On This Day: April 27

On This Day April 27

Click each item below to learn more!

Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1791 – Inventor and painter Samuel Morse, most famous for creating the telegraph  (d. 1872)

1822 – 18th U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant, who helped lead the Union forces to victory during the Civil War (d. 1885)

1922 – Actor Jack Klugman (“The Odd Couple,” “Quincy, M.E.”) (d. 2012)

1927 – Civil rights leader Coretta Scott King, wife of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  (d. 2006)

1932 – Radio personality Casey Kasem, co-founder and former host of “American Top 40” and the voice of Shaggy from “Scooby-Doo” (d. 2014)

1951 – Guitarist and Kiss co-founder Ace Frehley 

1959 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Sheena Easton (“Morning Train,” “For Your Eyes Only,” “Sugar Walls”)  

1986 – Actress Jenna Coleman (“Doctor Who,” “Victoria,” “The Cry”)

1988 – Grammy-winning pop superstar Lizzo, born Melissa Viviane Jefferson

History Highlights
History Highlights

1865 – After surviving the horrors of the Civil War, some Union soldiers — many former prisoners of war — are crammed aboard the steamboat Sultana, heading home along the Mississippi River, when the ship’s boilers explode. More than 1,800 passengers die as the ship burns and sinks, resulting in the worst maritime disaster in American history — with more lives lost than in the 1912 Titanic sinking. 

1936 – The United Auto Workers (UAW) gains autonomy from the American Federation of Labor (AFL). 

1956 – Rocky Marciano retires from boxing at age 31, ending his career as the only undefeated world heavyweight champion: 49 wins in 49 professional bouts, with 43 knockouts. 

1974 – Some 10,000 demonstrators march in Washington, D.C. calling for the impeachment of President Richard Nixon. 

1982 – Jury selection begins in the trial of John Hinckley, Jr., charged with the attempted assassination of U.S. President Ronald Reagan. 

1993 – Authorities in North Carolina determine that film crew negligence is to blame for the death of actor Brandon Lee, who was accidentally shot and killed a month earlier on the set of the action-adventure movie “The Crow.” Brandon was the son of legendary martial arts star Bruce Lee.

2009 – General Motors (GM) announces plans to discontinue production of its 80-year-old Pontiac line of cars in 2010.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1963 – High school freshman Little Peggy March (born Margaret Annemarie Battavio) marches to the top of the Billboard singles chart with “I Will Follow Him.” The song remains at No. 1 for three weeks and makes March, at age 15, the youngest female singer to ever have a chart-topping hit.

1967 – Motown Records releases the Marvin Gaye-Tammi Terrell duet, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” which becomes a Top 20 hit. Diana Ross’ 1970 version rockets to the top of the pop chart, becoming her first No. 1 since leaving The Supremes. 

1974 – “TSOP (The Sound of Philadelphia),” by MFSB and The Three Degrees, is the No. 1 single. 

1981 – Singer-songwriter and legendary Beatles drummer Ringo Starr weds actress Barbara Bach, best known for her roles in the James Bond movie “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Force 10 from Navarone.”

1985 – “We Are The World,” the musical collaboration produced under the baton of Quincy Jones as a fundraiser for African famine relief, is in the middle of a four-week reign over the Billboard Hot 100.

1991 – Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby begins two weeks as the most popular single in the U.S.

1999 – British rockers The Verve, best known for their Grammy-nominated hit “Bitter Sweet Symphony” and the chart-topping singles “The Drugs Don’t Work” and “Lucky Man,” announce their second breakup. The band re-forms in 2007, but by 2009, the musicians truly go their separate ways.

2002 – “Foolish,” off Ashanti’s self-titled debut album, tops the Billboard Hot 100 and remains at No. 1 for 10 weeks. The accompanying music video features actor Terrence Howard.

READ MORE
On this Day: July 4

On this Day July 4

Click each item below to learn more!

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.

READ MORE