On This Day: April 2

On This Day April 2

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1914 – Actor Sir Alec Guinness (“Kind Hearts and Coronets,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope”) (d. 2000)

1939 – Motown titan Marvin Gaye, whose hits include “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and “What’s Going On”) (d. 1984)

1941 – Singer-songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Leon Russell (“A Song for You,” “Tight Rope,” “Lady Blue”) (d. 2016)

1945 – Oscar-winning actress Linda Hunt (“The Year of Living Dangerously,” “Kindergarten Cop,” “The Practice,” “NCIS: Los Angeles”)

1947 – Grammy-winning country singer-songwriter Emmylou Harris (“Two More Bottles of Wine,” “You Never Can Tell (C’est La Vie),” “Beneath Still Waters”)

1961 – Actor Christopher Meloni (“Oz,” “Runaway Bride,” “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “True Blood”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1792 – The U.S. Congress passes the Coinage Act, establishing the U.S. Mint and regulating money.

1917 – The first woman ever elected to the U.S. Congress, Jeannette Rankin, takes her seat as a representative from Montana. A year later, she earns a second distinction by joining 49 of her House colleagues in voting against U.S. entry into World War I. Rankin remained true to her antiwar beliefs, becoming the only member of Congress to oppose declaring war against Japan following the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor.

1956 – One of the longest running soaps debuts on CBS: “As The World Turns.” Former cast members include Meg Ryan, Julianne Moore, and Marisa Tomei.

1972 – Actor Charlie Chaplin returns to the U.S. for the first time since being labeled a communist during the Red Scare in the early 1950s.

1978 – “Dallas” premieres in primetime on CBS, starring Larry Hagman as the devious and despised oil tycoon J.R. Ewing. Launched as a five-episode miniseries, the ratings juggernaut delivers audiences 356 episodes over 14 seasons, turning its actors into international stars and J.R. and Southfork Ranch into household names.

2005 – John Paul II, history’s most well-traveled pope and the first non-Italian to serve as head of the Roman Catholic Church since the 16th century, dies at his home in the Vatican at the age of 84. Six days later, two million people pack Vatican City for his funeral, believed to be the most-attended funeral of all time.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1957 – Elvis Presley performs at the Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Canada. It is one of only five concert appearances The King ever makes outside the U.S. The tour marks the first and last time that Elvis wears his now-legendary gold lamé suit.

1966 – “Ballad of the Green Berets,” by Staff Sergeant Barry Sadler, begins its fifth and final week as the No. 1 single. 

1977 – “Rich Girl,” by Hall & Oates, tops the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the first of the duo’s six No. 1 career singles.

1977 – “Rumours,” by Fleetwood Mac, climbs to No. 1 on the Billboard album chart and remains there for 31 weeks. The album contains tracks that became huge hits for the band, including the chart-topping “Dreams” and Top-10 singles “Go Your Own Way,” “Don’t Stop” and “You Make Loving Fun.”

1987 – Buddy Rich, regarded as one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time, dies at the age of 69 from heart failure following surgery for a malignant brain tumor.

1994 – Ace of Base holds the top spot on the pop chart with “The Sign.”

2003 – Soul singer-songwriter Edwin Starr, best known for his passionate, 1970 chart-topping anti-Vietnam War anthem “War,” dies at his home in England at the age of 61.

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On This Day: September 30

On This Day September 30

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1917 – Legendary jazz drummer Buddy Rich, who played with bandleaders Tommy Dorsey and Artie Shaw before leading his own band (d. 1987)

1924 – “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “In Cold Blood” author Truman Capote (d. 1984)

1928 – Nobel Peace Prize-winning author and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel (d. 2016)

1931 – Actress Angie Dickinson, who starred in the 1970s TV crime drama “Police Woman”

1935 – Grammy Hall of Fame pop vocalist Johnny Mathis (“Chances Are,” “Misty”, “It’s Not for Me to Say”)

1943 – Singer Marilyn McCoo, formerly of the band the 5th Dimension

1954 – Actor Barry Williams, born Barry William Blenkhorn, who played Greg on TV’s “The Brady Bunch”

1957 – Actress-comedian Fran Drescher, best known for her starring role in the 1990s sitcom “The Nanny”

1971 – Golden Globe-winning actress Jenna Elfman, best known for her role as Dharma in the sitcom “Dharma & Greg”

1975 – Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose,” “Big Fish,” “Public Enemies,” “Midnight in Paris,” “Contagion,” “Inception,” “The Dark Knight Rises”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1927 – Babe Ruth hits his 60th home run of the season off Tom Zachary of the Washington Senators. Ruth’s record for the most homers in a single season stands for 34 years until Roger Maris hits 61 in 1961.

1954 – The U.S. Navy commissions the USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear submarine. During its early years of service, the vessel breaks numerous submarine travel records, and in August 1958, achieves the first voyage under the North Pole. 

1955 – Hollywood legend James Dean is killed in a car accident at the age of 24. At the time, Dean is speeding in his beloved “Little Bastard” — a silver Porsche 550 Spyder — to a car race in Salinas, California, when a vehicle driven by a 23-year-old college student veers into his path.

1960 – Yabba Dabba Do! Hanna-Barbera introduces Americans to a “modern Stone Age family” in the animated series “The Flintstones,” which lasts six seasons on ABC.

1968 – The first Boeing 747, named “City of Everett,” is rolled out before thousands of employees and the international press at Boeing’s Everett, Washington factory. The jumbo jet is the world’s largest civilian aircraft at that time — capable of carrying up to 490 passengers and 33 attendants. It officially enters service on February 9, 1969.

1982 – The NBC sitcom “Cheers,” set in a Boston bar, debuts, starring Ted Danson and Shelley Long. It is nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series each of the 11 seasons it is on the air, capturing 28 Primetime Emmy Awards from a record 117 nominations.

1984 – The popular prime time series “Murder, She Wrote” premieres on CBS, starring Angela Lansbury as crime novelist Jessica Fletcher, who travels the country solving murder cases. The show picks up two Golden Globes during a 12-season run. Lansbury is nominated for 10 Golden Globes and 12 Emmy Awards, winning four Golden Globes.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1967 – The Box Tops are in the middle of a four-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart with “The Letter.” Rolling Stone magazine has ranked the track among its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame added it to its “500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll” list, and in 2011, the single was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

1972 – Mac Davis is in the midst of a three-week ride on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Baby, Don’t Get Hooked on Me.” The track receives a nomination for a Best Pop Vocal Performance (Male) Grammy.

1977 – Mary Ford, who with her husband, guitar pioneer Les Paul, made up one of the most popular musical duos of the 1950s, dies from complications of diabetes at the age of 53.

1978 – Exile kicks off a four-week run at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Kiss You All Over.”

1989 – Milli Vanilli begin their second and final week at No. 1 with “Girl I’m Gonna Miss You,” from the German dance-pop duo’s debut album, “Girl You Know It’s True.”

1995 – Mariah Carey becomes the first female artist in the history of the Billboard Hot 100 to have a single debut at No. 1, as “Fantasy” begins eight weeks as a chart-topper.

2006 – Justin Timberlake rules the Billboard album chart with his second solo album, “FutureSex/LoveSounds,” which becomes the biggest album ever for pre-orders on iTunes.

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