On this Day: August 23

On this Day August 23

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1912 – Actor-dancer-singer Gene Kelly (d. 1996)

1929 – Actress Vera Miles, best known for her role as Lila Crane in Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho”

1931 – Actress Barbara Eden, who starred in TV’s “I Dream of Jeannie” from 1965-1970

1946 – The Who drummer Keith Moon (d. 1978)

1949 – Actress Shelley Long (“Cheers,” “The Money Pit,” “The Brady Bunch Movie”) 

1949 – Singer-songwriter and actor Rick Springfield, who starred in the ABC soap opera “General Hospital” in the early 1980s and won a Grammy for his 1981 smash “Jessie’s Girl” 

1970 – Actor-comedian Jay Mohr (“Saturday Night Live,” “Jerry Maguire,” “200 Cigarettes,” “Pay It Forward,” “Scrubs,” “The Jeff Foxworthy Show”)

1970 – Actor River Phoenix (“Explorers,” “Stand By Me,” “Running On Empty”) (d. 1993)

1978 – NBA legend Kobe Bryant, who devoted his entire 20-year playing career to the Los Angeles Lakers (d. 2020)

1988 – NBA star point guard Jeremy Lin, who unexpectedly led a winning turnaround with the New York Knicks in 2012 that generated a global following known as “Linsanity”

History Highlights
History Highlights

1926 – Silent film idol Rudolph Valentino dies in New York at the age of 31. 

1927 – Despite worldwide demonstrations in support of their innocence, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed in Massachusetts for the murders of two men during a 1920 robbery. 

1966 – NASA’S Lunar Orbiter 1 captures the very first image of Earth from the moon’s orbit. The unmanned spacecraft was launched to survey the lunar surface in preparation for the Apollo 11 moon landing. 

1989 – Former Cincinnati Reds star player and manager Pete Rose is banned from baseball for life as punishment for betting on the sport.  The ban robs Rose of any future employment in Major League Baseball and, despite a stellar playing career, renders him ineligible for the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

1999 – Health officials report an encephalitis outbreak in New York City that turns out to be the earliest cases of West Nile virus in the U.S. Seven people die.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1966  – A little over a year after their first appearance at New York’s Shea Stadium, The Beatles return for a second time, however this performance fails to draw a sell-out crowd.

1969 – The Rolling Stones kick off four weeks on top of the singles chart with “Honky Tonk Women.”

1969 – Johnny Cash begins a four-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard album chart with “Johnny Cash At San Quentin” — the recording of a live concert for inmates of San Quentin State Prison. It is the follow-up to Cash’s critically acclaimed and commercially successful “At Folsom Prison.”

1975 – “Fallin’ in Love” by Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds is the hottest single in America. 

1986 – Madonna rules the Billboard Hot 100 with “Papa Don’t Preach,” off her “True Blue” album.

1997 – The Grammy-winning “I’ll Be Missing You” by Puff Daddy with Faith Evans and 112 tops the singles chart.

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On this Day: May 6

On this Day May 6

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1856 – Psychiatrist Sigmund Freud, considered the pioneer of psychoanalysis (d. 1939)

1895 – Actor and 1920s silent film era sex symbol Rudolph Valentino (d. 1926)

1915 – Oscar-winning actor-director-writer-producer Orson Welles (“Citizen Kane,” “War of the Worlds”) (d. 1985)

1931 – Baseball Hall of Famer Willie Mays, affectionately known as “The Say Hey Kid”

1945 – Grammy-winning Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Bob Seger (“Night Moves,” “We’ve Got Tonight,” “Against the Wind”)

1955 – Emmy-winning TV host Tom Bergeron (“America’s Funniest Home Videos,” “Dancing With the Stars”)

1961 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor, director and producer George Clooney (“ER,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou?,” “Oceans Eleven” and its sequels, “Syriana,” “Michael Clayton,” “Gravity,” “Money Monster”)

1987 – Rapper Meek Mill, born Robert Rihmeek Williams

History Highlights
History Highlights

1935 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt signs an executive order creating the Works Progress Administration (WPA), designed to put unemployed Americans to work during the Great Depression in return for temporary financial assistance.

1937 – The German airship Hindenburg explodes in a fireball while approaching its mooring mast at Lakehurst, New Jersey. Thirty-six people die in the disaster, described by radio reporter Herb Morrison in the historic broadcast featuring his exclamation, “Oh, the humanity!”

1954 – British athlete Sir Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run a mile in under four minutes (3:59.4)

1994 – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and French President Francois Mitterand preside over a ceremony officially opening a rail tunnel beneath the English Channel. The Channel/Euro Tunnel or Chunnel connects Britain and the European mainland for the first time.

2004 – More than 52 million viewers tune in for “The Last One” (a.k.a. “The One Where They Say Goodbye”), the final episode of NBC’s long-running primetime comedy series “Friends.” The sitcom picked up six Emmys during a 10-season run and turned its six principal cast members into household names.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1967 – Frank and Nancy Sinatra enjoy their fourth and final week atop the singles chart with “Somethin’ Stupid.”

1973 – Paul Simon sets out on his first concert tour without partner Art Garfunkel, using The Jesse Dixon Singers for backup vocals. First stop: Boston. The shows across America and Europe are recorded and released in March 1974 on the album “Paul Simon in Concert: Live Rhymin’.”

1978 – The Bee Gees’ “Night Fever,” from the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack, begins its eighth and final week as a No. 1 single.

1989 – Madonna enters her third and final week on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Like a Prayer.”

1995 – “This Is How We Do It,” by Montell Jordan, is midway through a seven-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100.

2002 – A heart attack claims the life of songwriter and producer Otis Blackwell at the age of 71. Blackwell wrote several rock and roll classics over the years, including “All Shook Up,” “Return To Sender,” “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Great Balls of Fire” and “Fever.”

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