On This Day: January 9

On This Day January 9

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1913 – Richard Nixon, 37th U.S. president (d. 1994)

1935 – Actor Bob Denver, best known for his starring role in “Gilligan’s Island” (d. 2005)

1941 – Folk singer, songwriter and activist Joan Baez 

1944 – Led Zeppelin founder and guitarist Jimmy Page

1951 – Grammy-winning country singer Crystal Gayle (“Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue”)

1955 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor J.K. Simmons, born Jonathan Kimble Simmons (“Oz,” “Law & Order,” “Juno,” “The Closer,” “Spider-Man,” “Whiplash,” “The Accountant”)

1967 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and actor Dave Matthews (“Ants Marching,” “So Much to Say,” “Crash Into Me,” “Satellite”)

1982 – Kate (Catherine) Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge

History Highlights
History Highlights

1768 – Englishman Philip Astley stages the first modern circus in London, drawing up a ring and inviting the public to see him on a horse waving a sword in the air while he rode with one foot on the saddle and one on the horse’s head.

1951 – The United Nations headquarters officially opens in New York City along the East River in Manhattan. 

1965 – “Goldfinger,” starring Sean Connery as British secret agent James Bond (007), opens in movie theaters across the U.S. It is the third installment in the James Bond franchise, but the first to become a blockbuster and capture an Oscar.

1972 – Fire breaks out aboard the RMS Queen Elizabeth in Hong Kong Victoria Harbor during a project to convert the luxury liner into a floating school and the vessel capsizes. 

2007 – “Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” With those words, Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveils the iPhone at the Macworld convention in San Francisco, calling the device “a revolutionary mobile phone” and “Internet communicator.”

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1961 – “Wonderland by Night,” by Bert Kaempfert, begins three weeks on top of the singles chart.

1968 – Elvis Presley’s “Guitar Man,” from the “Clambake” movie soundtrack, is released. The song eventually reaches No. 1 on the country chart and No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1971 – George Harrison is mid-way through a four-week domination of the singles chart with “My Sweet Lord.” It’s Harrison’s first hit as a solo act following the breakup of The Beatles.

1981 – One month after his murder, ex-Beatle John Lennon is at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with “Double Fantasy.” The album, which he co-produced with wife Yoko Ono, spends eight weeks on top of the album chart and captures Album of the Year honors at the 24th Annual Grammy Awards.

1988 – Whitney Houston scores her sixth consecutive chart-topping single with “So Emotional,” off her “Whitney” album.

1999 – The Céline Dion-R. Kelly duet, “I’m Your Angel,” begins its sixth and final week on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

2010 – Kesha is in the middle of a nine-week domination of the singles chart with “Tik Tok.”

2016 – “Hello,” by Adele, is in its ninth week as a No. 1 single. The track holds the top spot for a total of 10 weeks and goes on to capture Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Pop Solo Performance Grammys.

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On This Day: October 5

On This Day October 5

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1905 – Entrepreneur Ray Kroc, best known for turning McDonald’s from a local chain into a profitable restaurant franchise (d.1984)

1943 – Guitarist and singer-songwriter Steve Miller (“The Joker,” “Fly Like an Eagle,” “Jet Airliner,” “Jungle Love,” “Abracadabra”)

1951 – Actress Karen Allen (” National Lampoon’s Animal House,” “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”)

1951 – Singer-songwriter and political activist Bob Geldof, formerly frontman for The Boomtown Rats

1967 – Emmy-winning actor Guy Pearce (“L.A. Confidential,” “Memento,” “The King’s Speech,” “Prometheus,” “Iron Man 3”)

1972 – Seven-time NBA All-Star Grant Hill

1975 – Oscar-winning actress Kate Winslet (“Titanic,” “The Reader,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” “Finding Neverland”)

1983 – Actor Jesse Eisenberg (“The Squid and the Whale,” “Zombieland,” “The Social Network,” “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1947 – President Harry Truman delivers the first-ever televised presidential address from the White House, asking Americans to reduce their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans.

1969 – A Cuban defector enters U.S. airspace undetected and lands his Soviet-built MiG-17 fighter jet at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami, where Air Force One is parked.

1970 – Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) takes over operations from National Educational Television (NET), which was established by the Ford Foundation in 1952.

1974 – American David Kunst returns home to Minnesota as the first person to travel the globe on foot. It takes him four years and 21 pairs of shoes to cross four continents, covering a total of 14,500 miles. The achievement enables him to plant his heels in the “Guinness Book of Records.”

1983 – Solidarity leader Lech Walesa wins the Nobel Peace Prize for advancing the cause of Polish workers.

2011 – Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple Inc., which revolutionized the computer, music and mobile communications industries with a host of devices, including the Macintosh, iPod, iPhone and iPad, dies of complications from pancreatic cancer at 56.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1959 – Bobby Darin’s “Mack the Knife” kicks off six weeks on top of the singles chart.

1962 – The Beatles release their first single, “Love Me Do,” in the U.K., where it reaches No. 17 on the pop chart. It becomes a No. 1 single in the U.S. in May of 1964.

1966 – Musicians Jimi Hendrix, Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding form The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

1973 – Considered one of pop music’s greatest double-albums, Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” — which contains the hits “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and “Candle in the Wind” — is released. The album spends eight weeks on top of the Billboard 200. In 2003, it is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

1974 – Olivia Newton-John claims her first No. 1 single with “I Honestly Love You.”

1991 – Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch featuring Loleatta Hollaway top the Billboard Hot 100 with “Good Vibrations.”

1999 – Roger Daltrey announces that The Who are getting back together and will give their first performance in Las Vegas on October 29, 1999 during a show broadcast live on the Internet.

2002 – Kelly Clarkson kicks off two weeks on top of the singles chart with “A Moment Like This.”

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