Birthdays: Jim Bridger the mountain man, Nat King Cole, film
composer Alfred Newman, Mercedes McCambridge, Leslie Ann Down, Patrick Duffy,
Rudolph Nureyev, Gary Sinise, Kate Greenaway, John Sebastian, Ben Washam
(warner bros. animator), Ken Anderson (Disney animator), John Wayne Gacy, Kurt
Russell is 64, Rob Lowe is 51
1898- First test of a practical submarine. Americans had
experimented with underwater travel since 1776 with Bushnells
"Turtle" then the Civil War CSS Hunley. In the ocean off Staten
Island a diesel-electric battery powered sub built by the John A. Holland
Electric Boat Company of Georgia ran underwater for an hour and forty minutes
then resurfaced. As a child Holland was inspired by Jules Verne's novel Twenty
Thousand Leagues under the Sea".
1901- At a grand exhibition of his paintings at
Bernheim-Jeune Palace in Paris, the world discovered the brilliance of a poor
Dutch lunatic who had shot himself a few years back- Vincent Van Gogh.
1941- The National Gallery of Art opens in Washington D.C.
1982- Politically conservative Hollywood actors led by
Charlton Heston broke with the Screen Actor’s Guild and form a rival group
called AWAG ( American Working Actor’s Guild). They were angered by SAG
president Ed Asner’s taking their union into national politics by condemning
Pres. Ronald Reagan’s policies in Central America, capped by the SAG board
refusing Reagan (their former president) the Guild lifetime achievement award.
As a result Ed Asner’s hit t.v. show “Lou Grant” lost
sponsors and was cancelled and Heston’s career cooled as well, beyond heading
the NRA and writing cranky letters to the L.A. Times calendar that Ben Hur
wasn’t gay.
1983- On trial for libel, and refusing to name sources,
wheelchair bound porn publisher Larry Flynt showed up in a US Federal court
wearing a diaper made from an American flag. This was calculated to mock a
conservative demand for a Constitutional amendment against burning the flag.
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