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This Day in Pop Culture

This Day in Pop Culture for April 11

Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Frank Sinatra and ‘Marty’

April 11, 2020

2–3 minutes

1976: The World Takes a Bite of Apple 1

In March of 1975, Gorden French hosted the first meeting of the Homebrew Computer Club in garage. Among the attendees was Steve Wozniak was got inspired and set out to make an early draft of what later became the Apple 1 computer which was released on this day in 1976.

After showing it to the club and giving schematics out so that they could build one themselves, Steve Jobs suggested that the two of them should design and sell silkscreen circuit boards. To do so, the cost was about $1000 plus $20 per board and the goal was to sell 50 of them for $40 each. Jobs sold his van and Wozniak sold his HP-65 calculator to fund the project.

Next, Jobs sold about 50 computers to the Byte Shop in Mountain View, CA for $500 each. The next year on this day, the Apple I went on sale with a price tag of $666.66 because Wozniak was a fan of “repeating digits.” About 200 computers were built and all but 25 of them were sold within ten months. (Image: Wikimedia)

1966: Frank Sinatra’s Records a Song He Hated

Though a favorite love song of many in the 60’s, Frank Sinatra never liked the song, “Strangers in the Night.” Written by Ivo Robić and Bert Kaempfert, the song was originally offered to Melina Mercouri. She refused to sing it because she thought the melody would go better with male vocals.

When Sinatra recorded the famous song, Glen Campebell was there playing rhythm guitar, although, he was brought on to the project at the last minute. Sinatra was used to doing his recording with only one take. He became agitated when Campbell faked his way through and made a mistake forcing Sinatra to sing it again. It is said that Sinatra shouted, “Is that guy with us or is he sleeping?”.

While Sinatra hated the song, it became a #1 hit and remained on the Billboard charts for 15 weeks. His album of the same name became his most successful. The song also won him Grammy Awards for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, Record of the Year and Best Arrangement. (Image: Wikimedia)

1955: ‘Marty’ Premieres

Directed by Delbert Mann with a screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, Ernest Borgnine starred in Marty which premiered in New York on this day. The romantic drama centered on the unlikely romance between a man with no social life and a very plain girl (Betsy Blair).

Marty won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It was also the fourth American film to win at the Cannes Film Festival and winning the Palme d’Or. Only 1945’s The Lost Weekend and 2019’s Parasite are two other films to win both awards.