ON THIS DAY

• 1673 - Lord Berkley sold his half of New Jersey to the Quakers (and the other half to the Sopranos?).
• 1881 - Barnum and Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth opened in Madison Square Gardens.
• 1891 - Britain became linked to the continent of Europe by telephone.
• 1931 - Schick sold the first electric shaver.
• 1949 - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was ratified.
• 1952 - In Philadelphia, PA, the first plastic lenses were fitted for a cataract patient.
• 1961 - The Poppin’ Fresh Pillsbury Dough Boy was introduced (remember him from Ghostbusters?).
• 1965 - Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first man to spacewalk when he left the Voskhod II space capsule while in orbit around the Earth. He was outside the spacecraft for about 20 minutes.
• 1986 - Buckingham Palace announced the engagement of Prince Andrew to Sarah Ferguson.
• 1989 - 12 paintings were stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. The value was $100 million making it the largest art robbery in history.
• 1989 - A 4,400-year-old mummy was discovered at the Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt.
• 1990 - The first free elections took place in East Germany.
• 1994 - Zsa Zsa Gabor filed for bankruptcy.

Born on this day

US President Grover Cleveland (1837), British PM Neville Chamberlain (1869), Mission Impossible’s Peter Graves (1926) [who also starred in Australian TV series, Whiplash!], country singer Charlie Pride (1938), singer Wilson Pickett (1941), good sort Vanessa Williams (1963) and Queen Latifah (1970).

“I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house.”

“How many husbands have I had? You mean apart from my own?”

and, in light of the recent Lara Bingle controversy:

“I never hated a man enough to give him diamonds back.”

9-times married Zsa Zsa Gabor