➦In 1910...The first aircraft-to-ground wireless message was transmitted. The tests were conducted at Selfridge Field, near Mount Clemens, MI and were under the direct charge of Lieutenant Paul W. Beck and representatives of the Western Wireless Equipment Company, who designed and built the apparatus for the experiments.
The maximum distance covered was 40 miles and the greatest altitude attained during the tests was 500 feet, at which time Lieutenant Beck, carried as a passenger in a Wright machine, transmitted two complete messages in the Morse code to the wireless station on the aviation field while traveling at an approximate speed of 55 miles per hour. Both messages were received at the field station as well as by other stations, one of which was over 40 miles distant, with absolute clearness and accuracy.
➦In 1960…After almost 12½ years on the air, the series "Louisiana Hayride," known as "The Cradle of the Stars," presented its last performance on radio station KWKH in Shreveport, LA. However, KWKH continued to use the Louisiana Hayride name for packaged music tours throughout the 1960s on a bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly basis, finally ending operations entirely in 1969.
In August 1974, Shreveport businessman David Kent mounted a country music show originally called Hayride U.S.A., which was retitled Louisiana Hayride in 1975 after KWKH agreed to let Kent use the name. Located at a new dinner theater facility in Bossier City, this new Louisiana Hayride was syndicated on radio and ran until 1987.
In 2009, after several years of litigation over the Louisiana Hayride name and trademark, a federal court ruled that Margaret Lewis Warwick owned the rights to the name. As of May 31, 2012, KWKH had changed to a sports format and ceased producing the classic country music format reminiscent of the Hayride era.
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| Gracie Allen |
➦In 1964...Actress Gracie Allen, co-star of radio & TV’s George Burns and Gracie Allen Show, died of a heart attack at age 69.
The Burns and Allen act began with Allen as the straight man, setting up Burns to deliver the punchlines—and get the laughs. In his book Gracie: A Love Story, Burns later explained that he noticed Allen's straight lines were getting more laughs than his punchlines, so he flipped the act over—he made himself the straight man and let her get the laughs. Audiences immediately fell in love with Allen's character, who combined the traits of naivete, zaniness, and total innocence. The reformulated team, focusing on Allen, toured the country, eventually headlining in major vaudeville houses. Many of their famous routines were preserved in one- and two-reel short films, including Lambchops (1929), made while the couple was still performing onstage.
Burns attributed all of the couple's early success to Allen, modestly ignoring his own brilliance as a straight man. He summed up their act in a classic quip: "All I had to do was say, 'Gracie, how's your brother?' and she talked for 38 years. And sometimes I didn't even have to remember to say 'Gracie, how's your brother?'"
In the early 1930s, like many stars of the era, Burns and Allen graduated to radio. The show was originally a continuation of their original "flirtation act" (as their vaudeville and short film routines had been). Burns realized that they were simply too old for that material ("Our jokes were too young for us," he later remarked) and changed the show's format in the fall of 1941 into the situation comedy vehicle for which they are best remembered: a working show business married couple negotiating ordinary problems caused by Gracie's "illogical logic," usually with the help of neighbors Harry and Blanche Morton, and their announcer, Bill Goodwin (later replaced by Harry von Zell during the run of their television series).
Gracie Allen fought a long battle with heart disease.
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| High Island as seen from Orchard Beach, Bronx County, NY |
➦In 1967...An airplane knocked down transmitting tower on High Island, NY (Bronx County) shared by WCBS 880 AM and WNBC 660 AM (now WFAN).
