On This Day: April 28

On This Day April 28

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1916 – Italian industrialist Ferruccio Lamborghini, who founded the high-end sports car company that bears his name (d. 1993)

1926 – Novelist Harper Lee, best known for her Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller “To Kill a Mockingbird” (d. 2016)

1941 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actress-dancer-singer Ann-Margret (“Carnal Knowledge,” “Tommy”) 

1950 – Emmy-winning TV host, stand-up comedian and classic car collector Jay Leno, born James Douglas Muir Leno (“The Tonight Show,” “The Jay Leno Show,” “Jay Leno’s Garage”) 

1952 – Actress Mary McDonnell (“Dances With Wolves,” “Passion Fish,” “Independence Day”)  

1971 – Actress Bridget Moynahan (“I, Robot,” “Lord of War,” “Blue Bloods”)  

1973 – Actor Jorge Garcia, best known for playing Hugo “Hurley” Reyes in the TV series “Lost”

1974 – Oscar-winning actress Penélope Cruz (“Vanilla Sky,” “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin,” “Vicki Cristina Barcelona”)  

1981 – Actress Jessica Alba (“Dark Angel,” the “Sin City” films, the “Fantastic Four” movie series, “Into The Blue,” “Good Luck Chuck,” “Spy Kids 4: All The Time in the World”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1945 –  Italy’s deposed former dictator, Benito Mussolini (a.k.a. “Il Duce”), and his mistress, Clara Petacci, are shot by Italian partisans who had captured the couple as they attempted to flee to Switzerland.

1967 – Boxing champion Muhammad Ali refuses induction into the U.S. Army to serve in the Vietnam War. He is immediately stripped of his world heavyweight title. Ali, a Muslim, cites religious reasons for his decision to forgo military service.

1969 – Charles de Gaulle, a towering figure in post-World War II politics, resigns as the president of France.

1988 – An Aloha Airlines 737 makes an emergency landing on Maui, Hawaii after a large section of roof and fuselage tears away in flight, killing one stewardess.

2004 – Comcast, America’s largest cable operator, abandons a $54 billion hostile takeover bid for the Walt Disney Company in the face of faltering stock prices and Disney’s continued refusal to entertain the proposal.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1962 – “Good Luck Charm,” by Elvis Presley, begins its second and final week on top of the pop chart.

1965 – Barbra Streisand makes her television debut in the CBS special, “My Name is Barbra,” in conjunction with the album of the same name. The hour-long special consists of three acts and clinches five Emmy and two Tony Awards. The album captures a Best Female Vocal Performance Grammy.

1968 – The first rock musical, “Hair,” opens at New York’s Biltmore Theater, featuring the songs “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In,” “Good Morning Starshine” and the title track. More than 1,700 performances are given by the time it closes in the summer of 1972.

1979 – Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” off the band’s “Parallel Lines” album, is a Billboard No. 1 for a week

1984 – Phil Collins rules the Billboard Hot 100 with “Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now),” from the movie “Against All Odds.”

1990 – Sinéad O’Connor is mid-way through a four-week domination of the pop chart with the Prince composition, “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

1999 – Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

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On this Day: July 17

On this Day July 17

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1899 – Oscar-winning actor James Cagney (“Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “Angels With Dirty Faces,” “Love Me or Leave Me”) (d. 1986)

1912 – Radio and TV host Art Linkletter (“House Party,” “People Are Funny”) (d. 2010)

1917 – Comedian-actress-author Phyllis Diller (d. 2012)

1935 – Actress-singer Diahann Carroll (“Julia,” “Claudine,” “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” “Dynasty”) (d. 2019)

1935 – Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor Donald Sutherland (“M*A*S*H,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” “Ordinary People,” “Backdraft,” “Space Cowboys,” “The Hunger Games” movie series)

1950 – Singer-songwriter Phoebe Snow, best known for her 1975 chart-topping hit “Poetry Man” (d. 2011)

1951 – Actress-singer-dancer Lucie Arnaz (“Here’s Lucy,” “The Jazz Singer,” “Down to You”)  

1952 – Actor David Hasselhoff (“Knight Rider,” “Baywatch,” “Click,” “Dodgeball,” “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie,” “Hop”)

1976 – Country music singer Luke Bryan (“All My Friends Say,” “Rain Is a Good Thing,” “Someone Else Calling You Baby,” “I Don’t Want This Night to End”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1955 – Disneyland, America’s first theme park, opens in Anaheim, California. The Walt Disney Company built the $17 million complex on 160 acres of former orange groves and it quickly became a cash cow. Each year, Disneyland hosts over 14 million visitors who spend close to $3 billion.

1975 – Two Cold War adversaries meet in space for the docking of the U.S. spacecraft Apollo 18 and the Soviet’s Soyuz 19. It is the final Apollo mission.

1980 – Ronald Reagan, an actor who went on to become governor of California, accepts the Republican nomination for the U.S. presidency at the party’s national convention in Detroit. 

1981 – A walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri collapses during a dance party, killing 114 people and injuring more than 200. 

1996 – Minutes after takeoff from New York’s JFK International Airport, a TWA 747 jetliner bound for Paris explodes over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all 230 people aboard. A lengthy and extensive investigation concludes that the flight was brought down by a fuel tank explosion, but others dispute the findings citing eyewitness accounts of missile-like objects that allegedly flew toward the plane.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1959 – Billie Holiday, widely regarded as the greatest jazz vocalist of all time, dies at the age of 44 of heart and liver disease following years of alcohol and drug abuse.

1961 – “Tossin’ and Turnin’,” by Bobby Lewis, is No. 1 on both the Billboard singles and R&B charts. It remains atop the singles chart for seven weeks and the R&B chart for 10.

1967 – Iconic jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer John Coltrane dies of liver cancer at age 40. 

1968 – The Beatles’ psychedelic cinematic adventure, “Yellow Submarine,” premieres in London, introducing fans to Blue Meanies and a host of new hits. The animated movie musical opens in the U.S. four months later.

1971 – Carole King enters her fifth and final week on top of the Billboard pop chart with “It’s Too Late,” off her Grammy-winning “Tapestry” album.

1982 – “Don’t You Want Me,” by The Human League, begins its third and final week as a No. 1 single.

1999 – Destiny’s Child is No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with “Bills, Bills, Bills.”

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