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On This Day September 10

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Celebrity Birthdays

1929 – Golf legend Arnold Palmer (d. 2016)

1945 – Grammy-winning guitarist-singer Jose Feliciano, best known for his cover of the Doors hit “Light My Fire” and the Christmas favorite “Feliz Navidad”

1949 – Conservative TV talk show host and best-selling author Bill O’Reilly

1953 – Actress Amy Irving (“Crossing Delancey,” “The Fury,” “Carrie,” “Yentl”) 

1958 – Screenwriter-director-producer Chris Columbus (“Home Alone,” “Mrs. Doubtfire,” “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone”)

1960 – Oscar-winning actor Colin Firth (“The English Patient,” “Bridget Jones’s Diary,” “Shakespeare in Love,” “Love Actually,” “A Single Man,” “The King’s Speech,” “Kingsman: The Secret Service”)

1968 – Director Guy Ritchie (“Snatch,” “swept Away,” ” RocknRolla,”  “Sherlock Holmes,” “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” “Man From U.N.C.L.E.”)

1974 – Actor Ryan Phillippe (“I Know What You Did Last Summer,” “Cruel Intentions,” “54,” “Gosford Park,” “Crash,” “Flags of Our Fathers”)

History Highlights

1897 –  London taxi driver George Smith becomes the first person ever arrested for drunk driving after slamming his cab into a building. Smith later pleads guilty and is fined 25 shillings.

1919 – Almost a year after an armistice officially ends World War I, New York City holds a parade to welcome home General John J. Pershing, commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF), and 25,000 soldiers who had served in the AEF’s 1st Division on the Western Front.

1953 – Swanson revolutionizes meal preparation when it introduces the first TV dinner. It sells for 89 cents and includes turkey, gravy, corn bread dressing, whipped sweet potatoes and peas. By the end of that year, Americans had gobbled up more than 10 million of them.

1966 – Meep! Meep! The animated “Road Runner Show,” from the creative minds at Looney Tunes, premieres on CBS Television.

1973 – Boxing great Muhammad Ali defeats Ken Norton in a heavyweight match, avenging a stunning loss to Norton six months earlier. 

1977 – The guillitine falls silent on this day. A man convicted of torture and murder becomes the last person executed by the French government using a guillitine. 

1993 – FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully pursue aliens and supernatural phenomena as “The X-Files” premieres on Fox Television, starring David Duchovny as Mulder and Gillian Anderson as Scully. 

Musical Milestones

1966 – A new folk-rock sound hits the radio from “Mack The Knife” crooner Bobby Darin, as “If I Were a Carpenter” debuts on the singles chart. 

1966 – The Supremes rule the Billboard Hot 100 with “You Can’t Hurry Love.” The single holds the top spot for two weeks.

1966 – The first of 21 hits for The Monkees enters the pop chart. It’s “Last Train to Clarksville,” which chugs its way to No. 1 two months later.

1988 – “Sweet Child O’ Mine” lands on top of the Billboard Hot 100 and remains there for two weeks, becoming the first and only No. 1 hit for Guns N’Roses.

1991 – Nirvana releases “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the first track off the “Nevermind” album. The song becomes the pioneering grunge band’s biggest hit. 

2005 – Mariah Carey wraps up 14 non-consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the pop chart with “We Belong Together.”

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