April 15
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Events on This Day
1794 - Courrier Francais became the first French daily newspaper to be published in the U.S.1865 - Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America, died at 7:22 a.m. Lincoln had been shot in the back of the head the previous evening while attending a performance of Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, escaped, only to be hunted down and shot to death. Lincoln was carried to a boarding house across the street from the theatre. He never regained consciousness.
1912 - The ‘unsinkable’ luxury liner, Titanic, sank at 2:27a.m. The largest passenger vessel in the world went under off the coast of Newfoundland two and one-half hours after striking an iceberg on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City. 700+ surved. 1,517 lives were lost.
1923 - Insulin became available for general use on this day. It was first discovered in 1922. Today, insulin is used daily in the treatment of diabetes. It is extracted from the pancreas of sheep, oxen and by other means, including synthesization in the laboratory. Insulin, a natural and vital hormone for carbohydrate metabolism in the body, is manufactured by the pancreas. An overabundance of insulin causes insulin shock and leads to a variety of symptoms, including coma.
1923 - Dr. Lee DeForest’s Phonofilm, the first sound-on-sound film, motion picture, was demonstrated for a by-invitation-only audience at the Rivoli Theatre in New York City. The guests saw The Gavotte, a man and woman dancing to old-time music and The Serenade, four musicians who played on wind, percussion and string instruments.
1927 - Serge Koussevitzky directed the Boston Symphony in the first performance of Frederick Converse’s symphony, Flivver Ten Million, a salute to the ten millionth Ford ‘Tin Lizzie’ automobile.
1934 - Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead welcomed a baby boy, Alexander, to the comic strip, Blondie. The child would be nicknamed, Baby Dumpling.
1941 - The first helicopter flight of one hour duration, Stratford, Ct. The the Sikorsky VS-300 set an endurance record of 1 hour, 5 minutes, 15 seconds, to be exact.
1945 - British and Canadian troops liberated the Nazi concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen in northern Germany. The troops discovered over 10,000 unburied bodies. In the last months of World War II, as the Russian army advanced westward, prisoners in the camps in Poland had been evacuated and ultimately 60,000 prisoners had been crowded into the Bergen-Belsen camp which did not have enough space for them. Some of those who were still alive at Bergen-Belsen were walking skeletons. There were a variety of diseases rampant in the camp.
1947 - Jackie Robinson played his first major-league baseball game (he had played exhibition games previously) for the Brooklyn Dodgers. He went 0-for-4 against Boston. Robinson did get on base due to an error and scored the winning run in a 5-3 win for the Dodgers.
1955 - “Two all beef patties...” This is the anniversary of McDonald’s. Ray Kroc opened the first McDonald’s -- in Des Plaines, IL. Kroc began his career by selling milk shake machines. Among his first customers were the McDonald brothers from Southern California. After selling them several machines and watching the efficiency of their drive-in restaurant, Kroc bought the rights to market the brothers’ good fortune and hired them to work for him. On his first day of business, sales of 15-cent hamburgers and 10-cent French fries totaled $366.12. Thirty years later, McDonald’s grossed a whopping $8.6 billion annually. There is no telling how many burgers have been served at McDonald’s. They stopped counting years ago, saying, “Billions and billions served.” The rest is McHistory with McDonald’s a common sight around the world. The first McDonald’s is no longer. It was torn down to build a newer McDonald’s restaurant across the street. The firm’s worldwide headquarters are located in Oak Brook, IL, the home of ‘Hamburger University’. Have a Big Mac today! You deserve a break.
1956 - The worlds’ first all-color TV station was dedicated -- in Chicago, IL. It was named WNBQ-TV and is now WMAQ-TV.
1956 - General Motors announced that the first, free piston automobile had been developed. The engine burned several types of fuel, from high octane gas to whale oil, peanut oil, and other vegetable fats.
1959 - Cuban dictator Fidel Castro arrived in Washington DC to begin a ‘goodwill tour’ of the United States.
1964 - The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel opened. Called, “One of the seven engineering wonders of the modern world,” the total (shore to shore) length of the bridge-tunnel is 17.6 miles.
1971 - George C. Scott refused the Oscar for his Best Actor performance in Patton at the 43rd Annual Academy Awards ceremony at LA’s Dorothy Chandler Pavilion. He had previously told reporters that he did not want the honor, saying (after the votes had been cast and tallied), “It is degrading to have actors in competition with each other.” Scott called the Oscar ceremony, “a two-hour meat parade, a public display with contrived suspense for economic reasons.” Others who did accept the golden statuette as recognition for their works that evening include: Glenda Jackson, Best Actress (Women in Love); Helen Hayes, Best Supporting Actress (Airport); John Mills, Best Supporting Actor (Ryan’s Daughter); Fred Karlin (music), Robb Royer and James Griffin (lyrics), Best Music/Song, For All We Know from Lovers and Other Strangers; and Franklin J. Schaffner, Best Director (Patton) ... Patton (Frank McCarthy, producer) also received the Best Picture honors. Other notable flicks from 1970 (some Oscar winners, some not): Five Easy Pieces, Love Story, MASH, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Diary of a Mad Housewife.
1973 - The richest women’s golf tournament held (to that day) was won by Mickey Wright. She won the $25,000 first prize in the Colgate-Dinah Shore Golf Classic in Palm Springs, CA.
1974 - Five members of the radical Symbionese Liberation Army, were photographed robbing a bank. The SLA gang was caught by cameras at the Hibernia Bank in the Sunset District of San Francisco, California. Among the robbers was kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia ‘Tania’ Hearst.
1982 - Singer/pianist Billy Joel was seriously injured when the motorcycle he was riding was broadsided by a car on Long Island, NY. Despite multiple fractures of his left hand, he returned to work on The Nylon Curtain. (The album was released in July.)
1985 - Ozzie Smith was awarded a $2-million annual contract by the St. Louis Cardinals. Smith became the richest infielder in baseball with the contract.
1985 - ‘Marvelous’ Marvin Hagler helped Thomas the ‘Hit Man’ Hearns go nighty-night a littler earlier than expected, with a third round knockout to retain the world middleweight boxing title. Some have called the fight, “the greatest three rounds in boxing history”
1986 - U.S. warplanes struck Libya in the biggest U.S. air strike since the Vietnam War. Libya claimed 40 of its people were killed. The attack was in retaliation for a deadly terrorist explosion five days earlier at a German disco frequented by American soldiers.
1989 - Roy Orbison’s You Got It hit #9 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was the first top-ten hit for Orbison since Oh, Pretty Woman in 1964.
1989 - Some 50,000 people had gathered at the Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, England for the FA (Football Association) Cup semi-final football (soccer) match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. In order to relieve bottlenecks of Liverpool fans trying to enter the venue before kickoff, police opened an exit gate and people rushed to get inside. More than 3,000 fans were funneled into a standing-room-only area with a safe capacity of just 1,600. As more people entered the stands, they were forcibly squeezed up against those in front who were already pressed up against the perimeters of the stands. With the resulting 96 deaths and 766 injuries, it was the worst disaster in British sporting history. Police fed the press false stories about the tragedy, suggesting that hooliganism and drunkenness by Liverpool supporters was at fault. Blaming of Liverpool fans persisted even after the Taylor Report of 1990, which found that the main cause was a failure of control by South Yorkshire Police.
1990 - Retired screen beauty Greta Garbo died from kidney disease at age 84 in New York. She had been hospitalized since January 5. “Garbo was the ultimate Hollywood star, envied by millions of fans and co-workers. She was a woman who set her own standards and became a legend in her own time...” Her list of films included Flesh and the Devil, Anna Christie, Grand Hotel, Anna Karenina, Camille, and Ninotchka.
1992 - Governments around the world applied United Nations sanctions against Libya because it refused to hand over two Libyan intelligence agents who had been accused of bombing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scottland in 1988.
1993 - British mystery writer Leslie Charteris died at 85 years of age. The Chinese-English crime novelist was the creator of The Saint.
1997 - Jackie Robinson’s number 42 was retired - throughout Major League Baseball. Players who were wearing No. 42 at the time were allowed to continue with the number, with the understanding that no more would follow. This, 50 years after Robinson became the first black player in major-league baseball.
1999 - The music to a long-hidden song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s classic operetta, H.M.S. Pinafore, was discovered by a Holy Cross professor and a scholar from England. Reflect, My Child was cut for unknown reasons just before the premiere of the operetta in 1878. Its words have been kept in a special copy of the operetta in the British Museum, but the music was thought to be lost until it was reconstructed by Bruce Miller, a professor of music at the Worcester college, and Helga Perry, a Gilbert and Sullivan expert from England. “To discover anything new in Gilbert and Sullivan is an increasingly rare occurrence,” Miller said. “It’s certainly exciting when you stumble on something like this. We were lucky.”
1999 - Astronomers announced the discovery of the first solar system with multiple planets outside our own, with three massive planets orbiting a sun-like star. The discovery was made by two independent teams of astronomers. “What we have found now, for the first time ever, is indeed a full fledged system of planets around the star Upsilon Andromedae,” said Geoffrey Marcy, professor of astronomy and physics San Francisco State University. “Our observations can’t rule out Earth-sized planets as well in this planetary system, because their gravity would be too weak for them to be detectable with present instruments,” Peter Nisenson of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said.
2000 - U.S. President Bill Clinton created the Giant Sequoia National Monument in Sequoia National Park, CA. The monument protected 328,000 acres and 34 groves of Sequoias from timber harvest within 2½ years.
2000 - Cal Ripken of the Baltimore Orioles became the 24th player to reach 3,000 hits when he lined a single to center off Twins reliever Hector Carrasco. (The Orioles won the game, 6-to-4.)
2001 - Punk rocker Joey Ramone died of cancer in New York City at the age of 49.
2002 - An Air China jetliner crashed in South Korea. 122 of the 265 people on board were killed.
2002 - The FDA approved the use of Botox in the U.S. Botox is used to smooth the appearance of wrinkles.
2003 - Poet and Princeton University professor Theodore R. Weiss died at Princeton, New Jersey. Dr. Weiss founded the Quarterly Review of Literature. He and his wife edited the literary magazine for nearly 60 years.
2004 - The Pentagon told 20,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq that their tours of duty would be extended.
2005 - The Amityville Horror opened in U.S. theatres. The horror mystery stars Ryan Reynolds, Jimmy Bennett, Melissa George, Philip Baker Hall, Jesse James, Chloe Moretz and Rachel Nichols.
2006 - A passenger train bound for Jakarta, Indonesia smashed into another train stopped at Gubuk station. The crash killed 13 people and injured more than 25.
2007 - Airlines canceled over 400 flights in the New York City area as a hard-blowing nor’easter gathered strength along the East Coast. The storm roaring out of the Great Plains had been blamed for five deaths.
2007 - Cartoonist Brant Parker, collaborator with Johnny Hart on The Wizard of Id (1964) cartoon strip, died in Lynchburg, VA. He was 86 years old. Parker had handed over the illustration of the cartoon to his son, Jeff Parker, in 1997.
2008 - Home foreclosure filings surged 57% in the 12 month-period ended in March 2008 and bank repossessions soared 129%. U.S. inflation at the wholesale level soared in March at nearly triple the rate that had been expected as the costs of energy and food both climbed rapidly.
2008 - A report by the U.S. National Toxicology Program acknowledged concerns over bisphenol-a (BPA), a chemical found in thousands of everyday plastic products, saying it may cause cancer and other serious disorders.
2009 - China orbited its second Beidou/Compass satellite in a program to build an alternative to the global positioning system that was based on U.S. satellites.
2010 - BART officials in San Francisco stripped their security officers of Tasers a few days after a sergeant fired his stun gun at a 13-year-old boy on his bicycle who was fleeing from an altercation with police in Richmond. Bay Area Rapid Transit police had begun using Tasers in December 2008.
2010 - The city of Vancouver, BC, Canada released documents showing it spent more than $554 million as host of the 2010 Winter Olympics. Much of the spending related to building the athletes village. Vancouver spent nearly as much on the Olympic and Paralympic Games as it did to run the city for an entire year.
2011 - These movies debuted in the U.S.: Rio, starring Karen Disher, Jason Fricchione, Sofia Scarpa Saldanha, Leslie Mann, Kelly Keaton and Jesse Eisenberg; Scream 4, with Lucy Hale, Roger Jackson, Shenae Grimes, Dane Farwell, Anna Paquin and Kristen Bell; Kristen Bell Atlas Shrugged: Part I, starring Taylor Schilling, Paul Johansson, Michael O’Keefe, Edi Gathegi, Grant Bowler and Matthew Marsden; and The Conspirator, with Evan Rachel Wood, James McAvoy, Alexis Bledel, Robin Wright, Justin Long and Danny Huston.
2011 - Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu thanked the U.S. House of Representatives for approving new funding to protect Israelis living near Gaza. President Barack Obama and Congress had just approved $205 million in aid to develop Iron Dome, a new Israeli-made missile defense system, as well as funding for other Israeli defense projects such as Arrow 2, Arrow 3 and Magic Wand.
2012 - Tornadoes killed five people and left at least 29 injured near Woodward, Oklahoma. Thousands were without power in the region after some 75 tornadoes touched down in Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa and Nebraska.
2013 - The Goldman Environmental Prize is awarded annually to grassroots environmental activists, one from each of the world’s six geographic regions: Africa, Asia, Europe, Islands and Island Nations, North America, and South and Central America. The 2013 awards went to Nohra Padilla of Colombia, who began organizing waste pickers in Bogota in 1990 into the Bogota Recyclers’ Assoc.; Rossano Ercolini of Italy for setting up a trash collection and conservation system; Kimberly Wasserman of Chicago for her grassroots campaign to close polluting coal-fired power plants; Aleta Baun of Indonesia for organizing villages of west Timor against mining companies clearing forests for marble; Azzam Alwash of Iraq for his efforts to restore Mesopotamian marshland; and Jonathan Deal of South Africa for his efforts against hydraulic fracturing in Karoo.
2013 - The annual Boston Marathon was halted by two consecutive explosions near the finish line of the race. The explosions, later revealed to be bombings, killed three spectators and injured 264 others. On April 20, a huge manhunt in the Boston area tracked down Chechen brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Tamerlan was shot by police and died after being run over by a car driven by his escaping brother, who was eventually surrounded and captured by police. Security measures put in place for future maratons included bans on bags and backpacks anywhere along the 26.2-mile course.
2014 - An Egyptian court banned members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which had been (black) listed as a terrorist group, from running in upcoming elections. Egypt’s military authorities were engaged in a deadly crackdown against the Islamist movement, which had swept all elections in Egypt since the fall of former president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.
2015 - Sudan extended its nationwide elections by one day after a low turnout that the opposition said reflected apathy towards a vote President Omar al-Bashir was widely expected to win. Independents Omar Awad al-Karim and Ahmed Radhi said on Wednesday they were withdrawing from the vote after the extension, “because of the many irregularities in the process.”
2015 - Albert del Rosario, the Philippines foreign secretary said his country was seeking additional support from its long-time security ally, the United States, to counter China’s rapid expansion in the South China Sea.
2015 - Finding Neverland debuted at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City. The story reflects a period in the life of author J.M. Barrie and reveals the real relationships and events that served as the basis for his most iconic work, Peter Pan, and how Peter became Pan: After Barrie developed a platonic relationship with the widowed Sylvia and her four sons, he was inspired to write a play about a group of children who didn’t want to grow up. His play proved to be a hit and wound up bringing Barrie and the children together in a way he had never expected. The Broadway show featured Matthew Morrison as J. M. Barrie, Kelsey Grammer played Charles Frohman and Laura Michelle Kelly reprised the role of Sylvia Llewelyn Davies. After 17 months and 565 performances on Broadway, Finding Neverland closed on August 21, 2016 (its U.S. national tour began in Oct that year).
2016 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Barbershop: The Next Cut, starring Ice Cube, Regina Hall, Nicki Minaj, Margot Bingham and Anthony Anderson; Criminal, with Gal Gadot, Ryan Reynolds and Alice Eve; The Jungle Book, starring Scarlett Johansson, Idris Elba, Bill Murray, Lupita Nyong’o, Christopher Walken, Giancarlo Esposito, Neel Sethi and Ben Kingsley; Colonia, with Emma Watson, Daniel Brühl and Michael Nyqvist; The First Monday in May, starring Andrew Bolton, John Galliano and Jean-Paul Gaultier; Sing Street, with Ferdia Walsh-Peelo, Aidan Gillen and Maria Doyle Kennedy; and Our Last Tango, starring Johana Copes, Juan Carlos Copes and Alejandra Gutty.
2016 - New Delhi, India imposed driving restrictions that would take some one million cars off its roads -- for the second time in a year. The limits were intended to improve air quality in the world’s most polluted capital.
2017 - U.K. newspapers express concern about the tension between the U.S. and North Korea - particularly the Daily Mirror whose headline screamed: “We’re on the brink of nuclear war.” The paper’s editorial described Donald Trump’s public threat to attack North Korea as “lunacy” and said the “increasingly unhinged” president needed to “cool it.”
2018 - Deadly spring storms spawned tornadoes in the south and blizzards in the plains. Some 70,000 homes and businesses were without power across Michigan, New York, Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi. Four deaths were blamed on the nasty weather.
2018 - Israel’s army destroyed a Hamas tunnel crossing from the Gaza Strip into its territory. It was the longest and deepest Gazan tunnel discovered.
2019 - Ecuador’s President Lenin Moreno said WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange repeatedly violated his asylum conditions and tried to use the Ecuadorian embassy in London as a center for spying. Moreno had been working towards expelling Assange from the Ecuadorian embassy since at least December 2018, but had finally succeeded with that effort on Apr 11.
2019 - Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral was devastated by a fire in the Parisian landmark. By the time the blaze was extinguished, the building’s spire and most of its roof was destroyed and its upper walls severely damaged; extensive damage to the interior was prevented by its stone vaulted ceiling, which largely contained the burning roof as it collapsed. French President Emmanuel Macron pledged to rebuild the gothic masterpiece. Investigators later said the cause of the fire was most likely an electrical fault.
2020 - South Korea held national elections. President Moon Jae-in’s ruling coalition scored a big victory. The ruling Democratic Party of Korea and its satellite, the Platform Party, won a landslide 180 places in the 300-seat National Assembly. Defector Thae Yong Ho, a former senior North Korean diplomat, won a constituency seat in the elections.
2020 - China criticized Donald Trump’s move to temporarily halt funding to the WHO and pledged to support the global health body.
2020 - COVID-19 news: 1)New York Governor Andrew Cuomo ordered everyone in the state to wear face coverings in public if there was any danger they would not be able to observe social distancing to help contain the coronavirus outbreak. 2)California to date had 26,836 cases of coronavirus and 864 deaths. U.S. cases totaled over 635,000 and rose by 30,000. Coronavirus cases worldwide reached 2 million with deaths topping 128,000. Governors in harder-hit states - New York, California, Louisiana, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Michigan - said there was a need for more widespread testing before starting to end the coronavirus shutdown, which had thrown millions out of work with the closing of restaurants, businesses and schools.
2021 - The United States imposed economic sanctions on Russia and the expulsion of 10 diplomats. This, in retaliation for the Kremlin’s election interference, a massive cyber attack and other hostile activity. The White House said that Russia’s foreign intelligence service, known as the SVR, was responsible for the SolarWinds hack, which led to the compromise of nine federal agencies and hundreds of private sector companies.
2021 - Toyota announced the recall of some 280,000 Venza SUVs in the U.S. because a wiring problem could stop the side air bags from inflating in a crash. The recall covered Venzas from the 2009 through 2015 model years.
2021 - France reported 300 new deaths due to COVID-19 bringing its total to 100,077. France was the 3rd European Union country (after Britain and Italy) to pass the 100,000 mark.
2022 - U.S. movie releases: Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore, starring Mads Mikkelsen, Ezra Miller, Katherine Waterston and Jude Law; The Cellar, with Elisha Cuthbert, Eoin Macken and Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady; Chariot, starring Thomas Mann, Rosa Salazar and John Malkovich; Dual, with Karen Gillan, Aaron Paul and Beulah Koale; Paris, 13th District, with Lucie Zhang, Makita Samba and Noémie Merlant; The Tale of King Crab, starring Gabriele Silli, Maria Alexandra Lungu and Ercole Colnago; To Olivia, with Hugh Bonneville, Bobby O'’Neill and Eve Prenelle; and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, starring Anna Cobb, Holly Anne Frink and Michael J Rogers.
2022 - The Florida education department accused some publishers of attempting to indoctrinate its students -- announcing that it had rejected 42 of 132 math textbooks proposed for use in public school classrooms. The prohibition came because the books “incorporate prohibited topics or unsolicited strategies” including social-emotional learning and critical race theory.
2022 - The Egyptian government increased fuel prices by nearly three percent, as global inflationary pressures spiked in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
2023 - Germany ended its use of nuclear power by closing its last three nuclear power plants. The new German focus was on renewable energy. There were still 54 nuclear plants in the U.S. in 2023.
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Birthdays on This Day April 15
1452 - Leonardo da Vinci
artist: Mona Lisa, The Last Supper, The Virgin of the Rocks, The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne; died May 2, 15191843 - Henry James
author: The Turn of the Screw, The Wings of the Dove, The Portrait of a Lady, The Ambassadors; died Feb 28, 19161866 - Butch Cassidy (Robert LeRoy Parker)
Old West outlaw: leader of The Wild Bunch gang; legend has it that he was killed [w/Sundance Kid: Harry Longabaugh] in a Bolivian shootout Nov 3, 1908; other legend has it that he and Sundance faked their deaths [that another pair of outlaws was actually killed] and lived happily ever after, under aliases, in the U.S.1889 - Thomas Hart Benton
artist: regionalism: Cave Spring, Jesse James, mural of Indiana; died Jan 19, 19751894 - Nikita Khrushchev
U.S.S.R. premier [1958-1964]; died Sep 11, 19711894 - Bessie Smith
‘Empress of the Blues’: blues singer: sang with Louis Armstrong in 1925: early version of St. Louis Blues, My Man’s Blues, Dixie Flyer Blues, I Ain’t Got Nobody, A Good Man is Hard to Find, Poor Man’s Blues; died Sep 26, 19371902 - Leon Ames
actor: Meet Me in St. Louis, Little Women, Peggy Sue Got Married, Just You and Me, Kid, Hammersmith Is Out, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones; died Oct 12, 19931903 - John Williams
actor: Hot Lead and Cold Feet, The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Flea in Her Ear, Harlow, Pygmalion, The Young Philadelphians, Dial M for Murder; died May 5, 19831912 - Kim Il-sung
founder, dictator and supreme leader of North-Korea (1948-1994); died Jul 8, 19941917 - Hans Conried
actor: My Friend Irma, Bus Stop, Oh! God: Book 2, Tut & Tuttle, The Monster that Challenged the World; host: Fractured Flickers TV Series; died Jan 5, 19821920 - Jim Timmens
Grammy Award-winning composer: Aren’t You Glad You’re You [1977: Best Recording For Children, w/Christopher Cerf]; jazz musician, musical director of New York’s Radio City Music Hall; died in May 19801922 - Michael Ansara
actor: Broken Arrow, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Star Trek TV series, Law of the Plainsman, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Robe, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Harum Scarum; voice actor: Batman: The Animated Series, Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero, The New Batman Adventures, Batman Beyond, Batman Vengeance [video game]; died Jul 31, 20131922 - Harold Washington
mayor: Chicago: instrumental in tearing apart Chicago’s Democratic Machine of the Richard Daley administration; died Nov 25, 19871930 - Vigdís Finnbogadóttir
Icelandic politician: president of Iceland [1980-1996]: world’s first woman democratically elected as a president1930 - Herb Pomeroy
musician: trumpet: teacher at Berklee in Boston, bandleader; directed radio Malaysia Orchestra; died Aug 11, 20071933 - Elizabeth Montgomery
actress: Bewitched, Robert Montgomery Presents; died May 18, 19951933 - Roy Clark
musician: guitar, banjo; singer: CMA Entertainer of the Year [1973], Comedian of the Year [1970, 1971, 1972], co-host: Hee Haw; country singer: Tips of My Fingers, Through the Eyes of a Fool, Yesterday, When I Was Young, Come and Live with Me, Somewhere Between Love and Tomorrow, Thank God and Greyhound [You’re Gone]; died Nov 15, 2018; more1933 - Mel Kenyon
auto racer: legendary NAMARS [North American Midget Auto Racing Series] champ1937 - Bob Luman
singer: Let’s Think About Living, Every Day I Have to Cry Some, The Pay Phone, Proud of You Baby; died Dec 27, 19781938 - Claudia Cardinale
actress: The Pink Panther, Once Upon a Time in the West, Jesus of Nazareth, Henry the IV, A Man in Love1940 - Willie (William Henry) Davis
baseball: LA Dodgers [World Series: 1963, 1965, 1966/all-star: 1971, 1973], Montreal Expos, SL Cardinals, Texas Rangers, SD Padres, California Angels; died Mar 9, 20101940 - Woody (Woodrow Thompson) Fryman
baseball: pitcher: Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Phillies [all-star: 1968], Detroit Tigers, Montreal Expos [all-star: 1976], Cincinnati Reds, Chicago Cubs; died Feb 4, 20111940 - Robert Walker Jr.
actor: Fatal Charm, Hambone and Hillie, Angkor: Cambodia Express, Beulah Land, Easy Rider, The Passover Plot, The Spectre of Edgar Allan Poe; died Dec 5, 20191942 - Walt Hazzard
basketball: 1964 Olympic Gold Medalist: U.S. team; LA Lakers, Seattle Supersonics, Atlanta Hawks, Buffalo Braves, Golden State Warriors; UCLA coach; died Nov 18, 20111942 - Julie Sommars
actress: Sex and the Single Parent, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo1945 - Ted Sizemore
baseball: St. Louis Cardinals; National League Rookie of the Year: LA Dodgers 2B [1969]1950 - Dick (Richard Louis) Sharon
baseball: Detroit Tigers, SD Padres1950 - Amy Wright
actress: The Scarlet Letter, Final Verdict, Crossing Delancey, The Accidental Tourist, Wise Blood, Breaking Away, The Amityville Horror, The Deer Hunter1951 - Heloise (Ponce Kiah Marchelle Heloise Cruse Evans)
newspaper columnist, writer: Hints from Heloise; she took over the Heloise empire after her mother, the original Heloise, died Dec 28, 19771954 - Seka
actress [1977-1993]: X-rated films: The Seduction of Cindy, Swedish Erotica series, A Place Beyond Shame, Sex Club, Careful, He May Be Watching1956 - Michael Cooper
basketball [guard, forward]: Los Angeles Lakers [1978–1990]: 5× NBA champs [1980, 1982, 1985, 1987, 1988]; coach: Denver Nuggets [2004–2005]1957 - Evelyn Ashford
track athlete: 4-time Olympic gold medalist, a shared record for most gold medals won by a woman: 100 meters [1984], 4 x 100m relay [1984, 1988, 1992]1958 - Matt Reid
musician: keyboards: group: Berlin: Take My Breath Away, Blowin’ Sky High, No More Words, Like Flames, Now It’s My Turn, Masquerade, You Don’t Know1959 - Emma Thompson
Academy Award-winning actress, screenwriter: Howard’s End [1992], Sense and Sensibility [1996]; The Remains of the Day, In the Name of the Father, Look Back in Anger, Henry V; screenwriter: Sense and Sensibility; daughter of producer Eric Thompson, actress Phyllida Law; sister of actress Sophie Thompson1965 - Linda Perry
record producer, songwriter for stars such as Pink [Get the Party Started] Christina Aguilera [Beautiful], Gwen Stefani [What You Waiting For?], Grace Slick [Knock Me Out]1966 - Graeme Clark
musician: bass: group: Wet Wet Wet: With a Little Help From My Friends, Goodnight Girl, Love is All Around1966 - Cressida Cowell
children’s author: How to Train Your Dragon series, Emily Brown stories [w/illustrator Neal Layton]1966 - Samantha Fox
singer: Touch Me [I Want Your Body], Nothing’s Gonna Stop Me Now, Love House, I Surrender [To The Spirit of the Night], Do Ya, Do Ya [Wanna Please Me], Naughty Girls [Need Love Too]; more1967 - Dana Torres
swimmer: 12-time Olympic medalist [4 gold, 4 silver, 4 bronze]: only swimmer from the U.S. to compete in five Olympic Games [1984, 1988, 1992, 2000, 2008]1968 - Ed O’Brien
musician: guitar; singer: group: Radiohead: Pyramid Song, Title Street Spirit [Fade Out], Fake Plastic Trees, Knives Out, Karma Police, Paranoid Android, 2+2=51970 - Flex Alexander
comedian dancer, actor: One on One, Homeboys in Outer Space, Flex & Shanice, Her Minor Thing, Snakes On a Plane, My Sister’s Wedding1972 - Vickie Johnson
basketball [forward, guard]: Louisiana Tech Univ; WNBA: New York Liberty, San Antonio Silver Stars1974 - Danny Pino
actor: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Cold Case, Lucy, The Lost City, Flicka, The Burning Plain, Across the Hall, Across the Line: The Exodus of Charlie Wright1974 - Tim Thomas
hockey [goaltender]: NHL: Boston Bruins [2002-2003; 2005-2012: 2011 Stanley Cup champs]1974 - Danny Way
pro skateboarder: five-time Summer X Games gold medalist1976 - Susan Ward
actress: Toxic, Just Friends, Cruel World, Wild Things 2, Shallow Hal, Poison Ivy: The New Seduction, The In Crowd1977 - Paul Phillips
baseball [catcher]: Univ of Alabama; MLB: Colorado Rockies, Chicago White Sox, Kansas City Royals1979 - Luke Evans
actor: Clash of the Titans, Immortals, The Raven, The Three Musketeers, Fast & Furious 6, The Hobbit1982 - Seth Rogen
comedian, screenwriter, voice artist, film producer, actor: Observe and Report, Monsters vs. Aliens, Knocked Up, You, Me and Dupree, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Saturday Night Live, Neighbors, Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising1983 - Alice Braga
actress: City of God, Lower City, I Am Legend, Repo Men, Predators, The Rite, City of God - 10 Years Later1987 - Iyaz (Keidran Jones)
singer: Replay, Pretty Girls, Solo, Pyramid [w/Charice]1987 - Samira Wiley
actress: Orange is the New Black, The Sitter, Being Flynn, Rob the Mob, Unforgettable1990 - Emma Watson
actress: Harry Potter series, Ballet Shoes, My Week With Marilyn, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Beauty and the Beast1997 - Maisie Williams
actress: Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, The Falling, The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, Arrivals
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day April 15
1945My Dreams are Getting Better All the Time (facts) - The Les Brown Orchestra (vocal: Doris Day)
I’m Beginning to See the Light (facts) - The Harry James Orchestra (vocal: Kitty Kallen)
1954
1963
1972
1981
1990
1999
2008
2017
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
