May 21

It’s National Memo Day and National Waiters and Waitresses Day and National Strawberries ‘n Cream Day and Armed Forces Day

ON THIS DAY…
0996 Sixteen-year-old Otto III is crowned Holy Roman Emperor
1471 King Henry VI of England is murdered in the Tower of London in the latest twist in the War of the Roses; Edward IV assumes the throne
1819 Bicycles were first seen in the US in New York City; they were originally known as “swift walkers”
1840 New Zealand was declared a British colony
1853 The Aquatic Vivarium, the world’s first public aquarium, was opened in Regent’s Park, London, the inspiration of an English self-taught naturalist, Philip Henry Gosse, who wrote popular illustrated books on nature, and especially marine biology
1856 Lawrence, KS is captured and burned by pro-slavery forces
1877 A trial test of a telephone was given in the Pennsylvania Railroad Company shops by associates of Alexander Graham Bell
1881 Clara Barton establishes the American Red Cross, a counterpart to the European humanitarian agency founded in Switzerland in 1864
1891 Peter Jackson and Jim Corbett fought for 61 rounds only to end in a draw
1894 In England, the Manchester Ship Canal was officially opened by Queen Victoria
1901 The first US State motor car legislation was an act to regulate the speed of motor vehicle, passed in Connecticut; a limit was established of 12 mph within city limits and 15 mph outside, which were higher than the 8 mph city and 12mph country speeds in the bill as originally presented
1904 Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) founded in Paris
1914 Greyhound bus company debuts
1916 Daylight Saving Time was introduced in Britain as a war-time measure to save fuel
1922 The cartoon, “On the Road to Moscow,” by Rollin Kirby won a Pulitzer Prize; it was the first cartoon awarded the Pulitzer
1924 University of Chicago students Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks in a “thrill killing”
1927 Charles Lindbergh lands at Le Bourget airport in France after a 33-hour solo flight from Long Island-which gives him the distinction of being the nineteenth pilot to cross the Atlantic
1928 Walt Disney’s trademark application for “Mickey Mouse” is filed with the United States Patent Office
1929 The first automatic electric stock quotation board was put into operation by Sutro and Company of NYC
1934 Oskaloosa, IA, becomes the first municipality in the US to fingerprint each of its citizens
1936 Commercial production of Lucite was begun in the US by DuPont in Wilmington, DE
1941 950 miles off the coast of Brazil, the freighter SS Robin Moor becomes the first United States ship sunk by a German U-boat
1945 Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married
1955 George B. Hansburg of Walker Valley, NY was issued a US patent for his invention of an improved pogo stick
1961 President John F. Kennedy commits the country to “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth before this decade is out”
1971 Escape from the Planet of the Apes opens in US theaters
1979 Protests and riots in San Francisco over voluntary manslaughter verdict for Supervisor Dan White, murder of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk; the jury was persuaded by White’s “Twinky Defense” – that a diet of Twinkies had impaired his judgment
1980 Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back opens in US theaters
1982 Mad Max 2 (aka The Road Warrior) starring Mel Gibson opens in US theaters
1990 The final episode of Newhart aired on CBS-TV
1992 After 30 years of broadcasts, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson presented its final guest, Bette Midler
1998 Microsoft and Sega announced that they are collaborating on a home video game system

BORN:
427BC Plato, Classical Greek philosopher, who together with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, helped to lay the philosophical foundations of Western culture
1688 Alexander Pope, generally regarded as the greatest English poet of the eighteenth century, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer and master of the heroic couplet
1860 Willem Einthoven, physiologist who was awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of the electrical properties of the heart through the electrocardiograph, which he developed as a practical clinical instrument and an important tool in the diagnosis of heart disease
1904 Robert Montgomery, actor-director-producer-singer (The Mystery of Mr. X, Busman’s Honeymoon, They Were Expendable, Here Comes Mr. Jordan)
1904 Fats Waller (Thomas Wright Waller), jazz pianist, organist, composer and comedic entertainer (“Honeysuckle Rose”, “Ain’t Misbehavin'”)
1917 Raymond Burr, two-time Emmy Award-winning actor (Perry Mason, Ironside, Rear Window, Love Happy, Centennial)
1917 Dennis Day, actor and singer (The Jack Benny Show)
1921 Andrey Dmitriyevich Sakharov, nuclear physicist, an outspoken advocate of human rights in the Soviet Union
1922 Robert A. Good, surgeon, a pioneer of modern immunology who performed the world’s first successful human bone marrow transplant
1924 Peggy Cass, actress who had an encyclopedic mind and appeared in many TV quiz shows in the 1960s (Auntie Mame, If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, To Tell the Truth)
1951 Al Franken, actor, five-time Emmy Award-winning writer and producer (Saturday Night Live, The Paul Simon Special, Tunnel Vision, Stuart Saves His Family)
1952 Mr. T (Lawrence Tureaud), boxer, wrestler, bodyguard and actor (The A-Team, T. and T., Rocky III, D.C. Cab)
1954 Judge Reinhold, actor (Running Scared, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Gremlins, Beverly Hills Cop, The Santa Clause 2)
1960 Jeffrey Dahmer, serial killer who murdered 17 men and boys between 1978 and 1991; his murders were particularly gruesome, involving rape, necrophilia and cannibalism
1966 Lisa Edelstein, actress (House, M.D., Daddy Day Care, What Women Want)
1974 Fairuza Balk, actress (Return to Oz, The Worst Witch, Valmont, Murder in the Heartland, The Island of Dr. Moreau)

DIED:
1471 King Henry VI, King of England 1422–1461 (though with a Regent until 1437) and then 1470–1471, and a claimant to the kingdom of France 1422–1453, he was murdered while imprisoned in the Tower of London; he was 49
1542 Hernando De Soto, explorer and conquistador who, while leading the first European expedition to the territory of the modern-day United States, was the first European to discover the Mississippi River, dies at 45
1619 Hieronymus Fabricius ab Aquapendente, surgeon, an outstanding Renaissance anatomist who helped found modern embryology, dies at 82, a day after his birthday
1786 Carl Wilhelm Scheele, chemist who discovered oxygen in 1772, dies at 43
1889 Gaston Planté, physicist who produced the first electric storage battery, or accumulator, in 1859; in an improved form, his invention is widely used in automobiles, dies at 55
1935 Jane Addams, founder of the US Settlement House movement and the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, dies at 74
1952 John Garfield, actor who found himself blacklisted during the the McCarthy “Red Scare” era in the early 1950s for his left-wing political beliefs, he adamantly refused to “name names” in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in April 1951 (Body and Soul, They Made Me a Criminal, The Postman Always Rings Twice), dies at 39
1978 Bruce Geller, Emmy Award-winning writer and producer (Mission: Impossible, Rawhide, The Westerner, Mannix), dies at 47
1987 Alejandro Rey, actor (The Flying Nun, Fun in Acapulco, Mr. Majestyk, Hotel), dies at 57
1996 Lash LaRue, “B”-movie cowboy hero of the late 1940’s, dies at 78
2000 Sir John Gielgud, Academy Award-winning actor (Arthur, Becket, Shine, The Elephant Man, Murder by Decree), dies at 96
2000 Dame Barbara Cartland DBE CStJ, successful writer of romance novels, specializing in historical love themes, dies at 98
2005 Howard Morris, director and comic actor who is well-remembered for his voice work for Hanna-Barbera Productions vocal team, offering voices for The Flintstones, The Jetsons, The Atom Ant Show, Archie and His New Friends; dies at 85