Ant Farmer's Almanac

Today's Birthdays!

1667 Jonathan Swift; 1810 Oliver Winchester; 1835 Samuel Clemens; 1874 Winston Churchill; 1912 Gordon Parks; 1923 Efrem Zimbalist Jr.; 1930 G. Gordon Liddy; 1931 Davey Jones; 1936 Abbie Hoffman; 1937 Paul Stookey; 1947 David Mamet; 1952 Mandy Patinkin; 1955 Billy Idol; 1962 Bo Jackson.

Today in Yesteryear

1887: First indoor softball game ends in a tie and an argument over "Who's going to pay for all these broken windows?"


1907: Pike Place Market dedicated in Seattle; first fish thrown in 1912.


1940: Desi marries Lucy.


1981: Porn star John Holmes is caught while a fugitive; the arresting officer refuses to say how he recognized him.

Today in Yesteryear

It's National Day in Albania. So, treat your goat to lunch. Or eat your goat for lunch. We’re not sure, the write-up about it’s all in Albanian.


1961: Mercury rocket carries Enos the chimp into orbit; weeks later the first human astronaut slips on a leftover banana peel.

Today's Birthdays!

1832 Louisa May Alcott
1927 Vin Scully
1933 John Mayall
1944 Felix Cavaliere
1949 Garry Shandling

Today in Yesteryear

1582: William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway get marriage license; they register at Bard, Bath & Beyond.


1843: The Kingdom of Hawaii is officially recognized as an independent nation by Britain and France; the U.S. stands nearby whistling nonchalantly and trying to look inconspicuous.


1948: Hopalong Cassidy premieres on TV.

Today's Birthdays!

1757 William Blake; 1936 Gary Hart; 1943 Randy Newman; 1949 Paul Shaffer; 1950 Ed Harris.

Today in Yesteryear

1895: Alfred Nobel establishes the Nobel Prize; forcing Joseph Pulitzer to rename his prize after himself.


1924: First Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

1967: Beatles release Magical Mystery Tour; then spend most of 1968 trying to live it down.

(Yes, yes, we know; this shot is from way before they did MMT, but who the hell wants to see that stupid cover again? Not us, that's who.) 

Today's Birthdays!

1701 Anders Celsius; 1917 "Buffalo" Bob Smith; 1937 Gail Sheehy; 1940 Bruce Lee; 1941 Eddie Rabbitt; 1942 Jimi Hendrix.

 

Today in Yesteryear

1825: College students form Kappa Alpha Society, 1st fraternity; later revealed as elaborate ruse to explain previous night’s drunken toga party.


1865: Alice in Wonderland is published.


1973: President Nixon's personal secretary, Rose Mary Woods, tells a federal court she accidentally caused part of 18-minute gap in a key Watergate tape.

Today's Birthdays!

1912 Eugene Ionesco; 1922 Charles M. Schulz; 1925 Linda Hunt; 1933 Robert Goulet; 1938 Rich Little, Tina Turner; 1945 John McVie.

Today in Yesteryear

1834: Delmonico's in New York offers a meal of soup, steak, coffee and half a pie for 12 cents; in today's dollars that meal would still be too old to eat.


1864: Confederate plot to burn down Manhattan fails when New Yorkers won't let would-be arsonist "borrow" a match.


1952: Agatha Christie's murder-mystery play The Mousetrap opens in London and eventually becomes the longest continuously-running play in history.

Today's Birthdays!

1914 Joe DiMaggio; 1920 Ricardo Montalban; 1935 Gloria Steinem; 1947 John Larroquette.
1960 Amy Grant, John F. Kennedy Jr.

Today in Yesteryear

1857: Darwin publishes The Origin of Species; apes sue for defamation of character.


1947: Un-American Activities Committee finds "Hollywood 10" in contempt of congress because of their refusal to reveal whether they were communists; the committee is further miffed when the 10 also refuse to tell them what Victor Mature is really like. 

1963: Reality TV debuts when Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald on camera.


1971: "DB Cooper" parachutes from a Northwest AL 727 with $200,000.

Today's Birthdays!

1713 Father Junipero Serra
1784 Zachary Taylor
1864 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
1868 Scott Joplin
1888 Dale Carnegie
1925 William F. Buckley Jr.
1942 Billy Connolly
1949 Linda Tripp

It's . . .

Fibonacci Day (yeah, we had to look it up, too).

Today in Yesteryear

1889: First jukebox goes into operation at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco; device is hogged all night by a drunk miner who repeatedly plays "My Darling Clementine."


1903: Enrico Caruso's U.S. debut.


1936: First issue of Life magazine.

Today's Birthdays!

1859 Billy the Kid; 1887 Boris Karloff; 1888 Harpo Marx; 1945 Steve Landesberg.

Today in Yesteryear

1842: Mount St. Helens in Washington, erupts.


1906: International Radio Telecommunications Commission adopts "SOS" as call for help.


1963: JFK assassinated.


1977: Regular Concorde passenger service between NY & Europe takes off.


1989: Conjunction of Venus, Mars, Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and the Moon. This is some sort of big deal, right?

Today's Birthdays!

1890 Charles de Gaulle; 1898 Wiley Post; 1899 Hoagy Carmichael; 1921 Rodney Dangerfield; 1932 Robert Vaughn; 1940 Terry Gilliam; 1958 Jamie Lee Curtis; 1961 Mariel Hemingway.

Today in Yesteryear (Weekend Edition, Sunday)

1787: Andrew Jackson admitted to the bar; later asked to leave after a drunken brawl with some Masons.

1871: Moses Gale patents a cigar lighter.

1946: Harry Truman becomes first U.S. President to travel in a submerged submarine.