This Day Trivia - march 23d

Events

1994 Joey Buttafuoco He is released from prison after serving four months for having sex with underage Amy Fisher. Fisher had previously shot Buttafuoco's wife in the head.

1990 Dan Quayle "If we do not succeed, then we run the risk of failure." - The U.S. Vice-President in a speech to the Phoenix Republican Forum.

1989 Cold Fusion Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons report that they had produced fusion at near room temperature. Despite much media frenzy, the inability of others to reproduce their results led the scientific community to eventually reject their claim.

1983 "Star Wars" Speech Pres. Reagan gives his famous speech outlining his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). It included the use of lasers to shoot down incoming Soviet ICBMs.

1965 First U.S. two-man space flight Gemini 3 is launched.

1950 Beat the Clock debuts on CBS. This show provided a then unknown his first job in TV (1952), testing stunts. His name was James Dean.

1919 Benito Mussolini organizes the Fascio de Combattimento, which became the nucleus of the Fascist Party (1921).

1857 First passenger elevator is installed, by Elisha Graves Otis in the Hagwout Department Store in New York.

1775 American Revolution Patrick Henry proclaims "I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

Births

1990 Princess Eugenie second child of Prince Andrew and the Duchess of York.

1953 Chaka Khan (Yvette Marie Stevens), American singer, songwriter. Music: Tell Me Something Good (1974).

1929 Roger Bannister British runner, first person to run a mile in under 4 minutes (1954). According to his book, The Four-Minute Mile, his training consisted primarily of 30-minute runs, 3-4 times a week.

1922 Marty Allen American comedian, with his famous catchphrase "Hello Dere!" TV: Regular on Hollywood Squares.

1912 Wernher von Braun d. 1977 German engineer, SS Officer. He launched the first long-range guided missile (Germany's V-2, 1942) and the first rocket to reach outer space (25 miles, 1949). He also led the team of German rocket scientists who developed the Saturn and the Mercury Redstone (which put the first U.S. astronaut in space in 1961) and led the development of the Saturn V booster rocket which was used to put the first men on the Moon (1969).

1908 Morris Frank d. 1980 American pioneer for the blind. Blind himself, he brought the first seeing eye dog in the U.S. (1928) over from Switzerland and co-founded The Seeing Eye, the first dog guide school in the U.S.

1904 Joan Crawford d. 1977 (Lucille LeSueur), American actress. Film: What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).

1868 Elmer Smith d. 1945 American baseball player. He hit the first World Series bases-loaded home run (1920).

1823 Schuyler Colfax d. 1885 17th U.S. Vice-President (1869-73).

1736 Arthur St. Clair d. 1818 15th president of the Continental Congress (1787-88).

Deaths

1994 Giulietta Masina b. 1920 (Guilia Anna Masina), Italian actress, wife of Fellini. Film: La Strada (1954, Gelsomina) Nights of Cabiria (1956, Cannes Best Actress, as the prostitute).

1985 Patricia Roberts Harris b. 1924 American lawyer, educator, first black woman U.S. ambassador (1965, Luxembourg) and the first woman to hold two cabinet positions (Secretary of Housing and Urban Development 1977-79 and Secretary of Health Education and Welfare 1979-81).

1985 John Haley "Zoot" Sims b. 1925 American saxophonist. He played with Bobby Sherwood, Benny Goodman, and Woody Herman.

1983 Barney B. Clark b. 1921 American dentist, first person to have a permanent artificial heart successfully implanted (Dec. 2, 1982).

1964 Peter Lorre b. 1904 (Laszlo Loewenstein), American actor. Film: The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942, Ugarte), and star of the Mr. Moto movies (1930s).

1914 Harry Thurston Peck b. 1856 American educator, magazine editor, coined the word "Bestseller" (1895).

1888 Morrison Remick Waite b. 1816 American jurist, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1874-88).

1872 Samuel Gregory b. 1813 American medical educator. He founded Boston Female Medical School (1848), the first medical school exclusively for women, because he was opposed to male doctors attending births.

1555 Julius III b. ???? Italian religious leader, 221st Pope (1550-55).