On This Day: April 19

On This Day April 19

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1903 – Federal Agent Eliot Ness, head of “The Untouchables,” which helped bring down gangster Al Capone  (d. 1957)

1933 – Actress-singer Jayne Mansfield (“The Girl Can’t Help It,” “Too Hot to Handle,” “Kiss Them for Me”) (d. 1967)

1935 – Actor-comedian-musician-composer Dudley Moore (“Bedazzled,” “10,” “Arthur”)  (d. 2002)

1946 – Actor Tim Curry (“The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” “It,” “The Three Musketeers,” “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York”)

1968 – Actress Ashley Judd (“Kiss the Girls,” “High Crimes,” “Divergent,” “Dolphin Tale,” “Dolphin Tale 2,” “Missing”) 

1978 – Golden Globe-winning actor James Franco (“Freaks and Geeks,” “James Dean,” “Pineapple Express,” the “Spider-Man” trilogy, “127 Hours,” “11.22.63,” “Sausage Party”,”The Disaster Artist”)

1979 – Golden Globe-winning actress Kate Hudson (“Almost Famous,” You, Me and Dupree,” “Fool’s Gold,” “Bride Wars,” “Deepwater Horizon”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1775 – The “shot heard round the world” is fired in Lexington, Massachusetts, triggering the American Revolution.

1897 – The first Boston Marathon is run, and John McDermott of New York emerges from a 15-person starter field as the winner of the all-male event with a completion time of 2:55:10. In 1924, the course is extended from 24.5 miles to 26 miles, 385 yards to conform to the Olympic standard.

1943 – Nazi forces attempting to clear out the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland are met by gunfire from Jewish resistance fighters, marking the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. 

1971 – The Soviet Union launches Salyut, the first manned orbiting space lab that goes on to be replaced by Mir in 1986. 

1993 – A 51-day standoff between federal agents and Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas comes to a fiery end. The cult compound burns to the ground and 80 Davidians, including their leader, David Koresh and 22 children, are dead.

1995 – A massive explosion at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma kills 168 people and injures hundreds more. The bomb, contained in a rented truck parked outside the building, goes off at 9:02 a.m. as people prepare for the workday.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1969 – The 5th Dimension have the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures).”

1975 – Elton John rules the pop chart with “Philadelphia Freedom.” The track is sometimes mistaken as a patriotic song about America, with the bicentennial approaching. It is actually a tribute to John’s close friend, tennis legend Billie Jean King, who, at the time, coached a tennis team called the Philadelphia Freedoms. 

1980 – For the first time ever, the top five artists on the country music chart are all female: Crystal Gayle is No. 1, with Dottie West, Debby Boone, Emmylou Harris and Tammy Wynette making up the rest of the top five. 

1980 – “Call Me” by Blondie claims the top spot on the singles chart and holds there for six weeks. The track is from the band’s “Autoamerican” album and is featured in the movie “American Gigolo,” starring Richard Gere.

1986 – “Kiss,” by Prince and The Revolution from the “Parade” album (the “Under the Cherry Moon” soundtrack) is the No. 1 single. Following Prince’s April 2016 death, the song re-charted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 28, and jumped to No. 23 a week later.

1997 – Michael Jackson attends the unveiling of a wax statue of himself at the Grevin Museum of Wax in Paris. The King of Pop had provided one of his own outfits to dress the figure.

2008 – Mariah Carey begins her second and final week at No. 1 on the pop chart with “Touch My Body.”

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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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