Happy Saturday, kiddies! Remember to take some time out of your busy day to remember dog biscuits.
Interrogatories
Do you play a musical instrument? What instrument do you wish you played, and who do you wish you played like? Who do you wish you could sing like? What's the best Saturday morning cartoon of all time? Should there be nuts in banana bread? Who is your favorite lyricist?
The Twitter Emitter
On This Day
In 532, Byzantine Emperor Justinian I ordered the building of a new Orthodox Christian basilica in Constantinople - the Hagia Sophia, which still stands today.
In 1836, the siege of the Alamo began in San Antonio, Texas.
In 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln arrived secretly in Washington to take office after an assassination plot was foiled in Baltimore.
In 1903, Cuba leased Guantánamo Bay to the United States "in perpetuity".
In 1927, President Calvin Coolidge signed a bill creating the Federal Radio Commission (later replaced by the Federal Communications Commission) which was to regulate the use of radio frequencies in the United States.
In 1941, plutonium was first produced and isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg.
In 1954, the first mass inoculation of children against polio with the Salk vaccine began, in Pittsburgh. There were anti-vaxxers then, too.
In 2011, the Obama administration said it would no longer defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act, a federal law banning recognition of same-sex marriage.
Born on This Day
1417 - Pope Paul II (d. 1471)
1633 - Samuel Pepys, English naval administrator and man of letters, posthumously famous as a diarist (d. 1703)
1817 - George Frederick Watts, British painter (d. 1904)
1831 - Hendrik Willem Mesdag, Dutch marine painter, (d. 1915)
1850 - César Ritz, Swiss hotelier (d. 1918)
1868 - W. E. B. Du Bois, American civil rights leader (d. 1963)
1878 - Kazimir Malevich, Ukrainian painter and art theorist (d. 1935)
1884 - Hermann Courtens, Belgian painter (d. 1956)
1884 - Frank Cellier, English actor (d. 1948)
1886 - Antonio Alice, Argentine portrait painter (d. 1943)
1889 - Victor Fleming, American director (d. 1949)
1889 - Musidora, French actress and director (d. 1957)
1901 - Edgar Ende, German painter (d. 1965)
1932 - Majel Barrett, American actress (d. 2008)
1938 - Diane Varsi, American actress (d. 1992)
1940 - Peter Fonda, American actor
1944 - Johnny Winter, American musician
1946 - Rusty Young, American country-rock guitarist (Poco)
1952 - Brad Whitford, American musician (Aerosmith)
1958 - David Sylvian, English musician (Japan and Nine Horses)
1967 - Chris Vrenna, American musician, producer and sound engineer (Nine Inch Nails and Tweaker)
1973 - Lars-Olof Johansson, Swedish musician (The Cardigans)
1976 - Kelly Macdonald, British actress
1983 - Emily Blunt, British actress
Died on This Day
1447 - Pope Eugene IV (b. 1383)
1507 - Gentile Bellini, Italian painter (b. 1429)
1792 - Joshua Reynolds, English painter (b. 1723)
1930 - Horst Wessel, Nazi ideologue and composer (b. 1907)
1930 - Mabel Normand, silent film star (b. 1892)
1944 - Leo Hendrik Baekeland, Flemish-American chemist and inventor of the first synthetic plastic, Bakelite (b. 1863)
1965 - Stan Laurel, British actor and comedian (b. 1890)
1974 - Florence Rice, American actress (b. 1907)
1995 - Melvin Franklin, American singer (The Temptations) (b. 1942)
1995 - James Herriot, English writer (b. 1916)
1997 - Tony Williams, American jazz drummer (b. 1945)
Today is
National Banana Bread Day
Dog Biscuit Appreciation Day
Play Tennis Day