On This Day: September 26

On This Day September 26

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1888 – Poet T.S. Eliot (d. 1965)

1898 – Composer George Gershwin (“Rhapsody in Blue,” “An American in Paris,” “Porgy and Bess”) (d. 1937)

1930 – Tony-winning actor Philip Bosco (“Trading Places,” “The Pope of Greenwich Village,” “Three Men and a Baby,” “Working Girl,” “Shadows and Fog”) (d. 2018)

1947 – Grammy-winning country singer Lynn Anderson, best remembered for her 1970 hit “Rose Garden” (d. 2015)

1948 – Grammy-winning singer-actress Olivia Newton-John, who co-starred with John Travolta in the 1978 box office smash “Grease” and whose Top 40 hits include “Let Me Be There,” “I Honestly Love You,” “Have You Never Been Mellow,” “Magic” and “Physical”)

1956 – Actress Linda Hamilton, best known for her role as Sarah Connor in “The Terminator” movie series

1968 – Actor Jim Caviezel (“The Count of Monte Cristo,” “The Passion of the Christ,” “Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius,” “Frequency,” “Person of Interest”)

1981 – Tennis superstar Serena Williams

History Highlights
History Highlights

1960 – Democratic Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy and Republican Vice President Richard Nixon go head to head during the first televised presidential debate.

1964 – Seven fictional passengers set sail aboard the charter boat SS Minnow for a three-hour tour, but end up stranded on an island for three TV seasons. It’s the debut of “Gilligan’s Island” on CBS.

1969 – “The Brady Bunch” premieres on ABC. Considered daring for its time, the sitcom centers around a mother with three daughters by one marriage who marries a widower with three boys, a maid and a dog.

1986 – In one of the most bizarre plot twists ever in prime time television, “Dallas” character Bobby Ewing returns to the show after being killed off the previous season. His wife, Pam, discovers him very much alive in their shower.

2008 – Screen legend, auto racer and entrepreneur Paul Newman, whose 65 movies include such classics as “Cool Hand Luke,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Sting” and “The Verdict,” dies of cancer at age 83.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1964 – Roy Orbison dominates the singles chart with “Oh, Pretty Woman.” The track holds at No. 1 for three weeks.

1969 – The Beatles release their final studio album, “Abbey Road,” in the U.K. This recording features the iconic cover photo of the Fab Four marching single-file across a London crosswalk and contains such favorites as “Come Together,” “Here Comes The Sun,” “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and “Octopus’s Garden.”

1975 – “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” opens in movie theaters across the U.S. The cult classic musical features then-unknows Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick and still draws crowds to midnight screenings.

1987 – Michael Jackson kicks off six weeks atop the Billboard album chart with “Bad,” the follow-up to 1982’s “Thriller.” It becomes the world’s best-selling album with an estimated 45 million copies sold worldwide. The album spawns five No. 1 singles — the first ever to do so.

1987 – Whitney Houston rules the Billboard Hot 100 with “Didn’t We Almost Have It All.”

2003 – British singer-songwriter Robert Palmer, best known for the ’80s hits “Addicted To Love” and “Simply Irresistible,” dies of a heart attack at the age of 54.

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On this Day: August 29

On this Day August 29

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1915 – Screen legend Ingrid Bergman, winner of three Academy Awards, two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards and the Tony Award for Best Actress (“Casablanca,” “Gaslight”) (d. 1982)

1917 – Actress Isabel Sanford, best known for playing Louise “Weezy” Jefferson on the hit TV sitcom “The Jeffersons” (d. 2004)

1923 – Director-actor Richard Attenborough (“Gandhi,” “Cry Freedom,” “Chaplin”) (d. 2014)

1924 – Jazz vocalist and “Queen of the Blues” Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones (d. 1963)

1935 – Director-producer William Friedkin (“The French Connection,” “The Exorcist”)

1936 – Arizona Senator, 2008 Republican presidential candidate and Vietnam War veteran John McCain (d. 2018)

1939 – Actor Elliott Gould (“Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice,” “M*A*S*H,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Ocean’s Eleven” and its sequels, “Friends”)

1941 – “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” host Robin Leach (d. 2018)

1958 – Entertainment icon Michael Jackson (a.k.a. King of Pop) (d. 2009)

1959 – Actress Rebecca De Mornay (“Risky Business,” ” Runaway Train,” “The Trip to Bountiful,” “Backdraft,” “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle”) 

History Highlights
History Highlights

1885 – German mechanical engineer Gottlieb Daimler patents the motorcycle. 

1949 – The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. 

1966 – Actress Mia Farrow quits the cast of the popular ABC drama “Peyton Place” after a two-year stint. Writers make her character, Allison MacKenzie, mysteriously disappear. 

1968 – At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Vice President Hubert Humphrey wins the presidential nomination, as the most violent political convention in U.S. history wraps up. 

1982 – Swedish-born actress and three-time Academy Award winner Ingrid Bergman dies of cancer in London on her 67th birthday.

2005 – Hurricane Katrina makes landfall near New Orleans as a Category 3 storm with winds of up to 120 miles per hour. It becomes the costliest natural disaster and among the five deadliest hurricanes to strike the United States. Katrina is blamed for some 1,800 deaths and property damage in excess of $108 billion.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1964 – “Oh, Pretty Woman,” by rock ‘n roll legend Roy Orbison, lands on the pop chart and climbs to the No. 1 spot a month later, becoming the Texas native’s second chart-topping single. 

1964 – “Where Did Our Love Go,” by The Supremes, holds tight for a second straight week at No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart. It is the first of five consecutive chart-topping singles for Motown’s hottest act.

1966 – Candlestick Park in San Francisco is the setting of the last Beatles concert ever. The Fab Four play before a sold-out crowd of 25,000 fans. 

1970 – Edwin Starr kicks off three weeks on top of the pop chart with “War,” a Vietnam War protest song written by Motown Records hitmakers Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong.

1987 – “La Bamba,” by Los Lobos, kicks off three weeks as a No. 1 single. The track is used in the movie of the same name.

1998 – Brandy & Monica wrap up a 13-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard pop chart with “The Boy Is Mine.”

2009 – The Black Eyed Peas rule the singles chart with “I Gotta Feeling.” The track holds the top spot for 14 weeks and goes on to earn a Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals.

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