The Commodores – Time Rewind

On This Day November 17

Click each item below to learn more!

On this Day August 19

Click each item below to learn more!

Celebrity Birthdays

1871 – Aviation pioneer Orville Wright (d. 1948)

1883 – French fashion designer Coco Chanel (d. 1971)

1921 – “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry (d. 1991)

1940 – Singer-songwriter Johnny Nash, best known for his 1972 smash “I Can See Clearly Now” (d.2020)

1940 – Actress Jill St. John, born Jill Arlyn Oppenheim (“The Lost World,” “Come Blow Your Horn,” “Diamonds Are Forever,” “Sitting Target”)

1946 – Bill Clinton, 42nd U.S. president

1947 – Actor Gerald McRaney (“Simon & Simon,” “Major Dad,” “Promised Land,” “Jericho,” “House of Cards”)

1955 – Actor Peter Gallagher (“Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “The Player,” “While You Were Sleeping,” “The O.C.,” “Covert Affairs”)

1963 – Actor John Stamos (“General Hospital,” “Full House,” “Fuller House,” “ER,” “Jake in Progress,” “Necessary Roughness”)

1965 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress Kyra Sedgwick (“Singles,” “Heart and Souls,” “Something to Talk About,” “Phenomenon,” “The Closer”)

1965 – Actor Kevin Dillon (“Platoon,” “No Escape,” “Entourage”)

1966 – Grammy-winning country singer-songwriter Lee Ann Womack (“I Hope You Dance,” “Something Worth Leaving Behind,” “I May Hate Myself In the Morning”)

1969 – Actor-producer Matthew Perry, best known for playing Chandler Bing on the hit TV sitcom “Friends”

History Highlights

1909 – The first race is held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway before a crowd of 12,000. Austrian driver Louis Schwitzer wins the five-lap event behind the wheel of a Stoddard-Dayton traveling at an average speed of 57.4 miles per hour.

1960 – A Soviet military court sentences American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers to 10 years in prison for spying. Powers had pleaded guilty to spying for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) after his plane was shot down at high altiitude above the Soviet Union.

1969 – Some 8,000 volunteers begin a massive cleanup of Max Yasgur’s Bethel, New York dairy farm after nearly half a million people leave the muddy, garbage-strewn site of the iconic Woodstock music festival. Decades later, archaeologists begin digging up remnants of the event.

1977 – Beloved, cigar-chomping comedian Groucho Marx dies at the age of 86. A member of the comedic Marx Brother, he spent nearly seven decades making people laugh with his snappy one-liners and sharp wit.

1981 – ABC airs its final episode of “Charlie’s Angels” after a five-year run. The detective series starred Kate Jackson, Jaclyn Smith and Farrah Fawcett.

Musical Milestones

1967 – The Beatles have their 14th No. 1 single with “All You Need Is Love.”

1972 – Gilbert O’Sullivan begins his fourth and final week on top of the pop chart with “Alone Again (Naturally).”

1978 – “Three Times a Lady,” by The Commodores featuring Lionel Richie, begins its second and final week on top of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The single is the band’s first No. 1 hit and garners two Grammy nominations for Song of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Duo, Group, or Chorus.

1989 – Richard Marx is in the midst of a three-week run at No. 1 on the pop chart with “Right Here Waiting” — his third consecutive chart-topper.

1995 – TLC’s “Waterfalls” wraps up a seven-week domination of the singles chart. The music video goes on to win four MTV Video Music Awards.

2000 – “Incomplete,” by American R&B artist Sisqó, tops the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

2006 – Fergie kicks off three weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “London Bridge.”

2017 – “Despacito,” by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee featuring Justin Bieber, is in the midst of a 16-week domination of the U.S. pop chart.

On this Day August 12

Click each item below to learn more!

Celebrity Birthdays

1881 – Legendary movie director Cecile B. DeMille (“Cleopatra,” “The Ten Commandments”) (d. 1959)

1910 – Emmy-winning actress Jane Wyatt, best known as housewife and mother Margaret Anderson on the comedy series “Father Knows Best” and as Spock’s human mother in “Star Trek” (d. 2006)

1931 – Two-time Academy Award-winning screenwriter and bestselling author William Goldman (“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “All the President’s Men”) (d. 2018)

1939 – Golden Globe-winning actor George Hamilton (“Crime and Punishment U.S.A.,” “Light in the Piazza,” “Evel Knievel,” “Love at First Bite,” “Zorro, The Gay Blade,” “The Godfather Part III”)

1949 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter-guitarist Mark Knopfler, best known as frontman for the rock band Dire Straits

1954 – Grammy-winning jazz guitarist Pat Metheny

1956 – Actor Bruce Greenwood (“Racing Stripes,” “Thirteen Days,” “Eight Below,” “Star Trek,” “Good Kill”)

1965 – Actor Peter Krause (“Six Feet Under,” “Parenthood”)

1971 – Tennis champion Pete Sampras

1975 – Actor-director Casey Affleck (“Oceans” trilogy, “Gerry,” “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” “Gone Baby Gone,” “Out of the Furnace,” “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints”)

History Highlights

30 B.C. – Cleopatra, queen of Egypt and lover of Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, takes her life following the defeat of her forces against Octavian, the future first emperor of Rome.

1851 – Business tycoon Isaac Merritt Singer patents the sewing machine.

1939 – “The Wizard of Oz,” starring Judy Garland and featuring words and music by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg and Harold Arlen, makes its world premiere at the Strand Theatre in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.

1963 – The first 1964 Ford Thunderbird rolls off a Detroit assembly line.

1977 – Space Shuttle Enterprise passes a critical test as it separates from the top of a 747 for its first free flight and makes a smooth landing in the Mojave Desert.

1981 – IBM takes the wraps off the first personal computer (the IBM 5150) with a price tag starting at $1,565. That includes the system unit, a keyboard and color/graphics capability. It costs more for options including a display, a printer, two diskette drives, extra memory, a game adapter and application packages — including one for text processing.

1990 – Digging on a cliff near Faith, South Dakota, paleontologist Susan Hendrickson unearths three huge bones that turn out to be part of the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton ever discovered — a 67 million-year-old specimen dubbed Sue, after its discoverer.

2014 – Lauren Bacall, the smoky-voiced movie legend who taught Humphrey Bogart how to whistle in “To Have and Have Not,” dies at the age of 89. Bacall made more than 40 films during a 70-year career, including “The Big Sleep,” “How to Marry a Millionaire” and “The Mirror Has Two Faces.”

Musical Milestones

1960 – The Silver Beatles become The Beatles, and on this day, the newly renamed band hires Pete Best as drummer. Two years later, he is fired and replaced by Ringo Starr.

1964 – The Beatles’ first film, “A Hard Day’s Night,” opens in 500 U.S. theaters to rave reviews.

1966 – The Beatles’ final U.S. tour begins with two performances at the International Amphitheatre in Chicago. During a pre-show press conference, reporters challenge John Lennon to explain his recent boast that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ.

1967 – The Doors close out three weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100 with “Light My Fire.” About a month later, the band performs the song before a national audience on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

1978 – “Three Times a Lady,” by the Commodores featuring Lionel Richie, is the No. 1 single.

1985 – Japanese singer-actor Kyu Sakamoto is killed at the age of 43 in the crash of a Japan Airlines jetliner outside Tokyo. Sakamoto was the first Asian recording artist to have a No. 1 hit in the U.S.: “Sukiyaki” in June of 1963, which sold more than 13 million copies worldwide.

1995 – TLC is in the midst of a seven-week domination of the singles chart with “Waterfalls.”

2000 – “Incomplete,” by Sisqó, begins a two-week run on top of the Billboard Hot 100.

2009 – Legendary guitarist Les Paul dies of pneumonia at age 94. Paul designed one of the first solid-body electric guitars, which went on sale in 1952 and was “instrumental” in the development of rock ‘n roll. He also pioneered other recording innovations such as multi-track recording and overdubbing.

On this Day June 20

Click each item below to learn more!

Celebrity Birthdays

1909 – Australian actor Errol Flynn, best known for his romantic swashbuckler movie roles (d. 1959)

1924 – Grammy-winning country music (“Nashville sound”) guitarist Chet Atkins (d. 2001)

1931 – Actor Martin Landau (“Mission: Impossible,” “Space: 1999,” “Tucker: The Man and His Dream,” “Crimes and Misdemeanors,” “Ed Wood,” “The X Files,” “The Majestic”) (d. 2017)

1933 – Emmy-winning actor Danny Aiello (“The Godfather: Part II,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” “Do The Right Thing,” “Moonstruck”)

1942 – Grammy-winning Beach Boys founder and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Brian Wilson

1945 – Grammy-winning pop-country vocalist Anne Murray (“Snowbird,” “I Just Fall in Love Again”)

1949 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter and former Commodores front man Lionel Richie (“Easy,” “Three Times a Lady,” “Still,” “Truly”)

1952 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor-comedian John Goodman (“Roseanne,” “Raising Arizona,” “The Babe,” “The Flintstones,” “The Big Lebowski,” “Monster’s Inc.,” “Argo,” “Flight,” “Treme,” “10 Cloverfield Lane”)

1967 – Oscar and Golden Globe-winning actress-producer Nicole Kidman (“Dead Calm,” “Days of Thunder,” “Far and Away,” “Batman Forever,” “Eyes Wide Shut,” “Moulin Rouge!”, “The Interpreter,” “Australia,” “The Hours,” “Rabbit Hole”)

History Highlights

1948 – Ed Sullivan’s long-running variety show, “Toast of the Town,” premieres and is later renamed “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

1963 – After reaching the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. and Soviet Union agree to set up a telecommunications link to prevent a nuclear catastrophe.

1967 – Heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali is convicted of draft evasion and sentenced to five years in prison. The U.S. Supreme Court later overturns the conviction on religious grounds.

1975 – Director Steven Spielberg’s movie “Jaws” opens in U.S. theaters, terrifying millions of beachgoers with its tale of a menacing, man-eating great white shark. “Jaws” sets the standard for the summer blockbuster, becoming the first motion picture to gross over $100 million at the box office. It was the highest grossing movie of all time until “Star Wars” was released two years later.

1977 – The U.S. achieves an energy industry milestone, as oil begins to flow through the Trans Alaska Pipeline.

1980 – After premiering in Chicago days earlier, “The Blues Brothers,” starring John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd, opens in movie theaters nationwide.

Musical Milestones

1969 – David Bowie records “Space Oddity” at Trident Studios in London. It becomes one of his signature songs and eventually climbs to No. 15 on the Billboard Hot 100.

1969 – Newport ’69, also known as the Newport Pop Festival, opens in California and kicks off the era of the rock-pop festival. It’s the first of seven events that year. Acts include Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, The Rascals, CCR, Ike & Tina Turner and Joe Cocker.

1981 – The medley “Stars on 45,” by the Dutch novelty band Stars on 45, is No. 1 on the Billboard singles chart.

1987 – “Head to Toe,” by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam, is the most popular single in the U.S.

1992 – Mariah Carey’s cover of The Jackson 5’s “I’ll Be There” is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The track is on her “MTV Unplugged” live EP.

2000 – The Ronettes are awarded $2.6 million in back earnings from Phil Spector. New York judge Paula Omansky ruled that the legendary producer had cheated them out of royalties.

2009 – The Black Eyed Peas own the top spot on the singles chart with “Boom Boom Pow.”