On This Day November 18

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Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1956 – Fats Domino appears on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and plays his smash, “Blueberry Hill.”

1957 – Elvis Presley remains perched atop the U.S. singles chart for a fifth straight week with “Jailhouse Rock,” from the movie of the same name.

1963 – “I’m Leaving It Up to You” by Dale & Grace is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1971 – Memphis blues singer and musician Herman ‘Junior’ Parker dies at the age of 39 during surgery for a brain tumor. Among his hits were “Feelin’ Good,” “Driving Wheel,” “Next Time You See Me,” “In the Dark” and “Sweet Home Chicago.”

1978 – “52nd Street” becomes Billy Joel’s first No. 1 album. It contains some of his biggest hits to date, including “My Life,” “Big Shot” and “Honesty,” and goes on to capture two Grammy Awards.

1989 – Bad English’s “When I See You Smile” begins its second and final weeks at No, 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. 

1993 – Five months before Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain’s death, the pioneering grunge band records an “MTV Unplugged” special at Sony Music Studios in New York City. The set list consists of lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Meat Puppets and Lead Belly. The album goes on to win a Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album in 1996.

1995 – “Fantasy.” by Mariah Carey, enters its eighth and final week on top of the pop chart.

2017 – Australian musician and songwriter Malcolm Young, best known as a co-founder, rhythm guitarist, backing vocalist and songwriter for the hard rock band AC/DC, dies at the age of 64.

On this Day August 25

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1917 – Actor-director Mel Ferrer (“War and Peace,” “Green Mansions,” “Wait Until Dark”) (d. 2008)

1918 – Grammy and Tony-winning composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein (“West Side Story,” “Peter Pan,” “Candide,” “Wonderful Town,” “On the Town,” “On The Waterfront”) (d. 1990)

1921 – Producer, actor, singer and sportscaster Monty Hall, best known as host of the TV game show “Let’s Make a Deal” (d. 2017)

1930 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor Sir Sean Connery, best known for playing British secret agent James Bond/007 in seven Bond movies (d. 2020)

1931 – Emmy-winning TV host, actor and singer Regis Philbin (“Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee,” “Live! with Regis and Kelly,” ” Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”) (d. 2020)

1933 – Actor Tom Skerritt (“M*A*S*H,” “Up In Smoke,” “Alien,” “Top Gun,” “A River Runs Through It,” “Contact,” “Picket Fences”)

1935 – Oscar-winning director William Friedkin (“The Boys in the Band,” “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer,” “The Brinks Job,” “Cruising,” “To Live and Die in L.A.”) (d. 2023)

1941 – Rock singer-bassist and KISS founder Gene Simmons, born Chaim Weitz 

1954 – Singer-songwriter Elvis Costello (“Alison,” “Everyday I Write the Book,” “Veronica”)

1958 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning director Tim Burton (“Beetlejuice,” “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Ed Wood,” “Big Fish,” “Alice in Wonderland”)

1961 – Country music singer-songwriter and actor Billy Ray Cyrus, best known for his 1992 smash “Achy Breaky Heart”

1968 – Emmy-winning TV chef Rachael Ray

On this Day July 22

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1916 – A massive parade in San Francisco marking Preparedness Day, in anticipation of the United States entering World War I, is interrupted when a suitcase bomb explodes, killing 10 bystanders and wounding 40 others.

1933 – Some 50,000 cheering New Yorkers greet aviator Wiley Post at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field as he completes the first solo flight around the world. Post logged 15,596 miles in seven days, 18 hours and 49 minutes — the fastest circumnavigation of the globe.

1934 – FBI agents gun down Public Enemy No. 1 — notorious bank robber and murderer John Dillinger, outside Chicago’s Biograph movie theater. Dillinger and his mob gang terrorized the Midwest, killing 10 men, wounding seven others, robbing banks and police arsenals, and staging three jail breaks — killing a sheriff during one and wounding two guards in another.

1937 – The U.S. Senate rejects President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s efforts to add more justices to the Supreme Court — his so-called “court-packing” plan. 

1942 –  Agricultural chemist George Washington Carver arrives in Dearborn, Michigan at the invitation of Ford Motor Company founder Henry Ford to begin collaborating on crop experiments.

1987 – Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev indicates that he will accept a worldwide ban on intermediate-range nuclear missiles.

1991 – Milwaukee police arrest serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer after discovering dismembered victims and other evidence in his apartment. Dahmer is tried and convicted for the murders of 17 males between 1978 and 1991. While serving time in prison, he is attacked and killed by a fellow inmate in 1994.

2003 – U.S. Army Private Jessica Lynch, a prisoner-of-war who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital, receives a hero’s welcome when the 20-year-old returns to her hometown of Palestine, West Virginia. Following her return, new details of her capture and rescue emerge suggesting the original accounts were exaggerated to create positive feelings about the war.