TODAY IN HISTORY

 

Elvis Presley makes first appearance on “The Ed Sullivan Show”

The King of Rock and Roll teams up with TV’s reigning variety program, as Elvis Presley appears on “The Ed Sullivan Show” for the first time on September 9, 1956.

After earning big ratings for “The Steve Allen Show,” the Dorsey Brothers “Stage Show” and “The Milton Berle Show,” Sullivan finally reneged on his Presley ban, signing the controversial singing star to an unprecedented $50,000 contract for three appearances.

With 60 million viewers—or 82.6 percent of TV viewers at the time—tuning in, the appearance garnered the show’s best ratings in two years and became the most-watched TV broadcast of the 1950s.

Although “The Ed Sullivan Show” was filmed in New York, Presley performed remotely from CBS’s Los Angeles studio (he was filming his first movie, “Love Me Tender,” in California). At the time, his first album, “Elvis Presley” had already debuted and “Heartbreak Hotel” was a hit single, but he wasn’t quite yet “The King.”

On the variety show, Presley, then 21, was introduced by British actor Charles Laughton, who was filling in for Sullivan that night, as the legendary host was at home recovering from a serious car accident. Presley performed “Don’t Be Cruel,” Little Richard’s “Ready Teddy” and “Hound Dog” and viewers got a full head-to-toe look at the singer despite fears of “vulgar” hip-shaking gyrations. He also sang “Love Me Tender” and, according to Variety, “For the first time in the history of the record business, a single record has achieved one million sales before being released to the public.”

Presley, clad in a plaid jacket, told the audience performing on the show was “probably the greatest honor I have ever had in my life,” before kicking things off with “Don’t Be Cruel.” He said, “Thank you, ladies,” to the screaming fans and then introduced “Love Me Tender” as “completely different from anything we’ve ever done.”

During his second segment, Presley sang “Ready Teddy” and “Hound Dog.” Laughton’s closing remarks that night? “Well, what did someone say? Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast?”

“When it was over, parents and critics, as usual, did a lot of futile grumbling at the vulgarity of this strange phenomenon that must somehow be reckoned with,” a reviewer for Time magazine wrote at the time.

Other guests that night included singers Dorothy Sarnoff and Amru Sani, a comedy act from novelty quartet The Vagabonds, a tap dancing duo and an acrobat act.

During his second performance on October 28, 1956, Presley once again performed “Don’t Be Cruel” and “Hound Dog” along with “Love Me Tender.” And during his third and final performance on “The Ed Sullivan Show” on January 6, 1957, he sang seven songs, including the gospel song “Peace in the Valley,” over three segments, but the episode is most famously remembered for TV censors refusing to show Elvis below the waist.

At the end of his performance, however, Sullivan called Presley “a real decent, fine boy. … We’ve never had a pleasanter experience on our show with a big name than we’ve had with you.” 

SPORTS

2007

NFL nabs New England Patriots in "Spygate" scandal

On September 9, 2007, the NFL catches the New England Patriots illegally videotaping coaching signals of the New York Jets from an unauthorized location in a Week 1 game in East Rutherford, N.J.—a scandal the media soon dubs "Spygate."  

AMERICAN REVOLUTION

1776

Congress renames the nation “United States of America”

On September 9, 1776, the Continental Congress formally declares the name of the new nation to be the “United States” of America. This replaced the term “United Colonies,” which had been in general use. In the Congressional declaration dated September 9, 1776, the delegates wrote, “That in all continental commissions, and other instruments, where, heretofore, the words ‘United Colonies’ have been used, the stile be altered for the future to the “United States.”

CRIME

1971

Uprising at Attica prison begins

Prisoners seize control of the maximum-security Attica Correctional Facility near Buffalo, New York beginning on September 9, 1971. Later that day, state police retook most of the prison, but 1,281 convicts occupied an exercise field called D Yard, where they held 39 prison guards and employees hostage for four days. After negotiations stalled, state police and prison officers launched a disastrous raid on September 13, in which 10 hostages and 29 inmates were killed in an indiscriminate hail of gunfire. Eighty-nine others were seriously injured.

U.S. PRESIDENTS

1893

President Cleveland’s child is born in the White House

Frances Folsom Cleveland, the wife of President Grover Cleveland, gives birth to a daughter, Esther, in the White House. On June 2, 1886, in an intimate ceremony held in the Blue Room of the White House, President Grover Cleveland married Frances Folsom, the daughter of Cleveland’s late law partner and friend, Oscar Folsom. Fewer than 40 people were present to witness the 49-year-old president exchange vows with Frances, who at 21 years of age became the youngest first lady in U.S. history.

WORLD WAR II

1942

Japanese bomb U.S. mainland

On September 9, 1942, a Japanese floatplane drops incendiary bombs on an Oregon state forest—the first air attack on the U.S. mainland in the war. Launching from the Japanese sub I-25, Nobuo Fujita piloted his light aircraft over the state of Oregon and firebombed Mount Emily, alighting a state forest. The president immediately called for a news blackout for the sake of morale. No long-term damage was done, and Fujita eventually went home to train navy pilots for the rest of the war.

VIETNAM WAR

1969

Ho Chi Minh buried in Hanoi

Funeral services, attended by 250,000 mourners, are held for Ho Chi Minh in Hanoi’s Ba Dinh Square. Among those in attendance were Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin, Chinese Vice-Premier Li Hsien-nien and Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia. Ho had established the Indochinese Communist Party in 1929. In September 1945, as the defeated Japanese prepared to leave Vietnam, Ho declared Vietnamese independence from French colonial rule and announced the formation of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The French, attempting to reimpose colonial rule, soon clashed with Ho and his Viet Minh forces.

VIETNAM WAR

1967

Sergeant Duane D. Hackney receives Air Force Cross

Sergeant Duane D. Hackney is presented with the Air Force Cross for bravery in rescuing an Air Force pilot in Vietnam. He was the first living Air Force enlisted man to receive the award, the nation’s second highest award for bravery in action. 

19TH CENTURY

1850

California becomes the 31st state in record time

Though it had only been a part of the United States for less than two years, California becomes the 31st state in the union (without ever even having been a territory) on September 9, 1850. When California (Briefly) Became Its Own Nation Mexico had reluctantly ceded California and much of its northern territory to the United States in the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. When the Mexican diplomats signed the treaty, they pictured California as a region of sleepy mission towns with a tiny population of about 7,300-not a devastating loss to the Mexican empire. Their regret might have been much sharper had they known that gold had been discovered at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, nine days before they signed the peace treaty. Suddenly, the greatest gold rush in history was on, and “forty-niners” began flooding into California chasing after the fist-sized gold nuggets rumored to be strewn about the ground just waiting to be picked up. California’s population and wealth skyrocketed.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1910

Alice B. Toklas moves in permanently with Gertrude Stein

On September 9, 1910, Alice B. Toklas becomes the lifetime house mate of avant-garde writer Gertrude Stein. Stein, who shared a house with her brother Leo for many years, met Toklas in 1907. Toklas began staying with Stein and Leo in Paris in 1909, then moved in permanently in in 1910. Stein’s brother Leo moved out in 1914. Toklas’ love and support of Stein was so important that when Stein wrote her autobiography in 1933, she titled it The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, adopting Toklas’ persona as the narrator of her own memoirs.

ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY

1939

Audiences are shown a surprise preview of "Gone with the Wind"

Audiences at the Fox Theater in Riverside, California, get a surprise showing of Gone with the Wind, which the theater manager shows as a second feature. Producer David O. Selznick sat in the back and observed the audience reaction to his highly anticipated—and highly controversial—film. The movie was released a few months later.

CRIME

1919

The Boston police department goes on strike

The infamous Boston Police Strike of 1919 begins, causing an uproar around the nation and confirming the growing influence of unions on American life.  As society changed in the 20th century, police were expected to act more professionally. Some of their previous practices were no longer countenanced. Explanations such as that later given by the Dallas chief of police in defense of their unorthodox tactics—“Illegality is necessary to preserve legality"—was no longer acceptable to the public. Police forces were brought within the civil service framework and even received training for the first time. Soon, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) began to create local police unions.

COLD WAR

1976

Mao Zedong dies

Mao Zedong, who led the Chinese people through a long revolution and then ruled the nation’s communist government from its establishment in 1949, dies. Along with V.I. Lenin and Joseph Stalin, Mao was one of the most significant communist figures of the Cold War. Mao was born in China in 1893. During the 1910s, he joined the nationalist movement against the decadent and ineffective royal government of China and the foreigners who used it to exploit China. By the 1920s, however, Mao began to lose faith in the leaders of the nationalist movement. He came to believe that only a revolutionary change of Chinese society could bring freedom from Western domination and subjugation. In 1921, he became one of the founding members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mao’s early years as a communist were not easy. He was constantly in danger of arrest and execution by Chinese government forces. More importantly, he often split with his communist colleagues, many of whom favored slavishly copying the Bolshevik Revolution that brought communism to power in Russia. Mao insisted that revolution in China would come from the country peasants, not the urban workers.