On this Day: July 29 – Time Rewind

On this Day July 29

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Celebrity Birthdays

Celebrity Birthdays

1936 – Former Labor Secretary, American Red Cross President and North Carolina Senator Elizabeth Dole

1953 – Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker Ken Burns

1953 – Musician Geddy Lee, lead singer-bassist for the rock band Rush

1966 – Country music singer-songwriter Martina McBride

1972 – Actor Wil Wheaton (“Stand By Me,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” “The Big Bang Theory”)

1974 – Actor Josh Radnor, best known as Ted Mosby from the Emmy-winning sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”

History Highlights

History Highlights

1921 – Adolf Hitler becomes the leader of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. Under Hitler, the Nazi Party becomes a mass movement and rules Germany as a totalitarian state from 1933 to 1945.

1958 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs an act creating a civilian agency that comes to be known as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to direct U.S. space policy.

1976 – David Berkowitz, the so-called “Son of Sam,” kills one woman and seriously wounds another in the first of a series of attacks that would terrorize New York City for the next year.

1981 – Nearly a billion TV viewers around the world tune in to witness the marriage of Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, to Lady Diana Spencer, a young English schoolteacher.

1996 – American track & field legend Carl Lewis wins his fourth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the long jump — propelling himself 27 feet 10 3/4 inches at the Summer Games in Atlanta. It is the ninth and final Olympic gold of Lewis’ storied career.

2000 – Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, one of Hollywood’s highest-profile couples, tie the knot in Malibu, California during a ceremony estimated to cost around $1 million. The marriage lasts just five years.

Musical Milestones

Musical Milestones

1967 – The Doors set fire to the Billboard Hot 100, as “Light My Fire” begins three weeks at No. 1. It is the band’s first of two career chart-toppers.

1972 – Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again, Naturally” begins four weeks on top of the singles chart.

1974 – The Mamas & the Papas singer Cass Elliot dies in her sleep from a heart attack after playing a sold-out show in London. She is just 32. Rumors spread around the world, and continue today, claiming that Mama Cass choked to death on a ham sandwich. But an autopsy confirmed a heart attack as cause of death with no trace of food in her windpipe.

1978 – The soundtrack to the movie musical “Grease,” featuring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, reaches No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. It becomes the second best-selling album ever released and top-selling soundtrack in history with about 45 million copies sold worldwide.

1989 – “Toy Soldiers,” by one-hit-wonder Martika, tops the Billboard Hot 100 for a second and final week.

1995 – TLC is in the midst of a seven-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Waterfalls.”

2000 – NSYNC’s “It’s Gonna Be Me” kicks off two weeks on top of the pop chart.

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