Birthdays: Egon Scheile, John Roebling the builder of the Brooklyn Bridge, Uta Hagen, Chick Corea, Sir Anthony Eden, Jim Nabors, Vic Damone, David Rockefeller, Irwin Allen, Marv Albert, Arthur Fellig- better known as Weegee, Sherry Stringfield, George Herbert Walker Bush, Anne Frank, Clyde “Jerry” Geronimi, Richard Sherman of the Sherman Bros
1616- Pocahontas, now called Lady Rebecca Rolfe, landed in England with her husband and son Thomas.
1912- Archaeologist Ludwig Borchardt uncovered the bust of queen Nefertiti, the beauty icon, and the wife of King Akhenaten more than 3,300 years ago. It was created by the artist Thutmose of Amarna around 1345 B.C. Ludwig Borchardt did not have permission to take it to Berlin. He downplayed its importance to Egyptian authorities, then smuggled it out of the country.
1936- Cooperstown's Baseball Hall of Fame dedicated on the supposed 100th anniversary of Abner Doubleday inventing baseball. We now know that date to be fiction, but it was a good party anyway. Babe Ruth, Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner and Walter Johnson were the first inductees. Doubleday was a Civil War general and the composer of the bugle call "Taps", first called General Doubleday’s Lullaby.
1949- The first LA parking ticket.
1952- Chief auto designer for Chevrolet Maurice Olley completed work on a sports car originally code-named the Opel, but later released as the Corvette.
1956- Singer/activist Paul Robeson testified to The House UnAmerican Activities Committee. He was called in after he refused to sign an affidavit that he was not a Communist. Robeson told the committee,” My father was a slave and my people died to build this country, and I am going to stay here and have a part of it, just like you. And no Fascist-minded people, just like you, will drive me from it. Is that clear?” They had earlier asked baseball star Jackie Robinson to denounce Robeson, but instead he denounced Jim Crow laws.
1962- Edward M. Gilbert, the "Boy Wizard of Wall Street," loses $23 million for his firm E.L. Bruce Flooring, then embezzles $2 million more and escaped to Brazil.
1962- In Modesto California, a teenage film student named George Lucas was almost killed in a car accident.
1963- Twentieth Century Fox premiered the Elizabeth Taylor -Richard Burton epic CLEOPATRA. Costing $44 million, $400 million in modern money, four times more than the average film, it remains in comparable dollars the costliest disaster in movie history. The cast was put up at the swankiest hotels in Rome for months of shooting, and Liz Taylor had to have her chili from Chasens restaurant in Beverly Hills flown in. Director Joe Mankewicz said "Cleopatra was the toughest three pictures I ever made!" When Liz Taylor saw the finished film, she threw up.
Fox had to cut 2,000 jobs and almost went bankrupt. The area of LA known as Century City with its huge shopping mall used to be the Fox backlot before Cleopatra. On the plus side, Andy Warhol said Cleopatra was the most influential movie of the 1960s because suddenly every woman had to have heavy black eyeliner, light lipstick and Egyptian style straight bobbed hair and bangs.
1981- Steven Spielberg’s movie Raiders of the Lost Ark premiered.
1991- In the Philippines, the volcano Mount Pinatubo erupted for the first time in 600 years.
1999- Disney’s Tarzan premiered. Directed by Chris Buck and Kevin Lima.
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