1758: During the French and Indian War, the Siege of Louisbourg, Nova Scotia begins.1775: During the American Revolution, British general Thomas Gage declares martial law in Massachusetts and offered amnesty to any rebelling colonists who lay down their arms. There were two exceptions: Sam Adams and John Hancock were to be hanged if captured.
1806: John A. Roebling is born. He was the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge but he died before it was completed.
1908: Otto Skorzeny, famous SS commando, is born.
1916: Irwin Allen is born. He made many of the classic disaster movies of the 60's and 70's and also many terrible movies too. Here's the trailer for The Swarm, Allen's take on the killer bee genre.1918: Speaking of terrible movies. Samuel Z. Arkoff is born. Along with James H. Nicholson and Roger Corman he started American International Pictures and unleashed a powerhouse of bad movies upon the world. He is credited with creating the Beach Party and Outlaw Biker movie genres. When asked how to create a successful movie (financially successful, that is) he came up with the ARKOFF formula:
Action (exciting, entertaining drama)Yep, that's a pretty good description of my DVD collection. Of course, now I have to try and find a representative clip of such an august body of work. This must be what the Academy goes through when it gives out lifetime achievement awards. Here's the trailer from Blacula:
Revolution (novel or controversial ideas or themes)
Killing (violence)
Oratory (memorable dialogue or speeches)
Fantasy (acted-out fantasies common to the audience)
Fornication (sex appeal)
1919: Uta Hagen is born. While I can speak at length about the output of AIP and how Bikini Beach was a stinging indictment of America's growing involvement in Vietnam (Keenan Wynn is America and the Teens are the Viet Cong and the beach is South Vietnam and the school teacher is American public opinion and the harder Keenan works to take over beach, the more the school teacher sides with the teens) I know next to nothing about Uta Hagen. She's considered one of the greatest actresses of the 20th Century.
1928: Vic Damone is born.1930: Jim Nabors is born. Shazaam!
1931: Rona Jaffe is born. She wrote the novel Mazes & Monsters which was later an early Tom Hanks vehicle.
1933: Eddie Adams is born. He took the famous photograph of Nguyen Van Lem being executed by Nguyen Ngoc Loan during the Vietnam War. He always said that he would have rather been known for the pictures he took of refugees fleeing Vietnam after the war:
1939: Shooting begins on Dr. Cyclops, the first horror film to be shot in three-strip Technicolor.1941: Chick Corea, jazz keyboardist, is born.
1942: Anne Frank receives a diary for her thirteenth birthday.
1943: Nazis liquidate the Jewish ghetto at Berezhany, Ukraine, killing more than 1,100 civilians in a mass grave.
1957: Timothy Busfield is born. He played Arnold Poindexter in Revenge of the Nerds. Clip is NSFW.
1958: Rebecca Holden is born. She played the lovely, leggy tech guru April Curtis on Knight Rider.
1959: John Linnell of They Might Be Giants is born.1959: Scott Thompson of The Kids in the Hall is born. Clip is NSFW.
1963: Civil rights leader Medgar Evers is shot dead in front of his home by KKK member Byron De La Beckwith.
1967: Nelson Mandela is sentenced to life in prison in South Africa.
1967: In Loving v Virginia, the US Supreme Court rules that all laws prohibiting interracial marriage are unconstitutional.1974: Jason Mewes is born. He plays Jay in the Kevin Smith movies. This clip is NSFW too.
1978: David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam is sentenced to 365 years in prison for killing six people.
1987: President Reagan publicly challenges Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.
1991: Michael Jordan and some other guys win their first NBA championship.
1994: Nichole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are stabbed to death in her home in California.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.
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