Birthdays: Lope de Vega, St. Pope John XXIII, Andrew Carnegie, Tina Turner, Joe Dimaggio, Carl Benz of Mercedes Benz, Virgil Thompson, Jeffrey Hunter, John Kennedy,Jr., Percy Sledge, Ben Stein, Ricardo Montalban, Bob Matheson, John Larroquette, Gloria Steinem, General Augusto Pinochet, Christina Applegate, Bucky Dent, Bill Kroyer
1795- English architect Henry Latrobe left Europe for a life in the U.S.
Latrobe was the architect who built the U.S. Capitol building.
1817- First sword swallower performed in the US.
1864- In a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar at New York’s Winter garden Theater the three Booth brothers- John Wilkes, Edwin and Junius Booth appeared together for the only time. Other famous acting families of the time included the Powers, whose descendant was the movie star Tyrone Power, and the Barrymores, who’s line continues down today from John to John Drew to Drew Barrymore.
1869- Ned Buntline was a hack dime novelist who understood that selling stories about gunfighters of the west would be easier if you could occasionally produce one in the flesh. So on a trip to Nebraska he found among the cavalry scouts an accommodatingly colorful rogue named William Cody, who everybody called Buffalo Bill. This day Ned Buntline announced in the New York Weekly the first installment of a serial series “Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen”. Buntline and Cody collaborated to make Buffalo Bill the first true American media star, entertaining millions, from crowned heads to street kids, until his retirement in 1916..
1929- Alfred Hitchcock’s film Blackmail opened in London. It was the first full length talkie in Britain.
1949- Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer sung by Gene Autry hit number one on the musical charts.
1952- The stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s mystery the Mousetrap opened in London’s West End and became one of the longest running plays in history.
1960- CBS canceled its remaining five radio soap operas, most of them now on television.
1963- THE FUNERAL OF JOHN F. KENNEDY. The massed muffled drums, bagpipes, bands blaring Chopin’s Funeral March, the riderless horse named BlackJack with the boots in the stirrups turned inward, a tradition that went back to Genghis Khan, the black horse drawn artillery caisson modeled on Abraham Lincoln's.
This day was also John Kennedy, Jr.'s birthday, and a big party had been planned with lots of little tots. Jackie knew that John-john didn't understand the gravity of what had transpired, so after the funeral she changed out of her widow’s weeds and ran a kiddie party.
1963- In his family home in Queens NY, young songwriter Paul Simon was deeply depressed by the assassination of President Kennedy. He locked himself in his bathroom and kicked around chords on his guitar. That night, he wrote “ Hello darkness, my old friend….”
1970- Japan's greatest modern poet-playwright Yukio Mishima committed suicide(seppuku) after attempting a coup at a military base. He had it all filmed as it happened. He felt Japan was losing her spiritual soul to crass materialism and the ancient Bushido warrior code was the only way back. The Japanese Defense Force soldiers he appealed to join his cause, just laughed at him.
In a poll conducted in a magazine at the time, about 75% of Japanese women said they would rather commit suicide than sleep with Yukio Mishima.
1975- According to the movie Rocky, this was the date of the first prizefight portrayed in the film where we first meet Rocky Balboa.
1992- Walt Disney’s Aladdin opened wide in theaters.
1995- Legendary Corporate CEO Akio Morita resigned as the leader of Sony. Under his guidance Sony went from a little postwar maker of electric rice cookers to the largest electronics giant in the world. His official reason was he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage while playing tennis. Some insiders said he was dealing with the stress of managing Sony's Hollywood studios -MGM, Columbia, TriStar losing $2 billion. By the time Morita died in 1999, the Sony movie studios had pulled out of their slump and were on top with movies like Titanic and Men in Black.
1997- Pixar’s A Bugs Life and the short Geri’s Game premiered.
2009- Disney’s Princess and the Frog released.
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