April 12
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Events on This Day
1799 - Phineas Pratt patented the comb cutting machine -- a “machine for making combs.”1833 - Charles Gaylor patented the fireproof safe in New York City. The safes are widely used to protect everything from priceless art to sensitive computer software. Some safes can burn at 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit for an hour and the contents will still be as cool as a cucumber. Other units can sustain heat up to 400-500 degrees for about the same time without damaging the valuable contents within.
1847 - Yung Wing, one of several Chinese students to arrive in America this day, went on to become the first student from China to graduate from Yale University [1854].
1877 - James Alexander Tyng, while playing a baseball game in Lynn, MA, became the first ballplayer to wear a catcher’s mask.
1892 - Voters in Lockport, NY became the first in the U.S. to use voting machines.
1905 - The Hippodrome opened in New York City with the gala musical revue, A Yankee Circus on Mars. The huge theatre was located on Sixth Avenue between 43rd and 44th street, was built only one block away from the newly named Times Square, and brought the high-tech pleasures of amusement parks to the inner city.
1932 - The thrill-comedy, Joe Palooka, which would also be a popular comic strip, made its debut on CBS radio.
1939 - One of the classic theme songs of the Big Band era was recorded for Decca. Woody Herman’s orchestra recorded Woodchopper’s Ball.
1940 - Italy annexed Albania and proclaimed King Victor Emmanuel III king of Albania. The Italian occupation of Albania lasted from April 7, 1939 (the date of the invasion) to the Italian capitulation to the Allies on September 8, 1943.
1945 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States, died of a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia. He was 63 years old. Upon FDR’s death, Vice President Harry S Truman was sworn in as the 33rd chief executive of the United States.
1951 - The Knesset (Israel’s parliament) proclaimed Yom Hashoah U'Mered HaGetaot (Holocaust and Ghetto Revolt Remembrance Day) to be the 27th of Nissan. The name later became known as Yom Hashoah Ve Hagevurah (Devastation and Heroism Day) and even later simplified to Yom Hashoah.
1954 - Bill Haley and His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock for Decca Records on this day. The song was recorded at the Pythian Temple, “a big, barnlike building with great echo,” in New York City. Rock Around the Clock was formally released a month later. Most rock historians feel the tune, featured in the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle, ushered in the era of rock ’n’ roll. It hit number one on June 29, 1955 and stayed there for eight weeks, remaining on the charts for a total of 24 weeks. The record has now sold over 15,000,000 copies.
1955 - The polio vaccine of Dr. Jonas Salk was termed “safe, effective and potent” by the University of Michigan Polio Vaccine Evaluation Center.
1959 - The (13th annual) Tony Awards were presented at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. Big winners were (among others): J.B. (best Play); Redhead (best Musical); Jason Robards, Jr. in The Disenchanted (best Actor dramatic); Gertrude Berg in A Majority of One (best Actress dramatic); Richard Kiley in Redhead (best Actor musical); Gwen Verdon in Redhead (best Actress musical).
1961 - Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Alexeyevich Gargarin was the first person in space as he took a one orbit, 1 hour and 24 minute trip around the earth as he rode in a 10,395 pound Vostok 1.
1963 - Bob Dylan appeared in his first solo concert at Town Hall in New York City.
1964 - Arnold Palmer won his fourth Masters title and became the first golfer to make career earnings of $506,496.84. We haven’t a clue where the 84 cents came from.
1964 - Philadelphia singer Chubby Checker married former Miss World, the Dutch-born beauty Catharina Lodders.
1966 - Jan Berry, age 25, at the top of his game as half of the surfing-music duo Jan and Dean, crashed his new Corvette Stingray into the back of a parked truck on a side street in Beverly Hills. He was critically injured and totally paralyzed for more than a year. He suffered extensive brain damage that left him unable to perform for more than a decade. (Berry died March 26, 2004 of a seizure related to those 1966 injuries.)
1967 - Jim Brown made his TV acting debut in Cops and Robbers on the NBC show I Spy, starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp. I Spy aired from 1965 through 1968. The primary characters, Cosby and Culp, were secret agents posing as a top-notch tennis star and his trainer-companion. I Spy was the first television series to co-star a black actor.
1969 - Lucy and Snoopy of the comic strip Peanuts made the cover of Saturday Review.
1975 - Philadelphia Freedom, by The Elton John Band, hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 signles chart. The song stayed at the top of the tune tabulation for for two terrific weeks (as we used to say in the biz). “Oh Philadelphia freedom shine on me, I love you; Shine a light through the eyes of the ones left behind; Shine a light shine a light; Shine a light won’t you shine a light; Philadelphia freedom I love you, yes I do.”
1977 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter reduced the prison term of convicted Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy, making him elligible for parole that summer.
1981 - The first space shuttle, Columbia, carrying astronauts Robert L. Crippen and John W. Young, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, FL, on its first test flight. It was designated STS-1 (space transportation system).
1981 - Joe Louis, boxing’s heavyweight champion from 1937-1949, died at 66 years of age. ‘The Brown Bomber’ was buried at Arlington National Cemetery under a waiver by U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
1983 - Chicago voters went to the polls and elected Harold Washington the city’s first black mayor.
1984 - Challenger astronauts made the first satellite repair in orbit by returning a healthy Solar Max satellite to space. The orbiting sun watcher had been circling the Earth for three years with all circuits dead before repairs were made.
1985 - Federal inspectors declared that four animals of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus were not unicorns, as the circus said, but goats with horns which had been surgically implanted. The circus was ordered to quit advertising the fake unicorns as anything else but goats. We assure you that no animals are harmed in the production of Those Were the Days and we use only first-rate, genuine unicorns.
1985 - U.S. Senator Jake Garn of Utah became the first senator to fly in space. The shuttle Discovery (STS 51-D) lifted off on this day from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It landed at Cape Canaveral on April 19, 1985, after orbiting the earth 109 times.
1987 - Larry Mize, 28, hit a miracle shot -- a 140-foot chip -- to win the Masters golf title in Augusta, GA. Mize defeated Greg Norman and Severiano Ballesteros in a playoff.
1988 - Singer Sonny Bono was elected to his first political office: Mayor of Palm Springs, CA. Bono, who said he never voted until age 53, wanted the mayor’s job because of his frustration over the red tape he faced for a remodeling project at his Italian restaurant.
1989 - Herbert Mills, who performed with The Mills Brothers for nearly 60 years, died in Las Vegas at age 77. The Mills Brothers’ first big hit was Tiger Rag [1931]. They were still on the charts as late as 1968 with Cab Driver. The Mills Brothers’ Paper Doll [1943] was one of the biggest hits of the decade, selling over six million copies.
1990 - Three U.S. tuna canneries, H.J. Heinz, Van Camp and Bumblebee, announced ‘dolphin-safe’ tuna-catching practices. After years of campaigning to stop the drowning of dolphins in tuna nets, environmentalists finally claimed victory.
1991 - McDonald’s opened its first restaurant in Beijing, China. It was the largest McDonald’s in the world: 28,000 square feet, two stories, seating 700 and employing 1,000.
1992 - Euro Disneyland opened in Marne-La-Vallee, France. The $4-billion theme park took five years to build.
1994 - Playwright Edward Albee won his third Pulitzer Prize -- for Three Tall Women. The prize for fiction went to E. Annie Proulx for The Shipping News, and the Pulitzer for public service journalism went to the Akron Beacon Journal of Ohio.
1996 - Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Twin Towers were declared to be the world’s tallest buildings. The declaration came from a committee of experts meeting in the shadow of the previous title-holder, the Sears Tower in Chicago. (Several movies have used the towers to add great entertainment value, including Entrapment, with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, starring Tom Cruise.)
1996 - Debut day in the U.S. for these films: Fear, starring Mark Wahlberg, Reese Witherspoon, William Petersen and Alyssa Milano; and James and the Giant Peach, with Simon Callow, Richard Dreyfuss, Jane Leeves and Joanna Lumley.
1997 - Pope John Paul II, on a peace mission to Sarajevo, waded into crowds declaring, “Never again war.”
1997 - The Museum of African American History opened in Detroit. The $38.4-million museum featured a 16,000-sq.-foot core exhibit.
1998 - Mark O’Meara won the Masters golf tournament in Augusta, GA with a 9-under-par score of 279.
1998 - Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams appealed to IRA supporters to accept a compromise peace accord for Northern Ireland.
1999 - U.S. District Judge Susan Webber Wright found President Bill Clinton in civil contempt of court for his “willful failure” to obey her repeated orders to testify truthfully in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit. “Simply put, the president’s deposition testimony regarding whether he had ever been alone with Ms. (Monica) Lewinsky was intentionally false and his statements regarding whether he had ever engaged in sexual relations with Ms. Lewinsky likewise were intentionally false,” the judge wrote of Clinton’s January 17, 1998 deposition.
1999 - The Pulitzer Prize in literature went to Michael Cunningham for his novel The Hours. Other winners were The Washington Post (Public Service), the staff of The Wall Street Journal (International Reporting), and John McPhee for Annals of the Former World (General Non-Fiction).
2000 - The Israel Supreme Court ruled that the detention of Lebanese men for more than a decade was illegal.
2001 - The 24 crew members of a U.S. spy plane arrived in Hawaii after being held for 11 days in China following their aircraft’s midair collision with a Chinese fighter jet.
2002 - The Sweetest Thing opened in the U.S. The romantic comedy stars Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Thomas Jane, Selma Blair, Parker Posey, Jason Bateman and Damon Williams. Also debuting: Changing Lanes, with Ben Affleck, Samuel L. Jackson, Toni Collette, Sydney Pollack, William Hurt, Amanda Peet, Kim Staunton and Richard Jenkins; Frailty, starring Bill Paxton, Matthew Mcconaughey, Powers Boothe, Matt O’Leary, Luke Askew, Jeremy Sumpter and Derk Cheetwood; New Best Friend, with Meredith Monroe, Mia Kirshner, Dominique Swain, Rachel True, Taye Diggs, Oliver Hudson, Scott Bairstow, Eric Michael Cole, Joanna Canton and Glynnis O’Connor.
2002 - Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law ignored growing demands for his resignation because of the sex scandal engulfing the church. (Law did resign in December 2002.)
2003 - Women’s activists took their fight against the all-male Augusta National Country Club to as close as they could get to the Masters tournament.
2004 - Miss Missouri, Shandi Finnessey, a 25-year-old graduate student who published a children’s book, was crowned Miss USA at the 53rd annual pageant.
2005 - Discount retail giant Wal-Mart pledged to spend $35 million over ten years to conserve land equal to the total U.S. footprint of its stores and other facilities.
2006 - An Indian court struck down a controversial order banning dance bars in the financial hub of Mumbai, bringing cheers from champions of the rowdy drinking houses.
2006 - The Indiana Toll Road was leased for $3.8 billion to a Spanish-Australian consortium that was to maintain and run it for 75 years.
2007 - Swiss-based Nestle SA, the world’s biggest food and drink company, announced its intention to buy Gerber Products Company from Swiss pharmaceutical maker Novartis SA for $5.5 billion. The acquisition would give Nestle the largest share of the global baby food market.
2007 - New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine was involved in an SUV crash as he headed to a meeting between radio show host Don Imus and the Rutgers women’s basketball team. The near-fatal crash occurred when the SUV, driven by a state trooper, was hit by another vehicle that swerved to avoid another vehicle. Corzine, not wearing his seat belt (as required by law) at the time of the crash, was hospitalized for 18 days.
2008 - King Harald V opened Norway’s $840-million national opera house on the shores of the Oslo Fjord. “The opera house rises as a new and monumental landmark,” said King Harald in declaring the opera open. “This house for many generations to come will be filled with music, dance and song.”
2009 - A massive fire destroyed or damaged 45 summer cottages at the 146-year-old Alton Bay, New Hampshire Christian Conference Center.
2009 - U.S. Navy SEAL (SEa, Air, and Land) snipers on a destroyer (USS Bainbridge) shot and killed three Somali pirates and plucked an unharmed Capt. Richard Phillips (of the Maersk Alabama) to safety. A fourth pirate surrendered.
2010 - Winners of the Pulitzer Prize were announced. Liaquat Ahamed won the history category for his book Lords of Finance: The Bankers Who Broke the World.
2011 - Japan raised the crisis level at its crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to a severity on par with the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Authorities cited high overall radiation leaks that had contaminated the air, tap water, vegetables and seawater. Regulators said they raised the rating from 5 to 7, the highest level on an international scale of nuclear accidents.
2012 - Newark, New Jersey’s Mayor Cory Booker (42) entered the burning house of his neighbor and rescued her daughter, Zina Hodge (47). Booker suffered 2nd degree burns and smoke inhalation and was taken to the hospital along with three members of his security detail and Hodge.
2013 - Motion pictures opening in U.S. theatres: 42, starring Alan Tudyk, Harrison Ford, Gino Anthony Pesi, Christopher Meloni, Lucas Black, John C. McGinley, Kelley Jakle, Ryan Merriman and Jud Tylor; Scary Movie 5, with Lindsay Lohan, Anna Faris, Charlie Sheen, Ashley Tisdale, Christine Taylor, Terry Crews, Kate Walsh, Jerry O’Connell, Tyler Posey, Heather Locklear and Molly Shannon; Disconnect starring Jason Bateman, Alexander Skarsgård, Paula Patton, Max Thieriot, Andrea Riseborough, Colin Ford, Frank Grillo, Michael Nyqvist and Hope Davis; It’s a Disaster, with Rachel Boston, Kevin M. Brennan, David Cross, America Ferrera, Jeff Grace, Erinn Hayes, Blaise Miller and Julia Stiles; To the Wonder, starring Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem, Olga Kurylenko, Charles Baker, Romina Mondello, Cassidee Vandalia, Darryl Cox, Tatiana Chiline and Tamar Baruch.
2013 - Armed men stole over $4 million in jewelry from a store in Fairfield, Connecticut, after kidnapping the store manager and another employee to gain access. The robbers gained access to the jewelry store after taking hostage two managers of the business who lived in a corporate-leased apartment in Meriden. The employees were bound and blindfolded, as were two other visitors to the apartment. The managers were then brought back to the store in Fairfield, where they were forced to use an access code to open the safe. Just in case you think this might be a great way to get rich quick, bear in mind that the FBI captured and charged five men with the kidnapping and heist on May 23, 2013.
2014 - France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius arrived in Cuba for a brief but historic visit. It was the first by such a high-ranking French official in 30 years and was a sign of the quickening pace of improving ties between the European Union and Havana.
2014 - A raging forest fire near the port city of Valparaíso, Chile killed least 15 people and destroyed some 2,500 homes. Thousands were evacuated, including more than 200 female inmates at a prison.
2015 - Russia’s head of its space command, Oleg Maidanovich, said that specialists had uncovered a group of spy satellites and warned of enemy satellites that could masquerade as space junk. “There are cases when a space satellite pretends to be space junk for years and then wakes up and starts working at the right moment,” Maidanovich said.
2015 - One student was killed and 141 injured in a stampede on the campus of the University of Nairobi, Kenya. Students panicked when they mistook several accidental electrical explosions for an extremist attack.
2016 - Equal Pay Day: POTUS Barack Obama designated the historic and iconic home and headquarters of the National Woman’s Party as a national monument. Highlighting the push for women’s equality, the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum in Washington, DC would become the new Belmont-Paul Women’s Equality National Monument.
2017 - The U.S. government hiring freeze implemented by POTUS Trump was lifted, but budget director Mick Mulvaney said many jobs would remain unfilled because the White House had embarked on a government-wide workforce reduction. Critics saw the cuts as disproportionately hurting women and minorities, who had benefited from the government’s commitment to fair practices in hiring and promotions.
2018 - China’s commerce ministry said trade negotiations with the U.S. would be impossible as dialogue from the Trump Administration was not sincere. China vowed to retaliate if POTUS Trump escalated tensions further.
2018 - President Emmanuel Macron said France had proof that the Syrian government carried out a chemical weapons attack on its own citizens the previous week and said France would decide whether to strike back when all the necessary information has been gathered.
2019 - Motion pictures debuting in the U.S. included: After, starring Selma Blair, Hero Fiennes Tiffin and Peter Gallagher; Hellboy, with David Harbour, Ian McShane and Milla Jovovich; Little, starring Justin Hartley, Regina Hall and Marsai Martin; the animated Missing Link, featuring the voices of Timothy Olyphant, Zoe Saldana, Hugh Jackman, Emma Thompson, Zach Galifianakis, Amrita Acharia, Matt Lucas, Stephen Fry and David Walliams; Crypto, starring Kurt Russell, Luke Hemsworth and Alexis Bledel; Her Smell, with Elisabeth Moss, Cara Delevingne and Dan Stevens; Mary Magdalene, starring Rooney Mara, Joaquin Phoenix and Chiwetel Ejiofor; Rottentail, with Dominique Swain, Corin Nemec and William McNamara; Stockholm, starring Noomi Rapace, Mark Strong and Ethan Hawke; and Teen Spirit, with Elle Fanning, Agnieszka Grochowska and Archie Madekwe.
2019 - Russia’s President Vladimir Putin visited rocket-maker Energomash and announced that the Russian government would offer more cash to develop new rockets and create more incentives for space industry workers. Putin’s visit came on Cosmonauts Day, a holiday marking the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s flight on April 12, 1961.
2020 - COVID-19 news: 1)POTUS Trump retweeted a call to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci after the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases said lives could have been saved if the country had moved to shut down sooner. 2)More than 20,000 people in the U.S. had died and some 530,000 people had tested positive. Worldwide, more than 1.79 million people had been diagnosed since the virus emerged in China in December and the death toll passed 109,000. 3)Britain said it was pledging 200 million pounds ($248 million) to the World Health Organization (WHO) and charities to help slow the spread of the coronavirus in vulnerable countries and help prevent a second wave of infections. 4)South Africa, which had banned the sale of all alcohol and cigarettes under a coronavirus lockdown that triggered a wave of lootings of liquor shops, said it had caught police officers who were complicit in illegal alcohol sales.
2021 - A Los Angeles grand jury indicted former movie producer Harvey Weinstein (67) on four counts each of forcible rape and forcible oral copulation, two counts of sexual battery, and one count of sexual penetration by force.
2021 - The Treasury Department said the U.S. government’s budget deficit had surged to an all-time high of $1.7 trillion.
2021 - The U.N. reported that the COVID-19 pandemic had led to a spike in gender-based violence in 2020 (called the Shadow Pandemic) and combatants continued to use sexual violence and political repression. The report focused on 18 countries and listed 52 parties credibly suspected of responsibility for patterns of rape or other forms of sexual violence.
2022 - South Korea said North Korea was destroying a South Korean-owned golf course at a scenic mountain resort. It was the second confirmed case of South Korean assets being eliminated in an area where the rivals once ran a joint tour program. (South Korea suspended the joint project after one of its tourists was fatally shot by a North Korean soldier there.)
2022 - Gilbert Gottfried (67) died in Manhattan following a long illness. The comedian who gave voice to the parrot in the hit Disney animated feature “Aladdin" (1992) and the duck in commercials for Aflac insurance.
2022 - President Biden waived rules that restrict ethanol blending. This, in an effort to trim gasoline prices.
2022 - The wind-driven McBride fire began in New Mexico. Named named after McBride Road, near where it started on this day, it burned 6,159 acres and destroyed more than 200 homes in the Ruidoso area. An elderly couple died as they tried to evacuate.
2023 - “New York City has done a lot recently when it comes to fighting public enemy number one: rats. But it was clear we needed someone solely focused on leading our rat reduction efforts across all five boroughs, and today I’m proud to announce Kathy Corradi as New York City’s first-ever rat czar,” said Mayor Eric Adams.
2023 - U.S. President Joe Biden visited Northern Ireland to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement. It was his first presidential visit to Northern Ireland and Mr. Biden stressed that American investment could help fuel economic growth -- especially if the fractious politicians in Belfast could resolve the ongoing political crisis. And they, apparently, did just that the following January.
2023 - A court issued an order for a medication abortion drug to be kept available. U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued a ruling that would have halted the FDA’s 23-year-old approval of the drug, mifepristone, but the appeals court ordered the approval to stay in effect and the drug to remain on the market while an expedited appeal played out.
2024 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Civil War, starring Nick Offerman, Kirsten Dunst and Wagner Moura; and Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, with Jermaine Fowler, June Squibb and Iantha Richardson.
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Birthdays on This Day April 12
1777 - Henry Clay
‘The Great Pacificator’: U.S. Secretary of State under John Quincy Adams; three time unsuccessful candidate for president of U.S.: “I would rather be right than president.”; died June 29, 18521898 - Lily Pons
opera singer: Met soprano: Rigoletto, The Barber of Seville; actress: Hitting a New High, That Girl From Paris, I Dream Too Much; was married to conductor/arranger Andre Kostelanetz; died Feb 13, 19761915 - Joan Haythorne
actress: Days of Hope, Countess Dracula, Very Important Person, The Shakedown, Svengali, Highly Dangerous; died Aug 27, 19871916 - Russ Garcia
musician, composer, orchestra leader: Waiter, Make Mine Blues [w/Anita O’Day]; Royal Wedding Suite [w/Oscar Peterson]; died Nov 19, 20111917 - Helen Forrest
singer: I Had the Craziest Dream, All the Things You Are, The Man I Love, Deep Purple, Moonray, I’m Nobody’s Baby, Bewitched, All The Things You Are [w/Artie Shaw], The Man I Love [w/Benny Goodman]; died July 11, 19991919 - Billy (Richard) Vaughn
musician, orchestra leader: Melody of Love, The Shifting, Whispering Sands, Sail along Silver Moon; baritone singer with The Hilltoppers; music director: Dot Records; died Sep 26, 19911923 - Ann Miller (Lucille Ann Collier)
actress, dancer: Easter Parade, Sugar Babies, You Can’t Take It with You, Hit the Deck, Kiss Me Kate, On the Town, Room Service, Lovely to Look At; died Jan 22, 20041926 - Jane Withers
actress: Captain Newman, M.D., Giant, The Farmer Takes a Wife, Bright Eyes, TV commercials: Josephine the plumber; died Aug 7, 20211930 - John Landy
Australian runner: set mile record of 3:57.9 a month after Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile; died Feb 24, 20221932 - Tiny Tim (aka Darry Dover, Larry Love) (Herbert Khaury)
ukulele playing, falsetto singer: Tiptoe Through the Tulips, Sonny Boy; film: You Are What You Eat, TV: Laugh In; died Nov 30, 19961933 - Charlie (Charles Richard) Lau
baseball: Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Braves, Baltimore Orioles, KC Athletics, Atlanta Braves; died Mar 18, 19841936 - Charles Napier
actor: Annapolis, The Manchurian Candidate, Extreme Honor, Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, The Silence of the Lambs, Philadelphia; died Oct 5, 20111940 - Herbie Hancock
Oscar-winning jazz/fusion musician, composer of original score: Round Midnight [1986]; TV score: Rockschool; singles: Riot, Cantaloupe Island, Rockit, Dolphin’s Dance1941 - Bobby Moore
English footballer [defender]: captain of the 1966 World-Cup-Winning team1942 - Jacob Zuma
political leader: President of South Africa [2009-2018]1944 - Terry (Walter) Harmon
baseball: Philadelphia Phillies1944 - John Kay (Joachim Krauledat)
musician: guitar; singer: group: Steppenwolf: Born To Be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride, Rock Me1946 - Ed O’Neill
actor: Modern Family, Married......with Children, Little Giants, Wayne’s World, Deliverance, Dragnet [2003]1947 - Tom Clancy
author: The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games; baseball exec: co-owner: Baltmore Orioles; died Oct 1, 2013; more
1947 - Dan Lauria
actor: The Wonder Years, Amazing Grace, In the Line of Duty: Ambush in Waco, Stakeout1947 - David Letterman
TV host & comedian: Late Night with David Letterman, Late Show with David Letterman; TV mogul: founded Worldwide Pants Incorporated1948 - Don Fernando
actor [1977-2012]: X-rated films: Erotic Adventures of Candy, Sex Dreams on Maple Street, Sex Aliens, The Erotic Adventures of Bonnie & Clyde, Muffy the Vampire Layer, Big Boob Boat Ride, Perverted Stories: The Movie1949 - Scott Turow
author: Presumed Innocent, The Burden of Proof1950 - ‘Chip’ James Earl Carter III
son of 39th U.S. President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Roslyn Carter1950 - David Cassidy
actor: The Partridge Family, Spirit of ’76, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat; singer: Cherish, I Think I Love You; son of actors: Jack Cassidy, Evelyn Ward; died Nov 21, 20171951 - Alex Briley
singer: group: The Village People [the G.I./Military Man]: Y.M.C.A, Go West, Can’t Stop the Music, I Am What I Am, San Francisco [You Got Me], In the Navy, Macho Man1952 - Reuben Gant
football: Oklahoma State Univ., Buffalo Bills1954 - Pat Travers
musician: guitarist, keyboardist; singer: Stop and Smile, Rock and Roll Susie, Stevie, Life in London, Dedication, Heat in the Street, Boom, Boom [Out Go the Lights]1956 - Andy Garcia
actor: When a Man Loves a Woman, A Show of Force, The Godfather: Part 3, The Untouchables, Blue Skies Again, Ocean’s Eleven, Ocean’s Twelve, Ocean’s Thirteen, Ghostbusters [2016]1957 - Vince Gill
Grammy Award-winning singer: When Love Finds You [1994], I Still Believe in You [1992], When I Call Your Name [1990], Restless [w/Steve Wariner and Ricky Skaggs] [1991]; Grammy Award-winning musician: guitar: Red Wing [w/Asleep at the Wheel] [1993]; songwriter: If It Weren’t for Him [w/Roseanne Cash]; groups: Bluegrass Alliance, Sundance, The Cherry Bombs, Pure Prairie League1958 - Will Sergeant
musician: guitar: groups: Echo & The Bunnymen: Pictures on My Wall, Rescue; Electrafixion: LPs: Zephyr, Burned1962 - Rob Baker
musician: guitar: group: The Tragically Hip: New Orleans Is Sinking, Courage, Poets, Bobcaygeon, Fireworks, Escape is at Hand for the Travelin’ Man1967 - Donna Andrews
golf: won six titles on the LPGA Tour [1993-1998], including the 1994 Nabisco Dinah Shore1967 - Mellow Man Ace (Ulpiano Sergio Reyes)
rapper: Mentirosa, Guillotine Tactics, Future Shock, Is It You?, Heaven1967 - Cameron K. Smith
actor: Hush, 1st to Die, Mindstorm, Atomic Train, The Stepsister, The Limbic Region1968 - Alicia Coppola
actress: National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Sin, Welcome to the Neighborhood, Becoming Marty, Zigs, Blood Money, Velocity Trap, The Keys1971 - Nicholas Brendon
actor: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Unholy, Celeste in the City, The Pool at Maddy Breaker’s, Demon Island, Psycho Beach Party, American Dragon: Jake Long, Kitchen Confidential, Criminal Minds1971 - Shannen Doherty
actress: Beverly Hills 90210, Our House, Little House on the Prairie, Night Shift, Heathers1974 - Marley Shelton
actress: The Fifth Patient, Sin City, Uptown Girls, Jesus, Mary and Joey, Bubble Boy, Valentine, Sugar and Spice1976 - Todd Franz
football [safety]: Univ of Tulsa; NFL: Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints, Washington Redskins, Green Bay Packers1977 - Jodi Fleisher
actress: Sex and the Teenage Mind, Waiting Room, Medium, FlashForward: Mosaic Collective1977 - Sarah Jane Morris
actress: Brothers & Sisters, The Underclassman, Coyote Ugly, Undressed, Murder in Small Town X, NCIS1978 - Guy Berryman
musician: bass: group: Coldplay: Sparks, Fix You, Don’t Panic, Warning Sign, Clocks, Help Is Around the Corner, Everything’s Not Lost1978 - Riley Smith
actor: The Madness of Jane, White Air, Graduation, New York Minute, Radio, Eight Legged Freaks, Chestnut Hill, Bring It On1979 - Claire Danes
Emmy Award-winning actress: Temple Grandin [2010], Homeland [2012]; films: To Gillian on Her 37th Birthday, Romeo + Juliet, The Rainmaker, The Mod Squad, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, The Family Stone, The Flock, Me and Orson Welles, As Cool As I Am, How to Make an American Quilt, Home for the Holidays, Little Women, My So Called Life, Law & Order, The Mod Squad [1999]1979 - Jennifer Morrison
actress: House, How I Met Your Mother, Once Upon a Time, Touched by an Angel, Dawson’s Creek, Star Trek [2009], Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Mall Cop1979 - Ellis Wyms
football [defensive tackle]: Mississippi State Univ; NFL: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Seattle Seahawks, Minnesota Vikings1980 - Eddie Drummond
football [wide receiver]: Penn State Univ; NFL: Detroit Lions, Kansas City Chiefs1986 - Matt McGorry
actor: Orange Is the New Black, How to Get Away with Murder, Afghan Hound1987 - Brooklyn Decker
model: known for her appearances in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, including the cover of the 2010 issue; actress: Chuck, Ugly Betty, The League, Royal Pains, Just Go With It, Battleship, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, Friends with Better Lives, Grace and Frankie1987 - Brendon Urie
musician: bass, organ, accordion, cello; lead singer: group: Panic! at the Disco: LPs: Pray for the Wicked, Death of a Bachelor, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!; Pretty. Odd., Vices & Virtues1988 - Jessie James Decker
singer: Southern Girl City Lights, Wanted, Comin’ Home, Gold, Blackbird Sessions; more1994 - Saoirse Ronan
actress: Atonement, Brooklyn, I Could Never Be Your Woman, City of Ember, Death Defying Acts, The Way Back, Hanna, The Lovely Bones
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day April 12
1951If (facts) - Perry Como
Mockin’ Bird Hill (facts) - Patti Page
1960
1969
1978
1987
1996
2005
2014
2023
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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