Birthdays: Caligula 12AD*, Commodus 161AD, Amilcare Ponchielli, Eldridge Cleaver, Buddy Hackett, James Coburn, Itshak Perleman is 77, Van Morrison, Arthur Godfrey, Richard Baseheart, Rocky Marciano. Alan J. Lerner, Hugh Harman, Maria Montressori (of the Montressori Method of education), Hugh Harman, William Saroyan, Richard Gere is 74, Chris Tucker is 51.
• Caligula was a nickname. His real name was Gaius, but as a child in his dad's army camp the troops dressed him up in his own little uniform. An army issued boot in Latin was a caligae, so they called him Caligula, or Little Bootie. As Emperor if you called him that he'd have you killed.
1829- Rossini’s Opera Guglielmo Tell debuted in Paris. The William Tell overture was heard for the first time- Hi Ho Silver!
1837- Poet Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his American Scholar speech in Cambridge Mass. “Our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands is drawing to a close.” People called it an intellectual declaration of independence.
1881- The first men’s singles competition in tennis was held in Newport Rhode Island. The winner was Richard Sears.
1887- Thomas Edison patented the plans for a Kinetoscope, his original version of Motion Pictures using George Eastman’s new celluloid roll film. Most of the actual work was done by Canadian inventor W.K.L. Dickson. Working for Edison, he drove himself sick designing, building and improving the device as well as the camera and studio. He even designed an early sound on film system. But his boss Thomas Edison took all the credit. Edison wrote Edweard Muybridge at the time that he doubted the Kinetoscope would have much commercial value beyond the science lab. When Dickson gave Edison too much grief about not doing more with the new invention, Edison fired him.
1909- A geologist named Walcott hiking in the Canadian Rockies discovered the Burgess Shale. The first fossilized proof of the time period before the dinosaurs called the Cambrian Era.
1928- In Berlin, The ThreePenny Opera premiered, music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Bertholdt Brecht with Lotte Lenya as Pirate Jenny. Mackie Messer or Mack the Knife was born.
1930 -Detroit radio station is 1st to broadcast a news program on the air.
1935- Disney cartoon Plutos’ Judgement Day.
1938- Walt Disney put ten thousand dollars down to buy 51 acres on Buena Vista Street in Burbank. He would build his modern air-conditioned studio there.
1941 –The Great Gildersleeve, a spin-off of Fibber McGee & Molly debuts on NBC radio. The voice of Gildersleeve later narrated the UPA cartoon Gerald McBoing Boing.
1946- Looney Toon short 'Walky Talky Hawky' the first Foghorn Leghorn and Henery Hawk. The Foghorn character was based on a Fred Allen radio character Senator Beauregard Claghorn, that mocked bombastic Southern congressmen.
1948- Movie star Robert Mitchum was busted for smoking marijuana with a blonde in the Hollywood Hills. This would have normally smoked his career. Mitchum was so convinced his career was over that when asked by the police to state his occupation he said, "Former actor." But the new, postwar outlaw, noir attitude was in vogue. So bad-boy Mitchum emerged from county jail more popular than ever. When asked what he thought of being in jail, he said it's not much different than being free....but you meet a better clientele of people IN jail.
1955 - 1st microwave TV station operated in Lufkin, Texas.
1955- 1st sun-powered automobile demonstrated, Chicago, Ill.
1964 - Ground is broken for Anaheim Stadium, future home of the California Angels.
1964- Young comedian Richard Pryor made his first appearance on TV. He did some of his standup on Rudy Vallee’s Broadway Tonight Show.
1969- Former Heavyweight champion Rocky Marciano died in a plane crash in Newton Iowa. He had been hurrying home to attend a birthday party in his honor. He was 45.
1972- Russian Olga Korbut won a gold medal in gymnastics at the Olympics. She was the first of the cute little 15 year old girl gymnasts with the bright smile to catch the world’s attention.
2001- The NY Stock Exchange tries to avoid a Recession and bolster growth, by getting Michael Jackson and Jerry Lewis to ceremonially open trading sessions. Didn’t work.
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