B-Days: William Penn-1644, King James II Stuart, Joseph Plateau, Sword master Masoaka Shiki 1867, Dwight Eisenhower, Lillian Gish, Ralph Lauren, Eamon De Valera, e.e. cummings, Mobutu Sese Seko, C. Everett Koop, John Dean III, Cliff Richards, Jack Arnold the director of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Ralph Lauren- real name Ralph Lifshitz, Roger Moore.
1492- Columbus and his men left San Salvador to continue west and look for Cipango- their name for Japan.
1529- WESTERN EUROPE DISCOVERED COFFEE- The first Turkish Siege of Vienna ended. Despite Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent telling his troops that if they didn't win, he would fill the Danube with their genitals, the Turkish army gave up the siege and fell back into Hungary. As the Viennese went through the Turkish camp, they found large quantities of black beans that tasted awful. A Polish mercenary named Adam Kolschitsky had lived in Turkey and knew what to do with them. He opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, the KolschitskyDom. He is also credited with inventing the coffee filter, which made the strong Turkish java palatable to Europeans. The Viennese commemorated their victory with a pastry shaped like the Turkish battle ensign, the crescent, or the croissant.
1670-At a performance at the Chateau of Chambord before King Louis XIV Moliere’s satire “Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme” premiered. Lully wrote the music.
1908- The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Tigers for their first World Series championship. The next time they won a World Series was 2016.
1912- While going to give a political speech in Milwaukee, a lunatic named William Shrenck shot Teddy Roosevelt in the chest. The bullet was slowed down tearing through his clothes, speech notes and tin eyeglasses case, and missed any important organs. Bleeding from his side Teddy spat in his hand to see if there was blood in his spittle, which would mean internal damage. Seeing there was none, he went ahead and gave his 90 minute speech before going to a hospital. -Bully!
1926- A.A. Milne’s first book of Winnie the Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Christopher Robin debuted this day.
1934- The Lux Radio Theater premiered.
1950- The LAPD raided a house party of gay men, which was illegal back then. One of the men arrested was future movie star Tab Hunter. This was kept secret until in 1955, when an angry agent leaked the story to Confidential Magazine. “Tab Hunter Busted at Limp-Wristed Pajama Party!” It soon blew over and Tab Hunter went on to have a full movie career.
1954- First day of shooting on Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of the Ten Commandments staring Charlton Heston out in the Egyptian desert. It was so brutally hot that Anne Baxter joked to Vincent Price “ Vin, who do I have to sleep with to get OFF this movie?”
1955- Actor Zero Mostel testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee. .
1959- Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver. Exhausted by overindulgence in his many vices, doctors said the 50 year old movie star had the body of a 70 year old. A descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers, the Tasmanian born actor's last film was ' Cuban Rebel Girls'.
1964- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr won the Nobel Peace Prize.
1972 - KUNG FU, starring David Carradine, premiered on ABC TV.
In her memoirs, Bruce Lee's widow, Linda Lee Cadwell, asserts that Lee created the concept for the series. There is circumstantial evidence for this in a December 8, 1971 television interview that Bruce Lee gave on The Pierre Berton Show. In the interview, Lee stated that he had developed a concept for a television series called THE WARRIOR, meant to star himself, about a martial artist in the American Old West (the same concept as KUNG FU, which aired the following year), but that he was having trouble pitching it to Warner Brothers and Paramount. Show creator and producer Ed Spielman denied taking Bruce Lees idea. He claimed he had been working on it on the East Coast long before. The show’s star David Carradine was a “gweilo”-Cantonese for white foreigner, pretending to be Chinese.
1972- Joe Cocker and his backup band were busted in Australia for drug possession.
1978- Lover Scott Thorsten “outs” pianist Liberace by filing a palimony suit.
1979- Wayne Gretsky scored his first goal.
2014- Actress Elizabeth Peña, the voice of Mirage (Syndrome's sexy right-hand woman and accomplice) in the Pixar’s The Incredibles, passed away at age 55 from cirrhosis of the liver.
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