Birthdays: Bernard Hermann, Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle, Slim Pickens, Nelson Eddy, Gary Busey, John Hench, Little Eva, Harmon Killabrew, Antoine de Saint Exupery, Anna Sophie-Mutter, Leroy Anderson, Maria Conchita Alonso, Robert Evans, Matthew Weiner, Brett McKenzie, Ray Harryhausen, animator Roger Allers
1776- Happy Birthday San Francisco! Don Juan Bautista De Anza brought 247 colonists to the tip of a rocky promontory in a huge foggy natural harbor and built a Presidio, a fort. When a monk came six months later to build a mission, he called it San Francisco de Asiacutes. The nearby village was called Yerba Buena for all the good herbs growing in the area. Juan de Anza explored and mapped most of the route from Old Mexico through Northern California but is not as well known to Americans as Fra Junipero Serra, or the Anglo explorers John Freemont, and Kit Carson.
1801- Ludwig van Beethoven confessed to a friend that he was going deaf.
1936- Pope Pius XI published an encyclical warning of the evils of Motion Pictures. “They glorify Lust and Lascivious behavior.”
1940 – ROBIN THE BOY WONDER- According to Batman Comics, this day mobsters rubbed out a circus highwire team known as the Flying Graysons, leaving their son Dick an orphan. He was taken in by millionaire Bruce Wayne so Batman could have his Robin.
1940- First day shooting on the film Citizen Kane.
1950- The Hollywood 10 were given jail sentences for contempt of Congress.
1956- President Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highways Act, allocating millions of dollars to build a system of interstate freeways connecting all the major U.S. cities. This is the reason you can drive one road from the Pacific Ocean at Santa Monica to the Atlantic Ocean at Baltimore. Eisenhower was an engineer in the 1920s and saw the deplorable condition of American roads. During World War II, he saw the Germans use autobahns to move heavy mechanized forces quickly.
The Interstate System had at first a definite Cold War logic to it. The Interstates would be commandeered in time of war and every few miles there had to be a five mile straightaway so military planes could use them for an emergency landing. Overpasses had to be at least 11’5” tall to clear an Ajax missile launcher.
1956- Marilyn Monroe married author Arthur Miller.
1967- At 2:30AM outside of Biloxi, Mississippi, actress Jane Mansfield and her dog were killed in a car crash when their car slammed into the rear of a parked truck. Her children including Marisa Hargitay were in the back seat but unhurt. Ever since then, high chassis trucks have to have Mansfield bars in the back.
1968 - "Tip-Toe Thru' The Tulips With Me" by Tiny Tim peaks at #17 on the pop charts.
1978- Actor Bob Crane, best known as the star in the television series Hogan’s Heroes, was found beaten to death with an electric cord wrapped around his neck in a Scottsdale Arizona hotel room. Around his room were piles of his homemade porn tapes. He was 49. The killer was never found.
2007- Pixar’s Ratatouille premiered, directed by Brad Bird.
2007- Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, initiating the age of the smartphone.
No comments:
Post a Comment