Today in History

1999 After two decades of increasingly formulaic movies, nation pines for a second McCarthy Era and hopes that another boozy, out-of-control senator might emerge to destroy the lives of Hollywood screenwriters.

1968 The Beatles' "We've Met a Yogi and We're Doing Lots of Acid Now, But the Band Is Totally Splintering From Within" debuts at No. 1 on the American charts.

1957 Nation demands Congress conduct hearings to determine how Joey Bishop got into the Rat Pack.

1952 Financial failure of Rock Hudson's first movie for Warner Bros., Destroy My Hot Ass, may have saved actor's career when the dazzling screen idol is recast as wholesome, happy-go-lucky hetero.

1944 Twenty-seven-member French Resistance revises bylaws to allow all Frenchman who cowered in wartime servitude to claim in future years they were heroic members of the fierce underground movement.

1933 Cole Porter's whimsical "Let's Pretend That I'm Not Gay" debuts in Broadway's hit musical My Husband's Special Friend.

1892 After a decades-long quest, inventor Rudolph Diesel stumbles upon formula for world's smelliest goddamn petroleum product.

1658 Twenty-four-year "War of the Inbred King Who Wishes to Marry the Marginally Retarded Sister of a Neighboring Country's Inbred King" begins in Europe.

1591 Pope Innocent IX convenes Council of Cluny, where assembled Cardinals vote to codify rules for buggering, silencing and blaming altar boys.