On this day in 1958, music icon Prince was born. ☔️
This guitar is shaped like Prince’s famous “Love Symbol,” a glyph he created to express artistic freedom and identity. Fusing the astrological symbols for Mars and Venus, it reflects the blending of masculine and feminine elements that became central to his image and artistry.
The instrument echoes the opening lyrics of the musician’s “I Would Die 4 U” (1984): “I’m not a woman, I’m not a man / I am something that you’ll never understand.”
📣 Now open! See "Musical Bodies," the first major exhibition to explore the relationship between musical instruments and the body by bringing together over 130 instruments, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and more.
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🎸 "Symbol Guitar," Late 1990's-Early 2000's. Wood, metal, plastic. Collection of Tavis Smiley. Photo: Eileen Travell.
Hey friends. Signed off of @VelshiMSNBC today but I’m not going far. I’m taking the helm of @11thHour Mon through Friday starting June 15. Please join me there.
THE VILLAGE KICKED HIM OUT!
You may have seen Pete Hegseth's D Day speech yesterday. He also wanted to attend an international ceremony in the village of Langrune-sur-Mer.... but the town decided they didn't want Hegseth so they blocked him from coming!
FRANCE WINS!
THE VILLAGE KICKED HIM OUT!
You may have seen Pete Hegseth's D Day speech yesterday. He also wanted to attend an international ceremony in the village of Langrune-sur-Mer.... but the town decided they didn't want Hegseth so they blocked him from coming!
FRANCE WINS!
June 7, 1944. D-Day plus 1.
4,414 Allied soldiers lay dead after the longest day in history. 2,501 of them American. Bodies still washing in with the tide at Omaha.
And yet in the French town of Bayeux, 10 miles from those cliffs, British soldiers were being handed wine and flowers in the street.
The SS had fled Bayeux in the night. The French Resistance sent word to the Allies: do not bomb this town, the Germans are gone. So they weren't. At 4am, a lone British tank crept in to verify. By 1pm it was official. Bayeux was the first French city liberated from Nazi occupation. Citizens who hadn't seen a free soldier in four years ran into the streets weeping, kissing strangers, pressing bottles into soldiers' hands.
The historical irony is almost impossible to believe.
Inside Bayeux sits a 900-year-old tapestry depicting William the Conqueror, a Norman, crossing the English Channel to invade England in 1066. Now, 878 years later, the English had crossed back. And the French were screaming with joy to see them.
Here is what was simultaneously happening across Normandy:
156,000 Allied troops had crossed the Channel in a single day. The French Resistance had cut the railway network in over 500 places overnight and destroyed 52 locomotives. German reinforcements were stranded, unable to move.
Germany's most brilliant defensive commander, Erwin Rommel, was not in France. He had driven home to Germany to celebrate his wife's birthday. He had bought her a pair of shoes in Paris as a gift. He was handing them to her as the first landing craft hit the sand.
Hitler was asleep.
Not metaphorically. Literally. The Fuhrer had taken barbiturate sedatives before bed. When the invasion began at 4am, his staff received the call and stood outside his bedroom door. No one dared wake him. His two elite Panzer reserve divisions, the 12th SS Hitlerjugend and Panzer Lehr, some of the most powerful armored formations in the German army, sat completely idle waiting for a release order that could not come because the man who had to give it was unconscious.
Hitler woke at noon. Eight hours after the first boots touched the sand.
He released the Panzers at 4pm. But Allied fighter-bombers owned the sky by then. The armored columns could not move in daylight without being destroyed from above. They waited for dark, burning eight more hours.
The only serious German armored counterattack on June 6 came from the 21st Panzer Division, which drove all the way to the coast, splitting the gap between Sword and Juno beaches, almost cutting the entire Allied beachhead in two. Then they looked up. 248 British gliders were passing overhead, landing troops directly behind German lines. They turned around and withdrew.
By nightfall on June 7, the beachhead was 50 miles wide and the Allies were not going anywhere.
In Bayeux, the wine was still flowing.
The most consequential military operation in human history nearly collapsed because one general forgot to buy flowers in time, and the other one could not be woken up.
Always weird to me that conservatives act like he’s the toughest man in America when literally a follow up question is enough to make him turn completely beet red and crash out
FYI: Social Security has been funded by American workers for 90 years.
Every paycheck.
Every job.
Every decade.
Congress has borrowed $2.9 trillion from the Trust Fund.
None of them asked permission.
You saved it.
They spent it.
Now they’re asking you to accept less.
Source: Social Security Administration / Congressional Budget Office
During Barack Obama's historic 2009 presidential inauguration, Denzel Washington was one of the first people to arrive & waited hours to see history
June 7, 1945: Judy Garland had two films in circulation, "Meet Me In St. Louis" and "The Clock." Both were hits, with "Meet Me In St. Louis" being the mega-hit. Here is an excellent review from The Philadelphia Enquirer, written by Mildred Martin.
#judygarland#thejudyroom
Voting results from #BurtBacharachSongs Tournament Championship as of 2:38 pm EDT!
"I Say a Little Prayer" has moved padded its lead--but it's only 42 votes & there is plenty of time left.
If you haven't voted yet, here's the link to the online ballot: https://t.co/nK6OpN9uQh
That giant 20,000 acre building over there takes all your fresh water, pollutes the air, raises local temperatures, makes annoying noises all day long, increases your utility bills and provides a whole 14 jobs. That building’s only job is spying on you.