On This Day: October 17

On This Day October 17

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1915 – Pulitzer-winning playwright Arthur Miller (“All My Sons,” “A View from the Bridge,” “The Crucible,” “Death of a Salesman”) (d. 2005)

1918 – Actress and dancer Rita Hayworth (“Only Angels Have Wings,” “Strawberry Blonde,” “You’ll Never Get Rich,” “Gilda”) (d. 1987)

1920 – Actor Montgomery Clift (“From Here to Eternity,” “The Young Lions,” “A Place in the Sun,” “I Confess”) (d. 1966)

1930 – Longtime New York columnist and author Jimmy Breslin (d. 2017)

1938 – Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel, born Robert Craig Knievel (d. 2007)

1948 – Actor George Wendt, best known for his portrayal of Norm Peterson on the TV sitcom “Cheers”

1948 – Actress Margot Kidder, best known for her role as Lois Lane in the film “Superman,” opposite Christopher Reeve (d. 2018)

1958 – Grammy-winning country singer Alan Jackson

1962 – Cartoonist-actor Mike Judge (“Beavis and Butt-head,” “King of the Hill”)

1963 – Comedian-actor and “Saturday Night Live” alum Norm Macdonald (d. 2021)

1968 – Reggae guitarist and singer-songwriter Ziggy Marley

1972 – Grammy and Oscar-winning rapper and record producer Eminem, born Marshall Bruce Mathers III

History Highlights
History Highlights

1931 – A jury finds Chicago mob boss Al Capone guilty of tax evasion. One of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s, Capone is later sentenced to 11 years in federal prison, ordered to pay $215,000 in back taxes and fined $50,000.

1966 – The TV game show takes on a new shape with the premiere of “The Hollywood Squares.”

1973 – OPEC announces it will cut oil exports to the U.S. and other nations friendly with Israel, a move that eventually leads to the “Energy Crisis.”

1973 – The romantic drama, “The Way We Were,” starring Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford, has its world premiere in New York before opening nationally three days later. The film captures the Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic Score and Best Original Song for the theme song, “The Way We Were,” sung by Streisand.

1974 – President Gerald Ford goes before Congress to explain his pardon of predecessor Richard Nixon.

1989 – A powerful 6.9 magnitude earthquake rocks the San Francisco Bay Area, killing 63 people, injuring 3,000 others and causing more than $5 billion in damage. Known as the Loma Prieta earthquake, the natural disaster strikes just as Game 1 of the World Series is starting at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park between local teams The Oakland Athletics and San Francisco Giants.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1964 – “Do Wah Diddy Diddy,” by Manfred Mann, kicks off two weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. It’s the cover of a song originally recorded in 1963 by the American band The Exciters, but it was the British group Manfred Mann that made it an international smash.

1964 – The Ronettes release their classic ballad, “Walking in the Rain.” The single later earns producer Phil Spector the first and only Grammy of his career for sound effects (thunder and rain).

1967 – “Hair,” touted as “an American tribal love-rock musical,” opens on Broadway.

1970 – “I’ll Be There,” by the Jackson 5, begins a five-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart. It is the group’s fourth consecutive chart-topper.

1981 – Christopher Cross is king of the Billboard Hot 100 with music from the movies – “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do).” The track holds at No. 1 for three weeks and goes on to earn a Best Original Song Oscar.

1991 – Singer and TV host Tennessee Ernie Ford dies of liver failure at the age of 72. Ford was best known for his chart-topping 1955 cover of the Merle Travis song “Sixteen Tons.” 

2008 – Levi Stubbs, lead singer of Motown giants the Four Tops, dies at the age of 72. Stubbs had been in ill health since a 1995 cancer diagnosis; a stroke and other health problems led him to stop touring in 2000. 

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On this Day: August 29

On this Day August 29

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1915 – Screen legend Ingrid Bergman, winner of three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and the Tony Award for Best Actress (“Casablanca,” “Gaslight”) (d. 1982)

1917 – Actress Isabel Sanford, best known for playing Louise “Weezy” Jefferson on the hit TV sitcom “The Jeffersons” (d. 2004)

1923 – Director-actor Richard Attenborough (“Gandhi,” “Cry Freedom,” “Chaplin”) (d. 2014)

1924 – Jazz vocalist and “Queen of the Blues” Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones (d. 1963)

1935 – Director-producer William Friedkin (“The French Connection,” “The Exorcist”)

1936 – Arizona Senator, 2008 Republican presidential candidate and Vietnam War veteran John McCain (d. 2018)

1939 – Actor Elliott Gould (“Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” “M*A*S*H,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels, “Friends”)

1941 – “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” host Robin Leach (d. 2018)

1958 – Entertainment icon Michael Jackson (a.k.a. King of Pop) (d. 2009)

1959 – Actress Rebecca De Mornay (“Risky Business,” ” Runaway Train,” “The Trip to Bountiful,” “Backdraft,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”) 

History Highlights
History Highlights

1885 – German mechanical engineer Gottlieb Daimler patents the motorcycle. 

1949 – The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. 

1966 – Actress Mia Farrow quits the cast of the popular ABC drama “Peyton Place” after a two-year stint. Writers make her character, Allison MacKenzie, mysteriously disappear. 

1968 – At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President Hubert Humphrey wins the presidential nomination, as the most violent political convention in U.S. history wraps up. 

1982 – Swedish-born actress and three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman dies of cancer in London on her 67th birthday.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near New Orleans as a Category 3 storm with winds of up to 120 miles per hour. It becomes the costliest natural disaster and among the five deadliest hurricanes to strike the United States. Katrina is blamed for some 1,800 deaths and property damage in excess of $108 billion.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1964 – “Oh, Pretty Woman,” by rock ‘n roll legend Roy Orbison, lands on the pop chart and climbs to the No. 1 spot a month later, becoming the Texas native’s second chart-topping single. 

1964 – “Where Did Our Love Go,” by The Supremes, holds tight for a second straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. It is the first of five consecutive chart-topping singles for Motown’s hottest act.

1966 – Candlestick Park in San Francisco is the setting of the last Beatles concert ever. The Fab Four play before a sold-out crowd of 25,000 fans. 

1970 – Edwin Starr kicks off three weeks on top of the pop chart with “War,” a Vietnam War protest song written by Motown Records hitmakers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong.

1987 – “La Bamba,” by Los Lobos, kicks off three weeks as a No. 1 single. The track is used in the movie of the same name.

1998 – Brandy & Monica wrap up a 13-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart with “The Boy Is Mine.”

2009 – The Black Eyed Peas rule the singles chart with “I Gotta Feeling.” The track holds the top spot for 14 weeks and goes on to earn a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

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