The Elvis Imperial Stormtrooper with his pal Jesus. Courtesy of the TAG839 blog.

Birthdays: Georgio Vasari, Henry Ford, Emily Bronte',Casey Stengel, Vladimir Zworykin, The Governator-Arnold Schwarzenegger is 60!, Ed "Kookie" Byrnes, Peter Bogdanovich, Delta Burke, Henry Moore, Anita Hill, Lawrence Fishburne is 46, Jean Reno, Hilary Swank, Christopher Nolan, Lisa Kudrow is 44, Ron Diamond

1847 - Queen Victoria noted in her diary today she took a swim in the ocean for the first time. She entered a cottage on wheels called a bathing house and while she changed into her fully covered bathing costume the cottage was rolled into the water by means of cranks and pulleys. Another time she was at the beach at Ostend, Holland she noticed the curious habit there of women swimming with their hair loose," down to their hips like penitents."

1889- Start of the Sherlock Holmes mystery, the Naval Treaty.

1917- Republican Senator and future President Warren G. Harding was caught by two New York hotel detectives in bed with an underage girl. He bought them off with $20 each. "I thought I wouldn't get off for under a thousand!" he told a friend. Later as President he always kept a guard at the door...

1929 -The Hollywood Bowl musicians go on strike.

1932-Walt Disney’s “Flowers and Trees” the first Technicolor Cartoon. Disney had worked out a deal with Technicolor creator Herbert Kalmus to use his technique exclusively for two years to show larger Hollywood studios its quality.

1932- The first Los Angeles hosting of the Olympic Games in their spanking new Coliseum. Gold medallist in swimming Larry Buster Crabbe later became a movie star. Another medalist, the Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, began to teach the Californians about a new sport- surfing!

1935- THE FIRST PAPERBACK BOOK- Andre Maurois 'Ariel, a Life of Shelley', published in this new form by Penguin Books of London.

1936- Producer David O. Selznick buys the movie rights to the best selling book “Gone With The Wind” from an ailing Irving Thallberg. The "boy genius" Thallberg was hoping that Selznick would ruin himself in the process of making this film. Thalberg was convinced that GWTW would be a flop because "Costume dramas are box office poison." Doh!

1948 - Professional wrestling premieres on prime-time network TV ( DuMont )

1954 - Elvis Presley joins Local 71, the Memphis Federation of Musicians. “Uhh.Thankyuh..solidarity foh-eiveah!”

1962-Italy adopts a total ban on cigarette advertising. Consumption of cigarettes doubled.

1965- President Lyndon Johnson signs the Medicare Act and issues the first medicare card (#00001) to former president Harry Truman.

1974- President Richard Nixon turned over his White House tapes on Watergate after being forced to by the Supreme Court. That same day the House Judiciary Committee voted three acts of impeachment against the President.

1975- Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa disappeared while on the way to a lunch meeting with Teamster officials at a small Detroit restaurant. He once said: "Bodyguards? Who needs bodyguards?" He hated Bobby Kennedy so much that when he learned of his assassination he ordered the half masted flag at his union office run back up to the top and spent the day at the track celebrating. Rumor has it he currently resides under the goalposts at Giants Meadowlands Stadium in New Jersey. Another story is that he was strangled by a Mafia hit man named Sal Briguglio, then his body was taken to an auto fender factory, cut up and the pieces thrown into vats of boiling zinc. Briguglio was himself whacked in 1978.

1988- The last Playboy Club in America closed. It was in Lansing, Mich. The Bunny waitress costumes only appear now in Halloween shops.

2007 Legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman died at age 89.