Birthdays: St. Thomas Becket, Thomas Jefferson, Frederick Lord North, Samuel Beckett, Dame Eudora Welty, Al Green, Jack Cassidy, Butch Cassidy, Franklin W. Woolworth, Howard Keel, Don Adams, Ricky Schroeder, Peabo Bryson, Ron Perleman, Stanley Donen, Alfred Butts the inventor of Scrabble, animator Glen Keane
1387- A party of 29 English pilgrims assemble to travel to the shrine of Canterbury. The trip was immortalized by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales. The first great work in English literature.
1612- Date of the famous duel on Ganryu island between Japanese swordsmen Musashi Miyamoto and Sasaki Kohjiro. Musashi defeated Kojiro with a wooden sword.
1846- After the first Yanqui garrison was expelled by a rising of the native Mexican Californios, U.S. Commander Stockton and General Freemont and their army returned to recaptured Los Angeles.
1870- New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opens.
1902- J.C. Penny opened his first store in Kemmerer Wyoming.
1928 - THE MULHOLLAND TRIAL ENDED – William Mulholland, the genius engineer who created the great aqueducts that brings water down to Los Angeles was on trial for the St. Francis Dam Disaster. When a dam near Newhall burst sending a 30 foot wall of water careening down on sleeping suburbanites. 400 perished. On this day, the jurors of the Los Angeles County Coroner's inquest into the disaster emerged from their two weeks of deliberations. They named William Mulholland responsible, although innocent of criminal negligence. Deputy D.A. Asa Keyes trumped the ruling a "victory for the people", despite his earlier promise to have Mulholland convicted of manslaughter.
Though he was free of jail, but William Mullholland was a broken man. “I envy the dead.” He had his chauffeur would ,,drive him aimlessly around the city he helped create. He became a shut in for the last seven years of his life. D.A. Keyes later went to jail himself for misappropriation of funds.
1939- The film Wuthering Heights starring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon premiered. Sam Goldwyn was disgusted by the headaches to bring this Charlotte Bronte novel to the Hollywood Screen. When asked if he planned to adapt more XIXth Century novels for film he replied: "Don’t bring me no more scripts by guys who write with feathers!"
1943- Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the Jefferson Memorial at the Washington D.C. Mall.
1949- Lead character designer and story artist Joe Grant resigned from Disney Studios, not to return until 1989.
1953- A British WWII intelligence officer turned newspaperman in peacetime was bored with his life. His name was Ian Fleming. He decided to write a novel about his idea of the ultimate spy. Looking for a suitably bland name, his favorite book on birdwatching was written by someone named James Bond. "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon, yet very masculine name, was just what I needed.” His wife thought the finished story was vulgar. This day, the first Bond novel, Casino Royale, came out and was an instant hit.
1964- Sidney Poitier became the first African American to win an Oscar for Best Actor for the film Lilies of the Field. The first Oscar for any black actor or actress went to Hattie McDaniel as Best Supporting Actress for Gone With the Wind in 1939. Best actress was not won until Halle Berry in 2002.
1964- The Best Animated Short Oscar was won by Ernie Pintoff’s film The Critic, voiced by Mel Brooks.
1967- Columbia Picture’s bizarre version of Ian Flemings Casino Royale premiered. Several directors, John Huston, Orson Welles, Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, George Raft, and David Niven. Richard Williams opening titles, and Dusty Springfield ‘s song “The Look of Love.” And a lot of drugs off camera.
1997- 21year old golf phenomenon Tiger Woods won his first Masters Tournament by a record 12 strokes.
No comments:
Post a Comment