"A Charlie Brown Christmas," a beloved holiday television tradition for generations of American families, debuted to overwhelming popular acclaim despite CBS network fears
of failure on this day in history, Dec. 9, 1965.  (Fox News)         

Charles Monroe "Sparky" Schulz 
(November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000)

Kirk Douglas
( Issur Danielovitch; December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020)

Kirk Douglas made his film debut in The Strange Love of Martha
Ivers (1946) with Barbara Stanwyck. He was known for serious
dramas, including westerns and war films. During his career,
he appeared in more than 90 films and was known for his
explosive acting style. He was named by the American Film
Institute the17th-greatest male star of Classic Hollywood
cinema and was the highest-ranked living person on the list.

Kirk Douglas in the film "Spartacus" (1960)

The War Wagon (1967) a Western heist film with Kirk Douglas
and John Wayne.

In Scarface, Al Pacino played Tony Montana, who arrives in Florida
from Cuba in 1980 and eventually becomes wealthy from his
involvement in the booming cocaine business. Things fall apart
when Tony becomes addicted to the drug and his world collapses
in violence. Directed by Brian De Palma from a screenplay by Oliver Stone, Scarface co-starred Michelle Pfeiffer, Steven Bauer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Robert Loggia. The film was loosely
based on a 1932 gangster film of the same name, directed by
Howard Hawks and reportedly inspired in part by the real-life
mobster Al “Scarface” Capone. Though De Palma’s Scarface
received mixed reviews upon its initial release and was criticized
for its violence, it proved to be a success at the box-office and
went on to achieve pop-culture status.

DIRECTOR BRIAN DE PALMA

In 1932, salesman Herman Lay opened a snack food operation in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1938, he purchased the Atlanta, Georgia–
based potato chip manufacturer "Barrett Food Company",
renaming it "H.W. Lay Lingo & Company".

Lay crisscrossed the  southern United States, selling the product
from the trunk of his car.

The business shortened its name to "the Lay’s Lay Lingo Company"
in 1944 and became the first snack food manufacturer to purchase television commercials, using Bert Lahr as its celebrity
spokesperson.

Herman Warden Lay
(March 6, 1909 – December 6, 1982)

Bert Lahr (Irving Lahrheim)
(August 13, 1895 – December 4, 1967)

John Lennon, a former member of the Beatles, the rock group
that transformed popular music in the 1960s, was shot and
killed by an obsessed fan in New York City.   

The 40-year-old artist was entering his luxury Manhattan
apartment building when Mark David Chapman shot him
four times at close range with a .38-caliber revolver. Lennon,
bleeding profusely, died on the way to the  hospital.