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Sept 22, 2006 friday
September 22nd, 2006

Birthdays: Anne of Cleves 1515- Henry VIII’s fourth wife. Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins, Meryl Streep, John Houseman, Joanie Jett, Erich Von Stronheim, Tom Lasorda, Paul Muni, Debbie Boone, Scott Baio, John Woo is 58

480 BC. Themistocles and the Athenian fleet of 300 faced the 1,200 warships of Xerxes the Great King of Persia in the Bay of Salamis. This night at a war council the Greek admirals voted not to try to fight such mighty host but withdraw. Themistocles finding himself outvoted was so confident in their ability to win that he took a risk that could have cost his life. He sent a spy to Xerxes to tell him the Greeks were planning to flee so he should maneuver his fleet around them and cut off any hope of retreat. Xerxes fell for it and forced the engagement. The victory of Salamis assured the Golden Age of Athens.

1761- King George III’s coronation in London. Unlike his two George forebears who clung to their German Hanoverian roots, George III spoke English without an accent. All the great men of the day were there like Pitt the Elder, Edmund Burke and Dr. Samuel Johnson. In the crowd in front of Westminister Abbey, dazzled by all the pomp and circumstance, was a young colonist from America named John Hancock. Presented at court, he received from his sovereign’s hands a silver snuffbox. Ironically this was the very same Hancock whose bold signature would one day adorn the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

1776- Nathan Hale is hanged as a spy by the British in New York. The Connecticut schoolteacher had only been a spy for nine days until he was sniffed out and exposed by Colonel Robert Rogers, the French and Indian War hero who was now a Tory Loyalist. Today the spot where he was executed is near the w44th st. entrance of the PanAm err..Sony building near the flagship store of Brooks Brothers. Hale met his death cooly, one account later by a English officer named Montrose was that his last words were a quote from Addison’s play Cato :”I regret that I have but one life to give for my country….”

1925- Lon Chaney’s horror classic film the Phantom of the Opera premiered.

1927- The Dempsey-Tunney championship fight. Tunney wins in the famous 'long count', meaning the referee delayed the count because Dempsey wouldn’t return to his neutral corner. The extra time allowed Tunney to recover his wits and continue the fight to victory. Jack Dempsey was world heavyweight champion for ten years but retired a year later.

1964-Jerome Robbins’ “The Fiddler on the Roof “ opened on Broadway. In 1953 Robbins had named names to the MacCarthy HUAC committee to save his career. Now in Fiddler he had to use blacklisted actors like Zero Mostel and Beatrice Arthur who despised him. One of Tevye’s daughters was played by Puerto Rican singer Dominica Jimenes-Johnson. She would later go on to a successful career singing opera at the Metropolitan.

1967- Farewell voyage of the Queen Mary, in service since 1936.

1975- A emotionally unstable FBI worker named Sarah Jane Moore tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in front of the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Her gun arm was deflected at the last minute by a man named Bill Sipple. In the subsequent media attention Sipple was outed as a gay man and his career was damaged as a result. “I can’t see what my sexual orientation has to do with saving the President’s life!”

1976- TV show Charlie’s Angels premiered. It made a star out of Farrah Fawcett, Victoria Principle and Kate Jackson.

1979-Hanna Barbera's Super Globetrotter's Show, featuring Multi-Man, Sphere Man, Gizmo-Man,Spaghetti-Man and Fluid-Man.

1984- Michael Eisner named CEO of the Walt Disney Corporation.


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