On This Day November 12 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1943 – Actor and playwright Wallace Shawn (“The Princess Bride,” “Toy Story,” “The Incredibles”) 1945 – Legendary singer-songwriter-guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Neil Young (“Old Man,” “Harvest Moon,” “Heart of Gold”) 1961 – Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci 1967 – Former World Heavyweight boxing champion Michael Moorer 1980 – Actor-musician Ryan Gosling (“The Notebook,” “Half Nelson,” “Lars and the Real Girl,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” “Lost River,” The Big Short”) 1982 – Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actress Anne Hathaway (“The Princess Diaries,” “Brokeback Mountain,” “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Becoming Jane,” “The Dark Knight Rises,” “Les Misérables,” “Interstellar,” “The Intern”) History Highlights 1946 – America’s first drive-up teller window opens at the Exchange National Bank of Chicago. It features 10 bulletproof windows, with money and paperwork exchanged through sliding drawers. 1954 – Ellis Island, the gateway to America, shuts its doors after processing more than 12 million immigrants since its 1892 opening. About 40 percent of all Americans can trace their roots through Ellis Island to relatives that sought a better life and the “American Dream.” Located in New York Harbor, Ellis Island reopens in 1990 as a museum and national park. 1965 – Brothers Bill and Bob Summers set a world land speed record (409.277 miles per hour) at Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats in their hemi-powered hot rod, Goldenrod. 1979 – President Jimmy Carter orders a halt to oil imports from Iran after Americans are taken hostage at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. 1982 – Yuri Andropov assumes leadership of the Soviet Union, succeeding Leonid Brezhnev, who died two days earlier. Musical Milestones 1966 – “Poor Side of Town” puts Johnny Rivers on the rich side of the singles chart – the No. 1 spot. 1977 – Debby Boone dominates the Billboard Hot 100 with “You Light Up My Life,” which remains a No. 1 single for 10 weeks. 1980 – Bruce Springsteen’s “The River” holds at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart. 1983 – Lionel Richie starts a four-week reign over the Billboard Hot 100 with “All Night Long (All Night).” The track also makes its way to the top of the R&B and Adult Contemporary charts. 1988 – The Escape Club reaches the top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Wild, Wild West,” becoming the first British musical act with a No. 1 in the U.S. while never charting in the U.K. 1994 – “I’ll Make Love to You,” by Boyz II Men, is in its 12th week as a No. 1 single. It holds the top spot for another two weeks. 2001 – The three living former Beatles meet for the last time at George Harrison’s New York City hotel for lunch. Harrison would die of cancer two weeks later at the age of 58. READ MORE
On This Day November 5 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1911 – American singer, cowboy and actor Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye and known as the “King of the Cowboys” (d. 1998) 1913 – Actress Vivian Leigh (“Gone With the Wind,” “A Streetcar Named Desire”) (d. 1967) 1931 – R&B singer-songwriter Ike Turner who had a string of hits with then-wife Tina Turner (d. 2007) 1940 – Golden Globe-winning actress Elke Sommer (“The Prize,” “A Shot in the Dark,” “The Art of Love,” “The Oscar,” “Boy, Did I Get the Wrong Number”) 1941 – Singer-songwriter Art Garfunkel, formerly of the Grammy-winning rock-folk duo Simon & Garfunkel 1943 – Pulitzer Prize-winning actor and playwright Sam Shepard (“Days of Heaven,” “Paris, Texas,” “The Right Stuff,” “Country,” “Steel Magnolias”) (d. 2017) 1947 – Peter Noone, born Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone, frontman for the 1960s British pop group Herman’s Hermits 1959 – Grammy-winning rock singer-songwriter Bryan Adams (“Cuts Like a Knife,” “Summer of ’69,” “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”) 1960 – Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton (“Edward II,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Michael Clayton,” “Burn After Reading,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Doctor Strange”) 1963 – Oscar-winning actress Tatum O’Neal (“Paper Moon,” “The Bad News Bears,” “Nickelodeon,” “Little Darlings”) 1968 – Actor Sam Rockwell (“The Green Mile,” “Galaxy Quest” “Iron Man 2,” “Cowboys & Aliens,” “A Single Shot”) History Highlights 1912 – Democrat Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th president of the United States in a landslide victory, defeating Republican incumbent William Howard Taft and Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. It is the only presidential election in American history in which two former presidents were defeated by another candidate. 1940 – Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt is re-elected for an unprecedented third term as president of the United States. He is re-elected again in 1944, which paves the way for ratification of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951, limiting all future presidents to two elected terms. 1968 – Republican Richard Nixon wins the presidential election, defeating Vice President Hubert Humphrey in one of the closest political races in U.S. history. 1968 – New York Democrat Shirley Chisholm becomes the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. She serves for 14 years. In 1972, she becomes the first woman and African American to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties. 1994 – Forty-five-year-old George Foreman knocks out 26-year-old Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. More than 12,000 spectators at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas watch Foreman dethrone Moorer, who entered the fight with a 35-0 record. 2007 – A writers strike in New York and Los Angeles interrupts the production of more than 60 television shows and results in the loss of an estimated $3 billion to the LA economy alone. The walkout, by members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), lasts more than three months. 2009 – Thirteen people are killed and more than 30 others are wounded, nearly all of them unarmed soldiers, when a U.S. Army officer goes on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in central Texas. The deadly assault, carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, becomes the worst mass murder at a U.S. military installation. Musical Milestones 1956 – “The Nat King Cole Show” debuts on NBC as the first network TV series hosted by an African-American. The musical variety show, featuring some of the biggest entertainers of the day, begins as a 15-minute program and eventually expands to half an hour. Thirteen months later, NBC pulls the plug after being unable to find a national sponsor. 1960 – Country-rockabilly artist Johnny Horton, whose Grammy-winning “Battle of New Orleans” topped the singles charts for six weeks in 1959, dies in a car crash. 1966 – The Monkees rule the singles chart for a week with “Last Train to Clarksville.” The track is featured in seven episodes of “The Monkees” TV show, the most for any Monkees song. 1977 – “You Light Up My Life,” by Debby Boone, is in the midst of a 10-week domination of the pop chart. 1988 – “Kokomo,” by The Beach Boys, is No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. The track is from the movie “Cocktail,” starring Tom Cruise. 1989 – Grammy-winning classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz dies at the age of 86. 1994 – Boyz II Men are in the midst of a 14-week conquest of the Billboard Hot 100 with “I’ll Make Love to You.” 2005 – “Gold Digger,” by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx, is a Billboard chart-topper, and remains there for 10 weeks. READ MORE