On This Day: December 14

On This Day December 14

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1932 – Country singer Charlie Rich (“Behind Closed Doors,” “The Most Beautiful Girl”) (d. 1995)

1935 – Actress Lee Remick (“Anatomy of a Murder,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “The Omen”) (d. 1991)

1946 – Former Hollywood mogul Michael Ovitz

1946 – Oscar-winning actress and author Patty Duke (“The Miracle Worker,” “Valley of the Dolls,” “Hawaii Five-0,” “Glee”) (d. 2016)

1948 – Actress and “scream queen” Dee Wallace (“E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” “The Howling,” “Cujo”)

1965 – Baseball Hall of Famer and former Houston Astros second baseman Craig Biggio

1988 – Actress-singer Vanessa Hudgens, best known for playing Gabriella Montez in the “High School Musical” series

History Highlights
History Highlights

1799 – George Washington, the American revolutionary leader and first U.S. president, dies of acute laryngitis at his estate in Mount Vernon, Virginia at the age of 67.

1900 – The quantum theory of modern physics is born on this day as German physicist Max Planck publishes his groundbreaking study of the effect of radiation on a “blackbody” substance.

1909 – Workers place the last of the 3.2 million 10-pound bricks that pave the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

1911 – A team led by Roald Amundsen becomes the first to reach the South Pole — beating out British rival Robert Falcon Scott.

1946 – The United Nations General Assembly votes to establish its headquarters in New York City.

1961 – President John F. Kennedy formally announces that the United States will increase aid to South Vietnam, which would include the expansion of the U.S. troop commitment.

2012 – A deranged gunman shoots and kills 20 first-graders and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut before turning the gun on himself. Investigators discover that Adam Lanza had shot and killed his mother at her nearby home before driving to the school and opening fire. The tragedy becomes the second-deadliest mass-shooting in the U.S. at that time.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1963 – Grammy-winning “Queen of the Blues,” Dinah Washington, dies at the age of 39 after mixing alcohol and weight-reduction pills.

1968 – Marvin Gaye scores his first No. 1 single when “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” starts five weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

1969 – The Jackson 5 make their first network television appearance in the U.S. as guests on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

1977 – “Saturday Night Fever” opens in New York, starring John Travolta and featuring a soundtrack that helped shape the disco era.

1979 – The Clash release “London Calling” in the U.K. (it is released in the U.S. about a month later). The double album receives widespread acclaim and, in 2003, is ranked eighth on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

1980 – John Lennon fans around the world stage a silent vigil to honor the beloved musician who, six days earlier, was gunned down outside his Manhattan apartment building.

1991 – Michael Jackson kicks off four weeks atop the Billboard album chart with “Dangerous.”

1996 – “Un-Break My Heart,” by Toni Braxton, is the No. 1 single. It remains a chart-topper for 11 weeks.

2002 – Eminem maintains a 12-week reign over the Billboard Hot 100 with “Lose Yourself,” from the soundtrack to the 2002 movie “8 Mile.”

2013 – “Wrecking Ball,” by Miley Cyrus, strikes the top of the pop chart and holds there for a week.

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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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