1 1 1904 Glenn Miller; 1909 David Niven; 1917 Robert Lowell, Dinah Shore; 1919 Lawrence Ferlinghetti; 1920 Harry Caray; 1922 William Gaines; 1922 Yitzak Rabin; 1924 Deke Slayton; 1927 Harry Belafonte; 1935 Judith Rossner; 1942 Peter Guber; 1944 Roger Daltrey; 1947 Alan Thicke; 1954 Catherine Bach, Ron Howard.
• 1784: England's first cooking school in opens; Lesson 1: How to boil stuff; Lesson 2: There is no Lesson 2.
• 1941: Captain America makes his first appearance.
• 1961: President Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps.
• 1962: K-Mart opens.
• 1969: After 88 weeks Sergeant Pepper drops off the charts.
• 1978: Charlie Chaplin's coffin is stolen from a Swiss cemetery; TV news footage of klutzy cops chasing it around town has audiences in stitches.
2 1793 Sam Houston; 1900 Kurt Weill; 1904 Theodor Geisel; 1909 Mel Ott; 1917 Desi Arnaz; 1923 "Doc" Watson; 1928 Philip K. Dick; 1930 John Cullum; 1931 Mikhail Gorbachev, Tom Wolfe; 1942 John Irving, Lou Reed; 1949 Rory Gallagher, Gates McFadden, Eddie Money; 1950 Karen Carpenter; 1952 Laraine Newman.
• 1923: Time magazine debuts.
• 1933: King Kong premieres at Radio City Music Hall.
• 1990: Greyhound Bus Lines goes on strike; passengers hardly notice any difference in service.
3 1831 George Pullman; 1847 Alexander Graham Bell; 1853 Vincent Van Gogh; 1909 Harry Hemsley; 1914 Martin Ritt; 1920 James Doohan; 1921 Allen Ginsberg; 1927 John McLaughlin; 1950 Tim Kazurinsky; 1958 Miranda Richardson; 1962 Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Herschel Walker.
• 1634: First tavern in Boston opens; because making your way through the world today takes everything you've got, taking a break from all your worries sure would help a lot, sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name, and they're always glad you came.
• 1885: AT&T incorporates.
• 1879: First female lawyer, Belva Ann Bennett Lockwood, heard by Supreme Court; justices split 5-4 over "Nice rack" and "I thought she'd never stop yakking."
4 1888 Knute Rockne; 1912 John Garfield; 1953 Kay Lenz; 1954 Catherine O'Hara; 1958 Patricia Heaton; 1969 Chastity Bono.
• 1793 At President Washington's second inauguration, he gives the shortest inauguration speech (133 words).
• 1809 James Madison becomes first President inaugurated in American-made clothes; his outfit is made hastily after he proclaims "I'd rather be sworn in naked as a jaybird than wear clothing made by European hands!"
• 1841: Longest inauguration speech (8,443 words), William Henry Harrison.
• 1849: U.S. has no President for one day, as James K. Polk's term ends on a Sunday, President-elect Zachary Taylor can't be sworn-in until Monday, and President pro tem Senator David Atchison's term of office ended March 3.
• 1933: In his inaugural address, FDR states “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself,” but notes that “fear itself is pretty scary.”
• 1952: Ronald Reagan marries Nancy Davis.
• 1960: Lucy divorces Desi.
5 1908 Rex Harrison; 1922 Pier Paolo Pasolini; 1927 Jack Cassidy; 1934 James B. Sikking; 1936 Dean Stockwell; 1939 Samantha Eggar; 1955 Penn Jillette.
• 1770: Boston Massacre; British troops kill five colonists, including Crispus Attucks, who becomes first black to die for American freedom, albeit not on purpose and not exactly his own.
• 1836: Mexican Army attacks the Alamo during Texas's war of independence.
• 1836: Samuel Colt manufactures his first pistol, the .34-caliber "Texas" model; which is all well and good but a little late for the boys inside the Alamo.
• 1934: Mother-in-law's Day first celebrated.
6 1906 Lou Costello; 1923 Ed McMahon; 1926 Alan Greenspan; 1937 Merle Haggard; 1945 Rob Reiner; 1947 Kiki Dee; 1959 Tom Arnold; 1972 Shaquille O'Neal.
• 1831: Edgar Allen Poe removed from West Point; asking when he might apply for reinstatement, he is told "Nevermore."
• 1980: Susan Lucci loses Daytime Emmy Award for first time.
7 1849: Luther Burbank; 1942 Michael Eisner; 1942 Tammy Faye Bakker.
• 1778: Captain James Cook sights Oregon coast; his log entry for that day states, "Weather damp. coffee good. windsurfing totally awesome."
• 1960: Peter Pan, with Mary Martin in the title role, is first televised; those who viewed it as children report that watching a middle-aged actress swung around a soundstage on poorly hidden wires while pretending to be a 10-year-old boy haunts them to this day.
• 1981: First homicide at Disneyland; suspect is described as an "Angry, pear-shaped waterfowl, white, wearing a sailor shirt and no pants."
8 1841 Oliver Wendell Holmes; 1918 Alan Hale Jr.; 1921 Cyd Charisse; 1939 Jim Bouton; 1943 Lynn Redgrave; 1944 Carole Bayer Sager; 1945 Keith Jarrett, Mickey Dolenz; 1958 Gary Numan; 1959 Aidan Quinn; 1963 Kathy Ireland.
• 1930: Babe Ruth signs 2-year contract for $160,000 with New York Yankees; General Manager Ed Barrow, predicts "No one will ever be paid more than Ruth," adding, "At least not if I have anything to do with it."
• 1930: Mahatma Gandhi starts civil disobedience in India.
• 1934: Edwin Hubble photo shows as many galaxies as Milky Way has stars; at least that's what he says all those white dots are.
• 1968: Fillmore East opens (closes 1971); the building's a bank now, but the acoustics rock.
9 1454 Amerigo Vespucci; 1918 Mickey Spillane; 1936 Mickey Gilley, Marty Ingels; 1940 Raul Julia; 1942 John Cale, Mark Lindsay; 1943 Bobby Fischer, Trish Van Devere.
• 1959: Barbie doll debuts; Special 50th Anniversary editions include "Botox Barbie," "Cougar Barbie" and "MILF Barbie."
10 1888 Barry Fitzgerald; 1891 Sam Jaffe; 1903 Bix Beiderbecke; 1916 James Herriot; 1935 Gary Owens; 1940 Wayne Dyer, Dean Torrence.
• 1941: Dodger's general manager Larry MacPhail predicts all players will wear batting helmets; he also predicts that someday players will favor mullet haircuts and elaborate mustaches.
11 1892 Raoul Walsh; 1908 Lawrence Welk; 1914 Ralph Ellison; 1926 Ralph Abernathy; 1931 Rupert Murdoch; 1934 Sam Donaldson, Antonin Scalia; 1950 Bobby McFerrin, Jerry Zucker; 1952 Douglas Adams.
• 537: Goths lay siege to Rome.
• 1888: Great Blizzard of 1888.
• 1941: Bronko Nagurski becomes wrestling champ. Not historically significant, but, hey, how cool a name is 'Bronko Nagurski'?
• 1997: Paul McCartney knighted.
12 1831 Clement Studebaker; 1890 Vaslav Nijinsky; 1922 Jack Kerouac; 1923 Walter M. Schirra Jr.; 1928 Edward Albee; 1942 Sammy "the Bull" Gravano; 1946 Liza Minnelli; 1948 James Taylor; 1962 Darryl Strawberry.
• 1664: New Jersey becomes a British colony; You gotta problem with that?
• 1959: Congress approves Hawaiian statehood; despite a week-long fact-finding tour that discovered "ceremonial leis" weren't what they thought.
• 1969: Police confiscate 120 marijuana joints found at George & Patti Harrison's home.
• 1969: Paul McCartney marries Linda Eastman; George & Patti Harrison show up at the reception empty handed because their intended wedding gift got confiscated by police.
13 1908 Walter Annenberg; 1910 Sammy Kaye; 1911 L. Ron Hubbard; 1939 Neil Sedaka.
• 483: St. Felix becomes the Pope, the wonderful, wonderful Pope.
• 1781: William Herschel discovers the planet Uranus, but loses coin toss for naming it.
14 1879 Albert Einstein; 1912 Les Brown; 1920 Hank Ketcham; 1923 Diane Arbus; 1928 Frank Borman; 1933 Michael Caine, Quincy Jones; 1947 Billy Crystal; 1951 Rick Dees; 1952 David Byrne, J. Fred Muggs; 1962 Kirby Puckett.
• 1913: John D. Rockefeller gives $100 million to Rockefeller Foundation; he responds to charges of nepotism with, "What, like I'm gonna give it to the Carnegie Foundation?"
• 1992: Soviet newspaper Pravda suspends publication; turns out the kid delivering all the papers since 1967 had never bothered collecting the subscription fees.
15 1916 Harry James; 1935 Judd Hirsch, Jimmy Lee Swaggart; 1943 David Cronenberg; 1944 Sly Stone; 1947 Ry Cooder; 1961 Fabio.
• 1493: Christopher Columbus returns to Spain after his first voyage to new world; he somehow manages to get funding for a second trip despite the fact that he didn't find India, China or any gold, and instead slaughtered a bunch of peaceful natives and brought some of them back as slaves along with some weird plants and syphilis.
• 1913: First presidential press conference; Woodrow Wilson takes his first question from Helen Thomas.
• 1964: Liz Taylor's fifth marriage (Richard Burton).
• 1965: TGIFriday's first restaurant opens in New York; ironically, it is on a Monday.
• 1968: LIFE magazine calls Jimi Hendrix "most spectacular guitarist in the world;" still a little buzzed from the concert, it also asks, "Have you ever really looked at your hand? I mean REALLY looked at it?"
• 1971: CBS cancels The Ed Sullivan Show; Topo Gigio and the last working plate spinner in show biz decide to call it quits.
16 1868 Maxim Gorki; 1906 Henny Youngman; 1912 Patricia Nixon, 1940 Bernardo Bertolucci; 1942 Jerry Jeff Walker, Chuck Woolery.
• 1861: Arizona Territory votes to leave the Union; Union asks, "Ari who?"
17 St. Patrick's Day
1834 Gottlieb Daimler; 1846 Kate Greenaway; 1895 Shemp Howard; 1899 Gloria Swanson; 1918 Mercedes McCambridge; 1919 Nat "King" Cole; 1935 Renee Taylor; 1941 Gene Pitney; 1942 John Wayne Gacy Jr., Paul Kantner; 1944 Patti Boyd, Danny DeVito, John Sebastian; 1949 Patrick Duffy; 1951 Kurt Russell; 1954 Lesley-Anne Down; 1955 Gary Sinise; 1964 Rob Lowe.
• 1432: St. Patrick, a bishop, is taken to Ireland as a slave.
• 1753: First official St. Patrick's Day.
• 1756: St. Patrick's Day first celebrated in New York.
• 1762: First St. Patrick's Day parade in New York.
• 1845: Rubber band patented.
18 1869 Neville Chamberlain; 1886 Edward Everett Horton; 1925 Peter Graves; 1927 John Harold Kander, George Plimpton; 1932 John Updike.
• 1673: Lord Berkley sells his half of New Jersey to the Quakers, who then sign it over to a guy named "Vinnie" to cover their gambling debts.
• 1930: Clyde Tombaugh discovers Pluto; then again, so does everyone else in the same theater watching Disney's cartoon The Chain Gang which debuts Mickey's dog, so it really isn't such a big deal.
• 1931: First electric shavers (Schick) go on sale in U.S.
• 1961: Pillsbury Dough Boy introduced (Hee, hee, heeeeee!).
• 1994: Zsa Zsa Gabor files for bankruptcy.
19 1821 Sir Richard Burton; 1848 Wyatt Earp; 1860 William Jennings Bryan; 1872 Sergei Diaghilev; 1882 Gaston Lachaise; 1891 Earl Warren; 1905 Albert Speer; 1906 Adolf Eichmann; 1916 Irving Wallace; 1925 Brent Scowcroft; 1928 Patrick McGoohan; 1933 Philip Roth; 1944 Lynda Bird Johnson Robb; 1947 Glenn Close.
• 1931: Nevada legalizes gambling.
20 1811 George Caleb Bingham, Napoleon Bonaparte II; 1828 Henrik Ibsen; 1904 B.F. Skinner; 1906 Abraham Beame, Ozzie Nelson; 1922 Ray Goulding, Carl Reiner; 1925 John Ehrlichman; 1928 Fred Rogers; 1931 Hal Linden; 1950 William Hurt; 1957 Spike Lee; 1958 Holly Hunter.
• 1868: Jesse James' gang robs the bank in Russelville, Kentucky of $14,000; they also take all the pens on chains.
• 1963: First "Pop Art" exhibit.
• 1997: Liggett admits cigarettes are addictive; also acknowledges that tobacco company executives are amoral, sub-human dirtbags.
21 1816 Charlotte Bronte; 1916 Harold Robbins; 1918 Howard Cosell; 1929 James Coco; 1946 Timothy Dalton; 1958 Gary Oldman; 1962 Matthew Broderick, Rosie O'Donnell.
• 1961: Beatles' first appearance at the Cavern Club.
22 1887 Chico Marx; 1908 Louis L'Amour; 1913 Karl Malden; 1930 Pat Robertson, Stephen Sondheim; 1931 William Shatner; 1934 Orrin Hatch; 1952 Bob Costas; 1956 Lena Olin; 1959 Matthew Modine.
• 1733: Joseph Priestly invents seltzer; devotes the rest of his life to experimenting with the egg cream flavors.
23 1908 Joan Crawford; 1910 Akira Kurosawa; 1912 Werner von Braun; 1937 Craig Breedlove; 1949 Ric Ocasek; 1952 Patricia Richardson.
• 1708: English pretender to the throne James III lands at Firth of Forth in Scotland; unfortunately, his followers are waiting for him at the Firth of Fifth, and he never takes power.
• 1775: Patrick Henry proclaims "Give me liberty or give me death!" British reply, "Alrighty then," and begin loading their muskets.
• 1806: Lewis & Clark reach Pacific coast in what is now Oregon, find 'Capt. Cook wuz Here 1778' carved into a tree.
24 1874 Harry Houdini; 1887 Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle; 1895 Arthur Murray; 1909 Clyde Barrow; 1911 Joseph Barbera; 1930 Steve McQueen; 1962 Star Jones.
• 1989: That child-tramuatizing 1960 Mary Martin version of Peter Pan is broadcast for the first time since 1973; the horror, the horror...
25 1908 David Lean; 1921 Simone Signoret; 1922 Eileen Ford; 1925 Flannery O'Connor; 1928 James Lovell Jr.; 1940 Anita Bryant; 1942 Aretha Franklin; 1944 Frank Oz; 1953 Mary Gross; 1965 Sarah Jessica Parker.
• 1896: First "Modern" Olympics begin in Athens; several athletes are accused of ingesting souvlaki before events.
• 1960: D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover ruled not obscene by a very disappointed New York court.
• 1961: Russian satellite Sputnik 10 carries a dog into orbit; Soviet children are told the dog returned safely and "sent to live on very nice collective farm out in the country."
26 1874 Robert Frost; 1880 Duncan Hines; 1904 Joseph Campbell; 1911 Tennessee Williams; 1914 William Westmoreland; 1916 Sterling Hayden; 1919 Strother Martin; 1923 Bob Elliot; 1930 Gregory Corso, Sandra Day O'Connor; 1931 Leonard Nimoy; 1934 Alan Arkin; 1939 James Caan; 1940 Nancy Pelosi; 1942 Erica Jong; 1943 Bob Woodward; 1944 Diana Ross; 1948 Steven Tyler; 1949 Vicki Lawrence; 1950 Teddy Pendergrass, Martin Short; 1954 Curtis Sliwa; 1957 Leeza Gibbons.
• 1804: Congress orders removal of Indians east of Mississippi to Louisiana; "Until we want that, too," they slip into the fine print when the Indians aren't looking.
• 1937: Ty Cobb advises Joe DiMaggio to replace his 40 oz bat with a 36 oz bat; DiMaggio thinks he means for use in ballgames but Cobb actually means for beating the crap out of people.
27 1868 Patty Smith; 1879 Edward Steichen; 1892 Thorne Smith; 1914 Budd Schulberg; 1917 Cyrus Vance; 1930 David Janssen; 1939 Judy Carne; 1960 Jennifer Grey; 1963 Quentin Tarantino.
• 1931: John McGraw predicts that night baseball will not catch on; "Because it's dark at night!" he exclaims, "What is wrong with you people?"
• 1933: Japan leaves League of Nations.
28 1921 Dirk Bogarde; 1924 Freddie Bartholomew; 1928 Zbigniew Brzezinski; 1942 Brian Jones; 1948 Dianne Wiest.
• 1885: U.S. Salvation Army organized.
• 1989: I. M. Pei's pyramidal entrance to the Louvre opens.
• 1995: Julia Roberts & Lyle Lovett split-up.
29 1790 John Tyler; 1867 Cy Young; 1906 E. Power Biggs; 1916 Eugene J. McCarthy; 1917 Man O' War; 1918 Pearl Bailey, Sam Walton; 1941 Terence Hill; 1943 Eric Idle, Vangelis; 1945 Walt "Clyde" Frazier; 1948 Bud Cort; 1956 LaToya Jackson; 1964 Elle Macpherson.
• 1795: Beethoven debuts as pianist in Vienna.
• 1848: Niagara Falls stops flowing for 30 hours due to an ice jam; honeymooners at a loss for what to do in the meantime.
• 1932: Jack Benny debuts on radio.
• 1951: The King & I opens on Broadway.
• 1959: Some Like it Hot premieres.
• 1962: Jack Paar's final appearance on The Tonight Show.
30 1899 Irving Thalberg; 1937 Warren Beatty; 1945 Eric Clapton; 1957 Paul Reiser; 1964 Tracy Chapman; 1968 Celine Dion.
31 1596 René Descartes; 1732 Franz Joseph Haydn; 1878 Jack Johnson; 1903 Arthur Godfrey; 1924 Leo Buscaglia; 1926 John Fowles; 1927 Cesar Chavez, William Daniels; 1928 Gordie Howe; 1929 Liz Claiborne; 1932 John Jakes; 1935 Herb Alpert, Richard Chamberlain, Judith Rossner; 1940 Barney Frank; 1946 Gabe Kaplan; 1948 David Eisenhower, Albert Gore Jr., Rhea Perlman.
• 1930: The Motion Pictures Production Code is instituted, imposing strict guidelines limiting sex, violence and original ideas in movies.
• 1932: Ford unveils its V-8 engine; public suggests that maybe if they put it inside a car then they'd really have something.
• 1972: Official Beatles Fan Club closes down.