Interrogatories
If accidental radiation exposure turned you into a giant monster, where would you rampage and what sort of havoc would you wreak?
If you could pick any song other than "The Star Spangled Banner" to be the national anthem, what would you pick?
If you could take any song as your own anthem, what would it be?
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On This Day
In 1775, the American Revolutionary War started with the battles of Lexington and Concord.
In 1933, the United States went off the gold standard.
In 1943, tens of thousands of Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto began an uprising against Nazi forces.
In 1993, the 51-day siege at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, ended when the structure was destroyed by fire after federal agents smashed their way in. Dozens of people, including sect leader David Koresh, were killed, and some guy named Tim McVeigh was inspired to...
In 1995, a truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injuring 500. Tim McVeigh was later tried and executed for this crime.
In 1994, Rodney King was awarded $3.8 million by a jury for the beating he received at the hands of the LAPD.
In 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger of Germany was elected pope, taking the name Benedict XVI.
Born on This Day
1613 - Christoph Bach, court musician, grandfather of Johann Sebastian Bach (d. 1661)
1721 - Roger Sherman, American politician (d. 1793)
1795 - Jean Charles Joseph Rémond, French painter (d. 1875)
1798 - Heinrich Maria von Hess, German historical painter (d. 1863)
1834 - Grigoriy Myasoyedov, Russian painter (d. 1911)
1849 - Eva Gonzales, French painter (d. 1883)
1854 - Charles Angrand, French artist (d. 1926)
1854 - Arturo Ricci, Italian painter (d. 1919)
1874 - Ernst Rüdin, Swiss psychiatrist, geneticist, and eugenicist (d. 1952)
1883 - Richard von Mises, Austrian mathematician (d. 1953)
1887 - John Taylor Arms, American printmaker (d. 1953)
1891 - Françoise Rosay, French actress and singer (d. 1974)
1896 - Niklaus Stöcklin, Swiss painter (d. 1982)
1897 - Constance Talmadge, American actress (d. 1973)
1899 - George O'Brien, American actor (d. 1985)
1903 - Eliot Ness, American lawman (d. 1957)
1907 - Lina Basquette, American actress (d. 1994)
1925 - Hugh O'Brian, American actor
1932 - Fernando Botero, Colombian artist
1933 - Jayne Mansfield, American actress and pin-up (d. 1967)
1935 – Dudley Moore, English actor, comedian, and composer (d. 2002)
940 - Genya Ravan, American singer (Goldie & the Gingerbreads and Ten Wheel Drive)
1942 - Alan Price, English musician (The Animals)
1944 - Bernie Worrell, American keyboardist and composer
1946 - Tim Curry, British actor
1947 - Mark Volman, American musician (The Turtles and The Mothers Of Invention)
1954 - Bob Rock, Canadian musician and producer (The Payolas)
1957 - Tony Martin, English singer and musician (Black Sabbath and Phenomena)
1968 - Ashley Judd, American actress
1978 - James Franco, American actor
1979 - Kate Hudson, American actress
Died on This Day
1390 - Robert II of Scotland (b. 1316)
1560 - Philipp Melanchthon, German humanist and reformer (b. 1497)
1588 - Paolo Veronese, Italian painter (b. 1528)
1618 - Thomas Bastard, English clergyman (b. 1566)
1689 - Christina of Sweden (b. 1626)
1824 - George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, English poet (b. 1788)
1870 - Andreas Schelfout, Dutch painter (b. 1787)
1881 - Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, English politician, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1804)
1882 - Charles Darwin, English biologist (b. 1809)
1906 - Pierre Curie, French physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1859)
1926 - Alexander Alexandrovich Chuprov, Russian statistician (b. 1874)
1939 - Rudolf Wacker, Austrian painter (b. 1893)
1989 - Dame Daphne du Maurier, British novelist (b. 1907)
1997 - Eldon Hoke, American singer and drummer aka El Duce (The Mentors, who got a huge boost after Tippor Gore railed against them) (b. 1958)
2005 - Ruth Hussey, American actress (b. 1911)
2009 - J.G. Ballard, British novelist (b. 1930)
2012 - Levon Helm, American musician and actor (The Band) (b. 1940)
Today is
Bicycle Day
National Amaretto Day
National Garlic Day
Dutch-America Friendship Day
National Hanging Out Day
National DNA Day