October 29 Dateline

Birthdays

1656 - Edmond Halley, English astronomer famous for "Halley's Comet."  Halley's Comet is arguably the most famous comet. It is a "periodic" comet and returns to Earth's vicinity about every 75 years, making it possible for a human to see it twice in his or her lifetime. The last time it was here was in 1986, and it is projected to return in 2061.

1947 - Richard Stephen Dreyfus, American actor, best known for starring in popular films during the 1970s and 1980s, including American Graffiti, Jaws, Stand by Me, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, The Goodbye Girl, Tin Men, Stakeout, Always, What About Bob?, and Mr. Holland's Opus. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1978 for The Goodbye Girl, and was nominated in 1995 for Mr. Holland's Opus. He has also won a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA Award, and was nominated in 2002 for Screen Actors Guild Awards in the Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie categories.

1948 - Lucy Kate Jackson, American actress and television producer, best known for her television roles as Sabrina Duncan in the series Charlie's Angels and Amanda King in the series Scarecrow and Mrs. King. Her film roles include Making Love and Loverboy. She is a three-time Emmy Award nominee and four-time Golden Globe Award nominee. Her role as Sabrina Duncan on Charlie's Angels saw her appear on the front cover of Time magazine, alongside co-stars Farrah Fawcett and Jaclyn Smith, while her role as Mrs. King won her Germany's Bravo Golden Otto Award for Best Female TV Star three times. She starred in numerous TV movies, including Quiet Killer, Empty Cradle and Satan's School for Girls, a remake of the 1973 TV movie of the same name in which she also starred.

1971- Winona Ryder (Winona Laura Horowitz), American actress. She gained attention with her performance in Tim Burton's Beetlejuice. She garnered two consecutive Academy Award nominations for her portrayals of socialite May Welland in Martin Scorsese's The Age of Innocence and Jo March in the film adaptation of Little Women. Her other films were Reality Bites, How to Make an American Quilt, The Crucible, Celebrity, and Girl, Interrupted, which she also executive produced. In 2002, Ryder took a break from films, returning in 2009 with the high-profile film Star Trek. In 2010, she was nominated for two Screen Actors Guild Awards: as the lead actress in the television film When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story and as part of the cast of Black Swan. Since 2016, she has starred as Joyce Byers in the Netflix science fiction horror series Stranger Things, for which she has received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild nominations; in 2020, she starred in the HBO drama miniseries The Plot Against America. Ryder is honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. 

Lefties:
Richard Dreyfuss
Kate Jackson
Winona Ryder

 

More birthdays and historical events, October 29 - On This Day

 

Historical Events

1787 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera Don Giovanni is first performed in Prague, the composer himself conducting. Don Giovanni remained a favourite for many years to this day. Playing in the title role is baritone Luigi Bassi. Source: Wiki

1929 - The US stock market collapses, causing mass panic, with investors in panic and selling shares. The loss of millions of dollars led to The Great Depression bringing in a decade of mass unemployment and poverty.

1955 - Dmitri Shostakovitch's violin Concerto No. 1 is first ppperformed, in Leningrad.

1956 - Maria Callas debuts at Metropolitan Opera, starring in Bellini's Norma, with Fausto Cleva conducting. 

1969 - The U.S. Defence Advance Research Project Agency (DARPA) creates ARPAnet, precursor to the Internet.

1992 - The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approves the injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera for use.

1998 - John Glenn becomes the oldest person to go into space, in space shuttle Discovery.  Astronaut John Herschel Glenn Jr. was the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962. He made another one, this time in 1998, when he was 77, becoming the oldest person to venture into space.



Astronaut John Glenn in 1998.


Resources:

1. Asiado, Tel. The World's Movers and Shapers. New Hampshire: Ore Mountain Publishing House (2005)

2. Britannica. www.britannica.com
3. Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 19th Ed. London: Chambers Harrap, 2011
4. Dateline. Sydney: Millennium House, (2006)
5. Grun, Bernard. The Timetables of History, New 3rd Revised Ed. Simon & Schuster/Touchstone (1991)
6. Wikipedia. en.wikipedia.org

 

(c) June 2007. Updated October 29, 2023. Tel. Inspired Pen Web. All rights reserved.