A quick look at Today in History, check out some Celebrity Birthdays, and find out what Days of the Year to celebrate.
TODAY IN HISTORY:
1861 – Florida seceded from the United States.
1870 – John D. Rockefeller incorporated Standard Oil.
1911 – The first photograph from an airplane was taken by Major Jimmie Erickson while flying over San Diego, CA.
1920 – The League of Nations ratified the Treaty of Versailles, officially ending World War I with Germany.
1943 – President Franklin D. Roosevelt sailed from Miami, FL, to Trinidad and became the first American President to visit a foreign country during wartime.
1946 – The U.S. Army Signal Corps successfully conducted Project Diana, bouncing radio waves off the moon and receiving the reflected signals.
1949 – Vinyl records were introduced.
1951 – Donald Howard Rogers piloted the first passenger jet on a trip from Chicago, IL to New York, NY.
1962 – NASA announced plans to build the C-5 rocket launch vehicle. It became better known as the Saturn V Moon rocket. It launched every Apollo Moon mission.
1964 – William Clay Ford took over control of the Detroit Lions. He paid $4.5 million for the football team on November 22nd, 1963.
1971 – PBS TV show “Masterpiece Theatre” premiered with host Alistair Cooke.
1983 – The children’s television show “Fraggle Rock” debuted on HBO.
1990 – Time Inc. and Warner Communications Inc. completed a $14 billion merger. The new company, Time Warner, became the world’s largest entertainment company.
1994 – Lorena Bobbitt went on trial n Manassas, VA. She was charged with maliciously wounding her husband John, by cutting off his penis with scissors. She was acquitted by reason of temporary insanity.
1995 – The WB Network debuted.
1997 – James Brown got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1999 – The HBO original series “The Sopranos” debuted. It would run until June 10, 2007. Rolling Stone, TV Guide, and The Writer’s Guild of America have called it the “Greatest TV Show” of all time.
1999 – John Stewart took over as host of “The Daily Show”. He continued as host for 16 years.
2000 – Time-Warner agreed to buy America On-line (AOL). It was the largest-ever corporate merger priced at $162 billion. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved the deal on December 14, 2000.
2001 – American Airlines agreed to acquire most of Trans World Airlines (TWA) assets for about $500 million. The deal brought an end to the financially troubled TWA.
2006 – The iTunes Music Store reached 850 million songs sold and 8 million videos sold.
2007 – The iTunes Music Store reached 2 billion songs sold, 1.3 million feature length films sold, and 50 million television episodes sold.
BIRTHDAYS:
Sherrill Milnes – 91 years old (1935) – Opera singer and educator
Robert Woodrow Wilson – 90 years old (1936) – Physicist and astronomer, Nobel Prize laureate
Donald Knuth – 88 years old (1938) – Computer scientist and mathematician
Bill Toomey – 87 years old (1939) – Athlete
William Sanderson – 82 years old (1944) – Actor
James Morris – 79 years old (1947) – Opera singer
Donald Fagen – 78 years old (1948) – Singer-songwriter and musician
Pat Benatar – 73 years old (1953) – Singer-songwriter
Bobby Rahal – 73 years old (1953) – Race car driver
Shawn Colvin – 70 years old (1956) – Singer-songwriter and guitarist
Chandra Cheeseborough – 67 years old (1959) – Sprinter and coach
Chris Van Hollen – 67 years old (1959) – Lawyer and politician
Evan Handler – 65 years old (1961) – Actor
Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg – 65 years old (1961) – Italian-American violinist, author, and educator
Kathryn S. McKinley – 64 years old (1962) – Computer scientist and academic
Glenn Robinson – 53 years old (1973) – Basketball player
Jake Delhomme – 51 years old (1975) – Football player
Adam Kennedy – 50 years old (1976) – Baseball player
A. J. Bramlett – 49 years old (1977) – Basketball player
Brent Smith – 48 years old (1978) – Singer and songwriter
Tamina Snuka – 48 years old (1978) – Wrestler
Sarah Shahi – 46 years old (1980) – Actress
Jared Kushner – 45 years old (1981) – Real estate investor and political figure
Marcus Freeman – 40 years old (1986) – Football coach
John Carlson – 36 years old (1990) – Ice hockey player
Budda Baker – 30 years old (1996) – Football player
Reneé Rapp – 26 years old (2000) – Singer-songwriter and actress
TODAY IS:
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For additional information check out websites like: www.on-this-day.com, www.born-today.com, www.famousbirthdays.com, www.daysoftheyear.com, and www.nationaldaycalendar.com.
