Birthdays: George Gershwin, T.S. Elliot, John Chapman (also known as Johnny Appleseed)-1774, Winsor McCay-1869, Theodore Gericault -1791, Olivia Newton-John, Cheryl Tiegs is 75, Marty Robbins, Pope Paul VI, Jack Lalanne, Melissa Sue Andersen, Phillip Bosco, James Cavaziel, Surena Williams, Linda Hamilton is 67.
1687- The Ancient GREEK PARTHENON WAS BLOWN UP during a minor Venetian raid on Turkish held Athens. A random shell ignited a gunpowder magazine the Turks had been storing inside of it. For two thousand years the Parthenon had survived mostly intact. Until now. Later on, in 1801 English Lord Elgin will back up his frigate to the shore and pry off the frieze marble sculptures for his collection.
1835- Donizetti’s opera Lucia De Lammermoor premiered.
1887- Emile Berliner patented the gramophone, rejecting Thomas Edison's cylinder recording in favor of a flat disc record on a turntable.
1892- The John Philip Sousa Band makes its first public appearance.
1920- The NFL, National Football League, created.
1926- Bullock's Wilshire department store opened. Their Tea Room quickly became the in-place for Hollywood Society to see and be seen in.
1937- "Queen of the Blues" Singer Bessie Smith died after a car accident in Mississippi. She crashed her Packard into a parked car. She was 43. One account said she died because she was refused treatment in a segregated hospital, but the truth was she was treated by a white doctor at the scene and sent to the nearest hospital, which was a black one.
1939- Nazi scientists led by Rudolph Heisenberg met to discuss how the fission of uranium could be used to create a super bomb. Meanwhile in America, Hungarian scientist Dr. Leo Szilard was warning the US government that they better start an atomic program fast.
1941- Max Fleischer's Superman cartoon “ The Mad Scientist” debuts. The first animated action-adventure short. There had not been a serious cartoon since Winsor McCay’s Sinking of the Lusitania in 1918. The Superman’s were much more expensive that the usual short cartoons- $90,000 to the usual $40,000, but Paramount wanted them. It was nominated for an Academy Award.
1955- Eddie Fisher married Debbie Reynolds.
1957- The musical West Side Story opened. The legend goes composer Leonard Bernstein was in the hospital to be operated on for a deviated septum. While recuperating he ran into lyricist Steven Sondheim, who was also recovering from an operation. To pass the time while convalescing they started talking about the idea of an updated Romeo and Juliet set to music in the slums. One early idea for the title was Gang Way!
1961-Nineteen year old folk singer Bob Dylan made his debut in a Greenwich Village coffee house Gerde’s Folk City.
1962- The Beverly Hillbillies debuts. The story goes that CBS mogul William Paley disliked farm-humor type shows, and this project was greenlit behind his back, while he was on vacation.
1964- The premiere of Gilligan’s Island. The good ship Minnow was named for Newton Minnow, the FCC Chairman who first called television “A Vast Wasteland”. Actress Natalie Schafer, who played the wife of millionaire Thurston Howell III, really was a millionaire. She took the role just for the free trip to Hawaii.
1987- A market research group called Q-5 tried to use a bank of computers number-crunching demographic surveys to design the ultimate safe, wholesome, politically-correct children's show. They came up with "The Little Clowns of Happytown"-. Of the 26 children's series in syndication it remained dead last in ratings, He-Man, Jem and G.I. Joe on top. The people had spoken.
1990- The Motion Picture Association changed the rating for the naughtiest movies from X to NC-17.
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