Birthdays: George De La Tour, Wyatt Earp, Dr. David Livingston, William Jennings Bryan, Sir Richard Burton (The African explorer), Charles M. Russell, Jacky Moms Mabley, Adolf Eichmann, Phillip Roth, Adolf Galland, Ursula Andress, Patrick McGoohan, Ornette Coleman, Holly Hunter, animator Richard Williams, Bruce Willis is 69, Glenn Close is 77
1799- Franz Josef Haydn’s oratorio The Creation premiered. Haydn was inspired when he heard Handel’s The Messiah in London.
1853- Charles Dicken’s novel Bleak House first appeared in magazine installments. It is the first novel to ever mention dinosaurs-" It would be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill…"
1859- Charles Gounod's opera 'Faust" premiered. It was so popular that after a while in New York wags nicknamed the Metropolitan Opera the "Faustspeilhaus" ( it's a pun on Wagner's theater in Bayreuth being called a Festspeilhaus, so Faustspeilhaus..heh-heh,.get it ?....look, don't blame me...its a Gilded Age opera joke....)
1874- Mexican-Californio bandido Tirbucio Vasquez was hanged. His last words were “Pronto!” The wild hills north of Newhall California where he hid out are today named in his honor-Vasquez Rocks. They are the site of numerous film shoots like original Star Trek episodes.
1875- Mark Twain admitted in a letter to a friend that he now likes to use a typewriter, a new technology accused of ruining the art of writing.
1895- The Lumiere Brothers filmed their first movie, employees leaving their dad’s factory.
1914- A fire in the negative vaults of the Eclair Studios in New Jersey destroyed forever all the American work of pioneer French animator Emile Cohl. He had come to the U.S. to animate the first cartoon series, George McManus’ "The Newlyweds" later to be renamed in comic strip form "Life With Father".
1918- As a wartime measure, the Congress created Daylight Savings Time separate from Standard Time.
1928- the Amos & Andy radio show debuted. NBC Blue Network, WMAQ in Chicago.
1931- Nevada legalized gambling.
1935- Harlem riots. When the rumor spread that a young shoplifter had been beaten to death by police in the basement of a Kress department store, 10,000 Harlem residents rioted in the streets and burned shops. Two people were killed. The child made an appearance and in fact had never been harmed.
1942- On St. Josephs Day, St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank, across the street from the Disney Studio, was dedicated. Walt Disney owned the land and gave it to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Sisters of Providence. It would be the place where Walt, Roy, Roy Jr. and many other Disney employees would end their life’s journey.
1950- Writer Edgar Rice-Burroughs died at his LA ranch Tarzana. Today the town of Tarzana. He was 74. He had always hoped Walt Disney would have made a movie of his character Tarzan. Disney did produce an animated Tarzan in 1999.
1953- First T.V. broadcast of the Oscar ceremony broadcast simultaneously from LA and NY. The circus film "The Greatest Show on Earth" won best picture, beating out High Noon, Moulin Rouge, The Quiet Man and Ivanhoe. It was Cecil B. DeMille’s only Oscar of his career. Gary Cooper won best actor and Shirley Booth best actress. Before TV, the Oscars ceremony included a dinner and an hour of dancing before the awards were presented.
1954- On a freeway outside rural San Bernadino, singer Sammy Davis Jr. lost an eye in an auto accident. He was left lying bleeding unattended in a hallway in Riverside County Hospital. This was because he was black and it was a segregated facility. Finally, actor and friend Jeff Chandler found him and forced the doctors to treat him. Friend Frank Sinatra urged Davis out of his depression and got him out on stage again. That first night at Ciro’s nightclub the entire Ratpack- Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford each preformed on stage wearing a black eye patch similar to Davis’.
1957- Elvis Presley purchased an estate outside Memphis Tennessee called Graceland from Ruth Moore for $100,000.
1957- Skiing aficionado Pete Seibert was wounded in both legs during World War II, and it was feared he would never walk again. He not only walked, but he got back on skis and by 1950 made the US Olympic skiing team. This day, he hiked with a friend up to an isolated Valley in Colorado named Vail. He exclaimed:" My God Earl, we’ve climbed all the way to Heaven!” Pete Seibert built Vail into a world-class ski resort and town.
1959- North Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh declared a war of unification against the Republic of South Vietnam.
1959- Disney released The Shaggy Dog, their first low budget live action comedy hit.
1962- Vasily Stalin, near-do-well son of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, died of acute alcoholism at age 40. After his father died, he was imprisoned in Siberia, but in 1958 he was allowed to retire to obscurity with a small pension.
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962- The first Pillsbury Doughboy commercial.
1964- IBM gave the green light to plans for the 360 series. The first compatible computers.
1964- First day shooting on the James Bond film Goldfinger.
1974- The band Jefferson Airplane changed its name to Jefferson Starship.
1979- C-Span cable channel started broadcasting live from the floor of Congress. The first Congressman to speak on camera was Al Gore.
1982- Randy Rhoads, the lead guitarist for Ozzy Ozbourne died when he playfully flew his plane buzzing the bands traveling bus and smacked into a farmhouse.
1984- I’LL BE BACK- James Cameron began shooting the film the Terminator. He first considered casting O.J. Simpson for the cyborg killer before settling on Austrian weightlifter Arnold Schwarzenegger.
1993- Monkey-cam debuted on the David Letterman Show.
2004- Brian Maxwell, the inventor of the Power Bar nutrition snack, died of a heart attack at age 51.
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