This Week In #History ... April 18th - 24th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Apr 18
1834 Charles Darwin sails to Rio Santa Cruz up Patagonia
1853 1st train in Asia (Bombay to Tanna, 36 km)
1868 San Francisco Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals formed
1902 Denmark is 1st country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals
1909 Joan of Arc declared a saint
1924 1st crossword puzzle book published (Simon and Schuster)
1934 1st "Washateria" (laundromat) opens (Ft. Worth, Texas)
1948 International Court of Justice opens at Hague, Netherlands
1955 1st "Walk"/"Don't Walk" lighted street signals installed
1963 Dr. James Campbell performed the 1st human nerve transplant
1980 Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia) declares independence from UK
1987 An unconscious skydiver is rescued by another diver in mid-air
2010 President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for 'alien troops' to leave and suggests that the regional nations be allowed to settle things themselves

Apr 19
1770 Captain James Cook 1st sees Australia
1892 Charles Duryea takes 1st American-made auto out for a spin (Mass)
1910 Halley's comet seen by naked eye 1st time this trip (Curacao)
1919 Leslie Irvin of U.S. makes 1st parachute jump and free fall
1934 Shirley Temple appears in her 1st movie, "Stand Up and Cheer"
1948 ABC-TV network begins
1965 1st all news radio station (WINS 1010 AM in New York City) begins operating
1971 Charles Manson sentenced to life (Sharon Tate murder)
1982 Sally Ride announced as 1st woman astronaut
1994 Supreme Court outlaws excluding people from juries because of gender
2005 Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, becomes the 265th pope
2010 Kyrgyzstan unrest continues as over 1,000 people in Jala-Abad gather in the towns main square denouncing Otunbayeva's interim government and chanting pro-Bakiev slogans

Apr 20
1770 Captain Cook arrives in New South Wales
1841 1st detective story (Poe's "Murders in Rue Morgue") published
1879 1st mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London and Cyprus
1896 1st public film showing in U.S. John Philip Sousa's "El Capitan," premieres in New York City
1910 Halley's Comet passes 29th recorded perihelion at 87.9 million km
1926 1st check sent by radio facsimile transmission across Atlantic
1940 1st electron microscope demonstrated (RCA), Philadelphia, Pa
1961 American Harold Graham makes 1st rocket belt flight
1971 U.S. Supreme Court upholds use of busing to achieve racial desegregation
1986 Vladimir Horowitz performs in his Russian homeland
1993 Uranus passes Neptune (once every 171 years)
2010 Planes return to the air in Germany, France and Italy after being grounded by ash clouds from Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano

Apr 21
1649 Maryland Toleration Act passed, allowing all freedom of worship
1857 Alexander Douglas patents the bustle
1878 New York installs 1st firehouse pole
1908 Frederick A. Cook claims to reach North Pole, he didn't
1913 Gideon Sundback of Sweden patents the zipper
1941 Greece surrenders to nazi-Germany
1948 1st Polaroid camera was sold in US
1952 BOAC begins 1st passenger service with jets (London-Rome route)
1967 Svetlana Alliluyeva (Josef Stalin's daughter) defects in New York City
1976 Swine Flu vaccine, for non-epidemic, enters testing
1983 1 pound coin introduced in United Kingdom
1993 Brazil votes against a monarchy
1997 Ashes of Timothy Leary and Gene Roddenberry launched into orbit
2010 Renewed tribal clashes in Sudan's South Darfur state result in 52 civilians killed and 55 others wounded

Apr 22
1500 Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovers Brazil and claims it for Portugal
1793 President Washington attends opening of Rickett's, 1st circus in U.S.
1864 U.S. mints 2 cent coin (1st appearance of "In God We Trust")
1884 Thomas Stevens starts 1st bike trip around world (2 years 9 months)
1898 1st Spanish-American War action: USS Nashville, takes enemy ship
1915 1st military use of chlorine poison gas by Germany in WW I
1930 U.S., Britain and Japan sign London Naval Treaty
1944 Hitler and Mussolini meet at Salzburg
1954 U.S.S.R. joins UNESCO
1969 1st human eye transplant performed
1982 Launch of STS-3-Lousma and Fullerton
1992 Holocaust Museum dedicated in Washington D.C.
2010 The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig that exploded off the coast of Louisiana two days ago, sinks; the wreck is leading crude oil and diesel at an alarming rate

Apr 23
1348 1st English order of knighthood founded (Order of Garter)
1661 English king Charles II crowned in London
1878 1st Dutch test drive of steam tram
1896 Vitascope system of movie projection 1st demonstrated (New York City)
1910 International Exhibition opens in Brussels
1920 Turkish Grand National Assembly 1st meets, in Ankara
1932 Shakespeare Memorial Theatre opens at Stratford-on-Avon
1945 Concentration camp Flossenburg liberated
1952 Oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Banias completed
1962 1st U.S. satellite to reach the moon launched
1972 Apollo 16 astronauts explores Moon surface
1984 AIDS-virus identified, acquired immune deficiency syndrome
1992 McDonald's opens its 1st fast-food restaurant in China
2010 A series of bomb explosions in Baghdad, near Shia mosques, kill dozens of people and wound 100 others

Apr 24
1704 "Boston News-Letter," 1st successful newspaper in U.S., forms
1833 Patent granted for 1st soda fountain
1865 Fire alarm and police telegraph system put into operation in San Francisco
1897 1st reporter, William Price (Washington Star), assigned to White House
1900 Passing of Andrew Halliday, cable car pioneer
1916 Easter rebellion of Irish against British occupation begins
1929 1st non-stop England to India flight takes-off
1944 United Negro College Fund incorporates
1953 Winston Churchill knighted by Queen Elizabeth II
1962 MIT sends TV signal by satellite for 1st time: CA to MA
1971 Soyuz 10 returns to Earth
1981 IBM-PC computer introduced
1990 West and East Germany agree to merge currency and economies on July 1st
2010 Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva rejects demands by Thai protesters to dissolve Parliament in 30 days

This Week In #History ... February 28th - March 6th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Feb 28
1692 Salem witch hunt begins
1759 Pope Clement XIII allows Bible to be translated into various languages
1883 1st U.S. vaudeville theater opens in Boston
1917 Russian Duma sets up Provisional Committee; workers set up Soviets
1933 Hitler disallows German Communist Party (KPD)
1956 Forrester issued a patent for computer core memory
1959 Launch of Discoverer 1 (WTR)-1st polar orbit
1970 Bicycles permitted to cross Golden Gate Bridge
1977 1st killer whale born in captivity (Marineland, Los Angeles California)
2010 Egypt announces the discovery of a granite head from a statue of Tutankhamun's grandfather, Amenhotep III, buried at a temple in Luxor

Happy birthday to Michel de Montaigne, Jobst Burgi, Thomas Newcomen, Rene-Antoine de Reaumur, D. Francois J. Arago, Karl Earnest Ritter von Baer, Ernest Renan, Hermann Schell, Jacob P Vis, Vyacheslav I Ivanov, Jose Vasconcelos, Victor Sutherland, Ben Hecht, Linus Pauling, Stephen Harold Spender, Olan Soule, Zero "Samuel" Mostel, John Bouber, John Swire, Bettye Ackerman, Leon Cooper, Gavin MacLeod, Jeff Farrell, Frank Bonner, Mimsy Farmer, Charles "Bubba" Smith, Mercedes Ruehl, Gustavo Thoeni, Jennie Lynn, Gilbert Gottfried, John Turturro, Rae Dawn Chong, Noureddine Morceli, Rory Cochrane, Ali Larter.

Mar 1
1642 Georgeana (York), Maine became the 1st incorporated American city
1780 Pennsylvania becomes 1st U.S. state to abolish slavery (for new-borns only)
1803 Ohio becomes 17th state
1864 Louis Ducos du Hauron patents movie machine (never built)
1872 Yellowstone becomes world's 1st national park
1912 Albert Berry makes 1st parachute jump from an airplane
1937 1st permanent automobile license plates issued (Connecticut)
1941 "Captain America" appears in a comic book
1961 President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corp
1966 Venera 3 becomes 1st man-made object to impact on a planet (Venus)
1978 Charlie Chaplin's coffin was stolen from a Swiss cemetery
1988 Wayne Gretzky passes Gordie Howe with his record 1,050th NHL assist
2010 Ejup Ganic, former President of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is stopped while trying to escape war crime charges, at London Heathrow airport

Happy birthday to Johann B Schup, Jacob Gottfried Weber, Vittorio Bersezio, Matthias J. Scheeben, William Dean Howells, Georg Simmel, Rebecca Lee, Lytton Strachey, Oskar Kokoschka, Paul Hartman, Terence De Marney, David Niven, Ralph Waldo Ellison, Roger Delgado, Howard Nemerov, Jack Clayton, Michael Flanders, Yitzhak Rabin, Donald "Deke" Kent Slayton, Robert Clary, Raymond St. Jacques, Joan Hackett, Marion Farouk-Sluglett, Leo Brouwer, Louis Gerstner, Jerry Fischer, Peter Guber, John Leeson, Mauro Checcoli, Franz Hohler, Roger Daltrey, Dirk Benedict, Tony Ashton, Ron Howard, Catherine Bach, Clinton Gregory, Javier Bardem, Jack Davenport, Mark-Paul Gosselaar.

Mar 2
1789 Pennsylvania ends prohibition of theatrical performances
1829 New England Asylum for the Blind, 1st in U.S., incorporated, Boston
1866 1st U.S. company to make sewing needles by machine incorporated, Connecticut
1923 Time magazine debuts
1930 1st U.S. indoor glider flight, St. Louis Terminal Building
1949 1st automatic street light (New Milford, Ct)
1958 1st surface crossing of Antarctic continent is completed in 99 days
1969 1st test flight of the supersonic Concorde
1976 Walt Disney World logged its 50 millionth guest
1983 Final episode of M*A*S*H; 125,000,000 viewers
1994 Miami begins a latin walk of fame, 1st star for Gloria Estefan
2009 Joao Bernardo Vierira, President of Guinea-Bissau is assassinated during an armed attack on his residence in Bissau

Happy birthday to Thomas Bodley, Camille Desmoulins, Samuel Houston, Constantine D. Uschinsky, Gosta Forsell, Wallis Clark, Felix Bressart, Edward Uhler Condon, Theodor Geisel - Dr. Seuss, William Hansen, Marjorie Weaver, Martin Ritt, Jennifer Jones, Philip K. Dick, John Cullum, Tom Wolfe, Al Waxman, Ricardo Lagos, Barbara Luna, John Irving, Katherine Crawford, Gordon Thompson, Rory Gallagher, Eddie Money, Mitchel Laurance, Cassie Yates, Laraine Newman, John Cowsill, Larry Stewart, Daniel Craig, Amber Smith, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Biel.

Mar 3
1634 1st tavern in Boston opens (Samuel Cole)
1791 1st internal revenue act (taxing distilled spirits and carriages)
1845 Florida becomes 27th state
1869 University of South Carolina opens to all races
1885 American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T) incorporates
1915 National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NASA forerunner) created
1934 John Dillinger breaks out of jail using a wooden pistol
1959 1st U.S. probe to enter solar orbit, Pioneer 4, launched
1969 Apollo 9 launched for 151 Earth orbits (10 days)
1985 Bill (Willie) Shoemaker is 1st jockey to surpass $100 million
2005 Steve Fossett flys the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer to a world record by completing the first non-stop, non-refueled, solo flight around the world

Happy birthday to Edward Herbert of Cherbury, William Godwin, George M. Pullman, George W. Hill, John Murray, Georg Cantor, Alexander Graham Bell, Wee Willie Keeler, Garrett Morgan, Edward Thomas, Edmund Lowe, Bill Nestell, Robert Gordon, Ragnar Frisch, Juanita Hansen, Edna Best, Ruby Dandridge, Donald Novis, Jay Morris Arena, Arthur Kornberg, James Doohan, Diana Barrymore, Richard Vernon, James Merrill, Gia Scala, Douglas Leedy, Mike Pender, Chris Hughes, Miranda Richardson, Lisa Ann Poggi, Tone-Loc, Diann Roffe-Steinrotter, Julie Bowen, Martin Prochazka, David Faustino, Ronan Keating, Kim Smith.

Mar 4
1675 John Flamsteed appointed 1st Astronomer Royal of England
1791 Vermont admitted as 14th state (1st addition to the 13 colonies)
1826 1st U.S. Railroad chartered, Granite Railway in Quincy, Massachsetts
1849 U.S. had no president, Polks term ends on a Sunday, Taylor couldn't be sworn-in, Senator David Atchison (President pro tem) term ended March 3rd
1881 Holmes and Watson begin "A Study in Scarlet," 1st case together
1923 Lenin's last article in Pravda (about Red bureaucracy)
1955 1st radio facsimile transmission sent across the continent
1962 AEC announces 1st atomic power plant in Antarctica in operation
1979 U.S. Voyager I photo reveals Jupiter's rings
1997 President Clinton bans federally funded human cloning research

Happy birthday to Henry the Navigator, Antonio Vivaldi, Benjamin Waterhouse, Charles Dibdin, Wijnand J J Nuijen, Giovanni Schiaparelli, Pearl White, Edgar Barrier, John Garfield, Hans Eysenck, Joan Greenwood, Patrick Moore, Thayer David, Alan Sillitoe, Paula Prentiss, John Hancock, Zoltan Jeney, Bobby Womack, Dieter Meier, Michael Ashcroft, Jean O'Leary, Shakin' Stevens, Billy Gibbons, Emilio Estefan, Gwen Welles, Patricia Heaton, Kelly Lynch, Steven Weber, Stacy Edwards, Tim Vine, Patsy Kensit, Dionna Harris, Chastity Bono.

Mar 5
1558 Smoking tobacco introduced in Europe by Francisco Fernandes
1770 Boston Massacre, British troops kill 5 in crowd. Crispus Attackus becomes 1st black to die for American freedom
1836 Samuel Colt manufactures 1st pistol, 34-caliber "Texas" model
1868 Stapler patented in England by C. H. Gould
1872 George Westinghouse, Jr. patents triple air brake for trains
1933 Germany's Nazi Party wins majority in parliament (43.9%-17.2M votes)
1956 "King Kong," 1st televised
1968 U.S. launches Solar Explorer 2 to study the Sun
1979 Voyager I's closest approach to Jupiter (172,000 miles)
2010 Gordon Brown, United Kingdom's Prime Minister, gives evidence to the Iraq Inquiry

Happy birthday to William Oughtred, John van der Heyden, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Jacques Babinet, James Merritt Ives, Elisha Harris, Constance Fenimore Woolson, Isabella Gregory, Howard Pyle, Rosa Luxemburg, Henry Travers, Paul Radmilovic, Henry Daniell, Ludwig Donath, Lowell Peters, Sophie Stewart, Joan Sterndale Bennett, Joseph Tomelty, Virginia Christine, Joan Shawlee, Dean Stockwell, Michael D[iamond] Resnick, Paul Sands, Randy Matson, Michael Warren, Harvey Jacob Alperin, Marsha Warfield, Penn Jillette, Mark Handley, Matt Robinson, Matt Lucas, Eva Mendes, Kevin Connolly, Jolene Blalock, Jake Lloyd.

Mar 6
1521 Magellan discovers Guam
1646 Joseph Jenkes, MA, receives 1st colonial machine patent
1899 "Asprin" patented by Felix Hoffmann
1918 U.S. naval boat "Cyclops" disappears in Bermuda Triangle
1940 1st U.S. telecast from an airplane, New York City
1947 XB-45, 1st U.S. 4-engine jet bomber, makes 1st test flight, Muroc, California
1961 1st London minicabs introduced
1967 Muhammad Ali is ordered by selective service to be inducted
1980 French Academy, founded in 1635, elects it 1st woman novelist (Marguerita Youcenar)
1991 Following Iraq's capitulation in the Persian Gulf conflict, President Bush told Congress that "Aggression is defeated. The war is over."
2007 Mega Millions has the highest lottery jackpot ever, $370 million dollars

Happy birthday to Michelangelo, Jean Luis Vives, Cyrano de Bergerac, Joseph von Fraunhofer, Aaron Lufkin Dennison, Guy Kibbee, Fernand Ansseau, Victor Kilian, Jay C. Flippen, Ludwig Donath, Elizabeth Pinkston Becker, Bob Wills, Charles Frank, Madge Adam, Ella Logan, Roger Price, Frankie Howerd, William Hedgcock Webster, Ann Curtis, William J. Bell, John Smith, Carmen Delavallade, Ronnie Delaney, Valentina V Tereshkova-Nikolayev, Lovelace Watkins, David Spielberg, Joanna Miles, David Gilmore, Rob Reiner, Anna Maria Horsford, Tony Klatka, Martin Kove, Kiki Dee, Jackie Zeman, Alan Davies, Moira Kelly, Connie Britton, Andrea Elson, Amy Pietz, Shaquille O'Neal, Ellen Muth. 

This Week In #History ... February 14th - February 20th

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @UlaVovk

Feb 14

1803 Apple parer patented by Moses Coats, Downington, Pennsylvania
1876 A G Bell and Elisha Gray apply separately for telephone patents Supreme Court eventually rules Bell rightful inventor
1899 U.S. Congress begins using voting machines
1924 IBM Corporation founded by Thomas Watson
1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, 7 gangsters killed
1950 U.S.S.R. and China sign peace treaty
1961 Element 103, Lawrencium, 1st produced in Berkeley, California
1978 1st "micro on a chip" patented by Texas Instruments
2001 Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft becomes first vehicle to land on an asteroid (433 Eros)

Happy birthday to Leon Battista Alberti, Zahir al-Din Mohammed Babur Shah, Henry II of Bavaria, Johann Pistorius, Richard Allen, Frederick Douglass, Margaret Knight, Cecil De Vere, Joseph Thomson, George Washington Gale Ferris, Robert E Park, Henricus A. Poels, Charles Wilson, William John Gruffydd, George Jean Nathan, Nikolaj A. Orloff, Max Horkheimer, Fritz Zwicky, John Randall, Jr., Stu Erwin, Charles William Oatley, Thelma Ritter, Willem J. Kolff, Florence Rice, Edward Platt, Derrick Holden-Brown, Lois Maxwell, Vic Morrow, Alexander Kluge, Marlene Matthews, David Wilson, Andrew Pine, Chris Pyne, Ischa Meijer, Alan Parker, Tina Aumont, Ken Wahl, Perry Stephens, D'Wayne Wiggins, Petr Svoboda, Nathan Osmond, Simon Pegg.

Feb 15

1768 1st mustard manufactured in America advertised, Philadelphia
1804 New Jersey becomes last northern state to abolish slavery
1852 Great Ormond St. Hospital for Sick Children, London, admits 1st patient
1902 Underground railway (U-Bahn)
1933 President-elect Franklin Roosevelt survives assassination attempt
1944 891 British bombers attack Berlin
1955 1st pilot plant to produce man-made diamonds announced
1967 1st anti-bootleg recording laws enacted
1981 Rocket-powered ice sled attains 399 kph, Lake George, New York
1998 Daytona 500 race

Happy birthday to Charles de Guise, Galileo Galilei, Francois Charpentier, Frans Anneessens, Antonio M Valsalva, Louis XV the Well-Beloved, Abraham Clark, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Malthus, Henry Engelhard Steinway, Frederik W. Conrad, John Augustus Sutter, Cyrus Hall McCormick, Charles Lewis Tiffany, Charles F Daubigny, Christopher Sholes, William Preece, William Pickering, Alfred North Whitehead, Ernest H Shackleton, John Barrymore, Oswaldo Aranha, Gale Sondergard, Cesar Romero, Kevin McCarthy, Keene Curtis, Harvey Korman, Claire Bloom, Susan Brownmiller, Douglas R Hofstadter, Rusty Hamer, Jess Walton, Jane Seymour, Renee Props, Michael Easton, Renee O'Connor, Amy Van Dyken.

Feb 16

1741 Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine, 2nd U.S. magazine begins publishing
1846 Battle of Sobraon ends 1st Sikh War in India
1878 Silver dollar became U.S. legal tender
1905 1st U.S. Esperanto club organizes in Boston
1932 1st patent issued for a tree, to James Markham for a peach tree
1946 1st commercially designed helicopter tested, Bridgeport, Connecticut
1956 Britain abolishes death penalty
1965 Pegasus 1 launched to detect micro-meteors
1972 1st NBA to score 30,000 points (Wilt Chamberlain in 940 games)
2010 The Queen Mary 2 makes her first port call in China at the Port of Shanghai, since her maiden voyage in 2004

Happy birthday to Ordericus Vitalis, Rheticus, Frederick William, Bohuslav Matej Czernohorsky, Pierre Bouguer, Johann Heinse, Heinrich Barth, Joseph V von Scheffel, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, Henry B. Adams, Arnoldus Pannevis, Charles Taze Russell, George Macauley Trevelyan, Selim Palmgren, Robert Flaherty, Van Wyck Brooks, Katharine Cornell, Chester Morris, Vera Menchik, Henri van Albada, Jeffrey Lynn, Hal Porter, Vera-Ellen, John Schlesinger, Ken Takakura, Gretchen Wyler, Brian Bedford, Paul Bailey, Paul Bailey, Vitali Kuznetsov, Aleksandr Shaparenko, William Katt, Iain [Menzies] Banks, James Ingram, Ice-T, Andy Taylor, Christopher Eccleston, Bo Bennett, Kimberly Dawn Whipany.

Feb 17

1817 Baltimore is the 1st U.S. city lit by gas
1911 1st hydroplane flight to and from a ship (Glenn Curtiss, San Diego)
1934 1st high school auto driving course offered (State College, Penn.)
1938 1st public experimental demonstration of Baird color TV in London
1958 Comic strip "BC" 1st appears
1959 1st weather satellite launched, Vanguard 2, 9.8 kg
1979 China invades Vietnam
1985 1st day/night game at the MCG, Australia vs. England
2008 Kosovo declares independence from Serbia

Happy birthday to J Henry Alting, Arcangelo Corelli, Baron Ernst Gottlieb, Hans Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, Tobias Mayer, Horace B de Saussure, Rene-Theophile-Hyacinthe Lannec, Samuel van Houten, Jaroslav Vrchlicky, Friedrich A. Krupp, Samuel Sidney McClure, William Cadbury, Louis de Raet, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Ronald Aburthnott Knox, Ronald Fisher, Anita Stewart, Johannes Linthorst Homan, Charles B Timmer, Staats Cotsworth, Marc Lawrence, Oskar Danon, Arthur Kennedy, Raf Vallone, Margaret Truman, Buck Trent, Alan Bates, Patricia Morrow, Dallas Adams, Janice Dickinson, Rowdy Gaines, Ambrose "Rowdy" Gaines, Michael Jordan, Denise Richards, Billie Joe Armstrong, Jerry O'Connell, Jason Ritter, Paris Hilton, Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Feb 18

1787 Austrian emperor Jozef II bans children under 8 from labor
1876 Direct telegraph link established between Britain and New Zealand
1915 Germany begins a blockade of England
1930 U.S. astronomer Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto
1953 Premiere of 1st 3-D feature film - "Bwana Devil" (New York City)
1968 10,000 demonstrators against U.S. in Vietnam War in West-Berlin
1979 Snow falls in Sahara Desert
2003 Arsonist set a fire in a trian station in Daegu, South Korea kills nearly 200

Happy birthday to Mary I Tudor (Bloody Mary), Giovanni Battista Vitali, Jacques Cassini, Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta, Thomas Girtin, Marshall Hall, Ramakrishna, Ernst Mach, Willem Maris, Max Klinger, Sholem Aleichem, Walter Andrae, Tom Walls, Gladys Cooper, Edward Arnold, Semjon Timoshenko, Reginald Sheffield, Billy Dewolfe, Wallace Stegner, Phyllis Calvert, Helen Gurley Brown, Allan Melvin, George Kennedy, Harry "Little" Caesar, Johnny Hart, Milos Forman, Mary Ure, Ian Hacking, Dennis De Young, John Hughes, John Travolta, Marita Koch, Julie Strain, Dr. Dre, Gary Neville.

Feb 19

1831 1st practical U.S. coal-burning locomotive makes 1st trial run, Pennsylvania
1881 Kansas becomes 1st state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages
1933 Prussian minister Goering bans all Catholic newspapers
1953 Georgia approves U.S. 1st literature censorship board
1969 1st Test flight of Boeing 747 jumbo jet
1977 Shuttle Enterprise makes 1st Test flight atop a 747 jetliner
1987 Anti-smoking ad airs for 1st time on TV, featuring Yul Brynner
1992 Peter Collins discovers nova Cygni 1992
2010 The Vatican approves of Australian Mary MacKillop as their first saint for canonization

Happy birthday to Nicolaus Copernicus, David Garrick, Pieter G van Overstraten, Mark Prager Lindo, Elie Ducommun, Svante August Arhenius, Sven Hedin, Evert Gorter, Cedric Hardwicke, Louis Calhern, Nydia Westman, Hugo Haas, Merle Oberon, Eddie Arcaro, George Rose, Andries Treurnicht, Lee Marvin, Leslie Laing, Jean-Pierre Ponnele, Carlin Glynn, Sam Abell, Thomas Brasch, Paul Dean, Peter Bird, Byron K Lichtenburg, Edward Hardin, Andy Powell, Stephen Nichols, Amy Tan, Frances Bucholz, Bill Kirchenbauer, Jeff Daniels, George David Low, Johann Hoelzel Falco, Holly Johnson, Jessica Tuck, Andrew Jameson, Becky Dyroen-Lancer.

Feb 20

1768 1st American chartered fire insurance company opens (Penn.)
1872 Hydraulic electric elevator patented by Cyrus Baldwin
1922 Vilinus, Lithuania, agrees to separate from Poland
1935 Karoline Mikkelson is 1st woman on Antarctica
1949 1st International Pancake Race held (Liberal, KS)
1962 John Glenn is 1st American to orbit Earth in Friendship 7
1975 Margaret Thatcher elected leader of British Conservative Party
2010 At least 32 people are dead and 68 injured from floods and mudslides on the island of Madeira, Portugal

Happy birthday to Johan Friis, Gentile Bellini, Adam Black, Angelina Grimke, Joseph Jefferson, Allessandro d'Ancona, Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann, Louis F M van Westerhoven, Mary Garden, Hesketh Pearson, Marie Rambert, Russel Crouse, Enzo Ferrari, Jean Negulesco, Rene Jules Dubos, Henry Eyring, Ella Maillart, Bramwell Fletcher, Malcolm Atterbury, Margot Grahame, John Daly, Jackie Gleason, Liesbeth Tonckens, Amanda Blake, Gloria Vanderbilt, Donald Longmore, Marj Dusay, Robert Huber, Peter Strauss, Lew Soloff, Sandy Duncan, Billy Zoom, James Wilby, Imogen Stubbs, William Baldwin, French Stewart, Cindy Crawford, Kurt Cobain, Brian Littrell, Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Interesting fact: On February 20th 5 siblings were born in a span of 14 years - Catherine (1952), Carol (1953), Charles (1956), Claudia (1961) & Cecilia (1966). Yeah, mindfuck!