On this Day: July 4

On this Day July 4

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1776 – United States of America 

1872 – Calvin Coolidge, 30th U.S. president (d. 1933)

1911 – Musician-conductor-TV host Mitch Miller (d. 2010)

1918 – Advice columnist Ann Landers (d. 2002)

1920 – Businesswoman Leona Helmsley, nicknamed “Queen of Mean” (d. 2007)

1924 – Oscar and Primetime Emmy-winning actress Eva Marie Saint (“On The Waterfront,” “North By Northwest”)

1927 – Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Neil Simon (“Barefoot in the Park,” “The Odd Couple,” “Lost in Yonkers”) (d, 2018)

1930 – Former New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner (d. 2010)

1938 – Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Fame vocalist Bill Withers (“Ain’t No Sunshine,” “Lean On Me,” “Lovely Day”) (d. 2020)

1943 – Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist-TV host Geraldo Rivera

History Highlights
History Highlights

1776 – The Continental Congress, meeting in Philadelphia, adopts the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the independence of the United States of America from Great Britain and its king.

1911 – A heatwave drives temperatures to triple-digit record highs from Pennsylvania to Maine, leaving nearly 400 people dead. In Nashua, New Hampshire, the mercury peaks at 106. The heatwave lingers across the Northeast for 11 days.

1939 – Baseball great Lou Gehrig, recently diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), tells a crowd at New York’s Yankee Stadium that he considers himself “the luckiest man on the face of the Earth,” as he announces his retirement from Major League Baseball.  The speech is later dubbed “baseball’s Gettysburg Address.” Gehrig dies from the disease two years later at the age of 37. Today, ALS is known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

1966 – President Lyndon Johnson signs the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) into law, granting public access to government records. 

1997 – After traveling 120 million miles in seven months, NASA’s Mars Pathfinder becomes the first American spacecraft in more than two decades to land on Mars. 

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1953 – Eddie Fisher begins a seven-week domination of the singles chart with “I’m Walking Behind You.”

1964 – “I Get Around,” by the Beach Boys, is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It holds the top spot for two weeks.

1969 – Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Johnny Winter, Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR), Canned Heat, Joe Cocker, Blood Sweat & Tears, Chuck Berry and other popular acts perform at the Atlanta Pop Festival in Byron, Georgia.

1970 – A radio institution is born on this day. It’s “American Top 40” (“AT40”) with host Casey Kasem, a nationally syndicated program that counts down the 40 hottest singles in the U.S. according to Billboard magazine. The first countdown ends with the Jackson 5’s “The Love You Save,” then in its second and final week at No. 1. 

1981 – Kim Carnes tops the Billboard Hot 100 for a seventh week with “Bette Davis Eyes.”

1987 – “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” by Whitney Houston, begins its second and final week as a Billboard chart-topper.

1992 – “Baby Got Back” puts Sir Mix-a-Lot on top of the pop chart for five weeks. The track becomes the second best-selling song of 1992, behind Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You.”

2003 – Grammy-winning soul singer-songwriter Barry White (“Can’t Get Enough of Your Love,” “You’re the First, The Last, My Everything”) — whose smooth, deep vocals dominated the pop chart throughout the 70s —  dies of kidney failure at the age of 58.

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On this Day: July 3

On this Day July 3

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1878 – Composer and playwright George M. Cohan (“Over There,” “Give My Regards to Broadway,” “I’m a Yankee Doodle Dandy”) (d. 1942)

1883 – Author Franz Kafka (“Amerika,” “The Trial,” “The Castle”) (d. 1924)

1937 – Playwright Tom Stoppard  (“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour”) 

1947 – Pulitzer Prize-winning author and columnist Dave Barry 

1956 – Emmy-winning TV talk show host Montel Williams 

1962 – Golden Globe-winning actor-producer Tom Cruise (“Risky Business,” “Top Gun,” “The Color of Money,” “Cocktail,” “Rain Man,” “Days of Thunder,” “A Few Good Men,” “The Firm,” “Jerry Maguire,” the “Mission: Impossible” movie franchise, “Edge of Tomorrow”)

1980 – Actress Olivia Munn (“Beyond the Break,” “Magic Mike,” “The Newsroom,” “Mortdecai,” “X-Men: Apocalypse”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1775 – George Washington rides out in front of the American troops gathered at Cambridge Common in Massachusetts and draws his sword, formally taking command of the 16,000-member Continental Army.

1863 – On the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s last attempt at breaking the Union line ends in failure, bringing the most decisive battle of the American Civil War to an end.

1958 – President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Rivers and Harbors Flood Control Bill, which allocates funds to improve flood-control and water-storage systems across the United States.

1985 – The sci-fi adventure/comedy “Back to the Future,” starring Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd and directed by Robert Zemeckis, opens in U.S. theaters. It becomes a cult classic, spawning two sequels, an animated series, a theme park ride, several video games, a series of comic books and a stage musical.

1986 – President Ronald Reagan, with First Lady Nancy Reagan by his side, presides over the relighting of the renovated Statue of Liberty. It re-opens to the public two days later during Liberty Weekend, celebrating the monument’s centennial.

1988 – While sailing through the Persian Gulf, the U.S. Navy cruiser Vincennes shoots down an Iranian passenger jet that it mistakes for a hostile fighter plane. All 290 people on board are killed. The U.S. government admits to the error a month later, and in 1996, agrees to pay $62 million in damages to the families of the Iranians that perished in the attack.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1969 – The Newport Jazz Festival features huge musical acts not typically associated with jazz: Led Zeppelin, Jethro Tull, Blood Sweat & Tears and more.

1969 – Shortly after leaving The Rolling Stones, band founder and guitarist Brian Jones is found dead in his swimming pool at the age of 27.

1970 – An audience of more than 300,000 gathers for the second annual Atlanta Pop Festival, featuring the Allman Brothers, Jimi Hendrix, Jethro Tull, Johnny Winter, Mountain, Procol Harum and Rare Earth. 

1971 – The No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100 is Carole King’s “It’s Too Late,” off her legendary, Grammy-winning “Tapestry” album.

1971 – The body of 27-year-old Doors frontman Jim Morrison is discovered by his girlfriend in the bathtub of their rented apartment in Paris, France. The cause of death was officially labeled heart failure, thus averting an autopsy under French law. 

1974 – The “Tony Orlando & Dawn” variety show premieres on CBS. 

1982 – The Human League capture the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Don’t You Want Me,” from their “Dare” album. The track holds at No. 1 for three weeks.

1999 – Jennifer Lopez is in the middle of a five-week domination of the pop chart with “If You Had My Love.”

2004 – “Burn,” by Usher, begins the last of a seven-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart.

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