…all the random things that happened today…..
1847 – “Oh, Susannah” was sung in public for the first time. Stephen Foster sold the rights to the song for a bottle of whiskey.
1963 – “The Great White Wonder” first appears in a record store in Los Angeles, CA. The “bootleg” of Bob Dylan songs is believed to be the first bootleg album.
1875 – “Professor Tidwissel’s Burglar Alarm” was featured in the New York Daily Graphic and became the first comic strip to appear in a newspaper.
1910 – In Hollywood, the first commercially successful electric bus line opened.
1951 – Florence Chadwick became the first woman to swim the English Channel from both directions.
1952 – Dr. Charles Hufnagel successfully replaced a diseased aorta valve with an artificial valve made of plastic.
1954 – The Miss America beauty pageant made its network TV debut on ABC. Miss California, Lee Ann Meriwether, was the winner.
1959 – The U.S. Congress passed a bill authorizing the creation of food stamps.
1970 – The last “Get Smart” episode aired on CBS-TV.
1971 – The animated “The Jackson Five” TV series debuted on ABC.
1974 – “Little House On The Prairie” made its television debut.
1984 – Bruce Springsteen broke the attendance record at Philadelphia’s Spectrum. 16,800 fans attended the first of six sold-out shows.
1987 – Peter Tosh was shot and killed by robbers in his home in Jamaica.
1990 – U.S. President Bush vowed “Saddam Hussein will fail” while addressing Congress on the Persian Gulf crisis. In the speech Bush spoke of an objective of a new world order – “freer from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit of justice, and more secure in the quest for peace”.
1996 – David Bowie’s single “Telling Lies” was released exclusively on the Internet. It was the first time a new single by a major selling artist was released exclusively on the Internet.
1999 – The Wall Street Journal reported that Bayer Corp. had quit putting a wad of cotton in their bottles of aspirin. Bayer had actually stopped the practice earlier in the year.
2002 – Nick Nolte was arrested for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He was released later in the day on $2,500 bail. (Don’t ever forget his mugshot!)
BIRTHDAYS
James Thomson 1700
O. Henry (William Sidney Porter) 1862
D.H. Lawrence 1885
Jimmie Davis 1899
Anne Seymour 1909
Bear Bryant 1913
Jessica Mitford 1917
Ferdinand Marcos (Philippines) 1917
Betsy Drake 1923
Tom Landry 1924
Alfred Slote 1926
Lee Richardson 1926
Earl Holliman 1928
Arvo Part 1935
Gherman Titov 1935
Brian DePalma 1940
Lola Falana 1943
Mickey Hart (Grateful Dead) 1943
Phil May (The Pretty Things) 1944
Leo Kottke 1945
Dennis Tufano (The Buckinghams) 1946
Amy Madigan 1951
Tommy Shaw (Styx) 1952
Reed Birney 1954
John Moss (Culture Club) 1957
Mick Talbot (The Style Council) 1958
Kristy McNichol 1962
Virginia Madsen 1963
Roxanne Dawson 1964
Moby 1965
Harry Connick, Jr. 1967
Bart Van Der Zeeluw (K’s Choice) 1968
Laura Wright 1970
Mr. Black 1977
Image Source: CartoonStock