Birthdays: 1553-King Henry IV of Navarre, Tycho Brahe, Nostradamus -Michel de Notre Dame-1503, English King George VI- 1895, Spike Jones the bandleader, Morey Amsterdam, Charlie Rich, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Lee Remick, Patty Duke, Adult film star Ginger Lynn, Clark Terry- trumpeter. Cecil Pay, Saxophonist, Jane Birkin.
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1871- Verdi's opera "Aida" debuts in Cairo.
1901- The first Ping-Pong tournament held in London.
1911- Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and four others first reached the South Pole, winning the race against Captain Robert Falcon Scott.
1918- Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle entertained his dying daughter Marcella, by making up stories involving her rag dollies. After her passing, friends urged Gruelle to publish them. The RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY stories are born.
1924- Ottorino Respighi ‘s rhapsody The Pines of Rome premiered.
1927- Charles Lindbergh did one last flight with his famous monoplane the Spirit of Saint Louis, from Washington to Mexico City. This is at the request of American Ambassador Dwight Murrow who wanted to improve Mexican-American relations. Lindbergh would not only improve relations, but also marry Murrow's daughter Anne. To make the flight a challenge Lindbergh took off at night in a rainstorm to prove air travel was safe. The President of Mexico and 150,000 people greeted him in Mexico City.
1934- March of the Wooden Soldiers, the Hal Roach version of Babes in Toyland with Laurel & Hardy opened. Walt Disney had been trying hard to get the rights to Babes in Toyland for his first animated feature but lost out. Despite that, Walt and Hal Roach were good friends, and Walt allowed him to put a Mickey-looking mouse character in the film.
1944- The film National Velvet premiered, making a star out of 12 year old Elizabeth Taylor.
1947- The National Association of Stock Car Racing or NASCAR formed.
1953- Young pitcher Sandy Koufax was signed by the Dodgers. He became one of their most famous pitchers of all time.
1962- Mariner II reached the planet Venus. The first manmade probe to reach another planet. Although it stopped working, it’s still up there in orbit between Venus and Mercury.
1970- George Harrison’s single My Sweet Lord went gold.
1972- THE LAST MAN LEAVES THE MOON. Apollo 17 blasted off. We all remember the first man on the moon, but do you remember the last? Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt. President Nixon annoyed NASA by saying he doubted that men would return to the moon in the remainder of the Twentieth Century, but he was right.
1974- Irwin Allen’s disaster film The Towering Inferno, opened.
1977- DISCO! The movie Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta and the music of the Bee Gees make the Disco dancing scene a national craze.
1979- STUDIO 54 RAIDED- The Internal Revenue Service busted the worlds most famous disco club. Formerly the hangout of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote and other “Beautiful People”, now the Feds were on to them. The IRS seized doctored account books, cocaine and undeclared cash, landing the owners in jail and bringing the celebrity playlands days to an end.
1983- Disney Studio released the short film Frankenweenie, by a weird young artist named Tim Burton. He was promptly fired upon its completion for wasting company resources. Later in 2012, when he was THE Tim Burton, he remade Frankenweenie as a full length stop-motion film.
1984- David Lynch’s version of Dune, with Kyle McClanahan.
2015- Hollywood premiere for J.J. Abrams reboot of the Star Wars franchise, Star Wars the Force Awakens.
2017- Rupert Murdoch sold off much of the Twentieth Century Fox Studio to Walt Disney for $66 billion. He kept his FoxNews division.
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