Birthdays: Sir Lawrence Olivier, Mary Cassatt, Richard Wagner, Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, T. Bone Pickens, Herge’ (Tintin), Irene Pappas, Paul Winfield, Richard Benjamin, Susan Strassberg, George Baker (Sad Sack), Paul Winchell, Tommy John, Naomi Cambell, Dr. Robert Moog –inventor of the music synthesizer, Ginnifer Goodwin is 46
In Kodiak Alaska, today is the Kodiak Crab Festival.
Happy National Bartender's Day
337AD- Emperor Constantine the Great, who raised Christianity from an illegal cult to the official religion of the Roman Empire, died after a ruling for 37 years. He himself didn't accept baptism until on his deathbed. It was a tradition among leaders to put off baptism until almost the end, so the act baptism would cleanse all your sins and you entered Heaven clean as a whistle. His coins had Christ on one side and Sol Invictus, the Imperial Sun god on the other. To maintain order in the Empire until his son Constantius could be contacted and safely installed as leader in Constantinople, the embalmed corpse of Constantine continued to receive ambassadors and preside over meetings for the rest of that year.
1276- Today is the feast day of Saint Humility of Faenza, a nun who insisted she be bricked up into her cell, with only a hole cut for food, water and to hear Mass and slept on her knees. After twelve years of this she was talked out of her prison to become an abbess.
1455- Battle of St. Albans- First battle of the WAR OF THE ROSES. The conflict wasn't about differing views on horticulture but a dynastic struggle between two powerful branches of the royal family of England. It seems a hundred years earlier King Edward III had a lot of lusty sons. His two eldest and lustiest were Edward the Black Prince and John of Gaunt. Edward lusted after Joan the fair Maid of Kent and John lusted after the throne. The Black Prince should have become The Black King, but he died young. Even then John couldn't be king because the rules said the throne went to the eldest Black Princeling, Richard II. So, John of Gaunt had some lusty sons himself and they became the Lancaster branch of the family, after John's title as Earl of Lancaster- represented by the Red Rose. The Black Prince's progeny were the York family represented by the White Rose. They warred and conspired and murdered and had a lusty time until they wiped each other out and were replaced by a third family, the Welsh Tudors.
1761-The first life insurance policy issued in the U.S.
1782- In a letter to one of his officers, George Washington rejected the calls to declare himself King of the United States. " It pains me to hear such ideas are circulating within the army. I regard such ideas with horror and condemn it severely. It seems pregnant with the greatest misfortunes that could ever befall our country."
1915- The San Fernando Valley voted to become part of Los Angeles.
1922-The U.S. Supreme Court rules Baseball is not a monopoly but a sport.
1925- First day of shooting on Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis.
1954- Chuck Jones “Claws for Alarm” with Porky and Sylvester.
1955-The Golden Age of Radio ended when after 22 years the Jack Benny show was canceled. Once the top broadcast show in the nation, Benny went into television.
1966- Bill Cosby became the first African-American to win an Emmy Award for starring in a television series- I-Spy.
1967- T.V. children's show Mr. Roger's Neighborhood debuted.
1973- Scientist Bob Metcalfe of Xerox PARC patented the Ethernet.
1985- Top Disney animation director Wolfgang "Woolie" Reitherman, who directed the Jungle Book among other films, died in a car crash following lunch at the Smoke House in Burbank. He was 75.
1992- The film Encino Man premiered, with Brendan Frazier and Pauly Shore. Aaoooh!
2001- Ted Turner and Jane Fonda divorced.
2002- The Ayatollahs of Iran outlaw Barbie dolls. They denounced Barbie as "agents of subversive Zionist Western propaganda."
2012- SpaceX, the world’s first privately owned spacecraft, blasted off to bring supplies to the International Space Station.
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