Fun Facts for Today – February 20

February 20

It’s Hoodie Hoo Day and Cherry Pie Day!

 

ON THIS DAY…
1472 Orkney and Shetland are left by Norway to Scotland, due to a dowry payment
1547 Edward VI of England crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey
1673 The first recorded wine auction took place in London
1792 President George Washington signed the Postal Service Act thereby creating the US Post Office
1809 The US Supreme Court ruled the power of the federal government was greater than that of any individual state
1839 The US Congress prohibited dueling in the District of Columbia
1872 The Metropolitan Museum of Art opens in New York City
1872 Silas Noble and James P. Cooley patented a toothpick manufacturing machine
1872 Luther Childs Crowell received a patent for a machine for manufacturing square-bottom paper bags
1915 The World’s Fair opens in San Francisco; called the Panama-Pacific Exhibition, the fair celebrates the opening of the Panama Canal and the rebuilding of the city following the 1906 earthquake
1927 Cardiff City wins the FA Cup for their first and only time
1931 California gets the go-ahead by the US Congress to build the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge
1932 Tod Browning’s controversial film Freaks opens in the US
1934 A US patent was issued to Ernest O. Lawrence for his “Method and Apparatus for Acceleration of Ions,” known as the cyclotron
1936 The film Things to Come, based on the H.G. Wells novel of the same name, opens in London
1942 Lt. Edward O’Hare becomes America’s first World War II flying ace
1943 American movie studio executives agree to allow the Office of War Information to censor movies
1952 Emmett L. Ashford became the first black umpire in organized baseball
1952 John Huston’s The African Queen starring Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn opens in the US
1956 Ealing’s The Ladykillers starring Alec Guinness, Herbert Lom, Peter Sellers, Cecil Parker and Danny Green has its US premiere in New York City
1961 Disney’s animated short Aquamania, featuring Goofy, is released in the US
1962 Astronaut John Glenn, in the Mercury capsule Friendship 7, orbits Earth three times to become the first American to orbit Earth
1963 Willie Mays signed with the San Francisco Giants as baseball’s highest-paid player; he earned $100,000 a year
1968 John Cleese and Connie Booth wed
1968 Flash BANG Wallop What a Picture! Half a Sixpence starring Tommy Steele has its US premiere in New York City
1970 John Lennon’s single “Instant Karma! (We All Shine On)”/”Who Has Seen The Wind” is released in the US
1974 Cher filed for separation from husband Sonny Bono
1986 WED Enterprises, first created in December 1952 to oversee the design of Disneyland, is renamed Walt Disney Imagineering
1987 After 11 years, David Hartman left ABC’s Good Morning America
1997 Ben and Jerry’s introduced a their ice cream Phish Food
2001 FBI Agent Robert Phillip Hanssen was arrested and charged with spying for the Russians for 15 years

BORN:
1873 Charles Hubbard Judd, psychologist who was a leader adopting the scientific method in the study and reform of education
1894 Curt Paul Richter, psychobiologist who discovered the body’s biorhythms and identified the part of the brain that controls daily cycles of sleeping, waking and other activities
1901 René Dubos, microbiologist, environmentalist, and author who pioneered research in isolating antibacterial substances from certain soil microorganisms and the discovery of major antibiotics
1902 Ansel Adams, photographer and environmentalist whose compelling images of the American landscape were matched by his dedication to the conservation of those lands
1906 Gale Gordon, actor (Dennis the Menace, The Lucy Show, Our Miss Brooks, The 30 Foot Bride of Candy Rock)
1912 Pierre Boulle, author (The Bridge over the River Kwai, Planet of the Apes)
1925 Robert Altman, director-producer-screenwriter (MASH, Popeye, Vincent & Theo, Gosford Park, The Player)
1926 Richard Matheson, author-screenwriter (Duel, I Am Legend, The Shrinking Man, A Stir of Echoes)
1927 Sidney Poitier, Academy Award-winning actor (Lilies of the Field, The Defiant Ones, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, To Sir With Love)
1929 Amanda Blake, actress (Gunsmoke, Lili, High Society)
1936 Larry Hovis, actor (Hogan’s Heroes, Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In)
1938 Richard Beymer, actor (Johnny Tremain, The Diary of Anne Frank (1959), West Side Story, Twin Peaks)
1943 Mike Leigh, director-screenwriter (Vera Drake, Topsy-Turvy, Meantime)
1946 Brenda Blethyn, actress (A River Runs Through It, Little Voice, Saving Grace, Pride & Prejudice)
1946 Sandy Duncan, dancer-singer-actress (Roots, The Million Dollar Duck, The Cat from Outer Space, Valerie, Peter Pan)
1947 Peter Strauss, actor (Rich Man, Poor Man, Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone, Nick of Time, xXx: State of the Union)
1950 Tony Wilson, record label owner (Factory Records, home of the Happy Mondays and Joy Division), radio presenter, TV show host, nightclub manager, impresario and journalist for Granada Television and the BBC, subject of the film 24 Hour Party People
1951 Edward Albert, actor (Falcon Crest, Beauty and the Beast, Guarding Tess, Port Charles)
1951 Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (2007-present), Chancellor of the Exchequer (1997-2007), Member of Parliament (1983-2005)
1954 Patty Hearst, heiress-actress (Cry Baby, Serial Mom, Pecker)
1954 Anthony Stewart Head, actor (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Little Britain, VR.5)
1958 James Wilby, actor (Maurice, Howards End, Gosford Park, Marple: The Sittaford Mystery)
1960 Joel Hodgson, stand-up comedian, actor, writer, prop builder, creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000
1963 Ian Brown, singer (The Stone Roses)
1964 French Stewart, actor (3rd Rock from the Sun, Stargate, God, the Devil and Bob, Inspector Gadget 2)
1966 Cindy Crawford, supermodel
1967 Lili Taylor, actress (High Fidelity, Six Feet Under, Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle, Dogfight)
1967 Andrew Shue, actor (Gracie, Melrose Place)
1967 Kurt Cobain, musician-songwriter (Nirvana)
1981 Majandra Delfino, actress (Roswell, Quarterlife)

DIED:
1762 Johann Tobias Mayer, astronomer who developed lunar tables that greatly assisted navigators in determining longitude at sea, dies at 39
1841 Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertürner, chemist who discovered morphine while trying to isolate the portion of opium that caused sleep, dies at 57
1895 Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, editor, orator, author, statesman and reformer, dies at 77
1920 Robert Peary, explorer who claimed to have been the first person to reach the geographic North Pole, dies at 63
1960 Sir Leonard Woolley, archaeologist whose excavation of the ancient Sumerian city of Ur (in modern Iraq) greatly advanced knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian civilization, dies at 79
1966 Fleet Admiral Chester William Nimitz, USN, GCB, Commander-in-Chief of Pacific Naval Forces during WWII and America’s last suriving Fleet Admiral, dies at 71
1968 Anthony Asquith, director (Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, We Dive at Dawn, The Yellow Rolls-Royce), dies at 65
1985 Clarence Nash, the voice of Donald Duck, dies at 80
1992 Dick York, actor (Bewitched (the first Darrin Stephens), Going My Way (TV series), They Came to Cordura), dies at 63
1993 Ferruccio Lamborghini, industrialist who founded a luxury car company that produced some of the fastest, most expensive, and sought-after sports cars in the world, dies at 76
1999 Gene Siskel, one of the world’s most famous film critics, dies at 53
2005 Sandra Dee, actress (Gidget, Tammy Tell Me True, The Dunwich Horror), dies at 62
2005 Hunter S. Thompson, author and journalist credited as the creator of Gonzo journalism (Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream, Hells Angels: A Strange and Terrible Saga), dies at 67