CLAUDE-LOUIS-HECTOR, DUC DE VILLARS, was born; The sharp-tongued Charlotte Elizabeth, the second wife of the ever-so homosexual Phillipe d’Orleans, left behind a collection of letters, many of which reveal her passion for sniffing out the private affairs of the court homos. Of her favorite subject she wrote, “Our heroes take as their models Hercules, Theseus, Alexander, and Caesar, who hall had their male favorites. Those who give themselves up to this vice, which believing in Holy Scripture, imagine that it was only a sin when there were few people in the world, and that now the earth is so populated it may be regarded as a divertissement.

"Among the common people, indeed, accusations of this kind are, so far as possible, avoided; but among persons of quality, it is publicly spoken of; it is considered a fine saying that since Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord has punished no one for such offenses.”

One of the Gay “persons of quality” who flit through the duchess’s letters is the above-referenced duc de Villars, one of the greatest generals in French history and marshal of France under Louis XIV.

TOUKO LAAKSONEN (d: 1991), best known by his pseudonym TOM OF FINLAND, was a Finnish artist, born on this date, notable for his stylized homoerotic fetish art and his influence on late twentieth century gay culture. He has been called the "most influential creator of gay pornographic images" by cultural historian Joseph W. Slade. Over the course of four decades, he produced some 3500 illustrations, mostly featuring men with exaggerated primary and secondary sex traits with tight or partially removed clothing.

Laaksonen's style and content in the late 1950s and early 1960s was partly influenced by the U.S. censorship codes that restricted depiction of "overt homosexual acts." His work was published in the beefcake genre that began in the 1930s and predominantly featured photographs of attractive, muscular young men in athletic poses often shown demonstrating exercises.

Their primary market was gay men, but because of the conservative and homophobic social culture of the era gay pornography was illegal and the publications were typically presented as dedicated to physical fitness and health. They were often the only connection that closeted men had to their sexuality. By this time, however, Laaksonen was rendering private commissions so more explicit work was produced but remained unpublished.

In the 1962 case of MANual Enterprises v Day, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that nude male photographs were not obscene. Softcore gay pornography magazines and films featuring fully nude models, some of them tumescent, quickly appeared and the pretense of being about exercise and fitness was dropped as controls on pornography were reduced.

By the end of the 1960s the market for beefcake magazines collapsed. Laaksonen was able to publish his more overtly homoerotic work and it changed the context with "new possibilities and conventions for displaying frontal male nudity in magazines and movies." Laaksonen reacted by publishing more explicit drawings and stylized his figures' fantastical aspects with exaggerated physical aspects, particularly their genitals and muscles.

New York's Museum of Modern Art has acquired several examples of Laaksonen's artwork for its permanent collection. In 2006, MoMA in New York accepted five Tom of Finland drawings as part of a much larger gift from The Judith Rothschild Foundation. The trustee of The Judith Rothschild Foundation, Harvey S. Shipley Miller, said, “Tom of Finland is one of the five most influential artists of the twentieth century. As an artist he was superb, as an influence he was transcendent

In April 2014 Itela Posti, the Finnish postal service, announced they will publish a set of first class stamps in Finland including two drawings by Tom of Finland, selected to the sheet by the stamps designer graphic artist Timo Berry, and Susanna Luoto, who represented the foundation named after Tom of Finland (Tom of Finland Foundation) operating in Los Angeles. The sheet consisting of three self-adhesive stamps were published on 8 September 2014 and are accompanied by the exhibition Sealed with a Secret – Correspondence of Tom of Finland in the Finnish Postal Museum. The stamp set became a hit with its popularity surprising Posti which received pre-orders from 178 countries around the world.

RODOLFO MORALES Mexican painter, born (d: 2001) was a Mexican surrealist painter best known for his brightly colored surrealistic dream-like canvases and collages often featuring Mexican women in village settings. He was notable for his restoration of historic buildings in Ocotlan and, together with Rufino Tamayo and Francisco Toledo, helped make Oaxaca in Southern Mexico a center for contemporary art and tourism.

Up until his death in 2001, both he and Toledo had been regarded as Mexico’s greatest living artists for over a decade. He died, aged 75, in Oaxaca from cancer of the pancreas and his remains placed in his restored Convent of Santo Domingo, in Ocotlán, Oaxaca.

In Amsterdam, BAREND JANSEN and JAN HEEMSKERK were arrested for having sex in a public toilet. Heemskerk was executed (he must have been the bottom), and Jansen was tortured and received a twenty-year prison sentence.

The Florida Supreme Court dismissed charges against a group of men who were arrested in a Miami bathhouse, citing freedom of assembly, privacy, and equal protection of the law. Wow. What a concept!

The Danish Parliament in Copenhagen voted to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

DEB PRICE began writing for the Detroit News. She wrote solely on Gay and Lesbian topics. Since then her column has become syndicated in over 100 newspapers, making it the first nationally syndicated column of its kind in the mainstream press.

The U.S. Senate confirmed the appointment of DEBORAH BATTS, the first African-American openly Lesbian U.S. Federal District Court Judge.

South Africa becomes the first nation in the world to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation in its constitution.