 RBI.   He was also a 3-time MVP and played in 12 World Series.   He had a career .421 On Base Average.

Whitey Ford was one of the best lefthanders in major league history:  236 wins, 156 complete games and a 2.75 career ERA.   He played in 11 World Series and won 10 games.

Mantle and Ford were part of the great Yankee teams that dominated baseball from 1949-64.   They were great teammates and it was great to see them go into the Hall of Fame together.

P.S.  You can listen to my show (Canto Talk).  If you like our posts, please look for ”Donate” on the right column.

1973: Top 10 this week WABC radio in New York

  1. The Most Beautiful Girl - Charlie Rich (Epic)
  2. Top of the World - The Carpenters (A&M)                     
  3. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road - Elton John (MCA)                
  4. Just You 'n' Me - Chicago (Columbia)                        
  5. Time In a Bottle - Jim Croce (ABC)                          
  6. Hello It's Me - Todd Rundgren (Bearsville)                  
  7. Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress) - Helen Reddy (Capitol)     
  8. The Love I Lost -                                            
             Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes (Philadelphia Int.)  
  9. The Joker - The Steve Miller Band (Capitol)                 
 10. Photograph - Ringo Starr (Apple)  

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1963: President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas

As a kid in Cuba, I sat with my father and watched Fidel Castro on Cuban TV talk about the Kennedy assassination.  I don't remember what he said but my dad told me later that Castro was very nervous.  I guess that he felt that President Johnson would use the assassination to correct the mistake of The Bay of Pigs.  A few days later, I heard my father and some of his friends say the same thing over a little Cuban coffee and cigars.   

It was a very tense time in Cuba because the Castro regime was locking up dissidents, such as my father's cousin Dr. Ignacio Segurola who spent 14 years in prison without a trial.   My mother told me recently that she was afraid that my own father would be picked up because he refused to take a job with the newly created national bank that replaced all of the privately owned banks expropriated (or as they say "nationalized") during that time.

Over time, I've heard all of the conspiracy theories, watched a few documentaries and even that idiotic Oliver Stone JFK movie that came out in 1991.   

Can we finally call it?  President JFK was killed by a crazy guy who was hanging around with communists and supporting the Castro dictatorship in Cuba.

Yes, there were angry right-wingers in Dallas.  Some of them behaved poorly.  However, do you think that one of these groups would have "contracted" a head case like Oswald to kill anybody?.  My guess is that most of these right wing groups would have given Oswald a bloody lip for his communist ideas if they ever had a chance to run into him. 

A few years ago, James Piereson put the nail in all of the conspiracies, especially the nonsense that right wingers in Dallas or the "let's get into Vietnam" military industrial complex.

Mr Piereson tells us about Oswald, the communist who killed the president of the US:

"The facts are that President Kennedy was a martyr in the Cold War struggle against communism. The assassin was a communist and not a bigot or a right-winger. Oswald defected from the U.S. to the Soviet Union in 1959, vowing when he did so that he could no longer live under a capitalist system. He returned to the U.S. with his Russian wife in 1962, disappointed with life under Soviet communism but without giving up his Marxist beliefs or his hatred of the U.S. By 1963, Oswald had transferred his political allegiance to Castro's communist regime in Cuba.  

In April 1963, Oswald attempted to shoot Edwin Walker, a retired U.S. Army general, as he sat at a desk in his dining room. Walker was the head of the Dallas chapter of the John Birch Society and a figure then in the news because of his opposition to school integration and his demand that the Castro regime be overthrown. The rifle Oswald used in the attempt at Walker's life was the one he used to shoot Kennedy.  

Dallas police would not identify Oswald as Walker's would-be assassin until after the assassination of Kennedy, but Oswald, fearful that he would be identified for the Walker shooting, fled Dallas for New Orleans. 

In June 1963 he established a local chapter of Fair Play for Cuba, a national organization dedicated to gaining diplomatic recognition for Castro's regime. Oswald was filmed by a local television station in New Orleans circulating leaflets on behalf of the Castro government and was jailed briefly following a street altercation with anti-Castro Cubans. Soon thereafter he appeared on a local television program to debate U.S. policy toward Cuba.  

In late September, Oswald left New Orleans to travel to Mexico City in pursuit of a visa that would permit him to travel to Cuba and then to the Soviet Union. As documented in the Warren Commission Report, he took along a dossier of news clippings on his pro-Castro activities to establish his revolutionary bona fides with personnel at the Cuban and Soviet embassies in the city. 

Oswald returned to Dallas empty-handed after being told that his application would take months to process. He was still waiting on his application six weeks later when he read that President Kennedy's forthcoming visit to Texas would include a motorcade through downtown Dallas and past the building where he worked.  

The assassin's motives for shooting Kennedy were undoubtedly linked to a wish to interfere with the president's campaign to overthrow Castro's government. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy pledged to abandon efforts to overthrow Castro's regime by force. But the war of words between the two governments continued, and so did clandestine plots by the Kennedy administration to eliminate Castro by assassination."

Last, but not least, I have spoken to Cubans living in New Orleans in 1962-63 who got into heated arguments with Oswald over Cuba.  They will attest to the fact that Oswald was a "Castro loving communist," or exactly the kind of jerk who would kill the president of the US.

The right did not kill JFK.  The bloody communist did!

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