Today in History 2/8

Whoops, I'm home sick today and forgot completely about "me public."1587: Mary, Queen of Scots gets her head cut off on suspicion of being involved in a plot to murder her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. See, what happened was that Mary was the Catholic queen of Scotland and she was married to a useless idiot. He died under mysterious circumstances (he was strangled in the garden) and Mary didn't seem to mind too much. She then married (or perhaps was forced to marry) another useless idiot and was subsequently overthrown. She fled to what she felt was safety, England. Problem was that England was a very Protestant country and Elizabeth was concerned that, if she aided Mary, she would be allowing the Catholic menace in her own backyard. So, Liz treats Mary like a pariah and has her penned up in a variety of dank castles. After seventeen years of this, Liz's spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham (played by Geoffry Rush) cooked up a scheme to entrap Mary into a charge of treason. While Liz dithered about what to do, Walsingham basically says, "Well, you didn't say not to have her head cut off," and gets her head cut off. This makes Liz look like the regicide, not Mary and makes Mary into a martyr, not only for Scotland, but for Catholics everywhere.
1622: King James I disbands Parliament. I forget why, but I'm sure he had a reason. He's Mary's kid. As Liz died without issue, he was next in line. Except that, after Mary got her head got off, he was forced to renounce her and was raised as a Protestant, so England stayed Protestant for the moment. If you want to give yourself a splitting headache, try to come up with a timeline of when England was Protestant or Catholic and why.
1692: The Salem Witch Trials get kicked off when a doctor in Salem Village suggest that two girls may be suffering from bewitchments.
1693: The College of William and Mary is founded in Williamsburg, VA on a grant from King William III and Queen Mary II. William III (aka William of Orange) is the guy who got invited to come run England during the Glorious Revolution of 1688. He's also who Orange County, Vermont is named after.
1820: William Tecumseh Sherman is born.1828: Jules Verne is born.
1865: Delaware votes to reject the 13th Amendment and to continue the practice of slavery. The amendment isn't ratified until February 12, 1901.
1904: The Russo-Japanese War kicks off with a surprise attack by the Japanese at Port Arthur, China. It worked out so well for them that the Japanese started to think that a surprise attack on a rival's navy was the best way to kick off a war.
1910: The Boy Scouts of America is incorporated by William D. Boyce.
1915: DW Griffith's controversial film The Birth of a Nation premieres in Los Angeles. It's got a bunch of "Wasn't the Klan awesome?" and "Don't black men lust after white women?" kind of crapola in it.
1921: Lana Turner is born. She was known as the original Sweater Girl, because she looked so damned awesome in a tight sweater. Sadly, I could not find a single picture of her in a sweater, so this will have to do, boys.1922: Audrey Meadows is born. She played the wife on The Honeymooners.
1925: Jack Lemmon is born.
1924: The first use of the gas chamber in capital punishment in Nevada.
1931: James Dean is born.
1932: John Williams is born. He did the soundtrack for Gidget Goes to Rome and MST3K episode 307: Daddy-O.. I guess he did some science fiction movies later in his career or something.
1933: Jack Larson is born. He played Jimmy Olsen in the Adventures of Superman TV show.
1941: Nick Nolte is born. He's married to Catherine Zeta Jones, damn him. No, wait she's married to Michael Douglas. Same thing as far as I'm concerned and I don't really need much of an excuse to post picture of Catherine Zeta Jones.1943: The Battle of Guadalcanal ends after the Japanese evacuate.
1944: Roger Lloyd Pack is born. He played John Lumic, the misguided scientist to unleashes the Cybermen on an unsuspecting world in the Doctor Who episode Rise of the Cyberman and The Age of Steel. 1953: Mary Steenburgen is born. She was in the H.G. Wells/Jack the Ripper time travel adventure Time After Time. She was also in Elf.
1956: Connie Mack dies.
1961: Vince Neil, of Motley Crue, is born. Sorry, I can't honor the umlaut with this keyboard, so I can't spell "Motley Crue" correctly.

1961: Bruce Timm is born. He, along with writer Paul Dini are the geniuses who gave us the modern age DC Animated Universe: Batman: TAS, Superman, TAS, and the various incarnations of the Justice League.1968: Gary Coleman is born. He was one of the people who caused child labor laws in Hollywood to be reformed after he was colossally ripped off by his parents.

1974: Seth Green is born. He played Scott Evil in the Austin Powers movies who exhorts his father to "just get a gun and shoot him!"

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

Today in History, 2/7

1238: The Mongols burn the Russian city of Vladimir.
1301: King Edward I's son becomes the first English Prince of Wales.
1795: The 11th Amendment is ratified.
1804: John Deere, tractor magnate, is born.
1812: A series of earthquakes strikes New Madrid, MO.
1812: Charles Dickens is born.
1867: Laura Ingalls Wilder is born.
1882: The last heavyweight boxing championship bare-knuckle fight takes place in Mississippi City, MS.
1914: Charlie Chaplin's first appearance as The Little Tramp in Kid Auto Races at Venice.
1945: Pete Postlethwaite is born. He played the mysterious lawyer Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects.
1948: General Eisenhower resigns as Army Chief of Staff and is replaced by Omar Bradley.
1955: Miguel Ferrer is born. What hasn't this guy been in? He was the doomed executive Bob Morton in Robocop, the helm officer of the USS Excelsior in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and the tri-state spree killer Lloyd Henried in the TV version of The Stand.
1956: Emo Phillips is born.
1960: James Spader is born.
1962: The US bans all Cuban imports and exports.
1964: The Beatles arrive at JFK Airport to begin their first tour of the US.
1991: The IRA launches a mortar attack on 10 Downing Street during a cabinet meeting.

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

Today in History, 2/6

The Manolo says his hair is superfantastic!

1685: James II of England and VII of Scotland assumes the throne after the death of Charles II. He was overthrown in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when everybody decided that they were tired of being ruled by Catholics (James II's kid and heir was also Catholic) and invited William of Orange over to run the place.
1748: Adam Weishaupt, founder of the Illuminati, is born.
1756: Aaron Burr is born.
1778: The Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce are signed in Paris, signaling France's recognition of the US.
1788: Massachusetts becomes the sixth state to ratify the US Constitution.
1862: In the first Union victory of the Civil War, Ulysses S. Grant captures Fort Henry, TN in the aptly named Battle of Fort Henry.1895: Babe Ruth is born.
1898: The Spanish-American War ends with the signing of The Treaty of Paris.
1911: Ronald Reagan is born.
1912: Eva Braun, Hitler's gal pal, is born.1914: Thurl Ravenscroft is born. He was the voice of Tony the Tiger and sang "You're a Mean one, Mr. Grinch" in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. He also was the voice of the creepy narrator in the Design for Dreaming short film included with MST3K episode 524: 12 to the Moon.
1917: Zsa Zsa Gabor is born. She played the hottest leader of the hottest resistance group in the galaxy in Queen of Outer Space.1922: The Washington Naval Treaty is signed, limiting the size of naval armaments of the US, Britain, Japan, France and Italy.
1931: Rip Torn is born.
1931: Mamie Van Doren is born. She was, uh, statuesque in MST3k Episode #601: Girls Town.1933: The 20th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified. It moves the start of presidential, vice-presidential and congressional terms from March to January.
1939: Mike Farrell is born.
1940: Tom Brokaw is born.
1941: Gigi Perreau is born. Holy cats, she was Mamie van Doren's clingy henchgal who was obsessed with Paul Anka in Girls Town!
1945: Bob Marley is born.
1922: Patrick Macnee is born. He is most famous for playing John Steed on The Avgengers, but he also played young Jacob Marley in the Alistair Sim version of A Christmas Carol.

1952: Elizabeth II becomes Queen upon the death of her father George VI.1962: Axl Rose is born.
1963: Kevin Trudeau, huckster, is born.
1971: Alan Shepard becomes the first person to hit a golf ball on the Moon. He used a six iron to hit a ball 400 yards.
1989: Chris Gueffroy becomes the last person killed escaping over the Berlin Wall.
1994: Joseph Cotten dies. He was great as the corrupt, tormented politician in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and as the doomed business tycoon in Soylent Green.
1994: Jack Kirby Dies.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

Today in History, 2/5

1597: A group of early Japanese Christians are killed by the government of Japan for being perceived as a threat to society.
1778: South Carolina becomes the first state to ratify the Articles of Confederation.
1885: King Leopold II of Belgium established the Congo as a personal possession. At 905 thousand square miles, it is the largest piece of property owned by one person.1889: Belle Starr, outlaw of the Old West, is born.1900: Adlai Stevenson is born.1906: John Carradine is born. I was just watching him in MST3K Episode 320: The Unearthly this morning as I was getting ready for work.
1914: William S. Burroughs is born.
1917: The US Congress passes a law banning most Asian immigration into the US.
1919: Red Buttons is born.
1919: Tim Holt is born. He was great in Treasure of the Sierra Madre, more than holding his own against the two powerhouses Walter Houston and Humphrey Bogart.1919: Charlie Chaplin, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and D.W. Griffith form United Artists.
1924: The Royal Greenwich Observatory begins broadcasting the hourly time signal known as the Greenwich Time Signal or "BBC pips."
1934: Hank Aaron is born.1937: FDR proposes a plan to pack the Supreme Court.
1940: H.R. Giger is born. I find him to be a one-note canary, but his designs for the Alien movie series are awesome.
1943: Speaking of one-note canaries, Nolan Bushnell is born. He founded Atari and pretty much the entire home video game market and has spent the rest of his career trying to duplicate that triumph, with little success.1945: Douglas MacArthur returns to Manilla.
1946: Charlotte Rampling is born. She was one of the many people to leave Zardoz off their resume.
1948: Christopher Guest is born. While he is mostly known today for his improv-based films, he was also one of the people behind the original National Lampoon Radio Hour. Here he is with Bill Murray at the 1976 Superbowl.

1958: A hydrogen bomb known as the Tybee Bomb is lost by the US Air Force off the coast of Georgia. It is never recovered.1962: Jennifer Jason Leigh is born.1981: Ella Grasso dies.

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

Today in History, 2/4

1789: George Washington is unanimously elected to be the first President of the United States by the US Electoral College.
1792: George Washington is unanimously elected to a second term.
1794: The French legislature abolishes slavery throughout all territories of the French Republic. This didn't prevent them from kicking around various native groups, though.
1801: John Marshal is sworn in as Chief Justice of the United States.
1825: The Ohio Legislature authorizes construction of the Ohio and Erie Canal (it connects the Ohio River and Lake Erie at Cleveland) and the Miami and Erie Canal (from the Ohio River to Lake Erie at Toledo).1861: Delegates from six break-away US states (SC, MS, FL, AL, GA and LA) meet and form the Confederate States of America.
1895: Nigel Bruce is born. He is considered the "definitive Watson" in the Sherlock Holmes movies.1899: The Philippine-American war begins.
1902: Charles Lindbergh is born.
1913: Rosa Parks is born.1918: Ida Lupino is born.1918: Janet Waldo is born. She did the voice of Penelope Pitstop on Wacky Races and The Perils of Penelope Pitstop.
1923: Conrad Bain is born. He was the dad on Diff'rent Strokes.
1938: Thorton Wilder's play Our Town opens on Broadway.
1940: George A. Romero is born. Although he admits to being inspired by Richard Matheson's book I Am Legend, he is generally credited with inventing the modern zombie genre.1940: John Schuck is born. He played the Klingon ambassador in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.1941: John Steel is born. He was the original drummer for The Animals.
1941: The USO (United Service Organization) is created to entertain American troops.
1945: The Yalta Conference begins.1945: Ceylon (aka Sri Lanka) becomes independent within the British Commonwealth.

Not Cylon! Ceylon!

1948: Alice Cooper is born.

1949: Michael Beck is born. He played Swan in The Warriors and Dallas in Megaforce.
1959: Pemelyn Ferdin is born. She provided the voice of Lucy van Pelt in the Peanuts cartoons.
1960: Jenette Goldstein is born. She played the tough-but-hot Vasquez in Aliens.1974: The Symbionese Liberation Army kidnaps Patty Hearst.
1983: Karen Carpenter dies.
1991: The Baseball Hall of Fame votes to ban Pete Rose.

Today in History, 2/3

1468: Johannes Gutenberg dies.
1690: The colony of Massachusetts issues the first paper money in America.
1783: Spain recognizes the United States.
1809: The Illinois Territory is created.
1865: President Abraham Lincoln and Confederate Vice-President Alexander H. Stephens hold a peace conference aboard a ship off the Virginia coast.
1867: Emperor Meiji becomes the 122nd emperor of Japan.
1870: The Fifteenth Amendment is ratified, granting voting rights to citizens regardless of race.
1894: Norman Rockwell is born.
1904: Pretty Boy Floyd is born.
1913: The Sixteenth Amendment is ratified, authorizing the Federal government to impose and collect an income tax.
1916: The Parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada burn down.
1917: The United States breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany, one day after Germany announces a new policy of unrestricted submarine warfare.
1918: Joey Bishop is born.
1918: The Twin Peaks Tunnel opens in San Fransisco. At 2 miles long, it is one of the longest railway tunnels in the world.
1924: Woodrow Wilson dies.
1930: The Communist Party of Vietnam is established.
1940: Fran Tarkenton is born.
1945: During WWII, the Soviet Union agrees to enter the Pacific Theater conflict against Japan.
1945: Operation Thunderclap: 1,000 B-17's of the Eighth Air Force bomb Berlin.
1947: The record-low temperature for North America is recorded in Snag, Yukon: -81.4 degrees. Regional pride makes me say, "Hey, what about Mount Washington!" but the record there is only -47 degrees. Well played, Snag, Yukon!

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1950: Morgan Fairchild is born.
1956: Nathan Lane is born.
1959: A plane crash near Clear Lake, IA kills Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper.
1965: Maura Tierney is born.
1966: The unmanned Soviet Luna 9 spacecraft makes the first controlled rocket-assisted landing on the Moon.
1969: Yasser Arafat is appointed leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization at the Palestine National Congress.
1970: Warwick Davis is born. He played the title character in Willow.
1978: Eliza Schneider is born. She does most of the female voices on South Park.
1984: Astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart make the first untethered spacewalks using the Manned Maneuvering Unit.
1991: Nancy Culp - Miss Jane Hathaway on The Beverly Hillbillies - dies.
2003: Lana Clarkson is allegedly murdered by Phil Spector. She was in the Barbarian Queen movies and Wizards of the Lost Kingdom II.
2006: Al "Granpa Munster" Lewis dies. He also ran for Mayor of New York on the Green Party ticket a couple of times.


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

Today in History, 2/2

1536: Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina. It would go on to be destroyed by evil asteroid-slinging bugs from space.
1650: Nell Gwynne, actress and mistress of King Charles II is born.

It's good to be the king!

1653: New Amsterdam (aka New York City) is incorporated.
1709: Alexander Selkirk is rescued from a desert island. He inspired the book Robinson Crusoe.
1812: Russia establishes a fur trading company at what is now Fort Ross, California.
1848: The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo is signed, ending the Mexican-American War.1848: During the California Gold Rush, the first ship with Chinese immigrants seeking their fortune arrives in San Francisco.
1870: The Cardiff Giant -supposedly the petrified remains of a human discovered in Cardiff, NY- is revealed to be nothing more than carved gypsum.1876: The National League of Major League Baseball is formed.
1880: The first electric streetlight is installed in Wabash, IN.
1882: The Knights of Columbus is formed in New Haven, CT.
1882: James Joyce is born.
1887: The first Groundhog Day is observed in Punxsutawney, PA.
1897: Howard Johnson is born.
1905: Ayn Rand is born. Atlas Shrugged almost broke me.1923: Bonita Granville is born. She played Nancy Drew: Girl Detective in the 30's.1933: Tony Jay is born. He provided the voice of Megabyte in ReBoot and the voice of the Supreme Being in Time Bandits. ("Return what you have stolen from me!")
1937: Tommy Smothers is born.

1940: Frank Sinatra debuts with the Tommy Dorsey orchestra.
1940: David Jason is born. He provided the voice of Dangermouse and The Narrator in Dangermouse, one of my all-time favorite cartoons that shamefully hasn't been released on DVD.

1942: Graham Nash, of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is born.1943: The last German forces surrender to the Soviets after the Battle of Stalingrad. The ancient race-hatred between the Germans and the Russians along with the ideological conflict meant that surrendering spelled death. If you want to get depressed, read about the Eastern Front, specifically In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann.
1947: Farah Fawcett is born.
1949: Brent Spiner is born. He played Lieutenant Commander Data on Star Trek: The Next Generation.1949: Ross Valory is born. He was Journey's bass player.
1954: Christie Brinkley is born. She was Billy Joel's Uptown Girl (livin' in her white bread world).
1962: Michael T. Weiss is born. He was The Pretender in NBC's short-lived "Saturday Night Thrillogy" (along with Dark Skies and The Profiler). It was NBC's attempt to hop on The X-Files bandwagon.
1969: Boris Karloff dies.1974: The F-16 Fighting Falcon flies for the first time.1979: Sid Vicious dies. He was kinda dumb and very untalented and he had terrible taste in women, but still, I love The Sex Pistols. Of course, most of the musical heavy lifting on bass was done by Glen Matlock and not Sid Vicious, who was usually so out of his gourd he didn't know what a bass guitar was.

"Oi!"

1995: Donald Pleasence dies. I just watched him chew the scenery as the deliciously evil villain in Gold of the Amazon Women.

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

Today in History, 2/1

1327: Teenaged Edward III is crowned King of England, but the country is really ruled by his mother Queen Isabella and her lover Roger Mortimer.
1790: The Supreme Court of the United States convenes for the first time.
1861: Texas secedes from the Union.
1862: Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" is published for the first time in the Atlantic Monthly.
1884: The first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary is published.
1893: Thomas Edison completes the first motion picture studio in West Orange, NJ.
1894: John Ford is born. He directed some of the greatest movies ever made, including The Searchers, The Long Gray Line, and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. This is the love scene from The Long Gray Line:

1901: Clark Gable is born. He singlehandedly destroyed the American undershirt industry by not wearing one in It Happened One Night.1902: Langston Hughes is born. He was a prolific author and was one of the first black people to be openly unashamed of being black. His most famous poem is Harlem:

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

1908: George Pal is born. He directed the Puppetoons series of short films and The Great Rupert, which is all about a little squirrel who helps Jimmy Durante and a poverty-stricken couple overcome their obstacles. I got this at the dollar store last year and it's about as odd as it sounds.1913: Grand Central Station opens in NYC.1918: Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar.
1920: The Royal Canadian Mounted Police begin operations.

1928: Stuart Whitman is born. What the Hell did I just see him in? Oh yeah, he was in the giant killer mutant bunny epic, Night of the Lepus.
1937: Garret Morris is born.1938: Sherman Hemsley is born.
1937: Ray Sawyer, of Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show is born.1940: Bibi Besch is born. She played Kirk's gal pal in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.1943: Vidkun Quisling is appointed Premier of Norway by the Nazi occupiers. His name would go on to become a synonym for traitor.1948: Rick James is born.
1948: Elisabeth Sladen is born. She played the cute-n-perky companion on the 70's-era Doctor Who.

"Is there a bug on me?"

1954: Bill Mumy is born. He played the kid on Lost In Space.
1960: Four black students stage the first of the Greensboro sit-ins at a lunch counter in Greensboro, NC.
1965: Sherilyn Fenn is born. Watching her tie a cherry stem in knot with her tongue on Twin Peaks was an educational moment for me as a teen, to say the least.1966: Buster Keaton dies.
1968: The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnamese Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan is photographed by Eddie Adams. Here's the link, but it's pretty graphic.
1968: A date which will live in infamy: Pauly Shore is born.
1969: Saturday mail delivery in Canada is eliminated. Savages!
1978: Director Roman Polanski skips bail and flees to France after pleading guilty to charges of having sex with a13-year old girl.
1979: Convicted bank robber Patty Hearst is released from prison after Jimmy Carter commutes her sentence.1979: The Ayatollah Khomeini is welcomed back to Tehran, Iran after 15 years of exile.
1982: Late Night With David Letterman premieres on NBC.
2003: The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.
2004: Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" during Super Bowl XXXVIII.
2005: John Vernon dies. He was in a ton of movies, but most people of my generation remember him as Dean Wormer in Animal House.

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