December 8, 2023
QUOTE
How can a man take a bowel movement with a hundred buffalo rifles a-pointin’ at him?
--Slim Pickens
BIRTHDAYS
1765 – Eli Whitney, Engineer, invented the cotton gin
1861 – William C. Durant, Businessman, founded General Motors and Chevrolet
1894 – E. C. Segar, Cartoonist, created Popeye (d. 1938)
1894 – James Thurber, Humorist and cartoonist
1925 – Sammy Davis, Jr., Actor, singer, and dancer
IN MEMORY
1982 – Marty Robbins, Singer-songwriter and race car driver
1983 – Slim Pickens, Actor
1984 – Razzle, English drummer
2019 – René Auberjonois, Actor
2019 – Caroll Spinney, Puppeteer and actor
IN ON THIS DAY
1914 – A squadron of Britain’s Royal Navy defeats the Imperial German East Asia Squadron in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.
1941 – U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares December 7 to be “a date which will live in infamy”, after which the U.S. declares war on Japan.
1953 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower delivers his “Atoms for Peace” speech, which leads to an American program to supply equipment and information on nuclear power to schools, hospitals, and research institutions around the world.
1980 – John Lennon is murdered by Mark David Chapman in front of The Dakota in New York City.[3]
2010 – With the second launch of the Falcon 9 and the first launch of the Dragon, SpaceX becomes the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft
2019 – First confirmed case of COVID-19 in China.