Birthdays: Sarah Bernhardt, Timothy Leary, Franz Liszt, Doris Lessing, Joan Fontaine, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lloyd is 86, Annette Funicello, Brian Boitano, Jerry “Curly” Howard of the Three Stooges, Catherine Deneuve is 81, Spike Jonze is 56. Jeff Goldblum is 72.
1883- First performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It was Gounod’s Faust with soprano Christine Nillson and tenor Italo Campanini.
1900- Two Ohio bicycle repairmen named Orville and Wilbur Wright built a large glider and flew it. They choose the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to test their glider because the winds were strong, and they would crash in something soft. The airplane was still three years in the future, but this was their first test of their prototype double winged plane design.
1903- Tom Horn, considered the Last of the Western Outlaws, was hanged in Wyoming for the murder of Willie Nickel. He supposedly adjusted the noose around his neck himself. The era of the gunslinger officially ends with him.
1934- The comic strip Terry and the Pirates by Milt Caniff first appeared in newspapers.
1934- Bank Robber James" Pretty Boy" Floyd killed in a furious gun battle with the F.B.I. He had told his father months before:" Pa, when I go, I’m gonna go down in lead!" Floyd was called the, "dust bowl robin hood" for leaving food and money on doorsteps of destitute farmers. One story had him steal a pie cooling on a windowsill, then replacing it with a $50 bill. In Woody Guthrie's "Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" He says:" You may call me an outlaw, but one thing that I have known. I've never seen an outlaw drive a family from their home."
1938-THE BIRTHDAY OF THE XEROX COPY- Chester Carlson working with an amateur chemistry set behind a beauty parlor in Astoria Queens, created the first photo copy. He took his invention to Edison, G.E., RCA and IBM who all rejected it. Finally a little firm that produced photographic paper for Kodak called the Haloid Company bought it. They later changed their named to Xerox, Greek for “Dry-Writing”.
1939-The first televised football game-The Brooklyn Dodger's 23 Philadelphia Eagles 14.
1948- The first In-N-Out Burger stand opened in Baldwin Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. Created by Harry & Esther Snyder as the first drive through hamburger stand. It is still in business today, selling only burgers, shakes, and fries, pretty much like they did back then. Their granddaughter Lynsi Snyder is CEO. It was Bob Hope’s favorite burger place. Hollywood stars learned to stock up there before the drive to Palm Springs.
1962- Twentieth Century Fox chief Daryl Zanuck fired long suffering director Joe Mankiewicz off of the editing of the spectacle Cleopatra. Mankiewicz had shot a 6 hour movie he wanted shown as two films. Zanuck wanted one big movie at half that size. After a lot of embarrassing feuding in the press, Zanuck rehired Mankiewicz and he recut Cleopatra, When Elizabeth Taylor saw the finished film, she threw up. Cleopatra became one of the biggest flops in Hollywood History and forced Fox to sell off most of their studio back lot. It became the Century City shopping mall.
1962- At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a stand-up comic named Vaughn Meador recorded a comedy album called The First Family. It made lighthearted fun of John F. Kennedy and his White House. The record became the fastest selling hit of the pre-Beatles era, 7.5 million copies. Jackie called Meador a rat, but JFK thought it was funny and gave out copies as Christmas presents. Kennedy said Meador’s impersonation sounded more like his brother Teddy than him.
2021- Disney's Ron's Gone Wrong.
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