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:
1803 – The U.S. Senate approved the Louisiana Purchase.
1818 – The boundary between the United States and Canada was defined as the 49th parallel.
1873 – A Hippodrome was opened in New York, NY by showman Phineus T. (P.T.) Barnum.
1879 – Thomas A. Edison invented a workable electric light in his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ.
1902 – The first Cadillac was assembled. Some sources also say it happened on either October 16th or 17th. The company was formed from remnants of the Henry Ford Company. Ford left the company after a dispute with his investors along with several of his key partners in March of 1902.
1910 – For the first time in a World Series game, a baseball with a cork center was used.
1913 – Camel cigarettes were introduced for the first time.
1917 – American troops saw action in World War I for the first time.
1927 – The first Ford Model A was first produced. It was not sold until December 2, 1927, replacing the Model T which has been produced for 18 years.
1947 – Hollywood came under scrutiny as the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence within the motion picture industry.
1948 – Facsimile high-seed radio transmissions were demonstrated.
1967 – In Northern California, two men along the Bluff Creek, filmed 59 seconds of what they claimed to be Bigfoot.
1968 – Former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis.
1973 – The television show “The Six Million Dollar Man” premiered on ABC.
1973 – The Sydney Opera House in Australia was opened after 14 years of construction.
1977 – Three members of the band Lynyrd Skynyrd were killed when their chartered plane crashed near McComb, MS. Lead vocalist/founding member Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist and vocalist Steve Gaines, backing vocalist Cassie Gaines (Steve’s older sister), assistant road manager Dean Kilpatrick, pilot Walter McCreary, and co-pilot William Gray all died as a result of the crash while 20 others survived.
1979 – The John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, MA was dedicated.
1993 – Attorney General Janet Reno warned the TV industry to limit the violence in their programs.
1994 – The website WhiteHouse.gov was launched.
1997 – President Bill Clinton’s administration endorsed a revised Republican bill to restructure the Internal Revenue Services and shifted the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the government in contested court cases.
1998 – A Florida judge issued a warrant for the arrest of Bobby Brown after the singer violated his probation by showing up drunk and high to begin serving a five-day sentence for drunk driving.
2001 – Paul McCartney, Eric Clapton, The Who, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Bon Jovi, Goo Goo Dolls, Elton John, Five for Fighting, John Mellencamp and others performed at the six-hour Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden. More than five-thousand police officers and firemen attended the benefit for the families of police and firemen killed on September 11th.
2003 – A Michigan man went over Niagara Falls without safety devices and survived. Kirk Jones, an unemployed 40 year old, became the first person to survive going over the falls without protection. He was charged with illegally performing a stunt. He drank vodka and Coke before he jumped into the Canadian Horseshoe Falls. He was fined $2,2600, barred from Niagara Park for a year, and ordered to pay $1,600 to make up for the 45 minutes the tourist attraction was closed to the public following the stunt. Sadly, his body was discovered on June 2, 2017 in the Niagara River, about 12 miles from the falls. It appeared he had tried going over the falls again.
2003 – The D.C. sniper trial opened in Virginia. John A. Muhammad served as his own defense.
BIRTHDAYS:
Barrie Chase – 92 years old (1933) – Actress and dancer
Wanda Jackson – 88 years old (1937) – Singer-songwriter and guitarist
Dolores Hart – 87 years old (1938) – Actress and nun
Robert Pinsky – 85 years old (1940) – Poet and critic
Diana Gittins – 79 years old (1946) – American-English sociologist, author, and academic
Sandra Dickinson – 77 years old (1948) – American-English actress and composer
William Russ – 75 years old (1950) – Actor and director
Al Greenwood – 74 years old (1951) – Keyboard player
Ken Ham – 74 years old (1951) – Australian-American evangelist
Melanie Mayron – 73 years old (1952) – Actress and director
Keith Hernandez – 72 years old (1953) – Baseball player and sportscaster
Steve Orich – 71 years old (1954) – Composer and conductor
Thomas Newman – 70 years old (1955) – Composer and conductor
Sheldon Whitehouse – 70 years old (1955) – Politician
Hilda Solis – 68 years old (1957) – Academic and politician, 25th United States Secretary of Labor
Valerie Faris – 67 years old (1958) – Director and producer
Lynn Flewelling – 67 years old (1958) – Author and academic
Dave Krieg – 67 years old (1958) – Football player
Viggo Mortensen – 67 years old (1958) – American-Danish actor and producer
David M. Evans – 63 years old (1962) – Director and screenwriter
Kamala Harris – 61 years old (1964) – Politician and lawyer, 49th Vice President of the United States
Jonathan I. Schwartz – 60 years old (1965) – Businessman
William Zabka – 60 years old (1965) – Actor and producer
Patrick Volkerding – 59 years old (1966) – Computer scientist and engineer, founded Slackware
Michelle Malkin – 55 years old (1970) – Blogger and author
Taj McWilliams-Franklin – 55 years old (1970) – Basketball player
Kenneth Choi – 54 years old (1971) – Actor
Snoop Dogg – 54 years old (1971) – Rapper, producer, and actor
Eddie Jones – 54 years old (1971) – Basketball player
Brian Schatz – 53 years old (1972) – Academic and politician, 11th Lieutenant Governor of Hawaii
Ed Hale – 51 years old (1974) – Singer-songwriter, writer and socio-political activist
Bashar Rahal – 51 years old (1974) – Emirati-American actor and producer
Dan Fogler – 49 years old (1976) – Actor, director, producer, and screenwriter
Leila Josefowicz – 48 years old (1977) – Canadian-American violinist
Sam Witwer – 48 years old (1977) – Actor and musician
John Krasinski – 46 years old (1979) – Actor, director, and producer
Paul Terek – 46 years old (1979) – Decathlete
Katie Featherston – 43 years old (1982) – Actress
Lawrence Roberts – 43 years old (1982) – Basketball player
Jennifer Freeman – 40 years old (1985) – Actress
Dominic McGuire – 40 years old (1985) – Basketball player
Alphonso Smith – 40 years old (1985) – Football player
ASAP Ferg – 37 years old (1988) – Rapper
Jamie Collins – 36 years old (1989) – Football player
Rodney Hood – 33 years old (1992) – Basketball player
Kyle Wiltjer – 33 years old (1992) – Canadian-American basketball player
YoungBoy Never Broke Again – 26 years old (1999) – Rapper
Kenneth Walker III – 25 years old (2000) – Football player
Paige Bueckers – 24 years old (2001) – Basketball player
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.
