Saturday Flashback: Hit ME!

Ian Dury and the Blockheads recorded "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" in late '78, but it hit the top of the pops in the UK and was released here in early '79.  Dury was steeped in the British Music Hall tradition and put out a string of hits, the best remembered being "Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll".  He also did some acting, and an excellent biopic of him was put out a few years ago starring Andy Serkis.  Here's Dury and the Blockheads doing "Hit Me" at the Concerts for Kampuchea later in 1979.  Enjoy!

Conspiracy

On March 29, 1979, the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations released their report on the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King.  While the committee still backed the theory that Lee Harvey Oswald fired three times at Kennedy, killing him with the third shot, it also found, based on acoustic analysis, that Kennedy was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy".

The committee also found credible testimony that was used by Jim Garrison ten years earlier in the trial against Clay Shaw, to this day the only person who has been tried in court as having anything to do with Kennedy's murder.  That trial was the basis for Oliver Stone's movie JFK.  Conspiracy theories about Kennedy's assassination had been around since November 23, 1963.  But this was the first time any government agency acknowledged the probability of a conspiracy.  This report and Stone's film locked in the notion of a conspiracy that still remains.

The committee also held that while James Earl Ray was the shooter who killed Dr. King, there was also the "likelihood" there was a conspiracy involved.  Coincidentally, this was also the week in 1979 that a joint session of Congress would convene that resulted in the first proposed legislation for MLK Day.  That measure would go down to defeat, but the day honoring Dr. King would be declared in 1983.  The day remains controversial, and speculation about King's murder continues to this day...

Hello/Goodbye: March

Born, March 1979
Mar 4th - Jon Fratelli, Scottish singer (The Fratellis)
Mar 6th - Erik Bedard, Canadian baseball player
Mar 8th - Tom Chaplin, English singer (Keane)
Mar 8th - Andy Ross, American guitarist (OK Go)
Mar 9th - Chingy, American rapper
Mar 11th - Benji & Joel Madden, American musicians (Good Charlotte)
Mar 11th - Elton Brand, American basketball player
Mar 12th - Pete Doherty, English musician
Mar 13th - Johan Santana, Venezuelan baseball player
Mar 14th - Chris Klein, American actor
Mar 15th - Kevin Youkilis, American baseball player
Mar 16th - Rashad Moore, National Football League player
Mar 17th - Andrew Ference, Canadian hockey player
Mar 18th - Adam Levine, American singer (Maroon 5)
Mar 18th - Danneel Harris, American actress
Mar 19th - Hedo Türkoğlu, Turkish basketball player
Mar 20th - Freema Agyeman, British actress (Doctor Who)
Mar 20th - Bianca Lawson, American actress
Mar 22nd - Juan Uribe, Dominican baseball player
Mar 23rd - Mark Buehrle, American baseball player
Mar 24th - Lake Bell, American actress
Mar 25th - Lee Pace, American actor
Mar 27th - Michael Cuddyer, American baseball player
Mar 30th - Norah Jones, American singer and pianist

Died, March 1979
Mar 1st - Dolores Costello, actress ("The Goddess of the Silent Screen" and Drew Barrymore’s grandmother), dies at 73
Mar 2nd - Mollah Mustafa Barzani, Kurdish leader, dies at 75
Mar 2nd - Richard Sykes, British ambassador, assassinated in Holland
Mar 11th - Victor Kilian, actor, dies at 88
Mar 16th - Jean Monnet, French economist/advocate of European unity dies at 90
Mar 19th - Al Hodge, actor (Capt Video), dies at 65
Mar 19th - Richard Beckinsale, actor and Kate’s father, dies at 31
Mar 22nd - Ben Lyon, actor (I Cover the Waterfront, Indiscreet), dies at 78
Mar 28th - Emmett Kelly, circus clown (Weary Willy), dies at 80
Mar 30th - Airey Neave, British MP (Conservatives), killed by terrorist bomb

Meltdown

The worst commercial nuclear accident in the US took place on March 28th, 1979 at Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  The station was comprised of two units, TMI-1 and TMI-2, owned and operated by Metropolitan Edison and General Public Utilities Corporation.  Both units were designed by Babcock and Wilcox, a US company that had been in the business of power generation for a century.  Construction for TMI-1 began in 1968 and was completed in 1970.  It went online in 1974.  TMI-2, however, had a more troubled existence.  Construction started in 1969 but was not completed until 1978, with Number 2 going online in December of that year.  It was only in operation for 90 days before the accident.

A malfunction of the cooling system of TMI-2 caused a partial meltdown of the reactor core.  This resulted in what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission called a "significant release of radiation" the following day.  By March 30, the governor and the head of the NRC advised pregnant women and small children in the area to evacuate.  Jimmy Carter famously visited the facility on April 1.

In the end, while the amount of radiation was indeed significant, the government estimated the average amount of radiation received by area residents was equivalent to a "chest x-ray".  Others have indicated it was equivalent to receiving half a year's normal "background radiation" in one shot.  Although there were no specific fatalities, there were reports of increased infant death downwind from TMI, as well as reduced fertility in animals.  The BBC reported in 2002 that there was no exceptional rise in cancer deaths in the area in the intervening years.

TMI-2 was brought under control within 10 days, after which it was permanently closed.  The cleanup, at a cost of a billion dollars, wasn't completed until 1993.  Fun fact: TMI-2 is currently owned and maintained by First Energy of Akron.  TMI-1 came back online in 1985.  Except for a quickly contained leak in November 2009 which kept it offline for two months, it has been in operation ever since.  In fact, its license was renewed in September of 2009, keeping it active until 2034.

It's often thought Three Mile Island was the death knell of the nuclear power industry.  It certainly had an impact on public perception.  According to the NY Times, support for nuclear power was at an all time high in 1977 at 69%, but fell to 46% after the accident.   In reality, for a number of reasons development for future plants was already going down.  No new plants had been approved since the accident, although some were built that were already scheduled for construction.  That said, the first new plant plant to be designed since the accident was recently approved for construction.

Coincidentally, the accident took place two weeks after the release of The China Syndrome, the story of a news crew at a nuclear plant during a meltdown.  All of this produced one of SNL's finest moments, "The Pepsi Syndrome", broadcast just 10 days after the accident on April 7th. It's also one of the longest, at 14 minutes, but do yourself a favor and check it out.  Stay tuned for a special guest as well as a future senator.


Pepsi Syndrome from Lou Jacob on Vimeo.

Peace

On March 26th, 1979, history was truly made with the signing of the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty. The negotiations for the treaty were accomplished the previous fall when Menachem Begin of Israel, Anwar Sadat of Egypt and Jimmy Carter signed the Camp David Accords.  Begin and Sadat would share the Nobel Peace Prize of 1978 for their efforts.

The first steps to Camp David and the treaty would be the so-called Sinai I and II treaties, both the work of Henry Kissinger in an effort to reduce Soviet influence in the Middle East by bringing Egypt into closer US orbit.  After Egypt and the rest of the Arab states were defeated in the Six Day War of 1967, it became important to Sadat to reclaim the Sinai Peninsula lost in the conflict.  He tried war, attacking Israel in the Sinai in 1973, and then peace, boldly visiting Israel in 1977 and delivering a speech to the Knesset.

Begin, a long time hardliner, formed the Likud Party in 1973 as a "consolidation" of right wing parties in Israel.  He led them to power in a landslide in May of 1977.  Many perceived Begin as having the upper hand at Camp David.  He had little to lose if nothing were accomplished.  Sadat, on the other hand, needed to re-secure the Sinai for economic and historic reasons.

Carter ably pushed and prodded the two to agreement at Camp David.  (Some thought the Nobel should have gone to him.)  The treaty signed in March of '79 reflected the two main frameworks of the Accords.  The first focused on Israel and Egypt, calling for a phased withdrawal of Israel from the Sinai and the normalization of relations between the two countries.  The second, larger in scope, was to provide for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace settlement based on UN Resolution 242.  Adopted by the UN Security Council in the aftermath of the The Six Day War, 242 is essentially a land for peace swap with Israel relinquishing the territories won in that conflict.

The  Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty was the first peace agreement between Israel and any of its neighbors. Despite events in the intervening years, it still holds today, although recent events in Egypt may change that.  It has also served as a template for future accords, the best example of which was Clinton's efforts at Camp David in 2000.

But it has also had unintended, and perhaps not too unintended consequences.  Prior to 1979, Egypt was largely seen as the leader of the Arab world, especially as concerned Israel.  After the treaty was signed and Egypt essentially gave up that role, the region has gone through upheaval that continues to this day.  Iran was about to become a theocracy and Saddam Hussein was months away from power in Iraq.  The moderation that Egypt had historically supplied to the area was no longer a factor.  There is some thought that Begin accepted the terms of Camp David so Israel could claim compliance with UN 242 and the reticence of Israel in terms of giving up any more land bears that out.  Indeed, settlements in those territories have continued to grow.

A major issue is that the two frameworks were not linked, the success of one was independent of the other.  Sadat in particular was vilified by many in the region as having abandoned the Palestinians.  When he signed the treaty, he also signed his death warrant.  He was assassinated in October of 1981 by Egyptian Islamic Jihad.  The fatwa was issued by the "blind sheik" Omar Abdel-Rahman and one of the leaders was Ayman al-Zawahiri, who became bin Laden's number two man.

This was an historic peace agreement.  The peace between Egypt and Israel has lasted, and the legacy of this treaty, good and bad, lives on.

March Madness

On this day in 1979, the most-watched NCAA Men's Basketball Championship was played between Magic Johnson's Michigan State University and Larry Bird's Indiana State.  They met for the first time the previous summer during the 1978 World Invitational Tournament for Team USA, throwing no look passes at each other.  So while they were certainly aware of each other, this was the first time they'd face each other as opponents.  Magic had a great season, landing on the cover of Sports Illustrated and leading the Spartans to a 26-6 record.  Bird had an even better year, taking the Sycamores to their first ever NCAA tournament sporting a perfect 33-0 record.  This was before the days of ESPN (although they would go live later in the year), accordingly not many fans had seen Indiana State, who lived in the shadow of Indiana and Purdue.  So few people had seen Bird play prior to the championship that some were surprised he was white.  It's difficult to imagine today that a team would get that far in the season with so little known about them.

The game itself wasn't the best ever.  MSU focused their defense on Bird, holding him to a meager 7-21 from the floor, and won 75-64.  Magic may have won the title, but Bird won the awards, snagging both the Wooden and Naismith Player of the Year trophies.  But this was the start of something big.  College hoops would never be the same.  Consider the explosive revenue growth alone:  in '79, NBC paid $5.2 million for the broadcast rights to the game;  by 1982, CBS outbid them and paid $48MM and by 1985, it would go up to $96MM.  Interestingly, though, this game remains the gold standard for viewership.  More than 35 percent of all TV sets were tuned into Magic and Bird.  That record still stands.

This game began a classic rivalry of truly fierce competitors who ultimately became the closest of friends.  (When Magic announced he had AIDS in 1991, the first call he took was from Larry Bird.)  Many sports pundits credit their play for reviving the NBA in the 80s and making the month of March as mad as it is.  These two men are rightly recognized as pillars of the game and are still celebrated today...  on Broadway, even

The Final Frontier?

The first functional space shuttle, Columbia, was delivered to the Kennedy Space Center on this date in 1979.  Not even 10 years after the moon landing, and just a few years after the end of the Apollo Program, the new shuttle program was to represent America's future in space.  The Columbia had its first "maiden flight" earlier in the month perched atop a larger aircraft to test aerodynamic principles.  One of the results of that first flight was the loss of thousands of temporary and permanent thermal tiles.  The first official launch was actually scheduled for November of 1979, but was delayed because of continued problems with the tiles.  The Columbia, of course, was the shuttle that disintegrated upon re-entry in 2003 because of thermal tile malfunction.  That said, the vehicle was spaceworthy enough to complete 27 missions before its final, fatal mission.

The Shuttle program was indeed the future of the space program for over 30 years, from its maiden voyage (Columbia) on April 12, 1981 until the final flight of the Atlantis which landed safely on July 21, 2011.  With funding cuts in the last several years the future of the space program and particularly manned space flight is in jeopardy, with the most promising options being commercial, as opposed to government, ventures.  Overall, despite the tragedies of the Columbia and Challenger missions, the program was a success, with 134 successful launches and 133 safe returns out of a total of 135 missions.  Where we go next is up in the air...

Moods For Moderns

This was the week in 1979 that, after hearing NewWave and Punk records for over a year, I finally saw live what all the fuss was about.  On Tuesday March 20th, I saw Elvis Costello at the Cleveland Agora.  (To date, I've now seen him twelve times.)  His Armed Forces LP had just come out, and we'd already devoured his previous two records.  I was on spring break (my last as an undergrad) and went with some friends up to the Cleve.  Amazing show.  Unlike a lot of new bands, Elvis and his always top-notch backing band The Attractions could actually play their instruments.  And people danced! It should be noted that this was just 5 days after the infamous incident that took place in Columbus OH with Elvis getting into a nasty drunken argument with Bonnie Bramlett and Steven Stills.  Here's Elvis and the boys later in the year with "Oliver's Army"

Two nights later, I had my first opportunity to dig into the Kent-Akron music scene.  The first wave was already over, with Devo and others breaking out.  Version 2.0 was even better with dozens of great young bands. On March 22nd, I went to see the then kings of the scene, Hammer Damage.  Made up of Donny Damage on vox and rhythm guitar, Mike Hammer on drums, both from the Rubber City Rebels (part of the first bunch out of Akron along with Devo) with Scott Winkler on bass and George Cabaniss on lead, they played LOUD, tight songs with blistering guitar breaks and hilariously juvenile lyrics. How loud were they?  After spending the night parked in front of George's Marshall stack, the pressure on my head was so great all the fluid drained from my sinuses.  My ears rang for three days.  It was the first time I'd ever danced, in the sense that I just got up and started jumping around.

Damage would own Kent and Akron that year, culminating with a sweet gig opening for the B-52s at the Agora that fall.  By the end of the year, George would leave to play with The Dead Boys. The others picked up some other players and stuck it out for a few years. But they were just one of many great bands in the area:  The Action, Trudee and the Trendsetters, Unit 5, The Nelsons, Wild Giraffes (from Mentor), Human Switchboard, The Adults, and on and on.  It was an amazing scene that's still celebrated today with various bands reuniting periodically.  I'll have more on Kent-Akron happenings later in the year, but for now here's Hammer Damage with one of their best: "Laugh".  Enjoy!

And We're Live in 3 ... 2 ... 1979: C-SPAN

Brian Lamb, CEO and Founder of C-SPAN stepped down today, the 33rd anniversary of its first broadcast of US House proceedings on March 19th, 1979, a speech By Al Gore, then a representative from Tennessee.  Lamb had first conceived of the concept in 1975, envisioning a non-profit outlet for live telecasts of Congressional sessions as well as other activities.  C-SPAN (Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network) began to televise the Senate starting in 1986.  In time, the network would also broadcast sessions of the Canadian and British Parliaments, as well as other events, although numerous requests to televise the US Supreme have not been granted.  Today, there are three C-SPAN channels as well as C-SPAN radio, carried on XM Radio.  This was the first outlet for sustained live coverage of government proceedings and it has done much to promote not for profit, non partisan transparency in government.  Cheers, Brian!

All About the Currencies

The direct step toward a European currency was taken on March 13, 1979 when the European Economic Community created the ECU, or European Currency Unit, to be the "unit of account" for the European Monetary System (EMS). Described as a "currency basket", it was essentially pooling of member currencies to prevent fluctuations in value.  

In addition to the ECU, the EMS also featured an exchange rate mechanism where each currency had an exchange rate linked to the ECU.  There was also a credit mechanism with each country transferring 20% of its currency and gold reserves to a joint fund. The ECU would survive until the reunification of Germany as well as financial panics in 1992 led to calls for a more unified currency.

The ECU was the direct predecessor of the current Euro.  Three months after its creation, the first direct elections to the European Parliament would take place.  The political and financial framework of modern Europe was now in place.

Saturday Flashback: Graham Parker

Graham Parker was lumped in with Joe Jackson and Elvis Costello in the all-important "Angry Young Man" category but wasn't as big, at least in the states.  With his crack band, The Rumour, he released what many regard as his finest record in March 1979, Squeezing Out Sparks, which made a lot of "Best Of" lists back then.  Here he is with "Protection".  Enjoy!

Push Play 1: the CD

As we've seen, this was still the era of the LP record.  The beginning of the end of that dominance took place on March 8th, 1979 when Phillips first demonstrated the compact disc player.  The format for the actual disc had not been finalized, but that would start to take shape later in the month when Phillips would partner with Sony to develop a standard format.  (Fun fact: they had to change the size of the disc when Sony insisted it must be large enough to contain all of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, which was 74 minutes.)

It would take a few more years for this technology to hit commercial, but when it did, the CD would revolutionize they way we listen to music.  And now it's the CD's turn to fend off new technologies. We'll hear about that soon...

Saturday Flashback: Guilty Pleasures

While the musical focus here has been and will remain New Wave, I do have some rather suspect favorites that were radio hits in 1979.  This is surely the nostalgia talking, but I still like these cuts anyway. YMMV.  Enjoy!  (Or not...)

Hey...  at least this guy used to play with Nick Lowe!

The models he would have "playing" behind him in the 80s looked better than these dudes...

OK ... there's no excuse for this one.  Whatever.

Auld Lang Sign of Things To Come

The movement for Scottish independence has been in the news lately.  Scotland had been a sovereign nation until 1707 when they were brought into the Kingdom of Great Britain. The desire for independence had been around in varying degrees for many years, but the first legislative action in this regard didn't come about until the UK Parliament passed the Scotland Act of 1978 which was intended to establish a devolved Scottish legislature. (The District of Columbia here in the States is an example of devolution.)

The Act called for a referendum on the matter that took place on March 1, 1979.  The Act stipulated that, rather than the vote being decided by a simple majority, 40% of registered voters would have to approve the measure for it to pass.  While the Act did get a majority yes vote (roughly 52%-48%), the 1.2 million Scots who voted for the measure only constituted about 33% of the voters, and the Act failed.  The Labour government of James Callaghan decided not to pursue it any further and the Scotland Act was repealed later in March.  Two months later, Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives came to power and led the UK for nearly two decades.  In 1997, Tony Blair and the "New" Labour Party took over and the issue came up again, this time successfully.  A new Scotland Act was passed the next year, elections were held in 1999 and the Scottish Parliament came into being in July of that year.

While this was still a devolved legislature, the movement for outright independence has grown and came to a head in 2011 with the elevation of the Scottis Naitional Pairtie to the majority in the Parliament.  The SNP have called for a referendum on full independence, which could take place in the fall of 2014.  

Saturday Flashback: The Police

This was a huge year for The Police, and it all started with "Roxanne".  It had been recorded a year earlier, but didn't enter the charts here until February of '79.  This really was one of those songs that jumped out of the speakers the first time you heard it.  Their first LP was already out and later in the year, they'd hit gold again with their second release, "Regatta de Blanc".  This is where it began, tho.  Enjoy!

Hello/Goodbye: February

Born, February 1979
Feb 3rd - Guthrie Trapp, American guitarist

Feb 7th - Jon Leicester, American baseball player


Feb 8th - Aaron Cook, American baseball player


Feb 8th - Josh Keaton, American actor and singer


Feb 9th - Akinori Iwamura, Japanese baseball pitcher


Feb 9th - Zhang Ziyi, Chinese actress


Feb 10th - Daryl Palumbo, American musician


Feb 10th - Ross Powers, American snowboarder


Feb 11th - Brandy [Norwood], singer (Moisha)


Feb 12th - Matt Mauck, American football player


Feb 12th - Jesse Spencer, Australian actor 
(House)

Feb 13th - Mena Suvari, American actress


Feb 17th - Josh Willingham, American baseball player


Feb 19th - Mariana Ochoa, Mexican singer and actress


Feb 21st - Jennifer Love Hewitt, actress

Feb 25th - Jennifer Ferrin, American actress


Feb 26th - Corinne Bailey Rae, English singer

Died, February 1979

Feb 2nd - Sid Vicious, [John Simon Ritchie], bassist (Sex Pistols), OD's at 21

Feb 7th - Josef Mengele, concentration camp doctor, drowns
 at 67

Feb 9th - Dennis Gabor, Hungarian physicist, Nobel laureate, 79

Feb 12th - Jean Renoir, French writer/director/actor dies at 84


Feb 14th - Adolph Dubs, US ambassador to Afghanistan, murdered
, 58

Feb 15th - Mehdi Rahimi, Iran general/milt governor of Teheran, executed


Feb 16th - Nematullah Nassiri, Iran general/head of Savak, executed


Feb 28th - Mr Ed (Bamboo Harvester), talking horse, dies at 30

Gentlemen, Start Your Cash Registers

Prior to 1979, NASCAR was still a regional, almost niche attraction.  That all changed on February 18 that year with the running of the Daytona 500.  Many racing historians cite this day as the birth of the marketing extravaganza we know as modern NASCAR.

The '79 Daytona 500 was the first racing event of its kind to be nationally televised live, pole to pole.  (Even the Indy 500 was shown on a tape delay that was edited back then.)  Coincidentally, the President’s Day Blizzard had locked down most of the northeastern and mid Atlantic US, which significantly increased the size of the audience.

And those viewers weren’t disappointed.  A tight race, it finished with an epic fistfight between leaders Cale Yarborough and Donnie Allison resulting from a last minute crash which allowed Richard Petty to slip through for the victory.  That video is still watched today:

This race has been called the “first water cooler race” and elevated NASCAR into the sports big time in the US.  It also "introduced two new innovative uses of TV cameras: the 'in-car' camera and the low angle 'speed shot, which are now considered standard in all telecasts of auto racing."  After this, NASCAR--  and its cultural impact--  would never be the same.

1979 was also the rookie season of the man who would become the face of modern NASCAR, Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Saturday Flashback: Cheap Trick

Cheap Trick released their "Live at Budokan" LP in February of 1979.  They'd already put out three records that did  little in the US, but, as the saying goes, they were huge in Japan.  They recorded "Budokan" in the spring of 1978 and released it there later that year.  When it came out here, it was a huge hit, going triple platinum and making them stars in the process.  Here they are with the big hit from that record, "I Want You To Want Me".  Enjoy!

St. Valentines Day Massacre

On this day in 1979, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, was brutally murdered by extremists opposing the regime that had recently come to power via a coup sponsored by the Soviet Union.  From Wikipedia:

In 1978 Dubs was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan following a coup d'etat which brought the Soviet-aligned Khalq faction to power. On the morning of February 14, 1979, he was kidnapped by four armed militants posing as police. Dubs was held in Room 117 of the Kabul Hotel. Afghan security forces and Russian advisers swarmed the hallway and surrounding rooftops, but negotiations stalled. Shortly after 12:30 p.m., an exchange of gunfire started between the terrorists and the Afghan security forces, and the ambassador was killed.

Documents released from KGB archives in the 1990s showed that the Afghan government clearly authorized the assault despite forceful demands for peaceful negotiations by the U.S., and that the KGB adviser on scene, Sergei Batrukihn, may have recommended the assault, as well as the execution of a kidnapper before U.S. experts could interrogate him.

Dubs was not replaced by the US government and the embassy was closed in 1989.  The US did not post another ambassador to Afghanistan until 2002.


This was also the day of the first Iranian assault on the US Embassy in Tehran.  From PBS:

The attack occurred at 10:15 a.m. on February 14, 1979. It was carried out by hundreds of supporters of the communist OPFG who climbed over the walls of the large compound on Takht-e Jamshid Street. Here is how Nicholas Cumming-Bruce of the Guardian reported on the incident:

As (the attackers) dropped into the compound they opened up with everything from G3 rifles to machine guns, spraying the main Embassy building and other offices with bullet. The Embassy's U.S. Marines returned the fire with bird-shot to give official time to destroy secret documents and coding equipments, but were then ordered by Ambassador William H. Sullivan to unload and discard their weapons.

The Embassy staff, about 100 to 150 (down from more than 300 before the Revolution), were taken to the communication room on the first floor, while marines filled the ground floor with teargas. But, this had only a temporary delaying effect. Gunmen eventually broke into the Embassy, forcing many of the staff at gunpoint to lie on the floor. Others ransacked the East Wing, broke up communication equipment and smashed the main switchboard.

 One Iranian employee of the Embassy was killed, and U.S. Marine and three other Americans were wounded. ... (After) an hour armed men led by the deputy prime minister of the provisional revolutionary government, Dr. Ebrahim Yazdi, arrived at the embassy and convinced the attackers to leave the Embassy.

U.S. State Department spokesman Hodding Carter, III, thanked the provisional government for its efficiency and speed that ended the embassy seizure. Through Iran's embassy in Washington, the Bazargan government relayed a message to the Carter administration, expressing deep regrets for the incident, and promised complete security for the Embassy and its staff.

Al Gore is Fat

Actually, he wasn't back then... that's just the attitude of our anti-science friends on the right when man-made climate change is discussed.  That conversation started on a global basis on this day in 1979 as the first World Climate Conference began in Geneva, Switzerland, sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization.  The evidence had been mounting for a while, but this was the year that global warming was brought into the public spotlight.  Since then?  I report, you decide...

1979 was also the year NASA began assisting the reality-based scientific community by providing data on polar ice generated by Micowave Sounding Units aboard NOAA polar orbiting satellites launched the previous year.  To wit...

It's amazing that over thirty years later, there are many people--  including the leadership of one of the two major political parties in this country--  who still argue this point. 

Punk Is Dead

Well, it was in England.  By this time in early '79, the whole punk thing was over in the UK.  (Later in the year we'll see Goth rise from those ashes.)  And on this day in 1979, the Clown Prince of Punk was dead.  John Simon Ritchie, better known as Sid Vicious, died of an overdose on February 2nd, the day after he got out of Riker's Island where he was being held after an arrest for an assault on Patti Smith's brother.  His mother gave him the heroin. 

He had also been charged with murder in the death of his girlfriend Nancy Spungeon which was still hanging over his head.  We'll never know what really happened.  He did, however, leave a suicide note, which his mother found after he'd been cremated:  "We had a death pact. I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby. Bury me in my leather jacket, jeans and motor cycle boots. Goodbye".

He was sanctified after his death, with grafitti and t-shirts proclaiming, "Sid Died For Your Sins".  Whatever.  He has remained a, if not the, punk icon.  As Malcolm said in Sid and Nancy:  "Sidney's more than a mere bass player. He's a fabulous disaster. He's a symbol, a metaphor, he embodies the dementia of a nihilistic generation. He's a fucking star."  That he was.

Bonus trivia:  I got the report when I turned the evening news on that night... from Walter Cronkite.

Iran: The Imam

On February 1, 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran from exile in the wake of the shah’s abdication two weeks earlier.

Born in 1902 the son and grandson of mullahs, he had been a theologian, philosopher and poet. Khomeini rose to prominence by opposing first the shah’s father and then the shah himself for bringing a modern, Western approach to ruling Iran. Specifically, he spoke out against the shah's "White Revolution" in 1963, getting arrested then and again in 1964, after which he was exiled.

He settled in Najaf, Iraq and stayed there for another 14 years until October 1978 when he was forced out by Saddam Hussein, who was then nine months away from his own ascent to power. Khomeini then spent the next several weeks in a Paris suburb, sending taped messages to his supporters during the final months of the shah’s reign.

Wildly popular, his return was greeted by some five million people, over 10% of Iran’s population at the time. He would solidify control by the end of February with the help of sympathetic military defectors, and by April the monarchy was abolished in favor of an Islamic Republic.

I Don't Like Mondays

On January 29, 1979, 16 year old Brenda Spencer opened fire on the Cleveland Elementary School in San Diego killing two (the principal and a student) and injuring nine.  The school was located across the street from her home. Wielding a .22 semi-automatic rifle she'd just gotten for Christmas, she got off thirty rounds from a window before barricading herself in the house, and after a seven hour standoff she surrendered to the police.  When asked why, she replied, "I just did it for the fun of it. I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day."

This was hardly the first school shooting... that tragic history goes back to the 1700s.  But prior to this, most of these events were typically focused on specific people, usually adult-on-adult violence.  This was one of the first instances of a student randomly shooting at a school with multuple rounds. It has been called by some the "First Columbine" and was the first assault of this nature to be committed by a woman.  Tried as an adult, Spencer was convicted and sentenced to 25 years to life.  She's eligible again for parole in 2019.

Spencer's crime was immortialized by Bob Geldof's Boomtown Rats later that year in the song "I Don't Like Mondays", which became a #1 hit in the UK.

Hello/Goodbye: January

Born, January 1979

Jan 1st - Brody Dalle, Australian singer (The Distillers)


Jan 8th - Sarah Polley, actress (Sweet Hereafter)


Jan 14th - Karen Elson, British singer and model


Jan 15th - Drew Brees, American football player


Jan 16th - Aaliyah, American singer (d. 2001)


Jan 18th - Jay Chou, Taiwanese actor, singer and producer


Jan 18th - Brian Gionta, American ice hockey player


Jan 20th - Rob Bourdon, American musician (Linkin Park)


Jan 23rd - Larry Hughes, American basketball player


Jan 23rd - Juan Rincón, Venezuelan baseball player


Jan 24th - Tatyana Ali, actress

Jan 27th - Rosamund Pike, British actress


Jan 30th - Diva Zappa, daughter of Frank

Died, January 1979

Jan 3rd - Conrad Hilton, US founder of Hilton Hotels, 91

Jan 5th - Charles Mingus, US jazz bassist/composer/orchestra leader, 56


Jan 9th - Sara Carter, vocalist/guitarist (Carter Family),  80


Jan 11th - Jack Soo, actor (Nick Yemana on Barney Miller), 63


Jan 13th - Donny Hathaway, singer, commits suicide at 33


Jan 16th - Ted Cassidy, actor (Lurch-Addams Family),  46


Jan 26th - Nelson Rockefeller dies at 70 
under dubious circumstances

Saturday Flashback: Look Sharp!

Joe Jackson goes all fashion forward on us in the title track from his early 1979 release "Look Sharp!" Yeah, this video is lame, but it does remind us that these were still records, after all.  We'll hear later how new technologies from this year would replace the LP as the media standard, but for now let's put the needle down and let Joe tell us to make it work.  Enjoy!

Iran: The Shah

Thirty-three years ago today, the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, abdicated the Peacock Throne.  Gravely ill from the cancer that would kill him eighteen months later, his flight from Tehran set off a chain of events that continues to this day.  It had been building up for some time of course, but this was a day that would alter the Middle East forever.

Fun Factors:

• His father, Reza Shah, had been installed by the British in 1925 only to be deposed in an Anglo-Soviet invasion in 1941 for perceived pro-Nazi sentiments, after which the son was placed on the throne in 1945
• The election of Mohammad Mosaddegh as prime minister in 1951 largely based on his opposition to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which we know today as British Petroleum or BP
• Mosaddegh nationalized the company resulting in his overthrow by a CIA-led coup d'etat in 1953
• In the 60s, the Shah began an aggressive program of industrial development paid for with oil revenues, which ramped up considerably after the 1973 oil embargo, in an effort to become not only a regional power but a global one as well
• One effect of this development was to limit the commercial participation of the lower economic classes of Iran, a country in which the majority of the population was still agrarian 
• He also oversaw a huge military buildup courtesy of the US looking to take advantage of Iran's strategically advantageous border with the USSR as well Iran serving as a de facto cop in the region
• This also led to Iran being part of a US proxy with Israel, especially relative to their mutual enemy,Iraq
• The $300 million celebration thrown in 1971 in honor of the 2500th anniversary of the Achmaenid dynasty as well as the implementation of the Persian calendar over traditional use of the Islam calendar fostered the perception that the shah was antagonistic to the concerns of most Iranians
• And in the fifteen months leading up to the abdication...
• The murder of Khomeini's son Mustafa, widely thought to be the work of SAVAK, the shah's brutal security service in October 1977
• Riots in Qom in January 1978 after the publication of a government sanctioned article attacking Khomeini, resulting in the deaths of 70 protesters
• Black Friday, September 8, 1978:  Confusion over a curfew after a protest that saw over a million people in the streets of Tehran led to a follow-up demonstration at which over a thousand protesters were killed

The shah attempted some moderate efforts to quell the growing anger of the citizens of Iran, including the appointment of Shahpour Bakhtiar, who had previously been seen to oppose the shah, to prime minister.  But the damage had been done.  He would bounce around the world for the rest of his life, from Egypt to Morocco to the Bahamas, Mexico, the US and finally back to Egypt where he died on July 27, 1980.  His stay in the US for medical treatment in October of 1979 is thought by some to have had a hand in causing the takeover of the American Embassy in Tehran a few weeks later.

Khomeini would return from his exile in Paris a few weeks later and by April, the revolution would be complete.

(Note:  this post, as will be the case with subsequent posts on the Middle East, is indebted to David Lesch's excellent 1979: The Year That Shaped the Modern Middle East.)

Saturday Flashback: The Records

Technically, this song was released in the UK on 12/27/78, but it didn't come out in the States until '79.  Peaking at #56 on the Billboard Top 100 here in October, "Starry Eyes" is a perfect little blast of Power Pop, which was taking off on the coattails of New Wave and Punk.  Enjoy!

Mister Bill

On this date in 1979, Bill Clinton became the Governor of Arkansas at 32 years of age, making him the youngest governor in the country.  He'd held office previously as Arkansas' Attorney General, after losing a congressional race in 1974, but this was his first executive office.  He focused on educational reform and, in a prelude to his first term in the White House, partnered with Hillary on urban health care reform. However, he got himself in trouble with the voters over a motor vehicle tax as well as issues arising from rioting at Fort Chafee by Cuban refugees being detained after the Mariel Boatlift, which cost him his governorship after just one term.  But the kid came back and won re-election in 1982, serving until he was elected president in 1992.

Saturday Flashback

'79 was the year that the new music brewing in garages and dingy clubs for the previous few years began to break through. New Wave and Punk sprang up to spit in the eye of the corporate rock and disco that dominated popular music in the mid 70s and finally started to be heard on the radio that year.  I'll be sharing some of my favorites as we go, but this video does a decent job of laying it all out, for a 20/20 segment.  And there's good Northeast Ohio representation, too, featuring Devo.  It's even hosted by Akron's own Hugh Downs...

And so it begins...

Two of the most influential and destructive politicians of our time began their elective careers on this day in 1979:  Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney.  Cheney had already been in DC for a decade at this point, serving in the Nixon and Ford administrations, most notably as Ford's Chief of Staff after a palace coup that elbowed Henry Kissinger out of the way.  Gingrich had been a professor at West Georgia College.  But it was in 1979 that they first became elected officials as freshman congressmen.  We're still paying for their sins today.

Happy New Year

We start off with a bang...  on January 1, 1979 the US and China agreed to formally recognize each other and to establish diplomatic relations.  This was certainly a big deal at the time, the ramifications of which continue to this day.  Outside of developments in the Middle East, perhaps no other event of 1979 has had--  and will continue to have-- as much impact on US policy as this did, not to mention the financial implications.

1979

I've always had an interest in this year, originally because it was a big year for me personally and I liked the music.  But the more I looked into it, I realized what an important year it was. Most of us remember or know of the big events that year:  the Iranian Revolution, Three Mile Island, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan.  But it was so much more than that, from so many perspectives:  historical/political, cultural, financial, technological--  even sports.

Often, we view history as the end of things.  What's remarkable about 1979 is how much began that year.  While one year may be a decidedly small (and somewhat arbitrary) slice of time, the world--  especially the Middle East--  would be a different place on January 1, 1980 than it was on January 1, 1979.  And so much of the fabric of today bears threads that were first woven at the end of the 1970s.  So while 1979 may not have the historical cachet of, say, a 1776 or 1918, we will see that it was a true turning point year...