Phil Hartman (1948–1998) was a Canadian-born American actor, comedian,
screenwriter, and graphic artist. Born in Brantford, Ontario, Hartman
and his family immigrated to the United States when he was ten. After
graduating from California State University, Northridge with a degree
in graphic arts, he designed album covers for bands such as Poco and
America. Hartman joined the comedy group The Groundlings in 1975 and
there helped comedian Paul Reubens develop his character Pee-wee
Herman. Hartman co-wrote the screenplay for the film Pee-wee's Big
Adventure and made recurring appearances on Reubens' show Pee-wee's
Playhouse. Hartman became well-known in the late 1980s when he joined
the sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live. He won fame for his
impressions, particularly of President Bill Clinton, and stayed on the
show for eight seasons. In 1995, after scrapping plans for his own
variety show, he starred as Bill McNeal in the NBC sitcom NewsRadio. On
May 28, 1998, Hartman was shot and killed by his wife while he slept in
their California home. In the weeks following his death, Hartman was
celebrated in a wave of tributes. Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly
opined that Hartman was "the last person you'd expect to read about in
lurid headlines in your morning paper ... a decidedly regular guy,
beloved by everyone he worked with".
Read the rest of this article:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Hartman>
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Today's selected anniversaries:
793:
Scandinavian Vikings destroyed the abbey at Lindisfarne, Northumbria,
England, to begin the Viking Age.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_Age>
1776:
American Revolutionary War: British forces defeated the Continental
Army at the Battle of Trois-Rivières, the last major battle fought on
Quebec soil that was part of the American colonists' invasion of
Quebec.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trois-Rivi%C3%A8res>
1949:
Nineteen Eighty-Four, a dystopian political novel by English writer
George Orwell about life in the fictional totalitarian government of
Oceania, was first published.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four>
2004:
Ethiopian distance runner Kenenisa Bekele set the current world record
for outdoor 10,000 metres in Ostrava, Czech Republic.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenenisa_Bekele>
2008:
A Japanese man drove a truck into a crowd of pedestrians in the
Akihabara district of Tokyo, then proceeded to stab at least 12 people
with a dagger before being apprehended.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akihabara_massacre>
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Wiktionary's word of the day:
commonality (n):
1. The common people.
2. The state of being in common with others
<http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/commonality>
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Wikiquote quote of the day:
Our civil laws will never be supple enough to fit the immense and
changing variety of facts. Laws change more slowly than custom, and
though dangerous when they fall behind the times are more dangerous
still when they presume to anticipate custom.
--Marguerite Yourcenar
<http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marguerite_Yourcenar>
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