Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

October 21

1992
Madonna's $50 book Sex hits the bookstores, complete with compact disc.

1972
My Ding-a-Ling: Chuck Berry's audience participation song hits #1. It was his biggest hit.

1954
First James Bond movie: A live TV-broadcast of Ian Fleming's Casino Royale. It starred Barry Nelson, making him the first 007.

1942
World War II: U.S. Navy pilot Rickenbacker's plane goes down in the South Pacific. He and two of his crew drifted on a raft for three weeks before they were rescued.

1925
Photoelectric cell: The device is publicly demonstrated for the first time by its creators Westinghouse Electric, showing its ability to automatically open doors and count the number of times a light beam was interrupted.

1915
First transatlantic transmission of speech: AT&T transmits from Arlington, Virginia to Paris.

1879
Incandescent lamp: Thomas A. Edison succeeds in making his electric light. He had tried almost 6,000 materials and spent more than $40,000 developing it. It operated for 40 hours.

1805
Battle of Trafalgar: The British Royal Navy defeats the Spanish and French fleets ending Napoleon's threat of invading England.

1956
Carrie Fisher, American actress. Film: Star Wars (Princess Leia). She is the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher and is the author of Postcards From the Edge.

1953
Charlotte Caffey, American guitarist, with the Go-Go's, We Got the Beat (1981) and Vacation (1982).

1942
Elvin Bishop, American blues guitarist. Music: Fooled Around And Fell In Love (1976).

1940
Manfred Mann (Michael Lubowitz), British rock musician. Music: Do Wah Diddy Diddy (1964, #1) and Blinded By the Light (1976).

1936
Carl Baugh, American young Earth creationist.  He claims to have found human and dinosaur footprints together near the Paluxy River in Texas.

1933     d. 1992
Georgia Brown (Georgia Klot), singer, actress, best known for her portrayal of Nancy in Oliver!

1917     d. 1993
Dizzy Gillespie (John Birks Gillespie), American jazz trumpeter. He ran for U.S. president in 1963.

1914
Martin Gardner, American mathematician, magician.. His Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science (1957) is considered a classic in the field of scientific skepticism. He also wrote the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American.

1885     d. 1911
Eugene Ely, American aviator. He was the first person to fly a plane from the deck of a ship (1910) and the first to land a plane on a ship (1911).

1882     d. 1956
Bela Lugosi (Bela Lugosi Blasko), Hungarian-born American horror actor. Film: Dracula (1931). He was buried with his Dracula cape.

1833     d. 1896
Alfred Bernhard Nobel, Swedish chemist, inventor of dynamite. The terms of his will established Nobel prizes.

1808     d. 1895
Samuel Francis Smith, American poet, songwriter. Music: My Country, 'Tis of Thee (1832) the U.S. national anthem.

1736     d. 1808
William Shippen, Jr., American physician. He was the first systematic teacher of anatomy, surgery, and obstetrics in the United States and one of the first to use cadavers in the teaching of anatomy (1762).

1995     b. 1916
Maxene Andrews, American singer, with the Andrews Sisters.

1992     b. 1921
Jim Garrison, former New Orleans district attorney. His investigation of Pres. Kennedy's assassination was the basis of Oliver Stone's movie.

1970     b. 1900
John Thomas Scopes, American educator. His arrest for teaching evolution in Tennessee led to the Scopes Monkey Trial (1925). He was convicted and fined $100, although it was overturned on a technicality.

1969     b. 1922
Jack Kerouac, American author, On the Road (1957). He was one of the founders of the beatnik movement of the late 1950s and is known as the godfather of the '60s hippie movement.

1919     b. 1861
Alfred T. Ringling, American circus operator, with Ringling Brothers Circus.

1805     b. 1758
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.

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