ALEXANDER THE GREAT, Greek king and military leader, born in Thrace; One of the most successful military commanders in history, undefeated in battle. By his death, he had conquered most of the world known to the ancient Greeks (d. 323 BCE) After traveling to Ecbatana to retrieve the bulk of the Persian treasure, his beloved, Hephaestion, died of an illness, or possibly of poisoning. Alexander mourned by Hephaestion's side for six months.

It is said that on the night before the mother of Alexander, Olympias, was to be married to King Phillip of Macedonia, she dreamt that a thunderbolt struck her body and filled it with power. After the marriage, it is said that Phillip peeked into her chamber, and found her lying with a serpent, and that he afterward dreamt that her womb was sealed and that a lion dwelled within her. And on the night that he was born the great Temple at Ephesus was burned to the ground by a vandal, because the goddess Artemis was away, assisting with the birth of Alexander the Great. He was considered to be the son of Zeus, and this divine origin was what was given as an explanation for the unprecedented conquests that he accomplished.

In Alexander’s youth, Aristotle, a student of Plato, educated him along with his following of young princes, who were later serve as his generals, and the founders of great dynastic monarchies of the Hellenistic world. Foremost of these was his ever loyal and devoted Hephaestion. In one of their first battles, while Phillip was still king, the young Alexander proved himself by defeating the Sacred Band of Thebes, the army of homosexual lovers who were the most famous and courageous warriors of their time. Alexander is said to have wept at their destruction, and buried them with honor, erecting a statue of a Lion over their grave.

He would later go one to conquer the entire Eastern world, Asia Minor, Syria, Judea, Egypt, and all of Persian, as far East as India. The Empire of Alexander spread Greek culture throughout the world, and made the communication of far-distant ideas possible so that the new Hellenistic culture that he created, was a combination of classical Greece and of the exotic cultures that were imported from every corner. After the death of Alexander, at only thirty-three years of age, he was deified by his generals who divided his great Empire among themselves.

ORPHEUS: traditional date of birth. Orpheus was the son of Calliope and either Oeagrus or Apollo. He was the greatest musician and poet of Greek myth, whose songs could charm wild beasts and coax even rocks and trees into movement. He was one of the Argonauts, and when the Argo had to pass the island of the Sirens, it was Orpheus' distractions that prevented the crew from being lured to destruction. This much of the legend of Orpheus is fairly certain. It's the final days of Orpheus, however, that are the subject of varying stories.

One such version justified Orpheus' inclusion here. The celebrated Thracian musician became a follower of Dionysius and, it is believed, soothed the Argonauts with means other than mere melodies, thus introducing homophile love into Greece. As a result, Orpheus was soundly hated by Aphrodite who considered him a competitor and rival. Orpheus met his end at the hands of the women of Thrace who, because the handsome hunk refused to pay them any attention, tore him to pieces. And…speaking of charming Thracians…

NATALIE WOOD, American actress born (d. 1981) In addition to her numerous accomplishments as an actress, the teenaged Wood went on studio-arranged dates with actors. In 1956, one of these was Tab Hunter, seven years her senior, with whom she reportedly developed a genuine friendship. They would attend parties to promote the two films they co-starred in that year. Wood biographer and Hollywood screenwriter, Gavin Lambert, also confirms that Wood had studio-arranged dates with gay or bisexual actors, the first of which was Nick Adams. Hunter in his autobiography elaborates on how a Hollywood studio's publicizing of a sham romance between two actors each under contract to it was a strategy to stimulate public desire for seeing that studio's forthcoming films. According to Lambert, Wood supported gay playwright Mart Crowley in a manner that made it possible for him to write his play, The Boys in the Band.

PEDRO ZEROLO is a Spanish lawyer and politician, currently a town councilman of the city of Madrid, and a member of the Federal Executive Committee of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party. He's a trustee of the Fundacion IDEAS, Spain's Socialist Party's think tank and he was born on this date in Caracas, Venezuela. His father lived in exile from the Franco government. He studied law in the Canary Islands at the University of La Laguna on Tenerife.

After earning his diploma, he moved to Madrid, where he continued his studies, focusing on comparative law. At the same time, he collaborated with Catholic priest Enrique de Castro in a project to help the people of the poor Madrid barrio of Entrevías. In 1992 he became a legal consultant for the Colectivo Gay de Madrid (Gay Collective of Madrid, COGAM). In late 1993, he was elected president of the organization. He subsequently provided legal assistance to the Federación Estatal de Gays y Lesbianas (National Federation of Gays and Lesbians).

In 1998 he became president of that organization, which is now known as the Federación Estatal de Lesbianas, Gays, Transexuales y Bisexuales (National Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Transsexuals and Bisexuals, FELGTB) the main LGBT organisation in Spain. He was reelected in 2000 and 2002. In 2004 he joined the board of directors of ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association. Zerolo was a key activist in Spain's move for civil partnerships, addressing the Spanish Congress of Deputies and the Spanish Senate to denounce discrimination against the gay community in Spain. He was also one of the chief negotiators over five modifications to the Spanish Civil Code relating to same-sex marriage. On October 1, 2005, Zerolo married Jesús Santos, his partner of ten years, in a civil ceremony.

According to Andres Duque from the Spanish language blog, Blabbeando, "There will be a day in which the untold history of how the Spanish Socialist Worker's Party (PSOE) and the Spanish National Federation of Gays and Lesbians (FELGBT) traveled to Latin America and planted some of the seeds for marriage equality in Argentina and Uruguay after securing passage of their own law in 2005. Those efforts were led by the Venezuelan-born attorney and Spanish councilmember Pedro Zerolo who never lost sight of Latin America despite living in Spain for more than two decades."

A convention of the METHODIST CHURCH votes to allow women to become priests.

JUDY CHICAGO, American artist. Chicago’s brilliant “The Dinner Party” now on permanent display in the Elizabeth Sackler Center Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum traces the herstory of great women and comprises a massive ceremonial banquet, arranged on a triangular table with a total of thirty-nine place settings, each commemorating an important woman from history.

The settings consist of embroidered runners, gold chalices and utensils, and china-painted porcelain plates with raised central motifs that are based on vulvar and butterfly forms and rendered in styles appropriate to the individual women being honored. The names of another 999 women are inscribed in gold on the white tile floor below the triangular table. This permanent installation is enhanced by rotating biographical gallery shows relating to the 1,038 women honored at the table. Pharaohs, Queens and Goddesses at the Brooklyn Museum was the first such exhibition.

NEIL ARMSTRONG walks on the moon.

President Ronald Reagan appoints LARRY KRAMER, co-founder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis, to a federal panel on AIDS. Like everything else Reagan did about HIV-AIDS, it was only about seven years too late.

Photographer ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE’S' show opens at Washington D.C.’s Project for the Arts after the Smithsonian Institution’s Corcoran Gallery cancels it.

CANADA becomes the fourth country in the world to legalize marriage equality, after the Bill C-38 receives its Royal Assent.