Today is Name Yourself Day and Winston Churchill Day.

I have decided that today, my name will be Winston Churchill because then it would be my day! Just so you know, Winston Churchill Day was created because on this day in 1963, Winston Churchill became the first honorary US citizen.

Also on this day in 1859, Samuel Langhorn Clemmons, age 23, received his steamboat pilots license. Where he got his new nickname “Mark Twain” a pilots call that the river was becoming shallow at only 2 fathoms deep. Returning to writing in 1961 when the Civil War halted Mississippi travel.

In 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at (one of my old family homesteads) Appomattox Court House.

Billy, the Kid was convicted on this day in 1881 of murder and sentenced to hang. He subsequently escaped and was shot dead by Pat Garrett 77 days later.

Do you have The Right Stuff? Watch the movie that depicts what happened on this day in 1959…NASA introduce America’s first astronauts… Scott Carpenter, L. Gordon Cooper Jr., John H. Glenn Jr., Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Walter Schirra Jr., Alan Shepard Jr., and Donald Slayton.

Today’s birthday list includes: Actor WC Fields (1879); Ward Bond (1883) cartoonist who created Gasoline Alley; Wagon Train actor, Ward Bond (1903); Playboy, Hugh Hefner (1926); Songwriter, Tom Lehrer (1928); Avery Schreiber (1935), Comedian/Doritos pitchman; Everyone’s favorite Depression Era mom (The Waltons), actress, Mich ael Learned (1939); Actor Dennis Quaid (1954); Golfer, Steve Ballesteros (1957); Sex and the City actress, Cynthia Nixon (1966); Keshia Knight Pulliam (1979), Cosby Show actress; and Kristen Stewart (1990), actress.