Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

September 29

1992
Patriot missile success rate disputed: The General Accounting Office reports a 9% success rate during the Gulf War as opposed to the Army's initial report of 80%

1992
Magic Johnson comes out of retirement to play for the Los Angeles Lakers after retiring less than a year earlier. He retired again for good before the season started.

1992
Dr. Benjamin Spock recommends that people should not drink cow's milk.

1988
Discovery launched: The space shuttle takes off, ending the 32-month U.S. absence from space since the Challenger disaster.

1987
thirtysomething debuts on ABC, showing us the everyday lives of baby-boomers.

1982
Tylenol murders: The first of seven Chicago-area residents die from cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules. The killer has never been caught.

1980
Jimmy's World: The Washington Post publishes a story by Janet Cooke about an eight-year-old heroin addict, for which she would win a Pulitzer prize. It was later revealed that she made the story up.

1977
First woman to judge a heavyweight boxing championship: Eva Shain referees the Muhammad Ali vs. Earnie Shavers fight at Madison Square Garden. (Source: Famous First Facts)

1960
Cold War: At a United Nations conference, Premier of the Soviet Union Nikita Khrushchev twice interrupts a speech by British prime minister Harold Macmillan by shouting out and pounding his desk. Macmillan famously commented, "I should like that to be translated if he wants to say anything."

1953
Make Room for Daddy debuts on ABC, starring Danny Thomas. It ran for 18 years.

1911
Italy declares war on the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire: Italy alleged that its citizens had been mistreated in Libya.

1892
First U.S. football night game: Mansfield State Normal School ties Wyoming Seminary (0-0).

1879
Ute War: The week-long Battle of Mill Creek in northwestern Colorado between the Ute Indians and the U.S. soldiers begins. The Utes were fighting to preserve their reservation.

1829
Scotland Yard: The Greater London's Metropolitan Police - now known as Scotland Yard - go on patrol.

1955
Ken Weatherwax, American actor. TV: The Addams Family (Pugsley).

1948
Bryant Gumbel, American TV sportscaster and Today show host.

1943
Lech Walesa, Polish union leader. He formed the labor union Solidarity (1980).

1942
Madeline Kahn, American actress, Paper Moon (1973), Blazing Saddles (1974), Young Frankenstein (1974), and History of the World - Part I (1981).

1941     d. 1983
Jon Brower Minnoch, American heavyweight, world's heaviest human weighing in at 1,387 pounds. (source: Guinness Book of World Records)

1939
Larry Linville, American actor. TV: M*A*S*H (Maj. Frank Burns).

1935
Jerry Lee Lewis, American rock 'n' roll singer. Music: Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (1957, #1) and Great Balls of Fire (1957, #1). He created a scandal in 1957 by marrying his 13-year-old cousin. (Source: Great Balls of Fire: The Uncensored Story of Jerry Lee Lewis)

1931
Anita Ekberg, Swedish voluptuous actress, Mrs. Sweden (1951). Film: La Dolce Vita (1959).

1926     d. 1984
Charles "Chuck" Cooper, American basketball player. He was the first black drafted by the NBA (1950, Boston Celtics).

1916     d. 1988
Trevor Howard, English Emmy-winning actor. Film: Brief Encounter (1945) and Sons and Lovers (1960). TV: The Invincible Mr. Disraeli (1963, Emmy).

1913
Stanley Kramer, American Oscar-winning film producer, director. Film: High Noon (1952), It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).

1912
Michelangelo Antonioni, Italian award-winning film director, The Red Desert (1964) and Blow-Up (1966, featuring its ball-less tennis match). His films, using minimal plots and dialogues, are known for using their sets and long lingering shots to reveal their character's innermost feelings.

1910     d. 1982
Virginia Bruce, American actress. Film: The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and The Invisible Woman (1941).

1908
Greer Garson, Irish-born Oscar-winning actress, Goodbye Mr. Chips (1939) and Mrs. Miniver (1942, Oscar).

1907     d. 1998
Gene Autry, American actor, the singing cowboy. He wrote and recorded more than 200 songs.

1901     d. 1954
Enrico Fermi, Italian-born American physicist, one of the pioneers of the nuclear age. He led the team which performed the first controlled nuclear chain reaction (1942).

1900     d. 1983
Miguel Alemán, Mexican president (1946-52). As the first non-military candidate ever elected president of Mexico, he promoted industrialization and agriculture.

1895     d. 1980
Joseph Banks Rhine, American parapsychologist. He created the familiar "extrasensory perception" (ESP) cards (picturing wavy lines, square, circle, and cross), and co-edited Parapsychology Today.

1810     d. 1865
Elizabeth Gaskell, English novelist, one of the most popular of the Victorian novelists, Mary Barton (1848) and Cranford (1853).

1758     d. 1805
Horatio Nelson, British naval commander. He died while leading the British fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar in which he defeated the Spanish and French fleets ending Napoleon's threat of invading England.

1725     d. 1774
Baron Clive of Plassey (Robert Clive), British soldier, founder of the British Indian empire.

1547     d. 1616
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spanish author. Writings: Don Quixote (1605).

1989     b. 1899
August Anheuser Busch Jr., American beer-company executive, built the world's largest brewery.

1927     b. 1860
Willem Einthoven, Dutch physiologist, his work on the string galvanometer led to the invention of the electrocardiograph, for which he received the 1924 Nobel prize.

1913     b. 1858
Rudolf Diesel, German engineer and inventor of the diesel engine (1892).

1833     b. 1784
Ferdinand VII, King of Spain (1808-33). It was during his rule that most of the Spanish possessions in Latin America rebelled and won their independence.

48 B.C.     b. 106 B.C.
Pompey the Great, Roman general. With Caesar and Crassus, he formed the first triumvirate (60 B.C.). In 49 B.C. he began the civil war against Caesar, in which he was defeated and killed by one of his old centurions while fleeing to Egypt.

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