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Post by Admin on Sept 24, 2005 21:40:34 GMT
I love reading these..
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Post by Bizzie Lizzie on Sept 25, 2005 10:29:19 GMT
September 25th
Happy birthday to the happy couple
Actor, producer, director. Born Michael Kirk Douglas, on September 25, 1944, to actor Kirk Douglas and mother Diana Dill. He is the brother of Joel, Peter, and Eric.
Catherine Zeta Jones, actress and singer, born in Swansea, SC Wales, UK. She became known through her role in the BBC television series The Darling Buds of May (1991), and went on to feature-film success with The Mask of Zorro (1998), Entrapment (1999), The Haunting (1999), and High Fidelity (2000). Later films include Traffic (2000), in which she co-starred with husband Michael Douglas (married 2000), Chicago (2002, BAFTA and Oscar Best Supporting Actress), Intolerable Cruelty (2003), and The Terminal (2004)
1913 Chaplin signs with Keystone
On this day in 1913, 24-year-old Charlie Chaplin signs with Keystone, a production company known for its silent comedies, where he will make more than a dozen movies in the next year alone.
The son of London music hall entertainers, Chaplin began performing at a very young age. His father died when Chaplin was a toddler, and when his mother had a nervous breakdown, Chaplin and his older half-brother, Sydney, roamed London, where they danced on the streets and collected pennies in a hat. They eventually went to an orphanage and later joined the Eight Lancashire Lads, a children's dance troupe. When Chaplin was 17 years old, he developed his comedic skills with the help of Fred Karno's company, for which his half-brother was already a popular comedian.
Soon, Chaplin's bowler hat, out-turned feet, mustache, and walking cane became his trademark. He joined the Keystone company and filmed Making a Living, in which he played a mustachioed villain with a monocle. It wasn't long before he also worked on the other side of the camera, helping to direct his 12th film and directing his 13th, Caught in the Rain, entirely on his own.
Chaplin refined his signature character, Charlie the Tramp, and signed on with the Essanay Company in 1915 for $1,250 a week, plus a $10,000 bonus-a jump from the $175 that Keystone paid him. The next year, he signed with Mutual for $10,000 a week, plus a $150,000 bonus under a contract that required him to make 12 films annually but granted him complete creative control over the pictures. In 1918, he signed a contract with First National for $1 million for eight films. A masterful silent-film actor, Chaplin resisted the arrival of sound in movies. Indeed, in his first film that featured sound (City Lights in 1931), he only used music. His first true sound film was 1940's The Great Dictator, in which he mocked fascism.
Chaplin founded United Artists Corporation in 1919 with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and director D.W. Griffith. Chaplin married twice more, both times to teenage girls. His fourth wife, Oona O'Neill, who was 18 when she married the 54-year-old actor, was the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Though he had lived in the United States for 42 years, Chaplin never became a U.S. citizen. A vocal pacifist, Chaplin was accused of communist ties, which he denied. In 1952, immigration officials prevented Chaplin and his wife from re-entering the United States after a foreign tour. The couple did not return to the United States for 20 years; instead they settled in Switzerland with their eight children. Chaplin returned to America in 1972 to accept a special Academy Award for his contribution to the film industry. He was knighted Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin in 1975 and died two years later.
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Post by CmonYouSpurs on Sept 25, 2005 14:18:50 GMT
25 Sept
1513: The members of a Spanish expedition under Vasco Núñez de Balboa cross the Panamanian isthmus, becoming the first Europeans to see the Pacific Ocean.
Balboa, Vasco Núñez de (1475?-1519), Spanish explorer in America. He was born in Jerez de los Caballeros, Spain. Considered the first of the conquistadors (leaders of the Spanish conquest in the western hemisphere), Balboa is best known as the first European to see the Pacific Ocean. Balboa sailed to Venezuela in 1501 with an expedition led by Rodrigo de Bastidas. After exploring the southwestern Caribbean area with Bastidas, he became a planter on the island of Hispaniola. By 1510 the plantation had failed. Deep in debt and anxious to escape his creditors, Balboa fled to the settlement of San Sebastián on the coast of Colombia. When he found that San Sebastián had been attacked by Native Americans and was in ruins, Balboa persuaded its settlers to move to the Isthmus of Panama, which he had explored with Bastidas. There they founded a new settlement at Darién, and Balboa was elected governor. He arrested the expedition leader, whom Spain had chosen as governor, and sent him back to Spain. Balboa explored the inland areas and brought the Native Americans under Spanish rule. Unlike later conquistadors, he utilized diplomacy instead of force in dealing with the Native Americans. In 1513 Balboa was accused of treason by his enemies in Spain, who turned the king against him. In hope of winning the king’s favor with some new discovery, Balboa decided to find the rumored great sea on the other side of the isthmus. In September 1513, with 190 Spanish soldiers and 1000 Native Americans, he made the arduous westward journey from the Atlantic side of the isthmus through some of the thickest jungles on the continent. On September 29 he reached his destination, named it Mar del Sur (South Sea), and claimed it for Spain. It was later named the Pacific Ocean by Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan in 1520. Balboa notified Spain of his discovery and sent gifts of gold and pearls he had found. The king, however, sent a new governor, Pedrarias Dávila, to be Balboa’s superior. The two became bitter rivals. Balboa’s successes caused Pedrarias to envy and hate him. Pedrarias had him arrested, convicted of treason, and beheaded in January 1519. Panama honors Balboa by naming its monetary unit, the balboa, after him.
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Post by CmonYouSpurs on Sept 26, 2005 17:26:25 GMT
26 Sept
1580: The British ship the Golden Hind, commanded by Sir Francis Drake, returns from its around-the-world journey bearing a cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasure.
Drake, Sir Francis (1540?-96), English navigator and explorer, born near Tavistock. He served an apprenticeship as a mariner, and in 1567 he was given his first command. His ship, the Judith, was one of a squadron of vessels led by a kinsman of Drake, the English navigator Sir John Hawkins, on a slave-trading voyage in the Gulf of Mexico. All but two ships of the expedition were lost when attacked by a Spanish squadron. In 1570 and 1571 Drake made two profitable trading voyages to the West Indies. In 1572 he commanded two vessels in a marauding expedition against Spanish ports in the Caribbean Sea. During this voyage, Drake first saw the Pacific Ocean; he captured the port of Nombre de Dios on the Isthmus of Panama and destroyed the nearby town of Portobelo. He returned to England with a cargo of Spanish silver and a reputation as a brilliant privateer. He was sent next to Ireland to help quell the rebellion there from 1573 to 1576.
In 1577 Drake was secretly commissioned by Elizabeth I, queen of England, to undertake an expedition against the Spanish colonies on the Pacific coast of the New World. With five ships and 166 men, Drake set sail from Plymouth, England, on December 13, 1577. After crossing the Atlantic Ocean, two of the ships had to be abandoned in the Río de la Plata estuary of South America. In August 1578 the three remaining ships left the Atlantic Ocean and entered the Strait of Magellan at the southern tip of the South American continent. Sixteen days later they sailed into the Pacific Ocean. A series of violent storms, lasting more than 50 days, destroyed one ship. Another sailed back to England. Drake, blown far south, sailed on in his flagship, the Golden Hind.
The lone vessel moved northward along the Pacific coast of South America, plundering Valparaíso and other Spanish ports; Drake also captured Spanish ships and subsequently made use of their more accurate charts. Seeking an eastward passage back to the Atlantic Ocean, Drake continued to sail north, possibly reaching as far as latitude 48° North, near the present U.S.-Canadian border. Unable to find a passage, he came about and headed south. The Golden Hind put in for repairs at an inlet (now called Drake's Bay) north of present-day San Francisco. Drake claimed the land for England, naming it New Albion.
On July 23, 1579, Drake set sail again, this time heading westward across the Pacific Ocean. In November he reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the southwest Pacific. He stopped at Sulawesi (Celebes) and Java, islands of Indonesia, rounded the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa, and reached England in September 1580. Bearing a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasure, he was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the world. Seven months later he was knighted aboard the Golden Hind by Queen Elizabeth. He became mayor of Plymouth in 1581 and served as a member of Parliament in 1584 and 1585.
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Later in 1585 Drake sailed again with a large fleet for the West Indies. He raided many Spanish settlements, including Saint Augustine in present-day Florida. Before returning, he put in at the first English colony in the New World, on Roanoke Island, off the coast of what is now North Carolina, and brought the unsuccessful colonists back to England. According to tradition, Drake introduced tobacco to England as a result of this visit to North America.
In 1587 war with Spain was recognized as imminent, and Drake was dispatched by the queen to destroy the fleet being assembled by the Spanish in the harbor of Cádiz. He accomplished most of his purpose and in the following year served as vice admiral of the English fleet that defeated the rebuilt Spanish Armada. In 1589 Drake was unsuccessful in an expedition designed to destroy the few remaining Spanish ships. He returned to Plymouth and to Parliament. In 1595 the queen sent Drake and Hawkins on an expedition against the Spanish forces in the West Indies. This mission as well was a failure. Both Drake and Hawkins contracted dysentery in the Caribbean, and their bodies were buried at sea.
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Post by Bizzie Lizzie on Sept 27, 2005 6:00:28 GMT
September 27th
1935 Judy Garland signs with MGM
On this day in 1935, 13-year-old singer and actress Judy Garland signs her first contract with MGM.
Garland was born Frances Gumm in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, in 1922. Her parents ran a movie theater, and Frances soon joined her older sisters in a vaudeville act preceding the show. Later, she and her sisters toured the vaudeville circuit together as "The Gumm Sisters' Kiddy Act." The sisters later took the stage name Garland, and Frances changed her name to Judy when she was 10.
The sisters didn't achieve much success, but Judy landed an audition with MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, and he signed her immediately. After several shorts, she made Thoroughbreds Don't Cry (1937), co-starring Mickey Rooney. The two adolescents would appear in nine films together. In 1939, Garland became a major star after playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, a role originally intended for Shirley Temple. She received a special juvenile Oscar for her performance.
In 1941, Garland married orchestra leader David Rose. The couple divorced in 1945, and Garland married director Vincente Minnelli, who had directed her in the hit Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). The couple had a daughter, Liza Minnelli, but divorced in 1951.
Garland's career during the next two decades was checkered with drug abuse, nervous breakdowns, suicide attempts, and more failed marriages. MGM fired her in 1950 after she began showing up erratically for shoots. Still, the 1950s brought impressive performances, including triumphant engagements in London and New York. She received an Oscar nomination for A Star Is Born (1954) and another for her supporting role in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961). In 1969, she died from an overdose of sleeping pills.
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Post by specialk on Sept 27, 2005 8:35:55 GMT
Judy Garland what a star - what a woman and ohhhhh the Wizard of Oz is one of my fav films. That witch is fantastic and has amazing brooms. La la lalalaa somewhere over the rainbow, way up high lalalalallalalalala ps is there a singing smilie I think I definately need one lalalalal lalala lala pps I love reading these too- thanks lizzie
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Post by CmonYouSpurs on Sept 27, 2005 13:50:16 GMT
Sept 27
1942: American bandleader Glenn Miller makes his last performance with his orchestra in Passaic, New Jersey, before enlisting in the U.S. Army, where he will lead an all-star band until his death in 1944.
Miller, Glenn (1904-1944), American jazz bandleader, arranger, and trombone player, who led the most popular dance band of the late 1930s and early 1940s. Miller was a capable trombonist and an excellent arranger. His distinctive use of clarinet lead over four saxophones became his trademark and contributed to his success.
Miller was born Alton Glenn Miller in Clarinda, Iowa. He grew up in Colorado. Before starting his own band, Miller led a busy career as a dance band and studio trombonist, working in the bands of American bandleaders Ben Pollack (1927) and Red Nichols (1929-1930). In 1934 Miller worked with the Dorsey Brothers Band, and later joined English bandleader Ray Noble (1935) as a trombonist and arranger. Miller formed his own swing orchestra in 1937, but the group met with little success until 1939, when the band received extensive radio airplay during engagements at the Meadowbrook Ballroom in New Jersey and the Glen Island Casino in New York. A number of Miller's songs became hits that year, including “Little Brown Jug,””Sunrise Serenade,””Moonlight Serenade” (the band's theme song), and Miller's biggest hit, “In the Mood.”
In a move that stunned the music world, Miller disbanded his orchestra in September 1942 and enlisted in the United States Army. He formed the 42-piece, all-star Army Air Force Band, which entertained World War II service personnel with regular radio broadcasts in the United States (1943) and in England (1944). In December 1944, Miller died when his small plane, headed to Paris, France, disappeared over the English Channel during bad weather. The exact circumstances of his death have never been determined. American drummer Ray McKinley assumed direction of the band and subsequently led a reorganized version of the Glenn Miller Orchestra from 1955 to 1966. Other leaders of the band include American clarinetist Buddy DeFranco and American trombonists Jimmy Henderson and Buddy Morrow. American trombonist Larry O'Brien assumed leadership of the orchestra in 1981. Miller's life and career were portrayed in the 1953 movie The Glenn Miller Story, which starred American actor Jimmy Stewart.
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Post by specialk on Sept 27, 2005 15:10:07 GMT
oh and thanks to spurs too
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Post by reg on Sept 28, 2005 8:44:15 GMT
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR INVADES ENGLAND: September 28, 1066
Claiming his right to the English throne, William, duke of Normandy, invades England at Pevensey on Britain's southeast coast. His subsequent defeat of King Harold II at the Battle of Hastings marked the beginning of a new era in British history.
William was the illegitimate son of Robert I, duke of Normandy, by his concubine Arlette, a tanner's daughter from the town of Falaise. The duke, who had no other sons, designated William his heir, and with his death in 1035 William became duke of Normandy at age seven. Rebellions were epidemic during the early years of his reign, and on several occasions the young duke narrowly escaped death. Many of his advisers did not. By the time he was 20, William had become an able ruler and was backed by King Henry I of France. Henry later turned against him, but William survived the opposition and in 1063 expanded the borders of his duchy into the region of Maine.
In 1051, William is believed to have visited England and met with his cousin Edward the Confessor, the childless English king. According to Norman historians, Edward promised to make William his heir. On his deathbed, however, Edward granted the kingdom to Harold Godwine, head of the leading noble family in England and more powerful than the king himself.
In January 1066, King Edward died, and Harold Godwine was proclaimed King Harold II. William immediately disputed his claim. In addition, King Harald III Hardraade of Norway had designs on England, as did Tostig, brother of Harold. King Harold rallied his forces for an expected invasion by William, but Tostig launched a series of raids instead, forcing the king to leave the English Channel unprotected. In September, Tostig joined forces with King Harald III and invaded England from Scotland. On September 25, Harold met them at Stamford Bridge and defeated and killed them both. Three days later, William landed in England at Pevensey.
With approximately 7,000 troops and cavalry, William seized Pevensey and marched to Hastings, where he paused to organize his forces. On October 13, Harold arrived near Hastings with his army, and the next day William led his forces out to give battle. At the end of a bl**dy, all-day battle, King Harold II was killed--shot in the eye with an arrow, according to legend--and his forces were defeated.
William then marched on London and received the city's submission. On Christmas Day, 1066, William the Conqueror was crowned the first Norman king of England, in Westminster Abbey, and the Anglo-Saxon phase of English history came to an end. French became the language of the king's court and gradually blended with the Anglo-Saxon tongue to give birth to modern English. William I proved an effective king of England, and the "Domesday Book," a great census of the lands and people of England, was among his notable achievements. Upon the death of William I in 1087, his son, William Rufus, became William II, the second Norman king of England.
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Post by CmonYouSpurs on Sept 29, 2005 8:00:46 GMT
29 Sept
1829: Legislation introduced by Sir Robert Peel reorganizes the London police force. Thereafter, London police will be known as "bobbies," named after Peel.
Metropolitan Police Service Scotland Yard first patrolled the streets of London on this day in 1829. The name Scotland Yard is most associated with the Metropolitan Police Service's Criminal Investigation Department. The department's official Web site offers historical information.
Peel, Sir Robert (1788-1850), British prime minister and founder of the modern Conservative party.
Peel was born February 5, 1788, near Bury, Lancashire, England, and educated at Harrow School and the University of Oxford. He entered the House of Commons in 1809, and in 1811, he became a cabinet member as undersecretary for war and for the colonies. From 1812 to 1818, as chief secretary for Ireland, he suppressed Irish agitation for increased freedom for Roman Catholics. In 1822 he reentered the cabinet as home secretary. He distinguished himself in this post through a series of penal reforms and, in 1829, by reorganizing the London metropolitan police force, thereafter called “bobbies,” after his first name. Although he had successfully opposed a Roman Catholic emancipation bill in 1817, Peel later recognized the explosiveness of the Irish situation. He introduced and carried through the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, granting Roman Catholics political equality.
In 1834-35 Peel was prime minister for four months. During the next six years, he established the modern Conservative party as a major political force by attracting such men as the later prime ministers Benjamin Disraeli and William Gladstone. In the general elections of 1841, the Conservatives gained a majority, and Peel formed the first Conservative ministry. Peel's ministry was notable for introducing an income tax and for revising the British banking laws. Most important, he reversed his earlier opposition to free trade and urged repeal of the Corn Laws. Although repeal was approved in 1846, the controversy over the measure was so great that Peel was forced to resign. He continued to serve in Parliament until his death, in London, on July 2, 1850.
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Post by reg on Sept 29, 2005 12:57:08 GMT
1930 Dracula filming begins
Filming begins on the classic horror film Dracula, starring Bela Lugosi. Lugosi was born in Hungary, where he made a name for himself on stage and screen. In 1921, he emigrated to the United States and in 1927 scored a great stage success playing the title role in the play Dracula. The film version of Dracula was so successful that Lugosi was identified with the role for the rest of his life. He spent the next 20 years starring in horror films. When he died in 1956, Lugosi was buried with his Dracula cape.
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Post by CmonYouSpurs on Sept 30, 2005 10:00:53 GMT
30 Sept
1955: Actor James Dean dies at the age of 24 in an automobile accident in California, having starred in only three motion pictures.
Dean, James (1931-1955), American actor on film, stage, and television, whose early death in an automobile accident contributed to his enduring legend. Dean was born in Marion, Indiana, and was educated in California at Santa Monica Junior College and the University of California at Los Angeles. During his first attempt to break into Hollywood motion pictures, Dean achieved only bit parts and work in television commercials. He then acted in two plays on Broadway ( See the Jaguar,1952 and The Immoralist,1954) before being tapped for his first leading film role, as the rebellious son in East of Eden (1955). Director Elia Kazan, who earlier set actor Marlon Brando on the road to fame, directed the film and helped launch Dean's career. With the film, Dean became a new icon of the naturalistic “method” acting style embraced by Brando. Another troubled-teen part, in Nicholas Ray's Rebel Without a Cause (1955), confirmed Dean as the symbol of alienation and volatility among 1950s youth. In his next film, Dean continued to epitomize rebellion, playing a defiant role as an adult in George Stevens's epic of modern Texas, Giant (1956).
After Dean's death on September 30, 1955, adoring fans grieved and a cult of personality developed around the Dean mystique. Dean was posthumously nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award for East of Eden and again for Giant.
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