July
2, 1843 - An alligator falls from the sky during a Charleston, South
Carolina, thunderstorm.
July 2, 1900 - Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin's first airship takes
flight.
July 2, 1926 - The United State Army Air Corps is created and the
Distinguished Flying Cross authorized.
July 2, 1937 - Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan disappear over the Pacific
Ocean.
July 2, 1940 - Georgi Ivan Ivanov, the first Bulgarian space traveler,
is born.
July 2, 1943 - Lieutenant Charles Hall becomes the first black pilot
to shoot down a Nazi airplane.
July 2, 1947 - Roswell, New Mexico, incident.
July 2, 1952 - Linda M. Godwin, US astronaut, is born in Cape Girardeau,
Missouri.
July 2, 1955 - Ed Wood premiers his unbelieveably bad film, "Plan
9 From Outer Space." Ed Wood will have an entire Saint Report
devoted to him one of these days.
July 2, 1982 - The late Larry Walters (he died a couple years ago
of unrelated causes), recipient of the 1997 Darwin Award, attaches
42 helium balloons to a lawn chair, and over-realizes his dream of
flight by spending almost 24 hours at 11,000 feet with only a six-pack
of Miller and a few cokes for sustenance.
Coincidence?
***
Saints celebrating feast days July 2 include, but are not limited
to, Processus, Martinian (patron of prison guards--I know, we just
had one of those; invoked againstdemonic possession, infirmity, and
perjury), Monegundis, and Otto of Bamberg.
***
Today's
birthdays include Walter Brennan (1894-1974), Cheryl Ladd (1952),
and Polly Holliday (1937).
Imelda Marcos was born on this day in 1939. When she and her husband
made their hasty getaway from the Philippines in 1986, she left over
2,000 pairs of size 8-1/2 shoes and around 50 identical black bras.
"Well, I can certainly understand about the bras," my friend
the other Marilyn remarked at the time. "You know how hard it
is to find one that fits?"
