On This Day March 26

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On This Day March 1

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On This Day December 16

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On This Day October 5

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On This Day September 29

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1941 – The Babi Yar massacre of nearly 34,000 Jewish men, women, and children begins on the outskirts of Kiev in the Nazi-occupied Ukraine. The two-day bloodbath becomes a symbol of Jewish suffering in the Holocaust.

1966 – General Motors rolls out the sporty Chevy Camaro in an effort to go head-to-head with the popular Ford Mustang, which debuted two years earlier.

1988 – NASA launches the so-called “Return to Flight Mission” — the first space shuttle launch since the devastating Challenger explosion that claimed the lives of all seven crew members in January 1986. STS-26 marks the seventh flight for shuttle Discovery.

1988 – Stacy Allison of Portland, Oregon, becomes the first American woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth.

1995 – President Bill Clinton posthumously awards voting rights advocate Willie Velasquez the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Velasquez and the organizations he founded are credited with dramatically increasing political awareness and participation among the Hispanic communities of the Southwestern U.S.

2005 – New York Times reporter Judith Miller is released from a federal detention center after agreeing to testify in the investigation into the leaking of the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

2008 – Congress fails to pass a $700 billion bank bailout plan, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting nearly 780 points — at the time, the largest single-day point loss in history. The free fall follows the bankruptcies of Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers, Savings and Loan bank Washington Mutual and the Fed’s pledge to extend an $85 billion bailout for insurance provider AIG.

On This Day September 7

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1813 – The United States gets its nickname, “Uncle Sam.” The name is linked to Samuel Wilson, a meat packer from Troy, New York, who supplied barrels of beef to the U.S. Army during the War of 1812. Wilson stamped the barrels with “U.S.” for United States, but soldiers began referring to their rations as “Uncle Sam’s.”

1965 – Hurricane Betsy churns across extreme southern Florida en route to Louisiana where it kills 76 people and triggers widespread flooding. She’s the first hurricane to cause more than a billion dollars in damage, earning the nickname “Billion-Dollar Betsy.” 

1968 – Fifty women led by the New York Radical Women feminist group stages the first protest against the Miss America pageant. 

1977 – President Jimmy Carter signs a treaty granting Panama control over the Panama Canal beginning in the year 2000. The treaty ends an agreement signed in 1904 between then-President Theodore Roosevelt and Panama, which gave the U.S. the right to build the canal and a renewable lease to control five miles of land along either side of it.

1979 – The sports network ESPN debuts on cable TV. 

1980 – The 33rd annual Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony takes place, with statues going to the producers of “Taxi” and “Lou Grant” and performers Ed Asner and Barbara Bel Geddes — Asner for his starring role as newspaper editor Lou Grant, and Bel Geddes for her role as Miss Ellie, the Ewing family matriarch in the prime time soap “Dallas.” 

1986 – Nobel laureate Desmond Tutu becomes the first black man to lead the Anglican Church in South Africa. 

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1936 – Rock ‘n’ roll legend Buddy Holly is born Charles Hardin Holley in Lubbock, Texas. He produces a string of hits before his death at age 22 in a 1959 plane crash that also claims the lives of musical greats Ritchie Valens and “The Big Bopper” (J.P. Richardson).

1968 – The Rascals are in the midst of a five-week domination of the Billboard Hot 100 with “People Got to Be Free.”

1974 – “(You’re) Having My Baby,” by Paul Anka and Odia Coates, wraps up three weeks on top of the singles chart.

1978 – Acclaimed drummer Keith Moon of the British rock band The Who dies of a drug overdose at the age of 32. 

1985 – The theme from the movie “St. Elmo’s Fire” (“Man In Motion”), by John Parr, is the No. 1 single. 

1994 – With TV host David Letterman as her escort, Madonna hands Aerosmith the Best Video award for “Cryin’” during the MTV Video Music Awards at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

2001 – Michael Jackson is reunited onstage with the Jackson Five at his 30th Anniversary Celebration in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.

2002 – “Dilemma,” by Nelly featuring Kelly Rowland, rules the Billboard Hot 100.

2003 – Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Warren Zevon (“Werewolves of London,” “Lawyers, Guns and Money”) dies of lung cancer at the age of 56. Ironically, Zevon earned the Grammys posthumously for his final album, “The Wind,” which was released just two weeks before his death.

2013 – “Blurred Lines,” by Robin Thicke featuring T.I. and Pharrell, enters its 12th and final week as a Billboard chart-topper.

On this Day August 23

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On this Day August 14

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1940 – Singer Dash Crofts of the 70s pop duo Seals & Crofts

1941 – Singer-songwriter David Crosby, who co-founded the influential folk-rock groups the Byrds and Crosby, Stills & Nash (d. 2023)

1945 – Emmy and Grammy-winning comedian, actor, musician and “SNL” alum Steve Martin (“The Jerk,” “Three Amigos,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “Roxanne,” “Planes, Trains and Automobiles,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels,” “Parenthood,” “Father of the Bride,” “It’s Complicated”)

1946 – Actress Susan St. James (“The Name of the Game,” “McMillan & Wife,” “Kate & Allie”)

1947 – Author Danielle Steel, who has written dozens of bestselling romantic novels

1959 – Oscar-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden (“Pollack,” “Mystic River,” “American Gun,” “The Mist,” “Into the Wild”)

1959 – NBA Hall of Famer-turned-entrepreneur Magic Johnson, born Earvin Johnson, Jr. 

1960 – Soprano singer Sarah Brightman, who played the role of Jemima in the musical “Cats” and Christine in “The Phantom of the Opera”

1961 – Actress Susan Olsen, best known for playing youngest child Cindy on TV’s “The Brady Bunch”

1966 – Oscar, Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actress Halle Berry (“Boomerang,” “Introducing Dorothy Dandridge,” “Monster’s Ball,” “The X-Men” movies, “Die Another Day,” “Cloud Atlas,” “The Call”)

1983 – Actress Mila Kunis (“That ’70s Show,” “Family Guy,” “Forgetting Sarah Marshall,” “Black Swan,” “Book of Eli,” “Friends with Benefits,” “Ted,” “Oz the Great and Powerful”)

On this Day June 16

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On this Day May 19

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History Highlights
History Highlights

1749 – England’s King George II grants the Ohio Company of Virginia a charter of 200,000 acres stretching out from the forks of the Ohio River on the present site of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

1921 – Congress passes the Emergency Quota Act (also known as the Immigration Act of 1921), establishing national quotas on the immigration of foreigners into the U.S.

1935 – T.E. Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia, dies as a retired Royal Air Force mechanic living under an assumed name. He is just 46. The legendary war hero, author, and archaeological scholar succumbed to to severe brain injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident six days earlier. His death eventually led to development of the crash helmet. Lawrence was famously portrayed in the Oscar-winning 1962 movie, “Lawrence of Arabia,” by actor Peter O’Toole.

1962 – Marilyn Monroe takes center stage at New York’s Madison Square Garden as she sings “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy. About 15,000 people are on hand for the star-studded gala that takes place 10 days before JFK’s actual birthday.

2006 – Amid a firestorm of publicity and controversy, director Ron Howard’s adaptation of Dan Brown’s mega-bestselling thriller, “The Da Vinci Code,” debuts in theaters, starring Tom Hanks.

2016 – EgyptAir Flight 804, an Airbus A320 on a routine flight from Paris to Cairo, disappears over the Mediterranean Sea with 66 passengers and crew. It takes weeks to find signs of the wreckage, and while terrorism is suspected initially, investigators conclude that the aircraft broke up in midair after a fire broke out in the cockpit and quickly spread.