April 4
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Events on This Day
1841 - U.S. President William Henry Harrison died on this day -- after serving only one month in office. On March 4, he had given the longest inaugural speech in history, in the rain, and developed pneumonia. Harrison was the first U.S. President to die in office.1859 - Daniel Emmett introduced I Wish I was in Dixie’s Land (later named Dixie) in New York City. Just two years later, the song became the Civil War song of the Confederacy.
1887 - Susanna M. Salter became the first woman mayor in the U.S. She was duly elected by the people of Argonia, KS. Ms. Salter won by a two-thirds majority but didn’t even know she was in the running ’til she went into the voting booth. It seems that her name was submitted by the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. Susanna M. Salter received $1 for her year as mayor.
1891 - Distinguished American actor Edwin Booth made his final stage appearance in a production of Hamlet at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
1914 - The first known serialized moving picture opened in New York City. The Perils of Pauline starred Pearl White.
1932 - Professor C.G. King of the University of Pittsburgh isolated vitamin C after five years of research. Take some vitamin C today and feel better fast! Suck a lemon!
1933 - The U.S. dirigible Akron crashed in a storm off the New Jersey coast. 70 of 73 people aboard were killed.
1938 - After seven years of singing on the radio, Kate Smith began a new noontime talk show.
1939 - Glenn Miller recorded his theme song, Moonlight Serenade, for Bluebird Records. Previously, the Miller theme had been Gone with the Dawn and, before then, Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.
1940 - From our Why Can’t I Remember That One Department: The Richard Rodgers, Lorenz Hart musical, Higher and Higher, premiered at the Shubert Theatre in New York City. The musical comedy closed on June 15, 1940 after a run of just 84 erformances.
1944 - Because he refused to pay his own expenses for road trips, Rogers Hornsby quit as the manager of the Vera Cruz, Mexico baseball club.
1945 - U.S. forces liberated the Nazi death camp Ohrdruf in Germany.
1949 - Twelve nations, including the United States, established the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
1954 - Maestro Arturo Toscanini conducted his last concert with the NBC Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Toscanini ended a 17-year association with the orchestra.
1960 - Eleven Academy Awards were presented to one movie at the 32nd Annual Academy Awards at the RKO Pantages Theater, Los Angeles. Ben-Hur, the Best Picture of 1959, was the first motion picture to receive that many Oscars. The other categories for which the MGM film, produced by Sam Zimbalist, was honored were: Best Director (William Wyler); Best Actor (Charlton Heston); Best Supporting Actor (Hugh Griffith); Best Cinematography/Color (Robert L. Surtees); Best Art Direction-Set Direction/Color (Edward Carfagno, William A. Horning, Hugh Hunt); Best Costume Design/Color (Elizabeth Haffenden); Best Sound (MGM Studio Sound Department, Franklin E. Milton, Sound Director); Best Film Editing (John D. Dunning, Ralph E. Winters); Best Effects/Special Effects (visual-A. Arnold Gillespie, Robert MacDonald III; audible-Milo B. Lory); and Best Music/Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (Miklos Rozsa). Ben-Hur lost only one nomination: Best Writing/Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium. Room at the Top (Neil Paterson) took that Oscar home and the Best Actress award, too (Simone Signoret). The Best Supporting Actress award went to Shelley Winters for her performance in The Diary of Anne Frank, her second Oscar. The moviemakers of Anatomy of a Murder had high hopes with six nominations in the ring; but that’s all they were. However, the Best Music/Song Oscar went to High Hopes (James Van Heusen-music, Sammy Cahn-lyrics) from A Hole in the Head. It would be 38 years and a lot of high hopes before one film won 11 Academy Awards again (Titanic). And who knows how long before the host is an Award recipient again! (Bob Hope received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.)
1964 - The Beatles set an all-time record on the Top 100 chart of Billboard magazine this day. All five of the top songs were by the British rock group. In addition, The Beatles also had the number one album as Meet the Beatles continued to lead all others. The LP was the top album from February 15 through May 2, when it was replaced by The Beatles Second Album. It was estimated at the time that The Beatles accounted for 60 percent of the entire singles record business during the first three months of 1964. The top five singles by The Beatles this day were:
1) Can’t Buy Me Love
2) Twist and Shout
3) She Loves You
4) I Want to Hold Your Hand
5) Please Please Me
“What song was number six?” you ask. Suspicion by Terry Stafford. Hey, we don’t leave anything out.1967 - Johnny Carson quit The Tonight Show. He returned three weeks later with an additional $30,000 a week! Hi yo!
1968 - Bobby Goldsboro received a gold record for the single, Honey. The poignantly sad song charted for 13 weeks -- spending five weeks at number one. Goldsboro produced a total of 11 hits on the pop charts in the 1960s and 1970s. Honey was his only million seller and only number one hit.
1968 - Civil rights crusader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was gunned down on the balcony of the Motel Lorraine in Memphis, Tennessee. King had gone to Memphis to support a strike by sanitation workers. He was 39 years old. He was assasinated by sniper James Earl Ray as King stood on a motel balcony.
1971 - Veterans stadium in Philadelphia, PA was dedicated this day. At the time, it was the largest baseball park in the National League. A total of 56,371 fans could come out to see the Phillies play baseball or the Eagles play football. (Veterans Stadium was demolished on March 21, 2004 and the area where it stood is now a parking lot for the Philadelphia Phillies’ Citizens Bank Park sporting complex.)
1971 - Stephen Sondheim’s Follies opened at Broadway’s Winter Garden Theatre. The musical starred Alexis Smith (Phyllis), John McMartin (Ben), Dorothy Collins (Sally), and Gene Nelson (Buddy), along with several veterans of the Broadway and vaudeville stage. Follies was nominated for eleven Tony Awards and won seven that year. It ran for 522 performances, closing Jul 1, 1972.
1973 - The ribbon-cutting ceremony was held for the World Trade Center, New York City. At 1,368 and 1,362 feet and 110 stories each, the twin towers were the world’s tallest, and largest, buildings until the Sears Tower (Chicago) surpassed them both in 1974.
1974 - The largest tornado outbreak to that time saw 324 people killed in a dozen U.S. states and the Canadian province of Ontario. The storms caused more than $600 million in damage in the U.S. alone, and extensively damaged some 900 sq mi (2,331 km2) along a total combined path length of 2,600 mi (4,184 km).
1975 - 155 people, two thirds of them children, were killed when a U.S. Air Force transport plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crashed after take-off from Saigon.
1977 - Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had his first meeting with U.S. President Jimmy Carter.
1979 - Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (51), the deposed prime minister of Pakistan, was hanged after he was convicted of conspiring to murder a political opponent.
1981 - Henry Cisneros became the first elected Mexican-American mayor of a major U.S. city -- San Antonio, Texas.
1983 - The space shuttle Challenger blasted into orbit on its maiden voyage.
1984 - Bob Bell retired as Bozo the Clown on WGN-TV in Chicago, IL. Bell was an institution in the Windy City since making his first appearance in 1960. Pinto Colvig was the original Bozo.
1988 - The Arizona Senate convicted Governor Evan Mecham of two charges of official misconduct, and removed him from office. (Mecham became the first U.S. governor to be impeached and removed from office in nearly six decades.)
1988 - The Univ of Kansas won the NCAA basketball title. Kansas upset Oklahoma, 83-79, to win the title. Danny Manning, the Jayhawks’ 6-foot-10-inch forward, made four consecutive free throws, scored 31 points and grabbed 18 rebounds as the Jayhawks sent the Sooners to their fourth defeat of the season against 35 victories. Kansas had lost twice to Oklahoma during the season.
1989 - Richard M. Daley was elected mayor of Chicago. His father had held that title for 21 years.
1991 - U.S. Senator H. John Heinz III (53, R-PA) of Pennsylvania and six others were killed when a helicopter collided with Heinz’s Piper Aerostar plane over a schoolyard in Merion, Pennsylvania. All aboard the two aircraft plus two children playing outside the school were killed in the crash.
1993 - Alfred Mosher Butts died at 94 years of age. Butts was the U.S. architect and inventor of the game of Scrabble.
1994 - The University of Arkansas won the NCAA basketball championship, by defeating Duke University 76-72.
1994 - Jim Clark and Marc Andreesen founded Mosaic Communications Corp., the predecessor of Netscape Communications.
1997 - These films opened in U.S. theatres: Anna Karenina, starring Sophie Marceau, Sean Bean and Alfred Molina; Double Team, with Jean-Claude Van Damme, Mickey Rourke and Dennis Rodman; Inventing the Abbotts, starring Liv Ttyler, Billy Crudup, Joaquin Phoenix and Jennifer Connelly; The Saint, with Val Kilmer, Elisabeth Shue, Rade Serbedzija and Valery Nikolaev; and That Old Feeling, starring Bette Midler, Dennis Farina, Paula Marshall and Danny Nucci.
1998 - All My Life, by K-Ci and Jo-Jo, was the #1 single in the U.S. Brothers Cedric (K-Ci) Hailey and Joel (JoJo) Hailey, natives of Wingate, North Carolina, were also members of the chart-topping R&B group Jodeci with the DeGrate brothers, Donald (better known as DeVante Swing) and Dalvin.
2000 - It was a volatile day on the U.S. stock market as the Nasdaq composite index and the DJIA each plunged over 500 points -- then came back almost as much.
2001 - Former Philippine president Joseph Estrada, ousted in January during a popular uprising, was indicted on charges he took millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks.
2001 - Hideo Nomo joined Ted Breitenstein, Cy Young, Jim Bunning and Nolan Ryan as the only pitchers to throw no-hitters in both leagues as Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles 3-0. (Nomo had thrown a no-hitter for the Los Angeles Dodgers September 17, 1996.)
2002 - Two teenagers were sentenced to long prison terms in the stabbing deaths of Dartmouth College professors Half and Susanne Zantop. Robert Tulloch pleaded guilty to murder and received the mandatory sentence of life without parole; James Parker was sentenced to 25 years to life as an accomplice to murder.
2003 - These films debuted in the U.S.: A Man Apart, with Vin Diesel, Larenz Tate, Timothy Olyphant, Jacqueline Obradors, Geno Silva, Juan Fernadez, Steve Eastin, George Sharperson and Mike Moroff; Phone Booth, starring Colin Farrell, Forest Whitaker, Katie Holmes, Radha Mitchell and Kiefer Sutherland; and What a Girl Wants, with Amanda Bynes, Colin Firth, Kelly Preston, Anna Chancellor, Tom Harper, Jonathan Pryce and Eileen Atkins.
2004 - Canadian businessman Edward Bronfman died at 77 years of age. Bronfman and his brother, Peter, built Edper Investments Ltd. into a business with interests ranging from forestry and mining to banking, beer and hockey to form the core of what is today Brascan Corp.
2005 - The University of North Carolina Tarheels won the NCAA men’s basketball championship, beating Illinois University, 75-70.
2005 - ChevronTexaco, the second largest U.S. petroleum corporation, announced plans to buy rival Unocal -- for $18.4 billion.
2005 - Pulitzer Prize winners for were announced: Steve Coll for Ghost Wars, his nonfiction book on Afghanistan, John Patrick Shanley for his play on child molestation in the Catholic Church and the poetry of Ted Kooser.
2006 - A nationwide strike in France shut down the Eiffel Tower and snarled air and rail travel for the second time in a week. Students barricaded themselves in schools to protest a jobs measure that had thrown the government into crisis mode.
2006 - Legislators in Massachusetts passed a bill requiring all citizens to have health insurance. Governor Romney signed it on April 12. The cost of the plan was estimated at $1 billion, about as much as the state spent on the uninsured.
2007 - New movies in U.S. theatres: Are We Done Yet?, starring Ice Cube, Nia Long, John C. McGinley, Aleisha Allen and Philip Daniel Bolden; and Firehouse Dog, with osh Hutcherson, Bree Turner, Bruce Greenwood, Dash Mihok and Steven Culp.
2007 - Film director Bob Clark (67) and his son, Ariel Hanrath-Clark, were killed in southern California in a head-on crash when a vehicle driven by a drunken driver steered into the wrong lane. Bob Clark was best known for the 1983 holiday classic A Christmas Story and Porky’s (1982).
2007 - Protestant leader Ian Paisley shook hands with Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern in public for the first time, as peace in Northern Ireland became more of a reality.
2008 - New movies in the U.S.: Leatherheads, starring George Clooney, Renée Zellweger, John Krasinski, Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Root, Ezra Buzzington, John Vance and Dan John Miller; Nim’s Island, starring Jodie Foster, Gerard Butler, Abigail Breslin and Alphonso McAuley; and The Ruins, with Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore, Laura Ramsey and Joe Anderson.
2009 - Eleven people were found shot to death around Mexico, some bearing signs of torture. Police found threatening messages emblematic of drug violence at the scenes.
2009 - 23-year-old former U.S. Marine shot and killed 3 police officers in Pittsburgh, PA who were responding to a domestic violence disturbance. Friends said the man feared the Obama administration was poised to ban guns.
2010 - A Dubai appeals court upheld a one-month prison sentence for a British couple convicted of kissing in a restaurant. Ayman Najafi and Charlotte Adams, both in their 20s, were arrested after an Emirati woman claimed they exchanged a passionate kiss in a restaurant where she and her daughter were having dinner.
2011 - New York investigators found three more sets of remains at a beach area 45 miles east of New York City, bringing the total number of bodies to 8, apparently all victims of a serial killer.
2012 - Iron Sky opened in U.S. movie theatres. The action comedy stars Udo Kier, Julia Dietze, Kym Jackson, Peta Sergeant, Götz Otto, Stephanie Paul and Christopher Kirby.
2012 - A federal judge in Louisiana sentenced five former police officers to prison for the deadly shootings on the New Orleans Danziger Bridge in the chaotic days following Hurricane Katrina. And U.S. District Judge Kurt Engelhardt also lashed out at prosecutors for allowing others involved to serve lighter penalties for their crimes.
2013 - Alabama lawmakers voted to allow posthumous pardons to the Scottsboro Boys, nine black teens who were wrongly convicted of raping two white women in 1931.
2013 - The Tony Award-winning musical, Kinky Boots, opened at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on Broadway. The show, from a book by Harvey Fierstein, features music and lyrics by singing superstar Cyndi Lauper. Kinky Boots won a season-high six Tony Awards in 2013, including Best Musical. Was the show popular, you ask? It certainly was, we reply. The show closed on April 7, 2019 after 2,505 performances.
2014 - Films debuting in U.S. theatres included: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with Chris Evans, Frank Grillo and Sebastian Stan; Alien Abduction, starring Katherine Sigismund, Corey Eid and Riley Polanski; the documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden; Goodbye World, with Adrian Grenier, Gaby Hoffmann and Ben McKenzie; In the Blood, starring Gina Carano, Cam Gigandet and Danny Trejo; The Players, with Jean Dujardin, Gilles Lellouche and Géraldine Nakache; Jinn, starring Ray Park, Serinda Swan and Faran Tahir; Nymphomaniac: Volume II, with Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgård and Willem Dafoe; Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan and Jessica Mance; and the documentaries, The Unknown Known, Watermark and Island of Lemurs: Madagascar.
2014 - Ukraine’s leaders scrambled to find new sources of energy after Russia hiked its gas price by 81 percent in response to the overthrow of Kiev’s pro-Kremlin regime.
2014 - A fire at a fuel storage facility near Santos port, Brazil’s largest, entered its third day. Firefighters were working around the clock to stop the flames from spreading.
2015 - 50-year-old Walter Scott was shot in North Charleston, South Carolina after a scuffle that began with his being stopped for a broken tail light in his car. A video soon emerged showing officer Michael Slager (33) repeatedly shooting a fleeing and apparently unarmed black man in the back. (On April 7 Slager was arrested and charged with murder. On June 8 Slager was indicted on a murder charge. In October Scott’s family reached a $6.5 million settlement with North Charleston.)
2016 - Air France began allowing female flight attendants to refuse to work the company’s new route to Iran (beginning April 17), for which they were required to wear a headscarf.
2016 - U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced a renewed crackdown on corporate takeovers (inversions) that allowed U.S. firms to switch their nationality to that of the firm they were buying in order to escape paying U.S. taxes.
2017 - The U.S. State Department reported that it was chopping $32.5 million in funding from the United Nations Population Fund. The reason for cutting off the funding was that Donald Trump believed the U.N. agency, through its work with China’s government, was supporting population control programs in China that included coercive abortion. The shift in policy was the result of Trump’s reinstatement of the so-called ‘Mexico City Policy’ that withheld U.S. funding for international organizations that performed abortions or provided information about abortion. Known by critics as the ‘Global Gag Rule’, the policy had been broadened in scope by Trump to include all global health assistance.
2017 - The Vatican announced a measure allowing priests of the schismatic Society of St. Pius X, founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1969, to celebrate marriages that will be recognized by Rome. Catholics had not been permitted to be married by SSPX priests because, as liturgy blogger Father John Zuhsldorf explained, a priest’s job at a wedding “is to act as the Church’s official witness to ensure that the proper form is followed.”
2018 - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg outlined a multiyear campaign to fight election interference by foreign governments and Internet trolls. This, as Zuckerberg confessed his company’s 2016 election failings, “It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough. We didn’t focus enough on preventing abuse and thinking through about how people could use these tools to do harm.”
2018 - China vowed to impose measures of the “same strength” in response to an announced Trump U.S. tariff hike on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods. The statement was part of a spiraling dispute that was fueling fears of a set back to the global economic recovery.
2019 - The Church of the Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah repealed rules started in 2015 that had banned baptisms for children of gay parents and made gay marriage a sin worthy of expulsion. The faith said in a statement that it was not changing its doctrinal opposition to gay marriage and still considered same-sex relationships to be a “serious transgression.” But people in same-sex relationships would no longer be considered “apostates” who must be kicked out of the religion.
2019 - On the 70th anniversary of the transatlantic military alliance: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on NATO allies to adapt to confront emerging threats, including Russia’s increased aggression, Chinese strategic competition and uncontrolled migration.
2020 - COVID-19 news: 1)U.S. fatalities rose to more than 7,000, with more than 275,000 infections. More than 60,000 people had died globally and cases topped 1.1 million. 2)New York state was promised 1,000 ventilators after the Chinese government facilitated a donation from billionaires Jack Ma and Joseph Tsai, the co-founders of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state of Oregon had volunteered to send 140 more breathing machines. 3)Walmart starting limiting the number of patrons in its stores after too many of its customers ignored social distancing guidelines. 4)Egyptian officials said 17 medics at the main cancer hospital in Cairo had been quarantined after testing positive for the coronavirus. 5)The European Commission approved a series of multi-billion-euro support packages for Greece, Poland and Portugal to help soften the economic impact of the virus through grants and loan guarantees.
2021 - Stanford won the NCAA women’s basketball championship with a win over Arizona, 54-53. It was the team’s first title since 1992. Sophomore star Haley Jones’ jump shot with 32 seconds left proved to be the winning points.
2021 - New Zealand hunters resumed their annual tradition of shooting invasive rabbits over the Easter weekend after a 4-year break. 11,968 rabbits were shot in the fundraising event that began over 25 years ago.
2021 - Germany announced plans to allow people vaccinated against Covid-19 certain privileges over their unvaccinated peers. This, in a significant step towards the creation of so-called ‘vaccine passports’.
2022 - Kansas won the men’s N.C.A.A. Basketball Championship, defeating North Carolina 72-69. It was the fourth title for Kansas.
2022 - President Biden called Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a war criminal. Biden called for a war crimes trial, as a global outcry mounted over the murder of civilians in the Ukrainian town of Bucha.
2022 - London’s marine insurance market added all of Russia’s waters to its list of areas deemed high risk. The new rating raised the cost of shipping and adds to the logistical pressures on Moscow.
2023 - One Day as a Lion opened in the U.S. The thriller (“Jackie Powers will stop at nothing to prevent his son from following him into a life of crime. With his mob employer in pursuit, a chance encounter at a roadside diner charts a new path...”) stars Frank Grillo, J.K. Simmons, Virginia Madsen, Valerie Brisky, Taryn Manning and Scott Caan.
2023 - Finland officially became the the 31st member of NATO -- at a ceremony in Brussels, Belgium. The addition of Finland to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization doubled its border with Russia.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day April 4
1821 - Linus Yale
inventor: Yale Infallible Bank Lock and cylinder lock; died Dec 25, 18681895 - Arthur Murray (Moses Teichman)
dancer: Arthur Murray Dance Studios; died Mar 3, 19911905 - Oliver Blake
actor: Zorro, Bells Are Ringing, The Fearmakers, The Seven Little Foys, Hell’s Outpost, Casanova’s Big Night; died Feb 12, 19921906 - John Cameron Swayze
newsman: NBC-TV; panelist: Who Said That; commercial spokesman: Timex; died Aug 15, 19951908 - Ted McMichael
singer: founding member of The Merry Macs: Mairzy Doats, Sentimental Journey, The Hut-Sut Song, By-U, By-O [The Louisana Lullaby], Deep in the Heart of Texas, Jingle, Jangle, Jingle; died Feb 27, 20011914 - Frances Langford (Frances Newbern)
radio singer: I’m In The Mood For Love; appeared on Dick Powell’s Hollywood Hotel, Bob Hope’s USO tours; actress: Born to Dance, Yankee Doodle Dandy, Dixie Jamboree, Girl Rush; died July 11, 20051915 - Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield)
blues singer, guitarist: Close to You, Baby Please Don’t Go, She’s Nineteen Years Old, I Can’t Be Satisfied, Honey Bee; died Apr 30, 19831921 - Elizabeth Wilson
actress: The Boys Next Door, Quiz Show, The Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Addams Family, The Graduate, Taken in Marriage, Doc, East Side/West Side; died May 9, 20151922 - Elmer Bernstein
Academy Award-winning composer of film scores: Thoroughly Modern Millie [1967]; Sudden Fear, The Man with the Golden Arm, Ten Commandments, Sweet Smell of Success, To Kill a Mocking Bird, Walk on the Wild Side, The Magnificent Seven; died Aug 18, 20041923 - Dorothy Hart
actress: Loan Shark, Tarzan’s Savage Fury, I Was a Communist for the FBI, Undertow, Calamity Jane and Sam Bass, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Naked City, The Gunfighters; died Jul 11, 20041923 - Peter Vaughan
actor: Is There Anybody There?, Life Beyond the Box: Norman Stanley Fletcher, Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang), When We Are Married, Sins, The French Lieutenant’s Woman; died Dec 6, 20161924 - Gil (Gilbert Raymond) Hodges
baseball: Brooklyn Dodgers [shares record for most home runs in one game [4] August 31, 1950/World Series: 1947, 1949, 1952, 1953, 1955, 1956/all-star: 1949, 1950-1955, 1957], LA Dodgers [World Series: 1959], NY Mets; died Apr 2, 19721924 - Noreen Nash
actress: Wake Me When It’s Over, The Lone Ranger and the Lost City of Gold, Phantom From Space, The Checkered Coat, The Big Fix; died Jun 6, 20231928 - Maya Angelou
author: All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes; died May 28, 20141932 - Clive Davis
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer, multi-Grammy Award Winning music executive, producer: president of Columbia Records [1967-1973], founder, president Arista Records [1975-2000], chairman and CEO of the RCA Music Group [2002-2008]; more1932 - Anthony Perkins
actor: Psycho series, The Sins of Dorian Gray, Mahogany, Murder on the Orient Express, On the Beach, Desire Under the Elms, Friendly Persuasion; died Sep 12, 19921938 - Angelo (Bartlett) Giamatti
president: Yale University; commisioner: major-league baseball; died Sep 1, 1989
1938 - Norro Wilson
singer, composer, producer: Surround Me with Love, Men [for Charly McClain]; sang duets with Margo Smith; died Jun 8, 20171939 - JoAnne Carner (Gunerson)
golf champion: U.S. Open [1971, 1976], Du Maurier Classic [1975, 1978]1939 - Hugh Masekela
musician: trumpet: Grazing in the Grass; died Jan 23, 20181939 - Ernie Terrell
boxer: Heavyweight Champ [1965]; died Dec 16, 20141942 - Jim (James Louis) Fregosi
baseball: LA Angels [all-star: 1964], California Angels [all-star: 1966-1970], NY Mets, Texas Rangers, Pittsburgh Pirates; died Feb 14, 20141942 - Kris Jensen
singer: Torture1942 - Kitty Kelley
author: Nancy Reagan, Jackie O, His Way1943 - Mike Epstein
‘Superjew’: baseball: Baltimore Orioles, Washington Senators, Oakland Athletics [World Series: 1972], California Angels, Texas Rangers1944 - Craig T. Nelson
Emmy Award-winning actor: Coach [1991-1992]; Probable Cause, Turner and Hooch, Troop Beverly Hills, Silkwood, All the Right Moves, Stir Crazy, Chicago Story, Call to Glory, Private Benjamin, Poltergeist, The Killing Fields, The District, Young Sheldon1947 - Ray (Raymond Earl) Fosse
baseball: catcher: Cleveland Indians [all-star: 1970, 1971], Oakland Athletics [World Series: 1973, 1974], Seattle Mariners, Milwaukee Brewers1947 - Ed White
football: Minnesota Vikings guard: Super Bowls IV, VIII, IX, XI1948 - Berry Oakley
musician: bass: group: The Allman Brothers Band: Ramblin’ Man; died Nov 11, 19721950 - Christine Lahti
actress: Hawaii Five-0 [2012], Swing Shift, Crazy from the Heart, The Doctor, Hideaway, The Harvey Korman Show1951 - Steve Gatlin
singer: group: The Gatlin Brothers: Sweet Becky Walker, The Bigger They Are, the Harder They Fall, Delta Dirt, Broken Lady, Statues without Hearts, Night Time Magic, I’ve Done Enough Dyin’ Today, All the Gold in California, Take Me to Your Lovin’ Place, It Don’t Get No Better Than This, Sure Feels like Love, Houston [Means I’m One Day Closer to You], Denver1951 - John Hannah
Pro Football Hall of Famer [guard]: Univ of Alabama; NFL: New England Patriots [8 Pro Bowls; 4-time NFLPA Offensive Lineman of the Year1952 - Dave Hill
musician: guitar: group: Slade: Run Runaway, My Oh My, Skweeze Me, Pleeze Me, Merry Xmas Everybody1952 - Gary Moore
musician: guitar: group: Thin Lizzy: Whiskey in the Jar, Rocker, She Knows, Still in Love With You, Showdown, Rosalie, Wild One, Fighting My Way Back; died Feb 6, 20111956 - David E. Kelley
TV producer: Boston Legal, Life on Mars, Boston Public, The Practice, Ally McBeal, Chicago Hope, Picket Fences, Doogie Howser, M.D., L.A. Law1957 - Graeme Kelling
musician: guitar: group: Deacon Blue; died June 10, 20041959 - Phil Morris
actor: Seinfeld, Smallville, Babylon 5, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager, The Young and the Restless, Mission: Impossible; son of actor Greg Morris1960 - Hugo Weaving
actor: The Matrix, The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit film trilogies; V for Vendetta, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Captain America: The First Avenger, Cloud Atlas, Babe, Happy Feet, Happy Feet Two, Transformers1961 - Tom Byron
actor [1982-2012] X-rated films: has appeared in over 2500 porn titles, the most credited actor in the Internet Adult Film Database1964 - Anthony Clark
comedian, actor: Yes, Dear, Grad Night, Say Uncle, Beat Boys Beat Girls, Killing Cinderella, The Rock, Hourglass, The Thing Called Love1964 - David Cross
comedian, actor: Mr. Show, Arrested Development, The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, Freak Show, Modern Family1965 - Robert Downey Jr
actor: Iron Man film series, Sherlock Holmes film series Ally McBeal, Richard III, Natural Born Killers, Short Cuts, Chaplin, Soapdish, Baby It’s You, U.S. Marshals1966 - Nancy McKeon
actress: The Facts of Life, The Wrong Woman, Teresa’s Tattoo, Where the Day Takes You, The Lightning Incident, Poison Ivy, High School USA1967 - Rob Murray
hockey [center]: Washington Capitals, Winnipeg Jets, Phoenix Coyotes; head coach: Providence Bruins [AHL]1968 - Xenia Seeberg
actress: Doomsday, Lord of the Undead, Liebe, Tod & viele Kalorien, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door, Hilda Humphrey1972 - Jill Scott
singer: LPs: Who Is Jill Scott? Words and Sounds Vol. 1, Beautifully Human: Words and Sounds Vol. 2, The Real Thing: Words and Sounds Vol. 3, The Light of the Sun; actress: Hounddog, Why Did I Get Married?, The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency1973 - David Blaine
magician, endurance artist: Buried Alive, Frozen in Time, Vertigo, Above the Below, Drowned Alive, Revolution, Dive of Death; more1973 - Kelly Price
singer: Friend of Mine (Remix) (featuring R. Kelly and Ronald Isley); As We Lay; You Should’ve Told Me; It’s My Time1975 - Scott Rolen
baseball [third base]: Cincinnati Reds, Toronto Blue Jays, Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals
1975 - Kevin Weekes
hockey [goalie]: Florida Panthers, Vancouver Canucks, New York Islanders, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes, New York Rangers1976 - James Roday
actor: Psych, First Years, Miss Match, Love Bites, A Million Little Things, Beerfest, The Dukes of Hazzard1977 - Chad Morton
football [running back]: USC; NFL: New Orleans Saints, New York Jets, Washington Redskins, New York Giants1979 - Heath Ledger
Academy Award-winning supporting actor: The Dark Knight [2008]; Brokeback Mountain, 10 Things I Hate About You, The Patriot, Monster’s Ball; died Jan 22, 20081979 - Roberto Luongo
ice hockey [goaltender]: NHL: New York Islanders, Florida Panthers, Vancouver Canucks [William M. Jennings Trophy 2010-2011]; Canadian national team1979 - Natasha Lyonne
actress: American Pie film series, Everyone Says I Love You, Slums of Beverly Hills, But I’m a Cheerleader, Blade: Trinity, Orange Is the New Black, Poker Face1983 - Ben Gordon
basketball [shooting guard]: NBA: Chicago Bulls [2004–2009: NBA Sixth Man of the Year, All-Rookie First Team (2005)], Detroit Pistons [2009–2012], Charlotte Bobcats [2012–2014], Orlando Magic [2014–2015], Texas Legends [2017]1983 - Amanda Righetti
actress: The Mentalist, Friday the 13th, The O.C., North Shore, Reunion, The Chateau Meroux, Wandering Eye, Captain America: The First Avenger, Shadow of Fear1984 - Jessie Baylin
songwriter, singer: So Hard, Leave Your Mark, I’ll Cry for the Both of Us, The Glitter; married to drummer Nathan Followill; more1987 - Sarah Gadon
actress: Happy Town, 11.22.63, The Other Me, The Nut Job, Total Drama, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, A Royal Night Out, The 9th Life of Louis Drax, The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, Alias Grace1993 - Frank Kaminsky
basketball [center]: Univ of Wisconsin [holds UW single game record for points (43)]: 2015 NCAA Championship game; NBA: Charlotte Hornets [2015–2019]; Phoenix Suns [2019-2022]; Atlanta Hawks [2022–2023]; Houston Rockets [2023]
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day April 4
1952Wheel of Fortune (facts) - Kay Starr
Any Time (facts) - Eddie Fisher
1961
1970
1979
1988
1997
2006
2015
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
