June 22

It’s National Chocolate Eclair Day

ON THIS DAY…
168BC Romans under Lucius Aemilius Paullus defeat and capture Macedonian King Perseus, ending the Third Macedonian War
1633 Galileo Galilei was forced by the Inquisition to “abjure, curse, and detest” his Copernican heliocentric views. “I, Galileo…do swear that I have always believed, do now believe and, with God’s aid shall believe hereafter, all that which is taught and preached by the … church. I must wholly forsake the false opinion that the sun is the center of the world and moves not, and that the earth is not the center of the world and moves….” He was then condemned to the “formal prison of the Holy Office” for an undetermined amount of time which would be served at the pleasure of his judges, and required to repeat the seven penitential psalms once a week for three years. The next day the Pope specified the prison sentence should be house arrest.
1825 British Parliament abolishes feudalism and the seigneurial system in British North America
1832 A pin manufacturing machine was patented by John Ireland Howe
1841 The first US patent for a typesetting machine was issued to Frenchman Adrien Delcambre and Englishman James Hadden Young, both residing in Lisle, France
1894 Harry Houdini and Bess Rahner are married
1911 George V is crowned King of the United Kingdom, succeeding his father, Edward VII
1925 The first film adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic novel, The Lost World, is released in US movie theaters
1938 Two years after Adolf Hitler took German boxer Max Schmeling’s defeat of American Joe Louis as a sign of Nazi superiority, Louis defeats Schmeling in their rematch by knocking him out in the first round
1940 France is forced to sign armistice with Nazi Germany
1941 Breaking the nonaggression pact signed by the two countries in 1939, Germany invades the Soviet Union, sending over 3 million troops across the border
1944 President Franklin Roosevelt signs the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, known as the GI Bill of Rights, which provides tuition, low-interest mortgages, and other benefits to veterans
1946 Jet airplanes were used to transport mail for the first time
1961 The Guns of Navarone starring Gregory Peck, David Niven, Anthony Quinn, Stanley Baker and a slew of other memorable actors, is released in US movie theaters
1973 The first Skylab crew of astronauts splashed down safely after a then record 28 days in space
1976 Canadian House of Commons abolishes capital punishment
1977 Former attorney general John Mitchell begins serving his sentence for his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up, becoming the first US attorney general to go to prison
1978 Charon, a satellite of the then planet Pluto, is discovered
1979 Escape from Alcatraz, The Main Event and The Muppet Movie all open in US movie theaters
1996 The Quake computer game is released

BORN:
1856 H. Rider Haggard, prolific writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa (King Solomon’s Mines, She, Eric Brighteyes)
1891 Franz Alexander, physician and psychoanalyst sometimes referred to as the father of psychosomatic medicine because of his leading role in identifying emotional tension as a significant cause of physical illness
1892 N. Howell Furman, analytical chemist whose analytical separation of uranium contributed to the development of the atomic bomb
1898 Erich Maria Remarque, author whose most famous work is All Quiet on the Western Front
1903 John Dillinger, bank robber, considered by some to be a dangerous criminal, while others idolized him as a latter-day Robin Hood
1906 Billy Wilder, 6-time Academy Award-winner – 3 for The Apartment (producer, director, writer), one for Sunset Blvd. (writer), and two for The Lost Weekend (director and writer)
1906 Anne Morrow Lindbergh, pioneering American aviator, author, and the spouse of fellow aviator Charles Lindbergh
1909 Michael Todd, Academy Award-winning producer (Around the World in Eighty Days) and developed the widescreen movie process Todd-AO
1909 Mary Livingstone, actress, a non-performer who married comedian Jack Benny and he put her to work in his radio shows; she was a natural, playing his girlfriend in radio and television for decades
1920 Paul Frees, actor, composer, songwriter, voiceover artist and author (The Millionaire, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fractured Flickers, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town)
1930 Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, son of Charles and Anne, who was abducted and murdered in 1932
1932 Prunella Scales, CBE, actress (The Boys from Brazil, Fawlty Towers, Mapp & Lucia, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, The Shell Seekers)
1941 Michael Lerner, actor (Eight Men Out, Barton Fink, Newsies, No Escape, Clueless (TV), Elf)
1944 Klaus Maria Brandauer, actor (White Fang, Mephisto, The Russia House)
1947 David L. Lander, character actor (1941, Used Cars, Laverne & Shirley, 101 Dalmatians: The Series, Christmas with the Kranks)
1949 Meryl Streep, 2-time Academy Award-winning actress (Kramer vs. Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, Silkwood, The Deer Hunter, Out of Africa, Postcards from the Edge, Adaptation)
1949 Lindsay Wagner, Emmy Award-winning actress (The Bionic Woman, Stranger in My Bed, Princess Daisy, Scruples, The Paper Chase)
1952 Graham Greene, actor (The Red Green Show, Into the West, Coyote Waits, Skins, The Green Mile, Die Hard: With a Vengeance, Maverick)
1953 Cyndi Lauper, Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, and MTV VMA-winning video and Emmy Award-winning film, television and Theater actress; she was the first artist in history to have four top-five singles released from one album
1954 Freddie Prinze, stand-up comedian and actor (Chico and the Man)
1956 Tim Russ, actor (Star Trek: Voyager, Samantha Who?, Bird, Spaceballs)
1958 Bruce Campbell, actor. Hail to the King, baby!
1962 Nicholas Lea, actor (The X-Files, Men in Trees, Kyle XY, Vertical Limit, Once a Thief)
1971 Mary Lynn Rajskub, actress (24, Little Miss Sunshine, Firewall, Sweet Home Alabama, Veronica’s Closet)

DIED:
1965 David O. Selznick, film producer (King Kong, Dinner at Eight, A Star Is Born, Gone with the Wind, Rebecca), dies at 63
1969 Judy Garland, dancer, singer and actress (Judgment at Nuremberg, A Star is Born, Easter Parade, The Wizard of Oz), dies of an accidental barbiturate overdose at 47
1987 Fred Astaire, dancer, singer, and BAFTA Award-winning actor (The Towering Inferno, Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, It Takes a Thief, On the Beach), dies at 88
2002 Ann Landers (Esther “Eppie” Pauline Friedman Lederer), syndicated advice columnist, dies at 83
2004 Bob Bemer, computer scientist best known for his work at IBM during the late 1950s and early 1960s, dies at 84
2006 Moose, canine actor who is most famous for his portrayal of Eddie Crane on the television sitcom Frasier, dies at 15 years, 180 days