On This Day: September 10

On This Day, for September 10th, by Britannica.

I’m Kurt Heintz. Today we’re looking at:

• a delicious summer drink and its eponym,
• an unprecedented Golden Slam,
• and a musical you have to see to believe.

First, a trip to the golf course.

If you’ve ever enjoyed a refreshing drink made of lemonade and iced tea, you have star golfer Arnold Palmer to thank, born this day in 1929. (Okay, that “fact” might need a little disclaimer: though Palmer popularized this combination, he was likely not the first to try it.)
Arnold Palmer was a golf legend. He was the first to win the Masters Tournament four times (in 1958, 1960, 1962, and 1964) and the first, in 1968, to win $1 million in tournament prize money. He won 92 tournaments over his career and attracted a dedicated fan base that called themselves Arnie’s Army. His books—both autobiographical and golf-focused—were highly successful, and you can even read Palmer’s writing at Britannica.com, where he wrote our entry on the Masters Tournament. He had an unorthodox swing and an aggressive approach, and it made him nothing short of a star.

Now, back to Arnold Palmer, the drink. Legend (and by “legend” I mean the Arnold Palmer website) has it that in the 1960s Palmer asked a waitress for a mixture of iced tea and lemonade. A woman nearby overheard and ordered the same, saying, “I’ll have that Arnold Palmer drink.” And so it began.

Regardless of how true that origin story is, “Arnold Palmer” did become the colloquial name for the drink long before Arnold Palmer Enterprises and AriZona Beverage Company joined forces to bottle it in 2001. Today you can buy a branded Arnold Palmer in most grocery stores, but back then you had to ask yourself: “What did Arnold Palmer order, anyway?”

After the break, we return with another sports icon, an infamous musical, and Fast Facts.

We’re back with more On This Day.

I know today’s episode may seem like a lot of sports history for those of you who aren’t so—umm—athletically inclined, but I promise this story is a necessary—and awe-inspiring—inclusion. On this day in 1988, Steffi Graf won the U.S. Open and completed the Grand Slam of tennis. She was the first woman to accomplish that feat since Margaret Court in 1970. To complete the Grand Slam, a tennis player has to win the U.S. Open, the Australian Open, the French Open, and Wimbledon in one calendar year. Graf completed all four challenges—plus she won a gold medal for the Olympic Games in Seoul, an unprecedented feat that became known as the “Golden Slam.”

Graf was known for her intensity, power, and speed on the court, and in the late 1980s through the ’90s she was one of the premier players in the world. Though she retired in 1999 after a loss at Wimbledon—the result of a series of injuries catching up with her—the tennis world did not forget her. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 2004.
Okay... That’s almost enough sports for today. Let’s move on!

I’m Emily Goldstein, and these are Fast Facts for September 10th.

John Smith became president of Jamestown colony, the first permanent English settlement in North America, on this day in 1608.

On this day in 1974, Guinea-Bissau gained independence from Portugal, establishing itself as a republic. Since then the country has experienced several coups—some of which were successful, including a military coup in 2012 that was not resolved with a democratic election until 2014.
The X-Files, a paranormal YV show with a cult following, starring Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, debuted on Fox on this day in 1993.

On this day in 1924, Leopold and Loeb were found guilty of the kidnapping and murder of 14-year-old Robert Franks, which they confessed they committed for a quote-unquote “intellectual” thrill. Rope, a play later adapted into an Alfred Hitchcock film, was inspired by the pair. More notes on Hitchcock are audible in our program for August 13th.

Austria and the Allied powers signed the Treaty of Saint-Germain, ending World War I, on this day in 1919.

American baseball player Roger Maris, who at one time held the record for most home runs in a single season, was born on this day in 1934. The number of home runs, by the way? A whopping 61. And I promise: Our last sports fact for today.

[sniffs] Did I forget to put on deodorant today? Oh no, it’s just our next anniversary—on this day in 1991, Nirvana released their hit single “Smells Like Teen Spirit”… which became a de facto anthem for the grunge generation.

And with that, let’s move to our third and final story. No sports. Felines.

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Cats closed on this day in 2000 on Broadway after 7,485 performances; it was still running in London. Cats was the longest-running show on Broadway until it was surpassed by another Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Phantom of the Opera, in 2006. Based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats, a book of poetry published by T.S. Eliot in 1939, Cats wowed and confused audiences long before the 2019 movie of the same name.

Cats first opened on Broadway in 1982 to mixed, but mostly positive, reviews. The strangeness of the plot was acknowledged. For starters, the characters were a group of cats introducing themselves before deciding which one gets to ascend to cat heaven. There were also the costumes. Generally, the actors were dressed in leotards with cat face makeup.

But the show also felt like something fresh and new. The New York Times wrote: “Whatever the other failings and excesses, even banalities, of Cats, it believes in purely theatrical magic, and on that faith it unquestionably delivers.” And from Variety: “If the musical theatre must continue its infatuation with concept shows at the expense of narratives with human dimension, it better have more like Cats.”

Cats was revived on Broadway in 2016 and adapted into a movie-musical in 2019. Directed by Tom Hooper and starring Taylor Swift, Jason Derulo, Jennifer Hudson, Judi Dench, and a bevy of other stars, the film was not as well-received as the show’s initial run—partly because the strangeness of the story was matched by the uncanny computer-generated imagery (CGI) that partly transformed the human actors into cats. Quoth the New York Times: “A doctoral thesis could be written on how this misfire sputtered into existence, though there’s nothing new about the movies’ energetic embrace of bad taste.”

Ouch. But whatever you think of Cats, it is a musical theater legend, just as much as Arnold Palmer is a golf legend or Steffi Graf is a tennis legend. And even after a disappointing movie adaptation, Cats isn’t going away.

That’s it for this episode of On This Day. Want to hear more about Arnold Palmer, Steffi Graf, or Cats? We’ve got you covered at Britannica.com. We have the balanced and researched stories.

Thanks for listening. Our program was written by Meg Matthias and edited by yours truly. For Britannica, I’m Kurt Heintz. And I’m Emily Goldstein.

This program is copyrighted by Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.