Over at the National Archives, today’s Document for Today is a letter from Richard Nixon to baseball legend Jackie Robinson, just prior to the presidential election of 1960.
Nixon thanks Robinson for his support, with a lot of yakety-yak about civil rights that now sounds pretty phony. Robinson supported Nixon over Kennedy in that election. Nixon lost that one.
Rapper Lil Wayne was released from jail today, after serving 8 months of a 12 month sentence.
From Lil Wayne’s Twitter account.
Thanks to the Huffington Post for this fashion (wink, wink) show by Mad Men star January Jones.
(2008 photo supplied by WENN.com)
According to this story in the Daily Mail, famous TV chef and restaurateur Gordon Ramsay continues on a financial slide.
Last year he admitted things weren’t going so grand. He sold off his Ferrari, closed several of his high-end restaurants, and tried to reorganize his empire.
Today is Adam Ant’s birthday. He’s 56.
Not even historical revisionism has saved the reputation of President Warren G. Harding. Not yet, anyway.
Harding still comes in last in most rankings of U.S. presidents. Even if he did have a famous dog.
Eight years after Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her home in Salt Lake City, Utah, the trial for accused kidnapper Brian David Mitchell begins today in federal court.
Smart was 14 years old when she was kidnapped in 2002, taken from her home on the night of 5 June. She was missing until 12 March 2003, when she was found in a Salt Lake City suburb with Mitchell and his wife, Wanda Ilene Barzee.
Ted Sorensen has died of a stroke in New York City. He was 82 years old.
Yesterday Radar Online featured this “bizarre audio” of a statement by actor Randy Quaid.
Quaid explains his (and his wife’s) strange behavior of the last few months as his attempt to get himself free of shadowy group of accountants and lawyers he calls “a malignant tumor of star whackers in Hollywood.”
If you were on a deserted desert island, and the only way to get off was to think about Hollywood’s most famous fashion designer, wouldn’t you think of Head? Of course you would. Edith Head is easily the most famous costume designer in Hollywood history. And today is her birthday.
She costumed more than a thousand films (11 of them for Alfred Hitchcock, and she won 8 Oscars over a career that spanned sixty years.
In her honor, here are a few videos:
John Cleese of Monty Python’s Flying Circus was born on this day in 1939.
Here’s a very young (and clean-cut) Frank Zappa on the old Steve Allen show.
Even though Steve Allen is clearly mocking Frank for being a “bicycle player” (which is what this clip is about), it’s good to remember that Steve Allen was with-it enough to invite Zappa to appear.
Frank Zappa, for his part, is very cool and very clever.
Hillary Clinton turns 63 today. Happy birthday, Madam Secretary of State!
What a career she’s had. Working for the U.S. Congress, she helped put the screws to President Richard Nixon in 1974. She was the First Lady of Arkansas for twelve years. She stayed married to that guy in the White House and was First Lady of the United States for eight years. She was a U.S. senator for the state of New York for about eight years.
Somewhere, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is celebrating. Paul the Octopus has died.
Quite possibly.
File this under “weird but true.”Cuddly children’s TV host Mister Rogers was never an Army sniper, despite the rumors over the years. Neither was cuddly, bespectacled singer John Denver.
Mr. Hehn has posted a new biography of Robert Bork.
Actor Matt Damon (right) with his father, Kent Damon, last month at the premiere of the Boston-based heist movie The Town.
Quick quiz: Rank these actors, from oldest to youngest:
Here, from the German version of Fox Home Entertainment, is a trailer auf Deutsch for Gansgster für eine Nacht, starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey.
You may also know it as Date Night.