On This Day: January 13

On This Day January 13

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1919 – Actor Robert Stack (“The Untouchables,” “Unsolved Mysteries”) (d. 2013)

1931 – Actor and “The Match Game” panelist Charles Nelson Reilly (d. 2007)

1961 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus, best known for her role as Elaine in the NBC sitcom “Seinfeld” 

1964 – Actress Penelope Ann Miller (“Biloxi Blues,” “Kindergarten Cop”)

1966 – Actor and race car driver Patrick Dempsey, best known as “McDreamy” from the hit TV medical drama “Grey’s Anatomy”

1977 – Actor and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Orlando Bloom (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, “Troy”) 

History Highlights
History Highlights

1910 – Radio pioneer and electron tube inventor Lee de Forest demonstrates the world’s first radio broadcast to the public in New York City. He successfully broadcasts a live performance of Enrico Caruso from The Metropolitan Opera. 

1942 – Henry Ford patents a plastic-bodied automobile that is 30 percent lighter than ordinary cars. 

1966 – Robert C. Weaver becomes the first African American U.S. cabinet member, as President Lyndon Johnson appoints him secretary of the newly created Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the agency that develops and implements national housing policy and enforces fair housing laws.

1982 – Air Florida Flight 90 — a Boeing 737 jet — takes off from Washington National Airport and suddenly plummets into the 14th Street Bridge, plowing through cars and sliding into the icy waters of the Potomac River. The crash kills 78 people, including four motorists. 

1982 – At nearly the same time as the Air Florida disaster, on the other side of D.C., a Metro Rail commuter train derails, killing three people. 

1999 – After 13 seasons, NBA superstar Michael Jordan of the Chicago Bulls announces his retirement from professional basketball, for the second time, in front of a crowd at Chicago’s United Center.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1962 – Chubby Checker returns to the top of the singles chart with “The Twist.” The song first reached No. 1 in September 1960, becoming the only record in American chart history to top the singles survey on two separate occasions. 

1968 – Country music legend Johnny Cash goes to California’s Folsom Prison to bring his unique style of music to inmates. The concert is recorded and later released as a live album, propelling the Man in Black into musical stardom.

1969 – Elvis Presley begins a 10-day recording session that would produce his final No. 1 single, “Suspicious Minds.” The tracks are recorded at American Sound Studios in Memphis, marking Presley’s first hometown recording since his Sun Records days in 1956. 

1973 – Carly Simon starts a five-week run at No. 1 on the album chart with “No Secrets,” which contains her smash single “You’re So Vain.”

1996 – The Mariah Carey/Boyz II Men collaboration “One Sweet Day” is mid-way through an unprecedented 16-week ride atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

2001 – Destiny’s Child, featuring Beyonce, has the No. 1 single with “Independent Women, Part I.” 

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On This Day: November 9

On This Day November 9

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1922 – Oscar and Golden Globe-nominated actress-singer-dancer Dorothy Dandridge, who performed regularly at the legendary Cotton Club and Apollo Theater in New York’s Harlem (d. 1965)

1934 – Astronomer-author Carl Sagan (“Cosmos: A Personal Voyage”) (d. 1996)

1935 – Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Bob Gibson

1941 – Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) rhythm guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Tom Fogerty (d. 1990)

1951 – Actor-bodybuilder Lou Ferrigno, best known for playing the big green guy in TV’s “The Incredible Hulk”

1970 – Grammy-winning blues singer-songwriter Susan Tedeschi of Tedeschi Trucks Band

1972 – Actor Eric Dane, best known for playing Dr. Mark “McSteamy” Sloan on ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy”

History Highlights
History Highlights

1906 – On the first foreign trip by a U.S. president, Theodore Roosevelt departs for Panama from Chesapeake Bay aboard the recently commissioned battleship Louisiana.

1938 – Violent anti-Jewish demonstrations erupt across Germany, Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia. The Nazi-led attacks are part of what is called “Kristallnacht” (“Night of Broken Glass”) after the countless smashed windows of Jewish-owned establishments. Nearly a hundred Jews are killed, 7,500 Jewish businesses are damaged and hundreds of synagogues, homes, schools and graveyards are vandalized.

1965 – A massive power failure in the middle of the evening rush hour leaves New Yorkers and millions of others in the Northeast and parts of Canada in the dark, with many people stranded in subways and elevators for up to 13 hours.

1967 – The first edition of Rolling Stone magazine hits newsstands featuring John Lennon on the cover.

1982 – Sugar Ray Leonard retires from boxing, but climbs back into the ring two years later.

1989 – A Cold War icon begins to literally crumble as East German officials open the Berlin Wall and allow citizens to travel from East to West Berlin. Built in 1961 by East German officials allied with the Soviets, the wall was designed to prevent those in East Germany from going to the West and came to represent the ideological differences between the Eastern Bloc and western countries at the time.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1961 – Record store manager Brian Epstein goes to a Liverpool, England nightclub to hear and meet The Beatles. Two months later, he becomes their manager and helps secure their first record deal, setting them on a path to global fame and fortune. Sometimes referred to as “the fifth Beatle,” Epstein dies in 1967 from an apparent accidental drug overdose at the age of 32.

1969 – Simon and Garfunkel record what becomes one of their signature songs — “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The track captures five awards at the 13th Annual Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

1974 – Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” tops the Billboard Hot 100.

1985 – Jan Hammer tops the singles chart with the theme from the TV series “Miami Vice,” which starred Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas.

1991 – “Cream,” by Prince and the New Power Generation, kicks off two weeks as a No. 1 single. 

1996 – Blackstreet featuring Dr. Dre rule the Billboard Hot 100 with “No Diggity,” which remains at No. 1 for four weeks. 

 

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