Birthdays: Torquato Tasso, Marius Pretipa, Raoul Walsh. Rupert Murdoch is 90, Charlie Ruggles, Lawrence Welk, Samuel “Shemp” Howard, British PM Harold Wilson, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Bobby McFerrin, Sam Donaldson, Antonin Scalia, Jerry Zucker, Vannevar Bush- MIT scientist who in 1945 predicted personal computers. Joey Buttafuco, Jules Engel, Douglas Adams, Rob Paulsen is 65, Terence Howard is 52
1889- The California Legislature splits Orange County from LA County.
1918- THE GREAT SPANISH FLU PANDEMIC- This day the first noticeable rise in a strange new flu occurred at Camp Funston Kansas. It was called the Spanish flu because even though it broke out all around the world, Spain was one of the few countries that didn’t have wartime press censorship, so they reported it first.
In only one year this new flu virus killed 21 million people around the Earth, 640,000 in the U.S. alone- everyone from Kaiser Wilhelm to Blackjack Pershing got sick. In places as far away as China to Calcutta to Russia thousands died. The epidemic killed as many people as the just concluding World War I. HIV/AIDS killed 22 million in 25 years, Spanish Flu killed 21 million people in only 8 months. Then it disappeared as rapidly as it appeared. So far, covid-19 killed 2 ½ million. the USA is over 525,000 deaths.
1927- The first Roxy Theater opens at 50th st. & Seventh Ave. in New York. Roxy was a nickname of theater owner Samuel L. Rothaphel who pioneered the movie palace and is called the father of De-Luxe presentation.
1943- The Broadway musical team of Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein opened their first collaboration “Away We Go!”
1971- Philo Farnsworth died of pneumonia at 64. The young Utah native in 1922 he had invented the television set, but by the 1960’s he was forgotten, broke and addicted to painkillers. The only recognition he got was as a contestant on the quiz show I Got a Secret. He won an $80 check and a carton of Winston Cigarettes. Today Farnsworth is considered one of the true inventors of Television, along with John Logie-Baird.
50 Years Ago- 1971- THX 1138 Frances Ford Coppola convinced Warner Bros to release a fleshed out feature version of a college thesis short film written and directed by young George Lucas.
1977- Film director Roman Polanski (Rosemary’s Baby, Chinatown) was arrested for having sex with a 13 year old girl in Jack Nicholson’s home after he got her stoned on quaaludes. Polanski was charged with statutory rape. He jumped bail and fled Hollywood for exile in Paris. LA courts have been trying unsuccessfully to get him extradited ever since.
1984 - NAUSICAÄ OF THE VALLEY OF THE WIND, adapted and directed by Hayao Miyazaki, was released in Japan.
2011- FUKUSHIMA DAIICHI- The northern coast of Japan was struck by one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded. The quake sent a tsunami wave that erased whole towns and killed 20,000. A ripple wave went across the Pacific and sank boats in harbor at Santa Cruz, California and Oregon. The tsunami also damaged 5 reactors of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, sending clouds of radioactive steam into the atmosphere and water.
2020- The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus covid 19 a global pandemic.
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