This Day in History

[glatt]

I never heard of that summer jam at Watkins Glen. It must have been a good time. Except I hate big crowds and 600,000 is a lot of people. So maybe I would have had a bad time. How have I never heard about this concert before?

According to some web site:

At Watkins Glen a feeling of monotony and tedium constantly challenged the viewers' interest in the music and the proceed*ings onstage. Long, winding solos were frequent. The heat, the lack of comfort, and the crowded conditions dulled otherwise stirring moments. Many of the 600,000 could barely see the stage, let alone the musicians. And most important, festivalgoers had only one day to soak up the rock-festival aura. Many in attendance were often too busy doing and seeing other things to bother to listen seriously to the music for extended periods of time.

[Undertoad]

(day old news) Yahoo Serious is 63 years old?

[glatt]

Wow. I guess that made him about 34 when he filmed Young Einstein

[elSicomoro]

Speaking of old...Bob (from Sesame Street, who was just let go) IS 84?!

84?!

And he had been with the show since the beginning (1969).

[Gravdigr]

All I can recall of Young Einstein is when he went out to the shed to split the beer atom...

Now, where did I put that chisel?

Ka-tink, tink, tink, KA-BOOM!!

[Gravdigr]

July 29

904 – Sack of Thessalonica: Saracen raiders under Leo of Tripoli sack Thessaloniki, the Byzantine Empire's second-largest city, after a short siege, and plunder it for a week.

1148 – The Siege of Damascus ends in a decisive crusader defeat and leads to the disintegration of the Second Crusade.

1836 – Inauguration of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.

1907 – Sir Robert Baden-Powell sets up the Brownsea Island Scout camp in Poole Harbour on the south coast of England. The camp runs from August 1 to August 9, 1907, and is regarded as the foundation of the Scouting movement.

1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party.

1945 – The BBC Light Programme radio station is launched for mainstream light entertainment and music.

1958 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs into law the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which creates the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

1965 – Vietnam War: The first 4,000 101st Airborne Division paratroopers arrive in Vietnam, landing at Cam Ranh Bay.

1966 - Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker made their live debut as Cream at The Twisted Wheel, Manchester, England. The group's third album, Wheels of Fire, was the world's first platinum-selling double album.

Bob Dylan was riding his Triumph 55 motorcycle to a garage near his home in Woodstock, New York for repairs when the rear wheel locked. Dylan lost control and was thrown over the handlebars, suffering a broken neck vertebra. His recuperation led to a period of reclusive inactivity.

1967 – Vietnam War: Off the coast of North Vietnam the USS Forrestal catches on fire in the worst U.S. naval disaster since World War II, killing 134 people.

1968 - The first recording session of The Beatles seven-minute epic 'Hey Jude' took place at Abbey Road studios London. The Paul McCartney song was written about John Lennon's son Julian.

1972, Screaming Lord Sutch was arrested in London after jumping from a bus in Downing Street with four nude women. Sutch was publicising his forthcoming London gigs.

1974 - Mamas And The Papas singer Cass Elliot died in her sleep from a heart attack after playing a sold out show in London, England.

1976 – In New York City, David Berkowitz (a.k.a. the "Son of Sam") kills one person and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks.

1981 – A worldwide television audience of over 700 million people watch the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London.

1987 – British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and President of France François Mitterrand sign the agreement to build a tunnel under the English Channel, the Eurotunnel.

1993 – The Supreme Court of Israel acquits alleged Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk of all charges and he is set free.

2007 - Heart problems forced KISS singer and guitarist Paul Stanley to abandon a show in California. Paramedics stopped and restarted his heart to give it a regular rhythm after his heart spontaneously jumped to 190 plus beats per minute.

Births

1869 – Booth Tarkington; 1883 – Benito Mussolini; 1885 – Theda Bara; 1892 – William Powell; 1905 – Clara Bow; 1907 – Melvin Belli; 1914 – Irwin Corey; 1916 – Budd Boetticher; 1921 – Richard Egan; 1923 – Jim Marshall (Marshall Amplifiers); 1924 – Elizabeth Short (the Black Dahlia); 1933 – Capt. Lou Albano; 1936 – Elizabeth Dole; 1938 – Peter Jennings; 1946 – Neal Doughty(REO Speedwagon); 1950 – Mike Starr; 1953 – Ken Burns; 1953 – Tim Gunn, Geddy Lee(Rush); Patti Scialfa♪ ♫; 1956 – Teddy Atlas; 1959 – John Sykes♪ ♫(Whitesnake, Thin Lizzie); 1966 – Martina McBride♪ ♫; 1972 – Wil Wheaton; 1973 – Stephen Dorff; 1974 – Josh Radnor (HIMYM); 1977 – Danger Mouse♪ ♫

Deaths

1856 – Robert Schumann♪ ♫; 1890 – Vincent van Gogh; 1974 – Cass Elliot♪ ♫; 1976 – Mickey Cohen; 1979 – Bill Todman ("This has been a Mark Goodson/Bill Todman production."); 1983 – Raymond Massey, David Niven; 2007 – Tom Snyder

[Gravdigr]

July 30

762 – Baghdad is founded by caliph Al-Mansur.

1608 – At Ticonderoga (now Crown Point, New York), Samuel de Champlain shoots and kills two Iroquois chiefs. This was to set the tone for French-Iroquois relations for the next one hundred years.

1626 – An earthquake in Naples, Italy kills about 10,000 people.

1729 – Founding of Baltimore, Maryland.

1733 – The first Masonic Grand Lodge in the future United States is constituted in Massachusetts.

1864 – American Civil War: Battle of the Crater (<--interesting read): Union forces attempt to break Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia by exploding a large bomb under their trenches.

1916 – Black Tom Island explosion in Jersey City, New Jersey.

1945 – World War II: Japanese submarine I-58 sinks the USS Indianapolis, killing 883 seamen.

1962 – The Trans-Canada Highway, the longest national highway in the world, is officially opened.

1965 – U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965 into law, establishing Medicare and Medicaid.

1975 – Jimmy Hoffa disappears from the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, at about 2:30 p.m. He is never seen or heard from again.

1990 – George Steinbrenner is forced by Commissioner Fay Vincent to resign as principal partner of New York Yankees for hiring Howie Spira to "get dirt" on Dave Winfield.

2003 – In Mexico, the last 'old style' Volkswagen Beetle rolls off the assembly line.

2005 - A new book published to mark the 35th anniversary of the death of Jimi Hendrix claimed the guitarist pretended to be gay so he would be discharged from the army. 'Room Full of Mirrors' by Charles Cross said army records showed Hendrix was discharged from the 101st Airborne Division aged 19 in 1962 for "homosexual tendencies."

2012 – A power grid failure in Delhi leaves more than 300 million people without power in northern India.

Births

1818 – Emily Brontë; 1855 – Georg Wilhelm von Siemens (Siemens AG); 1863 – Henry Ford; 1881 – Smedley Butler (at the time of his death, the most decorated Marine in U.S. history); 1890 – Casey Stengel; 1922 – Henry W. Bloch (co-founded H&R Block); 1927 – Richard Johnson; 1929 – Sid Krofft; 1933 – Edd Byrnes; 1934 – Bud Selig; 1936 – Buddy Guy; 1938 – Terry O'Neill; 1939 – Peter Bogdanovich; 1941 – Paul Anka♪ ♫; 1945 – David Sanborn♪ ♫; 1946 – Neil Bonnett; 1947 – William Atherton, Arnold Schwarzenegger; 1948 – Jean Reno; 1949 – Duck Baker; 1954 – Ken Olin; 1956 – Delta Burke, Anita Hill; 1958 – Kate Bush♪ ♫; 1960 – Richard Linklater; 1961 – Laurence Fishburne; 1963 – Lisa Kudrow; 1964 – Vivica A. Fox; 1968 – Terry Crews; 1969 – Simon Baker (The Mentalist); 1970 – Christopher Nolan; 1971 – Elvis Crespo♪ ♫, Tom Green, Christine Taylor ('Marcia Brady' in The Brady Bunch Movie); 1974 – Hilary Swank; 1977 – Misty May-Treanor, Jaime Pressly; 1980 - Seth Avett (The Avett Bros)

Deaths

1718 – William Penn; 1875 – George Pickett; 1898 – Otto von Bismarck; 1918 – Joyce Kilmer; 1992 – Joe Shuster (created Superman); 1996 – Claudette Colbert; 1998 – Buffalo Bob Smith (host Howdy Doody Show); 2003 – Sam Phillips; 2007 – Ingmar Bergman, Bill Walsh; 2015 – Lynn Anderson♪ ♫

[Carruthers]

I remember when Jimmy Hoffa disappeared. His unusual surname caught my attention at the time and is why it sticks in my mind.
I just had a quick look at Wiki to fill in the gaps. I knew that he was a somewhat 'controversial' character, but talk about a chequered past!
No doubt he had acquired more than the usual quota of enemies over the years.
Probably entombed in the concrete column of a bridge somewhere.

[Gravdigr]

July 31

Today is Ka Hae Hawai'i Day (Flag Day) in the U.S. state of Hawaii.

30 BC – Battle of Alexandria: Mark Antony achieves a minor victory over Octavian's forces, but most of his army subsequently deserts, leading to his suicide.

781 – The earliest recorded eruption of Mount Fuji (Traditional Japanese date: July 6, 781).

1498 – On his third voyage to the Western Hemisphere, Christopher Columbus becomes the first European to discover the island of Trinidad.

1588 – The Spanish Armada is spotted off the coast of England.

1703 – Daniel Defoe is placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but is pelted with flowers.

1790 – The first U.S. patent is issued, to inventor Samuel Hopkins for a potash process.

1930 – The radio mystery program The Shadow airs for the first time.

1970 – Black Tot Day: The last day of the officially sanctioned rum ration in the Royal Navy.

1971 – Apollo program: Apollo 15 astronauts on the moon become the first to ride in a lunar rover.

2006 – Fidel Castro hands over power to brother Raúl Castro.

2007 – Operation Banner, the presence of the British Army in Northern Ireland, and the longest-running British Army operation ever, comes to an end.

2012 – Michael Phelps breaks the record set in 1964 by Larisa Latynina for the most medals won at the Olympics.

Births

1837 – William Quantrill (Quantrill's Raiders); 1847 – Ignacio Cervantes; 1867 – S. S. Kresge (Kresge's, K-Mart); 1886 – Fred Quimby; 1916 – Bill Todman; 1919 – Curt Gowdy; 1929 – Don Murray; 1931 – Kenny Burrell; 1932 – Ted Cassidy ('Lurch'); 1935 – Geoffrey Lewis; 1944 – Geraldine Chaplin; 1946 – Gary Lewis; 1952 – Alan Autry; 1956 – Michael Biehn; 1958 – Bill Berry; 1958 – Mark Cuban; 1962 – Wesley Snipes; 1965 – J. K. Rowling; 1970 – Ben Chaplin; 1977 – Tim Couch

Deaths

1886 – Franz Liszt; 1964 – Jim Reeves; 2012 – Gore Vidal; 2013 – Michael Ansara; 2015 – Roddy Piper

[Gravdigr]

August 1

Today is Lammas Day in England and Scotland, celebrating the wheat harvest.

In the Northern Hemisphere, today is Lughnasadh, marking the beginning of the harvest season.

30 BC – Octavian (later known as Augustus) enters Alexandria, Egypt, bringing it under the control of the Roman Republic.

1620 – The Speedwell leaves Delfshaven to bring pilgrims to America by way of England.

1715 – The Riot Act comes into force in England.

1800 – The Acts of Union 1800 are passed which merge the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland into the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

1831 – A new London Bridge opens.

1911 – Harriet Quimby takes her pilot's test and becomes the first U.S. woman to earn an Aero Club of America aviator's certificate.

1964, Billboard Magazine reported that the harmonica was making a comeback in a big way thanks to its use by Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Bob Dylan.

1966 – Charles Whitman kills 16 people at the University of Texas at Austin before being killed by the police.

1971, The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour started on prime time American TV. By this time, Sonny and Cher had stopped producing hit singles so the duo decided to sing and tell jokes in nightclubs across the country. CBS head of programming Fred Silverman saw them one evening and offered them their own show.

1981 – MTV begins broadcasting in the United States and airs its first video, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by The Buggles.

1993 – The Great Mississippi and Missouri Rivers Flood of 1993 comes to a peak.

2004 – A supermarket fire kills 396 people and injures 500 others in Asunción, Paraguay.

2007 – The I-35W Mississippi River bridge, spanning the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota, collapses during the evening rush hour.

Births

10 BC – Claudius; 1659 – Sebastiano Ricci; 1770 – William Clark (Lewis & Clark); 1779 – Francis Scott Key; 1809 – William B. Travis (Remember the Alamo?); 1819 – Herman Melville; 1843 – Robert Todd Lincoln; 1912 – Henry Jones; 1930 – Lawrence Eagleburger; 1931 – Ramblin' Jack Elliott♪ ♫; 1933 – Dom DeLuise; 1936 – Yves Saint Laurent; 1942 – Jerry Garcia♪ ♫; 1944 – Andrew G. Vajna; 1946 – Boz Burrell♪ ♫; 1951 – Tim Bachman♪ ♫(BTO); 1951 – Tommy Bolin♪ ♫(Deep Purple, James Gang); 1953 – Robert Cray♪ ♫; 1957 – Taylor Negron; 1959 – Joe Elliott♪ ♫(Def Leppard); 1960 – Chuck D♪ ♫(Public Enemy), Professor Griff♪ ♫(Public Enemy); 1961 – Brad Faxon; 1963 – Coolio♪ ♫; 1964 – Adam Duritz♪ ♫(Counting Crows); 1978 – Dhani Harrison♪ ♫(George Harrison's son); 1979 – Jason Momoa (GoT)

Deaths

30 BC – Mark Antony; 1903 – Calamity Jane; 1966 – Charles Whitman; 1970 – Frances Farmer; 1977 – Francis Gary Powers; 1980 – Strother Martin; 1981 – Paddy Chayefsky; 2006 – Bob Thaves (creator Frank & Ernest); 2009 – Corazon Aquino; 2015 – Cilla Black♪ ♫

[elSicomoro]

VH1 Classic was rebranded as MTV Classic today...and started off by showing the 1st hour of MTV.

[Gravdigr]

August 2

216 BC – The Carthaginian army led by Hannibal defeats a numerically superior Roman army at the Battle of Cannae. Hannibal loved it when a plan came together.

1274 – Edward I of England returns from the Ninth Crusade and is crowned King seventeen days later.

1343 – After the execution of her husband, Jeanne de Clisson sells her estates and raises a force of men with which to attack French shipping and ports.

1610 – During Henry Hudson's search for the Northwest Passage, he sails into what is now known as Hudson Bay.

1869 – Japan's samurai class system is abolished as part of the Meiji Restoration reforms.

1873 – The Clay Street Hill Railroad begins operating the first cable car in San Francisco's famous cable car system.

1923 – Vice President Calvin Coolidge becomes U.S. President upon the death of President Warren G. Harding.

1937 – The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 is passed in America, the effect of which is to render marijuana and all its by-products illegal.

1939 – Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard write a letter to Franklin D. Roosevelt, urging him to begin the Manhattan Project to develop a nuclear weapon.

1943 – World War II: The Motor Torpedo Boat PT-109 is rammed by the Japanese destroyer Amagiri and sinks. Lt. John F. Kennedy, future U.S. President, saves all but two of his crew.

1947 – A British South American Airways Avro Lancastrian airliner crashes into a mountain during a flight from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The wreckage would not be found until 1998.

1962 - Robert Allen Zimmerman legally became Bob Dylan having signed a music publishing deal with Witmark Music on 12th July of this year.

1964 - The Beatles appeared at the Gaumont Cinema in Bournemouth. One of the supporting acts, billed as a 'new and unknown London group', was The Kinks.

After an intense search the bodies of Jim Reeves and Dean Manuel were found in the wreckage of an aircraft and, at 1:00 p.m. local time, radio stations across the United States announced Reeves' death formally. The single-engine Beechcraft Debonair aircraft, with Reeves at the controls had crashed 42 hours earlier during a thunderstorm. Thousands of people traveled to pay their last respects at his funeral two days later. The coffin, draped in flowers from fans, was driven through the streets of Nashville and then to Reeves' final resting place near Carthage, Texas.

1973 - The Mamas and the Papas filed a lawsuit against their record label, Dunhill, for over a million dollars in unpaid royalties.

1976 - Peter "Puddy" Watts, road manager with Pink Floyd, and father to Naomi Watts, died of a heroin overdose. Watts supplied the crazed laughter on the groups The Dark Side of The Moon album.

1983 - James Jamerson died of complications stemming from cirrhosis of the liver, heart failure and pneumonia in Los Angeles, he was 47 years old. As one of The Funk Brothers he was the uncredited bassist on most of Motown Records' hits in the 1960s and early 1970s. He eventually performed on nearly 30 No.1 pop hits.

1991 - Rick James and his girlfriend Tanya Hijazi were arrested in Hollywood charged with assault with a deadly weapon aggravated mayhem torture, false imprisonment and forcible oral copulation. James was released on $1 million bail.

2000 - Jerome Smith from KC and the Sunshine Band died after being crushed by a bulldozer he was operating.

Births

1754 – Pierre Charles L'Enfant (designed Washington, D.C.); 1834 – Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi (designed the Statue of Liberty); 1835 – Elisha Gray (co-founded Western Electric); 1892 – Jack L. Warner (co-founded Warner Bros.); 1900 – Holling C. Holling; 1905 – Myrna Loy; 1911 – Ann Dvorak; 1919 – Nehemiah Persoff; 1923 – Shimon Peres; 1924 – Carroll O'Connor; 1932 – Lamar Hunt (co-founded the American Football League), Peter O'Toole; 1935 – Hank Cochran♪ ♫; 1937 – Garth Hudson (The Band); 1939 – Wes Craven; 1944 – Jim Capaldi; 1945 – Joanna Cassidy; 1948 – Andy Fairweather Low♪ ♫; 1950 – Lance Ito; 1951 – Joe Lynn Turner♪ ♫(Rainbow), Andrew Gold; 1957 – Mojo Nixon♪ ♫; 1959 – Victoria Jackson (SNL); 1959 – Apollonia Kotero♪ ♫; 1964 – Mary-Louise Parker (Weeds); 1970 – Kevin Smith; 1976 – Sam Worthington; 1992 – Hallie Eisenberg

Deaths

1788 – Thomas Gainsborough; 1859 – Horace Mann; 1876 – "Wild Bill" Hickok; 1921 – Enrico Caruso♪ ♫; 1922 – Alexander Graham Bell; 1923 – Warren G. Harding (29th POTUS); 1934 – Paul von Hindenburg; 1976 – Fritz Lang; 1979 – Thurman Munson; 1983 – James Jamerson; 1986 – Roy Cohn; 1997 – William S. Burroughs; 1998 – Shari Lewis

[Undertoad]

1957 – Mojo Nixon♪ ♫

Tie my Pecker to My Leg

[Gravdigr]

August 3

There are 150 days remaining in 2016.

1527 – The first known letter from North America is sent by John Rut while at St. John's, Newfoundland.

1678 – Robert LaSalle builds the Le Griffon, the first known ship built on the Great Lakes.

1778 – The theatre La Scala is inaugurated.

1852 – Harvard University wins the first Boat Race between Yale University and Harvard. The race is also the first American intercollegiate athletic event.

1900 – The Firestone Tire and Rubber Company is founded.

1907 – Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis fines Standard Oil of Indiana a record $29.4 million for illegal rebating to freight carriers; the conviction and fine are later reversed on appeal.

1921 – Major League Baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis confirms the ban of the eight Chicago Black Sox, the day after they were acquitted by a Chicago court.

1936 – Jesse Owens wins the 100 metre dash, defeating Ralph Metcalfe, at the Berlin Olympics.

1936 – A fire wipes out Kursha-2 in the Meshchera Lowlands, Ryazan Oblast, Russia, killing 1,200 and leaving only 20 survivors.

1949 – The Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League finalize a merger, that creates the National Basketball Association (NBA).

1977 – Tandy Corporation announces the TRS-80, one of the world's first mass-produced personal computers.

2004 – The pedestal of the Statue of Liberty reopens after being closed since the September 11 attacks.

2014 – A 6.1 magnitude earthquake kills at least 617 people and injures more than 2,400 in Yunnan, China.

Births

1808 – Hamilton Fish; 1811 – Elisha Otis (Otis Elevator Company); 1900 – Ernie Pyle, John T. Scopes; 1901 – John C. Stennis; 1905 – Dolores del Río; 1924 – Leon Uris; 1926 – Tony Bennett♪ ♫; 1934 – Haystacks Calhoun; 1938 – Terry Wogan; 1940 – Martin Sheen; 1941 – Martha Stewart; 1946 – Jack Straw, John York(The Byrds); 1950 – John Landis; 1959 – John C. McGinley; 1961 – Lee Rocker(Stray Cats); 1963 – James Hetfield(Metallica); 1963 – Lisa Ann Walter, Isaiah Washington; 1977 – Tom Brady; 1984 – Ryan Lochte; 1992 – Karlie Kloss

Deaths

1966 – Lenny Bruce; 1983 – Carolyn Jones ('Morticia Addams'); 1995 – Ida Lupino; 2001 – Christopher Hewett ('Mr. Belvedere'); 2011 – Bubba Smith

[Gravdigr]

August 4

367 – Gratian, son of Roman Emperor Valentinian I, is named co-Augustus by his father and associated to the throne aged eight.

1693 – Date traditionally ascribed to Dom Perignon's invention of champagne; it is not clear whether he actually invented champagne, however he has been credited as an innovator who developed the techniques used to perfect sparkling wine.

1783 – Mount Asama erupts in Japan, killing about 1,400 people. The eruption causes a famine, which results in an additional 20,000 deaths.

1790 – A newly passed tariff act creates the Revenue Cutter Service (the forerunner of the United States Coast Guard).

1821 – The Saturday Evening Post is published for the first time as a weekly newspaper.

1873 – American Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the United States 7th Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer clashes for the first time with the Cheyenne and Lakota people near the Tongue River; only one man on each side is killed.

1889 – The Great Fire of Spokane, Washington destroys some 32 blocks of the city, prompting a mass rebuilding project.

1892 – The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden are found murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.

1944 – The Holocaust: A tip from a Dutch informer leads the Gestapo to a sealed-off area in an Amsterdam warehouse, where they find and arrest Jewish diarist Anne Frank, her family, and four others.

1958 – The Billboard Hot 100 is published for the first time.

1964 – American civil rights movement: Civil rights workers Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman and James Chaney are found dead in Mississippi after disappearing on June 21.

1967 - Pink Floyd released their debut album The Piper At the Gates of Dawn on which most songs were penned by Syd Barrett. In subsequent years, the record has been recognized as one of the seminal psychedelic rock albums of the 1960s.

1969 – Vietnam War: At the apartment of French intermediary Jean Sainteny in Paris, American representative Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese representative Xuân Thuỷ begin secret peace negotiations. The negotiations will eventually fail.

1975 - Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and his wife were both badly injured when the hire car he was driving spun off the road and crashed on the Greek island of Rhodes. Plant smashed both his ankle and his elbow, and was not fully fit for the best part of two years.

1987 – The Federal Communications Commission rescinds the Fairness Doctrine which had required radio and television stations to present controversial issues "fairly".

1993 – A federal judge sentences Los Angeles Police Department officers Stacey Koon and Laurence Powell to 30 months in prison for violating motorist Rodney King's civil rights.

2005 - American blues singer and guitarist Little Milton died. Milton had suffered a brain aneurysm on 25th July 2005 and had lapsed into a coma.

Births

1792 – Percy Bysshe Shelley; 1821 – Louis Vuitton; 1834 – John Venn (Venn Diagram); 1898 – Ernesto Maserati; 1900 – Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother; 1901 – Louis Armstrong♪ ♫; 1918 – ; 1920 – Helen Thomas (loooong time White House reporter); 1923 – Reg Grundy; 1928 – Gerard Damiano(porn writer/director); 1939 – Frank Vincent ('Phil Leotardo' on The Sopranos); 1942 – Don S. Davis (Stargate SG-1); 1944 – Richard Belzer; 1949 – John Riggins; 1955 – Billy Bob Thornton; 1956 – Gerry Cooney; 1959 – Robbin Crosby(Ratt); 1961 – Barack Hussein Obama (44th POTUS); 1962 – Roger Clemens; 1969 – Max Cavalera♪ ♫(Sepultura); 1969 – Michael DeLuise; 1971 – Jeff Gordon; 1978 – Kurt Busch; 1985 – Crystal Bowersox♪ ♫

Deaths

1265 - Peter de Montfort, Simon de Montfort, 6th Earl of Leicester, Hugh le Despencer, 1st Baron le Despencer; 1981 – Melvyn Douglas; 1990 – Ettore Maserati; 1999 – Victor Mature; 2001 – Lorenzo Music; 2005 - Little Milton♪ ♫; 2007 – Lee Hazlewood♪ ♫; 2014 – James Brady