On this Day: August 17

On this Day August 17

Musical Milestones

1959 – Jazz trumpeter Miles Davis releases “Kind of Blue,” the best-selling jazz record of all time and a production that is regarded by critics of all musical genres as a masterpiece.

1968 – The Doors begin four weeks on top of the Billboard album chart with “Waiting For The Sun.” The band’s only No. 1 album spawns their second chart-topping single, “Hello, I Love You.”

1969 – British rockers The Who take the stage in the pre-dawn hours of the third day of the Woodstock music festival and perform a 25-song set, including all the tracks from their rock opera “Tommy.” 

1974 – “The Night Chicago Died,” by Paper Lace, is the No. 1 single. That band, from Nottingham, England, recorded the original version of “Billy. Don’t Be a Hero,” which only became a chart-topping smash when it was covered by Bo Donaldson and The Heywoods.

1985 – “Shout,” by Tears for Fears, begins its third and final week as a Billboard No. 1. The track is from the British duo’s chart-topping “Songs From the Big Chair” album.

1991 – Bryan Adams rules the singles chart with “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You,” from the movie “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” starring Kevin Costner.

1996 – The Spanish dance song “Macarena,” by Los del Rio, is in the midst of 14 weeks as a No. 1 single.

History Highlights

1962 – East German border guards open fire on two 18-year-old men scrambling for freedom by scaling the Berlin Wall to enter West Berlin. One escapes with cuts and bruises, but the second — Peter Fechter — is killed, setting off clashes between angry West German witnesses and communist police officers.

1969 – Camille, the third deadliest hurricane of all time, batters the Mississippi Delta as it comes ashore near Bay Saint Louis. The storm kills 259 people and causes more than a billion dollars in damage.

1978 – Double Eagle II becomes first balloon to cross the Atlantic when it lands near Paris 137 hours after leaving Presque Isle, Maine. 

1979 – Actress Vivian Vance, who played Ethel Mertz in TV’s “I Love Lucy,” loses her battle with breast cancer at the age of 70.

1998 – President Bill Clinton becomes the first sitting U.S. president to testify before the Office of Independent Council as the subject of a grand jury investigation.

Celebrity Birthdays

1786 – Tennessee woodsman Davy Crockett, known as the “King of the Wild Frontier,” who was elected to Congress and died while fighting at the Alamo (d. 1836)

1920 – Actress-singer Maureen O’Hara, born Maureen FitzSimons (“Sinbad the Sailor,” “The Black Swan,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” “Our Man in Havana, “The Parent Trap”) (d. 2015)

1943 – Oscar-winning actor Robert De Niro (“The Godfather: Part II,” “Taxi Driver,” “The Deer Hunter,” “Raging Bull,” “The King of Comedy,” “Goodfellas,” “Backdraft,” “Cape Fear,” “A Bronx Tale,” “Casino,” “Meet The Parents,” “Shark Tale,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “The Intern”)

1958 – Singer-songwriter Belinda Carlisle, former lead singer of the Go-Go’s (“Mad About You,” “I Get Weak,””Circle in the Sand,” “Leave a Light On,” “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”)

1960 – Oscar-winning actor-director Sean Penn (“Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Dead Man Walking,” “The Thin Red Line,” “Sweet and Lowdown,” “I Am Sam,” “Mystic River,” “21 Grams,” “Into The Wild,”  “Milk,” “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”)

1969 – Actor and former New Kids on the Block band member Donnie Wahlberg (“Ransom,” the “Saw” movie series, “The Sixth Sense,” “Dreamcatcher,” “Righteous Kill,” “Blue Bloods”)

Own a Piece of This Day

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Kind of Blue

Miles Davis

Songs From the Big Chair

Tears for Fears

Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall

Anna Funder

Meet the Mertzes

Rob Edelman and Audrey Kupferberg

Taxi Driver

Starring Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster, Cybill Shepherd and Harvey Keitel, and directed by Martin Scorsese

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

Starring Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold and Ray Walston, and directed by Amy Heckerling

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