Birthdays: Ben Johnson, Richard Strauss, Jacques Cousteau, Nelson Mandela, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Joe Montana, John Constable, Gustav Courbet, Vince Lombardi, Adrienne Barbeau, William Styron, Chad Everett, race car driver Jackie Stewart, Gene Wilder, Hugh Laurie is 65, Shia LeBoeuf is 38, Peter Dinklage is 55
1790- In Hawaii this is King Kamehameha Day in honor of the king who united all the Hawaiian Islands under one rule.
1878- At a small track at the Palo Alto Stock Farm, English photographer Edweard Muybridge did the first of his Animal Motion Studies. He lined up 25 cameras and filmed California Governor Leyland Stanford’s favorite mare Sallie Gardner at a full gallop. He invited the press, so none could accuse him of doctoring the photos later. They proved that when a horse was in full gallop, all four hooves leave the ground.
1927- Charles Lindbergh Day. After his historic flight, the young aviator was welcomed home to America by President Coolidge and huge throngs of well-wishers at Washington’s Navy Yard. Battleships boomed, bands blared and two dirigibles floated overhead. The radio announcer covering the event did one of the very first coast-to-coast broadcasts. He reached thirty million people.
1928 - Alfred Hitchcock's 1st film, "The Case Of Jonathan Drew," is released
1934- the first Mandrake the Magician comic strip.
1936- Shy, quiet, 30 year old Texas writer Robert E. Howard had created the powerful warriors Conan the Barbarian, Kull and single-handedly defined the genre we now call Sword & Sorcery. This day after he learned his mother was dying and would never regain consciousness, he went into his garage and blew his brains out. Some say he had an Oedipal fixation, others that he always intended to end his life and was waiting to spare his mother the pain. On his typewriter he left a short message: "All fled, all done, so lift me upon the pyre. The feast is over and let the lamps expire."
1937 –" Getta’ yu tutsie-frutsie Ice Cream!" the Marx Brothers' "A Day at The Races" premiered.
1939 – President Franklin Roosevelt hosted King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House. There, the rulers of the British Empire ate hot dogs for the first time.
1955- The deadliest day at Le Mans. During this running of the famous 24 hour car race a Mercedes crashed into an Austin Healy at high speed and the cars disintegrated, spewing flaming metal debris into the dense crowd of spectators. 85 died and 100 more were hurt.
1959 – The US Postmaster General banned D H Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover as pornography. He was overruled by US Court of Appeals in March 1960.
1964 - Chicago police break up a Rolling Stones press conference.
1964 - Manfred Mann recorded Do Wah Diddy Diddy.
1966 - "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones peaked at #1 in the pop charts.
1966 - Janis Joplin played her 1st gig in San Francisco.
1977 - Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Disneyland.
1979- John Wayne died after a long struggle with cancer. He was 73. Many believed his condition began as a result of filming the movie "The Conqueror" near the Nevada Atomic Test site. Half the crew of that film including all the stars and director died of cancer. When Wayne made a final appearance at the Academy Awards two months earlier, he purchased a small size tuxedo to hide his emaciated frame, but he was still too thin even then. So, he filled it out by wearing a scuba wetsuit underneath.
1984- In the freewheeling economy of the 1980’s tycoons conducted hostile takeovers of companies by buying most of their stock on margin. When Wall Street corporate raider Saul Steinberg announced he intended to target the ailing Walt Disney Company for takeover, CEO Ron Miller paid him $23 million just to make him go away. The Disney shareholders are outraged at this payment of "greenmail’ and demanded Miller’s resignation, which some say was exactly what Roy Disney had planned.
1993 –Steven Spielberg’s "Jurassic Park" opened. The film set a box office record of $931 million. It was begun with modelers and puppeteers about to do the dinosaurs with go-motion and clay. But after seeing tests using the new 3D CGI –computer graphic imaging software, Steven ordered all of ILM to do it digitally. Jurassic Park was the Jazz Singer-type event that clinched the digital takeover of Hollywood and set the standard for all future special effects films.
2002- Fox TV’s show American Idol premiered.
2002- Lilo & Stitch premiered.
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