May the Fourth Be With You

Well it's one day a year

And you may think it's queer

But lots of things have happened on the fourth

A single day in May

But I'll gladly shout "Hooray!"

'Cause now I've got a blog post, of courth!

1415 - Religious reformers John Wycliffe and Jan Hus are condemned as heretics at the Council of Constance

1783 - Herschel reports seeing a red glow near lunar crater Aristarchus [Jim Beam reports seeing a red glowing nose in the middle of Herschel's face]

1814 - Bourbon reign restored in France [Not to be confused with a bourbon rain. Not sure what Jim Beam would think about that.]

1869 - Cincinnati Red Stockings play their first official game as the sport's first professional side against the Great Western Base Ball Club winning 45-9

1904 - United States begins construction on the Panama Canal

1904 - Umm Kulthum, Egyptian singer, born [I have no idea who this is. I just like imagining the scene in the hospital: "It's a boy! Congratulations! What's his name?" Ummm...]

1932 - Al Capone enters Atlanta Penitentiary convicted of income tax evasion

1944 - Gaslight, starring an 18-year-old Angela Lansbury in her film debut, is released [And was she ever a saucy young thing. You really should see it!]

1957 - Alan Freed hosts "Rock n' Roll Show" 1st prime-time network rock show

1959 - First Grammy Awards: Perry Como & Ella Fitzgerald win

1962 - Tracy Vaccaro, playmate (October, 1983), born in Glendale, California [Now hold on a minute. While I'm grateful to OnThisDay.com for being the source of all these important historical events, is this really a birthday of worldwide importance?]

1975 - Moe Howard [Moses Horowitz], American actor and comedian (The 3 Stooges), dies at 77 [Later that month, during my high school graduation, as a tribute, we all poked each other in the eye.]

1977 - Lispers everywhere are given a pun for the ages

1979 - Margaret Thatcher becomes the first woman to be elected Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

1984 - Dave Kingman's fly ball never comes down: stuck in Metrodome ceiling

2008 - Seth MacFarlane reaches an agreement worth $100 million with Fox to keep Family Guy and American Dad on television until 2012, making MacFarlane the world's highest paid television writer [A day that will live in infamy]