On this Day in History

[latecomer91364]

On Sunday, February 9, 1964 an estimated 73 million Americans watched as the Beatles made their live U.S. television debut on The Ed Sullivan Show when Sullivan gave his now-famous intro, “Ladies and gentlemen…the Beatles!” and after a few seconds of rapturous cheering from the audience, the band kicked into “All My Lovin’.”

The first audience-reaction shot of the performance shows a teenage girl beaming and possibly hyperventilating. Two minutes later, Paul is singing another pretty, mid-tempo number: “Til There Was You,” from the Broadway musical Music Man.

And then came “She Loves You,” and the place seems to explode. What followed was perhaps the most important two minutes and 16 seconds of music ever broadcast on American television—a sequence that still sends chills down the spine almost half a century later.

The group returned later in the program to perform "I Saw Her Standing There" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand".

 

[mstrman]

February 9, 1942: America Adopts ‘War Time’ To Save Key Resource​

On February 9, 1942, the United States did something that would have seemed mildly absurd just a few years earlier: it reset the nation’s clocks—permanently, at least for the duration of the war. With the country barely two months removed from Pearl Harbor, Congress and the Roosevelt administration reinstated year-round daylight saving time, officially rechristened “War Time,” as part of a broader effort to conserve energy and discipline civilian life for total war.

The logic was simple, if not universally beloved. By pushing clocks one hour ahead year-round, Americans would make greater use of daylight in the evening, reducing the demand for artificial lighting and electricity at a moment when coal, oil, and power generation were being diverted toward factories, shipyards, and military installations. The measure echoed a similar experiment during World War I, when daylight saving time had first been adopted nationally in 1918, only to be repealed soon after the armistice.

In 1942, however, the stakes were higher—and the tone far more serious. The United States was mobilizing on a scale never before attempted. Industrial output was exploding, cities were dimming streetlights to guard against potential air raids, and ordinary Americans were being told—sometimes politely, sometimes bluntly—that comfort was a luxury the nation could no longer afford. “War Time” fit neatly into a culture of ration books, scrap drives, victory gardens, and exhortations to “do your part.”

The federal mandate, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, took effect nationwide at 2:00 a.m. on February 9. For the first time, all clocks in the continental United States ran on daylight saving time continuously, eliminating the seasonal shift back to standard time in the fall. The country would remain on War Time until September 1945, several weeks after Japan’s formal surrender.

Supporters framed the policy as both practical and patriotic. Longer daylight hours in the evening, they argued, reduced household energy use and improved morale by giving workers a sliver of sunlight after long factory shifts. Defense plants running around the clock could better coordinate shift changes. Retailers benefited from brighter shopping hours, and transit systems found scheduling marginally simpler without seasonal clock changes.

But War Time also disrupted daily life in ways that fell unevenly across the country. In northern states, winter mornings became profoundly dark. Schoolchildren waited for buses before sunrise; farmers complained that the clock no longer matched the rhythms of livestock or crops. In some rural areas, resistance was quiet but persistent, with communities informally keeping “sun time” despite the law.

Still, open opposition remained limited during the war years. With hundreds of thousands of Americans dying overseas, arguing about sunrise felt faintly unseemly. Newspapers generally treated War Time as an inconvenience worth enduring, another reminder that civilian routines were now subordinate to military necessity. Even critics tended to frame their objections in practical terms rather than ideological ones.

The end of the war, however, reopened the debate almost immediately. Once the emergency passed, the rationale for year-round daylight saving time weakened, and public patience evaporated. In September 1945, the federal mandate expired, returning the country to a confusing patchwork of local time observances. Some cities kept daylight saving time; others abandoned it. The result—later dubbed the era of “chaos time”—persisted until Congress imposed new national standards in 1966.

 

[latecomer91364]

On February 10, 1943, mother of two Vesta Stoudt, a factory worker packing WWII munitions, wrote to FDR outlining—with drawings—her idea to replace weak paper packing tape, which often broke during handling, with a tougher waterproof cloth version. Impressed, FDR pushed her idea into production.

That was the creation of duct tape.

 

[mstrman]

1942 Glenn Miller and his Orchestra are awarded the first-ever gold record for selling 1 million copies of "Chattanooga Choo Choo"

"Chattanooga Choo Choo" is a 1941 song that was written by Mack Gordon and composed by Harry Warren. It was originally recorded as a big band/swing tune by Glenn Miller and His Orchestra and featured in the 1941 movie Sun Valley Serenade. It was the first song to receive a gold record, presented by RCA Victor in 1942, for sales of 1.2 million copies.

The song was an extended production number in the 20th Century Fox 1941 film Sun Valley Serenade. The Glenn Miller recording, catalogued RCA Bluebird B-11230-B, became the No. 1 song across the United States on December 7, 1941, and remained at No. 1 for nine weeks on the Billboard Best Sellers chart. The B-side of the single was "I Know Why (And So Do You)", which at first was the A-side.

The song opens up with the band, sounding like a train rolling out of the station, complete with the trumpets and trombones imitating a train whistle, before the instrumental portion comes in playing two parts of the main melody. This is followed by the vocal introduction of four lines before the main part of the song is heard.

The main song opens with a dialog between a passenger and a shoeshine boy:

"Pardon me, boy, is that the Chattanooga Choo Choo?"
"Yes, yes, Track 29!"
"Boy, you can give me a shine."
"Can you afford to board the Chattanooga Choo Choo?"
"I've got my fare, and just a trifle to spare."