Birthdays: King Henry VIII, Peter Paul Rubens, Luigi Pirandello, Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Dillinger, Richard Rogers, Herb Ryman, Gilda Radner, Cartoonist George Booth, Leon Panetta, Mary Stuart Masterson, Kathy Bates is 77, John Cusack is 59, Mel Brooks is 99
1868- Twenty-something artist Claude Monet was so broke and depressed he jumped in the Seine River. After splashing around for a while, he decided it’s silly to drown himself, so he swam to the riverbank and went for a drink. He outlived all the Impressionist painters of his generation, dying famous in 1926 at age 86.
1922- Twenty one year old Walt Disney started Newman's Laugh-O-Grams in Kansas City.
1928- Louis Armstrong & Earl Hines recorded West End Blues.
1955- Walt Disney sent a memo to his studio employees to please come to the grand opening day of Disneyland Park on July 17. He was concerned not enough people would show up the first day, and it would look bad on live TV. He shouldn’t have worried. 100,000 people came that first day.
1969- THE STONEWALL UPRISING- New York City Police got a false tip about a stabbing at the mob-owned Stonewall gay bar in Greenwich Village. Others claim the cops were there to get their money kickbacks, and when it wasn’t paid, they started arresting patrons. But for once the patrons didn’t go quietly but began to fight back.
As she was being loaded into a paddy wagon, A drag queen began by kicking a policeman, then the others rushed out. People on the street began pelting the policemen with pennies and nickels, symbolizing there being there for graft. When the cops formed a blue wall to advance, gays formed a wall and fought them, shouting:” WE ARE THE VILLAGE GIRLS! WE WEAR OUR HAIR IN CURLS!” In the 60’s era of social revolution, the incident caused three days of urban rioting, and The Gay Pride Movement was born.
1971- The Supreme Court overturned the conviction of prizefighter Mohammed Ali for draft evasion.
1975- Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling died during open heart surgery. He was 50. His last movie script was called The Man, about resistance of the Washington elite to the first black president of the United States. Twenty years later a black man was indeed president.
1997- Heavyweight prizefighter Mike Tyson was banned from boxing and fined $3 million for biting off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear during a match.
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