On this Day: August 25

On this Day August 25

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1917 – Actor-director Mel Ferrer (“War and Peace,” “Green Mansions,” “Wait Until Dark”) (d. 2008)

1918 – Grammy and Tony-winning composer-conductor Leonard Bernstein (“West Side Story,” “Peter Pan,” “Candide,” “Wonderful Town,” “On the Town,” “On The Waterfront”) (d. 1990)

1921 – Producer, actor, singer and sportscaster Monty Hall, best known as host of the TV game show “Let’s Make a Deal” (d. 2017)

1930 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actor Sir Sean Connery, best known for playing British secret agent James Bond/007 in seven Bond movies (d. 2020)

1931 – Emmy-winning TV host, actor and singer Regis Philbin (“Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee,” “Live! with Regis and Kelly,” ” Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”) (d. 2020)

1933 – Actor Tom Skerritt (“M*A*S*H,” “Up In Smoke,” “Alien,” “Top Gun,” “A River Runs Through It,” “Contact,” “Picket Fences”)

1935 – Oscar-winning director William Friedkin (“The Boys in the Band,” “The French Connection,” “The Exorcist,” “Sorcerer,” “The Brinks Job,” “Cruising,” “To Live and Die in L.A.”) (d. 2023)

1941 – Rock singer-bassist and KISS founder Gene Simmons, born Chaim Weitz 

1954 – Singer-songwriter Elvis Costello (“Alison,” “Everyday I Write the Book,” “Veronica”)

1958 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning director Tim Burton (“Beetlejuice,” “Batman,” “Edward Scissorhands,” “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Ed Wood,” “Big Fish,” “Alice in Wonderland”)

1961 – Country music singer-songwriter and actor Billy Ray Cyrus, best known for his 1992 smash “Achy Breaky Heart”

1968 – Emmy-winning TV chef Rachael Ray

History Highlights
History Highlights

1916 – The National Park Service is founded to manage and preserve national parks and monuments for future generations.

1939 – MGM Studios’ “The Wizard of Oz” premieres, starring Judy Garland as Dorothy. It and “Gone With The Wind,” which was released later that year, are the first major motion pictures to use Technicolor at a time when films were shot in black and white.

1944 – Allied troops liberate Paris after more than four years of Nazi occupation. German resistance proves to be light and the commander of the German garrison, General Dietrich von Choltitz, defies Adolf Hitler’s order to blow up Paris landmarks and burn the city to the ground before its liberation. Choltitz signs a formal surrender that afternoon, and the next day, Free French General Charles de Gaulle leads a liberation march down the Champs d’Elysees.

1984 – Author Truman Capote (“Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” “In Cold Blood”) dies in Los Angeles at the age of 59. 

1985 – Samantha Smith of Maine, the 11-year-old “ambassador” to the Soviet Union, dies in a plane crash. Smith was best known for writing to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov in 1982 and visiting as Andropov’s guest in 1983.

2009 – Edward “Ted” Kennedy, the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy and a U.S. senator from Massachusetts from 1962 to 2009, dies of brain cancer at age 77 at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1962 – Seventeen-year-old Eva Narcissus Boyd, a.k.a. “Little Eva,” scores her first and only No. 1 hit with “The Loco-Motion.”

1970 – Elton John plays his first American gig at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. 

1973 – One-hit-wonder Stories has the most popular song on the radio with “Brother Louie.” 

1975 – Bruce Springsteen releases his breakthrough album, “Born To Run,” which contains fan favorites including the title track, “Thunder Road” and “Jungleland.” 

1979 – The Knack kick off six weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “My Sharona.” The track becomes Capitol Records’ fastest gold status debut single since “I Want to Hold Your Hand” by The Beatles in 1964.

1984 – Ray Parker, Jr. begins his third and final week on top of the pop chart with “Ghostbusters,” the theme from the movie of the same name.

1990 – “Vision of Love,” by Mariah Carey, enters its fourth and final week on top of the pop chart.

2001 – Alicia Keys rules the Billboard Hot 100 with “Fallin’,” off her debut album, “Songs in A Minor”

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On This Day: September 1

On This Day September 1

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1922- Actress Yvonne DeCarlo (“The Ten Commandments,” “The Munsters”) (d. 2007)

1923- Former world heavyweight boxing champion Rocky Marciano, born Rocco Francis Marchegiano (d. 1969)

1933 – Country Music Hall of Famer and Rockabilly Hall of Famer Conway Twitty, born Harold Lloyd Jenkins (d. 1993)

1938 – Attorney and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz

1939 – Tony, Emmy and Grammy-winning actress-comedian Lily Tomlin (“Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,” “9 to 5,” “All of Me,” “The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe,” “Flirting with Disaster,” “Tea with Mussolini,” “I Heart Huckabees,” “A Prairie Home Companion”)

1946 – Singer-songwriter and Bee Gees founder Barry Gibb

1950 – TV psychologist Dr. Phil McGraw

1957 – Grammy-winning musician Gloria Estefan, born Gloria Fajardo, lead singer of the 80s band Miami Sound Machine

History Highlights
History Highlights

1807 – Former U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr is acquitted of plotting to annex parts of Louisiana and Spanish territory in Mexico to be used toward the establishment of an independent republic.

1964 – Pitcher Masanori Murakami becomes the first Japanese man to play in U.S. Major League Baseball. He pitches a scoreless 8th inning for the San Francisco Giants in a 4-1 loss to the New York Mets at Shea Stadium.

1972 – In what is billed as the “Match of the Century,” American chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer defeats Russian Boris Spassky during the World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland.  Fischer, from Brooklyn, NY, became the first American to win the competition since its inception in 1866. The victory also marked the first win for a non-Russian in 24 years.

1983 – A Soviet fighter jet shoots down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 after the New York to Seoul flight enters Soviet airspace. All 269 aboard the 747 jumbo jet are killed, including U.S. Congressman Lawrence McDonald. President Ronald Reagan condemns the incident as a “massacre.”

1985 – An expedition led by oceanographer Dr. Robert Ballard locates the wreck of the RMS Titanic 73 years after the luxury liner sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic.

1989 – The first Lexus is sold, marking the beginning of Toyota’s new luxury line of automobiles.

1998 – A federal law takes effect requiring that all cars and light trucks sold in the United States have air bags installed in the front seats as standard equipment. Seat belts had been required since the 1960s, and some auto manufacturers had begun voluntarily providing air bags before 1998.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1962 – Tommy Roe is on top of the singles chart with “Sheila.” It’s the re-recorded version of a track first released in 1960 when Roe was part of a band called The Satins.

1973 – “Brother Louie,” by one-hit-wonder Stories, enters its second and final week as a No. 1 single. The track, about an interracial love affair, was originally recorded by British soul band Hot Chocolate, which just a few months earlier took it to No. 7 on the U.K. singles chart.

1977 – Blondie, featuring former Playboy Bunny Debbie Harry, signs its first major record company contract with Chrysalis Records.

1980 – Fleetwood Mac ends a nine-month world tour with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl. Lindsay Buckingham tells the audience, “This is our last show. For a long time.”

1984 – “What’s Love Got to Do with It,” by Queen of Rock and Roll Tina Turner, begins three weeks on top of the U.S. singles chart. The track, off Turner’s “Private Dancer” album, goes on to capture three Grammy Awards: Record of the Year, Song of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In 2012, it is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

1990 – “If Wishes Came True,” by Sweet Sensation, bumps Mariah Carey’s “Vision of Love” to become the No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100.

2001 – Alicia Keys enters a third week atop the singles chart with her Grammy-winning debut single “Fallin’.

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