22 September 2018
Interesting tidbits:
1692 – The last people were hanged for witchcraft in England's North American colonies on this date.
1792 – Primidi Vendémiaire of year 1 of the French Republican Calendar as the French First Republic came into being. The French Republican Calendar was a calendar created and implemented during the French Revolution, and used by the French government for about 12 years from late 1793 to 1805. The new system was designed in part to remove all religious and royalist influences from the calendar, and was part of a larger attempt at decimalisation in France.
1869 – Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold premiered in Munich.
1888 – The first issue of National Geographic Magazine was published.
1896 – Queen Victoria surpassed her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
1927 – Jack Dempsey lost the "Long Count" boxing match to Gene Tunney.
1979 – The Vela Incident (also known as the South Atlantic Flash) was observed near Bouvet Island, thought to be a nuclear weapons test.
1991 – The Dead Sea Scrolls were made available to the public for the first time by the Huntington Library.
Today's birthday crew:
1515 – Anne of Cleves, fourth wife of Henry VIII.
1791 – Michael Faraday, English scientist whose work on electricity and magnatism made him one of the most influential scientists in history.
1892 – Billy West, American actor, director, and producer. In 1917 movie theaters couldn't get enough Charlie Chaplin comedies, and an enterprising producer hired West, who had been doing comic pantomimes on the vaudeville stage, to make imitation-Chaplin subjects to meet the demand. West, wearing the identical "tramp" costume and makeup, copied Chaplin's movements and gestures so accurately that he is often mistaken for the genuine performer. Chaplin himself saw the Billy West company filming on a Hollywood street, and told West, "You're a damned good imitator." Some West comedies were later re-released on the home-movie market as "Charlie Chaplin" pictures.
1904 – Ellen Church, first American flight attendant. In the early days of commercial flying flight attendants were not just glorified waiters, but could deal with medical emergencies and even fly the plane if necessary. Church was both a registered nurse and a licensed pilot.
1921 – Will Elder, American illustrator and comic book artist who is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Mad magazine in 1952.
1958 – Neil Cavuto, American business journalist.
1958 – Joan Jett, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actress (The Runaways).
1959 – Saul Perlmutter, American physicist and Nobel Prize Laureate who provided evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
1971 – Elizabeth Bear, American author who works primarily in speculative fiction. She is one of only five writers who have gone on to win multiple Hugo Awards for fiction after winning the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (the others being C. J. Cherryh, Orson Scott Card, Spider Robinson, and Ted Chiang).
1987 – Tom Felton, English actor and singer best known for playing Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter film series.
Happy birthday guys!
