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On this Day May 12

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Celebrity Birthdays

1820 – Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale (d. 1910)

1907 – Oscar-winning actress Katharine Hepburn (“The African Queen,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “On Golden Pond”) (d. 2003)

1925 – Baseball Hall of Fame player-coach-manager Yogi Berra (d. 2015)

1928 – Grammy and Oscar-winning composer-pianist Burt Bacharach (“The Look of Love,” “This Guy’s in Love with You,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” “That’s What Friends Are For,” “On My Own”)

1936 – Late-night TV talk show host Tom Snyder (“The Tomorrow Show,” “The Late Late Show”) (d. 2007)

1937 – Stand-up comedian and actor George Carlin (d. 2008)

1950 – Actor Gabriel Byrne (“Miller’s Crossing,” “The Usual Suspects,” “End of Days,” “In Treatment”)

1959 – Golden Globe-winning actor Ving Rhames (“Dave,” “Mission: Impossible” film series, “Pulp Fiction,” “Con Air,” “Don King: Only in America”)

1962 – ‘Brat Pack’ actor Emilio Estevez (“Repo Man,” “The Breakfast Club,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Stakeout,” “Young Guns,” “The Mighty Ducks”)

1978 – Actor Jason Biggs (“As The World Turns,” the “American Pie” movie series, “Orange is the New Black,” “Amateur Night”)

1981 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor and producer Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Mr. Robot,” “Night at the Museum”)

History Highlights

1847 – Way before the Fitbit, William Clayton creates a device to measure distance with his invention of the odometer. Its original use was to record how far horse-drawn wagons traveled during America’s pioneer days.

1903 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president captured on film during a trip to San Francisco. Cameraman H.J. Miles chronicles Roosevelt as his carriage travels down Market Street during a parade in his honor. The short silent movie, titled “The President’s Carriage,” is later played on nickelodeons in arcades across America.

1932 – The body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh’s 20-month-old baby is found more than two months after his kidnapping from the family’s New Jersey home.

1957 – Legendary auto racer A.J. Foyt is 22 years old when he scores his first professional victory in a U.S. Automobile Club midget car race in Kansas City, Missouri.

1970 – The U.S. Senate confirms President Richard Nixon’s nomination of Federal Circuit Judge Harry Blackmun to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Musical Milestones

1958 – The Everly Brothers begin a four-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart with “All I Have To Do Is Dream.”

1963 – Bob Dylan walks off the set of “The Ed Sullivan Show” after a CBS executive tells him he cannot perform his song “Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues” because it mocks segregation and the military.

1964 – Barbra Streisand wins a Grammy for Best Female Vocalist for “The Barbra Streisand Album,” which is named Album of the Year.

1979 – “Reunited,” by Peaches & Herb, is in the middle of a four-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. The track also tops the R&B singles chart for four weeks and goes on to sell more than two million copies.

1984 – Lionel Richie begins two weeks on top of the pop chart with “Hello,” off his “Can’t Slow Down” album.

1990 – Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” completes a four-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100.

2001 – Janet Jackson is in the middle of a seven-week run at No. 1 on the pop chart with “All for You.”

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