SANDY KOZEL

The Mount Vesuvius eruption killed approximately 20,000 people
and much of the area was buried in volcanic ash. 

It happened on this day in 1814.

On this day in 2006.

The planet Pluto was reclassified as a "dwarf planet" by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Pluto’s status was changed due to the IAU’s
new rules for an object qualifying as a planet. Pluto met two of the three
rules because it orbits the sun and is large enough to assume a nearly
round shape. However, since Pluto has an oblong orbit and overlaps the
orbit of Neptune it disqualified Pluto as a planet.
 

On this day in 1932, Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly
across the U.S. non-stop. The trip from Los Angeles, CA to Newark,
NJ, took about 19 hours in her Lockheed Vega (above).

Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Model 5B Vega, NR7952, on display at
the Smithsonian Institution National Air and Space Museum.

On this day in 1989, Pete Rose, the manager of the Cincinnati Reds,
was banned from baseball for life after being accused of gambling
on baseball.

Former Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose at the start of a
news conference at Riverfront Stadium after being given his 
lifetime suspension from baseball.

SANDY KOZEL

Nicola Sacco (left) and Bartolomeo Vanzetti

Rudolph Valentino
(Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Pierre Filibert Guglielmi di Valentina d’Antonguella)

(May 6, 1895 – August 23, 1926)

Italian actor Rudolph Valentino starred in several well-known silent films including
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), The Sheik, Blood and Sand (1922),
The Eagle, (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). He was an early pop icon, a
sex symbol of the 1920s, who was known as the "Latin lover".  He had applied for U.S.citizenship shortly before his untimely death from Pleuritis, an inflammation of 
of the membranes that surround the lungs. He was 31.   

Rudolph Valentino and Vilma Banky.

Cynthia Jane "Cindy" Williams was born in Los Angeles, California.

Cindy Williams starred as Shirley Feeney on the ABC television series Laverne
and Shirley from 1976 to 1983. She also portrayed Laurie Henderson in the hit
1973 coming of age film American Graffiti. She debuted as an actress through
a variety of commercials for Foster Grant sunglasses (below).  

A 1972 Foster Grant Commercial with Cindy Williams.

It was on this day in 2005.

On this day in 1996, President Bill Clinton signed legislation that ended guaranteed cash payments to the poor and demanded work 
from recipients.
   

     Assonated on this day in 1989.

Ray Douglas Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012)

Ray Bradbury was an American author and screenwriter. He worked
in a variety of genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror and
mystery fiction.

Widely known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953), and his science
fiction and horror story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950),
and The Illustrated Man (1951).

The last total solar eclipse occurred on February 26, 1979.

      

This morning, the Moon’s shadow will be racing across the surface
of  the earth first touching land just north of Newport, Oregon at
about 10:15 a.m. PDT. After today, this type of event won’t happen
again until Oct. 14, 2023, according to the National Aeronautics and  
Space Administration (NASA).

Clay tablets found at ancient archaeological sites show that the Babylonians not only recorded eclipses—the earliest known
Babylonian record is of the eclipse that took place on May 3,
1375 BCE—but were also fairly accurate in predicting them. They
were the first people to use the Saros Cycle to predict eclipses.