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On This Day February 22

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Celebrity Birthdays

1732 – First U.S. President George Washington (d. 1799)

1907 – Actor Robert Young (“Father Knows Best,” “Marcus Welby, M.D.”) (d. 1998)

1932 – Massachusetts Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy  (d. 2009)

1944 – Oscar-winning director Jonathan Demme (“Melvin and Howard,” “Swing Shift,” “Married to the Mob,” “The Silence of the Lambs,” “Philadelphia”)

1950 – Retired NBA legend Julius “Dr. J” Erving

1959 – Golden Globe-winning actor Kyle MacLachlan (“Dune,” “Blue Velvet,” “Twin Peaks,” “Sex and the City,” “Desperate Housewives,” “Portlandia”)

1966 – Comedian and “Saturday Night Live” (“SNL”) alum Rachel Dratch 

1975 – Golden Globe-winning actress, producer and director Drew Barrymore (“E.T.: The Extraterrestrial,” “Boys on the Side,” “Charlie’s Angels,” “50 First Dates,” “Grey Gardens,” “Blended”)

History Highlights

1959 – In a photo finish, Lee Petty emerges as the winner of the first Daytona 500 auto race. 

1980 – One of the most dramatic upsets in Olympics history takes place in Lake Placid, New York. In what is known as “The Miracle on Ice,” the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeats the four-time defending Gold medal-winning Soviet team 4-3 at the XIII Olympic Winter Games.

1987 – Pop art pioneer, filmmaker and cultural icon Andy Warhol dies at the age of 58.

2014 – One of the world’s most-wanted criminals, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera — head of the Sinaloa cartel, the world’s biggest drug trafficking organization — is arrested in a joint U.S.-Mexican operation in Mexico, after outrunning authorities for more than a decade. 

Musical Milestones

1960 – Percy Faith starts a nine-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart with “Theme From A Summer Place.”

1975 – The Average White Band scores No. 1 on the singles chart with “Pick Up The Pieces,” while the album containing that track, “AWB,” tops the Billboard album chart.

1989 – Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Tina Turner, wins the Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocalist for her “Tina Live in Europe” album.

1990 – Milli Vanilli (Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan) win the Grammy Award for Best New Artist. Nine months later, they are stripped of the honor after they are caught lip-syncing and admit they never sang a single note on the acclaimed “Girl You Know It’s True” album.

1992 – “I’m Too Sexy,” by British band Right Said Fred, marks its third and final week as a No. 1 single.

1997 – The Spice Girls begin four weeks as Billboard chart-toppers with “Wannabe,” the band’s debut single.

1998 – Madonna releases the Grammy-winning “Ray of Light.” With its use of electronica and techno-pop, the album represents a departure from Madonna’s traditional sound. It contains the hits “Frozen,” “Ray of Light” and “The Power of Good-Bye.”

2003 – “All I Have,” by Jennifer Lopez featuring LL Cool J, rules the Billboard Hot 100. Lopez goes on to name her 2016 Las Vegas Residency Show after the song.

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