Aswan High Dam – Time Rewind

On This Day April 7

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On this Day July 19

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Celebrity Birthdays

1941 – Grammy-winning singer Vikki Carr, best known for her 1967 hit “It Must Be Him”

1947 – Singer-songwriter Brian May, best known as lead guitarist for the rock band Queen

1954 – Actress Kathleen Turner (“Body Heat,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Romancing the Stone,” “War of the Roses”)

1961 – Actor Campbell Scott (“Longtime Companion,” “Dying Young,” “Big Night,” “The Amazing Spider-Man,” “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”)

1962 – Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor Anthony Edwards (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Revenge of the Nerds,” “Top Gun,” “Zodiac,” “Miracle Mile,” “ER”)

1976 – Emmy-winning actor Benedict Cumberbatch (“War Horse,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “Star Trek: Into the Darkness,” “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” “12 Years a Slave,” “The Fifth Estate,” “The Imitation Game”)

History Highlights

1848 – The first women’s rights convention called by abolitionists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott takes place in Seneca Falls, New York. More than 300 men and women gather for the two-day event to “discuss the social, civil and religious rights and condition of woman.”

1879 – Dentist-turned-gunslinger Doc Holliday kills for the first time, shooting a man who started randomly firing his gun outside the Las Vegas, New Mexico saloon that Holliday owned.

1956 – Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announces that the U.S. will not help Egypt fund construction of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. The move leads to bumpy U.S.-Middle East relations for years to come.

1984 – New York Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro officially wins the Democratic nomination for vice president during the party’s convention in San Francisco. She becomes the first woman to run on a major party ticket.

1989 – It’s a tragic day for commercial air travel as 112 people are killed when United Airlines Flight 232, a DC-10 en route to Chicago from Denver, crashes during an emergency landing at Sioux City, Iowa.

Musical Milestones

1966 – Wedding bells ring as legendary entertainer Frank Sinatra marries actress Mia Farrow. He’s 50, she’s 21. The marriage lasts just two years.

1969 – Zager and Evans are No. 1 on the pop chart with “In the Year 2525.”

1974 – The three-day Ozark Music Festival opens at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, Missouri, and draws a crowd estimated at 350,000 — bigger than the more famous Woodstock Festival. Acts include Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Blue Öyster Cult, Eagles, Aerosmith, America, Jefferson Starship, the Marshall Tucker Band, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Joe Walsh.

1975 – Paul McCartney and Wings reach the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Listen To What The Man Said” off the “Venus and Mars” album.

1980 – Billy Joel holds the top position of both the album and singles charts. His album, “Glass Houses,” contains his first and biggest No. 1 hit, “It’s Still Rock ’n’ Roll to Me.”

1986 – “Invisible Touch,” off the Genesis album of the same name, grabs hold of the top spot on the Billboard singles chart for a week. It is the band’s first and only U.S. No. 1.

1988 – A year before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Bruce Springsteen performs for more than 300,000 fans in East Berlin, saying “I’m not here for any government. I’ve come to play rock ‘n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.”

1997 – “I’ll Be Missing You,” by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans featuring 112, is midway through an 11-week domination of the pop chart.

2003 – No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a second straight week: “Crazy in Love,” by Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z.

On this Day July 21

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Celebrity Birthdays

1899 – Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway (d. 1961)

1920 – Grammy-winning violinist Isaac Stern (d. 2001)

1924 – Comedic actor Don Knotts (“The Andy Griffith Show,” “Three’s Company,” “Pleasantville”) (d. 2006)

1926 – Oscar-winning director-producer Norman Jewison (“In The Heat of The Night,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Jesus Christ Superstar,” “Moonstruck,” “The Hurricane”)

1948 – Singer-songwriter Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens (“Father and Son,” “Wild World,” “Peace Train,” “Moonshadow,” “Morning Has Broken”)

1951 – Oscar-winning actor-comedian Robin Williams (“Mork and Mindy,” “Dead Poets Society,” “Good Morning, Vietnam,” “Good Will Hunting,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Aladdin, “Night at the Museum”)) (d. 2014)

1957 – Comedian-actor and “SNL” alum Jon Lovitz (“A League of Their Own,” “The Wedding Singer”)

1978 – Actor-producer Josh Hartnett (“Pearl Harbor,” “Black Hawk Down,” “Sin City”)

History Highlights

1861 – In the first major clash of the Civil War, the Battle of Bull Run, a large Union force under General Irvin McDowell is routed by a Confederate army led by General Pierre G.T. Beauregard.

1925 – The so-called “Monkey Trial” ends with Tennessee high school biology teacher John Scopes found guilty of teaching evolution in class. He is fined $100.

1955 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower presents his “Open Skies” plan at the Geneva summit. It calls on the U.S. and Soviet Union to exchange maps showing the location of every military installation in their respective nations.

1961 – Astronaut Virgil “Gus” Grissom, piloting Liberty Bell 7, becomes the second American to go into space in a suborbital mission.

1970 – After 11 years of construction, the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River in Egypt is completed.

2005 – Terrorists attempt to attack the London transit system with bombs planted on three subways and a bus, however none detonates completely. The plot comes two weeks after terrorists killed 52 people and wounded over 700 others in the largest attack on Great Britain since World War II.

2011 – NASA’s 30-year space shuttle program comes to an end with the early-morning landing of shuttle Atlantis (STS-135) at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The 13-day mission to the International Space Station was the 33rd for Atlantis and 135th for NASA’s shuttle fleet.

Musical Milestones

1958 – The Coasters are chart-toppers with “Yakety Yak.” While this now-classic single spends just one week at No. 1 on the pop chart, it enjoys a seven-week run on top of the R&B chart.

1962 – “Roses Are Red (My Love),” by Bobby Vinton, is the No. 1 single.

1973 – Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown” kicks off two weeks as a No. 1 single. It is Croce’s final chart-topper before his death in a plane crash that September.

1984 – Prince is midway through a five-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “When Doves Cry,” from his “Puple Rain” album.

1987 – Geffen Records releases Guns N’ Roses’ debut album, “Appetite for Destruction,” featuring hard rock anthems “Sweet Child O’Mine” and “Welcome to the Jungle.” The album goes on to top the Billboard 200 and becomes the best-selling debut album ever by a band.

1990 – “She Ain’t Worth It,” by Glenn Medeiros featuring Bobby Brown, kicks off two weeks on top of the pop chart.

2001 – Usher maintains his grip on the top spot of the singles chart with “U Remind Me.”