On this date in . . .
1587:
Mary, Queen of Scots, was
beheaded at Fotheringhay Castle in England after she was implicated in a plot to murder
her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.
1865: American YMCA director Lewis E. Jones was born . He wrote the enduring hymn,
"Power in the Blood."
1922:
President Warren Harding had the
first radio installed in the White House.
1960: Congress opened an investigation into
widespread charges of "payola" that disc jockeys were being paid to play certain
records. The accused included deejays Alan Freed and Dick Clark. Clark came through the
scandal unscathed, but Freed never worked in radio again.
1968: The film "Planet of the Apes,"
starring Charleton Heston, Roddy McDowell, and Kim Hunter, opened through the U.S.
1986: Hosting "Saturday Night Live," Ron
Reagan sang "Old Time Rock & Roll" in his shorts.
1989: A reedited version of the movie
"Lawrence of Arabia" opened in New York City. Director David Lean revealed that
due to an earlier editing mistake, for 20 years the camels had been moving in the wrong
direction and nobody noticed.
1990: Singer Del Shannon shot himself in the head
with a .22 caliber rifle at his home in Santa Clarita, California. He was 50
years old. Shannon’s first and biggest hit was "Runaway," number one in the
U.S. for four weeks beginning April 24, 1961
1994: Actor Jack Nicholson attacked a car with a
golf club.
1998: A rat grounded a 60-ton Swissair jetliner for
two days until airline workers finally trapped it using cured ham as bait. Officials
refused to say if the rat was traveling first class or coach.
2000:
A man allegedly tricked Little Rock
police into immediately searching for his stolen car by telling them that his daughter was
asleep in the back seat. Police found the car in less than two hours. But the 30-year-old
man was charged with a felony for filing a false police report. Police said he had no
daughter.
2003:
A romeo was stuck on the frozen
roof for two hours after his romantic encounter was interrupted by his lover's husband.
The naked man climbed through the bedroom window when the husband arrived unexpectedly.
The window lead on to the roof and the man was too scared to jump down so he was stuck for
two hours in the middle of the night until a neighbor spotted him and called police.
2004:
At the Grammy Awards, OutKast won
album of the year for "Speakerboxxx-The Love Below" and Beyonce
took home five Grammies, tying the record for female performers held by Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keyes and Norah Jones.
Birthdays: