One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a film about a group of patients at a mental institution, opened in theaters on this day in 1975. Directed by Milos Forman and based on a 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey, the film starred Jack Nicholson and was co-produced by the actor Michael Douglas. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest went on to become the first film in four decades to win in all five of the major Academy Award categories: Best Actor (Nicholson’s first win), Best Actress (Louise Fletcher, who played Nurse Ratchet), Best Director, Best Screenplay (Adapted) and Best Picture.
Louise Fletcher as Nurse Frida Ratchet.
Oregon State Psychiatric Hospital, now a museum in Salem, was the setting for the movie “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”.
On this day in 1799, during Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign, a French soldier discovers a black basalt slab inscribed with ancient writing near the town of Rosetta, about 35 miles north of Alexandria. The irregularly shaped stone contained fragments of passages written in 3 different scripts: Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Egyptian demotic. The ancient Greek on the Rosetta Stone told archaeologists that it was inscribed by priests honoring the king of Egypt, Ptolemy V, in the second century B.C. More startlingly, the Greek passage announced that the three scripts were all of identical meaning. The artifact thus held the key to solving the riddle of hieroglyphics, a written language that had been “dead” for nearly 2,000 years.
The Rosetta Stone on display in The British Museum.
The United States Postal Service announced that it is issuing a new commemorative stamp honoring the late President George H. W. Bush.
The stamp, which is now available for pre-order, will be available for delivery following a first-day-of-issue ceremony, which will be held on Bush’s birthday, June 12, at the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum (shown below). Bush died November 30, 2018 at the age of 94.
On this day in 1968, North Korea seized the U.S. Navy ship Pueblo, charging it had intruded into the nation’s territorial waters on a spying mission. The crew was released 11 months later.
The Pueblo’s mission began in early January, 1968, when the crew set off from the U.S. Navy base on Yokosuka, Japan with orders to conduct surveillance on Soviet Navy and North Korean signal and electronic intelligence activity.
The captured crew (above) were beaten and nearly starved in the incident that almost led to another war.
Pueblo on display in North Korea, 2012.
North Koreans raise their fists during a rally in 2010 in front of the U.S. Navy spy ship Pueblo.
On this day in 1977, the TV mini-series "Roots," began airing on ABC. The show was based on the Alex Haley novel. Roots received 37 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings for the finale, which still holds a record as the third-highest-rated episode for any type of television series, and the second-most watched overall series finale in U.S. television history.
LeVar Burton as Kunta Kinte, a warrior of the Mandinka people in Gambia who is captured by slavers and taken to Annapolis, Md.
John William Carson(October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005)
Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States on this day in 1941. The U.S in turn declared war on the two countries.
The series Magnum, P.I. ran from this day in 1980 to 1988 during its first-run broadcast on the CBS television network. According to the Nielsen ratings, the series consistently ranked in the top twenty TV programs during the first five years of its original run.
The cast from left: Tom Selleck, Larry Manetti, John Hillerman, and Roger E, Mosley.
A 1982 Ferrari 308 GTSi, driven by Tom Selleck and Larry Manetti in TV series "Magnum P.I." is on display in the Petersen Automotive Museum.
