Old Radio

 February 6, 1943: Vocalist Frank Sinatra was heard singing for the first time on the radio program Your Hit Parade . He began the show four months after parting with The Tommy Dorsey Band. He was often dubbed as,"...the biggest name in the business." Frank Sinatra was not only known as a good singer but also a controversial one. One of these controversies involved Sinatra’s decision to go solo, which ended his membership in Tommy Dorsey's band. The infamous decision stemmed from the contract that entitled Dorsey to a third of Sinatra’s earnings. In 1943, the same year he was hired in  Your Hit Parade , Sinatra was fired from the program for messing up "Don’t Fence Me In," the number one song at the time. He was later rehired and stayed on the program with Doris Day as his co-star.

  February 5, 1940:  Amanda of Honeymoon Hill  debuted, with Joy Hathaway starring as 'the beauty with flaming red hair'. The program lasted for six years on NBC. Amanda of Honeymoon Hill was a 15-minute radio soap opera aired on NBC. It followed the story of a beautiful woman named Charity Amanda Dyke Leighton and her husband Edward Leighton, a rich Southerner. During its run, the show was heard on Blue Network every day at 3:15 PM. When it moved to CBS in 1943, the time slot was changed to 11 AM. It lasted until April 26, 1946.

February 2, 1946: Twenty Questions   was broadcast on radio for the first time by The Mutual Broadcasting System, with Bill Slater as the Master of Ceremony. This famous radio quiz program was Sponsored by Ronson Lighters. In North America it was a significant Monday night hit transmitted on CKWX Vancouver. The radio program ran for 8 years on radio stations & 6 years on TV.

January 31: Happy Birthday Mario Lanza If your mother was born on Jan. 30, you forgot to wish her a happy birthday yesterday. If she was born today, the 31st, she shares a birthday with Mario Lanza , and you still have time to send her an e-card. The operatic tenor Mario Lanza made great contributions to oldtime radio. His radio show, entitled simply " Mario Lanza ," ran for a dozen or so episodes from Summer of '51 into '52. It was an elegant offering of Lanza's singing and great guest stars such as Rosemary Clooney, Vesti La Giubba and Kitty Kalen. Episode titles include "I've Got You Under My Skin," "All The Things You Are," and "Night and Day." While Lanza was considered to have one of the very best singing voices on Earth, he also had a somewhat rocky career marked by skirmishes with colleagues and bosses. He endured a small lip-synching scandal in 1954 when it was revealed he'd been miming on his TV debut,

January 30: Happy Birthday, Franklin D. Roosevelt My fireside chats usually center why these new-fangled lighters are so hard to use, but our 32nd president had something else in mind with his. Since today commemorates the birth of FDR , let's take a look at his famous fireside chats. There were thirty-one in all, from 1933 to 1944. These fireside chats were radio addresses to a nation first in the grips of the Great Depression and then embroiled in World War II . The name was meant to suggest informality, casualness, all of us as equals with the president. The first was on March 12, 1933, and it dealt with the banking crisis and the country's economic travails. The second one outlined the New Deal Program, and others dealt with a 1936 drought, "the European War" (Sept. 3, 1939), the declaration of war with Japan (Dec. 9, 1941), the progress of the war (Feb. 23, 1942) and other topics, usually controversial, important, and timely. Not a lot of historian

  January 27, 1948: The first magnetic tape recorder was introduced by Wire Recording Corporation of America.  ‘Wire Way,’ as it was called, had an integrated oscillator and was sold for $149.50 at the time.

  January 26, 1947: The Greatest Story Ever Told debuted on ABC. The Greatest Story Ever Told   was a biblical drama series based on the life of Jesus Christ. It was the first ever program that featured him. Warren Parker played Jesus Christ, although it was not announced by the radio station. Other personalities who starred in the show were also anonymous. During the series' entire run, the station decided that there would be no pictures of the performers, no live audience, and even no commercials . The show had its last episode on December 30, 1956.