May 8th

May 8 is the 129th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. If the ancient Mayans were correct, there are 227 days remaining until the end of time.

1792 U.S. establishes military draft only to end it 180 years later, or as I like to say, 1 month after the draft gave me a chill.

1866 Australian Rules Football is created

1886 Jacob's Pharmacy in Atlanta sells 1st Coca-Coke (contained cocaine)

1926 A Philip Randolph organizes 1,000,000 men named 'George" into the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters

1936 Jockey Ralph Neves is unexpectedly revived after being declared dead after a fall. His wife faints when he returns to track. The track doctor is hustled to the Vatican for intense questioning.

1945 V-E Day; Germany signs unconditional surrender.  WW II ends in Europe.

1952 Mad Magazine debuts

1973 Indians holding Wounded Knee, South Dakota, for 10 weeks surrender

1980 World Health Organization announces smallpox has been eradicated

1894 Harry S Truman, 33rd US president and the reason state offices are closed in Missouri today

1919 Lex Barker, US actor/loincloth hunk

1920 Tom of Finland [Touko Laaksonen], gay Finnish beefcake fetish artist 

1932 Sonny Liston, US heavyweight boxer 

1940 Ricky Nelson, singer/guitarist/actor/Mark Harmon’s brother-in-law 

1951 Philip Bailey, maybe gay US singer/Earth Wind & Fire 

1954 David Keith, US actor 

1955 Raoul Trujillo, US actor/dancer 

1957 Jeff Wincott, Canadian actor 

1963 Carlo Cox, gay Brazilian actor 

1972 Darren Hayes, gay Australian singer/songwriter /Savage Garden 

1974 Maxx Diesel, gay-for-pay US actor/triathlete 

1975 Enrique Iglesias, Spanish singer 

1976 Giuseppe Zeno, Italian actor 

1976 Ian "H" Watkins, gay Welsh singer/Steps 

1978 Matthew Davis, US actor 

1981 Stephen Amell, Canadian actor 

1981 Andrea Barzagli, Italian soccer player 

1984 Matt Burns, US actor 

1984 Martin Compston, Scottish actor 

1986 Jesse Santana, gay US actor  

1880 Gustave Flaubert, bisexual French writer (Salammbo), leaves mémoires d’un fou

1904 Eadweard Muybridge, surprisingly heterosexual English photographer, shutters at the thought

1992 Richard Derr, maybe gay US actor (Sex Hygiene, When Worlds Collide), no longer has something to live for

1998 Bebe Rebozo, maybe gay US banker/Richard Nixon intimate friend, goes down.

1999 Dana Plato, child star/mess (Different Strokes), finds more attractive co-stars

1999 Sir Dirk Bogarde (Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde), gay English actor/writer (A Tale of Two Cities), can finally come out of the closet, for better or worse