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The following article is from the book Uncle John’s Heavy Duty Bathroom Reader.
More than 30 years after his death, the Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, is still remembered as one of the best in rock history. And as more than one hotel chain learned to their regret, that wasn’t all he was known for.
MY GENERATION
In the summer of 1967, the British rock group the Who embarked on their first concert tour of the United States. They were the opening act for Herman’s Hermits, best known for their hit single, “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter.” The Who had played dates in the U.S. before, including their breakthrough appearance at the Monterrey International Pop Festival just a few weeks earlier in June. But this was the band’s first cross-country tour, and there was still much about America that was new and unfamiliar to them. (Image credit: Wikipedia user MachoCarioca)
Take American fireworks, for example: In many Southern states, giant firecrackers much more powerful than the “penny bangers” sold in England were perfectly legal. They could be bought cheaply and in large quantities all over the South. The Hermits had discovered them on their first American tour in 1965, and now, on a swing through Alabama, they introduced Keith Moon, the Who’s 20-year-old drummer, to his first bag of American fireworks -cherry bombs.
Cherry bombs are still sold today, but in the 1960s they contained as much as 20 times the explosive power they do now -more than enough to maim or blind anyone who was holding them when they went off, or who happened to be standing too close. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission banned original-strength cherry bombs in 1966m but judging from the reign of terror on which Keith Moon was about to embark, they must have still been available.
more …
On October 26th, 1977, a hospital cook in Somalia named Ali Maow Maalin was diagnosed with smallpox. What makes this so remarkable is that no naturally-occurring cases of smallpox have been diagnosed in the 32 years since.
The global eradication of smallpox was certified, based on intense verification activities in countries, by a commission of eminent scientists on 9 December 1979 and subsequently endorsed by the World Health Assembly on 8 May 1980[10][48] as Resolution WHA33.3. The first two sentences of the resolution read: “Having considered the development and results of the global program on smallpox eradication initiated by WHO in 1958 and intensified since 1967 … Declares solemnly that the world and its peoples have won freedom from smallpox, which was a most devastating disease sweeping in epidemic form through many countries since earliest time, leaving death, blindness and disfigurement in its wake and which only a decade ago was rampant in Africa, Asia and South America.”[49]
Smallpox once killed millions of people every year, and may have been responsible for up to 500 million deaths in the 20th century. National vaccination programs began in the early 1800s, but it was a global push by the World Health Organization begun in 1958 that finally led to the eradication of the disease worldwide. Link -via Bad Astronomy Blog
(image credit: CDC)
