This day in history

Some notable historical events that happened today include:

1850 -  King Kamehameha III declared Honolulu, HI a city and the official capital of the kingdom of Hawaii (Hawaii didn't become part of the US until 1959)

1897 -  Thomas Edison received patent No. 589,168 for the kinetoscope camera, opening up an era of moving pictures

1909 -  Benjamin Shibe received patent No. 932,911 for his invention of a baseball with a cork center

1910 -  Glenn Hammond Curtiss completed the first US airplane flight over water

1936 -  Henry Blair received a patent for a cotton seeder, the second African American to receive a US patent after Thomas Jennings 

1943 -  the first US Navy ship named after an African American was commissioned. The USS Harmon was named after Mess Attendant First Class Leonard Roy Harmon to honor the sailors courageous and invaluable service during the Battle of Guadalcanal in 1942

1946 -  Warner Bros. debut Foghorn Leghorn in the Looney Tunes short Walky Talky Hawky 

1955 -  General Motors Corp debut the first solar-powered automobile when William G. Cobb demonstrated the Sunmobile

1968 -  Dr. Michael E. Baker led the first simultaneous multi-organ transplant. It included a single donor and 4 recipients

1979 -  Time After Time was released starring Malcolm McDowell, David Warner and Mary Steenburgen. The film combines the imagination of H.G. Wells' Time Machine with the pursuit of Jack the Ripper

Some interesting birthdays include:

Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842) - first woman to study at the Academy of Medicine in France 

Maria Montessori (1870) - developed the Montessori school educational method

Lizzie Arlington (1877)

Fredric March (1897)

Arthur Godfrey (1903)

Helen Levitt (1913)

Richard Gere (1949)

Marcia Clark (1953)

Sara Ramirez (1975)

It's also Dennis Collins birthday (1938). He's my grandpa and is turning 86. He's frustrated that he can't do things like he used to but people still mistake him for my father rather than grandfather. He used to teach Physics and every once in a while gets stopped by students he taught because he was their favorite teacher.