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: May 1

On this Day May 1

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1907 – Singer Kate Smith, known as “The First Lady of Radio,” and most famous for her rendition of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” (d. 1986)

1916 – Actor Glenn Ford (“3:10 to Yuma,” “the Courtship of Eddie’s Father”) (d. 2006)

1939 – Folk-pop singer-songwriter and activist Judy Collins (“Both Sides, Now,” “Someday Soon,” “Chelsea Morning,” “Send in the Clowns”)

1945 – Grammy-winning pop vocalist Rita Coolidge, best known for her 1977 hits “(Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher and Higher” and “We’re All Alone”

1946 – Director John Woo (“Broken Arrow,” “Face/Off,” “Mission: Impossible 2,” “Windtalkers,” “Paycheck,”)

1954 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Ray Parker, Jr. (“Ghostbusters” theme, “Jack and Jill,” “You Can’t Change That”)

1967 – Grammy-winning country music singer-songwriter and actor Tim McGraw (“Don’t Take the Girl,” “Live Like You Were Dying,” “Just to See You Smile”)

1969 – Golden Globe-winning director Wes Anderson (“Rushmore,” “The Royal Tennenbaums,” “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Isle of Dogs”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1931 – President Herbert Hoover dedicates New York City’s iconic 102-story Empire State Building by symbolically pressing a button in Washington, D.C. that illuminates what is then the world’s tallest building. The art deco skyscraper, standing 1,250 feet tall, was built in just over a year at a cost of $41 million.

1941 – “Citizen Kane” opens in New York, and through the decades, is hailed as one of the greatest movies ever made. Written and directed by 26-year-old filmmaker Orson Welles (also the star), it chronicles the life of a newspaper magnate considered to be real-life publishing baron William Randolph Hearst. 

1958 – President Dwight Eisenhower proclaims Law Day to honor the role of law in the establishment of the United States of America. In 1961, Congress follows suit by passing a joint resolution establishing May 1 as Law Day.

1960 – An American U-2 spy plane is shot down over the Soviet Union, prompting cancellation of a planned summit between U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower and Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev.

1963 – Jim Whittaker of Washington State becomes the first American to reach the summit of Mt. Everest, the world’s tallest mountain.

1971 – The National Railroad Passenger Corporation (AMTRAK) introduces passenger rail service in the U.S. with 184 trains a day. The first train, the Clocker, rolls out of New York’s Penn Station bound for Philadelphia just after midnight. AMTRAK was created through the Rail Passenger Act of 1970 to salvage the nation’s struggling passenger rail services.

1997 – After 18 years of Conservative rule, British voters give the Labour Party, a landslide victory in British parliamentary elections. In the poorest Conservative Party showing since 1832, Prime Minister John Major is rejected in favor of Tony Blair, who at age 43 becomes the youngest British prime minister in more than a century.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1965 – Herman’s Hermits begin a three-week run on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter.”

1967 – Thirty-two-year-old Elvis Presley marries 21-year-old Priscilla Beaulieu at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. They divorce six years later.

1976 – The Bellamy Brothers have a No. 1 single with “Let Your Love Flow.”

1982 – “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” by Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, ends its seven-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100. In 2016, the song is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

1999 – TLC enjoys its fourth and final week on top of the pop chart with “No Scrubs.”

2004 – Usher is midway through a 12-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Yeah!” — a collaboration with Lil Jon and Ludacris. The track goes on to capture a Best Rap/Sung Collaboration Grammy.

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