Birthdays: Louis Joliet as in the French explorers Marquette and Joliet, Gustav Holst, H.G. Wells, Stephen King, Bill Murray, Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Larry Hagman, Ricky Lake, Fanny Flagg, Ethan Coen of the Coen Brothers, Leonard Cohen not one of the Coen Brothers, Faith Hill, legendary animation director Chuck Jones
courtesy toon images.

1327- English King Edward II was openly gay with his courtiers Piers Gaveston and later Hugh Despencer. In the Middle Ages it was okay to be gay if you were a big tough mo-fo killer like Richard Lionheart, but Edward was a weenie who lost battles to Scottish King Robert the Bruce. So he was overthrown by his own Queen Isabella the She-Wolf of France and her lover Roger Mortiimer. This day Edward was murdered while being held in Berkeley Castle. The barons tied him down, held his butt cheeks open with a horn and shoved a red hot spear up into his body. Edwards only son Edward III later killed everyone involved and became an utterly great king.

1589- During the French Religious Wars King Henry IV defeated a large Catholic League army at Arques. He wrote a friend later:”Go hang yourself my brave Creon, we were at Arques and you weren’t!”

1793- The French Revolutionary Government throws out the calendar and makes a new one. So today was the FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST DECADE (week) OF THE FIRST MONTH OF YEAR II OF THE REPUBLIC ! If you didn't get it you were guillotined.

1846- Drygoods dealer Mr. A.J. Stewart opened a store in New York City that was so large he put the various items in their own departments, the Department Store. He also had the first large glass display windows which one writer labeled “A useless extravagance.”

1897- The famous column by Frank Church in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World first appeared with the answer to 8 year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s question : " ...and yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..."

1915- The British archaeological treasure Stonehenge was sold at auction to a Mr Chubb, who promptly donated it to the British nation.

1917-The Gulf Between, the first film shot in Technicolor. Because the process was more expensive than other processes in 1932 inventor Herbert Kalmus made a deal with Walt Disney to make his cartoons exclusively in technicolor to advertise to other studios the bold pure color.

1920- The Kimberly Clark Company introduces Kotex ladies napkins in a hospital-blue box. Before that women had to wear something like a linen diaper that they washed and re-used.

1938- It’s very rare for a hurricane to reach up into the colder Mid-Atlantic waters of the Eastern seacoast of the US. This day the Long Island Express- A force 3 Hurricane slammed into New England killing 600. The Boston area was hit with 120 mile an hour winds and downtown Providence was flooded under 13 feet of water. Hurricanes and Typhoons didn't start to get names until the 1960s when they began to be tracked on radar and satellite.

1944- An internal FBI memo concludes "Communist infiltration of the Hollywood Guilds and unions and the only organization that could stop them was the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals" a conservative publicity group that included Walt Disney, John Wayne and Gary Cooper.

1945- Disney short "Hockey Homicide" the first Sport-Goofy directed by Jack Kinney. Producer Harry Tytle mentioned in his memoirs that although Walt Disney didn’t complain about their success Walt never liked these cartoons and thought Goofy too stupid a character for the public to sympathize with.

1948- the first Texaco Star Theater television show featuring a minor nightclub comedian named Milton Berle. Berle’s antics make him a major star and with Arthur Godfrey’s show help grow television from a scientific curiosity to the entertainment every household had to have. For ten years the U.S. public never missed Uncle Miltie on t.v.

1950- General MacArthur’s UN Army fought their way into North Korean occupied Seoul. On a hilltop the First Marines Div raised a US flag on a loose drainpipe found near a local school. This caused one regular Army commander to complain: “Ever since Iwo Jima the Marines never pass up an opportunity to be photographed raising a flag over something!”

1954- The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine, was launched in Groton Conn. The submarines in the submarine ride at Disneyland were originally painted to look like the USN nuclear ships Nautilus, Wasp and one other I can't recall.

1957- The Perry Mason tv show with Raymond Burr premiered.

1970-first ABC Monday Night Football - Cleveland Browns defeated the NY Jets led by Broadway Joe Namath, 24-21. Announcers- Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and retired Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dandy Don Meredith. In 2006 the show moved to ESPN.

1985- “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights hit #1 in the Billboard charts. Writer Mark Knopfler was inspired by a workman in an electronics store making fun of celebrities on MTV and wrote his discussion down.