January 26, 1968: ABC airs Alexander the Great, which had been filmed as the pilot for an intended TV series -- in 1963. But it wasn't picked up.
So why broadcast it now? Because the actor they had cast as Alexander was well-known for Broadway, and had appeared in the 1961 film Judgement and Nuremberg, and in "Nick of Time," an episode of The Twilight Zone. He would appear in another Twilight Zone episode later in 1963, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet." More importantly, he was now in the 2nd season of a popular NBC TV show, Star Trek, in which he played the lead role, Captain James T. Kirk. His name was William Shatner.
And, playing Cleander, one of Alexander's officers, was an actor who had appeared on several TV shows, but had also become the lead of a popular TV show in 1966, Batman. His name was William West Anderson, but was acting under the name of Adam West.
So ABC, which was broadcasting Batman, broadcast Alexander the Great, hoping people would watch it to see "Captain Kirk" commanding "Batman." Also of note: John Cassavetes, who played the villain of the piece, Karanos; veteran actor Joseph Cotten, as Antigonus; and Tanya Lemani, an Iranian-American dancer who would play a similar character, an ill-fated dancer in a society mirroring that of Earth's Middle East, on the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold."
The plot is fairly simple: It's 330 BC, and Alexander is marching through the Persian Empire, in pursuit of King Darius III. But he has to face down opposition within his own ranks, led by Karanos.
The episode was not as successful as Alexander: It was shown once, didn't get good ratings, and has never been broadcast again, although it is available on YouTube. Shatner and West were not close, but they remained admirers of each other's work.
As for the real guy: He was born on July 20, 356 BC, in Pella, in what is now northern Greece. He was the son of King Philip II of Macedon. The Greek statesman Demosthenes frequently denounced Philip, resulting in the world "philippic." He died in 336 BC, making his son King Alexander III at age 20.
The following year, he conquered all of Greece, basically without breaking a sweat. The year after that, he decided to punish the Achaemenid Empire, formerly the Persian Empire, for its attempts to conquer Greece a century and a half earlier. Why did he still care? In 4 years, he conquered it, including the Siege of Halicarnassus in 334, the Sieges of Tyre and Gaza in 332, the Battle of Gaugamela (in present-day Iraq) in 331, and the Battle of the Persian Gate at Persepolis (in present-day Iran) in 330.
But he was a fair opponent. When he heard that King Darius III had been killed by his cousin, Bessus, Alexander moved his pursuit to Bessus, and when he was captured, Alexander ordered his execution. Would he have done that had Darius been captured alive? We'll never know. What we do know is that conquering this empire gave him the name that has followed him for over 2,300 years: Alexander the Great.
In 331 BC, he founded a city on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, naming it for himself: Alexandria. He used it to spread Greek culture throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East regions, including building the foremost library in the ancient world.
In 326 BC, he got as far as the Indus River, into present-day Pakistan, and thus Greek culture reached India, and he brought South Asian culture to the lands he conquered. He had conquered more territory than any human being before him.
And, unlike the one man who has since topped him, Genghis Khan, 1,500 years later, what he left behind stayed: All the knowledge of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Israel, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Persia and South Asia has remained, in each of those places and their former empires. Someone (I forget who) called Alexander "a two-thousand year man." He was a man who spread learning, and he was a general who never lost a battle.
But one thing he could not conquer was dissension in his own ranks. He turned back, got to Babylon (near present-day Hillah, Iraq, about 50 miles south of present-day Baghdad), and tried to settle things there, and rule from there. He had planned to invade Arabia, but he died on June 10, 323 BC, in the palace that had been built by King Nebuchadnezzar II, at the age of 33. The cause is still debated: It could have been a fever, it could have been an overdose of alcohol, it could have been poison.
The men among whom he left divisions of his empire couldn't hold it together, and lost their holdings due to their civil wars. While Alexandria still stands, and is the 2nd-largest city in Egypt after Cairo, both the library he built there and the tomb where he was laid to rest no longer exist. The current whereabouts of his remains are unknown. But the Hellenistic culture he founded survives, and Greek became a major language of the world, including in the Byzantine Empire, based in present-day Turkey, until its collapse in 1453.
But for all he achieved, there have been few films about Alexander the Great. Besides the Shatner pilot, he has been played by Richard Burton in Alexander the Great in 1956, and Colin Farrell in Alexander in 2004.
Twice, in Star Trek, to Shatner as Captain Kirk -- once by Leonard Nimoy as Spock, in "Patterns of Force," and one by Steve Ihnat as Captain Garth, excuse me, Lord Garth, in "Whom Gods Destroy," Alexander was listed alongside Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Adolf Hitler and Lee Kuan as would-be conquerors of Earth. Spock added Pharoah Ramses II; Garth added Krotus. (Both Lee Kuan and Krotus were characters created for Star Trek, but neither has ever been canonically explained beyond the mentions of their names.) Neither of those examples mentioned Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbรกn), but, in "Space Seed," Spock compared Khan to Alexander and Napoleon. And, in "Requiem for Methuselah," James Daly as the apparently immortal Flint told Kirk that he had been Alexander, among other historical figures.
In a 2016 episode of Epic Rap Battles of History, Zach Sherwin played him against "Nice" Peter Shukoff as Czar Ivan IV of Russia, a.k.a. Ivan the Terrible. It's a "battle royale" that also includes "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist as King Frederick II of Prussia, a.k.a. Frederick the Great; Mike Betette as Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, a.k.a. Pompey the Great; and Meghan Tonjes as Empress Catherine II of Russia, a.k.a. Catherine the Great.
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January 26, 1968 was a Friday. Baseball and football were out of season. The NHL had no games scheduled. But there were 4 games played in the NBA:
* The New York Knicks lost to the St. Louis Hawks, 103-94 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis. Cazzie Russell scored 31 points in defeat for the Knicks.
* The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Boston Celtics, 118-112 at the Boston Garden. Elgin Baylor scored 33. But the Celtics went on to beat the Lakers in the NBA Finals.
* The Philadelphia 76ers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 123-113 at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. Hal Greer scored 36, Wilt Chamberlain 22. For the Royals, Connie Dierking scored 33, and Oscar Robertson 29.
* And the Baltimore Bullets beat the San Francisco Warriors, 125-110 at the Cow Palace outside San Francisco in Daly City,
California. Earl Monroe scored 35
And there were 4 games in the American Basketball Association:
* The Pittsburgh Pipers beat the Minnesota Muskies, 115-107 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. Art Heyman scored 31 for the Pipers.
* The Denver Rockets beat the New Orleans Buccaneers, 104-97 at the Loyola Field House, at Loyola University in New Orleans. Larry Jones scored 34 for the Nuggets.
* The Dallas Chaparrals beat the Houston Mavericks, 122-96 at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium.
* And the Kentucky Colonels beat the Anaheim Amigos, 96-93 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
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