Birthdays: Richard the LionHearted, Michel Caravaggio, Antonin Dvorak, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, Peter Sellars, Sid Caesar, Freddy Mercury, Lyndon LaRouche, Euwell Gibbons- natural food advocate, Heather Thomas, David Arquette, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas

1381-Battle Of Kulikovo- Novgorod prince Dmitri Donskoi defeated the Tartars of the Golden Horde.

1504- Michelangelo unveiled his completed statue of David. The project had humble origins. The Florentine Republic had commissioned a statue from another artist who gave up after gouging a large hole in a huge block of Carrarra marble. Stuck with the block, magistrates asked Michelangelo if he could do anything with it. Michelangelo carved the David positioning the hole where the legs stand spread.

1565-Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent, the Grand Turk, Ruler of Men's Necks, The Great Peacock, Master of the Sublime Porte, Defender of the Faith, lifts the Siege of Malta. The Knights of St. John Hospitaller are granted ownership of Malta in perpetuity and become the Knights of Malta. Their symbol,.the Maltese Cross,is four barbed arrowheads forming a cross. Today they operate a charity ambulance service, St. John's Ambulance.

1565- The first permanent European settlement in North America- San Augustin or Saint Augustine Florida was founded by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles. He had sighted land on Saint Augustine’s day.

1636- Massachusetts established Harvard College, the first college of higher learning in North America.

1642- Plymouth governor William Bradford noted in his diary this day the Pilgrims executed a 16 year old named Thomas Granger for buggery. Young Master Granger confessed to buggering a mare, two cows, six sheep, two goats and a turkeybird. I guess the Pilgrims felt it was hard to enjoy thanksgiving when someone had relations with the main course.

1760- Montreal, the last French stronghold in Canada and seat of the French Governor, fell to British troops. Governor Vaudreuil-Cavagnal surrendered all of New France- or Canada.

1771- Mission San Gabriel founded by Fra Junipero Serra.

1892- Writer Francis Bellamy published "The Pledge of Allegiance" in the Youth's Companion magazine as a vehicle to instill a sense of Patriotism in America's youth. Bellamy was a socialist.

1900- THE GREAT GALVESTON HURRICANE- At this time no one could chart or forewarn hurricanes beyond trying to read signs in the sky’s color. Despite hurricanes being common no one in Galveston Texas was seriously prepared. There had been talk of building a breakwater in the harbor but nothing had been done. This day a huge hurricane that had ravaged Cuba came over and surprised Galveston Texas. It's eye later passed over Houston. No accurate count could be made of the dead but 4,000 bodies were recovered. CG animator Jim Hillin ( Wireheads) said his grandmother remembered a huge oak tree getting out of the ground and dancing a jig around the yard before it flew off. Afterwards authorities raised the town of Galveston 25 feet and built a sea wall to prevent future floods. Luxurious 3 story mansions were filled in and built on top of.

1921 - 1st Miss America crowned -Margaret Gorman of Washington DC.

1926- Screen actress Greta Garbo skipped her own wedding and left John Gilbert alone at the altar. They still stayed lovers and lived together at the Chateau Marmont.

1930 - Richard Drew creates Scotch tape.

1935- HUEY LONG, the "Kingfish" Louisiana governor and colorful 3rd party candidate for President is assassinated at the statehouse in Baton Rouge. His assassin, a quiet doctor named Karl Weiss, was riddled with bullets by Long's bodyguards before anyone found out why he did it. So many bullets flew some scholars wonder if Weiss' shot was even the one that killed Long.

1935-A vocal group called "4 Joes from Hoboken" get their first break on Major Bo's radio show. One of the singers is a young man named Frank Sinatra.

1935- Top Hollywood musical director Buzby Berkeley (42nd Street, Footlight Parade) got drunk at a party in Malibu and drove his Cadillac head on into oncoming traffic on Pacific Coast Highway near where Gladestones Fish Restaurant is today. He piled into three other cars. Berkeley was unhurt but three people died and four were injured. After three trials for 2nd degree murder Berkeley was found innocent. The reason star defense attorney Jerry Geisler gave was “cancerous tires”. Later it was revealed that all the tire experts who testified in the defense were on the Warner Bros. payroll.

1939- British Alfred Hitchcock began shooting his first Hollywood picture- Rebecca , for David Selznick.

1954- Akira Kurosawa’s film The Seven Samurai premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

1960- Penquin Books was charged with obscenity for the first large public paperback printing of D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady's Chatterley's Lover'.

1963-THE BOSTON STRANGLER- The killing of young Evelyn Corbin by the Boston Strangler. A married maintenance worker named Albert De Salvo terrorized the Beantown area by the rape-strangulation of 13 women over several years. Police were so baffled at one point they resorted to asking a Dutch Psychic for help. DeSalvo was finally caught and just missed execution as Massachusetts ban on capitol punishment had gone into effect months before. He was murdered in prison on 1973.

1965 - Dorothy Danridge, beautiful black actress (Island in the Sun), dies at 41 in Hollywood of sleeping pills overdose.

1966- T.V.'s STAR TREK debuts. That season it ranked 52nd in the Neilsen ratings, behind #1 "Iron Horse" starring Rory Calhoun and "Mr. Terrific". It was cancelled after two seasons but a letter writing campaign won it a third season. Star Trek then found a new life in syndication. William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and the rest of the principle cast had signed a deal guaranteeing royalty payments for only the first five reruns. So by 1969 when the show was being seen 200 times a day around the world they weren’t getting a penny. The cult fan base called Trekkies kept the memory of the show alive for ten years until Paramount felt compelled to revive the show as first as an animated series and then a series of feature films. Frank Sinatra once said: "The only good thing to come out of the Nineteen Sixties was Star Trek."

1966 - "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell premieres on ABC-TV

1968 - "Funny Girl" premiered, starring a young Brooklyn singer named Barbra Striesand.

1971- Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center opened. It was planned in the early sixties by John and Jackie Kennedy, although then unaware that their name would be on it. The performance featured the debut of Leonard Bernstein’s choral work “Mass”.

1974- Daredevil Evil Kneival jumped the Snake River gorge in a rocket powered motorcycle.

1974- Replacement President Gerald Ford surprised America by pardoning resigned President Richard Nixon for whatever he may have done in the Watergate Scandal, but not saying he really did anything..... Ford sez: " Our great national nightmare is over.."
America later surprises Ford by electing Jimmy Carter in his place.

1979 - Jean Seberg, actress (Breathless, Airport), commits suicide at 40. She had been in love with a member of the radical Black Panther Party and was under continual harassment by the FBI and other Federal authorities.

1986- The Chicago based television talk show the Oprah Winfrey Show went national and became one of the most successful talk shows ever.