On This Day: November 5

On This Day November 5

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1911 – American singer, cowboy and actor Roy Rogers, born Leonard Franklin Slye and known as the “King of the Cowboys” (d. 1998)

1913 – Actress Vivian Leigh (“Gone With the Wind,” “A Streetcar Named Desire”) (d. 1967)

1931 – R&B singer-songwriter Ike Turner who had a string of hits with then-wife Tina Turner (d. 2007)

1940 – Golden Globe-winning actress Elke Sommer (“The Prize,” “A Shot in the Dark,” “The Art of Love,” “The Oscar,” “Boy, Did I Get the Wrong Number”)

1941 – Singer-songwriter Art Garfunkel, formerly of the Grammy-winning rock-folk duo Simon & Garfunkel

1943 – Pulitzer Prize-winning actor and playwright Sam Shepard (“Days of Heaven,” “Paris, Texas,” “The Right Stuff,” “Country,” “Steel Magnolias”) (d. 2017)

1947 – Peter Noone, born Peter Blair Denis Bernard Noone, frontman for the 1960s British pop group Herman’s Hermits

1959 – Grammy-winning rock singer-songwriter Bryan Adams (“Cuts Like a Knife,” “Summer of ’69,” “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You”)

1960 – Oscar-winning actress Tilda Swinton (“Edward II,” “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Michael Clayton,” “Burn After Reading,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “Doctor Strange”)

1963 – Oscar-winning actress Tatum O’Neal (“Paper Moon,” “The Bad News Bears,” “Nickelodeon,” “Little Darlings”)

1968 – Actor Sam Rockwell (“The Green Mile,” “Galaxy Quest” “Iron Man 2,” “Cowboys & Aliens,” “A Single Shot”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1912 – Democrat Woodrow Wilson is elected the 28th president of the United States in a landslide victory, defeating Republican incumbent William Howard Taft and Progressive Party candidate Theodore Roosevelt. It is the only presidential election in American history in which two former presidents were defeated by another candidate.

1940 –  Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt is re-elected for an unprecedented third term as president of the United States. He is re-elected again in 1944, which paves the way for ratification of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951, limiting all future presidents to two elected terms.

1968 – Republican Richard Nixon wins the presidential election, defeating Vice President Hubert Humphrey in one of the closest political races in U.S. history.

1968 – New York Democrat Shirley Chisholm becomes the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Congress. She serves for 14 years. In 1972, she becomes the first woman and African American to seek the nomination for president of the United States from one of the two major political parties.

1994 – Forty-five-year-old George Foreman knocks out 26-year-old Michael Moorer to become the oldest heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. More than 12,000 spectators at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas watch Foreman dethrone Moorer, who entered the fight with a 35-0 record.

2007 – A writers strike in New York and Los Angeles interrupts the production of more than 60 television shows and results in the loss of an estimated $3 billion to the LA economy alone. The walkout, by members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), lasts more than three months.

2009 – Thirteen people are killed and more than 30 others are wounded, nearly all of them unarmed soldiers, when a U.S. Army officer goes on a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in central Texas. The deadly assault, carried out by Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, becomes the worst mass murder at a U.S. military installation.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1956 – “The Nat King Cole Show” debuts on NBC as the first network TV series hosted by an African-American. The musical variety show, featuring some of the biggest entertainers of the day, begins as a 15-minute program and eventually expands to half an hour. Thirteen months later, NBC pulls the plug after being unable to find a national sponsor.

1960 – Country-rockabilly artist Johnny Horton, whose Grammy-winning “Battle of New Orleans” topped the singles charts for six weeks in 1959, dies in a car crash.

1966 – The Monkees rule the singles chart for a week with “Last Train to Clarksville.” The track is featured in seven episodes of “The Monkees” TV show, the most for any Monkees song.

1977 – “You Light Up My Life,” by Debby Boone, is in the midst of a 10-week domination of the pop chart.

1988 – “Kokomo,” by The Beach Boys, is No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. The track is from the movie “Cocktail,” starring Tom Cruise.

1989 – Grammy-winning classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz dies at the age of 86.

1994 – Boyz II Men are in the midst of a 14-week conquest of the Billboard Hot 100 with “I’ll Make Love to You.”

2005 – “Gold Digger,” by Kanye West featuring Jamie Foxx, is a Billboard chart-topper, and remains there for 10 weeks.

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On this Day: May 15

On this Day May 15

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1905 – Film, stage and TV actor Joseph Cotten (“The Philadelphia Story,” “Citizen Kane,” “Journey Into Fear”) (d. 1994)

1909 – Golden Globe-winning actor James Mason (“North by Northwest,” “Journey to the Center of the Earth,” “A Star is Born,” “Lolita”) (d. 1984)

1918 – Country Music Hall of Fame artist Eddy Arnold (d. 2008)

1937 – Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, born Maria Jana Korbelova, the first woman to serve in that Cabinet position

1948 – Ambient music composer-producer Brian Eno

1952 – Actor-writer Chazz Palminteri (“A Bronx Tale,” “Bullets Over Broadway,” “The Usual Suspects”)

1981 – Actress Jamie-Lynn Sigler, who played Meadow Soprano in the HBO series “The Sopranos”

History Highlights
History Highlights

1896 – Seventy-three people are killed and homes and businesses are leveled when a powerful tornado churns through Sherman, Texas. The twister is believed to be a rare F5 tornado, with winds exceeding 260 miles per hour.

1930 – Ellen Church, a registered nurse and licensed pilot, becomes the world’s first airline stewardess, working Boeing Air Transport’s (predecessor to United Airlines) Oakland, California to Chicago route.

1940 – A new chapter in women’s fashion is written with the introduction of the nylon stocking, which lands on store shelves across New York City. By the end of the day, shoppers purchase 780,000 pairs. By the end of 1940, more than 64 million pairs of nylons sell. However, the following year, with the U.S. drawn into World War II, the three most common sheer stocking materials — silk, nylon, and rayon — are sacrificed to the war effort.

1963 – The final Mercury mission begins with the launch of Faith 7. Astronaut Gordon Cooper becomes the first American to spend more than a day in space. He orbits Earth 22 times in 34 hours and 20 minutes — the longest U.S. space flight at that time.

1972 – Alabama Governor George Wallace is shot and paralyzed while campaigning in Maryland for the U.S. presidency.

1988 – More than eight years after intervening in Afghanistan to support the pro-communist government, Soviet troops begin to withdraw. 

2009 – After decades of environmental damage and legal wrangling, General Electric (GE) finally begins its government-mandated effort to clean the Hudson River. Between 1947 and 1977, GE dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the waterway.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1961 – Del Shannon begins his fourth and final week as a chart-topper with “Runaway.”

1965 – Herman’s Hermits begin the third and final week on top of the pop chart with “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” — the band’s first No. 1 hit in the U.S.

1967 – Paul McCartney meets American photographer Linda Eastman for the first time, during a Georgie Fame concert at the Bag O’Nails nightclub in London. They marry less than two years later.

1971 – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young score their second No. 1 album with “4 Way Street,” consisting of live recordings from shows at the Fillmore East in New York and The Forum in Los Angeles.

1976 – The Sylvers burn up the singles chart when their disco hit, “Boogie Fever,” reaches No. 1.

1982 – Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney begin a seven-week hold on to the top of the Billboard singles chart with “Ebony and Ivory.”

1993 – “That’s the Way Love Goes,” by Janet Jackson, is the No. 1 single and maintains that spot for eight weeks. The track goes on to capture a Grammy Award for Best R&B Song.

1999 – Ricky Martin burns up the Billboard Hot 100 with “Livin’ la Vida Loca,” which is in the middle of five weeks as a No. 1 single.

2010 – “OMG,” by Usher featuring will.i.am, begins four non-sequentional weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The track is Usher’s ninth chart-topper and the second will.i.am collaboration.

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