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On this Day August 12

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Celebrity Birthdays

1881 – Legendary movie director Cecile B. DeMille (“Cleopatra,” “The Ten Commandments”) (d. 1959)

1910 – Emmy-winning actress Jane Wyatt, best known as housewife and mother Margaret Anderson on the comedy series “Father Knows Best” and as Spock’s human mother in “Star Trek” (d. 2006)

1931 – Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and bestselling author William Goldman (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “All the President’s Men”)

1939 – Golden Globe-winning actor George Hamilton (” Crime and Punishment U.S.A.,” “Light in the Piazza,” “Evel Knievel,” “Love at First Bite,” “Zorro, The Gay Blade,” “The Godfather Part III”)

1949 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter-guitarist Mark Knopfler, best known as frontman for the rock band Dire Straits

1954 – Grammy-winning jazz guitarist Pat Metheny

1956 – Actor Bruce Greenwood (“Racing Stripes,” “Thirteen Days,” “Eight Below,” “Star Trek,” “Good Kill”)

1965 – Actor Peter Krause (“Six Feet Under,” “Parenthood”)

1971 – Tennis champion Pete Sampras 

1975 – Actor-director Casey Affleck (“Oceans” trilogy, “Gerry,” “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “Out of the Furnace,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”)

History Highlights

30 B.C. – Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.

1851 – Business tycoon Isaac Merritt Singer patents the sewing machine.

1939 – “The Wizard of Oz,” starring Judy Garland and featuring words and music by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg and Harold Arlen, makes its world premiere at the Strand Theatre in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

1963 – The first 1964 Ford Thunderbird rolls off a Detroit assembly line. 

1977 – Space Shuttle Enterprise passes a critical test as it separates from the top of a 747 for its first free flight and makes a smooth landing in the Mojave Desert. 

1981 – IBM takes the wraps off the first personal computer (the IBM 5150) with a price tag starting at $1,565. That includes the system unit, a keyboard and color/graphics capability. It costs more for options including a display, a printer, two diskette drives, extra memory, a game adapter and application packages — including one for text processing. 

1990 – Digging on a cliff near Faith, South Dakota, paleontologist Susan Hendrickson unearths three huge bones that turn out to be part of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton ever discovered — a 67 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer.

2014 – Lauren Bacall, the smoky-voiced movie legend who taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in “To Have and Have Not,” dies at the age of 89. Bacall made more than 40 films during a 70-year career, including “The Big Sleep,” “How to Marry a Millionaire” and “The Mirror Has Two Faces.”

Musical Milestones

1960 – The Silver Beatles become The Beatles, and on this day, the newly renamed band hires Pete Best as drummer. Two years later, he is fired and replaced by Ringo Starr.

1964 – The Beatles’ first film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” opens in 500 U.S. theaters to rave reviews.

1966 – The Beatles’ final U.S. tour begins with two performances at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. During a pre-show press conference, reporters challenge John Lennon to explain his recent boast that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ.

1967 – The Doors close out three weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Light My Fire.” About a month later, the band performs the song before a national audience on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

1978 – “Three Times a Lady,” by the Commodores featuring Lionel Richie, is the No. 1 single.

1985 – Japanese singer-actor Kyu Sakamoto is killed at the age of 43 in the crash of a Japan Airlines jetliner outside Tokyo. Sakamoto was the first Asian recording artist to have a No. 1 hit in the U.S.: “Sukiyaki” in June of 1963, which sold more than 13 million copies worldwide.

1995 – TLC is in the midst of a seven-week domination of the singles chart with “Waterfalls.”

2000 – “Incomplete,” by Sisqó, begins a two-week run on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

2009 – Legendary guitarist Les Paul dies of pneumonia at age 94. Paul designed one of the first solid-body electric guitars, which went on sale in 1952 and was “instrumental” in the development of rock ‘n roll. He also pioneered other recording innovations such as multi-track recording and overdubbing.

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