On This Day: January 25

On This Day January 25

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1882 – British novelist and journalist Virginia Woolf (d. 1941)

1931 – Actor Dean Jones (“The Love Bug,” “That Darn Cat”) (d. 2015)

1938 – Singer Etta James, best known for her Grammy-winning hit, “At Last” (d. 2012)

1943 – Director-screenwriter Tobe Hooper, best known for the horror classics, “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and “Poltergeist” (d. 2017)

1957 – Singer-turned-actress Jenifer Lewis (“Dreamgirls,” “Beaches,” “Sister Act,” Cars,” “The Princess and the Frog”)

1981 – Grammy-winning R&B singer-songwriter Alicia Keys (“Fallin’,” “You Don’t Know My Name,” “If I Ain’t Got You,” “Diary,” “No One,” “Empire State of Mind”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1924 – The first Winter Olympic Games open in Chamonix, France with athletes representing 16 nations. The event was originally called “Winter Sports Week.”

1949 – The first Emmy Awards ceremony, honoring excellence in television, is held at the Hollywood Athletic Club in Los Angeles. Ventriloquist Shirley Dinsdale becomes the first recipient of an Emmy for her show, “Judy Splinters.” Television was still a new medium at the time, with only about 50,000 American households owning a TV set.

1959 – American Airlines ushers in the Jet Age with the first scheduled transcontinental flight of a Boeing 707 from Los Angeles (LAX) to New York (Idlewild Airport, later known as Kennedy Airport/JFK).

1961 – Beginning a tradition that continues today, John F. Kennedy holds the first live televised presidential news conference, just five days after his inauguration as 35th U.S. president. An estimated 65 million viewers tune in.

1971 – Charles Manson and three of his cult followers are convicted of the brutal 1969 murders of actress Sharon Tate and six others.

1995 – The world comes dangerously close to nuclear war when Russia activates its nuclear missile arsenal for the first time in history after its early-warning defense system detects a missile launch near Norway. Russian leaders suspect it might be a U.S. attack, but it turns out to be a harmless scientific rocket that Norway launched to study the aurora borealis, or northern lights.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1964 – “There! I’ve Said It Again,” by Bobby Vinton, begins its fourth and final week as a No. 1 single. It’s the last song to occupy the top spot on the pop chart before The Beatles have their first No. 1 — “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”

1969 – Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard It Through The Grapevine” enjoys a seventh and final week on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

1975 – Carpenters deliver a No. 1 single with their cover of The Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman.” It becomes the brother-sister duo’s 12th million-selling single gold record.

1986 – Barbra Streisand kicks off a three-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with “The Broadway Album.”

1992 – “All 4 Love,” by Color Me Badd, replaces Michael Jackson’s “Black or White” as the No. 1 single and holds the top spot for a week

1997 – Toni Braxton is in the midst of an 11-week reign over the pop chart with “Un-Break My Heart.”

2014 – “Timber,” by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha, is in the midst of a three-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

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On this Day: August 24

On this Day August 24

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1947 – Golden Globe-winning actress Anne Archer (“Paradise Alley,” “Short Cuts,” “Patriot Games,” “Clear and Present Danger,” “Man of the House,” “Fatal Attraction”)

1958 – Actor-comedian Steve Guttenberg (“Diner,” “The Day After,” “Police Academy,” “Cocoon,” “Short Circuit,” “Three Men and a Baby,” “The Big Green”)

1960 – Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr., a.k.a. “Iron Man”

1961 – Actor Jared Harris (“Mad Men,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” “Lincoln,” “Man From U.N.C.L.E.”) 

1962 – Talk show host-turned-actor Craig Kilborn (“Old School,” “The Benchwarmers,” “Cursed”)

1965 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actress Marlee Matlin (“Children of a Lesser God,” “Switched at Birth,” “The West Wing”)

1973 – Stand-up comedian-screenwriter-actor Dave Chappelle (“Chappelle’s Show”)

1988 – Actor Rupert Grint, best known for playing Ron Weasley in the “Harry Potter” movie series

History Highlights
History Highlights

79 A.D. – Mount Vesuvius erupts in southern Italy, devastating the prosperous Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum and killing about 20,000 people. Buried under a thick layer of volcanic ash and mud, the cities are never rebuilt.

1814 – British troops enter Washington, D.C. and burn the White House in retaliation for the American attack on the city of York in Ontario, Canada, in June of 1812.

1981 – Mark David Chapman is sentenced to 20 years to life in prison for the murder of musical great John Lennon eight months earlier. 

1991 – Mikhail Gorbachev resigns as secretary-general of the Soviet Communist Party after a failed coup attempt against him. 

2012 – Anders Behring Breivik, the man who killed 77 people in a 2011 bombing and shooting attack in Norway, is sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum allowed under Norwegian law.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1963 – Stevie Wonder becomes the first artist ever with both a No. 1 album and single in the same week. His No. 1 album is “Little Stevie Wonder / The 12 Year Old Genius” and No. 1 single is “Fingertips Part 2.” And if that’s not enough, it’s also the first ever live recording to top the singles chart. 

1968 – Diana Ross and the Supremes go their separate ways. 

1974 – Paul Anka begins three weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart with “(You’re) Having My Baby,” his first No. 1 hit since 1959’s “Lonely Boy.”

1985 – “The Power of Love,” by Huey Lewis and the News — featured in the movie “Back To The Future” — kicks off two weeks on top of the singles chart. The track receives an Oscar nomination for Best Original Song at the 58th Academy Awards, but loses to Lionel Richie’s “Say You, Say Me.”

1991 – Bryan Adams holds on to the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” from the soundtrack to “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.”

1996 – “Macarena,” by Los Del Rio, is in the midst of a 14-week domination of the pop chart.

2009 – The Los Angeles County Coroner rules Michael Jackson’s death a homicide caused by a mix of drugs meant to treat insomnia.

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On this Day: May 7

On this Day May 7

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1901 – Oscar-winning actor Gary Cooper (” Sergeant York,” “High Noon,” “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” “The Pride of the Yankees,” “City Streets”) (d. 1961)

1922 – Actor Darren McGavin, best known for playing the grumpy father in “A Christmas Story”) (d. 2006)

1923 – Oscar-winning actress Anne Baxter (“The Razor’s Edge,” “All About Eve,” “The Ten Commandments”) (d. 1985)

1946 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Thelma Houston, best known for her 1977 disco smash “Don’t Leave Me This Way”

1950 – Journalist/former NBC “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert (d. 2008)

1954 – Director Amy Heckerling (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “European Vacation,” “Look Who’s Talking,” “Clueless”)

1968 – Actress Traci Lords (“I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell,” “Zack and Miri Make a Porno”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1915 – Without warning, a German U-boat fires on the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. The ship, which was sailing from New York to Liverpool, England, sinks within 20 minutes, claiming nearly 1,200 lives — including 128 Americans. While packed with passengers, the vessel was a German target because it was transporting wartime munitions to England and was sailing through an established war zone.

1945 – Germany unconditionally surrenders to the Allies in Reims, France, marking the end of World War II in Europe.

1954 – Vietnam’s victory over France at Dien Bien Phu on this day ends the Indochina War. The battle is considered one of the greatest victories by a former colony over a colonial power.

1960 – Leonid Brezhnev, one of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s most trusted proteges, becomes president of the U.S.S.R.

1994 – Norway’s most famous painting, “The Scream” by Edvard Munch, is recovered almost three months after being stolen from a museum in Oslo.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1965 – Keith Richards awakens in his Florida motel room in the early morning hours with a riff in his head, grabs his guitar and flips on a tape recorder. He only lays down 30 seconds of music before falling back asleep, but what he records leads to The Rolling Stones’ signature “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” once Mick Jagger adds lyrics. The song becomes the Stones’ first U.S. No. 1.

1966 – The Mamas and The Papas start a three-week run at No.1 on the singles chart with “Monday Monday,” the first hit by a coed group.

1977 – “Hotel California,” by the Eagles, checks in at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart for a week. The track, off the album of the same title, goes on to capture a Record of the Year Grammy.

1983 – Michael Jackson is in the midst of a three-week ride atop the pop chart with “Beat It,” from the “Thriller” album.

1988 – Terence Trent D’Arby has the hottest single for a week with “Wishing Well.”

1998 – Country-pop musician Eddie Rabbitt, best known for his 1980 hits “Drivin’ My Life Away” and “I Love a Rainy Night,” and who wrote Elvis’ popular single, “Kentucky Rain,” dies of lung cancer at age 56.

2005 – Gwen Stefani kicks off a four-week run on top of the Billboard pop chart with “Hollaback Girl.” The track is from her debut solo studio album, “Love. Angel. Music. Baby.”

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