On this date the surrealist painter SALVADOR DALI was born (d. 1989). Although famous for his masterworks, "The Persistance of Memory" and "The Last Supper", the Catalan artist's repertoire also included film, sculpture, and photography. He collaborated with Walt Disney on the Academy Award-nominated short cartoon Destino, which was released posthumously in 2003. He also collaborated with Alfred Hitchcock on Hitchcock's film "Spellbound."

As a young artist Dali became close friends with, among others the filmmaker Luis Buñuel, and the poet and dramatist Federico García Lorca. Lorca fell deeply in love with Dali; photographs of the two show them being suggestively physical with each other. Although some biographers believe Lorca and Dali sexually consummated their relationship, it is not known for certain.

The relationship between the two has been one of the most guarded, censored and argued-about relationship in Spanish scholarship. In his "Lorca & Censorship" the Hispanist scholar Daniel Eisenberg, who has written and lectured extensively on Lorca and the attempt to censor the historical record of his sexuality and relationships, argues that the truth may eventually come out when the price is paid or the more sexually repressive parties die off. "When someone comes up with enough cash (I don't know how much cash), Lorca's letters to Salvador Dalí will be published. (For someone interested in Lorca and art, they might well be important.)

They are in the hands of Dalí's executor, and presumably, since they are for sale, they are where no harm will befall them. I assume that the materials...will reach safe harbor after his death. Only then will we learn what he has withheld and why. Martínez Nadal, of course, is the one who has given us the most data about Lorca's homosexuality: it is he who ... has written at the greatest length about the place of homosexuality in the circles they moved in in Madrid in the late 1920's and early 1930's(38). So what is he suppressing, and why?

Which brings us to the 2008 British/Spanish film "Little Ashes", which explores the sexual relationship between Dali and Garcia Lorca. Their close friendship has long been a subject of speculation, thanks in part to Dali's repeated claims that Lorca had tried to seduce him. The film stars the British actor Robert Pattinson (best known as the moody romantic vampire in the Twilight franchise and Cedric Diggory in the fourth Harry Potter film) as the legendary surrealist painter, and the fabulous Spanish actor Javier Beltran as poet Lorca.

The screenwriter Philippa Goslett noted that based on her research "it's clear something happened, no question ... It began as a friendship, became more intimate and moved to a physical level but Dali found it difficult and couldn't carry on. He said they tried to have sex but it hurt, so they couldn't consummate the relationship. Considering Dali's massive hang-ups, it's not surprising." It's a pretty amazing little film and argues for Dali's life of torment and weirdness as his inability to claim the great love of his life.

The "Saint of 9/11" MYCHAL JUDGE was born on this date (d: 2001). Chaplain of the New York City Fire Department, Judge was the first recorded victim of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Openly gay, Judge was among first priests to conduct funeral masses for Gay men with AIDS.

Baseball player BILLY BEAN was born on this date. Born William Daro Bean, the former Major League Baseball player made news in 1999 when he made his homosexuality public. Bean was an outfielder, and left-handed hitter, with 487 at bats with a .226 batting average in a career that lasted from 1987 through 1995: Detroit Tigers 1987-1989, Los Angeles Dodgers 1989, San Diego Padres 1993-1995.

He also played for the Kintetsu Buffaloes in Japan in 1992. Bean tied a major league record with four hits in his first major league game.

After acknowledging that he is Gay, Bean went on to write a book, Going the Other Way: Lessons from a life in and out of Major League Baseball. Bean is only the second former major league player to reveal his homosexuality; the late Los Angeles Dodger and Oakland Athletic Glenn Burke is the only other ex-player to have acknowledged his homosexuality. Bean lives in Miami, Florida and sells real estate. He appeared in a 2009 episode of Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, showing Griffin several homes.

THE LADIES OF LLANGOLLEN, ELEANOR BUTLER and SARAH PONSONBY, respectively, born (d: 1829 and 1831); In the 18th century, a polite euphemism for Lesbianism was coined – a “romantic friendship,” a term occasionally invoked in our own times whenever the press wants to touch on such delicate matters like Eleanor Roosevelt’s "romantic friendship" with Lorena Hickock, for example.

The 18th century press was particularly fond of attacking “romantic friendships,” which they called “the latest unnatural vice,” and singled out for censure Marie Antoinette and her court of “Sapphists,” the comedienne Miss Farren, and especially the infamous Ladies of Llangollen.

Butler and Ponsonby, Irish ladies of quality, ran off together to Llangollen, Wales, where, together with their servant Mary Caryll, known as “Molly the Bruiser,” they set up house and lived together in domestic bliss and tranquility for half a century. That theirs was a physical relationship is clear from Lady Eleanor’s journal, written in an easily decipherable code. That the modern vulgarism “bush” is hardly modern at all may be seen in the journal’s constant references to shrubbery – even in the dead of winter: “My beloved and I spent a delightful evening in the shrubbery.” Fifty years of gardening is a long time, and the two women are well worth reading about in any of several full-length books about their life together.

Their house became a haven for all manner of visitors, mostly writers such as Robert Southey, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron and Scott, but also the military leader Duke of Wellington and industrialist Josiah Wedgwood; aristocratic novelist Caroline Lamb, who was born a Ponsonby, came to visit too. The Ladies were known throughout Britain, but in fact led a rather unexciting life. Queen Charlotte wanted to see their cottage and persuaded the King to grant them a pension. Eventually their families came to tolerate them. Butler and Ponsonby lived together for the rest of their lives, over 50 years. Their books and glassware had both sets of initials and their letters were jointly signed.

For images of their home: http://www.f-n-f.net/Ladies-of-Llangollen.htm

Launch of HMS Beagle the ship that took young Charles Darwin on his scientific voyage. And launched Fundamentalist Christians into a tizzy.

The Beagle's Captain FitzRoy had found a need for expert advice on geology during the first voyage, and had resolved that if on a similar expedition, he would "endeavour to carry out a person qualified to examine the land; while the officers, and myself, would attend to hydrography."

Command in that era could involve stress and loneliness, as shown by the suicide of FitzRoy's own uncle Viscount Castlereagh under stress of overwork. His attempts to get a friend to accompany him fell through, and he asked his friend and superior, Captain Francis Beaufort, to seek a gentleman naturalist as a self-financing passenger who would give him company during the voyage.

A sequence of inquiries led to Charles Darwin, a young gentleman on his way to becoming a rural clergyman, joining the voyage. Fitzroy was influenced by the physiognomy of Lavater, and Darwin recounted in his autobiography that he was nearly "rejected, on account of the shape of my nose! He was an ardent disciple of Lavater, & was convinced that he could judge a man's character by the outline of his features; & he doubted whether anyone with my nose could possess sufficient energy & determination for the voyage."

Voters in Lincoln, Nebraska rejected a Gay rights ordinance 78%-22%. Quack psychologist Paul Cameron led the fight. He would soon be kicked out of the American Psychological Association and placed under investigation by the American Sociological Association for unethical conduct in his research.

On this date the United Methodist Church voted to bar homosexuals from ordination. Popularly seen by many by their mid-(last) century reputation as a moderate mainline denomination, the United Methodist Church has moved ever more to the Right in the last few decades. The judicial power in the church resides in the more conservative South and has resulted in a more Baptist-like keening of the church. For many the decision in 1984 was the sign of things that would and did come.

In the 1990s, the denomination re-branded itself with the catchy slogan "Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors." Sadly these sentiments do not apply to Gay people in the United Methodist Church.

As recently as April of this year (2017) the Methodist court ruled that the first out gay Bishop is in violation of church law and should face trial.

The Washington Post published "The Cautious Closet of the Gay Conservative." The article focused mainly on Terry Dolan who, until his death from complications from AIDS in December 1986, was vehemently anti-Gay. Seems that's a mighty big closet as he's been followed by many others of his ilk in the last decade.

On this date the film "Longtime Companion" opened in New York City. It was the first major studio release to deal with AIDS. 

One of the first films to offer a thoughtful treatment of the AIDS epidemic and its effects on the Gay community, Longtime Companion was directed by Norman Rene, who would die of AIDS himself in 1996. The ensemble drama is told through a series of vignettes that begins with the first New York Times report on the mysterious "cancer" that had resulted in the deaths of a growing number of homosexual men and ends eight years later, after the disease has thoroughly and devastatingly affected the movie's close-knit core group of characters.

On this date the Rudolph Giuliani, then Republican mayor of New York City, proposed legislation that would grant same -sex domestic partners the same rights to which married couples are entitled. Then what happened to him is anyone's guess.