Birthdays: Wendel Wilkie, President.Chester Allen Arthur, Ray Kroc the founder of MacDonalds restaurants, Louis Lumiere, Vaslav Havel, Larry Fine of the Three Stooges" Calling Dr Howard, Dr. Fine Dr. Howard", Bob Geldorf, Mario Lemieux, Josh Logan, Bill Dana "my name Jose Jimenez", Bill Keane, Clive Barker, Glynis Johns, Donald Pleasance, Maya Lin, Karen Allen is 56 ,Kate Winslet is 32, Bernie Mac is 50

Today is the Feast of Saint Bruno.

1600- King Henry IV of France married his second wife Marie de Medici by proxy in a grand ceremony in Florence. Flemish master painter Peter Paul Rubens was in attendance. Years later the Queen would ask him to paint a series of paintings commemorating the events, if not slightly idealizing them.

1842-THE BIRTHDAY OF BEER!- Lager Beer is perfected in the city of Pilsen -Pilsner Beer. Beer was made by the Egyptians and Sumerians and traced back to the Ice Age, but our concept of beer requiring an advancement in refrigeration is Pilsner or Lager.

1877- After a lightning campaign across 1,200 miles Nez Perce Chief Joseph found himself surrounded by U.S. armies just 150 miles from the Canadian border. At Bear’s Paw near Chinook Montana Chief Joseph surrendered to General Nelson Miles.."From where the Sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

1880- Alonzo T. Cross patented the first ball point pen.

1882- Outlaw Frank James surrendered to authorities six months after his brother Jesse was killed. After doing some prison time Frank went straight.

1892-THE DALTON BOYS RAID COFFEEVILLE, Kansas and try to rob two banks at once. One quick thinking bank clerk told them the bank vault was on a time lock and would open shortly. There was no such timelock but while the badmen waited the townspeople broke into the hardware store and armed themselves to the teeth. As the Datlons emerged they were shot to pieces by the locals, much the same way the Jesse James Gang was wiped out at Northfield Minnesota ten years earlier. 8 were killed. Only Emmet Dalton survived despite 25 gunshot wounds. After getting our of jail in 1907 he also wisely went straight.

1904- According to comedian and playwright Steve Martin, this is the day Pablo Picasso met Albert Einstein at the Cafe Lapin Agile. There was a Cafe in Paris called Lapin Agile that Picasso did like to go to but he never actually met Einstein.

1905- Happy Birthday T-Rex! Prof. Henry Osborne published a paper on the new bones found in Montana of a sleek hunter- dinosaur. He originally called it Dynamosaurus Imperiosis, but changed it to Tyrannosaurus Rex.

1915- Germany issued an apology to the US over the loss of life in the sinking of the luxury liner Lusitania and promised to pay restitution.

1930- THE R-101 The BRITISH HINDENBURG- Lord Thompson of Cardington dreamed of a fleet of passenger zeppelins uniting the British Empire much the way steam did in Queen Victoria's time. Dirigible moorings were built in Karachi, Montreal, Sydney and Ishmalia in Egypt. The R-101 was the largest zeppelin in the world when she was launched and had all the luxury of the Cunard ocean liners. Lord Thompson himself decided to take the inaugural flight from London to India and back in time to make a vital Imperial conference. On Oct. 4th as a crowd sang Sir Edward Elgar's hymn 'Land of Hope and Glory" Thompson launched the R-101 "I see this great ship of the air built with the same perseverance and permanency that has built our British Empire and will give us the mastery of the air lanes of the world!" 300 miles out the R-101 was struck by a violent thunderstorm and crashed at Beauvais France. A sergeant was heard saying : "We’re down lads." when the hydrogen gas exploded. All but 6 of her 54 passengers died in the flaming inferno, including Lord Thompson. ( compared to 30 out of the 96 Hindenburg passengers and crew died). Even though her sister ship the R-100 made a perfect flight to Canada and back the British public was so shocked by the disaster that all further attempts at a British dirigible service was scrapped.

1932- MGM Studios fired famed comic Buster Keaton.

1945- The BATTLE OF BURBANK.- Three thousand striking union filmworkers (and a few animators) battled the Burbank police in front of Gate 2 of the Warner Bros. Studio lot. chains, bricks, tear gas, firehoses, burning cars. Jack Warner placed sharpshooters behind those large movie billboards on Barham and Pass. This citywide strike was broken but two more followed in 1946 and 47. One of the strikeleaders arrested was a background painter for Tex Avery cartoons. Herb Sorrel, the union leader, was pulled into a car and beaten up by gangsters.
courtesy IA Local 80

1947-President Harry Truman gives the first speech broadcast nationwide on television.

1961- The film Breakfast at Tiffany’s opened, with Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, the song Moon River. Mickey Rooney did an embarrassing impersonation of an eccentric Japanese neighbor :"Missy Go-right-ree!"

1969- Monty Python's Flying Circus debuted on British television BBC-1.

1969- A Cuban Colonel who wanted to defect to America flew his advanced Mig-21 to Miami and landed it at Homestead Airforce Base. But what was embarrassing to the US was he flew completely through all US advanced warning defenses undetected and landed his plane next to Air Force One carrying President Nixon! Doh !

2003- Timothy Treadwell was an author and advocate for the wild grizzly bears of North America. This day near Khalifa Bay Alaska, those bears attacked Treadwell and his girlfriend Anne Huguenard and tore them to pieces. When he had appeared on the David Letterman TV Show the previous year Letterman had joked:" Is it going to happen that one day we read a news article about you being eaten by one of these bears?" When authorities brought down the bear in question, after being shot 21 times, human remains were found in his stomach. Werner Herzog did a film about his life- Grizzly Man.