Epic Idiot's what happened
On This Day

December 17

1989
The Simpsons debuts on FOX.

1971
Diamonds Are Forever premiers in the U.S., 7th in the James Bond series, it starred Sean Connery as 007.

1969
Tiny Tim marries Miss Vicky (Victoria May Budinger) on The Tonight Show.

1933
First National Football League championship: The Chicago Bears beat the New York Giants 23-21.

1903
Wright Brothers: Orville flies his heavier-than-air plane for 12 seconds near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Later that day, his brother Wilbur flew for 59 seconds.

1790
Ancient Aztec stone calendar is discovered in Mexico City. This 25-ton 52-year-cycle calendar is believed to have been carved in 1479.

1623
"Trial by jury" is established by the Colony of Plymouth.

1953
Barry Livingston, American actor. TV: My Three Sons (Ernie).

1946
Eugene Levy, Canadian Emmy-winning comedian. TV: SCTV.

1939     d. 1992
Eddie Kendricks, American singer, with the Temptations, the most successful male vocal group of the 1960s and '70s, My Girl (1965, #1).

1937     d. 1969
John Kennedy Toole, American author. Writings: A Confederacy of Dunces (written in 1963, but not published until 11 years after his death), which won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

1930
Bob Guccione, American publisher. Founder of Penthouse (1965) and Omni (1978).

1908     d. 1980
Willard Frank Libby, American Nobel-winning chemist, inventor of radiocarbon dating (1949).

1903     d. 1987
Erskine Caldwell, American author. Writings: Tobacco Road (1932) and God's Little Acre (1933).

1894     d. 1979
Arthur Fiedler, American conductor, with the Boston Pops Orchestra. He is the world's best-selling classical artist (50,000,000 records) and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom (1977).

1817     d. 1870
William Allen Miller, English scientist. He performed the first trustworthy chemical analysis of stars.

1778     d. 1829
Sir Humphry Davy, English scientist, discovered the effects of inhaling laughing gas (1799), discovered potassium, sodium (1807), barium, strontium, calcium (1808), the first electric light (1808), and invented the safety lamp for miners (1815).

1734     d. 1821
William Floyd, American politician, signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1493     d. 1541
Paracelsus, Swiss physician, alchemist. He was one of the first to recognize that illnesses had specific causes that could be treated, as opposed to the then-current belief that they were caused by the imbalance of body fluids.

2003     b. 1923
Mary Ann Jackson, American actress, one of The Little Rascals (older sister of Wheezer). She appeared in 32 Our Gang films (1928-31).

1999     b. 1922
Rex Allen, American singing cowboy, "The Arizona Cowboy," actor, and narrator of numerous Walt Disney nature films.

1999     b. 1943
Grover Washington Jr., American saxophonist. Music: Just the Two of Us (1981, #2). He was one of the most commercially successful jazz musicians of the '70s and '80s.

1962     b. 1892
Thomas Mitchell, American Oscar-Tony-Emmy-winning actor. Broadway: Hazel Flagg (1953, Tony). Film: Stagecoach (1939, Oscar) and Gone With the Wind (1939, Scarlett O'Hara's father).

1916     b. 1871
Grigori Rasputin, Russian mystic, monk. Known as the Mad Monk, he held a hypnotic influence over the Russian emperor and emperess, Nicholas II and Alexandra. Notoriously corrupt, he was killed by Russian noblemen.

1907     b. 1824
First Baron Kelvin (William Thomson), British scientist, inventor, developed the Kelvin temperature scale (1848), based on the temperature of absolute zero.

1830     b. 1783
Simon Bolivar, Venezuelan general, "The Liberator." He led revolutions that freed Bolivia, Columbia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela from Spanish rule.

1823     b. 1737
Oliver Pollock, Irish-born American businessman, creator of the '$' symbol (1778). He helped to finance the American Revolution in the West.

1187     b. ????
Gregory VIII, religious leader, 173rd Pope (Oct. - Dec. 1187).

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