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Events on Friday 23 July 1948 1
1875 – 1948D. W. Griffith (1875-1948)Died 23 July 1948, aged 73D. W. Griffith, the American film director whose innovations helped establish the grammar of narrative cinema, died on July 23, 1948, largely forgotten by the industry he had helped build. His 1915 film "The Birth of a Nation" was both hugely influential and deeply controversial for its racist content. He spent his final years in relative obscurity in Hollywood.