On This Day: February 21

On This Day February 21

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1946 – Emmy and Tony-winning actress Tyne Daly (“Cagney & Lacey,” “Judging Amy,” “Gypsy”)

1946 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Alan Rickman (“Die Hard,” “Galaxy Quest,” the “Harry Potter” series, “Something the Lord Made,” “Eye in the Sky”) (d. 2016)

1955 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor-producer Kelsey Grammer (“Cheers,” “Frasier,” “Toy Story 2,” “X-Men: Last Stand”)

1963 – Actor William Baldwin (“Flatliners,” “Backdraft,” “Sliver,” “The Squid and the Whale,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall”)

1979 – Actress Jennifer Love Hewitt (“Party of Five,” “I Know What You Did Last Summer”)

1987 – Actress Ellen Page (“Juno,” “Whip It,” “Inception”, “X-Men” Series) 

History Highlights
History Highlights

1885 – The newly completed Washington Monument is dedicated. The monument, built in the shape of an Egyptian obelisk, underwent two phases of construction: one private (1848-1854) and one public (1876-1884). When completed, it was the tallest structure in the world at 555 feet, 5-1/8 inches.

1925 – The New Yorker magazine publishes its first edition.

1948 – The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is officially incorporated and goes on to become one of America’s most popular spectator sports as well as a multi-billion-dollar industry.

1965 – Malcolm X, an African American nationalist and religious leader, is assassinated by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City.

1972 – Richard Nixon makes the first presidential visit to the People’s Republic of China in an effort to normalize Sino-American relations. 

1995 – National Aviation Hall of Famer Steve Fossett lands safely in Leader, Saskatchewan, Canada, completing the first ever solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon. Sadly, Fossett is declared dead in 2008 after a plane he was piloting vanished over the Nevada desert in September 2007. He was 63.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1970 – Sly & the Family Stone begin the second and final week as chart-toppers with “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin).”

1976 – Paul Simon begins his third and final week on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.” The track, off his Grammy-winning “Still Crazy After All These Years” album, is the only No. 1 Simon has ever achieved as a solo act.

1976 – The Willie Nelson-Waylon Jennings album “Outlaws” becomes the first country music album to go platinum.

1981 – Dolly Parton rules the singles chart with the title track from the motion picture “9 to 5.” Parton co-stars in the movie with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dabney Coleman.

1987 – “Livin’ on a Prayer,” by Bon Jovi, is in the midst of a four-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart.

1990 – “Let the River Run,” by Carly Simon, wins Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture at the 32nd annual Grammy Awards. The track, which had previously been honored with an Oscar and Golden Globe for Best Original Song, is from the movie “Working Girl,” starring Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford.

1998 – Usher wraps up two weeks as a Billboard chart-topper with “Nice & Slow.”

2004 – “Slow Jamz,” by Twista featuring Kanye West and Jamie Foxx, begins a week on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

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On This Day: November 17

On This Day November 17

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1925 – Actor and 1950s-60s leading man Rock Hudson (“Magnificent Obsession,” “All That Heaven Allows,” “Giant,” “Pillow Talk,” “McMillan & Wife”) (d. 1985)

1938 – Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, the talent behind some of the biggest pop-folk hits of the 1970s (“If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”)

1942 – Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy and Grammy-winning director-producer Martin Scorsese (“Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” “Gangs of New York,” “The Aviator,” “The Departed,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “The Irishman”)

1944 – Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor-director-producer Danny DeVito (“Taxi,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Ruthless People,” “Tin Men,” “Throw Momma from the Train,” “Get Shorty,” “L.A. Confidential”)

1944 – “Saturday Night Live” creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels

1960 – Drag queen, singer and actor RuPaul, born RuPaul Andre Charles

1978 – Actress Rachel McAdams (“Mean Girls,” “The Notebook,” “Wedding Crashers,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “Midnight in Paris,” “The Vow,” “Spotlight,” “Doctor Strange”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1869 – The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas, formally opens. The 100-mile-long waterway shortens the sea route from Europe to India by about 4,000 miles.

1962 – President John F. Kennedy and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicate Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C. region.

1968 – The Oakland Raiders score two touchdowns in nine seconds at home to defeat the New York Jets, but television viewers never see the win. With just over a minute left in the game, NBC cuts to the previously scheduled made-for-TV movie “Heidi” — based on the book about a young girl and her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The network apologizes after being bombarded by complaints in what comes to be called “The Heidi Game.”

1973 – In the midst of the Watergate scandal that eventually destroys his presidency, President Richard Nixon tells a room full of newspaper editors, “I’m not a crook.”

2003 – Actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as the 38th governor of California at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

2003 – Ex-soldier John Allen Muhammad is found guilty of one of a series of sniper shootings that terrorized the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area and dominated national headlines for three weeks in the fall of 2002. The shootings left 10 people dead.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1839 – Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s first opera, “Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio,” debuts in Milan.

1958 – “Tom Dooley,” by The Kingston Trio, is No. 1 on the pop chart. The single goes on to sell over three million copies and puts the band at the forefront of the pop-folk boom that continued through the 1960s.

1962 – The Four Seasons park themselves on top of the singles chart for five weeks with “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

1970 – Elton John’s music career is in its infancy when he performs a concert to a small audience at A&R Studios in New York that is broadcast live on local radio station WABC-FM. A recording of the session is packaged as his first live album, “11-17-70” (U.S. version) and “17-11-70” (U.K. version) and released in April 1971.

1979 – The Commodores top the Billboard Hot 100 with “Still.”

1984 – “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” by Wham!, begins three weeks as a Billboard No. 1 single.

1990 – “Love Takes Time,” by Mariah Carey, is in the middle of three weeks as a Billboard chart-topper.

2001 – Mary J. Blige is queen of the pop chart with “Family Affair.”

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On this Day: August 10

On this Day August 10

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1874 – Herbert Hoover, 31st U.S. president (d. 1964)

1928 – Grammy-winning country music singer and Jimmy Dean Sausage Co. founder Jimmy Dean (d. 2010)

1928 – Popular 50s singer-entertainer Eddie Fisher (“Thinking of You,” “Wish You Were Here,” “Oh My Pa-Pa)” (d. 2010)

1950 – Grammy-winning R&B, jazz and pop vocalist Patti Austin (“Every Home Should Have One,” “Do You Love Me,” “Baby, Come to Me”)

1959 – Actress Rosanna Arquette (“Desperately Seeking Susan,”  “Pulp Fiction,” “Crash”)

1960 – Actor-director-producer Antonio Banderas (“Assassins,” “Evita,” “Interview with the Vampire,” “Philadelphia,” “Desperado,” “The Mask of Zorro,” “Spy Kids,” “Shrek,” “Puss in Boots”)

1972 – Actress-model Angie Harmon (“Baywatch Nights,” “Law & Order,” “Rizzoli & Isles”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1846 – The Smithsonian Institution is founded in Washington, D.C. as an establishment dedicated to the “increase and diffusion of knowledge.”

1948 – The first reality TV show premieres before most Americans even own a TV. “Candid Camera,” with host Allen Funt, filmed pranks as they played out on unsuspecting victims who often didn’t realize they were being duped until they heard the show’s tagline: “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera.”

1965 – President Lyndon Johnson signs the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Act into law,  paving the way for a major expansion of federal housing programs.

1977 – After terrorizing New York City for more than a year, serial killer David Berkowitz — the self-proclaimed “Son of Sam” — is arrested. 

1978 –  Three teenage girls die after their 1973 Ford Pinto is rammed from behind by a van and bursts into flames on an Indiana highway. The fatal crash is one of a series of Pinto fires caused by rear-end collisions and the vehicle’s improperly designed fuel tank that eventually leads to a massive recall by Ford and at least one multi-million-dollar lawsuit.

1993 – Ruth Bader Ginsburg is sworn in as the second female U.S. Supreme Court Justice. 

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1963 – ‘Little’ Stevie Wonder is just 13 when “Fingertips Part 2” reaches the top of the Billboard singles chart and holds there for three weeks. He becomes the youngest musician ever with a No. 1 hit.

1974 – “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” by Roberta Flack, tops the pop chart. Later, it receives three Grammy nominations.

1976 – Elton John plays the first of 10 sold-out nights at New York’s Madison Square Garden. The $1.25 million generated from the shows breaks a record set by The Rolling Stones in 1975.

1985 – “Shout,” by Tears For Fears, is midway through a three-week run atop the Billboard Hot 100.

1991 – “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” by Bryan Adams, is the No. 1 single. It appears on the “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” soundtrack.

2002 – In her third marriage, Lisa Marie Presley ties the knot with actor Nicolas Cage at a resort in Hawaii. Presley was previously married to musician Danny Keough and pop sensation Michael Jackson. Cage files for divorce four months later.

2008 – Soul singer-songwriter Isaac Hayes dies of a stroke at his home in Memphis, Tennessee at the age of 65. Hayes won an Oscar for the 1971 smash “Theme From Shaft” and was the voice of Chef from the animated TV series “South Park.”

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