Birthdays: Ethan Allen, Marshal Michel Ney, Frank James -Jesse's brother, Francois Poulenc, Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz), Al Goldstein the publisher of Screw Magazine, Stephen Ambrose, Sherrill Milnes, Pat Benatar, Sal Mineo, Jim Croce, Rod Stewart, Walter Hill, George Foreman, Linda Lovelace, Roy E Disney Jr, Jermaine Clement of Flight of the Concords is 48
1910- Joyce Clyde Hall started the company that became Hallmark Cards.
1917- Frontiersman and master showman Buffalo Bill Cody died at 70 of uremia poisoning. His last words after he was told his end had come was "Ah forget it boys, let's play a round of High-Five." Today his grave still overlooks the city of Denver.
1924- Columbia Pictures created, ruled by Harry Cohn, whose motto was "I don't get ulcers, I give them!"
1927- Fritz Lang’s silent masterpiece Metropolis premiered.
1929- Herge’s comic character Tin Tin first appeared in a Belgian newspaper XXe Siecle.
1939- Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov sold his first story to Amazing Stories Magazine "Marooned off Vesta".
1941- The comedy play ARSENIC AND OLD LACE opened on Broadway.
1949- For years the recording industry had been working on ways to improve the 78 RPM record –RPM means Rotations Per Minute. RCA records announced the invention of the 45 RPM record. Columbia (CBS) had announced the LP (Long Playing) 33 rpm record and originally offered to share the technology but RCA (NBC) was having none of it. But the 33 stored more music and could use old 78 rpm turntables adapted so the 45 soon became a vehicle for hit singles.
1958- Jerry Lee Lewis single "Great Balls of Fire" topped the pop charts.
1961- Writer Dashell Hammett died.
1971-Stanford Calderwood, the president of WGBH Boston, got a good reaction for a season of a British drama he ran on American TV called The Forsythe Saga. He soon returned from a trip to England having purchased a bushel of BBC dramas. Period pieces, Called “Frock Dramas”. This day Masterpiece Theater debuted on US TV with host Alastair Cooke. The first show was the BBC series The First Churchills. I Claudius, Poldark and Upstairs Downstairs followed. These shows were so popular that for awhile people thought PBS meant Preferably British Shows.
1992- The GREAT RUBBER DUCKY DISASTER- A North Pacific storm causes a ship to lose 29,000 plastic rubber duck toys overboard. They joined 61,000 Nike sneakers already bobbing in the water from a similar maritime accident. Scientists used the rubber ducky migration to track Pacific Ocean currents around Alaska.
2000- AOL and Time Warner announced a $165 billion dollar merger that made it the world’s largest media company. Considered now one of the worst business deals in history, the company lost $80 billion in one year. The deal almost sank both companies, uprooted both chairmen, and they detached permanently in 2009.
2004- NY based Writer and actor Spaulding Gray spent the day taking his kids to the movies. They saw Tim Burton’s movie Big Fish. Gray put his kids into a taxi home and from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, called his wife to say he would be home soon and that he loved her. Then he took the ferry, jumped into the harbor and drowned himself. He had waged a long battle with depression and his mother had commit suicide. His body did not resurface until March 9.
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