May 22nd

May 22 is the 143rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. If the ancient Mayans were correct, there are 213 days remaining until the end of time.

334BCE The Macedonian army of Alexander the Great defeats Darius III of Persia in the Battle of the Granicus.  Gannicus would've given them a battle, too!

1892 Dr. Washington Sheffield invents toothpaste tube because somebody had to do it

1906 Wright Brothers patent the aeroplane

1931 Canned rattlesnake meat 1st goes on sale in Florida

1954 Robert Zimmerman is Bar Mitzvahed

1967 "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" debuts on NET (now PBS)

1986 Cher calls David Letterman an asshole on Late Night on NBC

2002 American civil rights movement: a jury in Birmingham, Alabama, convicts former Ku Klux Klan member Bobby Frank Cherry of the 1963 murders of four girls in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church.

 

2011 An EF5 Tornado strikes the US city of Joplin, Missouri killing 161 people, the single deadliest US tornado since modern record keeping began in 1950.  It's still pretty big news around these parts.

 

1844 Mary Cassatt, maybe gay US painter/printmaker 

1907 Sir Laurence Olivier, bisexual English actor/director/producer 

1930 Harvey Milk, gay US politician/gay rights activist/martyr 

1938 Richard Benjamin, US actor/director 

1939 Paul Winfield, gay US actor 

1946 George Best, Irish footballer 

1950 Bernie Taupin, not gay English lyricist for Elton John 

1956 Al Corley, US actor/producer/gay Steven Carrington 

1957 Gary Sweet, Australian actor

SWEET!

1959 Morrissey, sad maybe gay English singer/lyricist (The Smiths) 

1969 Bryan Wiseman, Australian actor/banana smuggler 

1970 Mark Bingham, gay US PR Exec and Rugby player/9-11 victim/believed to have helped reclaim the final plane from hijackers that crashed in PA 

1970 Guillermo Toledo, Spanish actor

1970 Steve Hanneman, US actor 

1973 Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Danish actor 

1975 Enrique Palacios, Venezuelan model 

1977 Tom Chambers, English actor 

1978 JD Williams, US actor/OZ & The Wire 

1979 Bobby Trendy, gay US decorator/friend of Anna Nicole Smith 

1982 Apolo Anton Ohno, Olympic speed skater/DWTS wwinner. 

1987 Novak Djokovic, Serbian tennis player currently ranked #1 in the world 

337 Constantine the Great, emperor of Rome (306-37)/famous convert, is blinded by the light

1967 Langston Hughes, maybe gay US author (Tambourines to Glory), crosses a river he doesn’t know

1990 Rocky Graziano, US boxer, finds out that somebody up there likes him.

1998 John Derek, actor/director, is still prettier than any of his wives