August 16
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Events on This Day
1829 - The first Siamese twins brought to the United States arrived in Boston, MA. Chang and Eng Bunker were 18 years old when they arrived from their homeland of Banesau, Siam. The twins were joined at the waist.1896 - There’s gold in them thar hills! This is the day that Skookum Jim, Dawson Charlie and George Carmack found gold in Rabbit Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River. The discovery started the famous Klondike Gold Rush.
1906 - The earth was a rockin’ and a rollin’ as earthquakes hit in San Francisco in April and on this day in Valparaiso, Chile, also on the Pacific coast. Valparaiso, no stranger to disaster (the Dutch destroyed it in 1600, the Spanish in 1866, the Chilean civil war in 1891, earthquakes in 1731, 1822, 1839, 1873), was once more devastated by an earthquake. This one struck after a night of unusually violent thunderstorms. It destroyed two thirds of the city, the coastline was raised three feet, and 1,500 died.
1922 - Radio station WEAF (now WFAN) began broadcasting from new studios atop the Western Electric Building in New York City. The station would later be named WNBC, then WABC, then.. oh, never mind...
1930 - The first British Empire Games were held at Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The event is now called the Commonwealth Games.
1937 - The American Federation of Radio Artists (AFRA) was organized. It was part of the American Federation of Labor. The union was for all radio performers except musicians. The union later became The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) to include TV folk, as well.
1939 - Lights Out, radio’s “ultimate horror show,” was heard for the last time on NBC Radio. In 1942, Arch Obler brought the show back to life on CBS Radio. The show’s most familiar trademark, guaranteed to put you under the covers on a dark night was, “Lights out everybody!”, followed by 12 chimes of a clock.
1939 - The famous vaudeville house, Hippodrome, in New York City, was used for the last time. There were several places called the Hippodrome around the country. They weren’t, generally, theatres, nor true nightclubs. Hippodromes were designed for the wide variety of vaudeville acts available at the time ... dancing, music, comedy and skits.
1940 - Marching Along Together, by Frankie Masters and his orchestra, was recorded for Okeh Records. The group enjoyed a dozen or so hit records during the 1930s and 1940s.
1942 - The U.S. Navy L-8 patrol blimp crash-landed in Daly City, CA after drifting in from the Pacific Ocean. The ship’s crew, Lt. Ernest Dewitt Cody (27) and Ensign Charles E. Adams (38), were missing and no trace of them was ever found.
1948 - Baseball Hall of Famer George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth died at the age of 53 in New York City. During a flamboyant major-league career that began as a pitcher with the Boston Red Sox in 1914 and ended with his retirement from the Boston Braves in 1935, the Babe hit an astonishing total of 714 homers, a feat that was not surpassed until Henry Aaron of the Atlanta Braves broke Ruth’s record in 1974. At a special Babe Ruth Day just two months before his death, the cancer-stricken Ruth donned his uniform for the last time and appeared before a cheering crowd at Yankee Stadium.
1949 - Author Margaret Mitchell (Gone With the Wind) died. She was 48 years old.
1954 - Comedian Jack Paar replaced Walter Cronkite as host of the Morning Show on CBS-TV. Cronkite came back as host in October, 1955, when Paar didn’t pan out. Television found Paar’s forte three years later as the host of The Tonight Show.
1954 - The first issue of Sports Illustrated was published. No, it wasn’t the famous swimsuit edition, and you didn’t win a telephone, radio or sports books with your paid subscription. SI proudly boasted that more than 250,000 subscribers had signed up for the magazine before the first issue rolled off the presses. The first cover of Sports Illustrated showed National League umpire, Augie Donatelli, behind the plate with two major-league stars: catcher Wes Westrum, and batter Eddie Matthews.
1956 - Adlai E. Stevenson was nominated for president at the Democratic national convention in Chicago. (This was Stevenson’s second nomination - he was also the Democratic nominee in 1952.)
1960 - A world record for a successful free fall was set by Colonel Joseph W. Kittinger Jr. What Kittinger did was quite amazing. He dropped from an altitude of 102,800 feet, more than 19 miles, before opening his parachute -- at 17,500 feet -- over New Mexico.
1960 - Great Britain granted independence to the crown colony of Cyprus.
1962 - Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, handed drummer Pete Best his walking papers. Best had been with the group for 2-1/2 years. Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) was picked to take his place. One month later, the group recorded, Love Me Do.
1976 - Former Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka was charged in Tokyo with having accepted $1.6 million in bribes to arrange purchases of Lockheed L-1011 TriStar aircraft by All Nippon Airways. (Tanaka was convicted in 1981.)
1977 - Elvis Presley was rushed from Graceland to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Doctors’ efforts to revive him were fruitless and he was pronounced dead (coronary arrhythmia) at 3:30 p.m. He was 42 years old. Thousands of mourning fans kept a vigil outside Graceland, the home of the King of Rock and Roll, for three days before his burial. Thousands more lined the streets of Presley’s hometown on the day of his funeral. The city, the nation, the music world and fans from around the world were in shock over his passing. Even to this day, some say that Elvis didn't die -- he just wanted to get away from it all. Fans from all over have reported sightings of Elvis, from a hamburger joint in Kalamazoo, MI, to California. Presley is buried at Graceland, now a major tourist attraction.
1984 - The U.S. Jaycees voted to admit women to full membership in the organization.
1985 - Actor Sean Penn and singer Madonna were married in Malibu, California on Madonna’s 27th birthday. She filed for divorce in 1988.
1986 - Madonna’s True Blue was #1 in the U.S. The album featured these tracks: Papa Don’t Preach, Open Your Heart, White Heat, Live to Tell, Where’s the Party, True Blue, La Isla Bonita, Jimmy Jimmy and Love Makes the World Go Round.
1987 - Thousands of people prayed and meditated for universal peace, as the much publicized Harmonic Convergence, the exact alignment of planets in the solar system, happened. Ancient prophecies were to come true, along with some alien visits.
1988 - U.S. Vice President -- and Republican presidential nominee -- George Bush selected Indiana Senator Dan Quayle to be his running mate, calling him “a man of the future.”
1991 - In Moscow, Alexander Yakovlev, a top adviser to Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, resigned from the Communist Party, warning that hard-liners were plotting “a party and state coup.” The coup d’état did indeed take place two days later, and the collapse of the Soviet Union began.
1993 - Actor Stewart Granger died in Santa Monica, CA. He was 80 years old. Granger appeared in some seventy films during his career.
1996 - The Fan, from TriStar Pictures, opened in the U.S. The flick, about a very deadly game, starred Robert De Niro, Wesley Snipes, Ellen Barkin, John Leguizamo, Benicio Del Toro, and Patti D’arbanville Quinn. And, for those of you who like a little more intensity in your movies, Universal’s Tales from the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood also opened this day, with Dennis Miller, Erika Eleniak, Angie Everhart, Chris Sarandon, Corey Feldman and John Kassir. As you might expect, it was crammed with violence, gore, sexuality, nudity and strong language.
1996 - Also opening this day: Tin Cup, with Kevin Costner, Rene Russo, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Linda Hart, Dennis Burkley, Lou Myers and Rex Linn.
1999 - Vladimir Putin won confirmation (by the Russian parliament) as Russia’s fifth prime minister since early 1998. He had been appointed by Boris Yeltsin on Aug 9.
2000 - Delegates at the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles nominated Al Gore for president of the U.S.
2001 - Paul Burrell, trusted butler of Princess Diana for many years, was charged with the theft of royal family items. Burrell denied the charge. (In Nov 2002, Burrell’s trial was stopped with a directed verdict of not guilty after Queen Elizabeth II intervened.)
2002 - Movies debuting in the U.S.: The Adventures of Pluto Nash, starring Eddie Murphy, Randy Quaid, Rosario Dawson, Joe Pantoliano, Jay Mohr, Luis Guzman, James Rebhorn, Peter Boyle, Burt Young, Miguel A. Nunez Jr., Pam Grier and John Cleese; Blue Crush, with Kate Bosworth, Michelle Rodriguez, Matthew Davis, Sanoe Lake, Mika Boorem and Faizon Love; and Possession, starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Aaron Eckhart, Jeremy Northam, Jennifer Ehle, Lena Headey and Tom Hollander.
2003 - Bill Janklow (64), U.S. Congressional Representative and former South Dakota governor, ran a stop sign and killed motorcyclist Randolph E. Scott (55) near Flandreau, SD. On Aug 29 Janklow was charged with manslaughter; he was found guilty on Dec 8; announced his resignation effective Jan 20. Janklow was sentenced to serve 100 days in a county jail.
2004 - The U.S. FDA approved the first surgical device to clear clots from the brains of stroke victims.
2005 - Singing superstar Madonna suffered “multiple broken bones” in a horseback riding accident at her country home 100 miles southwest of London. She was celebrating her 47th birthday. Her injuries included three cracked ribs, a broken collarbone and broken hand.
2006 - Internet search giant Google launched a free wireless network for its hometown of Mountainview, CA.
2007 - Japan sizzled through its hottest day on record as a heat wave claimed at least nine lives. The mercury hit 105.6 degrees (40.88 C) in the western city of Tajimi in the afternoon, breaking a previous national record of 105.4 (40.77 C) degrees set in 1933.
2007 - The search for six miners missing deep underground in Utah was abruptly halted after a second cave-in killed three rescue workers and injured at least six others who were trying to tunnel through rubble.
2008 - Carol Huynh, whose parents fled communist Vietnam in the 1970s, won Canada’s first gold of the Beijing Olympics in the women’s 48 kg freestyle wrestling. Usain Bolt of Jamaica was crowned the world’s fastest man when he raced to victory in the Olympic men’s 100 meters final in a world record time of 9.69 sec.
2009 - An American cargo plane arrived in Taiwan with supplies for victims of Typhoon Morakot. Taiwan struggled to reach more than 1,000 people still stranded a week after its deadliest typhoon in half a century.
2010 - Celebrity plastic surgeon Dr. Frank Ryan, who made headlines for performing multiple surgeries on reality TV star Heidi Montag, died in a car crash in southern California. He had been texting while driving and accidentally went over a cliff.
2011 - California Governor Jerry Brown and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval signed a pact with the federal government to increase the clarity of Lake Tahoe by half a foot per year for the next 65 years. Jared Blumenfeld, the regional administrator for the EPA, said reaching the sediment reduction goal would require considerable efforts by many different entities.
2012 - TV actor William Windom died at his home in Woodacre (Marin County), California. He was a Best Actor Emmy winner in 1970 for his performance in the TV sitcom My World and Welcome to It (based on James Thurber’s humorous essays). Windom also appeared in over 50 episodes of Murder, She Wrote, where he played the part of Dr. Seth Hazlitt.
2013 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres: Lee Daniels’ The Butler, starring Liev Schreiber, Alex Pettyfer, John Cusack, Minka Kelly, Robin Williams, Alan Rickman, James Marsden, Forest Whitaker, Terrence Howard, Jesse Williams and Jane Fonda; Jobs, starring Ashton Kutcher, Amanda Crew, Dermot Mulroney, James Woods, Lukas Haas and Ahna O’Reilly; Kick-Ass 2, with Chloë Grace Moretz, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Jim Carrey, Lyndsy Fonseca, Christopher Mintz-Plasse and Iain Glen; Paranoia, starring Amber Heard, Harrison Ford, Liam Hemsworth, Gary Oldman, Josh Holloway, Embeth Davidtz, Lucas Till, Julian McMahon, Richard Dreyfuss abd Angela Sarafyan; Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, with Rooney Mara, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Rami Malek, Charles Baker, Keith Carradine, Nate Parker and Heather Kafka; the documentary, Approximately Nels Cline; the documentary, In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey; and the documentary, Spark: A Burning Man Story.
2013 - A U.S. District Judge ruled that a Los Angeles County law requiring adult film performers to wear condoms was indeed constitutional.
2014 - Rioters attacked stores in Ferguson, Missouri. This, after police said the unarmed black teenager shot dead by a white officer was a robbery suspect. Protesters stormed into the same convenience store that Michael Brown was accused of robbing.
2014 - One man was found dead and 34 others still alive in a shipping container after staff at Britain’s Tilbury Docks heard banging and screaming coming from inside. The men, women and children, were all from Afghanistan. On Aug 19 Northern Ireland police arrested a man suspected of smuggling the migrants.
2015 - An animal rights activist in Spain was beaten with a duck by a woman defending one of the country’s most bizarre and controversial festival traditions. In the Catalonian seaside town of Roses, every year since 1918, about 50 ducks are thrown into the sea, with swimmers then racing in to catch them and bringing them ashore however they can.
2016 - Authorities in southern California ordered the evacuation of 82,000 people, after a wildfire broke out in Cajon Pass and rapidly engulfed 15,000 acres (6,070 hectares) of terrain and some 100 homes. The Blue Cut Fire erupted in heavy brush just west of Interstate 15, the main freeway between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area, forcing the closure of one stretch of the highway.
2016 - Simone Biles and Aly Raisman closed out their 2016 Olympic Games in championship fashion. In the women’s floor exercise finals, Simone earned the gold medal and Aly Raisman, the team captain, took silver — the first time the U.S. has ever gone one and two in this event.
2017 - The U.S. National Parks Service announced that it would no longer allow parks to ban the sale of plastic water bottles, an option that was part of the 2011 Green Parks Plan adopted under former President Barack Obama. The bottled water and beverage industry had lobbied aggressively to get bottled water back into the U.S. national parks -- and POTUS Trump obviously listened to them regardless of the damage caused by the plastic bottles.
2018 - U.S. newspapers attacked POTUS Donald Trump’s attacks on the news media -- with a coordinated campaign of editorials highlighting the importance of a free press.
2018 - Music superstar Aretha Franklin died at her home in Detroit. The Grammy-winning singer celebrated as the Queen of Soul was 76 years old. Franklin had influenced generations of female singers with unforgettable hits including Respect, Natural Woman Chain of Fools and Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do). In 2019 Franklin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation “for her indelible contribution to American music and culture for more than five decades.”
2019 - Films showing for the first time in U.S. theatres included: 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, with Nia Long, John Corbett and Sophie Nélisse; Good Boys, with Jacob Tremblay, Molly Gordon and Will Forte; Where’d You Go Bernadette, starring Judy Greer, Cate Blanchett and Kristen Wiig; American Bistro, with Arthur Diennet, Marcel Diennet and Bill Watterson; Awake, starring Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Francesca Eastwood and William Forsythe; Boss Level, starring Annabelle Wallis, Frank Grillo and Naomi Watts; and Gwen, with Maxine Peake, Richard Harrington andEleanor Worthington-Cox.
2019 - AbbVie Inc priced its rheumatoid arthritis treatment at $59,000 a year after gaining U.S. approval. The competition was Humira, where a four-week supply of was about $5,174, amounting to more than $60,000 for a year. Ouch! We’re not sure what hurts the more: the ailment or the relief.
2019 - Actor Peter Fonda died (lung cancer, age 79) at his home in Los Angeles. Among the 100+ films in his career were Easy Rider (1969), Ulee’s Gold (1997) and The Limey (1999). Peter Fonda was the son of Henry Fonda, younger brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget Fonda.
2020 - A monitoring station at Furnace Creek, CA in Death Valley measured a temperature of 130 degrees (54.4 degrees C). Whew! Pass the iced tea please...
2020 - Israel closed the Gaza Strip’s offshore fishing zone following a night of cross-border fighting with Palestinian militants. Dozens of Palestinians took part in protests along the perimeter fence. The military said the protesters burned tires, hurled explosive devices and grenades towards the security fence and attempted to approach it.
2020 - Thousands of Puerto Ricans got a second chance to vote for the first time, a week after delayed and missing ballots marred the original primaries. Governor Wanda Vázquez acknowledged losing the primary of her pro-statehood party to Pedro Pierluisi, who had briefly served as the U.S. territory’s governor in 2019.
2021 - The government -- for the first time -- declared a water shortage at Lake Mead, one of the Colorado River’s main reservoirs. The declaration triggered cuts in water supply that affected Arizona farmers in a big way. And in 2022 they were cut off from much of the water they had relied on for decades.
2021 - Eduard Florea, an aspiring Proud Boy from Queens, NY pleaded guilty to making social media threats tied to the Jan 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. The threats included one to kill Georgia’s incoming U.S. senator Raphael Warnock. Florea also admitted to storing a large collection of ammunition at his New York City home.
2021 - Pfizer Inc and its German partner BioNTech SE said they have submitted to U.S. regulators the initial data from an early-stage trial and were seeking authorization of a booster dose of their COVID-19 vaccine.
2022 - Senator Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), one of seven Senate Republicans who voted to convict Donald Trump for inciting the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol attack, advanced to the general election, beating her chief rival, Trump-endorsed Kelly Tshibaka. Their top finishes in the nonpartisan primary ensured them two of the four spots in a November contest that to be decided by ranked-choice voting, a system that allows voters to rank candidates in order of preference. Murkowski avoided the fate of defeated Trump critic Liz Cheney (R-WY) who lost her bid for renomination to Trump supporter Harriet Hageman, who beat Cheney by 30 percentage points.
2022 - The U.S. declared its first-ever Tier 2 water shortage on the Colorado River starting in January 2023 which would impose further reductions in use of the river by Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico. Arizona faced the deepest cuts, about 21 percent of its annual allotment. California will not yet get hit with the mandatory cuts. The historic drought was drying up the Colorado River and draining Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the largest reservoirs in the U.S. The Colorado provides drinking water to some 40 million people, irrigates farms, and powers electric grids.
2023 - The British Museum revealed that a staff member had been fired for stealing some 2,000 objects including jewellery and semi-precious stones. Peter John Higgs, a prominent curator of Greek antiquities who was employed at the British Museum for three decades, took uncategorized items and sold them on eBay. Listings for artifacts from the museum’s collection had appeared online as early as 2016.
2023 - The Northwest Territories in Canada declared a state of emergency due to wildfires. The city of Yellowknife was evacuated, affecting 22,000 people.
2024 - New movies in U.S. theatres included: Alien: Romulus, starring Cailee Spaeny, Isabela Merced and Archie Renaux; My Penguin Friend, with Jean Reno, Adriana Barraza and Rochi Hernández; Ryan’s World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure, with Albie Hecht, Larry Herrera and Emma Kaji; and Skincare, starring Nathan Fillion, Elizabeth Banks and Lewis Pullman.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day August 16
1862 - Amos Alonzo Stagg
Basketball Hall of Famer: Yale University, Springfield College; coach: University of Chicago; football: Yale: first all-American team; coach: developed wing-back principle, quick kick, onside kick, double flankers, pass-run option play, man in motion; College of the Pacific: Susquehanna, Stockton Junior College; died Mar 17, 19651868 - Bernarr Macfadden (Bernard Adolphus McFadden)
physical fitness/exercise advocate: founded Coney Island Polar Bears [1903]; publisher: Physical Culture Magazine, True Story Magazine, True Romances, True Detective Mysteries Magazine, Photoplay; author: Macfadden’s Encyclopedia of Physical Culture, Physical Training, Fasting, Hydropathy, and Exercise, Virile Powers of Superb Manhood, How to Raise a Strong Baby, Colds, Coughs, and Catarrh, Talks to a Young Man about Sex, Be Married and like It, [close to 150 books]; hotel magnate; founded Bernarr Macfadden Institute; died Oct 12, 19551894 - George Meany
labor leader: president of American Federation of Labor [1952-1979]; merged the AFL with Congress of Industrial Organizations [CIO]; died Jan 10, 19801910 - Mae Clarke (Violet Mary Klotz)
actress: The Public Enemy, Flying Tigers, Frankenstein; died Apr 29, 19921913 - Menachem Begin
6th Prime Minister of Israel: signed peace treaty w/Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat [1979]; died Mar 9, 19921915 - Al Hibbler
singer: Unchained Melody, He, 11th Hour Melody, Never Turn Back, After the Lights Go Down Low; died Apr 24, 20011922 - Gene (Eugene Richard) Woodling
baseball: Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates, NY Yankees [World Series: 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953], Baltimore Orioles [all-star: 1959], Washington Senators, NY Mets; died June 2, 20011924 - Fess Parker
actor: Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Westward, Ho the Wagons!; singer: The Ballad of Davy Crockett, Wringle Wrangle; died Mar 18, 20101928 - Ann (Marie) Blyth
actress: The Merry Monahans, The Helen Morgan Story, Rose Marie, Kismet, The Student Prince, The Great Caruso, The Buster Keaton Story1928 - Eydie Gorme (Edith Gormezano)
Grammy Award-winning singer: Blame It on The Bossa Nova [1967]; Too Close for Comfort, Love Me Forever, I’ll Take Romance, Tea for Two, You Need Hands, I Want to Stay Here [w/Steve Lawrence]; married since 1957 to Steve Lawrence; died Aug 10, 20131930 - Robert Culp
actor: I Spy, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, The Pelican Brief, The Greatest American Hero; died Mar 24, 20101930 - Frank Gifford
College/Pro Football Hall of Famer: USC, New York Giants; broadcaster: Monday Night Football; husband of Kathie Lee Gifford; died Aug 9, 20151930 - Tony Trabert
tennis champion: French Open [1954, 1955], Wimbledon [1955], U.S. Open [1953, 1955]; died Feb 3, 20211933 - Julie Newmar (Newmeyer)
actress: Batman, My Living Doll, Deep Space, Li’L Abner, MacKenna’s Gold, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers1934 - Ketty Lester (Revoyda Frierson)
singer: Love Letters; actress: Up Tight!, Uptown Saturday Night, Morningstar/Eveningstar, Street Knight, Getting Personal1936 - Anita Gillette (Luebben)
actress: Quincy, Moonstruck, Marathon, Boys on the Side1937 - Lorraine Gary
actress: Jaws, 1941, Zero to Sixty, Pray for the Wildcats, The Marcus-Nelson Murders, The City, Just You and Me, Kid1939 - Billy Joe Shaver
musician: guitar; songwriter, singer: Old Five and Dimers Like Me, Black Rose, Bottom Dollar, Lately I Been Leanin’ T'ward the Blues, Texas Uphere Tennessee; died Oct 28, 20201939 - Carole Shelley
actress: The Elephant Man, The Odd Couple; died Aug 31, 20181942 - Barbara George
singer: I Know [You Don’t Love Me No More]1943 - Woody Peoples
football: Philadelphia Eagles guard: Super Bowl XV; died Oct 12, 20101945 - Bob Balaban
actor: The Late Shift, For Love or Money, Alice, Whose Life is It Anyway?, Absence of Malice, Altered States, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Little Man Tate, Midnight Cowboy1945 - Suzanne Farrell (Ficker)
ballerina; founder of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet at the Kennedy Center, Washington, DC1945 - Gordon ‘Snowy’ Fleet
musician: drummer: group The Easybeats: Friday on My Mind1946 - Lesley Ann Warren
actress: Cinderella, Victor/Victoria, Clue, Color of Night, Portrait of a Showgirl, Portrait of a Stripper1948 - Mike Jorgensen
baseball: NY Mets, Montreal Expos, Oakland Athletics, Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves, SL Cardinals [World Series: 1985]1952 - Al (Alfred Willis) Holland
baseball: pitcher: Pittsburgh Pirates, SF Giants, Philadelphia Phillies [World Series: 1983/all-star: 1984], California Angels, NY Yankees1952 - Reginald VelJohnson
actor: Die Hard series, Ghostbusters, Family Matters1953 - Kathie Lee Gifford (Kathryn Lee Epstein)
talk show host: Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee, Today1953 - James ‘J.T.’ Taylor
singer: group: Kool and The Gang: Celebration1954 - James Cameron
film director: Avatar, Titanic, The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Aliens, The Abyss, True Lies, True Lies 21955 - Jeff Perry
actor: Scandal, Nash Bridges, Wild Things, The Human Stain, Hard Promises, The Grifters, My So-Called Life, The West Wing, The Practice, Lost, Cold Case, Raines, Grey’s Anatomy, Prison Break1957 - Tim Farriss
musician: guitar: group: INXS: Suicide Blonde, Mistify, Need You Tonight, Never Tear Us Apart, Devil Inside, New Sensation, What You Need1958 - Angela Bassett
actress: Waiting to Exhale, FX, What’s Love Got to Do with It?, Malcolm X, Boyz N the Hood1958 - Madonna (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone)
singer: Material Girl, Like a Virgin; actress: Dick Tracy, Desperately Seeking Susan, Shanghai Surprise, A League of Their Own1960 - Timothy Hutton
actor: Taps, Made in Heaven, Ordinary People, The Dark Half, The Temp, Q&A1961 - Christian Okoye
football: Kansas City Chiefs running back: UP’s AFL offensive player of the year [1989]1962 - Steve Carell
comedian, actor: The Office, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Little Miss Sunshine, Evan Almighty, Dan in Real Life, Get Smart, Date Night, Dinner for Schmucks, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, The Morning Show; characters voice: Over the Hedge, Horton Hears a Who!, Despicable Me1964 - Rick Reed
baseball [pitcher]: Pittsburgh Pirates, KC Royals, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds, NY Mets, Minnesota Twins1966 - Terry Shumpert
baseball: KC Royals, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, SD Padres, Colorado Rockies, TB Devil Rays, Pittsburgh Pirates1968 - Donovan Leitch
actor: Men Make Women Crazy Theory, The ’60s, The Size of Watermelons, For the Very First Time, Glory, The Blob1970 - Eric Swann
football [defensive tackle]: NFL: Phoenix/Arizona Cardinals, Carolina Panthers1971 - Willie Jackson
football [wide receiver]: Univ of Florida; NFL: Dallas Cowboys, Jacksonville Jaguars, Cincinnati Bengals, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons, Washington Redskins, Denver Broncos1972 - Emily Robison
musician: banjo, singer: group: The Dixie Chicks: Goodbye Earl, Some Days You Gotta Dance, Long Time Gone, Travelin’ Soldier, Cold Day in July, White Trash Wedding, If I Fall You’re Going Down With Me1973 - Damian Jackson
baseball: Cleveland Indians, Cincinnati Reds, SD Padres, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, KC Royals, Chicago Cubs1974 - Roger Cedeño
baseball: LA Dodgers, NY Mets, Houston Astros, Detroit Tigers, SL Cardinals1980 - Vanessa Carlton
singer: A Thousand Miles, Wishin’ and Hopin’, White Houses, Ordinary Day, Say You Would, Paradise, San Francisco, C’Est la Vie, She Floats, Swindler1981 - Taylor Rain
actress [2002-2010]: X-rated films: Young and Furious, Young and the Raunchy, Ass Up Face Down, Suck It Til It Pops, No Holes Barred, Eye of the Beholder, Magic Sex Genie1982 - Cam Gigandet
actor: The O.C., Twilight, Never Back Down, Burlesque, Easy A, The Roommate, Priest, Pandorum1985 - Agnes Bruckner
actress: The Woods, Stateside, Murder by Numbers, The Glass House, The Bold and the Beautiful, Private Practice, 241985 - Arden Cho
actress: Teen Wolf, Mega Python vs. Gatoroid, Pretty Little Liars, CSI: NY, The Baytown Outlaws, Stuck1985 - Cristin Milioti
actress: Broadway: That Face, Stunning, Once; films/TV: A to Z, How I Met Your Mother, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Occupants1986 - Shawn Pyfrom
actor: Desperate Housewives, Stanley, The Shaggy Dog, The Darkroom, The Alyson Stoner Project, Tanner Hall, Killing Lincoln1987 - Carey Price
hockey [goaltender]: NHL: Montreal Canadiens [2007- ]; member of Team Canada for 2014 Sochi Olympics gold medal run1988 - Rumer Willis
actress: The House Bunny, Striptease, The Whole Nine Yards, Sorority Row; winner of season 20 of Dancing with the Stars; daughter of actors Bruce Willis and Demi Moore1988 - Parker Young
actor: United States of Al, Suburgatory, Enlisted, Animal, Sex Ed, Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight, Fourth Man Out1991 - Evanna Lynch
actress: Harry Potter film series and video games; It Don’t Come Easy1996 - Caeleb Dressel
swim champ: 7 x Olympic gold 2016, 2020; 13 x World Championship gold; 100m butterfly 49.45 2020 World Record1996 - Will Zalatoris
golf champ: 2022 FedEx St. Jude Championship; runner-up: 2021 Masters, 2022 U.S. Open & PGA Championship)2001 - Jannik Sinner
tennis champ: 14 singles titles on the ATP Tour, including a Grand Slam title at the 2024 Australian Open and two Masters 1000 titles
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day August 16
1946They Say It’s Wonderful (facts) - Frank Sinatra
The Gypsy (facts) - The Ink Spots
1955
1964
1973
1982
1991
2000
2009
2018
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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