On This Day: November 17

On This Day November 17

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1925 – Actor and 1950s-60s leading man Rock Hudson (“Magnificent Obsession,” “All That Heaven Allows,” “Giant,” “Pillow Talk,” “McMillan & Wife”) (d. 1985)

1938 – Singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, the talent behind some of the biggest pop-folk hits of the 1970s (“If You Could Read My Mind,” “Sundown,” “Carefree Highway,” “Rainy Day People,” “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald”)

1942 – Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy and Grammy-winning director-producer Martin Scorsese (“Taxi Driver,” “Raging Bull,” “Goodfellas,” “Casino,” “Gangs of New York,” “The Aviator,” “The Departed,” “The Wolf of Wall Street,” “The Irishman”)

1944 – Golden Globe and Emmy-winning actor-director-producer Danny DeVito (“Taxi,” “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Ruthless People,” “Tin Men,” “Throw Momma from the Train,” “Get Shorty,” “L.A. Confidential”)

1944 – “Saturday Night Live” creator and executive producer Lorne Michaels

1960 – Drag queen, singer and actor RuPaul, born RuPaul Andre Charles

1978 – Actress Rachel McAdams (“Mean Girls,” “The Notebook,” “Wedding Crashers,” “The Time Traveler’s Wife,” “Sherlock Holmes,” “Midnight in Paris,” “The Vow,” “Spotlight,” “Doctor Strange”)

History Highlights
History Highlights

1869 – The Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and Red Seas, formally opens. The 100-mile-long waterway shortens the sea route from Europe to India by about 4,000 miles.

1962 – President John F. Kennedy and former President Dwight D. Eisenhower dedicate Dulles International Airport, serving the Washington, D.C. region.

1968 – The Oakland Raiders score two touchdowns in nine seconds at home to defeat the New York Jets, but television viewers never see the win. With just over a minute left in the game, NBC cuts to the previously scheduled made-for-TV movie “Heidi” — based on the book about a young girl and her grandfather in the Swiss Alps. The network apologizes after being bombarded by complaints in what comes to be called “The Heidi Game.”

1973 – In the midst of the Watergate scandal that eventually destroys his presidency, President Richard Nixon tells a room full of newspaper editors, “I’m not a crook.”

2003 – Actor and former bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger is sworn in as the 38th governor of California at the State Capitol in Sacramento.

2003 – Ex-soldier John Allen Muhammad is found guilty of one of a series of sniper shootings that terrorized the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area and dominated national headlines for three weeks in the fall of 2002. The shootings left 10 people dead.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1839 – Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi’s first opera, “Oberto, conte di San Bonifacio,” debuts in Milan.

1958 – “Tom Dooley,” by The Kingston Trio, is No. 1 on the pop chart. The single goes on to sell over three million copies and puts the band at the forefront of the pop-folk boom that continued through the 1960s.

1962 – The Four Seasons park themselves on top of the singles chart for five weeks with “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

1970 – Elton John’s music career is in its infancy when he performs a concert to a small audience at A&R Studios in New York that is broadcast live on local radio station WABC-FM. A recording of the session is packaged as his first live album, “11-17-70” (U.S. version) and “17-11-70” (U.K. version) and released in April 1971.

1979 – The Commodores top the Billboard Hot 100 with “Still.”

1984 – “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go,” by Wham!, begins three weeks as a Billboard No. 1 single.

1990 – “Love Takes Time,” by Mariah Carey, is in the middle of three weeks as a Billboard chart-topper.

2001 – Mary J. Blige is queen of the pop chart with “Family Affair.”

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On This Day: September 12

On This Day September 12

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Celebrity Birthdays
Celebrity Birthdays

1913 – U.S. Olympic track and field legend Jesse Owens, known as “The Buckeye Bullet” (d. 1980)

1931 – Country music singer George Jones (d. 2013)

1940 – Actress Linda Gray, who played Sue Ellen Ewing in the TV series “Dallas”

1943 – Singer-songwriter Maria Muldaur, best known for her 1974 smash “Midnight at the Oasis”

1944 – Grammy-winning soul singer-songwriter and producer Barry White (d. 2003)

1951 – Actor Joe Pantoliano (“Risky Business,” “The Matrix,” “The Sopranos”) 

1973 – Actor Paul Walker, best remembered for his role in “The Fast and the Furious” movie franchise (d. 2013)

1980 – Retired NBA/Houston Rockets star center and Basketball Hall of Famer Yao Ming

1981 – Grammy, Oscar and Golden Globe-winning singer-actress Jennifer Hudson (“Dreamgirls,” “Sex and the City,” “The Secret Life of Bees,” “Winnie Mandela”) 

History Highlights
History Highlights

1940 – Four teenagers stumble upon prehistoric cave paintings while following their dog into a cavern near Montignac, France. The site, consisting primarily of animal renderings, is known as the Lascaux grotto. 

1953 – In what is considered the “social event of the season,” Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts marries Washington Times-Herald photographer Jacqueline Bouvier in Newport, Rhode Island. Kennedy is elected the 35th president of the United States seven years later.

1974 – Violence erupts in the streets of Boston on the first day of school over court-ordered busing intended to integrate the public schools. One student describes the experience as resembling “a war zone.”

1977 – Anti-Apartheid leader Steven Biko dies from head trauma suffered during a police beating days earlier. 

1978 – The sitcom “Taxi,” starring Judd Hirsch and Danny DeVito, premieres on ABC.

1992 – Best known for his role as the murderous Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “Psycho,” actor Anthony Perkins dies from AIDS-related pneumonia at age 60.

Musical Milestones
Musical Milestones

1964 – The Animals rule the Billboard Hot 100 with “The House of the Rising Sun,” which also makes it to No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart.

1966 – With a blend of comedy and music, “The Monkees” TV show debuts on NBC and runs for nearly two years. 

1970 – “War,” by Edwin Starr, begins its third and final week as a No. 1 single.

1981 – The Diana Ross-Lionel Richie duet “Endless Love” is midway through a nine-week run as the No. 1 single.

1987 – Michael Jackson kicks off his Bad World Tour by playing the first of three sold-out shows in Tokyo, Japan. By the end of the tour, the King of Pop had performed for more than four million fans during 123 concerts in 15 countries.

1998 – Aerosmith’s single, “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing,” from the movie “Armageddon,” tops the Billboard Hot 100 for a second week.

2003 – The “Man in Black,” country music legend Johnny Cash, dies in Nashville of complications from diabetes at the age of 71.  Cash was one of country music’s biggest stars throughout the ’50s and ’60s, scoring more than 100 hit singles.

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