[OffTheHook]

Jun 11, 1979: John Wayne dies


On this day in 1979, John Wayne, an iconic American film actor famous for starring in countless westerns, dies at age 72 after battling cancer for more than a decade.
The actor was born Marion Morrison on May 26, 1907, in Winterset, Iowa, and moved as a child to Glendale, California. A football star at Glendale High School, he attended the University of Southern California on a scholarship but dropped out after two years. After finding work as a movie studio laborer, Wayne befriended director John Ford, then a rising talent. His first acting jobs were bit parts in which he was credited as Duke Morrison, a childhood nickname derived from the name of his beloved pet dog.
Wayne's first starring role came in 1930 with The Big Trail, a film directed by his college buddy Raoul Walsh. It was during this time that Marion Morrison became "John Wayne," when director Walsh didn't think Marion was a good name for an actor playing a tough western hero. Despite the lead actor's new name, however, the movie flopped. Throughout the 1930s, Wayne made dozens of mediocre westerns, sometimes churning out two movies a week. In them, he played various rough-and-tumble characters and occasionally appeared as "Singing Sandy," a musical cowpoke a la Roy Rogers.
In 1939, Wayne finally had his breakthrough when his old friend John Ford cast him as Ringo Kid in the Oscar-winning Stagecoach. Wayne went on to play larger-than-life heroes in dozens of movies and came to symbolize a type of rugged, strong, straight-shooting American man. John Ford directed Wayne in some of his best-known films, including Fort Apache (1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), Rio Grande (1950), The Quiet Man (1952) and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence (1962).
Off-screen, Wayne came to be known for his conservative political views. He produced, directed and starred in The Alamo (1960) and The Green Berets (1968), both of which reflected his patriotic, conservative leanings. In 1969, he won an Oscar for his role as a drunken, one-eyed federal marshal named Rooster Cogburn in True Grit. Wayne's last film was The Shootist (1976), in which he played a legendary gunslinger dying of cancer. The role had particular meaning, as the actor was fighting the disease in real life.
During four decades of acting, Wayne, with his trademark drawl and good looks, appeared in over 250 films. He was married three times and had seven children.


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history

[OffTheHook]

On this day in 1776, the Continental Congress selects Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, John Adams of Massachusetts, Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert R. Livingston of New York to draft a declaration of independence. Knowing Jefferson's prowess with a pen, Adams urged him to author the first draft of the document, which was then carefully revised by Adams and Franklin before being given to Congress for review on June 28.
The revolutionary treatise began with reverberating prose:
When, in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the Causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
Congress would not tolerate the Committee of Five's original language condemning Britain for introducing the slave trade to its American colonies as a cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty. Those distant people who never offended would have to wait another century and for another war before their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness would begin to be recognized.


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-histo...dependence

[OffTheHook]

Then 34-year-old director Steven Spielberg reportedly drew on his own experiences as an unusually imaginative, often-lonely child of divorce for his science-fiction classic E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, which is released on this day in 1982.
For Spielberg, E.T. marked a return to territory he had first visited with the classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), in which Richard Dreyfuss plays a man who comes face to face with a fearsome alien force that eventually proves to be human-friendly. With E.T., Spielberg would create an even more appealing vision of alien life, in the form of a diminutive creature with wrinkled skin and a glowing belly. Spielberg worked closely with the screenwriter, Melissa Mathison (future wife of Harrison Ford, the star of Spielberg’s Indiana Jones films) to capture on film the story of the wise, kind and cuddly alien botanist who is stranded on Earth and needs the help of a sensitive little boy, Elliott (Henry Thomas) to get back home. Elliott and his siblings, played by Robert MacNaughton and a seven-year-old Drew Barrymore, hide E.T. (as the alien dubs himself) in a closet to keep him out of sight from prying adults, including their mother, who is distracted by her painful separation from her husband. Before long, a special link develops between E.T. and Elliott, who will eventually risk his own safety to return E.T. to his planet.
From the time that E.T. had its first showing, on closing night at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, the film’s buzz was overwhelmingly positive. Richard Corliss raved in TIME magazine: “[E.T.] is a perfectly poised mixture of sweet comedy and ten-speed melodrama, of death and resurrection, of a friendship so pure and powerful it seems like an idealized love.” TIME also included the fictional alien in its list of candidates for Man of the Year--the first film character to receive that honor. Nominated in nine categories at the 1983 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, the film won four Oscars, for Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Visual Effects, Best Original Score and Best Sound.
E.T. had stupendous success at the box office, eventually raking in some $435 million (it was re-released in 1985 and a special 20th-anniversary edition was issued in 2002). As of 2008, it stood at No. 5 on the list of the highest-earning films of all time.


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-histo...l-released

[OffTheHook]

John and Clarence Anglin and Frank Lee Morris attempt to escape from Alcatraz federal prison. The three men were never seen again, and although some believe that theirs was the only successful getaway from what was known as "The Rock," it is far more likely that they drowned in the chilly water. Four days after their escape, a bag containing photos, which belonged to Clarence Anglin, was found in San Francisco Bay. Escape From Alcatraz, both a J. Campbell Bruce book and a Clint Eastwood movie, later dramatized the incident.
The three prisoners began their daring escape by using stolen tools to chip away at the cement near ventilation holes in their cells. Creatively, they then made fake grills out of cardboard and painted them to match the originals, which were located in a small area where they could get outside without being seen. In a classic maneuver, the inmates made dummy heads and placed them in their beds so that the guards would not notice them missing. They even used scraps of hair from the barbershop to make them look more realistic. Once outside, the three climbed over a 15-foot fence and made their way out to the choppy waters surrounding the island prison with life preservers made out of raincoats.
Over the years in which Alcatraz was used as a prison, 36 inmates (in 14 separate attempts) tried to escape. One drowned; six were shot to death; and five were never found, but were assumed to have drowned, including the Anglins and Morris. The remaining were captured, including two who were executed after one man, Bernard Coy, jumped a guard and got his gun in May 1946. With the help of others, Coy captured nine guards. However, the ensuing showdown left two guards and three inmates dead, and no one got off the island.


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-histo...-three-men

[OffTheHook]

Facing federalized Alabama National Guard troops, Alabama Governor George Wallace ends his blockade of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa and allows two African American students to enroll.
George Wallace, one of the most controversial politicians in U.S. history, was elected governor of Alabama in 1962 under an ultra-segregationist platform. In his 1963 inaugural address, he promised his white followers: "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" When African American students attempted to desegregate the University of Alabama in June 1963, Alabama's new governor, flanked by state troopers, literally blocked the door of the enrollment office. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, had declared segregation unconstitutional in 1954's Brown v. Board of Education, and the executive branch undertook aggressive tactics to enforce the ruling.
On June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy federalized National Guard troops and deployed them to the University of Alabama to force its desegregation. The next day, Governor Wallace yielded to the federal pressure, and two African American students--Vivian Malone and James A. Hood--successfully enrolled. In September of the same year, Wallace again attempted to block the desegregation of an Alabama public school--this time Tuskegee High School in Huntsville--but President Kennedy once again employed his executive authority and federalized National Guard troops. Wallace had little choice but to yield.


http://www.history.com/this-day-in-histo...segregated

[Granny Bear]

Love this OTH!!