Friday, October 30, 1964: Buffalo wings

Buffalo chicken wings are divided into two pieces (the wingtips discarded), then fried and coated with a mild, oil-based hot sauce; and served with blue cheese dressing and celery sticks. They were invented by Teressa Bellissimo October 30, 1964, at the Anchor Bar in Buffalo, New York ... No food origin story is ever simple, and even this recent and well-recorded event has three versions: 1. The wings were a spontaneous snack for Bellissimo's son Frank and friends; 2. The wings were a Friday-midnight inspiration for Catholic customers who had not had meat all day; 3. The wings had been delivered in error instead of necks and backs for spaghetti sauce or stock, and were salvaged as appetizers.

     -- From "The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink" (2007)

     -- Image from Anchor Bar menu

* Anchor Bar website: @

* Entry from "Atlas of Popular Culture in the Northeastern United States" (click on "Buffalo Wings"): @

* Entry from "The Story Behind the Dish: Classic American Foods" (Mark McWilliams, 2002): @

* Entry from "Frommer's 500 Places for Food and Wine Lovers" (Holly Hughes, 2009): @

* "An Attempt to Compile a Short History of the Buffalo Chicken Wing" (Calvin Trillin, The New Yorker, August 1980): @ 

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Wednesday-Thursday, October 28-29, 1964: 'T.A.M.I. Show'

Filmed over two days at the Santa Monica (Calif.) Civic Auditorium, "The T.A.M.I. Show" (short for  Teenage Awards Music International or Teen Age Music International) featured some of the biggest stars in rock and pop music, including The Rolling Stones, James Brown and the Flames, The Supremes, The Beach Boys and Lesley Gore. It was released in theaters in December 1964.

* Movie trailer: @

* Summary from New York Times: @

* "14 Things You Didn't Know About Epic Rock Doc The T.A.M.I. Show" (Esquire magazine, 2014): @

* "The Rock Concert That Captured an Era" (Smithsonian magazine, 2010): @

* "The T.A.M.I. Show: A Groundbreaking '60s Concert" (NPR, 2010): @

* "DVD Review: The T.A.M.I. Show" (PopDose, 2010): @

* "The TAMI Show Remembered on Its 40th Anniversary" (Stephen Rosen, Indiewire, 2004): @

* "TAMI, Electronovision's Latest, Gets N.Y. Showing" (Billboard magazine, November 21, 1964): @

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Tuesday, October 27, 1964: 'A Time for Choosing'

On October 27, 1964, future president Ronald Reagan delivered a 30-minute television campaign speech for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. Later titled the "A Time for Choosing" speech, it raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Goldwater campaign and helped launch Reagan's political career.

     -- Summary by C-SPAN

Note: The speech, televised by NBC, had been taped a week earlier and was more a reflection of Reagan's own political views than it was an explicit endorsement of Goldwater. Estimates of how much money it raised vary widely, with some saying it ran into the millions.

* Watch the speech (video from Reagan Foundation): @

* Transcript (American Rhetoric): @

* "Why Ronald Reagan's 'A Time for Choosing' endures after all this time" (Stephen F. Hayward, for The Washingon Post, October 2013): @

* "Ronald Reagan and 'A Time for Choosing' " (Los Angeles Times, February 2011): @

* "The Myth of Reagan's GOP convention speech in 1964" (National Constitution Center): @

* Excerpt from "The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan's First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics" (Matthew Dallek, 2000): @

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Thursday, October 22, 1964: 'Choice'

Supporters of Senator Barry Goldwater have produced a television film featuring semi-nude dancing girls, pornographyic magazine covers, street riots and a girl in a topless swim suit to show the "moral decay" of the nation since President Johnson took office. The film called Choice was reported to be the idea of Mothers for Moral America, a group backing the Republican Presidential candidate in the election campaign. ... The film will be shown jointly by the Mothers for Moral American and Citizens for Goldwater-Miller to the press at the national press club today. It is also due to be shown over a national television network today. (Full story: @)

     Note: "Choice" never aired. Goldwater himself repudiated the film once he saw it. 

     

-- Photo of newspaper clipping from CONELRAD (link below)

* Watch the film (video posted by CONELRAD): @

* "Goldwater Rejects Supporters' Film as 'Nothing but Racist' " (The Milwaukee Journal, October 22): @

* " 'Choice' (1964): The Scrapook" (CONELRAD; includes links to related entries): @

* "Barry Goldwater's Mothers for Moral America" (CONELRAD): @

* "The First Days of the Loaded Political Image" (New York Times, September 1996): @

* Excerpt from "Packaging the Presidency: A History and Criticism of Presidential Campaign Advertising" (Kathleen Hall Jamieson, 1996; begins on page 212): @

* Excerpt from "A Glorious Disaster: Barry Goldwater's Presidential Campaign and the Origins of the Conservative Movement" (J. William Middendorf II): @

* Excerpt from "Mothers of Conservatism: Women and the Postwar Right" (Michelle M. Nickerson, 2012): @

* Excerpt from "Barry Goldwater and the Remaking of American Political Landscape" (2013): @ 

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Friday, October 16, 1964: China's first nuclear test

Communist China joined the world's atomic powers today with an announcement it has exploded its first bomb in the western region of China. The announcement, coming less than 24 hours after the ouster of Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, was sure to raise China's Mao Tse-Tung's stature among world Communist leaders. The official New China news agency statement said only: "China exploded an atom bomb at 1500 hours on Oct. 16, 1964, and thereby conducted successfully its first nuclear test."

     -- Associated Press (full story: @)

* Story from New York Times: @

* Summary from CTBTO Preparatory Commission: @

* Summary from Federation of American Scientists: @

* Summary from Nuclear Threat Initiative: @

* Summary and links from The National Security Archive: @ 

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Thursday, October 15, 1964: Khrushchev ousted

The Nikita Khrushchev era, embracing ten years of cold war and coexistence, has ended with his retirement as premier and top man in the Soviet Communist Party "in view of his advanced age and deterioration of his health."

     His protege, Leonid Brezhnev, at 57 Khrushchev's junior by 13 years, has taken over the key party post. Alexei Kosygin, the man Khrushchev trusted to run the government during his frequent absences abroad, has become premier. Khrushchev's jobs are this divided, as they used to be.

   In the last two days Khrushchev has disappeared from public view. A picture of him mounted near the Kremlin was taken down last night. Three hours later, at midnight, came the official announcement of the charges ... Tass said the changes were decided upon Wednesday and Thursday.

     -- Associated Press (full story: @)

     -- 1963 photo of Khrushchev and Brezhnev from Corbis Images

* Miami News, October 15: @

* Miami News, October 16: @

* New York Times, October 16: @ 

* Life magazine, October 23 (coverage starts on page 30): @ 

* "Khrushchev Resigns" (newsreel; from Critical Past): @ 

* Summary from BBC: @ 

* Entry from "Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States" (M. Wesley Shoemaker, 2012): @ * "Khrushchev's Downfall and Its Consequences" (FRUS, 1964-1968, Volume XIV, Soviet Union): @ 

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October 1964: 'If I Were the Devil'

Radio/newspaper commentator Paul Harvey's famous column appears in newspapers throughout the United States. Harvey describes what actions Satan would take to reign over civilization, at the end revealing that all the events are already taking place.
     Note: The column's earliest appearance in a newspaper is October 1964, but the book "Good Day!" (linked below) dates the piece to 1960. Harvey also read the piece as part of his radio broadcast.

* 1964 column: @

* 1996 version: @

* Entry from snopes.com: @

* Harvey biography from Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture: @

* Harvey biography from Radio Hall of Fame: @

* "Good Day!: The Paul Harvey Story" (Paul J. Batura, 2009): @ 

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October 1964: Moog synthesizer

Robert A. Moog and Herbert A. Deutsch introduce and demonstrate their music synthesizer at the convention of the Audio Engineering Society (October 12-16, New York).
   

-- Photo from Henry Ford Museum. Caption: "This Moog synthesizer is one of two prototypes built by Robert Moog from July-September 1964, with additional modules added in 1964 and 1964. One was taken to Toronto University in 1965, while this one was kept by the inventor and his colleague, Herbert Deutsch. It was used in live public performance for the first time in a concert at Town Hall in New York City on September 25, 1965." (The instrument was donated to the museum in 1982.)

* "Voltage-Controlled Electronic Music Modules" (Journal of Audio Engineering Society, July 1965; paper presented October 14, 1964 at AES convention): @

* Bob Moog Foundation: @

* Moog Archives: @ 
* FAQ on Moog Archive donation (Cornell University Library): @

* Moog Music Inc.: @

* Interview with Moog (March 1997): @

* "The Moog's First Decade: 1965-1975" (Deutsch, 1981): @

* Deutsch faculty profile (Hofstra University): @
* "The Man Who Switched On Bach" (New Scientist, December 1982): @

* "Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the Moog Synthesizer" (Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, 2002): @

* "Electronic and Experimental Music" (Thom Holmes, 2002): @

* "The First Moog Synthesizer Recordings" (Holmes, 2013): @

* "The Zodiac: Cosmic Sounds" (album, 1967): @
* "The Synthesizer" (Mark Vail, 2014): @ 

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Thursday, October 1, 1964: Bullet train

TOKYO -- Japan's new electric "Dream Train" rolled out of Tokyo station this morning on its 347-mile maiden trip to Osaka. The train has a top speed of 125 mph. Japanese rail officials planned the fast service to start in time for the Olympic games opening here Oct. 10. (United Press International)

-- Photo from Kyodo News Service. Caption: A superexpress Hikari train passes by (Tokyo's) Nichigeki Theatre in Yurakucho district on Dec. 21, 1964. Tokaido Shinkansen line was inaugurated on Oct. 1 just before Tokyo and Shin-Osaka in four hours and emerging as the world's first high-speed rail for mass transport.

* "Japan's Bullet Train, the World's First (and Still Best) High-Speed Rail Network, Turns 50" (Next City): @

* "Japan's Shinkansen: Revolutionary design at 50" (BBC): @

* "Fifty Years Ago and Today, Japan Blazes Trails with Trains": @

* "About the Shinkansen" (Central Japan Railway Company): @

* Episode of "Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections" (2011): @
* "High Speed Rail in Japan: A Review and Evaluation of the Shinkansen Train" (University of California Transportation Center, 1992): @ 

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