On This Day October 19 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1931 – Spy novelist John le Carré, best known for his 1963 international best-seller, “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” (d. 2020) 1932 – Actor Robert Reed, most remembered for playing family man Mike Brady in “The Brady Bunch” TV series (d. 1992) 1937 – Contemporary artist and pop art icon Peter Max 1940 – Actor Sir Michael Gambon, who played Albus Dumbledore in six “Harry Potter” movies 1945 – Emmy, Tony and Golden Globe-winning actor John Lithgow (“The World According to Garp,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Footloose,” “Shrek,” “3rd Rock from the Sun,” “Dexter”) 1962 – Heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield 1964 – Reality TV host Ty Pennington (“Trading Spaces,” “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”) 1966 – Actor-director Jon Favreau (“Rudy,” “Swingers,” “The Break-Up,” “Elf,” “Cowboys & Aliens” and the “Iron Man” movie series) 1970 – Comedian and “Saturday Night Live” alum Chris Kattan History Highlights 1781 – Hopelessly trapped at Yorktown, Virginia, British General Lord Cornwallis surrenders 8,000 British soldiers and seamen to a larger Franco-American force, effectively bringing an end to the American Revolution. The event is known as the Siege of Yorktown or the Battle of Yorktown. 1960 – The Cold War heats up as the U.S. imposes an embargo on exports to Cuba. The original embargo covers all exports except medicine and some food products. President John F. Kennedy expands the embargo to cover U.S. imports from Cuba, which is made permanent in early 1962. 1970 – In New York City, One World Trade Center welcomes its first tenants, even as construction of the upper floors of the world’s tallest building continues. 1977 – An aviation icon, the supersonic Concorde SST, makes its first landing at New York’s JFK International Airport. The aircraft provides high-speed trans-Atlantic service until a 2003 Air France crash during takeoff from Paris that kills everyone on board. 1982 – Auto executive John DeLorean is arrested for drug trafficking and money laundering after FBI agents nab him with a briefcase containing $24 million worth of cocaine. 1987 – The Dow Jones Industrial Average suffers the largest-ever one-day percentage decline, dropping 508 points (22.6 percent), in what comes to be known as “Black Monday.” It is a bigger collapse than what rocked Wall Street in 1929, right before the Great Depression. 1991 – What begins as a small fire on private property in the hills of Oakland, California grows into an inferno that consumes 2.5 square miles of mostly residential neighborhoods. The Oakland Hills Firestorm kills 25 people and injures 150 others, and destroys nearly 3,500 homes and apartments. Musical Milestones 1967 – Tamla/Motown Records releases “I Second That Emotion,” by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, which peaks at No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 that December. However, the track does make it to No. 1 on the R&B singles chart. 1974 – Billy Preston is on top of the singles chart with “Nothing From Nothing.” 1985 – The Norwegian band a-ha claims the top spot on the singles chart with “Take on Me. The accompanying music video features the band in a pencil-sketch animation combined with live action, which won six awards and was nominated for two others at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards. 1991 – “Emotions,” by Mariah Carey, is in the middle of a three-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. 1998 – “One Week,” by Barenaked Ladies, is No. 1 for a week. The track remains the Canadian band’s best-performing single to this day. 2002 – “Dilemma,” by Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland, begins three weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. READ MORE
On this Day August 9 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1927 – Actor Robert Shaw (“A Man For All Seasons,” “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three,” “Jaws,” “Black Sunday”) (d. 1978) 1944 – Actor Sam Elliott (“Gunsmoke,” “Mask,” “Road House,” “Tombstone,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Ghost Rider,” “The Golden Compass,” “Grandma,” “The Ranch”) 1957 – Golden Globe-winning actress Melanie Griffith (“Something Wild, “Working Girl,” “Shining Through,” “Crazy in Alabama”) 1963 – Six-time Grammy-winning pop sensation Whitney Houston (d. 2012) 1968 – Actor Eric Bana (“Black Hawk Down,” “Hulk,” “Munich,” “Star Trek”) 1968 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress Gillian Anderson, best known for playing Special Agent Dana Scully in the hit sci-fi series “The X-Files.” 1985 – Actress Anna Kendrick (“Up in the Air,” “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World,” “The Twilight Saga,” “Pitch Perfect,” “Pitch Perfect 2,” “Into the Woods”) History Highlights 1936 – African American track star Jesse Owens captures his fourth Gold medal at the Berlin Olympic Games in the 4×100-meter relay. His relay team set a new world record of 39.8 seconds. In their strong showing in track and field, Owens and other African American athletes struck a publicity blow to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, who planned to use the international event to showcase supposed Aryan superiority. 1945 – Three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, the U.S. drops a second atomic bomb on Japan. This time the target is Nagasaki. The attack leads to Japan’s unconditional surrender and brings hostilities in World War II to a close. The combined attacks leave some 200,000 people dead and level both cities. 1969 – In one of the most horrifying crimes of the 1960s, members of Charles Manson’s cult, the Manson Family, murder five people in the Beverly Hills home of director Roman Polanski. Polanski’s pregnant wife, 26-year-old actress Sharon Tate, is among the victims. 1974 – Gerald Ford becomes the 38th U.S. president, taking the oath of office on the heels of the Richard Nixon resignation. 1975 – The Louisiana Superdome opens and an exhibition game there sees the Houston Oilers trounce the hometown New Orleans Saints by a score of 31-7. 2010 – JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater quits his job in dramatic fashion after his flight lands at New York’s JFK International Airport. He gets on the public address system, swears at a passenger whom he claimed treated him rudely, grabs a beer and slides down the plane’s emergency chute onto the tarmac. Musical Milestones 1959 – “Stagger Lee,” by Lloyd Price, begins a four-week hold on the top spot on the singles chart. 1969 – Blood, Sweat, & Tears’ Grammy-winning self-titled album tops the Billboard 200. The album delivers the Top 5 hits “And When I Die,” “Spinning Wheel” and “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy.” 1975 – The Bee Gees dominate the Billboard Hot 100 with their second No. 1 hit in the U.S.: “Jive Talkin’.” The single holds the top spot for two weeks. 1980 – Olivia Newton-John is in the midst of a four-week reign over the pop chart with “Magic.” 1995 – Deadheads everywhere mourn as a heart attack claims the life of Grateful Dead leader Jerry Garcia at the age of 53. Rolling Stone magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time ranks Garcia at No. 13. 1997 – “I’ll Be Missing You,” by Puff Daddy featuring Faith Evans and 112, continues its domination over the Billboard Hot 100. 2003 – “Crazy in Love,” by Beyoncé featuring Jay-Z, is the No. 1 single. The track holds the top spot for eight weeks. 2008 – Katy Perry is in the middle of a seven-week domination of the pop chart with “I Kissed a Girl.” READ MORE