Today in History, 5/2

Kind of a video-heavy edition today, but I found so much neat stuff. How do you choose between a Lesley Gore clip and a Foreigner clip? You can't. And the Jet Airliner clip is there because I dig that song, man.
Also, we all got our butts soundly birched at work for illicit net access (like updating blogs) so I have to be a good do-bee for awhile and do this at home. The good thing is that I can take my time and find neat clips rather than furtively snatching my net access at work like someone in Occupied France smuggling ammunition to the Resistance. That, and I can include clips with boobies.1569: Mary, Queen of Scots escapes from Loch Leven Castle, where she had been imprisoned by Sir William Douglas. It's hard to tell from the picture, but that island is in the middle of a deep, cold lake. Unfortunately, she escaped from Scotland to England where Queen Elizabeth I had her locked up for seventeen years until Mary was caught (allegedly) trying to overthrow the English throne and was beheaded. 1670: King Charles II grants a charter to the Hudson's Bay Company to open up the fur trade in North America.
1729: Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia, is born. The rumors about her and horses are largely unfounded.
1808: The Peninsular War kicks off as the people of Madrid rise up in revolt against their French occupiers.
1863: Stonewall Jackson is wounded by friendly fire and dies of pneumonia eight days later.1885: Good Housekeeping magazine goes on sale for the first time.
1885: The Congo Free State is established by King Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold II is the poster child for not just pushing natives around, but being horrifically cruel to them for no other reason than it's fun.
1903: Benjamin Spock is born.1920: The first game of the Negro National League baseball is played in Indianapolis.
1924: Theodore Bikel is born. He was Curt Jurgens' first officer of the U-boat depicted in the classic The Enemy Below. He also played Worf's adopted father on Star Trek: The Next Generation.1925: Roscoe Lee Browne is born. He was in a ton of stuff, but I remember him best as the voice of Box the Robot in Logan's Run. I've been known to holler "Fish, plankton, sea greens and protein from the sea! Fresh as harvest day!" at work to relieve stress.

1929: Link Wray is born. Except for the bitchin' pompadour, he looks like he should be an assistant manager at a Shakey's.

1932: Jack Benny's radio show premieres.1933: Hitler bans unions.
1935: Lance LeGault is born. He played the villain in a number of movies and TV shows and provided the announcer's voice in the "Catholic High School Girls in Trouble!" section of Kentucky Fried Movie. It was said that he "had a voice that was four octaves lower than God's." The clip is rated NSFW on account of the boobies.

Catholic High School Girls In Trouble - Watch a funny movie here
1937: Lorenzo Music is born. He was the creator of The Bob Newhart Show but also provided the voices of Venkman on The Real Ghostbusters and Garfield on Garfield and Friends and a ton of other cartoons. If you watched cartoons in the 80's, odd are you heard some of his work. The Real Ghostbusters was one of my favorite cartoons as a kid. I always knew Garfield and The Gummi Bears (another Lorenzo Music show) sucked (I mean, Gummi Bears having "high adventure that's beyond compare" and "bouncing here and there and everywhere?" They're candy for cryin' out loud!) But The Real Ghostbusters was awesome.

1946: Lesley Gore is born. Much of her early work details her travails with a lout named Johnny. Johnny cheats on her in It's My Party. Lesley gets her revenge in Judy's Turn to Cry. Although, it should be noted that Lesley was getting revenge on Judy and not Johnny and Johhny beat the snot out of the poor sap who made the mistake of being Lesley's pawn. Lesley wises up and learns to stand up for herself in You Don't Own Me. I don't know why I've put this much thought into Lesley Gore songs. I think she's actually singing in this clip, as opposed to lip-synching, as was the style at the time on these teenybopper music shows.

1950: Lou Gramm, singer and songwriter for Foreigner is born.

1952: The world's first jet airliner, the De Haviland Comet takes off from London to Johannesburg.

1952: Character actor Christine Baranski is born.1955: Tennessee Williams wins the Pulitzer Prize for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.1969: The ocean liner Queen Elizabeth 2 departs on its maiden voyage to New York City. It's being retired this year to become a floating hotel in Dubai. Boo. Interestingly, it's not named after Queen Elizabeth II, but after Queen Elizabeth I - it's the second liner named after her.2000: President Clinton announces that accurate GPS coordinates would no longer be restricted to the military.

Today in History elements mostly cribbed from The History Channel, Wikipedia, The New York Times, The Jewish World Review, The Writer's Almanac and anything else I can dig up.