And here's our last bit for the day. RIP Edward the Confessor, King of England, in 1066. Does that year sound significant? It is. There was a lot of controversy over who was his lawful heir, and it's ultimately settled at Hastings in the fall of the year. William wins, and thus it turns out that he had the best claim. He might have had it anyway, but I don't guess it matters.
1933 saw the death of former president Calvin Coolidge. He's known as "Silent Cal" and once slapped down some airhead who informed him that she had made a bet that she could induce him to say three consecutive words. His famous response "You lose".
It was this date in 1939 that Amelia Earhart was declared dead. Fair enough, since she apparently was. It appears now that she was killed either by the Japanese for landing on the wrong island in the Pacific, or she ran out of fuel and crashed. I don't know that it really matters- she's equally dead either way, and if she was killed by the Japanese, it's not like they're gonna apologize for it. Some years ago, I saw a horrible D Movie- the sort that you only see Friday nights on Skinemax- which took place on some deserted island in the Pacific. Oh look, the busty and gorgeous women discovered a gorgeous and busty woman who turned out to be Earhart after discovering (apparently) the Fountain of Youth. And discovering some other type of fountain, because I assure you- I've seen pictures of Earhart, and young, busty, and hot are not three words that were used to describe her. Well... maybe young, but not when she disappeared. The whole lesbian angle that appeared in the film? Well that's possible, I suppose.
In 1963, it was Rogers Hornsby's turn to die. He's one of the all-time best at baseball. How good? His career batting average was .358, and he hit over .400 three different years, with his best season being 1924, when he hit .424. And no, nobody has ever been close to matching that one since.
In 1998, Sonny Bono, politician and musician smacked into a tree while skiing. RIP Sonny. He was apparently something of a weirdo- my dad once told me that he knew a couple members of Sonny's family (Sonny was born to Italian parents in Detroit about 18 months before my family came over from Italy) and that they weren't overly impressed with him. Of course, I presume that was before he became a millionaire entertainer. But perhaps not, as I can't see why his family would be talking about him being a yutz if there was no reason for anyone to argue the point. At any rate, I once saw him on TV when he was in Congress, and somebody asked him "What do you think about illegal immigration?" He responded "I think it's against the law", which was one of those comments that impresses the hell out of me- he cut right to the chase. Alas, his wife essentially inherited his seat, and she's not terribly impressive now in Congress. Sigh.
In 2004, it was time for Tug McGraw to check out. He was a baseball player who was once described in a magazine article (probably Sports Illustrated) as "the screwball behind the screwball", that being his most effective pitch. Think of it as a reverse curve ball. Oh, and he was the father of Tim McGraw. Which impresses me not in the least.
Finally we have Momofuku Ando. "Who?" I hear you cry. Well, he decided after WWII to find a way to make more food available to the Japanese people. The US was trying to get them to eat bread, which was pretty alien to them at the time. But they told him that noodles were too hard to produce in large enough quantities. So he got on it, and created a new product which he called "Chikin Ramen", followed by "Cup noodle". Yup, that was him. Cool huh? Broke college students everywhere rejoiced! Oh, he was born in 1910, and died in 2007 on this date.
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