B-Days: William Penn-1644, King James II Stuart, Joseph Plateau, Sword master Masoaka Shiki 1867, Dwight Eisenhower, Lillian Gish, Ralph Lauren, Eamon De Valera, e.e. cummings, Mobutu Sese Seko, C. Everet Koop, John Dean III, Cliff Richards, Jack Arnold the director of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Ralph Lauren- real name Ralph Lifshitz, Roger Moore.
1066-WHEN WILLIAM ROSE AND HAROLD FELL- BATTLE OF HASTINGS- The Norman army of William the Bastard defeated and killed King Harold Godwinson of the Anglo-Saxons. The occupation and settlement of Norman French into England had a dramatic effect on the language, ensuring the language you are now reading would become English, instead of something between Dutch and Danish. The Normans also introduced the English to the concept of surnames- Wulf the Tailor yielding to Robert Beauceant and William Longchamps. Duke William, who was never fond of the title 'Bastard", became King William the Conqueror.
1529- WESTERN EUROPE DISCOVERED COFFEE- The first Turkish Siege of Vienna ends. Despite the oath of Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent, who told his troops that if they didn't win, he would fill the Danube with their genitals, the Turkish army gave up the siege and fell back into Hungary. As the Viennese went through the Turkish camp they found large quantities of black beans that tasted awful. A Polish mercenary named Adam Kolschitsky had lived in Turkey and knew what to do with them. He opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, the KolschitskyDom. He is also credited with inventing the coffee filter, which made the strong Turkish java palatable to Europeans. The Viennese commemorated their victory with a pastry shaped like the Turkish battle ensign, the crescent, or the Croissant.
1670-At a performance before King Louis XIV the Sun King at the Chateau of Chambord Moliere’s satire “Le Bourgeouis Gentilhomme” premiered. Lully wrote the music.
1873- MY NAME IS MUYBRIDGE. One night a carriage drove up from San Francisco to the Yellow Jacket Mine near Calistoga in the north Napa Valley. A man asked for the foreman Major Harry Larkyns. When Larkyns answered the door the man quietly said to him: ”Good Evening, Major. My name is Muybridge. Here is the answer to the message you sent my wife earlier. “ He drew a pistol and shot Larkyns through the heart, killing him instantly. He then dropped the weapon and waited for the sheriff.
The murderer was the famous Photographer and Motion Picture Pioneer Edweard Muybridge. Muybridges’ young wife Flora had been having an affair while he was working on his Motion Studies Series in Palo Alto. Muybridge discovered the son she bore him was not his. They were even calling him Little Harry behind his back.
The jury that convened in Napa did not hang the artist-inventor. In the Code of the Old West, proven adultery was considered a justifiable homicide. Plus Governor Leyland Stanford was paying for Muybridge’s experiments. So he was acquitted. Flora Muybridge divorced him in 1875 and after her early death two years later, Muybridge gave Little Harry to a San Francisco Orphans Asylum and refused to pay for his upkeep.
1926- A.A. Milne’s first book of Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Christopher Robin debuted this day.
1934- The Lux Radio Theater premiered.
1950- The LAPD raided a house party of gay men, which was illegal back then. One of the men arrested was future movie star Tab Hunter. This was kept secret until in 1955, when an angry agent Hunter dumped leaked the story to Confidential Magazine. “ Tab Hunter Busted at Limp-Wristed Pajama Party!” It soon blew over and Tab Hunter went on to have a full movie career.
1954- First day of shooting on Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of the Ten Commandments staring Charlton Heston out in the Egyptian desert. It was so brutally hot that Anne Baxter joked to Vincent Price “ Vin, who do I have to sleep with to get OFF this movie?”
1955- Actor Zero Mostel testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee
. Zero made jokes at the committee’s expense, and even made some of them laugh, but was still blacklisted. In a playful mood, he told the Committee that he was employed by "19th Century-Fox." Zero denied he was a Communist, but refused to name names. He told the Committee that he would gladly discuss his own conduct, but was prohibited by religious convictions from naming others. Consequently, he was blacklisted during the 1950s. Shut out from the movies, he also lost many lucrative nightclub gigs, and he had to make due by playing gigs for meager salaries and by selling his paintings until the mid 1960s.
1959- Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver. Exhausted by overindulgence in his favorite vices, doctors said the 50 year old movie star had the body of a 70 year old. A descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers, the Tasmanian born actor's last film was ' Cuban Rebel Girls'.
1972 - KUNG FU, starring David Carradine, premiered on ABC TV.
In her memoirs, Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, asserts that Lee created the concept for the series. There is circumstantial evidence for this in a December 8, 1971 television interview that Bruce Lee gave on The Pierre Berton Show. In the interview, Lee stated that he had developed a concept for a television series called THE WARRIOR, meant to star himself, about a martial artist in the American Old West (the same concept as KUNG FU, which aired the following year), but that he was having trouble pitching it to Warner Brothers and Paramount. Show creator and producer Ed Spielman denied taking Bruce Lees idea. He claimed he had been working on it on the East Coast long before.
The show’s star David Carradine was a Caucasian pretending to be Chinese.
1972- Joe Cocker and his backup band were busted in Australia for drug possession.
1978- Lover Scott Thorsten “outs” pianist Liberace by filing a palimony suit.
1979- Wayne Gretsky scored his first goal.
