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2009: Day 203

I'm trying to alter this a little, to make it both easier and more enjoyable to put together, as in the end I'm doing all of this for my own entertainment and edification.

On this date in 1587 the second, also apparently doomed set of colonists landed on Roanoke Island off the coast of North Caroline.

Until poking around I'd never heard of the Preparedness Day bombing in San Francisco in 1916, but there it was.

A not-so-great day in the U.S. space program, today in 1962 Mariner 1, intended to be a Venus fly-by mission, started to fly erratically after take-off and was destroyed before it could become a menace.

In the world of music, today's birthdays include Rufus Wainwright (36), singer/songwriter & half of the Indigo Girls, Emily Saliers (46), pianist, theater and film composer Alan Menken (60), singer/songwriter Don Henley (62), Supertramp's Rick Davies (65), once-tean idol Bobby Sherman (66). If you're feeling Funkedelic today, blame it on George Clinton, who turns 68 today.

Sculptor, artist and inventor of the mobile, Alexander Calder was born today in 1898. Eisner-nominated comic book artist/penciler Seth Fisher would have turned 37 today, but a fall froma seven story rook in Osaka, Japan back in 2006 stopped time for him.

You may not know you know artist Edward Hopper (b, 1882), but chances are you're at least familiar with one of his works -- the 1942 painting Nighthawks.

Kennedy matriarch Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy was born today in 1890. Bob Dole says Bob Dole is 86 today.

Susan Eloise Hinton, author of The Outsiders, turns 59 today. Somewhat abstract novelist Tom Robbins (73) also has his birthday today.

Director (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Invisible Man) James Whale was born today in 1889. Sharing the day is writer/director Paul Schrader (63).

I hope you've been saving up some dirty Jeopardy jokes, as Alex Trebek turns 69 today.


Actors celebrating birthdays today include Colin Ferguson (37), star of SyFy's Eureka (a show I watched early episodes of before wandering off), actor/comedian David Spade (45), John Leguizamo (45), Willem Dafoe (54), who will apparently be playing Martian Tars Tarkas in the John Carter, Warlord of Mars movies set to begin filming next year. Also, comedic actor Albert Brooks (62) - born Albert Einstein.

Danny Glover has more reason to say "I'm getting to old for this" as he turns 63 today. While you're under no obligation to kneel before Zod, at least remember that Terence Stamp turns 70 today. I have to admire someone who managed to get into even more bizarre costumes than that of a Kryptonian criminal.


Also, Louise Fletcher (75), who I'll always first think of as Nurse Ratched.


One of those minor Hollywood lights -- I really only remember him as a game show panelist and from an episode of Twilight Zone, Orson Bean turns 81 today.

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