Golf Central

Cue the sappy pastoral guitar music and speak in tones of hushed wonder, because it was on this day in 1934 that the inaugural Masters Tournament began at Augusta National Golf Club. A field of the 72 best pro and amateur golfers in the world teed it up in what was originally known as the Augusta National Invitational Tournament, fighting for a purse of $5,000 (nearly $80,000 in today's money!) ...

In the real world it was on this day in 1765 that the evil British government decided to impose a "stamp tax" on their American colonists, primarily because the coffers were nearly empty after years (erm, seven, exactly) fighting the French in the Seven Years' War (1756-1763) for huge tracts of open land in the American wilds. The British taxes were sweeping, but the Americans got really fed up when hit by levies on things like playing cards, dice, booze and scandal sheets. And we all know what happened 11 years later ... Rebellion!

And strangely enough it was on this day in 1963 that the Beatles' first LP Please Please Me was released in the UK, and the British people were pleased indeed ... in 1903, due to a drought, the Niagara Falls ran out of water ... and in 1978, the 73-year-old founder of the Flying Wallendas daredevil acrobatics troupe, Karl Wallenda, didn't fly so well when he plunged to his death from a high-wire in Puerto Rico.

And in 1981, flight engineer Jügderdemidiin Gürragchaa became the first Mongolian in space, when he blasted off aboard the Russian Soyuz 39 mission. And we really love trying to say the big fella's name ...

So it's Mikko Ilonen! as they say in Finland, to actor William Shatner (77) who as Captain Kirk in Star Trek shagged a lot of funky-looking green alien broads (or basically anything that moved); to the wonderfully named World Anti-Doping Agency chairman Dick Pound (66); to be-bopping jazz guitar legend George Benson (65); to musical criminal Andrew Lloyd Webber (60),  and to touchy-feely American sportscaster Bob Costas (56). ...'Til tomorrow!