This Day…

1952 – In the Peanuts comic strip, Lucy first held a football for Charlie Brown.

1889 – New York World reporter Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Cochrane) began an attempt to surpass the fictitious journey of Jules Verne’s Phileas Fogg by traveling around the world in less than 80 days. Bly succeeded by finishing the journey the following January in 72 days, 6 hours and 11 minutes.

1938 – Kate Smith first sang Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” on network radio.

1888 – Jack Ripper’s 5th and probably last victim, Mary Jane Kelly, found on her bed.

1904 – George M. Cohan‘s 1st full-length musical “Little Johnny Jones”, featuring the songs “Yankee Doodle Dandy” and “Give My Regards To Broadway”, opens at the Liberty Theatre, NYC; runs for 52 performances be before going on tour.

1912 – Arizona, Kansas & Wisconsin vote for female suffrage

1883 – American Old West: Self-described “Black Bart the poet” gets away with his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves an incriminating clue that eventually leads to his capture

1967 – The film classic Cool Hand Luke opened in American theatres, and it became especially known for Paul Newman‘s performance in one of his iconic antihero roles.

1962 – American author John Steinbeck awarded Nobel Prize for Literature

1973 – American playwright and screenwriter Neil Simon (46) weds actress Marsha Mason (31)