1 1892 James M. Cain; 1899 Charles Laughton; 1908 Estee Lauder; 1915 Willie Dixon; 1916 Olivia de Havilland; 1925 Farley Granger; 1930 Imelda Marcos; 1931 Leslie Caron; 1934 Jamie Farr, Jean Marsh, Sydney Pollack; 1941 Sally Quinn, Twyla Tharp; 1942 Karen Black, Genevieve Bujold; 1945 Deborah Harry; 1946 Ron Silver; 1951 Fred Schneider; 1952 Dan Aykroyd; 1967 Pamela Anderson.
• 1931: Ice vending machines introduced in Los Angeles; locals complain, "Hey, we moved here to get away from this stuff!"
• 1934: First x-ray photo of entire body; X-Ray Specs still only a dream.
• 1941: Bulova Watch Co. pays $9 for the first ever network TV commercial.
• 1963: U.S. Postal Service institutes zip codes.
• 1982: 2,100 Unification Church couples wed in Madison Square Garden; halftime show is really something.
• 1989: Hugh Hefner weds playmate Kimberly Conrad; hell reports dramatic drop in temperature.

2 1877 Hermann Hesse; 1894 Walter Brennan; 1905 Jean-Rene Lacoste; 1908 Thurgood Marshall; 1922 Dan Rowan; 1937 Richard Petty; 1939 John Sununu; 1947 Luci Baines Johnson; 1964 Jose Canseco.
• 1843: An alligator falls from the sky during a Charleston, SC thunderstorm. Yes, really.
• 1900: Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin flies his first airship.
• 1959: Plan 9 From Outer Space, premieres.

3 1423 Louis XI; 1567 Samuel de Champlain; 1731 Samuel Huntington; 1738 John Singleton Copley; 1883 Franz Kafka; 1906 George Sanders; 1913 Dorothy Kilgallen; 1925 Tony Curtis; 1927 Ken Russell; 1930 Pete Fountain; 1937 Tom Stoppard; 1943 Geraldo Rivera; 1949 Jan Smithers; 1951 Jean-Claude Duvalier; 1962 Tom Cruise.
• 1806: Michael Keens exhibits first cultivated strawberry; it speaks with a crisp British accent and sips tea with its pinkie extended.
• 1839: First state normal school in U.S. opens (Lexington, Mass.) with three students; rest of class takes short bus to "abnormal" school down the street.
• 1861: Pony Express arrives in San Francisco with junk mail from New York and postage due.
• 1939: Lou Gehrig makes his famous "luckiest-est-est-est man-man-man-man, on-on-on the face-ace-ace of the earth-rth-rth" speech.

4 Independence Day
1804 Nathaniel Hawthorne; 1826 Stephen Foster; 1872 Calvin Coolidge; 1883 Rube Goldberg; 1885 Louis B. Mayer; 1900 Louis Armstrong; 1902 George Murphy; 1902 Meyer Lansky; 1911 Mitch Miller; 1918 Abigail Van Buren, Ann Landers; 1920 Leona Helmsley; 1924 Eva Marie Saint; 1927 Gina Lollobrigida, Neil Simon; 1928 Stephen Boyd; 1930 George Steinbrenner; 1938 Bill Withers; 1946 Ron Kovic.
• 1636: City of Providence, Rhode Island forms.
• 1776: Declaration of Independence signed.
• 1802: US Military Academy at West Point officially opens
• 1817: Construction on Erie Canal begins.
• 1827: Slavery abolished in NY.
• 1845: Henry David Thoreau moves into shack on Walden Pond; soon discovers that the whole nature-loving-hermit thing isn't quite the chick magnet Emerson told him it would be.
• 1863: Boise, Idaho founded
• 1865: First edition of Alice in Wonderland is published

5 Today is: Workaholics Day (you know what to do).
1810 P.T. Barnum; 1889 Jean Cocteau; 1902 Henry Cabot Lodge; 1944 Robbie Robertson; 1948 Julie Nixon Eisenhower; 1951 Huey Lewis.
• 1841: Thomas Cook opens first travel agency.
• 1937: Joe DiMaggio's first grand slam.
• 1938: Herb Caen's first column in San Francisco Chronicle.

6 1747 John Paul Jones; 1923 Nancy Davis Reagan; 1925 Merv Griffin, Bill Haley; 1927 Nicky Hilton, Janet Leigh, Pat Paulsen; 1932 Della Reese; 1937 Ned Beatty; 1945 Burt Ward; 1946 Sylvester Stallone.
• 1785: Congress resolves U.S. currency will be named "dollar" & adopts decimal coinage; members each take some home for "further study."
• 1964: A Hard Day's Night premieres in London.
• 1965: Jefferson Airplane forms
• 1971: White House Plumbers unit formed to plug news leaks; absence of tool belts and butt-cracks initially arouses no suspicion.
• 1990: Jetson's the Movie with Tiffany, premieres; yeah, we looked it up and it really happened.

7 1860 Gustav Mahler; 1887 Marc Chagall; 1899 George Cukor; 1906 Satchel Paige; 1907 Robert A Heinlein; 1919 William Kunstler; 1927 Doc Severinson; 1940 Ringo Starr.
• 1898: U.S. "annexes" Hawaii; islanders respond, "Okay, we get it, you own our asses. Put down the guns."
• 1980: Sandra Day O'Connor is first woman nominated to Supreme Court.
• 1980: First solar-powered aircraft crosses English Channel; would have done it in 1977 but they had to wait for a sunny enough day.

8 1838 Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin; 1907 George Romney; 1908 Nelson Rockefeller; 1931 Roone Arledge, Jerry Vale; 1933 Marty Feldman; 1948 Kim Darby; 1951 Anjelica Huston; 1958 Kevin Bacon.
• 1693: New York City authorizes first police uniforms in America; their "adjustable waistcoats" and "relaxed-fit pantaloons" are a big hit with crumpet-munching patrolmen.
• 1796: U.S. State Dept. issues first "American" passport; since the application had been made in 1782, the holder's picture is ridiculously out of date and causes him no end of grief at border crossings.
• 1835: Liberty Bell cracks. Again. We forget why.
• 1870: Congress® authorizes registration of trademarks.
• 1907: Flo Ziegfeld stages his first Follies on the roof of a New York Theater; at least that's what he tells his wife he was doing up there with all those chorus girls.

9 1901 Barbara Cartland; 1937 David Hockney; 1938 Brian Dennehy; 1939 Richard Roundtree; 1956 Tom Hanks; 1976 Fred Savage.
• 1816: Argentina declares independence from Spain; Spain whines, "Ah, c'mon! Doesn't anybody wanna be our colony anymore?"
• 1872: Doughnut cutter patented by John Blondel; he is later nominated for sainthood by cops everywhere.
• 1951: Truman asks Congress to formally end state of war with Germany; 'cause he'd been kinda busy, what with the A-bomb and the Russkies and Thomas Dewey and those pesky North Koreans and all.
• 1956: Dick Clark's first appearance as host of American Bandstand.

10 1871 Marcel Proust; 1915 Saul Bellow; 1917 Don Herbert; 1920 David Brinkley; 1921 Jake LaMotta; 1926 Fred Gwynne; 1927 David Dinkins; 1947 Arlo Guthrie.
• 1850: Vice President Millard Fillmore becomes president upon Zachary Taylor's death.
• 1865: Indelible pencil patented by Edson P. Clark, Northampton, Mass
• 1985: Coca-Cola Co. announces it will resume selling "old formula" Coke.
• 1985: French agents sink Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand.

11 1274 Robert the Bruce; 1767 John Quincy Adams; 1899 E.B. White; 1915 Yul Brynner; 1931 Tab Hunter; 1956 Sela Ward.
• 1804: Aaron Burr shoots and mortally wounds Alexander Hamilton in a pistol duel near Weehawken, NJ.
• 1927: First 7/11 opens; ironically, it's at 8:30.
• 1934: FDR becomes the first president to travel through the Panama Canal; his inflatable wheelchair is one of the WPA's first and most successful projects.
• 1969: David Bowie releases Space Oddity.
• 1969: Rolling Stones release Honky Tonk Woman.
• 1979: Skylab enters atmosphere over Australia & disintegrates.
• 1988: Mike Tyson hires Donald Trump as an advisor; Tyson subsequently bites Evander Holyfield's ear, gets jailed for rape and files for bankruptcy.

12 100 BC Julius Caesar; 1730 Josiah Wedgewood; 1817 Henry David Thoreau; 1854 George Eastman; 1864 George Washington Carver; 1884 Amedeo Modigliani; 1895 Oscar Hammerstein II; 1895 Buckminster Fuller; 1904 Pablo Neruda; 1908 Milton Berle; 1917 Andrew Wyeth; 1937 Bill Cosby; 1948 Richard Simmons; 1951 Cheryl Ladd; 1956 Mel Harris.
• 1543: Henry VIII weds wife #6 (Catherine Parr).
• 1914: Babe Ruth makes his baseball debut and suggests serving hot dogs and beer inside stadiums so he won't have to order take-out during games.
• 1962: At Rolling Stones' first public performance many in the audience comment that that nice Keith Richards boy looks "A little bedraggled."
• 1982: FEMA promises that survivors of a nuclear war will get their mail; which made everybody feel soooooo much better about the whole thing.
• 1984: Geraldine Ferraro, of New York becomes the first female major-party VP candidate

13 Today is: Go West Day; National French Fries Day; Fool's Paradise Day
1821 Nathan Bedford Forrest; 1913 Dave Garroway; 1928 Bob Crane; 1935 Jack Kemp; 1940 Paul Prudhomme, Patrick Stewart; 1941 Robert Forster; 1942 Harrison Ford, Roger McGuinn; 1944 Erno Rubik; 1946 Richard "Cheech" Marin.
• 1568: Dean of St Paul's Cathedral perfects bottling beer; you think there'd at least be a brewery named after him or something.
• 1865: Horace Greeley advises his young male readers to "Go west!"; cynics note that he owns stock in a company that manufactures compasses.
• 1865: P.T. Barnum's museum burns down; he goes west.
• 1898: San Francisco Ferry Building at foot of Market Street opens to accommodate rush of people coming from the east.

14 Today is: Farm Heritage Day; Pick Blueberries Day
1834 James Abbott McNeill Whistler; 1862 Gustav Klimt; 1869 Owen Wister; 1903 Irving Stone; 1904 Isaac Bashevis Singer; 1906 Tom Carvel; 1910 William Hanna; 1911 Terry-Thomas; 1912 Woodie Guthrie; 1913 Gerald R. Ford; 1918 Ingmar Bergman; 1926 Harry Dean Stanton; 1932 Roosevelt Grier; 1961 Jackie Earle Haley.
• 1789: Bastille Day; citizens of Paris storm Bastille prison; they had been told it was full of cigarettes and stinky cheese.
• 1832: Opium exempted from federal tariff duty; asked why, glassy eyed federal tariff officials just stare blankly off into space.
• 1865: First ascent of the Matterhorn; no, not the one at Disneyland.
• 1868: Tape measure enclosed in a circular case patented.
• 1940: Lithuania becomes part of the USSR; Lithuanians respond, "We're what!?"
• 1973: Phil Everly storms off stage declaring an end to the Everly Brothers; they reunite in 1983 after stints with the Allman Brothers, Blues Brothers and the Pointer Sisters, respectively.

15 Today is: Be a Dork Day; National Tapioca Pudding Day; Respect Canada Day; so snap to it Canadian, tapioca-loving dorks!
1573 Inigo Jones; 1606 Rembrandt van Rijn; 1779 Clement Clarke Moore; 1796 Thomas Bulfinch; 1946 Linda Ronstadt; 1961 Forest Whitaker; 1962 Brigitte Nielsen.
• 1922: First duck-billed platypus publicly exhibited in US, at NY zoo.
• 1929: In Oakland, California, the first airport hotel opens. While delighted by the in-room radio, guests note that the minibar's penny candy costs 15¢.
• 1971: Nixon announces he will visit Red China.

16 Today is: Fresh Spinach Day; National Hot Dog Day; International Juggling Day.
1723 Sir Joshua Reynolds; 1821 Mary Baker Eddy; 1872 Roald Amundsen; 1887 "Shoeless" Joe Jackson; 1907 Orville Redenbacher, Barbara Stanwyck; 1911 Ginger Rogers; 1924 Bess Myerson; 1948 Ruben Blades; 1963 Phoebe Cates; 1971 Corey Feldman.
• 1439: Kissing is banned in England. Also dentistry.
• 1769: Father Juniper Serra founds Mission San Diego; continues north when indians tell him that "Dude, the surf up at Malibu is, like, totally awesome!"
• 1951: Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger published.
• 1976: Extremely soft-rock duo Loggins & Messina break-up after 6 years

17 1763 John Jacob Astor; 1889 Erle Stanley Gardner; 1898 Berenice Abbott; 1900 James Cagney; 1912 Art Linkletter; 1917 Phyllis Diller; 1934 Pat McCormick, Donald Sutherland; 1935 Diahann Carroll, Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach); 1939 Spencer Davis; 1952 David Hasselhoff, Phoebe Snow; 1956 Bryan Trottier.
• 1841: British humor magazine Punch first published.
• 1902: Baltimore's American League club doesn't have enough men to field their team.
• 1917: British Royal family changes its name from Hanover to Windsor.
• 1935: Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix." As true today as it was then.
• 1955: Disneyland Opens.

18 Today is: Cow Appreciation Day (tip your bovine); National Ice Cream Day; National Caviar Day; Railroad Day.
1906 S.I. Hayakawa; 1909 Andrei Gromyko, Harriet Nelson; 1910 Red Skelton; 1911 Hume Cronyn; 1918 Nelson Mandela; 1921 John Glenn; 1929 Screamin Jay Hawkins; 1939 Hunter Thompson; 1940 James Brolin; 1941 Martha Reeves; 1943 Bobby Sherman.
• 1536: Pope's authority declared void in England; stunned Italians say, "You can do that?"
• 1927: Ty Cobb's 4,000th career hit; it was some guy in the parking lot who got it his way.
• 1938: Pioneering aviator Douglas "Wrong Way" Corrigan arrives in Ireland instead of Los Angeles; as a result, the table reserved for him at the Brown Derby is given to Don Ameche.
• 1942: First legal New Jersey horse race in 50 years when Garden State Park track opens; locals ask, "It wasn't legal before?"

19 Today is: Stick Out Your Tongue Day
1814 Samuel Colt; 1922 George McGovern; 1923 Pat Hingle; 1937 George Hamilton; 1954 Kathleen Turner.
• 1880 San Francisco Public Library starts lending books; most are never seen again.
• 1976: Deep Purple disbands.
• 1990: Richard Nixon library opens in Yorba Linda, California; couldn't convince Deep Purple to reunite for opening night party.

20 Today is: National Nap Day; National Tapioca Pudding Day.
1919 Sir Edmund Hillary; 1933 Nelson Doubleday; 1938 Diana Rigg, Natalie Wood; 1947 Carlos Santana.
• 1944: Von Stauffenberg's assassination attempt on Hitler is a failure; 65 years later, Tom Cruise's movie of Von Stauffenberg's attempted assassination of Hitler is also a failure.
• 1968: Iron Butterfly's In-a-gadda-da-vida hits the charts at #117.
• 1969: Neil Armstrong & Buzz Aldrin land on the moon (they'd told their wives they were hiking the Applachian Trail).

21 Today is: National Junk Food Day; National Creme Brulee Day; Make a Scarecrow Day; Cousins Day.
1911 Marshall McLuhan; 1924 Don Knotts; 1926 Norman Jewison; 1943 Edward Herrmann; 1947 Cat Stevens; 1952 Robin Williams; 1957 Jon Lovitz.
• 1969: Neil Armstrong steps onto the Moon; Buzz Aldrin follows shortly thereafter.

22 1849 Emma Lazarus; 1882 Edward Hopper; 1888 Raymond Chandler; 1890 Rose Kennedy; 1898 Stephen Vincent Benet, 1898 Alexander Calder; 1908 Amy Vanderbilt; 1923 Robert Dole; 1932 Oscar de la Renta; 1939 Terence Stamp; 1940 Alex Trebek; 1944 Sparky Lyle; 1945 Bobby Sherman; 1947 Albert Brooks, Don Henley; 1955 Willem Dafoe.
• 1796: Cleveland, Ohio, founded by Gen. Moses Cleaveland, despite not being able to spell his own name.
• 1967: Jimi Hendrix quits as opening act for the Monkees' tour after they don't let him ride in the Monkeemobile like they promised.

23 Today is: Maple Syrup Day; Summer Leisure Day.
1892 Haile Selassie; 1936 Don Drysdale, Anthony Kennedy; 1938 Ronny Cox; 1947 Don Imus; 1961 Woody Harrelson.
• 1866: Cincinnati Baseball club (The Reds) established.
• 1980: Billy Carter admits to getting paid by Libya; not for having actually done anything, it was just a bonus for being such an embarrassment to the president.
• 1980: River of No Return Wilderness Area designated by Jimmy Carter; for its grand opening, First Brother Billy is sent downstream in a leaky boat.

24 Today is: Mosquito Day
1842 Ambrose Bierce; 1895 Robert Graves; 1898 Amelia Earhart; 1900 Zelda Fitzgerald; 1920 Bella Abzug; 1936 Ruth Buzzi.
• 1959: The "Kitchen Debate" between Vice President Richard Nixon and Nikita Khrushchev: they argue over whether diagonal checkerboard or multi-colored marble pattern linoleum flooring would make the breakfast nook seem cozier.
• 1965: Bob Dylan releases Like a Rolling Stone.
• 1965: Casey Stengel resigns as manager of the Mets.
• 1967: Beatles sign a petition in The Times to legalize marijuana; are automatically signed up for Grateful Dead newsletter.

25 Today is: National Hot Fudge Sundae Day.
1902 Eric Hoffer; 1924 Frank Church, Estelle Getty; 1948 Steve Goodman; 1955 Iman.
• 1965: "Hey, you got folk music on my rock and roll!" "Oh, yeah, you got rock and roll on my folk music!" Dylan goes electric at Newport Folk Festival.
• 1966: Supremes release You Can't Hurry Love.
• 1990: Roseanne (Barr) sings the National Anthem at a San Diego Padres game; nobody can unplug her fast enough.

26 Today is: National Coffee Milkshake Day; All or Nothing Day; Aunt and Uncle Day.
1856 George Bernard Shaw; 1875 Carl Jung; 1892 Pearl Buck; 1894 Aldous Huxley; 1902 Gracie Allen; 1922 Blake Edwards, 1922 Jason Robards Jr.; 1928 Stanley Kubrick; 1941 Darlene Love; 1943 Mick Jagger; 1946 Helen Mirren; 1956 Dorothy Hamill.
• 1775: Benjamin Franklin becomes first Postmaster General.
• 1788: New York becomes 11th state to ratify U.S. Constitution; pens in hand, the state's signers pause, glare at other delegates and demand, "Whadda you lookin' at?"
• 1908: FBI established.
• 1947: Department of Defense established.
• 1947: National Security Act establishes the CIA.
• 1981: NY Mayor Ed Koch is given Heimlich maneuver in a Chinese restaurant
• 1991: Paul Reubens (Pee Wee Herman) is arrested for exposing himself at an adult movie theater.

27 Today is: Take Your Houseplants for a Walk Day; National Parents Day.
1906 Leo Durocher; 1916 Keenan Wynn; 1922 Norman Lear; 1924 Vincent Canby.
• 1586: Sir Walter Raleigh brings first tobacco to England from America; Queen Elizabeth commissions Lord Nigel Zig-Zag to come up with some way of smoking the stuff.
• 1990: Zsa Zsa Gabor begins her three-day jail sentence for slapping a cop.

28 Today is: Hamburger Day; National Milk Chocolate Day; Accountants Day.
1866 Beatrix Potter; 1887 Marcel Duchamp; 1901 Rudy Vallee; 1907 Earl Tupper, Vivian Vance; 1938 Robert Hughes; 1940 Phil Proctor; 1943 Bill Bradley; 1945 Jim Davis, Richard Wright; 1947 Sally Struthers.
• 1586: "You want pommes frites with that?" Potatoes introduced in Europe.
• 1900: Hamburger created by Louis Lassing in Connecticut; deluxe platter that includes fries doesn't appear until 1904.
• 1943: FDR announces end of coffee rationing in U.S.; few can hear him over the snoring.

29 Today is: National Lasagna Day; National Lipstick Day.
1805 Alexis de Tocqueville; 1878 Don Marquis; 1883 Benito Mussolini; 1892 William Powell; 1905 Clara Bow, Dag Hammarskjold, Thelma Todd; 1907 Melvin Belli; 1914 "Professor" Irwin Corey; 1936 Elizabeth Dole; 1938 Peter Jennings.
• 1874: Major Walter Copton Wingfield patents the portable tennis court.
• 1914: First transcontinental phone link made between NY & SF.
• 1920: First transcontinental airmail flight from NY to SF.
• 1928: Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie is released.
• 1965: Beatles movie Help premieres, Queen Elizabeth II attends; no word on whether she is amused.

30 Today is: National Father-in-Law Day; Comedy Day; National Cheesecake Day.
1818 Emily Bronte; 1863 Henry Ford; 1890 Casey Stengel; 1898 Henry Moore; 1929 Sid Kroft; 1933 Edd "Kookie" Byrnes; 1939 Peter Bogdanovich; 1940 Patricia Schroeder; 1945 David Sanborn; 1950 Frank Stallone; 1954 Ken Olin; 1956 Delta Burke; 1958 Kate Bush.
• 1836: First English-language newspaper published in Hawaii; typesetters have to special-order a complete set of consonants and an extra box of apostrophes from a type shop on the mainland.
• 1839: Slaves rebel, take over slave ship Amistad.
• 1943: Last Judy Garland-Mickey Rooney movie released (Girl Crazy)
• 1956: U.S. currency motto "In God We Trust" authorized; the wink is implied.
• 1968: Beatles' Apple Boutique closes, entire inventory is given away
• 1969: Barbra Streisand opens for Liberace at International Hotel, Las Vegas; as a stipulation of her contract with him, upon his death, in 1987, she inherited Liberace's audience.
• 1991: MTV announces it will split into 3 channels in 1993.

31 Today is: National Raspberry Cake Day.
1901 Jean Dubuffet; 1923 Ahmet Ertegun; 1929 Don Murray; 1943 William Bennett; 1944 Geraldine Chaplin, Sherry Lansing; 1946 Gary Lewis, Bob Welch.
• 1790: First U.S. patent granted, to Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.
• 1813: British invade Plattsburgh, NY; this is the only noteworthy thing to have ever happened in Plattsburgh, NY.
• 1922: 18-year-old Ralph Samuelson rides on the world's first water skis.
• 1969: Mariner 6 flies past Mars; maybe if NASA had listened to its wife and pulled over and ask that nice little green fellow for directions they'd have made the right turn and landed.