On This Day: November 17

On This Day November 17

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1925 – Actor and 1950s-60s leading man Rock Hudson (“Magnificent Obsession,” “All That Heaven Allows,” “Giant,” “Pillow Talk,” “McMillan & Wife”) (d. 1985)

1938 – Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, the talent behind some of the biggest pop-folk hits of the 1970s (“If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”)

1942 – Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy and Grammy-winning director-producer Martin Scorsese (“Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” “Gangs of New York,” “The Aviator,” “The Departed,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “The Irishman”)

1944 – Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor-director-producer Danny DeVito (“Taxi,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Ruthless People,” “Tin Men,” “Throw Momma from the Train,” “Get Shorty,” “L.A. Confidential”)

1944 – “Saturday Night Live” creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels

1960 – Drag queen, singer and actor RuPaul, born RuPaul Andre Charles

1978 – Actress Rachel McAdams (“Mean Girls,” “The Notebook,” “Wedding Crashers,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “Midnight in Paris,” “The Vow,” “Spotlight,” “Doctor Strange”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1869 – The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas, formally opens. The 100-mile-long waterway shortens the sea route from Europe to India by about 4,000 miles.

1962 – President John F. Kennedy and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicate Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C. region.

1968 – The Oakland Raiders score two touchdowns in nine seconds at home to defeat the New York Jets, but television viewers never see the win. With just over a minute left in the game, NBC cuts to the previously scheduled made-for-TV movie “Heidi” — based on the book about a young girl and her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The network apologizes after being bombarded by complaints in what comes to be called “The Heidi Game.”

1973 – In the midst of the Watergate scandal that eventually destroys his presidency, President Richard Nixon tells a room full of newspaper editors, “I’m not a crook.”

2003 – Actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as the 38th governor of California at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

2003 – Ex-soldier John Allen Muhammad is found guilty of one of a series of sniper shootings that terrorized the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area and dominated national headlines for three weeks in the fall of 2002. The shootings left 10 people dead.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1839 – Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s first opera, “Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio,” debuts in Milan.

1958 – “Tom Dooley,” by The Kingston Trio, is No. 1 on the pop chart. The single goes on to sell over three million copies and puts the band at the forefront of the pop-folk boom that continued through the 1960s.

1962 – The Four Seasons park themselves on top of the singles chart for five weeks with “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

1970 – Elton John’s music career is in its infancy when he performs a concert to a small audience at A&R Studios in New York that is broadcast live on local radio station WABC-FM. A recording of the session is packaged as his first live album, “11-17-70” (U.S. version) and “17-11-70” (U.K. version) and released in April 1971.

1979 – The Commodores top the Billboard Hot 100 with “Still.”

1984 – “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” by Wham!, begins three weeks as a Billboard No. 1 single.

1990 – “Love Takes Time,” by Mariah Carey, is in the middle of three weeks as a Billboard chart-topper.

2001 – Mary J. Blige is queen of the pop chart with “Family Affair.”

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On this Day: May 19

On this Day May 19

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1925 – Religious leader and civil rights activist Malcolm X, born Malcolm Little (d. 1965)

1934 – Journalist, author and former PBS anchor and political debate moderator Jim Lehrer (d. 2020)

1941 – Screenwriter-producer-director Nora Ephron (“Silkwood,” “When Harry Met Sally…,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “You’ve Got Mail,” “Julie & Julia”) (d, 2012)

1944 – Actor Peter Mayhew, best known for playing Chewbacca in the “Star Wars” movie franchise (d. 2019)

1945 – Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Pete Townshend, lead guitarist of legendary rock band The Who

1946 – Wrestler-actor Andre the Giant, whom most remember from his role as the giant in the movie “The Princess Bride (d. 1993)

1951 – Joey Ramone, born Jeffrey Ross Hyman, guitarist and lead singer of the punk rock band The Ramones (“Blitzkrieg Bop,” “I Wanna Be Sedated,” “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker,” “Rockaway Beach”) (d. 2001)

1952 – Singer, model and actress Grace Jones (“Pull Up to the Bumper,” “I’ve Seen That Face Before (Libertango),” “Private Life,” “Slave to the Rhythm”)

1992 – Grammy-winning pop vocalist Sam Smith (“Latch,” “Lay Me Down,” “Stay With Me”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1749 – England’s King George II grants the Ohio Company of Virginia a charter of 200,000 acres stretching out from the forks of the Ohio River on the present site of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1921 – Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act (also known as the Immigration Act of 1921), establishing national quotas on the immigration of foreigners into the U.S.

1935 – T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, dies as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name. He is just 46. The legendary war hero, author, and archaeological scholar succumbed to to severe brain injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident six days earlier. His death eventually led to development of the crash helmet. Lawrence was famously portrayed in the Oscar-winning 1962 movie, “Lawrence of Arabia,” by actor Peter O’Toole.

1962 – Marilyn Monroe takes center stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden as she sings “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy. About 15,000 people are on hand for the star-studded gala that takes place 10 days before JFK’s actual birthday.

2006 – Amid a firestorm of publicity and controversy, director Ron Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s mega-bestselling thriller, “The Da Vinci Code,” debuts in theaters, starring Tom Hanks.

2016 – EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 on a routine flight from Paris to Cairo, disappears over the Mediterranean Sea with 66 passengers and crew. It takes weeks to find signs of the wreckage, and while terrorism is suspected initially, investigators conclude that the aircraft broke up in midair after a fire broke out in the cockpit and quickly spread.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1958 – The “South Pacific” movie soundtrack, featuring the music of Rodgers and Hammerstein, is No. 1 on the Billboard album chart.

1960 – Disc jockey Alan Freed (a.k.a. “Moondog”), who introduced radio listeners across the U.S. to the music that came to be called “rock ‘n roll,” is indicted along with seven others by a federal grand jury in connection with a scandal over payola — the practice of accepting cash and gifts from music promoters in exchange for playing their records.

1973 – Stevie Wonder scores his third No. 1 single with “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” which later garners him a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

1979 – “Reunited,” by Peaches & Herb, is in the midst of a four-week run on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

1979 – Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” — featuring the hits “The Logical Song,”  “Goodbye Stranger” and “Take the Long Way Home” — reaches the top of the Billboard album chart and stays there for four weeks. The album goes on to capture two Grammy Awards.

1984 – Lionel Richie wraps up the second of two weeks as king of the pop chart with “Hello.”

1990 – Madonna starts a three week run at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart with “Vogue,” off her “I’m Breathless” album.

2001 – Janet Jackson is queen of the pop chart as “All For You” achieves its sixth week as a No. 1 single. 

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