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Isa Miranda was born in Italy in 1909 as Ines Isabella Sampietro and by 1933 was acting in films. The next year she earned widespread acclaim in Max Ophüls’ La Signora di tutti, a role that paved the way for her to leap to Hollywood where she was billed as an Italian Marlene Dietrich. The above promo shows Miranda in character as Anna from 1939’s Hotel Imperial, a movie in which she shot nobody in the crotch, despite her low aim here.
One never hears her name mentioned today, but Italian actress Isa Miranda, née Ines Isabella Sampietro, was one of the most popular performers of her time. She was a star throughout Europe during the 1930s, and during World War II continued to act in Italian films. As a result, she is linked to fascist cinema, though is not known to be a fascist sympathizer herself. Ultimately she carved out a fifty year career and earned a Best Actress award at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival for René Clément’s Le mura di Malapaga. She’s seen here circa 1935.
A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.
The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.
American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.
The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.
An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.
After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.
