Birthdays: Tamara de Lempicka, Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Henry Fonda, Liberace- real name Wladziu Valentine Liberace, Jan Kiepura, Edmund Kirby-Smith, Gabriela Sabbatini, Thurman Thomas, Margaret Sullivan, Olga Korbut- the original adorable little Olympic Gold Medal gymnast, Debra Winger is 70, Tori Spelling, Janet Jackson, Woody Herman, Studs Terkel, Ivan Sutherland is 86, Danny Trejo is 70, Pierce Brosnan is 70.
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When you consider just how far digital media has come remember this: the man who wrote the first drawing and animating program is still around. Happy Birthday Ivan Sutherland. May 16, 1938. Sutherland wrote Sketchpad in late 1962, pioneered early VR, was on the panel that approved funds to create the Internet and trained a generation of computer pioneers. His pupils include Ed Catmull, Nolan Bushnell, Alan Kay, Jim Blinn, Bui Dong Phuong, and more. Everything we experience in…
1879- Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances premiered.
1922- The White Star Line’s ocean liner Majestic, a sister ship to the Titanic, made its maiden voyage with no problems at all.
1929- The First Academy Awards ceremony at the Rose Ballroom of the Roosevelt Hotel. Douglas Fairbanks was the first emcee. They gave out two best picture winners. One was to William Wellman’s “Wings”. The second for “unique and artistic merit” went to F. W. Murnau’s Sunrise. The Academy originally wanted to give the Best Actor Oscar to the dog Rin Tin Tin, but they reconsidered when reminded about what kind of message that would send. So, they gave it to Emil Jannings. Janet Gaynor got the first Best Actress. The ceremony was originally a dinner party with some industry business conducted. About 270 attendees who paid $5 each. The ceremony took about 15 minutes.
1946- the musical Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman premiered on Broadway.
1957- in a town in Pennsylvania, a failing small time businessman who had been drinking heavily, died of a heart attack at age 54. Ironically, he had just completed the first draft of a memoir about his days as a young Treasury Agent in Roaring Twenties Chicago. His name was Elliot Ness. The book - The Untouchables- became a national best seller and Hollywood turned it into a hit television series, films. Elliot Ness became the most famous lawman since Wyatt Earp.
1963- Gordo Cooper orbited the Earth in the last flight of Project Mercury.
1965 – the birthday of Spaghetti-O's later known as Spaghettios.
1969- PEOPLE’S PARK- The escalating tension between anti-war counter-culture and "the Establishment" picked an unusual item to fight over. A group of activists in Berkeley took over a 2 acre plot of land scheduled for development by the college. They planted grass and flowers and called it a "people’s park". Conservative Governor Ronald Reagan wasn’t going to tolerate any more tomfoolery and after officers and a chain link fence failed to keep out the squatters, he sent in the National Guard. This day the confrontation between the bayonet wielding troops and hippies broke out into violence. One man was killed and another was blinded by riot gas. The college decided to yield the land for the park, and it stays so today.
1972- Hollywood Cartoonists local# 839 voted to expel Business Agent Larry Kilty for misappropriation of funds. They called him Guilty-Kilty.
1975- Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to climb Mt. Everest.
1975 - Wings release "Listen to What the Man Said" in UK
1979- Shooting wraps on Steven Spielberg’s movie 1941.
1980 - Brian May of rock group Queen collapsed on stage with hepatitis.
1980 - Paul McCartney releases "McCartney II" album.
1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes hits #1 for next 9 weeks. The elderly movie legend was not impressed,” Kim Carnes does not have eyes like me!” quote Bette.
1985 - Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year.
1986 – "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis premiered.
1990- Jim Henson died of viral pneumonia at Bellevue Hospital in NYC. He was 53.
1996- One of the lamest moments in TV writing. On Dallas, Pam Ewing encounters her husband Bobby Ewing in the shower although he had been dead for one year. The incident meant the entire previous season had only been a bad dream.
2009- Pixar’s film UP premiered.
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