November 9 is the 314th day of the year. There are 52 days remaining until the end of the year.
1907 The Cullinan Diamond is presented to King Edward VII on his birthday. Just a reminder–there are only a few more shopping days until Crashmas, but I would prefer the diamond-hard Culligan Man!
1927 Giant panda is discovered in China. Really? Billions of people have lived in China for thousands of years and no one ever saw a big black and white bear before?
1935 Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) labor union forms
1953 Supreme Court rules Major League baseball is exempt from anti-trust laws
1961 PGA eliminates “caucasians only” rule which is mighty white of them
1965 5:16 PM, massive power failure in northeast North America means there’s a whole lotta f@#$ing going on.
1966 John Lennon meets Yoko Ono at a London art gallery and creates quite the scene
1971 David Storey's "Changing Room" premieres in London
1984 Vietnam Veterans Memorial ("3 Servicemen") is erected, but you really can't tell since they're wearing baggy pants
1989 Steel Magnolias has its west coast premiere.
1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall. Communist-controlled East Germany opens checkpoints in the Berlin Wall allowing its citizens to travel to West Germany. People start demolishing the Berlin Wall.
1990 Dances with Wolves, a confusing love story without any dancing, premieres
1993 Stari Most, the "old bridge" in Mostar, Bosnia built in 1566, collapses after several days of bombing.
1997 "Scarlet Pimpernel" opens at Minskoff Theater New York City
2010 Needle-dicked Michigan assistant attorney general, Andrew Shisvell, is fired after targeting and defaming openly gay Chris Armstrong, University of Michigan student body president.
1731 Benjamin Banneker, maybe gay US astronomer/mathematician/almanackist/with Pierre L’Enfant, platted what would become Washington DC
1902 Anthony Asquith, gay English film director (Pygmalion, Importance of Being Earnest)
1905 Roger Edens, gay US composer, arranger, producer
1951 Lou Ferrigno, hearing-impaired US bodybuilder/actor/Incredible Hulk http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002073/
1959 Tony Slattery, gay English actor/"Who's Line is It Anyway?" improv comic
August 22 is the 235th day of the year. There are 131 days remaining until the end of the year.
565 St. Columba reports seeing monster in Loch Ness. Of course, Columba is an Irishman. . .
1639 Madras (now Chennai), India, is founded by the British East India Company on a sliver of land bought from local Nayak rulers who were notoriously fancy dressers and cut-ups. Nyuk. Nyuk. Nyuk.
1715 Handel’s Watermusic premiers on the Thames.
1818 Grand Duchy of Bathe forms
1864 Geneva Convention is signed in blood by 12 nations and hence, the International Red Cross forms
1877 Nez Perce Indians flee into Yellowstone National Park which isn’t a national park yet.
1901 Cadillac Motor Company is founded and subsequently. . .
1902 Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first President of the United States to ride in an automobile.
1906 1st Victor Victrola is manufactured
1944 Hitler orders Paris to be destroyed. It isn't.
1945 Vietnam conflict begins as Ho Chi Minh leads a successful coup, stirs up a bunch of shit about Domino’s Pizza winning hearts and minds. The ho.
1952 The penal colony on Devil's Island is permanently closed and longtime lovers must part, alas.
1968 Cynthia Lennon sues John Lennon for divorce on adultry. Ooh, juicy gossip. . .
. . .I wonder who is named as co-respondent?
1988 Australia unveils 1st platinum coin (Koala)
1995 S-s-s-smokin' hot FBI agent Lon Horiuchi shoots at Randy Weaver's cabin in Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Starts some major shit.
1918 Mary McGrory, maybe gay US journalist and columnist/Nixon's enemy list
1924 James Kirkwood, Jr., gay US author/playwright/A chorus Line, P.S. Your Cat Is Dead
