On This Day March 21 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1685 – Classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach (d. 1750) 1944 – Actor Timothy Dalton, who played James Bond in two films 1949 – Singer-songwriter Eddie Money, born Edward Mahoney (“Baby Hold On,” “Two Tickets to Paradise”, “Take Me Home Tonight”) (d. 2019) 1958 – Actor Gary Oldman (“Sid and Nancy,” “JFK,” “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” “The Fifth Element,” “Air Force One,” played Sirius Black in the “Harry Potter” series, “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “The Book of Eli,” “Darkest Hour”) 1962 – Emmy-winning comedian-TV host-actress Rosie O’Donnell (“The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” “The View,” “A League of Their Own,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Now and Then”) 1962 – Tony-winning actor Matthew Broderick (“War Games,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Biloxi Blues,” “Glory,” “The Freshman,” “Inspector Gadget,” “The Producers,” “Tower Heist,” “Rules Don’t Apply”) History Highlights 1947 – With fears about communism swirling across the U.S., President Harry Truman signs Executive Order 9835. It creates a Loyalty Program to investigate federal employees to determine if they demonstrated “complete and unswerving loyalty” to the United States. 1965 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads some 3,200 civil rights activists on a five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Federalized Alabama National Guardsmen and FBI agents supervise the procession, which Alabama state police had previously blocked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. 1980 – President Jimmy Carter announces a U.S. boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 1980 – In the Season 3 finale of CBS’ hit prime time drama “Dallas,” an unseen assailant shoots bad-boy J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman), who falls to the floor of his office before the scene fades to black. The episode, entitled “A House Divided,” becomes one of the most talked about season finales of all time, sparking the “Who Shot J.R.” craze. Some 160 million fans wait eight months to learn the identity of the shooter in Season 4. 1994 – Eleven-year-old Anna Paquin is stunned when actor Gene Hackman announces that she has won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “The Piano.” Paquin becomes the second youngest Oscar winner of all time. 1999 – Aviators Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones complete the first non-stop around-the-world flight in a hot air balloon, making aviation history. Musical Milestones 1953 – “(How Much is) That Doggie in the Window” launches Patti Page on an eight-week ride at No. 1 on the singles chart. 1964 – The Beatles rule the Billboard Hot 100 with “She Loves You” — the second of three consecutive hits that keep the Fab Four on top of the singles chart through early May of that year. 1970 – Simon & Garfunkel remain suspended at No. 1 on the singles chart with “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The track holds there for a total of six weeks. 1981 – REO Speedwagon clinches the top spot on the singles chart with “Keep On Loving You,” the group’s first Top 40 hit and No. 1. 1992 – Vanessa Williams kicks off five weeks on top of the Billboard pop chart with “Save the Best for Last.” 1994 – Bruce Springsteen performs “Streets of Philadelphia” during the 66th Academy Awards, and a short time later, is handed a Best Original Song Oscar for it. It’s from the movie “Philadelphia,” for which Tom Hanks won Best Actor. The track goes on to capture four Grammys. 1998 – Will Smith maintains his hold on the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a second week with “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.” READ MORE
On This Day November 21 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1904 – Nobel Prize–winning novelist and short-story writer Isaac Bashevis Singer (d. 1991) 1937 – Emmy, Golden Globe and Grammy-winning actress and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital ambassador Marlo Thomas (“That Girl,” “Free to Be…You and Me”) 1944 – Actor-director Harold Ramis (“Ghostbusters,” “Stripes,” “Caddyshack,” “Groundhog Day”) (d. 2014) 1945 – Oscar-winning actress Goldie Hawn (“Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” “Cactus Flower,” “The Sugarland Express,” “Private Benjamin,” “Swing Shift”) 1965 – Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk, born Björk Guðmundsdóttir (“Birthday,” “Human Behaviour,” “Big Time Sensuality”) 1985 – Singer-songwriter and actress Carly Rae Jepsen, best known for her 2012 hit “Call Me Maybe” History Highlights 1783 – French chemistry teacher Jean-François Pilatre de Rozier and military officer François Laurent, the marquis d’ Arlandes, make the first untethered hot-air balloon flight, traveling 5.5 miles over Paris in about 25 minutes. 1877 – Inventor Thomas Edison announces that he has developed a hand-cranked, tinfoil covered cylinder capable of reproducing recorded sound — a “talking machine” that comes to be known as the phonograph. It marks the first time in history that a person’s voice could be recorded and saved. 1964 – New York’s Verrazano Narrows Bridge — then the world’s longest suspension bridge — opens to traffic. The span connects Brooklyn and Staten Island high above the entrance to New York Harbor. 1980 – The second worst hotel fire in modern U.S. history breaks out at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, claiming 85 lives and injuring more than 700 people. 1980 – Millions of viewers tune in to the prime-time CBS drama “Dallas” to find out who shot J.R., ending eight months of suspense in a storyline that establishes the television cliffhanger. The show becomes the highest-rated TV episode until the “M*A*S*H” finale beats it in 1983. Musical Milestones 1968 – The Supremes and The Temptations release a collaboration: “I’m Gonna Make You Love Me.” It peaks at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 behind Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” 1970 – The Partridge Family parks its tour bus on top of the pop chart for three weeks with “I Think I Love You,” which was featured in the first episode of “The Partridge Family” TV series, starring Shirley Jones and David Cassidy. 1975 – Queen releases “A Night at the Opera,” the band’s breakthrough album, which contains the hits “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “You’re My Best Friend.” 1981 – Olivia Newton-John begins a 10-week lock on the No. 1 spot on the singles chart with “Physical.” 1987 – Billy Idol’s cover of the Tommy James and the Shondell’s hit “Mony Mony” spends a week on top of the Billboard Hot 100. 1998 – “Doo Wop (That Thing),” by Lauryn Hill, begins its second and final week as a No. 1 single. 2003 – George Harrison’s first guitar, a 1956 Rosetti-276 Egmond 105 steel string guitar, sells at a London auction for $800,000. 2017 – Teen idol David Cassidy dies of liver failure at the age of 67. Cassidy was best known as Keith Partridge, the son of Shirley Partridge (played by his real-life stepmother, Shirley Jones), in the popular 1970s musical-sitcom, “The Partridge Family.” READ MORE