Historical Events
1940 – “The Fifth Column”, a play by Ernest Hemingway and adapted by Benjamin Glazer premieres in NYC courtesy of the Theater Guild
1954 – US performs atmospheric nuclear test at Bikini Island
2017 – Mass protests in Chile over country’s privatised pension system
2018 – US soldier receives world’s first penis and scrotum transplant at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland
2020 – American cases of COVID-19 exceed all other countries on this date, with 81,578 cases and 1,180 deaths (New York Times)
Famous Birthdays
1896 – Rudolf Dassler, German entrepreneur (founder sportswear company Puma), born in Herzogenaurach, Germany (d. 1974)
1898 – Renzo Massarani, Italian-Brazilian composer and music critic, born in Mantova, Italy (d. 1975)
1929 – Charles Dumont, French songwriter (“Non, je ne regrette rien”, “Mon Dieu”), and singer, born in Cahors, France (d. 2024)
1936 – Fred Parris, American doo-wop singer and songwriter (The Five Satins – “In The Still Of The Night”), born in New Haven, Connecticut (d. 2022)
1977 – Sylvain Grenier, Canadian professional wrestler (WWE Raw, WWE Smackdown!), born in Montreal, Québec
Famous Deaths
1736 – Georg Balthasar Schott, German composer, dies at 49
1857 – Wei Yuan, Chinese scholar and geographer of Qing Dynasty, dies at 62
1924 – Augusto (de Oliveira) Machado, Portuguese composer (Lauriane; Camões es os Luziadas), dies at 78
1973 – Noël Coward, English playwright (Hay Fever; Private Lives), director (In Which We Serve -1942 Academy Award), actor and singer, dies of heart failure at 73
1995 – Eazy-E [Eric Lynn Wright], American rapper (N.W.A.), dies from AIDS-related illness at 30