Birthdays: Tyrone Power, Karl Marx, Elizabeth Cochrane called Nellie Bly, Soren Kierkegard, Alice Faye, James Beard, Michael Palin is 81, Jim Kelly, Pat Carroll, Patrick Ewing, John Rhys Davies is 79, Lance Henriksen is 83, Brian Williams, Floyd Gottfredson
National Teacher's Day.
National Cartoonist's Day.
1862- CINCO DE MAYO- Battle of Puebla-Mexican Juaristas under Zaragosa defeated a French invasion force sent by Napoleon III. One of the heroes of the battle was a soldier named Porfiro Diaz. After Benito Juarez’s presidency Diaz made himself dictator and reigned 38 years until being ousted in the Mexican Revolution in 1910.
1864- While Lee and Grant’s armies began to battled in The Wilderness, Sherman began his Atlanta campaign. Sherman told Grant:" You hold Lee down and give me enough troops and I can make Georgia howl!"
1891-Carnegie Hall in New York opened. One old musician told me the acoustics are so perfect that you can fart in the trumpet section, and you'll be heard in the second balcony.
1945- Happy Birthday Yosemite Sam! Hare Trigger, the first cartoon to feature the red mustachioed desperado premiered.
1953- Broadway Director Jerome Robbins was riding high after directing hits like On the Town and King & I, when he was labeled a Communist. To save his career, this day he testified before Joseph McCarthy’s House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He admitted he had been a communist party member and named names. One actress he finked on, Margaret Lee said,” I’ve just been stabbed by a wicked fairy”. Ironically, Jerome Robbins went on to direct two of his biggest hits “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and the Fiddler on the Roof using Zero Mostel, Beatrice Arthur and Jack Gilford, blacklisted actors who all hated him. During a break in rehearsal on Fiddler, one actor said, “I’d like to kick Jerry in the balls!” Beatrice Arthur replied, “Jerry has no balls.” The famed actor/director Orson Wells observed that “Friend informed on friend not to save their lives but to save their swimming pools.”
1961- Alan Shepard became the first American in space on board Friendship VII. The rocket took him 115 miles into space but not high enough to achieve an orbit. That was done one year later by John Glenn. Shepard was kept on the ground in his capsule for so long he had to pee in his suit. In the upside-down position the fluid ran up his back and puddled up in his helmet behind his head. NASA realized it needed to make modifications on the space suit….
1968- Albert Dekker, character actor and star of movies like Dr. Cyclops, was found dead by his fiance kneeling in his bathtub, handcuffed, Noose around his neck, ballgag, and wearing ladies lingerie. A narcotics needle was sticking in his arm. Someone wrote in red lipstick on his butt “ whip”. He was 62. The police declared it an “auto-erotic episode that had gone wrong." His fiancé Geraldine Saunders went on to create the hit TV show The Love Boat.
1975- Anne Rice’s novel The Interview With The Vampire first published.
40th Anniv,1984- Cartoonists Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were sitting around one night. Over beers they tried to conceive the most ridiculous superheroes mag they could think of. Something with Ninjas, Mutants, and Teenagers. They had just enough from Peter’s tax refund to print one limited edition. This day at a regional Comicon in Portsmouth New Hampshire, the first edition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles came out and sold out within two hours. It became a monster hit and spawned TV series and movies.
2006- Walt Disney Company formally acquired Pixar Studio.
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