April 13
Jump to:
Events on This Day
1796 - Captain Jacob Crowninshield from Salem, Massachusetts earned a place in the circus history this day. His ship America sailed into New York Harbor with a three-year-old female elephant on board. It was the first time anyone had seen an elephant in America. The captain had purchased the animal in India for $450. Soon after her arrival the elephant was sold by the Captain to a Philadelphia businessman for $10,000. The elephant toured the United States until 1815.1861 - After 34 hours of bombardment, Union-held Fort Sumter surrendered to the Confederate Army.
1916 - The first hybrid seed corn was purchased -- for 15-cents a bushel -- by Samuel Ramsay of Jacobsburg, OH.
1940 - A record pole vault of 15 feet was made in Berkeley, CA by Cornelius Warmerdam. Sergei Bubka from the Ukraine doesn’t think much of this record. In 1994, he vaulted himself up and over at a height of 20 feet, 1¾ inches.
1941 - German troops captured Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
1943 - The Thomas Jefferson Memorial was dedicated in Washington, DC. on this, the anniversary of Jefferson’s birth.
1945 - 327 American B-29 Superfortress bombers attacked Tokyo during the night, dropping some 2139 tons of incendiaries. The target was the arms manufacturing district.
1954 - Hank Aaron debuted for the Milwaukee Braves. In his first ever major-league baseball game, Hammerin’ Hank went 0-for-5 against Cincinnati. Aaron’s first major-league homer came 10 days later.
1958 - Van Cliburn of Kilgore, TX earned 1st prize in the Soviet Union’s Tchaikovsky International Piano Contest in Moscow.
1958 - The (12th annual) Tony Awards were presented at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York. Big winners were (among others): Sunrise at Campobello (best Play); The Music Man (best Musical); Ralph Bellamy in Sunrise At Campobello (best Actor dramatic); Helen Hayes in Time Remembered (best Actress dramatic); Robert Preston in The Music Man (best Actor musical); and Thelma Ritter and Gwen Verdon in New Girl in Town (best Actress musical).
1961 - Carnival! opened on Broadway at the Imperial Theatre in New York City. Anna Maria Alberghetti starred in the musical which ran for 719 performances.
1963 - Pete Rose got his first major-league hit for the Cincinnati Reds. Twenty one years later to this day, ‘Charlie Hustle’ collected his 4,000th hit. Rose was playing for Montreal when he achieved the feat. (See 1984.)
1964 - The 36th Annual Academy Awards ceremony proved to be a long evening for host Jack Lemmon and his audience at Los Angeles’ Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and those viewing on TV. We don’t know exactly how long the actual ceremonies were, but judging from the length of the films being honored, ‘long’ was the magic word. The five films nominated for Best Picture of 1963 averaged 159 minutes, including the two epics, Cleopatra (243 minutes) and How the West Was Won (165 minutes). Tom Jones (Tony Richardson, producer), which won the top prize, plus Best Director (Tony Richardson) Best Music/Score/Substantially Original (John Addison) and Best Writing/Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium (John Osborne)was a mere two hours long. There were, however, a few average-length flicks that featured above-average, Oscar-winning performances: Best Actor: Sidney Poitier (Lilies of the Field); Best Actress: Patricia Neal and Best Supporting Actor: Melvyn Douglas (Hud); Best Supporting Actress: Margaret Rutherford (The V.I.P.s); and Best Music/Song: Call Me Irresponsible, James Van Heusen (music), Sammy Cahn (lyrics) from Papa’s Delicate Condition. Other marathon Oscar-winning movies of 1963: It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (188 minutes); America, America (174 minutes); Irma la Douce (147 minutes).
1965 - Roger Miller set a record for country artists by winning five Grammy Awards.
1966 - Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) placed a $525,000,000 order for 23 Boeing 747 jumbo jets to be built by the Seattle-based aircraft manufacturer. The order effectively kick started the 747 program.
1970 - Astronaut James Lovell radioed Mission Control in Houston with, “Hey, we’ve got a problem here.” Apollo 13 was on the way to the moon, some 205,000 nautical miles from Earth, when a tank containing liquid oxygen burst, crippling the spacecraft. The emergency forced cancellation of a planned lunar landing. Instead, the astronauts circled the moon and headed back home, where they splashed down safely on April 17, 1970.
1972 - The first strike in the history of major-league baseball ended. Players had walked off the field 13 days earlier.
1976 - The Federal Reserve issued a $2 bill as United States currency. After a great deal of fanfare at the time, the bills are virtually uncirculated today.
1980 - Broadway’s longest-running musical closed after eight years. Grease ran for 3,388 performances and earned $8 million. Though the-longest running musical on the Great White Way at the time, Grease was also the third longest-running Broadway show. Other shows in the top five included: The Defiant Ones and Life with Father, Oh! Calcutta, A Chorus Line and Fiddler on the Roof.
1981 - Janet Cook won a Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. Things took a strange turn when she later said that her prize-winning story in The Washington Post was a fake. She made up the story and passed it off as truth. Her award was taken away and given instead to Teresa Carpenter of New York’s Village Voice.
1984 - The Montreal Expos welcomed Pete Rose to the team and he repaid the Expos’ faithful with a double against his former teammates, the Philadelphia Phillies. It was Rose’s 4,000th career hit. He was the only National League player to reach this milestone since Ty Cobb got 4,109 total hits with American League teams, Detroit and Philadelphia.
1985 - The Grand Ole Opry, a radio staple from Nashville for 60 years, came to TV. The Nashville Network presented the country music jamboree to some 22-million homes across the U.S.
1986 - Jack Nicklaus won his sixth Masters green jacket with a 9-under-par 279.
1987 - The Population Reference Bureau reported that the population of the world had surpassed five billion.
1990 - The Soviet Union accepted responsibility for the World War II murders of thousands of imprisoned Polish officers in the Katyn Forest. The Russians had previously blamed the massacre on the Nazis.
1992 - Chicago’s century-old tunnel system and adjacent basements filled with water from the Chicago River after a section of wall collapsed. The flooding was triggered when a piling was driven into the Chicago River bottom causing the massive leak. Chicago’s business district was crippled by massive flooding; all electric power in the city’s downtown was lost. $800m in damages.
1993 - The Pulitzer Prize was awarded to David McCullough for his biography Truman; to Robert Olen Butler for his collection of short stories A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain; to Tony Kushner for his drama Angels in America: Millennium Approaches; and to The Miami Herald for its Hurricane Andrew coverage.
1996 - The U.S. agreed to close the Futenma Air Station at Okinawa, Japan. The 1200-acre base was surrounded by the densely populated city of Ginowan.
1998 - NationsBank Corp. and BankAmerica Corp. announced a $59.3-billion merger creating a coast-to-coast banking giant; the first coast-to-coast bank in the U.S. At the same time, Banc One Corp. and First Chicago NBD Corp. announced their own $29.8-billion merger.
1999 - Luck ran out for Dr. Jack Kevorkian (‘Dr. Death’). He was given a 10- to 25-year prison sentence (in Pontiac, Michigan) for second-degree murder in the lethal injection of Thomas Youk, a 53-year-old stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease. The doctor had previously been through three acquittals and a mistrial.
2000 - U.S. drug agents arrested some 45 people in a Jamaican-led marijuana ring that bribed Federal Express workers to distribute the drug for East Coast markets. 22 of those arrested in Operation Green Air were FedEx employees.
2001 - Bridget Jones’s Diary opened in the U.S. The romantic comedy-drama Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Gemma Jones, Sally Phillips, Shirley Henderson, James Callis and Embeth Davidtz.
2002 - Hugo Chávez regained his presidency in Venezuela after a failed coup d'état. Pedro Carmona resigned following large protests in Caracas with dozens reported killed. Caracas mayor Alfredo Pena said at least nine people were killed in rioting and looting there.
2003 - Mike Weir became the first Canadian to win the Masters Golf Tournament. Weir beat Len Mattiace in the first sudden-death playoff in 13 years.
2004 - Swimmer Michael Phelps won the 2003 Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the U.S.
2005 - Rock & Roll Hall of Fame piano player Johnnie Johnson died in St. Louis at 80 years of age. Johnson teamed with Chuck Berry for hits like Roll Over Beethoven and No Particular Place to Go. Their collaboration helped define early rock ’n’ roll, as Johnson composed the music on piano, then Berry converted it to guitar and wrote the lyrics. Berry’s Johnny B. Goode was a tribute to Johnnie Johnson.
2006 - The Nebraska legislature voted to divide the Omaha school system into three districts. One would be mostly black, one mostly white, and one largely Hispanic. Governor Dave Heineman signed the measure into law, effective in July 2008.
2007 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres on this Friday the 13th: Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters, starring Matt Maiellaro, Dave Willis, Dana Snyder, Carey Means, Andy Merrill, Mike Schatz, Bruce Campbell and Neil Peart; Disturbia, with Shia LaBeouf, Carrie-Anne Moss, David Morse, Sarah Roemer, Kurt David Anderson and Elyse Mirto; Pathfinder, with Karl Urban, Moon Bloodgood, Russell Means, Clancy Brown, Jay Tavare, Nathaniel Arcand and Ralf Moeller; Perfect Stranger, starring Halle Berry, Bruce Willis, Giovanni Ribisi, Gary Dourdan, Patti D’Arbanville and Clea Lewis'; Redline, with Angus Macfadyen, Nathan Phillips, Eddie Griffin, Nadia Bjorlin, Kevin Levrone and Wyclef Jean; and Slow Burn starring Ray Liotta, LL Cool J, Jolene Blalock, Nora Timmer, Taye Diggs, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Donny Falsetti, Bruce McGill and Mekhi Phifer.
2007 - Exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky, who emerged as one of the Kremlin’s most vocal opponents, called for the use of force to oust President Vladimir Putin. Britain granted Berezovsky refugee status in 2003.
2007 - Pope Benedict XVI published Jesus of Nazareth, his first book as pope. It criticizes the ‘cruelty’ of capitalism and colonialism and the power of the wealthy over the poor.
2009 - A California jury found former music producer Phil Spector guilty of second-degree murder in the 2003 shooting death of 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson.
2009 - A three-judge panel in Minnesota ruled in favor of Democrat Al Franken, but former Republican Senator Norm Coleman swiftly announced he would take the election fight to the state Supreme Court. After a statewide recount and seven-week trial, Franken stood 312 votes ahead.
2010 - U.S. President Barack Obama revived the NASA crew capsule concept that he had canceled with the rest of the moon program earlier in 2010, in a move that would mean more jobs and less reliance on the Russians. The space capsule, called Orion, would be used to go unmanned to the International Space Station to stand by as an emergency vehicle to return astronauts home.
2011 - The U.S. federal government ordered 16 of the largest mortgage lenders and servicers in the U.S. to reimburse homeowners who had been improperly foreclosed upon. Citibank, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, the four largest banks, were among the financial firms cited in the joint report by the Federal Reserve, Office of Thrift Supervision and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
2011 - Former baseball star Barry Bonds was convicted in San Francisco, CA of obstruction of justice in connection with and investigation into his use of performance-enhancing drugs.
2012 - New movies in the U.S.: The Cabin in the Woods, with Richard Jenkins, Bradley Whitford, Jesse Williams, Chris Hemsworth, Fran Kranz, Kristen Connolly and Anna Hutchison; Movie 43, starring Emma Stone, Chloë Grace Moretz, Gerard Butler, Elizabeth Banks, Hugh Jackman, Kate Winslet, Kristen Bell and Anna Faris; The Three Stooges, with Sofía Vergara, Antonio Sabato Jr, Chris Diamantopoulos, Kate Upton, Jane Lynch and Sean Hayes; Bad Ass, starring Danny Trejo, Charles S. Dutton, Ron Perlman, Joyful Drake, Patrick Fabian, John Duffy, Winter Ave Zoli and Danny Woodburn; Blue Like Jazz, with Claire Holt, Tania Raymonde, Jason Marsden, Marshall Allman, Eric Lange and Justin Welborn; Detention, with Josh Hutcherson, Dane Cook, Spencer Locke, Aaron Perilo, Jesse Heiman, Will Wallace and Walter Perez; Touchback, starring Brian Presley, Kurt Russell, Melanie Lynskey, Marc Blucas, Christine Lahti, Sarah Wright and Drew Powell; and Woman Thou Art Loosed on the 7th Day, starring Blair Underwood, Sharon Leal, Nicole Beharie, Clyde Jones, Pam Grier, Jaqueline Fleming, T.D. Jakes, Nicoye Banks, Reed R. McCants and Zoe Carter.
2012 - Australia’s Qantas launched the nation’s first commercial flight using a mixture of refined cooking oil for fuel. Officials said the airline would not survive if it relied solely on traditional jet fuel.
2013 - The Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix officially reopened the Rijksmuseum, the national museum in Amsterdam, after a 10-year, 375 million euro ($480 million) renovation.
2014 - Fed-up with the massive vote-rigging that took place in previous elections, Afghan voters used social media to highlight alleged fraud, and officials took notice. An Afghan official said 1,892 complaints of fraud in the presidential election were being investigated but the number was lower than that of the previous election.
2014 - 32-year-old Wilson Kipsang of Kenya captured his second London Marathon title. And he broke the course record by 11 seconds, finishing in 2 hours, 4 minutes, 29 seconds. Kenya’s Edna Kiplagat held off compatriot Florence Kiplagat – no relation – to win the women’s London Marathon by three seconds in 2:20:21.
2015 - The Italian coastguard reported its recovery of nine bodies and the rescue of 145 people after a boat carrying migrants sank off Libya.
2016 - A Chicago task force established by Mayor Rahm Emanuel reported that city police had been alienating blacks and Latinos for decades by using excessive force -- and honoring a code of silence about the practice.
2016 - The Golden State Warriors won a record 73rd regular season game. With the win, the Warriors topped the Chicago Bulls’ 72 wins during the 1995-1996 season.
2017 - POTUS Donald Trump signed legislation that allowed states to deny federal family planning money to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers.
2017 - Facebook reported that it had targeted 30,000 fake accounts linked to France ahead of the country’s upcoming two-round presidential election. The move, was among the most aggressive to date by Facebook to move against accounts that violate its terms of service, rather than simply respond to complaints.
2018 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Rampage, starring Dwayne Johnson, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Will Yun Lee; the animated Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero, featuring the voices of Helena Bonham Carter, Logan Lerman, Gérard Depardieu, Jason Ezzell and Jordan Beck; Truth or Dare, with Lucy Hale, Tyler Posey and Violett Beane; 10x10, starring Luke Evans, Kelly Reilly and, Noel Clarke; Aardvark, with Zachary Quinto, Jenny Slate and Sheila Vand; The Rider, with Brady Jandreau, Tim Jandreau and Lilly Jandreau; The Secret of Marrowbone, starring George MacKay, Anya Taylor-Joy and Charlie Heaton; Submergence, with Alicia Vikander, James McAvoy and Alexander Siddig; and Wildling, with Liv Tyler, Brad Dourif and Bel Powley.
2018 - POTUS Trump issued a pardon to I. Lewis Libby, who had been convicted of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice following the 2003 leak of the covert identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. Libby at the time was serving as the chief of staff to former Vice President Dick Cheney. POTUS G.W. Bush later commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence, but did not issue a pardon.
2018 - The Swedish Academy, which awards the Nobel Literature Prize, appointed a new head to replace Sara Danius. A sexual harassment scandal had rocked the prestigious institution with Danius being ousted for not handling it properly. Anders Olsson, a writer and professor of literature, was appointed on a temporary basis. 18 women had said that they had been subject to harassment and physical abuse by Jean-Claude Arnault, the French husband of Academy member Katarina Frostenson.
2019 - The twin-fuselage Stratolaunch, designed to launch rockets into space, took off on its first flight from the Mojave Air and space Port in Kern County, CA. Stratolaunch was created by the late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
2020 - COVID-19 news: 1)The U.S. Supreme Court chose to hear arguments by teleconference. Among the high-profile cases to be decided was whether POTUS Trump’s tax and financial records from Mazars USA and Deutsche Bank should be disclosed, and new rules on an exception to the contraceptive mandate in the 2010 health care law. 2)New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the state’s death toll had topped 10,000 only about a month after recording its first fatality.
2020 - The U.N. reported swarms of locusts in Ethiopia had damaged 200,000 hectares (half a million acres) of cropland and driven around a million people to require emergency food aid. Billions of desert locusts have already chomped their way through much of East Africa, including Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Eritrea, Tanzania, Sudan, South Sudan and Uganda.
2020 -Severe weather swept across the southern U.S., killing more than 30 people and damaging hundreds of homes from Louisiana into the Appalachian Mountains. Eleven people were killed in Mississippi. Nine people died in South Carolina. Eight were killed in Georgia. Tennessee officials said three people were killed in and around Chattanooga, and others died under falling trees or inside collapsed buildings in Arkansas and North Carolina.
2021 - Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced that he was expanding the U.S. military presence in Germany (by 500 troops) and stopping planned large-scale troop cuts ordered by Donald Trump.
2021 - U.S. intelligence listed China at the top of its annual report of security threats, warning of Beijing’s struggle to realize “an epochal geopolitical shift” -- including increased air and naval operations in Asia -- intended to assert its control in contested areas.
2022 - Officials said the U.S. was sending an additional $800 million worth of military and other security aid to Ukraine and was stepping up intelligence sharing.
2022 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mocked Moscow’s insistence that the invasion of Ukraine was going well, asking how Vladimir Putin could have approved a plan that involved so many Russians dying. (Moscow said that 1,351 soldiers had been killed since the start of the campaign. Ukraine said the real number was closer to 20,000.)
2023 - The F.B.I. arrested a 21-year-old member of Massachusetts Air National Guard for leaking classified documents, including national security secrets -- in an online gaming chat group.
2023 - Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill to ban most abortions in the state after six weeks. The law made Florida one of the most restrictive states in the U.S. to get an abortion and followed moves by other Republican-led states to curb the procedure. All this after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.
2023 - Tropical Cyclone Ilsa made landfall in remote western Australia (between De Grey and Pardoo Roadhouse) as a category five storm. The storm set a new sustained wind speed record of 218 kph (135 mph).
and more...
Birthdays on This Day April 11
1743 - Thomas Jefferson
3rd U.S. President [1801-1809]; married to Martha Skelton [one son, five daughters]; nickname: Man of the People; died July 4, 18261769 - Sir Thomas Lawrence
artist: Portrait of Miss Farren [1789], Lady Peel [1827], The Calmady Children [1825]; principal painter to King George III [1792]; president: Royal Academy [1820-1830]; Jan 7, 18301852 - F. W. (Frank Winfield) Woolworth
merchant: created the five and ten cent store [1879 in Lancaster, PA]: headed F.W. Woolworth & Co. with over 1,000 stores, funded NY’s Woolworth Building; died Apr 8, 19191899 - Alfred M. Butts
architect, game inventor; died Apr 4, 19931906 - Samuel Beckett
author, critic, playwright: Waiting for Godot, The Unnameable, Eleutheria, Malone Dies, Malloy, Endgame; died Dec 22, 19891906 - Bud (Lawrence) Freeman
jazz musician: tenor sax: China Boy, Easy to Get, I’ve Found a New Baby, The Eel, Mr. Toad; died Mar 15, 19911907 - Harold Stassen
perennial U.S. Presidential candidate; governor of Minnesota; a member of President Eisenhower’s cabinet; one of the founders of the U.N.; died Mar 4, 20011909 - Eudora Welty
poet: Delta Wedding, Losing Battles, A Curtain of Green; quote: “The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order.”; Computer programmer Steve Dorner (Univ of Illinois,Urbana) created a freeware e-mail program in the late 1980s and dubbed it “Eudora”, which became one of the most popular e-mail readers used around the world, because of Welty’s short story "Why I Live at the P.O." (published in 1941); died July 23, 20011919 - Howard Keel (Harry Clifford Leek)
actor: Dallas; singer, actor: Oklahoma, Annie Get Your Gun, Show Boat, Lovely to Look At, Kiss Me Kate, Calamity Jane, Rose-Marie, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Deep in My Heart, Saratoga, No Strings; died Nov 7, 20041919 - Madalyn Murray O’Hair
author: Why I Am an Atheist; murdered: missing since Aug 1995, her body was found near Camp Wood TX Jan 28, 20011923 - Don Adams (Donald James Yarmy)
Emmy Award-winning actor: Get Smart [1966-1967, 1967-1968]; Back to the Beach, The Nude Bomb; died Sep 25, 20051925 - Jules Irving
director, producer: Loose Change, The Jordan Chance, Rich Man, Poor Man - Book II; died July 28, 19791928 - Teddy Charles (Theodore Charles Cohen)
musician: vibraphone; songwriter: Blue Greens; group: Teddy Charles Quintet; composer, arranger; worked w/modern jazz artists like Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane; died Apr 16, 20121929 - Marilynn Smith
golf: Univ of Kansas: Kansas State Amateur champ [1946-1948], national collegiate title [1949]; 22 tournament victories/2 major championships [Titleholders: 1963, 1964]; LPGA founder/charter member, president [1958-1960]; died Apr 9, 20191931 - Dan Gurney
auto racer: Indianapolis Speedway Hall of Famer; 1st driver to win all 4 major categories: Formula One, Indy Cars, NASCAR stock and sports cars; team owner: builds All-American Eagle; died Jan 14, 20181935 - Lyle Waggoner
actor: The Carol Burnett Show, The Jimmie Rodgers Show, Wonder Woman, Dead Women in Lingerie; died Mar 17, 20201937 - Edward Fox
actor: Gulliver’s Travels, The Dresser, Gandhi, The Mirror Crack’d, Force 10 from Navarone, The Big Sleep, A Bridge Too Far, The Day of the Jackal, Portrait of a Lady1939 - Paul Sorvino
actor: Law and Order, Reds, Oh! God, The Day of the Dolphin, Dick Tracy, Goodfellas, A Touch of Class; died Jul 25, 20221940 - Jose Napoles
Internatinal Boxing Hall of Famer: welterweight champ [1969, 1970]; died Aug 16, 20191940 - Lester Chambers
singer, musician: harmonica: group: The Chambers Brothers: Time Has Come Today1941 - Marjorie Yates
actress: Sons and Lovers, Underbelly, Dead Man’s Folly, Walter and June, All Day on the Sands, Glitterball, Legend of the Werewolf1942 - Bill Conti
Academy Award-winning composer of scores: The Right Stuff [1983]; Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Inside Edition1944 - Jack Casady
musician: bass: groups: KBC Band, Hot Tuna; Jefferson Airplane: It’s No Secret, Runnin’ Round this World, Somebody to Love, White Rabbit1944 - Brian Pendleton
musician: guitar: group: The Pretty Things; died May 16, 20011945 - Tony Dow
actor: Leave It to Beaver, Back to the Beach, High School U.S.A., Death Scream; died Jul 27, 20221946 - Al Green
singer, songwriter: Tired of Being Alone, Let’s Stay Together, You Ought to be with Me, Here I Am, Call Me1950 - Ron Perlman
actor: Fluke, Double Exposure, Beauty and the Beast series, The Name of the Rose1950 - William Sadler
actor: Hunters, Die Hard 2, The Shawshank Redemption, Hard to Kill, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, Rocket Man, Roswell, The Green Mile, Jesse Stone film series1951 - Max Weinberg
musician: drummer: E Street Band; bandleader: The Max Weinberg 7 [Late Night with Conan O’Brien]1951 - Peabo Bryson
singer: Underground Music, I Can Make It Better, Just Another Day, Do It with Feeling, Tonight I Celebrate My Love, If You’re Ever in My arms Again1951 - Peter Davison
actor: 5th Doctor Who [1981-1984], All Creatures Great and Small, At Home with the Braithwaites, Law & Order: UK1952 - Erick Avari
actor: The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The X-Files, Stargate, Stargate SG-1, Flight of the Living Dead, The Mummy, Daredevil, Home Alone 4, Planet of the Apes, Mr. Deeds, Castle, Heroes, Hope & Faith, Law & Order, Lie to Me, Party Down, Star Trek: The Next Generation, seaQuest DSV, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Enterprise, The West Wing, The X-Files, Dharma & Greg, Babylon 5, Alias, The O.C., The Sarah Silverman Program, Leverage, Lois and Clark The New Adventures of Superman, Covert Affairs, Human Target, JAG, Living People, NYPD Blue, Cheers, Murder, She Wrote, Roseanne, Judging Amy, NCIS, Everwood, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Independence Day, The Master of Disguise, Home Alone 4, Hachi: A Dog’s Tale; has portrayed representatives of more than 24 different nationalities1954 - Jimmy Destri
musician: Farfisa organ; group: Blondie: Picture This, Hanging on the Telephone, Sunday Girl, Heart of Glass, Call Me, The Tide is High, Rapture1955 - Louis Johnson
musician: bass guitarist: group: The Brothers Johnson: Is It Love That We‘re Missin’, I’ll Be Good to You, Thunder Thumbs and Lightnin’ Sticks, Get the Funk Out Ma Face, Free and Single; his work appears on many well-known records by prominent artists: Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, Thriller, Dangerous, and hit songs Billie Jean, Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough; George Benson’s Give Me the Night; Herb Alpert’s Rise; died May 21, 20151957 - Saundra Santiago
actress: Miami Vice, Beat Street1963 - Garry Kasparov
World Chess Champion: international grand master1964 - Davis Love III
golf champ: 18 PGA TOUR Victories1964 - Caroline Rhea
comedienne, actress: Christmas with the Kranks, Happy Birthday, Ready to Rumble, Man on the Moon, The Shot, Fools for Love, Sydney to the Max1968 - Ted Washington
football [defensive tackle]: Univ of Louisville; NFL: San Francisco 49ers, Denver Broncos, Buffalo Bills, Chicago Bears, New England Patriots, Oakland Raiders1970 - Rick Schroder
actor: NYPD Blue, Crimson Tide, Texas, Lonesome Dove, Hansel and Gretel, Earthling, The Champ, Silver Spoons1971 - Bo Outlaw
basketball [forward]: Univ of Houston; LA Clippers, Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns, Memphis Grizzlies
1972 - Dave Wohlabaugh
football [center]: Univ of Syracuse; NFL: New England Patriots, Cleveland Browns, St. Louis Rams1973 - Julia Rose
actress: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, House M.D., The Lying Game, CSI: NY, Sweet Old World, Gully1973 - Bokeem Woodbine
actor: Riddick, Almost Heroes, The Rock, Black Dynamite, A Day in the Life, The Butcher, Three Bullets, Total Recall [2012]1976 - Jonathan Brandis
actor: seaQuest DSV, Stephen King’s It, 111 Gramercy Park, The Year That Trembled, Sidekicks, Ladybugs, Hart’s War, Outside Providence, Her Last Chance, Good King Wenceslas; died Nov 12, 20031976 - Dan Campbell
football [tight end]: NFL: New York Giants [1999–2002]; Dallas Cowboys [2003–2005]; Detroit Lions [2006–2008]; New Orleans Saints [2009]: 2010 Super Bowl XLIV champs; coach: Miami Dolphins1976 - Patrik Eliáš
hockey: New Jersey Devils [1992-2016]: 2000, 2003 Stanley Cup champs1978 - Kyle Howard
actor: Baby Geniuses, House Arrest, Grosse Pointe, Opposite Sex, The Love Boat: The Next Wave1978 - Carles Puyol
Spanish footballer: Barcelona [1996-2014]: 2009, 2011 FIFA Club World Cup champs; Spain national team: 2010 FIFA World Cup champs1980 - Kelli Giddish
actress: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, All My Children, Past Life, Chase, Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., Breathless1981 - Courtney Peldon
actress: Home Improvement, Boston Public, That ’70s Show, Entourage, The Pretender, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Renegade, Nash Bridges, Angel Heart, Out on a Limb, Little Giants, Skin Walker, Say It Isn’t So, InAlienable, The Road to Hell1983 - Hunter Pence
baseball [outfielder]: Houston Astros [2007–2011], Philadelphia Phillies [2011–2012], San Francisco Giants [2012–2018]: 2012, 2014 World Series champs; Texas Rangers [2019]1986 - Lorenzo Cain
baseball [outfielder]: Milwaukee Brewers [2010]; Kansas City Royals [2011–2017]: 2015 World Series champs; Milwaukee Brewers [2018-2022]1988 - Allison Williams
actress: Girls, The Mindy Project, Peter Pan Live!, Get Out, Patrick Melrose; daughter of former NBC News anchor Brian Williams1992 - Emma Degerstedt
actress: Unfabulous, Samantha Who?; stage: 13, Gypsy, Dark of the Moon
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day April 11
1952Wheel of Fortune (facts) - Kay Starr
Any Time (facts) - Eddie Fisher
1961
1970
1979
1988
1997
2006
2015
2023
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
