She was a film star and an inventor. Under her original name (along with the stage name of Hedy Lamarr she also carried the surnames of six husbands in turn) she played the first nude scenes in movies, the movie was banned in many countries including the US. She hated the Nazis - her first husband was a munitions magnate in Germany so she had some personal experience and considered Hitler "pompous" and Mussolini "arrogant" from their appearances at the Mandl family castle. Having listened to the talk around the dinner table during her first marriage, she and George Antheil (who wrote "Ballet Mecanique" for orchestra, airplane propeller, and twelve player pianos) came up with a secret communication system based loosely on the concept of a player piano. She did get a pension from her years of acting, but she never saw a dime from her invention (more recent patents that reference hers are worth millions today), and supplemented the pension with a string of lawsuits.
It was a bloody day in northern Europe, with a vengeful Danish king beheading a large number of Swedes and the worst outbreak of Nazi violence against Jews before the war started. (It is also the anniversary of Hitler's abortive 1922 Beer Hall Putsch.) More recently it was a time of giddy celebration in Germany as the divided country started to reunite after four decades. In journalism history this marks the birth of two great publishing successes, Stars and Stripes and Rolling Stone. And our dependence on modern infrastructure became obvious on this day in 1965 when the lights went out for millions in eight northeastern states.
1520 - The Danish King Christian II, having conquered Sweden and granted amnesty to those who surrendered, decapitated the Swedish leader Eric Vasa, along with bishops and noblemen. Death toll in various sources ranges from 82 to 600.
1861 - After troops under General Ulysses S. Grant stormed the tiny town of Bloomfield, Missouri four soldiers from the 18th and 29th Illinois Volunteers take over the empty offices of the Bloomfield Daily Herald and turned out the crude first edition of The Stars and Stripes. The new paper was created by and for the men in the ranks rather than a publication of the Army. The domestic paper continues to be independent, although the European and Asian editions are official and subsidized.
1938 - The worst Jewish pogrom in peacetime Germany took place as Nazi thugs led a "spontaneous" campaign of terror. During the night 267 synagogues were plundered, 7,500 shops were wrecked, 91 Jews were killed and 20,000 others were arrested and sent to concentration camps. It was afterward known as "Kristallnacht" because of the thousands of windows broken.
1965 - At 5:15 pm "The 345KV" - the main power line bringing 345 kilovolts from Niagara Falls to New York City - went out of phases causing a host of systems to switch off the grid, blacking out Toronto, Rochester, Boston, and New York City within ten minutes. Over 600,000 were stranded in the subways, only those in the East River tunnel had to spend the night there, the rest walked out. Reports of a baby boom nine months later are not supported by hospital records.
1967 - The first issue of Rolling Stone was published, featuring John Lennon on the cover wearing a World War I helmet from the film "How I Won the War." Founded by Ralph J. Gleason and Jann Wenner, the magazine set out to cover the rock scene both accurately and enthusiastically.
1989 - The border between East and West Germany was opened after four decades. In Berlin it was called "Mauerfall," the Fall of the Wall. It became a long holiday weekend in Berlin, shops stayed open long past normal mandatory closing, East German passports were honored as free transit passes, and citizens clawed at the wall with hammers for souvenirs.
Allama Iqbal Day, Pakistan - Celebrates the 1877 birth of Allama Muhammad Iqbal - Islamic philosopher, author, and poet - generally acclaimed as the Father of Pakistan. He wrote in Urdu for local consumption and in Persian to speak to the wider Muslim community.
1913
- Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, Austrian-American actress - Born to
a banker at Vienna, Austria, dropped out of school at 16 to make movies.
Small parts from 1929 to 1930, had three films in 1931, was the talk of
the world in 1933 when the Austrian/Czech production "Extase" (Ecstasy)
included her ten-minute nude swimming scene, believed to be the first
nude scene in a motion picture. Married German industrialist Fritz Mandl,
who promptly attempted to buy and destroy all the prints of Extase. First
of six marriages ended in 1937 when Kiesler, wearing most of her jewelry,
drugged her maid after dinner and crawled out a bathroom window, landing
in Hollywood under contract to Louis B. Mayer of MGM. Mayer billed her
as the "most beautiful woman in films" after changing her name to Hedy
Lamarr to avoid scandal. She was beautiful and sexy, but some critics
suggest that her acting talent was primarily decorative, her career ended
with the role of Joan of Arc in 1957. She turned down the roles in Gaslight
and Casablanca that Ingrid Bergman played. While married to screenwriter
Gene Markey in 1942, she and her musical arranger George Antheil invented
and patented "frequency hopping" or "spread spectrum" broadcasting for
secure radio transmission, which she intended to prevent German jamming
of torpedo control signals. The inventors gave the patent rights to the
US military who never pursued it, today it is the basis for military command
radio, wireless networking, and cellular phones. She went through four
more husbands, and appeared occasionally on game and talk shows on TV
in the '60s. She was arrested twice for shoplifting, in California in
1965 the publicity caused her to lose a part to Zsa Zsa, in Florida in
1995 the public outcry caused the case to be dropped. She wrote a tell-all
autobiography, then sued the publisher and her ghostwriters. She sued
Mel Brooks over the "Hedley Lamarr" character i Blazing Saddles. She sued
Corel over a prize-winning illustration that was used to promote Corel
Draw 8. All three cases were settled out of court, those awards and her
Screen Actors Guild pension let her live modestly at Orlando, Florida
until her death on 19 January 2000.
Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not
their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and
ships of war.
- Aristophanes
If you use your imagination, you can look at any actress and see her
nude. I hope to make you use your imagination.
- Hedy Lamarr
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
- Khalil Gibran
Love is only the game that is not called on account of darkness.
- M. Hirschfield
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Copyright 2000 G. Armour Van Horn, all rights reserved. This document may be distributed freely. Please forward the complete message including this copyright notice.