- Events
- 1820 - An 80-ton sperm whale attacks the Essex (a whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts) 2,000 miles from the western coast of South America (Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick was in part inspired by this story).
- 1955 - Bo Diddley becomes the first African American performer to appear on The Ed Sullivan Show. Apparently Sullivan was infuriated when Diddley sang his self-titled song instead of Tennessee Ernie Ford's hit, "Sixteen Tons".
- 1962 - Cuban Missile Crisis ends: In response to the Soviet Union's agreeing to remove its missiles from Cuba, U.S. President John F. Kennedy ends the quarantine of the Caribbean nation. (a year before my birth, and a year and two days before--)
- 1982 - Andy Kaufman was forever voted off of Saturday Night Live by a live phone poll.
(Like Tammy, I picked four in a category. Like Tammy said, sue me, there were a lot to pick from here.)
- Births
- 270 - Maximinus, Roman Emperor (d. 313)
- 1925 - Robert F. Kennedy, U.S. Attorney General, Senator from New York State, and brother of President John F. Kennedy (d. 1968)
- 1956 - Bo Derek, American actress
- 1963 - Timothy Gowers, British mathematician and Ming-Na Wen, Macau-born actress (same year as me)
(Again, you get extra. Deal.)
- Deaths
- 1316 - King John I of France (d. 1316)
- 1910 (N.S.) - Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (b. 1828)
- 1973 - Allan Sherman, American comedian (b. 1924)
