Mission Impossible – Time Rewind

On This Day February 14

Click each item below to learn more!

On This Day September 27

Click each item below to learn more!

Celebrity Birthdays

1920 – Actor William Conrad (“Cannon,” “Jake and the Fatman”) (d. 1994)

1933 – Actor Greg Morris, best known as electronics expert Barney Collier in the TV spy series “Mission: Impossible” (d. 1996)

1934 – Actor Wilford Brimley (“The China Syndrome,” “Cocoon,” “The Firm”)

1943 – Musician Randy Bachman of Bachman-Turner Overdrive (BTO)

1947 – Grammy-winning rock singer-actor Meat Loaf, born Marvin Lee Aday, best known for his “Bat Out of Hell” album series.

1958 – Teen idol Shaun Cassidy (“Da Do Ron Ron,” “The Hardy Boys Mysteries”)

1972 – Oscar-winning actress Gwyneth Paltrow (“Seven,” “Emma,” “Great Expectations,” “Shakespeare in Love,” the “Iron Man” and “The Avengers” movies)

1982 – Grammy-winning rap artist Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr. (“A Milli” and “Lollipop”)

1984 – Pop-punk singer-songwriter Avril Lavigne (“Complicated,” “Sk8er Boi”)

History Highlights

1779 – The Continental Congress appoints John Adams to travel to France to negotiate treaties of peace and commerce with Great Britain during the Revolutionary War.

1938 – U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt writes to German Chancellor Adolf Hitler about the threat of war in Europe. The German chancellor had been threatening to invade the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia and, in the letter, Roosevelt reiterates the need to find a peaceful resolution.

1954 – The “Tonight” show premieres on NBC with comedian-pianist Steve Allen hosting through 1957 before handing off to Jack Paar and later Johnny Carson, who hosted through 1992. Subsequent hosts have been Jay Leno, Conan O’Brien and, currently, Jimmy Fallon.

1964 – The Warren Commission Report on the JFK assassination is released. It concludes there was no conspiracy and that gunman Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in the presidential shooting on November 12, 1963.

1973 – Two Soviet cosmonauts blast off aboard Soyuz 12 donning pressurized suits which were developed after the Soyuz 11 crew was asphyxiated while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.

Musical Milestones

1964 – The Beach Boys make their TV debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” performing “I Get Around” and “Wendy.”

1975 – “I’m Sorry” lands atop the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the final No. 1 single of John Denver’s career.

1983 – “A Chorus Line” achieves the status of longest-running Broadway musical to date.

1986 – “Stuck With You,” by Huey Lewis and the News, lands on top of the Hot 100 chart and sticks for three weeks.

1992 – “End of the Road,” by Boyz II Men, is mid-way through a 13-week reign over the Billboard singles chart.

1994 – The soundtrack to the Quentin Tarantino cult classic “Pulp Fiction,” starring John Travolta, Samuel L. Jackson and Uma Thurman, is released. It consists of rock and roll, pop, surf and soul music along with snippets of dialogue from the movie.

2003 – “Shake Ya Tailfeather,” by Nelly featuring P. Diddy and Murphy Lee, is in its fourth and final week as a No. 1 single. It wins the Grammy for Best Rap Performance by a Duo or Group at the 2004 Grammy Awards.

2011 – Tony Bennett becomes the oldest artist to top the Billboard album chart when the 85-year-old’s “Duets II” reaches No. 1. Featuring collaborations with Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga, Aretha Franklin, Queen Latifah, Michael Buble and other star vocalists, the album is also Bennett’s first chart-topper in a six-decade career.

On This Day September 17

Click each item below to learn more!

Celebrity Birthdays

1923 – Legendary country music star Hank Williams, Sr. (d. 1953)

1928 – Actor Roddy McDowall, born Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude “Roddy” McDowall, who played Cornelius and Caesar in the original “Planet of the Apes” sci-fi movie and TV series (d. 1998)

1931 – Oscar, Golden Globe, Tony and Emmy-winning actress Anne Bancroft, born Anna Maria Louisa Italiano (“The Graduate,” “The Miracle Worker,” “The Elephant Man, “Agnes of God,” “Malice”) (d. 2005)

1948 – Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor John Ritter, best known as Jack Tripper in the hit comedy series “Three’s Company” (d. 2003)

1951 – Actress Cassandra Peterson, a.k.a. Elvira, Mistress of the Dark

1965 – Actor Kyle Chandler (“Friday Night Lights,” “Super 8,” “Argo,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “King Kong”)

History Highlights

1787 – Drafted in secret by delegates to the Constitutional Convention, the four-page U.S. Constitution is signed, establishing a framework for the government of the United States and an intricate system of checks and balances.

1862 – At the Battle of Antietam, Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Union General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac fight to a standstill along a Maryland creek. The bloodiest day in American military history ends with nearly 23,000 soldiers killed, wounded or missing, and changes the course of the Civil War.

1937 – The stone likeness of President Abraham Lincoln’s face is officially dedicated at Mount Rushmore.

1963 – New programming premieres on ABC: “The Greatest Show on Earth” and “The Fugitive,” the latter of which is made into a movie 30 years later, starring Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones.

1966 – The spy series “Mission: Impossible” debuts on CBS. Thirty years later, in 1996, the first in a series of “Mission: Impossible” movies is produced starring, starring Tom Cruise.

1972 – The Korean War-era series “M*A*S*H,” starring Alan Alda, begins an 11-year run on CBS

1976 – NASA unveils the first space shuttle, Enterprise, a $10 billion technological marvel that took a decade to develop.

1978 – A milestone is achieved on the road to a Middle East peace, with the signing of the Camp David Accords. U.S. President Jimmy Carter presides as Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli President Menachem Begin agree to end three decades of hostilities between their nations.

1996 – Daytime talk show host Oprah Winfrey launches a television book club. Oprah’s Book Club quickly becomes an influential force in the publishing world, with Winfrey’s endorsements capable of catapulting a previously little-known book onto best-seller lists.

Musical Milestones

1967 – The Doors are banned from “The Ed Sullivan Show” after front man Jim Morrison breaks his agreement with the producers to replace the word “higher” with “better” in the line “Girl, we couldn’t get much higher” in the song “Light My Fire.” After learning that his band would not be welcome back on the program, Morrison reportedly said, “Hey, that’s okay – we just did the Ed Sullivan Show.”

1969 – Media on both sides of the Atlantic report that Paul McCartney of The Beatles is dead — supposedly killed in a car accident in Scotland in November 1966 and that a double had been standing in for him during public appearances. In fact, Paul and his girlfriend, Jane Asher, were vacationing in Kenya at the time.

1977 – Andy Gibb owns the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with “I Just Want to Be Your Everything.”

1988 – Guns N’ Roses begins the second and final week at No. 1 on the singles chart with “Sweet Child o’ Mine,” off the band’s debut album, “Appetite for Destruction.”

1994 – “I’ll Make Love to You,” by Boyz II Men, is in the midst of a 14-week domination of the singles chart.

2005 – “Gold Digger,” by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx, kicks off 10 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

2011 – Adele dominates the pop chart for a week with “Someone Like You,” off her “21” album. It becomes her second U.S. No. 1.

2016 – Barbra Streisand extends her record as the artist with the most No. 1 albums in chart history (11) when “Encore: Movie Partners Sing Broadway” reaches the top of the Billboard album chart.

On this Day May 12

Click each item below to learn more!

Celebrity Birthdays

1820 – Nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale (d. 1910)

1907 – Oscar-winning actress Katharine Hepburn (“The African Queen,” “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” “On Golden Pond”) (d. 2003)

1925 – Baseball Hall of Fame player-coach-manager Yogi Berra (d. 2015)

1928 – Grammy and Oscar-winning composer-pianist Burt Bacharach (“The Look of Love,” “This Guy’s in Love with You,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head,” “(They Long to Be) Close to You,” “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do),” “That’s What Friends Are For,” “On My Own”)

1936 – Late-night TV talk show host Tom Snyder (“The Tomorrow Show,” “The Late Late Show”) (d. 2007)

1937 – Stand-up comedian and actor George Carlin (d. 2008)

1950 – Actor Gabriel Byrne (“Miller’s Crossing,” “The Usual Suspects,” “End of Days,” “In Treatment”)

1959 – Golden Globe-winning actor Ving Rhames (“Dave,” “Mission: Impossible” film series, “Pulp Fiction,” “Con Air,” “Don King: Only in America”)

1962 – ‘Brat Pack’ actor Emilio Estevez (“Repo Man,” “The Breakfast Club,” “St. Elmo’s Fire,” “Stakeout,” “Young Guns,” “The Mighty Ducks”)

1978 – Actor Jason Biggs (“As The World Turns,” the “American Pie” movie series, “Orange is the New Black,” “Amateur Night”)

1981 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor and producer Rami Malek (“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Mr. Robot,” “Night at the Museum”)

History Highlights

1847 – Way before the Fitbit, William Clayton creates a device to measure distance with his invention of the odometer. Its original use was to record how far horse-drawn wagons traveled during America’s pioneer days.

1903 – Theodore Roosevelt becomes the first U.S. president captured on film during a trip to San Francisco. Cameraman H.J. Miles chronicles Roosevelt as his carriage travels down Market Street during a parade in his honor. The short silent movie, titled “The President’s Carriage,” is later played on nickelodeons in arcades across America.

1932 – The body of aviation hero Charles Lindbergh’s 20-month-old baby is found more than two months after his kidnapping from the family’s New Jersey home.

1957 – Legendary auto racer A.J. Foyt is 22 years old when he scores his first professional victory in a U.S. Automobile Club midget car race in Kansas City, Missouri.

1970 – The U.S. Senate confirms President Richard Nixon’s nomination of Federal Circuit Judge Harry Blackmun to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Musical Milestones

1958 – The Everly Brothers begin a four-week run at No. 1 on the singles chart with “All I Have To Do Is Dream.”

1963 – Bob Dylan walks off the set of “The Ed Sullivan Show” after a CBS executive tells him he cannot perform his song “Talking John Birch Paranoid Blues” because it mocks segregation and the military.

1964 – Barbra Streisand wins a Grammy for Best Female Vocalist for “The Barbra Streisand Album,” which is named Album of the Year.

1979 – “Reunited,” by Peaches & Herb, is in the middle of a four-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. The track also tops the R&B singles chart for four weeks and goes on to sell more than two million copies.

1984 – Lionel Richie begins two weeks on top of the pop chart with “Hello,” off his “Can’t Slow Down” album.

1990 – Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U” completes a four-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100.

2001 – Janet Jackson is in the middle of a seven-week run at No. 1 on the pop chart with “All for You.”