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April 21, 2021 9 mins

On this day in 1966, members of the gay rights organization the Mattachine Society staged a "sip-in" to protest gay people being refused service at bars. / On this day in 1934, the Daily Mail published a photo of what was allegedly the Loch Ness Monster.

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, y'all, Eve's here. We're doubling up today with two
events in history. On with the show. Hi, I'm Eves,
and welcome to this Day in History Class, a show
that uncovers a little bit more about history every day.

(00:22):
The day was a one nineteen sixty six, four men
from the Madison Society, one of the earliest gay rights
groups in the United States, stage a so called sip
in at Julius's, a tavern in New York City. At
the time, gay people were discriminated against in bars. There

(00:42):
was not an outright law that prohibited bars from serving
gay folks, but the New York State Liquor Authority did
require bars to only serve people who had orderly conduct,
so bar staff would often deem same sex displays of
affection disorderly and refuse gay people service. If a are
did serve gay people, it faced the threat of having

(01:03):
its liquor license revoked and being raided by police. So
to protest this discrimination, member of the Madison Society New
York Chapter Dick Leitch, decided to stage a sif in
inspired by the sit ins of the Civil Rights movement.
His fellow Madison Society members Craig Rodwell and John Timmins
joined him and the demonstration. The plan was for them

(01:25):
to go to a bar and tell the bartender that
they were gay, and if the bartender refused them service,
then they would sue the bar and the liquor authority.
So the men invited four newspaper reporters to cover the
sip in, and just after noon on April nineteen sixty six,
they met with the reporters at the Ukrainian American Village Hall,

(01:46):
the bar they planned on starting at that proudly displayed
a sign saying if you're gay, please stay away, but
the bar shut down after they realized reporters were hanging
around for a gay rights demonstration, so the men moved
the party across the street to a club called The Dom,
which also was closed. Finally, they got to a bar

(02:08):
called Howard Johnson's and set in a corner booth. They
handed the waitress and note that set the following, we
are homosexuals. We believe that a place of public accommodation
has an obligation to serve an orderly person, and that
we are entitled to service so long as we are orderly.
But they didn't get the response they were hoping for.

(02:28):
Not only did the guys get their drinks, they got
them on the house. They moved on to a tiki
bar owned by the mafia called Waikiki, where they were
also served without question. So they decided to go to Julius's,
which was a gay bar, but had been raided just
days before, so it was under the threat of having
its liquor license taken away. Madison Society member Randy Wicker

(02:52):
joined them at the bar. Sure enough, the bartender at
Julius's refused them service after they announced they were gay.
The New York Times issued an article called three deviats
and by exclusion by bars the next day. Two weeks later,
the Village Voice ran a story on the event, since
the Sippen got some coverage. Donald S. Hosteader, the chairman

(03:14):
of the State Liquor Authority, responded by saying that s
l A never threatened to revoke the liquor licenses of
bars that served gay people, and that the discretion to
serve was left up to the bartenders. But soon the
Commission on Human Rights stepped in, saying that it had
jurisdiction over the matter and that gay people have the
right to be served in bars. The Madison Society went

(03:38):
on to sue bars that refused gay people service in
New Jersey, which led to a state Supreme Court case
ruling declaring quote well behaved homosexuals could not be denied service.
In nineteen sixty seven, New York state courts struck down
the idea that gay people were inherently disorderly. The liquor
authority could no longer use that as a reason to

(04:00):
evoke licenses, and in the years after the ruling, more
licensed gay bars popped up. But even though gay folks
could now be served alcohol at bars same sex displays
of affection, we're still outlawed, and police continue to harass
and raid gay bars. Three years after the stip, in
arrayed at a gay bar in Greenwich Village called the

(04:22):
Stone Wall End led to an uprising pivotal and the
l g B t Q rights movement. I'm Eve step
Cote and hopefully you know a little more about history
today than you did yesterday. And if you'd like to
follow us on social media, you can find us at
T d i h C Podcast on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

(04:45):
Thanks for showing up. We'll meet here again tomorrow. Hey everyone,
I'm a and welcome to This Day in History Class,
a podcast that proves history happens every day. The day

(05:16):
was a nineteen thirty four the Daily Mail printed a
photo of what was said to be the Lockness Monster.
The image, known as the Surgeon's Photograph, is widely believed
to be a hoax. Lockness is a lake in Scotland.
The myth of the crypto known as the Lockness Monster
may have its origins all the way back in the

(05:38):
first century CE. The Picks people's who lived in Scotland
many centuries ago, carved an image of a beast with
an elongated beak, and Scottish folklore does contain stories about
mythical water creatures, such as the Kelpie, which is a
shape shifting water spirit. Stories around mythical creatures inhabiting Lockness specifically,

(05:59):
we're also documented hundreds of years ago. According to a
biography about St. Columba, the Saint encountered a beast in
the River Nests. The River Nest is a river at
the northern end of Lockness. There were several other references
to large mysterious creatures in Lockness documented before the twentieth century,
but the modern legend of the Lockness Monster began to

(06:21):
form in the nineteen thirties. In April of nineteen thirty three,
Aldi and John McKay were driving home when they reportedly
saw a huge animal in lock nest On May sewond.
The Inverness Courier published a story on the sighting. The
story was written by a reporter named Alex Campbell and
its headline was strange spectacle on Lockness What was It?

(06:43):
In the article, Campbell reported that the creature's body resembled
a whales. After quote rolling and plunging for fully a minute,
the creature quote disappeared in a boiling mass of foam.
Campbell's story was embellished later the mackay's clarified their siding.
Aldi saw an object of some sort, but John only
saw splashing, and Aldi saw two dark humps, not one

(07:08):
body that resembled a whale. After the story was published,
interest in the legend of the Luckness Monster grew. Some
people were skeptical of the existence of a monster, while
others reported more sightings of the beast. London newspapers sent
correspondence to Scotland. A circus offered a reward for capturing
the monster, and some people claimed seeing the creature on land.

(07:31):
The Daily Mail even hired big game hunter Marmaduke Weatherall
to find the monster. He reported finding the footprints of
a large animal, but plaster casts of the footprints were
sent to the Natural History Museum in London for analysis.
The museum determined that the footprints had been made with
a stuffed hippo foot that may have been the base
of an umbrella stand or ash tray, but eyewitness accounts

(07:53):
continued to pop up. In four it was alleged that
English physician Robert Kenneth Wilson photograph after the creature. The
photo was published in The Daily Mail on April ninety four.
The blurry image appeared to show a creature with a
long neck, small head and back emerging from the waters
of Lochness. Over the years, skeptics dismissed the object in

(08:16):
the image as driftwood or an elephant. Others challenged the
scale of the object in the photo, which is often
presented cropped. Others believe that it is a hoax that
was part of an elaborate revenge plot by Marmaduke Weatherall,
but there were also people who believed the photo was
of some unidentified creature. Some have suggested that Nessie, as

(08:36):
the monster is known, is a police star that survived extinction.
Many people have flocked to Lockness to investigate the myth
or in the hopes of getting a glimpse of the monster.
Researchers have even used camera surveillance and sonar to explore Lockness.
There's no conclusive evidence that proves the Lockness Monster exists,

(08:56):
but the legend persists. I'm each of code and hopefully
you know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. And if you have any comments or if
you have any suggestions for the show, you can send
them to us via social media. We're at t d
I HC Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. You can
also send us an email at this Day at iHeartMedia

(09:20):
dot com. Thanks again for listening to the show and
we'll see you tomorrow. M For more podcasts from I
Heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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