On This Day: April 18

On This Day April 18

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1946 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actress Hayley Mills (“Tiger Bay,” “Pollyanna,” “The Parent Trap,” “Whistle Down the Wind,” “Saved by the Bell”)

1947 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor James Woods (“The Onion Field,” “Once Upon a Time in America,” “Salvador,” “My Name is Bill W”) 

1954 – Actor-comedian Rick Moranis (“Ghostbusters,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Honey I Shrunk the Kids”) 

1956 – Actor Eric Roberts (“King of the Gypsies,” “Star 80,” “Runaway Train,” “The Dark Knight,” “The Expendables”) 

1963 – TV host and comedian Conan O’Brien  

1984 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress America Ferrera (“Ugly Betty,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” “How to Train Your Dragon”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1906 – A powerful earthquake destroys large sections of San Francisco and sparks fires that burn for days. The death toll exceeds 3,000. 

1923 – More than 74,000 fans attend opening day at the New York Yankees’ new home in the Bronx. Babe Ruth slams the door on the Boston Red Sox with a game-winning three-run homer and Yankee Stadium becomes known as “The House that Ruth Built.”

1955 – Legendary physicist Albert Einstein, who won the Nobel Prize for his General Theory of Relativity (E=mc2), dies at the age of 76.

1956 – American actress Grace Kelly marries Prince Rainier III of Monaco in a spectacular ceremony that is dubbed the “Wedding of the Century.” The 26-year-old American beauty becomes Princess Grace of Monaco.

1983 – A suicide bomber crashes a truck into the front of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, setting off a massive blast that kills 63 people.

1989 – Thousands of Chinese students take to the streets of Beijing to protest government policies and call for greater democracy. Similar demonstrations begin in other cities and universities across China. The movement culminates with the bloody Tiananmen Square Massacre that June.

2012 – Entertainment icon Dick Clark, best known for hosting “American Bandstand” — an influential music-and-dance show that aired nationally for more than three decades and helped bring rock and roll into the mainstream in the late 1950s — dies of a heart attack at 82. Affectionately called “America’s Oldest Teenager,” Clark also hosted ABC’s “Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve,” ringing in each new year from New York’s Times Square.

2014 – Sixteen Nepali mountaineering guides, most of them ethnic Sherpas, are killed by an avalanche on Mt. Everest, the Earth’s highest mountain. It is the single deadliest accident in the history of the Himalayan peak that lies between Nepal and China.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1960 – The movie tune “Theme From a Summer Place, by Percy Faith, begins its ninth and final week on top of the pop chart. 

1964 – The Beatles enjoy their third consecutive No. 1 hit with “Can’t Buy Me Love,” which holds the top spot for five weeks.

1970 – The Beatles’ “Let It Be” begins its second and final week as a No. 1 single. It is the last single released by the Fab Four while still officially considered an active group. 

1984 – Michael Jackson undergoes surgery at an L.A. hospital for injuries sustained two months earlier when his hair caught fire during the filming of a Pepsi commercial. 

1987 – “I Knew You Were Waiting (For Me),” by Aretha Franklin and George Michael, tops the Billboard Hot 100 and remains there for two weeks.

1992 – Def Leppard begins five weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with “Adrenalize.” The album spawns three major hits, including “Let’s Get Rocked” and “Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad.”

1992 – Vanessa Williams kicks off her fifth and final week as a chart-topper with “Save the Best for Last.”

2009  – “Boom Boom Pow,” by The Black Eyed Peas, begins 12 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. The song, from the band’s “The E.N.D.” album,” is nominated for a Best Dance Recording Grammy but wins for Best Short Form Music Video.

2012 –  An original and extremely rare 1963 mono copy of The Beatles’ “Please Please Me” album, signed by all four musicians, sells in an eBay auction for nearly $25,000. 

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On This Day: April 19

On This Day April 19

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1903 – Federal Agent Eliot Ness, head of “The Untouchables,” which helped bring down gangster Al Capone  (d. 1957)

1933 – Actress-singer Jayne Mansfield (“The Girl Can’t Help It,” “Too Hot to Handle,” “Kiss Them for Me”) (d. 1967)

1935 – Actor-comedian-musician-composer Dudley Moore (“Bedazzled,” “10,” “Arthur”)  (d. 2002)

1946 – Actor Tim Curry (“The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “It,” “The Three Musketeers,” “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”)

1968 – Actress Ashley Judd (“Kiss the Girls,” “High Crimes,” “Divergent,” “Dolphin Tale,” “Dolphin Tale 2,” “Missing”) 

1978 – Golden Globe-winning actor James Franco (“Freaks and Geeks,” “James Dean,” “Pineapple Express,” the “Spider-Man” trilogy, “127 Hours,” “11.22.63,” “Sausage Party”,”The Disaster Artist”)

1979 – Golden Globe-winning actress Kate Hudson (“Almost Famous,” You, Me and Dupree,” “Fool’s Gold,” “Bride Wars,” “Deepwater Horizon”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1775 – The “shot heard round the world” is fired in Lexington, Massachusetts, triggering the American Revolution.

1897 – The first Boston Marathon is run, and John McDermott of New York emerges from a 15-person starter field as the winner of the all-male event with a completion time of 2:55:10. In 1924, the course is extended from 24.5 miles to 26 miles, 385 yards to conform to the Olympic standard.

1943 – Nazi forces attempting to clear out the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland are met by gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters, marking the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 

1971 – The Soviet Union launches Salyut, the first manned orbiting space lab that goes on to be replaced by Mir in 1986. 

1993 – A 51-day standoff between federal agents and Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas comes to a fiery end. The cult compound burns to the ground and 80 Davidians, including their leader, David Koresh and 22 children, are dead.

1995 – A massive explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma kills 168 people and injures hundreds more. The bomb, contained in a rented truck parked outside the building, goes off at 9:02 a.m. as people prepare for the workday.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1969 – The 5th Dimension have the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures).”

1975 – Elton John rules the pop chart with “Philadelphia Freedom.” The track is sometimes mistaken as a patriotic song about America, with the bicentennial approaching. It is actually a tribute to John’s close friend, tennis legend Billie Jean King, who, at the time, coached a tennis team called the Philadelphia Freedoms. 

1980 – For the first time ever, the top five artists on the country music chart are all female: Crystal Gayle is No. 1, with Dottie West, Debby Boone, Emmylou Harris and Tammy Wynette making up the rest of the top five. 

1980 – “Call Me” by Blondie claims the top spot on the singles chart and holds there for six weeks. The track is from the band’s “Autoamerican” album and is featured in the movie “American Gigolo,” starring Richard Gere.

1986 – “Kiss,” by Prince and The Revolution from the “Parade” album (the “Under the Cherry Moon” soundtrack) is the No. 1 single. Following Prince’s April 2016 death, the song re-charted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 28, and jumped to No. 23 a week later.

1997 – Michael Jackson attends the unveiling of a wax statue of himself at the Grevin Museum of Wax in Paris. The King of Pop had provided one of his own outfits to dress the figure.

2008 – Mariah Carey begins her second and final week at No. 1 on the pop chart with “Touch My Body.”

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On This Day: March 21

On This Day March 21

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1685 – Classical composer Johann Sebastian Bach (d. 1750)

1944 – Actor Timothy Dalton, who played James Bond in two films

1949 – Singer-songwriter Eddie Money, born Edward Mahoney (“Baby Hold On,” “Two Tickets to Paradise”, “Take Me Home Tonight”) (d. 2019)

1958 – Actor Gary Oldman (“Sid and Nancy,” “JFK,” “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” “The Fifth Element,” “Air Force One,” played Sirius Black in the “Harry Potter” series, “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight” trilogy, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” “The Book of Eli,” “Darkest Hour”)

1962 – Emmy-winning comedian-TV host-actress Rosie O’Donnell (“The Rosie O’Donnell Show,” “The View,” “A League of Their Own,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Now and Then”)

1962 – Tony-winning actor Matthew Broderick (“War Games,” “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Biloxi Blues,” “Glory,” “The Freshman,” “Inspector Gadget,” “The Producers,” “Tower Heist,” “Rules Don’t Apply”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1947 – With fears about communism swirling across the U.S., President Harry Truman signs Executive Order 9835. It creates a Loyalty Program to investigate federal employees to determine if they demonstrated “complete and unswerving loyalty” to the United States.

1965 – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. leads some 3,200 civil rights activists on a five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. Federalized Alabama National Guardsmen and FBI agents supervise the procession, which Alabama state police had previously blocked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma.

1980 – President Jimmy Carter announces a U.S. boycott of the Summer Olympics in Moscow to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

1980 – In the Season 3 finale of CBS’ hit prime time drama “Dallas,” an unseen assailant shoots bad-boy J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman), who falls to the floor of his office before the scene fades to black. The episode, entitled “A House Divided,” becomes one of the most talked about season finales of all time, sparking the “Who Shot J.R.” craze. Some 160 million fans wait eight months to learn the identity of the shooter in Season 4.

1994 – Eleven-year-old Anna Paquin is stunned when actor Gene Hackman announces that she has won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “The Piano.” Paquin becomes the second youngest Oscar winner of all time.

1999 – Aviators Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones complete the first non-stop around-the-world flight in a hot air balloon, making aviation history.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1953 – “(How Much is) That Doggie in the Window” launches Patti Page on an eight-week ride at No. 1 on the singles chart.

1964 – The Beatles rule the Billboard Hot 100 with “She Loves You” — the second of three consecutive hits that keep the Fab Four on top of the singles chart through early May of that year.

1970 – Simon & Garfunkel remain suspended at No. 1 on the singles chart with “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The track holds there for a total of six weeks.

1981 – REO Speedwagon clinches the top spot on the singles chart with “Keep On Loving You,” the group’s first Top 40 hit and No. 1.

1992 – Vanessa Williams kicks off five weeks on top of the Billboard pop chart with “Save the Best for Last.” 

1994 – Bruce Springsteen performs “Streets of Philadelphia” during the 66th Academy Awards, and a short time later, is handed a Best Original Song Oscar for it. It’s from the movie “Philadelphia,” for which Tom Hanks won Best Actor. The track goes on to capture four Grammys.

1998 – Will Smith maintains his hold on the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for a second week with “Gettin’ Jiggy Wit It.” 

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