Saturday, June 29, 2024
Mark Twain
Sulla
"The life of Sulla is one of stark contrast, and yet striking similarities, to those of Marius, and later, Julius Caesar. "
https://www.unrv.com/empire/lucius-cornelius-sulla.php?utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UNRV+Roman+History+Newsletter+-+Issue+036+-+7132032#google_vignette
June 29
Friday, June 28, 2024
June 28
Paul Bunyan
NATIONAL PAUL BUNYAN DAY
"On June 28, we fondly remember the tales of the big blue ox and a mighty lumberjack."
https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-paul-bunyan-day-june-28?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10236663&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com
Thursday, June 27, 2024
June 27
Wednesday, June 26, 2024
Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus
June 26
Tuesday, June 25, 2024
June 25
June 24
Sunday, June 23, 2024
Gaius Marius
"Gaius Marius was born near Arpinum, and was the son of a small plebeian farmer."
https://www.unrv.com/empire/gaius-marius.php?utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UNRV+Roman+History+Newsletter+-+Issue+030+-+7127967#google_vignette
Saturday, June 22, 2024
June 22
Friday, June 21, 2024
Donald Sutherland
"Donald Sutherland, the tall, lean and long-faced Canadian actor who became a countercultural icon with such films as “The Dirty Dozen,” “MASH,” “Klute” and “Don’t Look Now,” and who subsequently enjoyed a prolific and wide-ranging career in films including “Ordinary People,” “Without Limits” and the “Hunger Games” films, died Thursday in Miami after a long illness, CAA confirmed. He was 88."
https://variety.com/2024/film/news/donald-sutherland-dead-mash-hunger-games-1236043323/
Caesarion
June 21
US Constitution is ratified (1788); Benazir Bhutto, first female prime minister of Pakistan, born (1953); Prince William born (1982); Frida Kahlo is first Hispanic woman honored on US postage stamp (2001).
Thursday, June 20, 2024
June 20
Wednesday, June 19, 2024
June 19
Tuesday, June 18, 2024
Maximinus Thrax
June 18
The US declares war against Great Britain as War of 1812 begins (1812); Paul McCartney born (1942); Sally Ride becomes first American woman in space (1983); Five people die after submersible implodes while exploring wreckage of the Titanic (2023).
Monday, June 17, 2024
June 17
Battle of Bunker Hill fought (1775); Statue of Liberty arrives in New York as gift from France (1885); Tennis star Venus Williams born (1980); Rapper Kendrick Lamar born (1987); Juneteenth established as US federal holiday (2021).
Sunday, June 16, 2024
Caligula
Commodus
Saturday, June 15, 2024
Kevin O'Leary
June 14
Stars and Stripes officially adopted as flag of the US (1777); Abolitionist and author Harriet Beecher Stowe born (1811); Former President Donald Trump born (1946); High-rise fire in London kills 72 (2017).
June 15
Thursday, June 13, 2024
June 13
Miranda rights are established (1966); Thurgood Marshall becomes first African American nominated to Supreme Court (1967); Pioneer 10 is first human-made object to exit our solar system (1983); Actresses Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen born (1986).
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
June 12
Former President George HW Bush born (1924); Anne Frank born (1929); Nelson Mandela sentenced to life in prison in South Africa (1964); President Ronald Reagan delivers famous "tear down this wall" speech (1987); 49 killed in mass shooting at nightclub in Orlando (2016).
Tuesday, June 11, 2024
June 11
Politician and suffragist Jeannette Rankin born (1880); President John F. Kennedy sends in Alabama National Guard to integrate University of Alabama (1963); Anna Mae Hays and Elizabeth P. Hoisington are first two women to become generals in the US Armed Forces (1970); Actress and civil rights activist Ruby Dee dies (2014).
Monday, June 10, 2024
June 10
Benjamin Franklin conducts famous kite experiment (1752); Hattie McDaniel, first African American to win an Oscar, born (1893); Hollywood legend Judy Garland born (1922); Italy invades France, declares war on France and Great Britain (1940); Musician Ray Charles dies (2004).
Saturday, June 8, 2024
Lucille Ball
June 8
Friday, June 7, 2024
June 7
NATIONAL BOONE DAY
"National Boone Day is observed each year on June 7 to commemorate the day (June 7, 1769) frontiersman Daniel Boone first began exploring the valleys and forests of the present-day Bluegrass State of Kentucky."
https://www.nationaldaycalendar.com/national-day/national-boone-day-june-7?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=10043446&hashed_email=6c23328441e0f46865e8039a24ce7ccf8880f2d7&email=yeremiah%40aol.com
Thursday, June 6, 2024
June 6
American founding father Patrick Henry dies (1799); Securities and Exchange Commission established (1934); D-Day: Allies begin Normandy invasions (1944); Bobby Kennedy dies (1968); Actress Anne Bancroft dies (2005).
Wednesday, June 5, 2024
June 5
The US moves off gold standard (1933); Bobby Kennedy is shot at campaign rally, dies next day (1968); President Ronald Reagan dies (2004); Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury dies (2012); Fashion designer Kate Spade dies (2018).
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
June 4
US Congress passes 19th Amendment, granting suffrage to women (1919); Battle of Midway starts (1942); Angelina Jolie born (1975); Hundreds killed at Tiananmen Square protests (1989); Basketball coaching legend John Wooden dies (2010).
Monday, June 3, 2024
Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus
Nero
"In the heart of Nero's reign, the pacification and Romanization of Britain was quickly beginning to pay dividends."
https://www.unrv.com/early-empire/boudicca.php?utm_source=convertkit&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=UNRV+Roman+History+Newsletter+-+Issue+010+-+7105318
June 3
Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto claims Florida for Spain (1539); Singer and actress Josephine Baker born (1906); Ed White becomes first American to walk in space (1965); Rafael Nadal born (1986); Muhammad Ali dies (2016).
Saturday, June 1, 2024
June 1
Friday, May 31, 2024
Augustus
Thursday, May 30, 2024
May 30
Joan of Arc is executed (1431); Historian and philosopher Voltaire dies (1778); First Indianapolis 500 is held (1911); Lincoln Memorial is dedicated (1922).
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
May 29
Comedian Bob Hope born (1903); President John F. Kennedy born (1917); Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are first to reach Mount Everest summit (1953); Danica Patrick is first woman to lead at Indy 500 (2005).
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Titrus
Monday, May 27, 2024
Morgan Spurlock
"Documentary filmmaker Morgan Spurlock died Thursday due to complications of cancer, per Variety. He was 53."
https://www.al.com/life/2024/05/morgan-spurlock-super-size-me-director-dead-at-53.html?e=ecc4eb5a460f31b456c54514153c0893&lctg=63b06c811ced07920c0db64c&utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Newsletter_whats_happening%202024-05-24&utm_term=Newsletter_whats_happening
Saturday, May 25, 2024
May 25
Friday, May 24, 2024
May 24
Samuel Morse sends first commercial telegraph message (1844); The Brooklyn Bridge is opened in NYC (1883); Jazz legend Duke Ellington dies (1974); Mass shooting at Uvalde, Texas, results in 21 deaths (2022); Tina Turner dies (2023).
Thursday, May 23, 2024
May 23
Infamous bank robbers Bonnie and Clyde are killed by police (1934); John D. Rockefeller dies (1937); German Nazi officer Adolf Eichmann revealed to have been captured in Argentina (1960); Musician Jewel born (1974); James Bond actor Roger Moore dies (2017).
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
May 22
(First) first lady of the US Martha Washington dies (1802); The Associated Press is founded (1846); Poet Langston Hughes dies (1967); Supermodel Naomi Campbell born (1970); Manchester Arena bombing kills 22 following Ariana Grande concert (2017).
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
May 21
American Red Cross is founded by Clara Barton (1881); FIFA, world governing body of association football, founded (1904); Amelia Earhart is first woman to fly solo nonstop across the Atlantic (1932); Nobel Peace Prize laureate Jane Addams dies (1935); Rapper Notorious BIG born (1972).
Monday, May 20, 2024
May 20
Christopher Columbus dies (1506); Charles Lindbergh makes first solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic (1927); Singer-songwriter Cher born (1946); First photograph sent from Hubble Space Telescope (1990).
Saturday, May 18, 2024
May 18
Friday, May 17, 2024
May 17
Thursday, May 16, 2024
May 16
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Dolly Parton
May 15
Oscar Wilde
"Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 and died in 1900. During those all-too-brief years, he built a reputation that would long outlive him."
https://www.interestingfacts.com/oscar-wilde-facts/Yvrd8kKJ8wAItdgs?liu=f990a22b8f045d09d1eb29acc743f7c5&utm_source=blog&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2152081323
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
May 14
Monday, May 13, 2024
May 13
The US declares war against Mexico in dispute over Texas (1846); "Golden Girls" actress Bea Arthur born (1922); Stevie Wonder born (1950); Pope John Paul II is shot, survives assassination attempt (1981); Actress and singer Doris Day dies (2019).
Saturday, May 11, 2024
May 11
Friday, May 10, 2024
May 10
Paul Revere dies (1818); First American transcontinental railroad is completed (1869); Winston Churchill becomes prime minister of the UK (1940); Actress Joan Crawford dies (1977); Nelson Mandela inaugurated as president of South Africa (1994).
Thursday, May 9, 2024
May 9
Wednesday, May 8, 2024
May 8
Tuesday, May 7, 2024
May 7
Monday, May 6, 2024
May 6
Famed neurologist Sigmund Freud born (1856); Baseball great Willie Mays born (1931); Hindenburg disaster kills 36 (1937); Roger Bannister becomes first person to run a mile in under four minutes (1954); Actress and singer Marlene Dietrich dies (1992).
Saturday, May 4, 2024
May 4
Friday, May 3, 2024
May 3
Thursday, May 2, 2024
May 2
Wednesday, May 1, 2024
May 1
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
April 30
George Washington inaugurated (1789); Aviator Bessie Coleman, first African American woman and first Native American to hold a pilot license, dies (1926); Blues musician Muddy Waters dies (1983); World Wide Web launches into public domain by computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee (1993).
Monday, April 29, 2024
Helen Keller
April 29
Saturday, April 27, 2024
April 27
Friday, April 26, 2024
April 26
John Wilkes Booth killed 12 days after assassinating President Lincoln (1865); Former first lady Melania Trump born (1970); The worst nuclear disaster in history occurs in Chernobyl (1986); Lucille Ball dies (1989); Deadliest tornado in history kills 1,300 in Bangladesh (1989).
Thursday, April 25, 2024
April 25
Workers break ground on Suez Canal (1859); The US declares war on Spain to begin Spanish-American War (1898); Jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald born (1917); Al Pacino born (1940); Singer, actor, and activist Harry Belafonte dies (2023).
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
April 24
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
April 23
Monday, April 22, 2024
April 22
Saturday, April 20, 2024
April 20
Friday, April 19, 2024
April 19
Thursday, April 18, 2024
April 18
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
April 17
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
April 16
Actor Charlie Chaplin born (1889); Harriet Quimby is first woman to fly across English Channel (1912); Kareem Abdul-Jabbar born (1947); Singer-songwriter Selena Quintanilla-Pérez born (1971); 32 die, 17 injured in Virginia Tech mass shooting (2007)
Monday, April 15, 2024
April 15
President Abraham Lincoln dies (1865); RMS Titanic sinks after hitting an iceberg, killing more than 1,500 (1912); Jackie Robinson breaks color barrier, becomes first Black major league baseball player (1947); Actress Emma Watson born (1990); Two bombs explode at Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 264 (2013).
Saturday, April 13, 2024
April 13
Friday, April 12, 2024
April 12
Thursday, April 11, 2024
April 11
Ethel Kennedy, philanthropist and widow of Bobby Kennedy, born (1928); Civil Rights Act of 1968 is signed (1968); Apollo 13 launches (1970); American novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies (2007).
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
April 10
“The Great Gatsby” published (1925); Labor rights activist Dolores Huerta born (1930); Football personality John Madden born (1936); Paul McCartney leaves The Beatles (1970); Good Friday Agreement is signed (1998).
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
April 9
Gen. Robert E. Lee surrenders to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, effectively ending the Civil War (1865); Actor and activist Paul Robeson born (1898); Architect Frank Lloyd Wright dies (1959); Golfer and LPGA cofounder Marilynn Smith dies (2019).
Monday, April 8, 2024
April 8
Saturday, April 6, 2024
April 6
Friday, April 5, 2024
April 5
Booker T. Washington born (1856); Actress Bette Davis born (1908); Actor Gregory Peck born (1916); Former Secretary of State Colin Powell born (1937); Kurt Cobain dies (1994).
April 4
Ninth US President William Henry Harrison dies of pneumonia, shortest presidency ever at just 31 days (1841); American poet and activist Maya Angelou born (1928); NATO is created (1949); Martin Luther King Jr. is assassinated (1968).
Wednesday, April 3, 2024
April 3
American politician Boss Tweed born (1823); Actress Doris Day born (1922); Eddie Murphy born (1961); First mobile phone call is made (1973); Apple releases the first iPad (2010).
Tuesday, April 2, 2024
April 2
Danish author Hans Christian Andersen born (1805); Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse code, dies (1872); Walter Chrysler, founder of American Chrysler Corp., born (1875); Singer Marvin Gaye born (1939); Actor Pedro Pascal born (1975).
Saturday, March 30, 2024
March 30
Friday, March 29, 2024
March 29
Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
March 27
Director Quentin Tarantino born (1963); Yuri Gagarin, the first human in space, dies (1968); Mariah Carey born (1969); Tenerife Airport Disaster, worst accident in aviation history, kills 583 (1977).
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
March 26
Poet Walt Whitman dies (1892); Sandra Day O'Connor, first female US Supreme Court justice, born (1930); Journalist Bob Woodward, known for reporting on Watergate scandal, born (1943); Singer Diana Ross born (1944); Bangladesh declares independence from Pakistan (1971).
Monday, March 25, 2024
March 25
Journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells-Barnett dies (1931); Singer Aretha Franklin born (1942); Sir Elton John born (1947); Race car driver Danica Patrick born (1982); Children's author Beverly Cleary dies (2021).
Friday, March 22, 2024
March 22
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde was born in 1854 and died in 1900. During those all-too-brief years, he built a reputation that would long outlive him. And while today he is known for his literary works, he is arguably just as famous for his legendary wit — as well as the scandal and ensuing imprisonment that upturned his life.
As a literary figure, Wilde is perhaps best known for his play The Importance of Being Earnest, his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, and “The Ballad of Reading Gaol,” a poem he wrote in exile after his release from prison. But when Oscar Wilde’s name is mentioned, it’s not only his writing that people remember. The name is synonymous with flamboyant manners and rapier wit, and a certain type of genius that dazzled society, whether it was in the clubs of London or the lecture halls of the United States.
When Wilde went to the U.S. in 1882 to lecture primarily on aestheticism — an artistic movement that emphasized the aesthetic value of art, or "art for art's sake" — he encountered a hostile press but was well received by the general public. The trip made him an international star. It also gave rise to one of the most famous quotes attributed to Wilde (though there’s no evidence to support the claim). When he arrived at U.S. customs to begin his tour (so the story goes), he was asked if he had anything to declare. With typical wit, he replied, “I have nothing to declare but my genius.”
Back in London, things turned sour when questions about Wilde’s private life spiraled out of control. His homosexuality became public knowledge, and soon he was charged with gross indecency and sentenced to two years of hard labor. His name was tarnished, his reputation left in tatters, and he spent his remaining years in exile in France, where he died in a cheap hotel in 1900. It was a tragic end, and sadly, even today, the events of his life are perhaps more widely known than his work.
But there was a lot more to Wilde than writing, wit, and scandal: He was a complex man with a complex personality. And as Wilde once wrote, “Personality is a very mysterious thing. A man cannot always be estimated by what he does. He may keep the law, and yet be worthless. He may break the law, and yet be fine. He may be bad without ever doing anything bad. He may commit a sin against society, and yet realize through that sin his true perfection.”
To better understand the man behind the myth, here are a few things you might not know about the ostentatious Oscar Wilde.
WILDE WAS THE SON OF FAMOUS PARENTS
The Wilde name was well known before Oscar made his mark. His father, Sir William Wilde, was an acclaimed otolaryngologist (ear, nose, and throat doctor) and ophthalmologist, who wrote significant works on medicine, archaeology, and folklore. His mother, Jane Wilde, was a poet and activist, known for her support of the Irish nationalist movement and women's rights. As Wilde wrote in “De Profundis” (a letter he wrote from the Reading Gaol prison), “She and my father had bequeathed me a name they had made noble and honoured not merely in literature, art, archaeology and science, but in the public history of my own country in its evolution as a nation.”
ONE OF WILDE’S EARLY POEMS WAS IN MEMORY OF HIS DECEASED SISTER
When Wilde was 12 years old, his little sister, Isola, died of meningitis. He was deeply affected by her death, and later wrote a poem in her memory called “Requiescat.” It’s a beautiful, lyrical poem, in which Isola seems to be at once dead and alive: “Tread lightly, she is near / Under the snow, / Speak gently, she can hear / The daisies grow.”
WILDE LOST HIS IRISH ACCENT AT OXFORD…
J.E.C. Bodley, a friend of the young Wilde during his Oxford University days, said Wilde was “naïve, embarrassed, with a convulsive laugh, a lisp, and an Irish accent.” But Wilde adjusted to life at Oxford, and became a brilliant student. He also lost his accent, stating later in life that “my Irish accent was one of the many things I forgot at Oxford.” Wilde’s voice in later life was described by the actor Franklin Dyall as “of the brown velvet order — mellifluous — rounded — in a sense giving it a plummy quality” and “practically pure cello.” Unfortunately, a recording of Wilde reading “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” turned out to be a fake, and no other recordings are known to exist.
…BUT HE WAS ALWAYS IRISH IN HIS HEART
While some of Wilde’s works can be described as quintessentially “English” plays, Wilde himself never abandoned his Irish roots. When public performances of his play Salomé were banned in Britain — on the basis of it being illegal to depict biblical characters on the stage — Wilde hit back in an interview, saying “I shall leave England and settle in France, where I will take out letters of naturalization. I will not consent to call myself a citizen of a country that shows such narrowness in its artistic judgement.” He then added, “I am not English; I’m Irish — which is quite another thing.”
WILDE FELL IN LOVE WITH A WOMAN WHO LATER MARRIED BRAM STOKER
In his early twenties, Wilde became besotted with a beautiful young woman called Florence Balcombe. When they first met, he told a friend, “I am just going out to bring an exquisitely pretty girl to afternoon service in the Cathedral. She is just seventeen with the most perfectly beautiful face I ever saw and not a sixpence of money.” They dated for months, but distance put a strain on their relationship. Then Florence met Bram Stoker, who would later go on to write Dracula. They married, and Wilde was devastated. He wrote Florence a letter in which he called their time together “two sweet years — the sweetest of all the years of my youth.” They remained friends for years after.
OSCAR WILDE WAS MARRIED AND HAD CHILDREN
Due to Wilde’s well-documented homosexuality, people often don’t realize that he was married and had two children. Wilde married Constance Lloyd, an Irish author, in London in 1884. During their first two years of marriage they had two sons together, Cyril and Vyvyan. No one knows when Constance became aware of Oscar’s homosexual relationships, but she met his lover, Lord Alfred Douglas, in 1891. The ensuing scandal and Wilde’s imprisonment placed an impossible strain on their relationship. Constance changed her surname and moved to Switzerland. She died in 1898, and Oscar never saw his two sons again.
WILDE FIRST FILED THE SUIT OF LIBEL THAT WOULD BE HIS UNDOING
Wilde met Lord Alfred “Bosie” Douglas, who was 16 years his junior, in 1891. The two soon became lovers. Douglas was the third son of the Marquess of Queensberry, famous for creating the Queensberry Rules of boxing. When Queensberry found out about his son’s relationship, he tried to end it in various ways. At one point he left a card for Wilde, which simply said “For Oscar Wilde, posing sodomite.” This prompted Wilde to prosecute Queensberry for libel. It backfired terribly, and Wilde himself ended up in court on multiple charges of gross indecency related to his homosexuality. He was found guilty and sentenced to two years hard labor. All this occurred at the height of his fame and success, while The Importance of Being Earnest was still being performed in London. After his conviction, Wilde’s life was never the same.
OSCAR WILDE RETAINED HIS LEGENDARY WIT TO THE VERY END
Wilde spent his last three years impoverished and in exile in France. Some of his closest friends visited him and stayed with him to the end, as Oscar faded away in a dingy hotel in Paris. He was a broken man, but his wit could not be destroyed. As he lay looking at the surroundings of his cheap hotel room, he uttered some of his final words: “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go.” It was classic Oscar Wilde, and the quote is often listed among the greatest last words ever spoken.
WILDE WAS POSTHUMOUSLY PARDONED IN 2017
Wilde feared that he had ruined his family name. In his letter “De Profundis,” he wrote: “I had disgraced that name [Wilde] eternally. I had made it a low byword among low people. I had dragged it through the very mire.” But Wilde, on this occasion, was wrong: His name would not be disgraced eternally, although it did take more than a century for an official annulment of his conviction. In 2017, Wilde was one of some 75,000 gay men in England and Wales pardoned by Queen Elizabeth II. All of these men had been convicted for now-abolished sex offences. This royal pardon is informally known as the Turing Law, named after Alan Turing, the World War II codebreaker who, like Wilde, was convicted for his homosexuality. Turing was officially pardoned in 2013, 61 years later.
Today, Wilde is still remembered for his exuberant lifestyle and infamous imprisonment as much as for his work. Nonetheless, The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest are still considered great literary masterpieces of the late Victorian period, and both display Wilde’s indomitable wit and consummate eye for beauty.
March 21
Pocahontas is buried (1617); Martin Luther King Jr. leads third and ultimately successful march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama (1965); The US announces boycott of Summer Olympics in Moscow (1980); Twitter is founded (2006).
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
March 20
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
March 19
American novelist Philip Roth born (1933); Glenn Close born (1947); Bruce Willis born (1955); Texas Western, now known as UTEP, is first basketball team to win NCAA Championship with all-Black starting lineup (1966); Iraq War begins (2003).
Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18
President Grover Cleveland born (1837); Actress and first Black Miss America Vanessa Williams born (1963); Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov becomes first person to walk in space (1965); Queen Latifah born (1970).
Saturday, March 16, 2024
March 16
Friday, March 15, 2024
March 15
The Ides of March: Julius Caesar assassinated by Brutus (44 BCE); President Andrew Jackson born (1767); Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg born (1933); Terrorist attack in Christchurch, New Zealand kills 51 (2019).
Thursday, March 14, 2024
March 14
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
March 13
Uranus discovered (1781); President Benjamin Harrison dies (1901); Susan B. Anthony dies (1906); Tennis star Coco Gauff born (2004); Pope Francis' papacy begins (2013).
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
March 12
Writer and author Jack Kerouac born (1922); Mahatma Gandhi begins 200-mile protest march against British salt tax (1930); Actress and singer Liza Minnelli born (1946); Jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker dies (1955).
Monday, March 11, 2024
March 11
Saturday, March 9, 2024
March 9
Friday, March 8, 2024
March 8
Thursday, March 7, 2024
March 7
Wednesday, March 6, 2024
March 6
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
March 5
Five American colonists shot by British troops in Boston Massacre (1770); Josef Stalin dies (1953); Singer Patsy Cline dies (1963); Actress Eva Mendes born (1974); Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez dies (2013).
Saturday, March 2, 2024
March 2
Friday, March 1, 2024
March 1
Articles of Confederation are ratified, go into effect in the US (1781); Writer Ralph Ellison born (1914); Singer Harry Belafonte born (1927); The Peace Corps is established (1961); Actress Lupita Nyong'o born (1983); Justin Bieber born (1994).
Thursday, February 29, 2024
February 29
Hattie McDaniel becomes first African American to win an Academy Award (1940); AIDS activist and "Real World" star Pedro Zamora born (1972); Rapper and actor Ja Rule born (1976); Singer and actor Davy Jones dies (2012).
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
February 28
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
February 27
Author John Steinbeck born (1902); Actress Elizabeth Taylor born (1932); Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Ivan Pavlov dies (1936); 22nd Amendment is ratified, limiting US presidents to only being elected to two terms (1951); Mister Rogers dies (2003).
Monday, February 26, 2024
February 26
Saturday, February 24, 2024
February 24
Friday, February 23, 2024
February 23
Gutenberg Bible is published (1455); President John Quincy Adams dies (1848); Sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois born (1868); Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima photo taken (1945); Actress Emily Blunt born (1983).
Thursday, February 22, 2024
February 22
President George Washington born (1732); Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin born (1962); Drew Barrymore born (1975); "Miracle on Ice" as the US defeats the Soviet Union in hockey at Winter Olympics (1980); Artist Andy Warhol dies (1987).
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
February 21
"The Communist Manifesto" published by Karl Marx (1848); Musician Nina Simone born (1933); NASCAR founded (1948); Malcolm X assassinated (1965); Rev. Billy Graham dies (2018).
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
February 20
Monday, February 19, 2024
February 19
Thomas Edison awarded patent for the phonograph (1878); Musician Smokey Robinson born (1940); Battle of Iwo Jima begins (1945); Actress Millie Bobby Brown born (2004); “To Kill a Mockingbird” author Harper Lee dies (2016).
Saturday, February 17, 2024
February 17
Friday, February 16, 2024
February 16
Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun's burial chamber is unsealed (1923); Fidel Castro becomes prime minister of Cuba (1959); Tennis great John McEnroe born (1959); Actress Elizabeth Olsen born (1989); Musician The Weeknd born (1990).
Thursday, February 15, 2024
February 15
Astronomer Galileo Galilei born (1564); Women's rights activist Susan B. Anthony born (1820); Musician Nat King Cole dies (1965); Soviet-Afghan War ends as all Soviet troops depart Afghanistan (1989); Raquel Welch dies (2023).
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
February 14
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
February 13
Monday, February 12, 2024
February 12
President Abraham Lincoln born (1809); Biologist Charles Darwin born (1809); Children’s author Judy Blume born (1938); President Bill Clinton acquitted on impeachment charges (1999); “Peanuts” cartoonist Charles Schulz dies (2000).
Saturday, February 10, 2024
February 9
February 10
Thursday, February 8, 2024
February 8
Author Jules Verne born (1828); Boy Scouts of America is founded (1910); Hollywood legend Lana Turner born (1921); Actor James Dean born (1931); Nasdaq Stock Market index opens (1971).
Wednesday, February 7, 2024
February 7
Charles Dickens born (1812); The US bans all Cuban imports and exports (1962); Garth Brooks born (1962); "Beatlemania" arrives in America (1964); Author and pilot Anne Morrow Lindbergh dies (2001).
Tuesday, February 6, 2024
February 6
Babe Ruth born (1895); Former President Ronald Reagan born (1911); Bob Marley born (1945); King George VI dies, Elizabeth II becomes Queen (1952); Singer Rick Astley born (1966); Tennis legend and activist Arthur Ashe dies (1993).
Monday, February 5, 2024
February 5
Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, arrives in Boston (1631); Baseball legend Hank Aaron born (1934); English actress Charlotte Rampling born (1946); Medgar Evers’ murderer convicted after 30 years (1994); President Donald Trump acquitted in his first impeachment trial (2020).
Saturday, February 3, 2024
David Gail
February 2
New Amsterdam (present-day New York) becomes a city (1653); First Groundhog Day celebrated (1887); First Groundhog Day celebrated (1887); First Groundhog Day celebrated (1887); Shakira born (1977); Hollywood legend Gene Kelly dies (1996); Philip Seymour Hoffman dies (2014).
February 3
Thursday, February 1, 2024
February 1
"Oxford English Dictionary" debuts (1884); Film legend Clark Gable born (1901); Harriet Tubman becomes first Black woman on US postage stamp (1978); Harry Styles born (1994); Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrates on reentry, all seven astronauts killed (2003).
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Truman Capote
January 31
Guy Fawkes is executed (1606); 13th Amendment, abolishing slavery, passes in Congress (1865); Jackie Robinson born (1919); Actress Kerry Washington born (1977); Justin Timberlake born (1981).
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
January 30
American flag maker Betsy Ross dies (1836); Franklin D. Roosevelt born (1882); Mahatma Gandhi assassinated (1948); The Beatles give their last public performance (1969); 14 killed on Bloody Sunday in Northern Ireland (1972).
Monday, January 29, 2024
January 29
Saturday, January 27, 2024
January 26
January 27
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Janaury 25
First Winter Olympics take place in Chamonix, France (1924); Battle of the Bulge comes to an end (1945); Al Capone dies (1947); Alicia Keys born (1981); Mary Tyler Moore dies (2017).
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
January 24
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
January 23
American statesman John Hancock born (1737); The US and Vietnam reach peace settlement (1973); Athlete, artist, and activist Paul Robeson dies (1976); Salvador Dalí dies (1989); Madeleine Albright becomes first US female secretary of state (1997).
Monday, January 22, 2024
January 22
English polymath Francis Bacon born (1561); President Lyndon B. Johnson dies (1973); Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision (1973); Heath Ledger dies (2008); Hank Aaron dies (2021).
Saturday, January 20, 2024
January 20
Friday, January 19, 2024
January 19
Author Edgar Allan Poe born (1809); Musician Dolly Parton born (1946); Indira Gandhi becomes first female prime minister of India (1966); Actress and inventor Hedy Lamarr dies (2000).
Thursday, January 18, 2024
January 18
President John Tyler dies (1862); Actor Cary Grant born (1904); WWI Paris Peace Conference begins (1919); Author Rudyard Kipling dies (1936); Willie O’Ree becomes first Black player in the National Hockey League (1958).
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
January 17
Benjamin Franklin born (1706); Actress Betty White born (1922); Muhammad Ali born (1942); UN Security Council holds its first meeting (1946); Former first lady Michelle Obama born (1964).
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
January 16
Hiram Revels, first African American to serve in Congress, dies (1901); 18th Amendment ratified, banning alcohol in the US (1919); R&B and pop singer Aaliyah born (1979); "Hamilton" creator Lin-Manuel Miranda born (1980); Persian Gulf War begins (1991).
January 15
Coca-Cola Co. is incorporated (1889); Martin Luther King Jr. born (1929); First Super Bowl is played (1967); Wikipedia is launched (2001); Cranberries lead singer Dolores O’Riordan dies (2018).
Monday, January 15, 2024
Born Today
Today we celebrate Martin Luther King Jr Day, honoring the famed Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King Jr.
Born in Atlanta, GA on January 15, 1929, he was assassinated before he saw his 40th birthday.
Saturday, January 13, 2024
January 12
January 13
Thursday, January 11, 2024
January 11
Alexander Hamilton born (1755 or 1757); Grand Canyon becomes a national monument (1908); First use of insulin to treat diabetes in humans (1922); Mary J. Blige born (1971); Sir Edmund Hillary, one of the first two people to reach the summit of Mount Everest, dies (2008).
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
January 10
UN General Assembly gathers for first time (1946); Boxer George Foreman born (1949); The US and Holy See establish diplomatic relations (1984); David Bowie dies (2016).
Tuesday, January 9, 2024
January 9
"Common Sense" published by Thomas Paine (1776); President Richard Nixon born (1913); Activist and singer-songwriter Joan Baez born (1941); Catherine, Princess of Wales born (1982); iPhone makes its debut (2007).
Monday, January 8, 2024
January 8
Saturday, January 6, 2024
January 6
Friday, January 5, 2024
January 5
January 4
Boxer Floyd Patterson born (1935); Biographer and journalist Doris Kearns Goodwin born (1943); Luna 1 is first spacecraft to reach vicinity of the moon (1959); Poet TS Eliot dies (1965); Burj Khalifa, tallest building in the world, opens in Dubai (2010).
Wednesday, January 3, 2024
January 3
"The Lord of the Rings" author JRR Tolkien born (1892); The US cuts diplomatic ties with Cuba (1961); Apple is incorporated (1977); Author Joy Adamson murdered (1980); Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega surrenders to the US (1990).
Tuesday, January 2, 2024
January 2
Spanish Reconquista completed (1492); Viet Cong achieve first major victory of Vietnam War (1963); President Ronald Reagan sworn in as California governor (1967); President Jimmy Carter ends US-Russia détente (1980).
Monday, January 1, 2024
December 31
Arthur Guinness signs a 9,000-year lease, begins brewing at Dublin's St. James's Gate (1759); Thomas Edison demonstrates incandescent lighting in public for first time (1879); First New Year's Eve celebration held in Times Square (1907); The country of Kiribati skips the day altogether (1994).