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January 5th |
King Juan Carlos I of Spain was born in Rome, Italy. Two days after the death of the dictator, Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was crowned King of Spain according to the law of succession that had been put into effect by Franco. |
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February 7th |
American businessman, Harvey Firestone, was born in Ohio. He was the founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, which is now a subsidiary of the Bridgestone tire company. |
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February 11th |
Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega, was born in Panama City. Although he was initially a strong ally of the United States, by the mid 1980's his relationship with the United States deteriorated and eventually led to his being overthrown when the US invaded Panama in 1989. |
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February 13th |
British actor, Oliver Reed, was born in London. He had no formal education in acting and had started his career as an extra in various films during the 1950's. By the 1990's he was a prominent figure in Hollywood who took part in several major blockbuster movies, the last of which was, Gladiator. He died before the film was finished and was recreated as a computer generated image to fill some missing scenes. |
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March 3rd |
Crude oil was discovered for the first time in Saudi Arabia. |
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March 17th |
Russian dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, was born on a train near Irkutsk, while his mother was travelling across Siberia to Vladivostok. He is widely considered to have been the greatest male dancer of the 20th century. |
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April 8th |
United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan, was born in Kumasi, Ghana. |
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April 30th |
American author, Larry Niven, was born in Los Angeles, California. He is a science fiction author best known for the highly successful Ringworld series of novels. |
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April 30th |
The animated cartoon short 'Porky's Hare Hunt' debuted in movie theatres. The short introduced the character of 'Happy Rabbit', who would later evolve into the now world famous character of 'Bugs Bunny'. |
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June 1st |
Baseball batters wore protective helmets for the first time. |
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June 14th |
The first Superman comic was printed as part of the Action Comics series. The comic book was published by Detective Comics, Inc., now known as DC comics. |
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August 20th |
American baseball player, Lou Gehrig, hit his 23rd career grand slam, a record still standing today. A grand Slam in baseball is a home run is hit while all bases are loaded. |
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August 21st |
American singer and actor, Kenny Rogers, was born in Houston, Texas. |
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August 25th |
British author, Frederick Forsyth, was born in Ashford, Kent. He is one of the most read thriller writers of the second half of the 20th century, best known for books such as, The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File and The Dogs of War. |
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August 29th |
American actor, Elliott Gould, was born in Brooklyn, New York. He was one of the most prominent American film actors in the early-1970s and was best known for playing Trapper John in Robert Altman's 1970 film MASH. |
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September 21st |
A Hurricane struck Long Island, New York causing the death of over 500 people. |
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September 29th |
The Munich Agreement was signed by the countries of Britain, France, Nazi Germany and Italy. Under the terms of the agreement Germany was allowed to occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. It is often referred to as the 'Munich betrayal' because of the military alliance between Czechoslovakia and France as well as between France and Britain, which was totally disregarded. |
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September 30th |
The League of Nations unanimously outlawed the intentional bombing of civilian populations. |
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October 1st |
Germany annexed the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. |
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October 12th |
The filming of the movie, The Wizard of Oz, began. It premiered on August 12, 1939. |
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October 22nd |
English actor, Derek Jacobi, was born in London. He is considered as one of the best actors of his generation who was knighted in 1994 knighted for his contribution to theatre. Like Laurence Olivier he was also knighted in Denmark. |
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October 22nd |
American actor, Christopher Lloyd, was born in Connecticut. He became famous for his part in the hit television series Taxi and his part in the Back to the Future trilogy of movies. |
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October 30th |
Orson Welles broadcast his radio play adaptation of H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds. The radio play supposedly caused a nationwide panic, in the United States, as many listeners believed that a Martian invasion was actually in progress. |
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November 10th |
Turkish, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, died at the age of 57. He was the founder and first President of the Republic of Turkey. |
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December 29th |
American actor, Jonathan Vincent 'Jon' Voight, was born in Yonkers, New York. He is an Academy award winning actor and the father of fellow actress Angelina Jolie. |