L.K. Peterson's Site of Writings, Random Thoughts & Doodles
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1692: Salem witch hunt begins; whoever gets back at the end of the day with the most witches wins.
1983: Millions tune into finale of M*A*S*H under
the mistaken impression that they'll never see it again and without a clue of the horror that After M*A*S*H will be.
1820 John Tenniel; 1901 Linus Pauling; 1903 Vincente Minnelli; 1906 Bugsy Siegel; 1907 Milton Caniff; 1915 Zero Mostel; 1929 Frank Gehry; 1939 Tommy Tune; 1940 Mario Andretti; 1945 Bubba Smith; 1948 Bernadette Peters, Mercedes Ruehl; 1953 Paul Krugman; 1957 John Turturro; 1961 Rae Dawn Chong.
1870: Hiram Rhodes Revels, Republican from Mississippi, is sworn in as a United States Senator, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the U.S. Congress. Sure, they make him sit way at the back, but still.
1950: Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar & Imogene Coca premieres.
1957: Buddy Holly & the Crickets record That'll Be the Day; that day turns out to be February 3, 1959.
1982: Final episode of The Lawrence Welk Show airs; even he couldn't believe it was still on.
1873 Enrico Caruso
1901 Zeppo Marx
1917 Anthony Burgess
1928 Larry Gelbart
1929 Tommy Newsom
1950 Neil Jordan
1966 Tea Leoni
1918: Estonia declares its independence from Russia then isn't heard from again until 1991.
1998: Elton John is knighted; it is not, however, the first time he's knelt before a queen.
1786 Wilhelm Grimm
1836 Winslow Homer
1926 Jean Alexander
1942 Joe Lieberman
1947 Rupert Holmes,
Edward James Olmos
1962 Michelle Shocked
1968 Mitch Hedberg
1660: Charles XI becomes king of Sweden and, so far as we know, still is.
1903: Cuba leases Guantanamo to the U.S. government; London bookies favor the odds that we'll never get our security deposit back.
1633 Samuel Pepys; 1904 William L. Shirer; 1932 Majel Barrett; 1940 Peter Fonda; 1944 Johnny Winter.
1819: Spain sells Florida to the U.S. for $5 million. Neglects to mention the swamps, hurricanes, bugs, humidity or the long lines at Epcot.
1900: The kingdom formerly known as Hawaii became a U.S. territory known as Hawaii.
1992: Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love get married.
1732 George Washington
1892 Edna St. Vincent Millay
1907 Sheldon Leonard,
Robert Young
1908 Sir John Mills
1925 Edward Gorey
1932 Ted Kennedy
1950 Julius Erving
1975 Drew Barrymore.
1925: The New Yorker publishes its first issue.
1952: Liz Taylor's second marriage (Michael Wilding).
1953: Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the structure of DNA.
1972: Nixon goes to China.
1903 Anais Nin; 1907 W. H. Auden; 1925 Sam Peckinpah; 1927 Erma Bombeck; 1936 Barbara Jordan; 1943 David Geffen; 1953 Christine Ebersole, William Petersen; 1955 Kelsey Grammer; 1962 David Foster Wallace; 1963 William Baldwin; 1979 Jennifer Love Hewitt; 1986 Charlotte Church.
1) Birdbath water is always so cold.
2) Turbine jet engine intakes.
3) Creeped-out and jumpy from feeling like they're always being watched.
4) The Grammy's inexcusable snubbing of Justin Bieber.
5) Migrating! North, south, north south, year after year... enough, already!
6) Green pigs. Those miserable, motherf***ing green pigs.
7) Windex®.
1885: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn published.
1929: First Academy Award nominations are announced.
1930: The planet Pluto discovered; upon closer inspection with better telescopes, in 2009 it is reclassified as a "dog."
1995: Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee wed
1848 Louis Comfort Tiffany; 1892 Wendell Willkie; 1919 Jack Palance; 1930 Gahan Wilson; 1931 Johnny Hart, Toni Morrison; 1932 Milos Forman; 1933 Yoko Ono; 1950 John Hughes, Cybill Shepherd; 1954 John Travolta; 1964 Matt Dillon; 1968 Molly Ringwald.
1598: Boris Godunov chosen Tsar of Russia; embittered, his cousin, Boris Badenov, begins his obsessive quest for Moose and Squirrel.
1801: An electoral tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr is resolved by the House of Representatives, rather than Burr's suggestion of pistols at dawn.
1818 Frederick Douglass; 1924 Margaret Truman; 1925 Hal Holbrook; 1934 Alan Bates, Barry Humphries; 1935 Christina Pickles; 1936 Jim Brown; 1954 Rene Russo; 1981 Paris Hilton.
1710 King Louis XV Of France; 1903 Edgar Bergen; 1935 Sonny Bono; 1957 Levar Burton; 1958 Ice-T; 1959 John Mcenroe
1898: USS Maine becomes memorable.
1903: First Teddy Bear introduced; namesake Teddy Roosevelt declares it "Bully," and then shoots it.
1941: Duke Ellington records Take the A Train; string section arrives late due to subway delays.