Anne Frank was born 87 years ago today.

A few years ago the Anne Frank House released a short film clip, 20 seconds long, of a home movie: a bride and groom walk out of Merwedeplein 39 in Amsterdam on July 22, 1941, and a 12 year-old girl looks on from the front of Merwedeplein 37. She is seen in a second shot leaning out of an upstairs window. Smiling. Being 12. It is the only film footage that has ever been found of Anne Frank, the 12-year-old child. The film (below the jump):

 
On this date in 1942, for her 13th birthday Anne Frank received a blank book.

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On this date in 1970, Dock Ellis, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. No-hitters are headline news but not usually career- or even season-defining. I wrote about Dock Ellis here: “A Missing Ingredient.”

After his career was over, he claimed that he pitched the game while still feeling the effects of LSD he had consumed. Some statistics seem to support his claim: he walked eight and struck out six, for instance. He recounted, “The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire.” Reporters who were at the game say that there was no way he was tripping. Ellis was in fact an alcoholic and did confess that he was either buzzed or on greenies during each game he ever appeared in. After his career ended, he got sober and became a certified substance abuse counselor and mentored many individuals, both famous and unknown, before his death in 2008.

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Raiders of the Lost Ark, a film directed by Steven Spielberg, was released 35 years ago today.

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Irwin Allen was born 100 years ago today. Uta Hagen was born on this date in 1919.

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David Rockefeller is 101 today. President George H. W. Bush is 92 today. Vic Damone is 88. Jim Nabors is 86. Chick Corea is 75. Marv Albert is 75. Scott Thompson is 57. John Linnell is 57. Ally Sheedy is 54.

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