On this Day...
■ In 1942, “Funny Girl” Barbra Streisand was born in a Brooklyn brownstone apartment building. Her father, a promising educationalist, died when she was 15 months old, and her mother re-married when Barbra was seven. Dismissing Brooklyn as just “boredom, baseball, and bad breath,” the former cinema usherette lived out the fantasy of fame that had motivated her ever since she’d seen the movie of “The Diary of Anne Frank” when she was 14. By age 27 she’d won every major U.S. entertainment award. She is renowned for wanting ever more meticulous control over her work. Walter Matthau, who co-starred with her in “Hello Dolly,” later said, “I was merely exasperated at her tendency to be a complete megalomaniac!” She and her former boyfriend, former hairdresser Jon Peters, co-produced the fourth remake of “A Star Is Born,” saying they’d split up if it flopped. It’s grossed 30 million dollars!
■ In 1066, Halley’s Comet heralded an invasion when it appeared over England. The monk Aethelmaer, “Oliver of Malmesbury,” spotted it and predicted “sorrow and lamentation” and “the destruction of the country.” Five months later, William the Conqueror invaded, killing thousands and laying waste to much of the land.
— from Today’s the Day! By Jeremy Beadle
In Christian history
■ In 1886, the Reverend Augustine Tolton became the first African-American priest assigned to work in the United States. He was ordained at the College of Propaganda in Rome, and later opened a mission in Quincy, Illinois, in the Springfield diocese.
— from This Day in Christian History By William D. Blake
In the Philippines
■ In 1982, the first Cecil Awards night, an annual recognition of individuals and
institutions who have contributed to the development of Philippine music, was held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. It was named after Cecil Lloyd (1910-1988) who is considered the Father of the Philippine Recording Industry. Cecil Lloyd started singing on radio in 1930. He was featured as the "Mystery Singer" on KZRM in 1934. His first recorded Tagalog compositions were “Ikaw” and "Buhat" in 1939. In 1948, he established the first Filipino-owned record company, the Philippine Recording System, which featured his renditions of Filipino folk songs among them the "Lavandera Ko" (1942), which is a composition of Santiago S. Suarez.
— www.kahimyang.info
In Cebu
■ In 1941, in the midst of imminent war, the National Assembly passed a bill requiring aliens in the Philippines to register and be finger-printed. The bill was aimed primarily at Japanese residents, a number of whom worked in Cebu as shopkeepers and gardeners.
— from Cebuano Studies Center, University of San Carlos