Sir Alfred Hitchcock was a British film director whose films are closely associated with the suspense thriller genre. Hitchcock is one of the most well-known and popular directors of all time, known as the "Master of Suspense" due to the many successful motion pictures he directed involving murderers and the innocent people caught in their paths. He directed over fifty films over the course of his career, with several of them becoming well-known box office hits that have influenced a great number of filmmakers, producers, and actors. From 1955 to 1965, Hitchcock was the host and producer of a long-running television series entitled Alfred Hitchcock Presents. While his films had made Hitchcock's name synonymous with "suspense," the series made Hitchcock a celebrity himself. His voice, image, and mannerisms became instantly recognizable, and were often the subject of parody. He directed a few episodes of the series himself, and he upset a number of movie production companies when he insisted on using his television crew to produce his motion picture Psycho.

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Today's selected anniversaries:

1493 Christopher Columbus became the first European to land on Puerto Rico, an island he named San Juan Bautista. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puerto_Rico)

1794 The United States and the Kingdom of Great Britain concluded the Jay Treaty. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Treaty)

1863 U.S. President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettysburg_Address)

1942 Soviet forces under General Georgy Zhukov launched the Operation Uranus envelopment at the Battle of Stalingrad, turning the tide of the battle in the Soviet Union's favor. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Uranus)

1977 Egyptian President Anwar Sadat became the first Arab leader to officially visit Israel; he met with Prime Minister Menachem Begin and spoke before the Knesset. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_Sadat)

Wikiquote of the day:

"Nowadays most men lead lives of noisy desperation." ~ James Thurber (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Thurber)