From our archives,
100 years ago
Here’s how people in Spokane were being entertained, 1916-style, as reported in a series of reviews of the weekend’s vaudeville shows:
Angelo Arminta and Brothers earned a half-dozen curtain calls with their “clean athletics” act, in which they performed tumbling and hand-balancing tricks. “The spectator is perplexed to detect head from feet in the revolving forms,” a reviewer said.
Yates and Wheeler, singers and dancers, “won instant favor.” A reviewer said “their burlesque and straight female impersonation” acts were especially popular.
The Dairy Maids, a troupe of singing girls, along with a few male musicians, made quite a sensation. The big attraction was a canary, which sang “an obbligato to the strains of a violin in the hands of a young man artist.” This bird imitated the songs of other birds when prompted by the violin and “its singing was in perfect time to the violin numbers.” The little bird won some hearty encores.
This was not the only canary on stage in Spokane. At the Hippodrome, a magician named The Great Lazern performed a trick in which he inserted a canary into an electric light bulb globe. He also inserted a rat into a bottle.
Also on this date
(From the Associated Press)
1958: The U.S. entered the Space Age with its launch of a satellite, Explorer I.
