August 14th 1040 MacBeth became King of Scotland

14 August 1040
MacBeth, whose name means ‘son of life,’ commanding an army of clansmen from the northern province of Moray and Norse allies from the Orkney Islands, becomes King of Scots after defeating the army of Duncan I, consisting mostly of clansmen from Atholl, the south of Scotland, and some Irish mercenaries, near Burghead. Contrary to Shakespeare’s famous 'Scottish play,' Duncan was a relatively young man, thirty-nine years old, who was killed the battle and not murdered at Glamis Castle as he slept. In fact, said castle was not even built until several centuries later. Duncan was a rather ineffectual king increasingly unable to govern the kingdom and MacBeth, the Moramaer (Earl) of Moray, had legitimate claims to the throne both on his own behalf and through his wife, Gruoch, whose name has also been besmirched by the Bard. MacBeth is considered by many to have been the last truly Celtic King of Scots and appears to have been a wise ruler who presided over seventeen years of general peace and prosperity. For example, in 1050, matters in Scotland were quiet enough for him to go on pilgrimage to Rome where he "scattered money among the poor like seed." (Electric Scotland)

1951 "A Place in the Sun", film adptation of Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy", directed by George Stevens, starring Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelley Winters premieres in Los Angeles, California; wins 6 Academy Awards, including Best Director, 1952.  Upon seeing the film, Charlie Chaplin called it "the greatest movie ever made about America".^[9]

^{1956 Marxist poet, playwright and theatre director Bertolt Brecht died .Most famous for his Three Penny Opera, Brecht fled Hitler's Germany to the US, returning to East Berlin in 1947 after being compelled to testify before HUAC.}