National Trivia Day Celebrated in the U.S.  So spend some time reading this list without feeling guilty.

1990 Manuel Noriega surrenders to the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges.

1989 Two U.S. Navy F-14 fighters shoot down two Libyan MiG-23 fighters

1988 Jesse Jackson reveals that he was once addicted to a pain killer, although only for less than a day.

1987 Rev. Oral Roberts announces "God will call me home" if he doesn't raise $4,500,000 in three months.

1982 Sally Forth comic strip, by Greg Howard, begins syndication.

1980 Pres. Carter announces punitive measures to be taken against the USSR in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

1977 First woman major-league baseball play-by-play TV announcer is hired, Mary Shane for the Chicago White Sox.

1936 First pop music best-seller chart is published, in The Billboard.

1912 The Moon reaches its closest distance from the Earth for this century (221,441 miles).

1896 Utah becomes the 45th state. Utah is Navajo for "higher up."

1950 Masha and Dasha Krivoshlyapovy Russian Siamese twins, the only known Siamese twins having 2 heads, 4 arms, and 2 legs. Source: Guinness Book of World Records

1937 Dyan Cannon (Samille Diane Friesen), American actress. Film: Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) and Heaven Can Wait (1978).

1935 Floyd Patterson heavyweight boxing champion (1956-59, 1960-62). He was the first boxer to regain the world heavyweight title.

1930 Sorrell Booke d. 1994 American actor. TV: Dukes of Hazzard (Boss Hogg).

1927 Thomas Noguchi Los Angeles County coroner, performed autopsies on Marilyn Monroe (1962), Robert Kennedy (1968), Janis Joplin (1970), and John Belushi (1982).

1917 Jesse White d. 1997 American actor. TV: The lonely Maytag repairman (1967-88).

1914 Jane Wyman (Sarah Jane Fulks), American Oscar-winning actress. Film: Johnny Belinda (1948, Oscar, deaf-mute rape victim). TV: Falcon Crest (Angela Channing). She is the ex-wife of Ronald Reagan.

1906 William Bendix d. 1964 American actor. TV: The Life of Riley (Chester Riley).

1857 Émile Cohl d. 1938 (Émile Eugène Jean Louis Courtet), French caricaturist, "The Father of the Animated Cartoon." He made what is considered the first fully-animated film (Fantasmagorie, 1908).  He also made the first puppet animation film. (View Fantasmagorie)

1838 General Tom Thumb d. 1883 (Charles Sherwood Stratton), American dwarf, 3 ft. 4 in. tall, travelled with P.T. Barnum. Source: Guinness Book of World Records

1822 Washington Charles DePauw d. 1887 American banker, for whom DePauw University is named.

1809 Louis Braille d. 1852 French teacher of the blind. Blind since the age of three, he created the Braille reading system for the blind.

1785 Jakob Ludwig Karl Grimm d. 1863 German author. He and his brother wrote Grimm's Fairy Tales (1812-15).

1999 Iron Eyes Cody b. 1904 (Espera DeCorti), American actor. Film: Sitting Bull (1954) and A Man Called Horse (1970). He was featured in the teary-eyed ecology TV commercials.

1990 Charles Stewart b. ???? American murderer. He killed his pregnant wife and shot himself (October 1989), blaming it on a fictional black robber who jumped into his car. He committed suicide when his story began to unravel.

1986 Christopher Isherwood b. 1904 English-born American author. Writings: Goodbye Berlin (1939, a collection of short stories including Sally Bowles upon which the musical Cabaret was based).

1965 T.S. Eliot b. 1888 (Thomas Stearns Eliot), American Nobel-winning poet, playwright.

1960 Dudley Nichols b. 1895 American screenwriter. He became the first person to refuse an Oscar (1935, Best Screenplay for The Informer).

1941 Henri Louis Bergson b. 1859 French philosopher, Nobel-winning author. His Creative Evolution redefined evolution.

1877 Cornelius Vanderbilt b. 1794 American railroad magnate, and for whom Vanderbilt University is named.

1854 Thomas Campbell b. 1763 Irish religious leader. He and his son founded the Church of the Disciples of Christ in America.

1821 Elizabeth Ann Seton b. 1774 first American-born Roman Catholic saint (canonized 1975). She founded the U.S. branch of the Sisters of Charity (1809).

1789 Thomas Nelson b. 1738 American patriot, signer of the Declaration of Independence, governor of Virginia (1781).

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