ED DANAHUE

Sofia Loren is 88 years young today.

As of 2022, Loren is one of the last surviving major
stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema and
is the only remaining living person on AFI ‘s list.

She holds the record for having earned seven David
di Donatello Awards for Best Actress. She has won
five special Golden Globes (including the Cecil B.
DeMille Award), a BAFTA Award, a Laurel Award, a
Grammy Award, the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the
Venice Film Festival and the Best Actress Award at the
Cannes Film Festival. In 1991, she received the Academy
Honorary Award for lifetime achievements.

TIM MAGUIRE

Oliver Stone in Vietnam.

William Oliver Stone is a film director, producer, and screenwriter. He won an Academy Award for Best
Adapted Screenplay as writer of Midnight Express
(1978), and wrote the gangster film remake Scarface
(1983). Stone achieved prominence as writer and          
director  of the war drama Platoon (1986), which
won Academy Awards for Best Director and Best
Picture. Platoon was the first in a trilogy of films  
based on the Vietnam War, in which Stone served
as an infantry soldier. He continued the series with
Born on the Fourth of July (1989)—for which Stone
won his second Best Director Oscar. Stone is 76
years old today. 

MIKE GRACIA

On July 29, 1921, Adolf Hitler became the leader of the National
Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. Under Hitler, the Nazi
Party grew into a mass movement and ruled Germany as a
totalitarian state from 1933 to 1945.

Hitler’s early years did not seem to predict his rise as a political
leader. Born on April 20, 1889, in Braunau am Inn, Austria, he
was a poor student and never graduated from high school.

During World War I, he joined a Bavarian regiment of the German
army and was considered a brave soldier, but his commanders
felt he lacked leadership potential and never promoted him beyond corporal.

On June 23, 1940, Adolf Hitler surveys notable sites in the French
capital, now German-occupied territory.

In his first and only visit to Paris, Hitler made Napoleon’s tomb
among the sites to see. “That was the greatest and finest moment
of my life,” he said upon leaving. Comparisons between the Fuhrer
and Napoleon have been made many times.

Hitler visits the tomb of Napoleon.