Today In History 1536 - Anne Boleyn, second wife of King Henry VIII of England, was beheaded for adultery. 1588 - King Philip II's Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon on its ill-fated attempt to conquer England. 1635 - In the Thirty Years War, France declared war on Spain. 1643 - The towns of Connecticut, Plymouth and New Haven formed a Confederation of the United Colonies of New England as protection in the wars with American Indians. 1796 - The first U.S. game law was approved. The measure called for penalties for folks hunting or destroying game within Indian territory. 1849 - Irishman William Hamilton was arrested after firing blank shots at Queen Victoria in London. 1857 - William F. Channing and Moses G. Farmer patented the electric fire alarm, and it was first used in a massive scale in Boston, Massachusetts. The original system consisted of 40 street fire alarm boxes connected by telegraph circuits to a central office. 1911 - The first person to commit a crime and be convicted through the use of fingerprints turned out to be Caesar Cella. He had been ‘thumbed’ in New York City. 1926 - Thomas Edison spoke at a dinner for the National Electric Light Association in Atlantic City. When asked to speak into the microphone, he said, “I don’t know what to say. This is the first time I ever spoke into one of these things ... Good night.” 1952 - Yoshiro Shirai defeated flyweight champion Dado Marino in Tokyo to become Japan’s first world-boxing champ. 1958 - The United States and Canada formally established the North American Air Defense Command. 1960 - Radio disc jockey and TV personality, Alan Freed was arrested on charges of commercial bribery during the industry's payola scandal. Seven other people were also arrested. Freed was the originator of the term "rock and roll". 1965 - Roger Miller received a gold record for the hit, "King of the Road". The song was Miller’s biggest hit record. It got to number four (3/20/65) on the pop charts and stayed on for 12 weeks. It was a number one country music hit (3/27/65) as well. Miller, a country singer, humorist, guitarist and composer from Forth Worth, TX and raised in Oklahoma, went to Nashville, TN in the mid-’50s to begin a songwriting career. He wrote songs and played drums for Faron Young in 1962, then won what was an unprecedented, six Grammy Awards in 1965, had his own TV show in 1966; wrote "Little Green Apples", a huge hit for O.C. Smith and had five tunes in the top ten in 1968. To top it off, he composed the music for the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, "Big River" in 1985. 1966 - Country music came to New York’s Carnegie Hall this night. Eddy Arnold debuted with an array of popular country artists in the Big Apple. 1973 - Secretariat won the second jewel of horse racing’s Triple Crown by capturing the Preakness Stakes in Baltimore, Maryland. The famed horse later went on to win the Belmont Stakes in New York to earn the Triple Crown with jockey Ron Turcotte as the rider. 1992 - Two doctors who performed an autopsy on John F. Kennedy confirmed the U.S. president died from two bullets fired from above and behind. 1998 - Millions of pagers nationwide stopped working when a communications satellite suddenly lost track of Earth. 1999 - Following months of media hype, promotional gimmicks, and thousands of ardent fans camping out in front of theaters to buy tickets, George Lucas's much-anticipated Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace opened in theaters across the U.S. The film starred Liam Neeson, Ewan McGregor, and Natalie Portman.
1951 - Jeffrey Hyman was born in Queens, NY. He went on to become Joey Ramone, one of the greatest singers in one of the greatest bands of al time - The Ramones. Jeffrey died in 2001. Rest In Peace.
