On This Day: October 24

On This Day October 24

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1930 – Rock & roll singer The Big Bopper, born Jiles Perry “J.P.” Richardson, Jr., who died in a plane crash with musicians Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens (d. 1959)

1939 – Oscar-winning actor F. Murray Abraham (“Amadeus,” “Finding Forrester,” “Mighty Aphrodite,” “Inside Llewyn Davis,” “Grand Budapest Hotel”)

1947 – Oscar and Tony-winning actor Kevin Kline (“Sophie’s Choice,” “The Big Chill,” “A Fish Called Wanda,” “Dave,” “Cry Freedom”)

1960 – Tony-winning actor B.D. Wong (“Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” “Seven Years in Tibet,” “Oz,” “Awake,” “Jurassic Park,” “Jurassic World”)

1986 – Grammy-winning rapper-actor Drake, born Aubrey Drake Graham, best known as Jimmy Brooks in TV’s “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” and for hit songs like “Best I Ever Had” and “Take Care”

History Highlights
History Highlights

1901 – On her 63rd birthday, widowed schoolteacher Annie Edson Taylor becomes the first person to take the plunge over Niagara Falls in a wooden barrel and survive. Dubbing herself “Queen of the Mist,” Taylor had hoped the publicity stunt would generate money for her retirement, but 19 years later, she dies in poverty.

1929 – Frenzied trading begins on the New York Stock Exchange and culminates days later with the Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, which sends the United States into the Great Depression.

1931 – New York Governor Franklin Roosevelt dedicates the George Washington Bridge, a majestic span linking New York to New Jersey over the Hudson River. The bridge was the longest of its kind in the world at that time — 3,500 feet — and was completed ahead of schedule and under budget.

1945 – The United Nations (U.N.) is established to promote cooperation among the nations of the world. A charter officially creating the U.N. had been ratified four months earlier by China, France, the Soviet Union, the U.S., the U.K. and other signatories.

1978 – The U.N. General Assembly urges member states to call attention to the danger of the arms race and promote disarmament, so it declares October 24 – 30 Disarmament Week.

2003 – The iconic Concorde passenger jet makes its last commercial flight, traveling at twice the speed of sound from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to London’s Heathrow Airport. The supersonic aircraft enjoyed three decades of uninterrupted service with British Airways and Air France until a July 2000 crash in Paris killed 113 people.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1962 – Soul music legend James Brown records his landmark “Live At The Apollo” album, which is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1998 and, in 2003, is ranked No. 24 in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

1964 – “Do Wah Diddy Diddy.” by Manfred Mann, begins its second and final week as a No. 1 single.

1973 – John Lennon sues the U.S. government over the FBI’s wiretapping of his phone. The former Beatle had been under surveillance because of his political activism, and along with his wife Yoko Ono, faced the threat of deportation.

1978 – Rolling Stone Keith Richards pleads guilty in a Canadian court to a charge of heroin possession. He receives a one-year suspended sentence and is ordered to play a charity concert for the blind.

1987 – Michael Jackson’s “Bad,” from the album of the same name, begins two weeks as the No. 1 single.

1992 – Boyz II Men notch another week on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “End of the Road.”

1998 – Monica is at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “The First Night,” a track that features a sampling of Diana Ross’ 1976 smash, “Love Hangover.”

2009 – The No. 1 song belongs to Britney Spears with “3.”

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On this Day: June 30

On this Day June 30

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1917 – Grammy-winning jazz and pop music singer, dancer and actress Lena Horne (d. 2010)

1956 – Actor-comedian David Alan Grier (“In Living Color”)

1959 – Actor Vincent D’Onofrio (“Full Metal Jacket,” “Men In Black,” “Law & Order: Criminal Intent,” “The Judge,” “Run All Night,” “Jurassic World”)

1966 – Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson

1982 – Actress Lizzy Caplan (“Mean Girls,” “True Blood,” “Cloverfield”)

1985 – U.S. Olympic gold medal swimmer Michael Phelps

History Highlights
History Highlights

1859 – Frenchman Jean Francois Gravelet, a.k.a.  The Great Blondin, or Charles Blondin, becomes the first daredevil to walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. Thousands of spectators line the American and Canadian sides of the falls to observe the feat, which he  performs along an 1,100-foot-long tightrope suspended 160 feet above the raging waters of Niagara Gorge.

1934 – In what comes to be known as the Night of the Long Knives, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler orders a bloody purge of his own political party, assassinating hundreds of Nazis whom he believed had the potential to become political enemies in the future.

1936 – Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Gone with the Wind,” one of the best-selling novels of all time and the basis for the blockbuster 1939 movie, is published.

1971 – “Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory,” a movie musical-fantasy starring Gene Wilder, opens in theaters. It’s an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1964 novel, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

1971 – Three Soviet cosmonauts who made up the crew of the world’s first space station are killed when their spacecraft, Soyuz 11, depressurizes during reentry to Earth’s atmosphere.

1974 – The July 4th scene from the movie “Jaws” is filmed on Martha’s Vineyard, with 400 screaming, panic-stricken extras in bathing suits running from the water multiple times until director Steven Spielberg gets the right take.

1989 – Writer-director Spike Lee’s celebrated third feature film, “Do the Right Thing” — about racial tensions boiling over in Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood on the hottest day of the year — opens in U.S. theaters. The movie receives Oscar nominations for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Danny Aiello.

1993 – The legal thriller “The Firm,” directed by Sydney Pollack and starring Tom Cruise, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Gene Hackman, opens in theaters. It’s based on the 1991 novel of the same name by John Grisham.

1995 – Director Ron Howard’s high-intensity drama “Apollo 13,” about NASA’s desperate efforts to bring the crew of Apollo 13 safely home after an explosion that denies them a moon landing, opens in U.S. theaters. Starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Ed Harris and Gary Sinise, the movie receives nine Oscar nominations and wins for Best Film Editing and Best Sound.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1962 – Ray Charles enjoys his fifth and final week dominating the pop chart with “I Can’t Stop Loving You.”

1973 – George Harrison has the hottest single on the radio for a week with “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth),” from his “Living in the Material World” album.” The track is the ex-Beatles’ second solo No. 1.

1975 – Less than a week after her divorce from Sonny Bono is finalized, Cher ties the knot with rock musician Gregg Allman only to divorce him 10 days later.

1984 – “The Reflex,” by Duran Duran, begins its second and final week as a No. 1 single. 

1990 – New Kids On the Block step to the top of the singles chart for three weeks with “Step By Step.” The song is an international smash, selling over 10 million copies worldwide, and becomes one of the biggest selling singles of 1990.

2001 – “Lady Marmalade,” by Christina Aguilera, Lil’ Kim, Mýa and Pink, enters its fifth and final week as a chart-topper. The cover is from the “Moulin Rouge!” soundtrack.

2007 – Rihanna and Jay-Z rule the Billboard Hot 100 with “Umbrella.”

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