April 29th

April 29 is the 120th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. If the ancient Mayans were correct, there are 236 days remaining until the end of time.

1429 Joan of Arc leads Orleans, France, to victory over English

1813 Rubber is patented and put to so many different uses

1852 1st edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus is published

1886 1st public Dutch electricity throws the switch

1913 Swedish engineer Gideon Sundback of Hoboken patents all-purpose zipper

1943 Pastor and theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer is arrested by the Nasties.  This can’t be good.

1945 U.S. soldiers liberate 31,601 in Nastie concentration camp in Dachau Germany

1961 ABC's "Wide World of Sports" debuts to venerate the thrill of victory.

 

1967 Aretha Franklin releases "Respect"

1968 "Hair" opens at Biltmore Theater New York City for 1750 performances

1990 Wrecking cranes begin tearing down the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate

1996 "Rent" opens at Nederlander Theater New York City

1899 Duke Ellington, US jazz pianist/bandleader/composer  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_Ellington

1948 Reb Brown, US football player/actor 

1957 Daniel Day-Lewis, English actor 

1968 Jürgen Vogel, German actor 

1969 Jack Mackenroth, gay US model/fashion designer/HIV+ Project Runway withdrawer 

1970 Andre Agassi, US tennis player 

1970 Pawel Delag, Polish actor 

1975 John Macready, US gymnast 

1983 Sam Jones III, US actor/Smallville

1984 Firass Dirani, marvelously named, maybe gay Australian actor 

1985 Valon Behrami, Swiss soccer player 

1987 Nick Ayler, US model 

1951 Ludwig J J Wittgenstein, gay Austrian/English philosopher, haunts Max Dugan

1980 Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, British director (Psycho, Birds), is ready for the family plot

1984 Marvin Gaye, US R&B/rocker (Sexual Healing), has the opposite of an Oedipal complex.

2008 Albert Hofmann, LSD chemist, gets better hallucinations at 102