Birthdays: Pope Gregory XIII, Beau Brummel, Paul Gauguin, Chick Corea, George Szell, Watergate congressman Peter Rodino, Tom Jones, Jessica Tandy, James Ivory, Virginia McKenna, Prince, Mike Pence, Liam Neeson is 68
1860- Workmen in San Francisco began laying track on Market Street for a light rail system, the famous Cable Cars
1954- Scientist Alan Turing helped break the WWII German Enigma Code, and was considered one of the fathers of the computer. Early computers were called Turing Machines. He predicted one day computers would be able to think like humans, and one day we would play games on our computers. But when Turing was revealed to be gay, was sentenced to a mental institution to undergo chemical castration. He was convicted with the same law used to jail Oscar Wilde in 1895. Alan Turing was a fan of the Disney film Snow White. This day he laced an apple with cyanide and bit into it. He was 42.
1955- The TV quiz show, The $64,000 Question premiered.
1975- This day Sony announced the first home videotape playing system, the Betamax. They were about $25,000 each, but we were promised as they became more popular the price would come down.
1993- Rockstar Prince celebrated his birthday by changing his name to that funny symbol no keyboard can reproduce and no one can say. He did it because of a dispute with Warner Records who said because of his contract he could not issue recordings under his own name. In 2000 he switched back to Prince.
2002 –Kim Possible premiered on TV.
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