On This Day March 13 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1939 – Singer-songwriter and pianist Neil Sedaka (“Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” “Laughter in the Rain,” “Bad Blood”) 1941 – Singer-dancer-comedian Charo, born María del Rosario Mercedes Pilar Martínez Molina Baez, remembered for her catch phrase “cuchi-cuchi” 1950 – Emmy-winning actor William H. Macy (“ER,” “Fargo,” “Pleasantville,” “Boogie Nights,” “Shameless”) 1956 – Emmy-winning actress Dana Delany (“China Beach,” “Desperate Housewives”) 1960 – Grammy-winning U2 bassist Adam Clayton 1971 – Actress Annabeth Gish (“Mystic Pizza,” “Double Jeopardy,” “The West Wing,” “The X-Files”) 1972 – Oscar, Grammy and Golden Globe-winning rapper-actor Common, born Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr. (“Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip-Hop),” “Just Wright,” “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” “Selma”) History Highlights 1781 – Astronomer Sir William Herschel discovers the seventh planet from the sun, Uranus, named after the Greek god of the sky. 1933 – With the Great Depression raging, U.S. banks begin to re-open on this day after President Franklin D. Roosevelt had mandated a “bank holiday.” 1942 – The federal government authorizes the use of dogs in America’s war effort. Originally known as “Dogs for Defense” (DFD), the War Dog Program, or “K-9 (Canine) Corps,” initially allows the U.S. Army to work with 30 breeds of dogs, but later narrows it to seven. Dogs are also trained to serve the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. 1969 – Walt Disney Productions releases “The Love Bug,” a comedy starring Dean Jones, Michele Lee, Buddy Hackett and Herbie — a Volkswagen Beetle with a mind of its own. 2005 – Walt Disney Company announces that Robert Iger, Disney’s president and chief operating officer, will succeed Michael Eisner as the company’s chief executive officer. The move ends Eisner’s storied and tumultuous two-decade reign at Disney. Musical Milestones 1965 – “Eight Days a Week,” by The Beatles, begins two weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. It’s the final of seven songs by the Fab Four to be No. 1 in the U.S. in a one-year period, an all-time record. 1976 – The Four Seasons are Billboard Hot 100 chart-toppers with “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night).” 1982 – The J. Geils Band kicks off its sixth and final week on top of the pop chart with “Centerfold.” 1999 – “Believe” is Cher’s first No. 1 hit since 1974’s “Dark Lady.” The song tops the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks and becomes the biggest-selling single in the U.S. for 1999. The recording is one of the first to use an Auto-Tune processor to alter vocal pitch, a technique now commonplace in pop music. 2004 – “Yeah!,” by Usher featuring Lil Jon and Ludacris, is in the middle of a 12-week domination of the singles chart. 2010 – “Imma Bee,” by The Black Eyed Peas, enters its second and final week as a No. 1 single. READ MORE
On this Day June 24 Click each item below to learn more! Celebrity Birthdays 1895 – World heavyweight boxer Jack Dempsey, known as the “Manassa Mauler”(d. 1983) 1919 – Actor Al Molinaro, remembered for his TV sitcom roles as Al Delvecchio in “Happy Days” and Murray Greshler in “The Odd Couple” (d. 2015) 1935 – Director-actor Robert Downey, Sr. (“Putney Swope,” “Tower Heist”) 1942 – Actress Michele Lee (“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” “Knots Landing,” “Wicked”) 1944 – Grammy-winning rock guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Jeff Beck, a former member of the band The Yardbirds (d. 2023) 1947 – Actor Peter Weller (“RoboCop,” “RoboCop 2,” “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension,” “Naked Lunch,” “Mighty Aphrodite,” “Longmire”) 1947 – Rock and Roll Hall of Fame drummer and Fleetwood Mac co-founder Mick Fleetwood 1967 – Actress and former “ER” star Sherry Stringfield History Highlights 1901 – The first major exhibition of Pablo Picasso’s artwork opens in Paris. 1947 – Pilot Kenneth Arnold reports seeing strange objects near Mount Rainier, Washington. He describes them as “saucers skipping across the water,” and so the term “flying saucers” is born. 1948 – The Soviet Union begins a blockade of Berlin. Allied forces respond with what would be known as the Berlin Airlift, flying in more than two million tons of supplies over the next year. 1953 – Jacqueline Bouvier and Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy publicly announce their engagement. They marry three months later in Newport, Rhode Island. Kennedy wins election as 35th U.S. president in 1960, and as first lady, Jackie, as she was known, makes restoration of the White House her first major project. 1975 – Wind shear from thunderstorms is blamed for the crash of an Eastern Airlines 727 on final approach to New York’s JFK Airport that leaves 113 dead. The accident leads to the installation of low-level wind shear detectors at airports. 1993 – Yale University computer science professor David Gelernter is seriously injured while opening his mail when a padded envelope explodes in his hands. The bombing, along with 14 others since 1978 that killed three people and injured 23 others, was eventually linked to “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski. 1997 – U.S. Air Force officials release a 231-page report dismissing long-standing claims of an alien spacecraft crash in Roswell, New Mexico, almost exactly 50 years earlier. Musical Milestones 1967 – “Groovin’,” by The Young Rascals, enjoys its fourth and final week as a No. 1 single. 1967 – British rock band Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade Of Pale” lands on the Billboard Hot 100 and climbs as high as No. 5. Meanwhile, in the U.K., it is a No. 1 hit for six weeks. The track becomes one of the anthems of 1967’s so-called “Summer of Love.” 1972 – Sammy Davis, Jr. begins a third and final week on top of the singles chart with his interpretation of “The Candy Man,” from the movie “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory.” 1989 – Richard Marx scores his second No. 1 single with “Satisfied.” 1995 – Bryan Adams’ “Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?” is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The track is from the Johnny Depp-Marlon Brando movie “Don Juan DeMarco.” 2000 – Enrique Iglesias kicks off three weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Be With You.” 2006 – “Hips Don’t Lie,” by Shakira featuring Wyclef Jean, begins its second and final week on top of the pop chart. READ MORE