Well we start off in 1854, with the birth of an American girl named Jennie Jerome. Some years later, she would marry a Brit named Randolph Churchill. They had a son named Winston, born -ahem- 8 months later. And I think you get the hint there. Lady Churchill (or Lady Randolph) was apparently always up for a good time, especially if there was a man involved. And let's be honest- there pretty much always was. Her only other child, another son, was thought to be the son of someone who was not her husband. Mind you, this comes from Jennie's side of the family, so it wasn't like her husband was slandering her. After being widowed, she married twice more, to husbands who got younger and younger, until the last one was a few years younger than Winnie. But the advantage of being an Edwardian Party Chick was that her popularity helped the careers of her first husband and her son. So I guess that worked out.
Here's an odd one: Born on this date in 1881 was Edouard Beaupré, listed as a "horse lifter". Apparently he had an overactive pituitary gland, which made him grow at a freakish pace. So he wound up over 8 feet tall, and he was still growing when he died. At any rate, his great size (in addition to his great height, he weighed over 400 pounds) allowed him to perform in freak shows, doing things such as lifting horses onto his shoulders. Not a great life, traveling the US (he was however Canadian) doing feats of strength. He died young, and his father couldn't afford to transport the body back home. It would be nice to say that Ed's employer stepped in to ship him home, but... no. Eventually, his corpse wound up in Canada, being studied at the University of Montreal. His family tried to get his corpse back, and finally got it back in 1989. They then had him cremated, in order to ensure he would finally be given some rest.
In 1913, we got a future president. Richard M. Nixon was born on this date. While he was a bit of an odd duck, to say the least, he did a decent job as president. Except for the whole abuse of power thing. It's worth noting that he almost got elected president in 1960, and probably would have been, had there not been (apparently) an unusually high turnout in Chicago among the Dead-American Community. He then was elected in 1968, and won reelection in 1972, in a vote that was so overwhelming that calling it a "landslide" seems an understatement.
On the football front, 1934 gave us (or the Packers) Bart Starr. By the standards of today, he wasn't a great passer, though a good one. But then, when you lead your team to victory in the first two Super Bowls, calling your own plays, you don't have to be. Alas, he coached the Packers for a few years, and as a coach... well he was a really good quarterback.
A well-known actor was born on this date in 1935. Maynard G. Krebs himself! And also, of course, Gilligan. Or as some knew him, Bob Denver. He did a few other things, and his best role after Gilligan was in the movie "Back to the Beach", where he basically played...Gilligan. He got beaten by Alan Hale's hat, called "Little Buddy" and everything. On the other hand, he was about to get lucky when he got interrupted by "Big Buddy", as I just nicknamed the Skipper.
On the Rock God front, happy birthday to the one and only Jimmy Page. He was born in 1944, which means he was a guitar god when he was barely out of his teens- or still in them, I guess. Impressive. He's in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with both the Yardbirds and his other band... You know the one. The New Yardbirds (which was of course intended to be the name of the band, until Keith Moon told him that the name would go over like a lead zeppelin.... Hmmmm) At 13 or so, he was on the Beeb performing, where he told the host he wanted to cure cancer. How'd that work out, young man? A few years later he gave up his music career to study art. Sort of. He still played with some of the British musicians of the time like our recent subject Cyril Davies, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton. Then he worked as a session musician, appearing on records by Marianne Faithful, the Stones, the Who, Van Morrison, and Petula Clark (yes, he played on "Downtown").
And those are all the interesting folks born today.
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