August 24
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Events on This Day
0079 - The volcano, Mt. Vesuvius, erupted for the first time, destroying southern Italy’s cities of Pompeii, Stabiae and Herculaneum. Vesuvius exploded without warning at about noon, covering Pompeii in a layer of ash nearly 13 feet deep. The other two cities were buried under mud and volcanic debris. Archaeologists have determined what life was like in Roman times from the volcanic-ash-preserved remains of the cities. Vesuvius is still active.
1456 - The printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed.
1814 - British forces destroyed the U.S. Library of Congress -- and the 3,000 books contained therein. All the public buildings in Washington, DC, except the Patent Office Building, were put to the torch in retaliation for what the British perceived as excessive destruction by American forces the year before in York, capital of upper Canada.
1821 - After a ten-year rebellion against Spanish colonists, Mexico gained its independence. The Treaty of Córdoba gave Mexico its independence from Spain. The treaty was signed on this day in Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexico by the Mexican revolutionary Agustín Cosme Damián de Iturbide y Arámburu and Juan de O'Donojú on behalf of Spanish King Ferdinand VII.
1869 - Cornelius Swarthout of Troy, New York received a patent for the waffle iron, a “device to bake waffles.” He didn’t waffle about putting his invention to good use. It quickly became a popular appliance. You would heat up the waffle iron on the old coal stove - and later, the gas range - pour the batter on the griddle, close the cover and after a few minutes, flip the griddle in its little groove, and cook the other side of the waffle. Not quite as convenient as our electric waffle irons, but, you can be sure, if it’s Swarthout!
1891 - Thomas Edison applied for a movie camera patent. The most important element in making a movie, the film, was patented six years later.
1912 - The U.S. Post Office got heavy -- by abolishing its rule that only parcels up to four pounds could be sent through the system.
1920 - The first airplane to fly from New York to Alaska arrived in Nome on this day. Actually, four (or five) U.S. Army Air Service planes, each carrying a pilot and a copilot-mechanic, with Captain St. Clair Streett in command, flew from Mineola (Long Island), New York to Nome, Alaska.
1932 - Amelia Earhart began the first nonstop transcontinental (across U.S.) airplane flight by a woman. She took off from Los Angeles, California in a red Wasp-powered Lockhead plane. She landed in Newark, New Jersey the next day. The 2,600-mile journey took her nineteen hours and five minutes.
1939 - From our Try to Pay Attention Dept.: Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter surrendered himself in spectacular fashion on this night, by using nationally-known radio personality Walter Winchell as an intermediary. Lepke, leader of Murder, Inc., turned himself over to J. Edgar Hoover (F.B.I Director), thinking a deal had been made for Lepke to beat a drug rap. Hoover had a big surprise, however, as he informed Lepke that he had been set-up. It seems gangster Frank Costello had never worked out the deal with the feds. After his trial and conviction on the narcotics charge, Lepke was handed over to Thomas E. Dewey and tried for the 1936 murder of Joseph Rosen, a trucking firm operator in the garment industry who had refused to knuckle under and ended up shot 17 times in the head, face and throat. Convicted of organizing Rosen’s murder, Louis ‘Lepke’ Buchalter was sentenced to death. On March 5, 1944, he died in the electric chair in Sing Sing Prison, swearing with his final words that Costello had set him up. We now return you to our regular program...
1940 - Australian-born British pathologist Howard Florey and German-born British biochemist Ernst Chain announced in The Lancet (the prestigious London medical journal) that they had developed penicillin for general clinical use as an antibiotic.
1949 - The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) became effective on this day. The purpose of the treaty (and organization) was to “provide a system of collective defense in the event of armed attack against any member by means of a policy based on the principles of credible deterrence and genuine détente; to work towards a constructive East-West relationship through dialogue and mutually advantageous cooperation, including efforts to reach agreement on militarily significant, equitable, and verifiable arms reduction; to cooperate within the alliance in economic, scientific, cultural, and other areas.”
1950 - The summer replacement radio show for Suspense, titled Somebody Knows, was heard for the final time on radio. The program offered a reward of $5,000 for information that led to the solving of crimes. Somebody Knows began with the introduction, “You out there. You, who think you have committed the perfect crime -- that there are no clues, no witnesses -- listen. Somebody knows.”
1954 - The Communist Control Act went into effect in the U.S. While not directly outlawing the Communist Party, this act (sponsored by Hubert Humphrey) stripped it of “all rights, privileges, and immunities attendant upon legal bodies.” It also forbade any member of a “Communist-action” or “Communist-infiltrated” organization from holding office or employment with any labor organization. This in reaction to McCarthyism across the U.S.
1959 - Hiram L. Fong and Oren E. Long were sworn in as the first U.S. senators from the new state of Hawaii (Fong was also the first Chinese-American U.S. senator); while Daniel K. Inouye was sworn in as the first Japanese-American U.S. representative.
1963 - John Pennel became the first pole-vaulter to vault higher than 17 feet. Pennel, using a fiberglass pole, vaulted 17 feet, 3/4 inches during a meet in Miami, FL.
1968 - France tested its first hydrogen bomb at Fangataufa Atoll in the South Pacific. It made a big boom, with a yield of 2.6 megatons.
1975 - Davey Lopes of the Los Angeles Dodgers established a major-league baseball record. He successfully stole his 38th consecutive base. Lopes pulled off the steal in the 12th inning of a game against the Montreal Expos. The Dodgers, however, still lost in 14 innings. The Score was 5-3.
1981 - Mark David Chapman was sentenced in New York to 20 years to life in prison for shooting rock star John Lennon to death.
1985 - Huey Lewis and The News reached the top. The Power of Love was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks.
1986 - Financially troubled Frontier Airlines shut down, stranding thousands of passengers throughout the West.
1989 - Pete Rose, baseball's all-time hits leader, was out - of baseball (banned for life). Rose signed a five-page agreement with A. Bartlett Giamatti, comissioner of baseball, who charged that Rose, as Cincinnati Reds manager, bet on baseball games.
1991 - The day the Soviet Union began to break apart, and Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as head of the Communist party. (He resigned the presidency of the Soviet Union on Dec 25, 1991).
1992 - One of the worst natural disasters to hit the United States occurred on this day as Hurricane Andrew crashed into southern Florida. Andrew left a trail of destruction that killed at least 20 people, left over 50,000 without homes and caused billions of dollars in property damage.
1993 - NASA’s Mars Observer, which was supposed to map the surface of Mars, was declared lost.
1995 - Microsoft officially rolled out their Windows 95 operating system. Midnight parties at retailers across the U.S. offered the new system for sale to those who just couldn’t wait any longer. NBC’s Jay Leno hosted the official launch party at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. The company lit up the Empire State Building with the Windows 95 logo colors, and licensed the Rolling Stones song, Start Me Up, to use in its TV advertisements (for $12 million).
1995 - LIFE magazine photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt died. His photograph of a sailor kissing a nurse in New York’s Times Square became one of the best known images of the U.S. celebration after Japan’s surrender in World War II.
1996 - Steve Fossett sailed across the Pacific Ocean, setting a solo speed record of twenty days in his sixty-foot, three-hulled boat, the Lakota.
1998 - The U.S. and Great Britain announced that they had agreed that two Libyans accused of the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland, should be tried under Scottish law -- with Scottish judges -- in the Hague, Netherlands. U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook made the announcement in Washington and London respectively. (On Jan 31, 2001, the trial ended with the aquittal of Lameen Fhima and a guilty verdict for Abdelbasset Megrahi.)
2000 - U.S. President Bill Clinton and VP Al Gore met with Mexican President-elect Vicente Fox in Washington, DC. Fox promoted his ideas for an open border between the two countries.
2001 - It was opening day in the U.S. for these flicks: Bubble Boy, with Jake Gyllenhaal, Swoosie Kurtz, Marley Shelton, Danny Trejo, John Carroll Lynch, Verne J. Troyer and Dave Sheridan; Jay and Silent Bob Strike, starring Jason Mewes, Kevin Smith, Ben Affleck, Chris Rock, Shannon Elizabeth, Will Ferrell and George Carlin; Ghosts of Mars, with Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Pam Grier, Clea Duvall, Joanna Cassidy and Liam Waite; and Summer Catch, with Freddie Prinze Jr., Jessica Biel, Brittany Murphy, Wilmer Valderrama, Gabriel Mann, Matthew Lillard and Christian Kane.
2001 - A U.S. federal appeals court returned Microsoft’s four-year-old antitrust case to a lower court, ordering U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to take over and come up with whatever action should be taken against Microsoft for its anticompetitive practices.
2001 - Tom Green, a Mormon fundamentalist with five wives and 30 children, was sentenced by a court in Provo, Utah, to five years in prison. It was the state’s biggest polygamy case in nearly half a century.
2001 - The Bridgestone/Firestone tire company agreed to pay $7.5 million to the family of Marisa Rodriguez, who was paralyzed in a Ford Explorer crash in 2000. (Ford settled before the trial for $6 million.)
2001 - Actress Jane Greer died. Her films included Out of the Past, a top noir prototype, The Big Steal, The Company She Keeps and Against All Odds. She also appeared in many TV series, including Twin Peaks and Columbo. Greer was 76 years old.
2002 - The FBI uncovered the remains of 12-year-old Ashley Pond and 13-year-old Miranda Gaddis in an outbuilding behind the house of Ward Weaver III in Oregon City, OR. The girls had lived across the street from Weaver. Weaver was indicted October 4, 2002 on 17 counts, including aggravated murder, sex abuse, attempted rape and abuse of a corpse.
2003 - Eight firefighters were killed in Oregon when their van hit a tractor-trailer. They were returning from fighting a wildfire in Idaho.
2004 - One Russian airliner crashed and a second disappeared from radar about the same time, after both planes took off from the same Moscow airport. A hijack warning signal was broadcast from the second plane. All 89 passengers and crew were killed, 46 aboard a TU-154 and 43 aboard a TU-134. A subsequent investigation revealed that bombs on the planes were triggered by two female Chechen suicide bombers.
2005 - Heavy floods hit Switzerland, Austria and Germany forcing thousands of people out of their homes.
2006 - Astronomers meeting in Prague declared that Pluto was no longer a planet. The decision was made under revised guidelines that downsized the solar system from nine planets to eight.
2006 - The U.S. FDA approved Plan B, also called the morning after pill, for sale without prescription to women 18 and older.
2007 - New movies in the U.S.: Closing Escrow, starring April Barnett, Rob Brownstein, Colleen Crabtree, Andrew Friedman, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Kirstin Pierce, Ryan Smith, Bruce Thomas, Patty Wortham and Cedric Yarbrough; Illegal Tender, with Rick Gonzalez, Wanda De Jesus, Dania Ramirez, Tego Calderon, Manny Perez and Gary Perez; Mr. Bean’s Holiday, starring Rowan Atkinson, Willem Dafoe, Emma de Caunes and Jean Rochefort; The Nanny Diaries, with Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Donna Murphy, Alicia Keys and Chris Evans; Resurrecting the Champ, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Josh Hartnett, Teri Hatcher, Kathryn Morris, Dakota Goyo, Alan Alda, Rachel Nichols, Glenn Hunter, David Paymer, Ryan McDonald, Harry J. Lennix, Peter Coyote, Chris Ippolito, Stephen Strachan and Eugene Clark; September Dawn, starring Jon Voight, Trent Ford, Tamara Hope, Terence Stamp, Lolita Davidovich, Dean Cain, John Gries, Taylor Handley, Krisinda Cain and Shaun Johnston; and War, with Jet Li, Jason Statham and Nadine Velazquez.
2007 - Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick admitted to participating in an illegal dogfighting operation. He was suspended indefinitely by the National Football League.
2008 - A wall of snow in the Mont Blanc range of the French Alps buried 3 Swiss and 5 Austrian climbers.
2008 - The Beijing Olympics drew to a spectacular close. China’s haul of 51 gold medals was the largest since the Soviet Union won 55 in Seoul in 1988. The U.S. won 36 gold medals and Russia came in 3rd with 23. Jamaica ended up with 11 medals including 6 gold. Cuba took home 24 medals, 2 gold. And Kenya took home 14 medals, 5 of them gold.
2008 - 40,000 people, including record-breaking swimmer Michael Phelps, gathered in London to celebrate its being named the 2012 Olympic host city.
2009 - Reader’s Digest, founded in 1922, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The company had piled on debt following a $1.6 billion leveraged buyout in 2007 by investors led by Ripplewood Holdings LLC, a New York private equity firm. Reader’s Digest emerged from bankruptcy in 2010 publishing 10 yearly issues in the U.S., instead of 12.
2010 - Scientists reported that the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico oil spill had revealed a previously unknown type of oil-eating bacteria, which was flourishing.
2011 - Steve Jobs resigned as chief executive of Apple Inc in a stunning move that ended his 14-year reign at the technology giant that he had co-founded in a garage. Jobs had been diagnosed and treated for pancreatic cancer in 2004 and had taken three separate leaves of absence for medical reasons during and since that time. In 2009, he received a liver transplant. He had been away from his day-to-day corporate duties since January 2011. Jobs died at his California home on Oct 5, 2011, due to complications from the relapse of the pancreatic cancer.
2011 - Astrophysicist Peter Nugent of the Lawrence Berkeley (U.S.) National Laboratory discovered a supernova in the Pinwheel Galaxy, a neighbor of the Milky Way. The event dating back 21 million years was identified as a type 1a supernova and named SN2011FE.
2012 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres: The Apparition, starring Ashley Greene, Tom Felton, Sebastian Stan, Julianna Guill, Luke Pasqualino, Rick Gomez, Anna Clark, Suzanne Ford, Meena Serendib and Marti Matulis; Premium Rush, with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jamie Chung, Dania Ramirez, Michael Shannon, Aaron Tveit, Aasif Mandvi, Nick Damici, and Lauren Ashley Carter; General Education, with Chris Sheffieldand Maiara Walsh; Robot and Frank, starring Frank Langella, James Marsden, Liv Tyler, Susan Sarandon, Peter Sarsgaard and Jeremy Strong; the docuentary Samsara; and The Victim, with Michael Biehn, Jennifer Blanc, Ryan Honey, Danielle Harris, Denny Kirkwood, Tanya Newbould, Dana Daurey and Alyssa Lobit.
2012 - Apple won a judgement of more than a billion dollars in a massive San Jose, CA court victory over Samsung. It was the biggest patent infringement case in decades. Samsung announced that it would contest the U.S. verdict.
2013 - Doctors Without Borders reported that some 355 people, who showed ‘neurotoxic symptoms,’ had died following chemical attacks near Syria’s capital of Damascus. This, while Iranian President Hassan Rouhani confirmed that the deadly weapons had killed people in Syria and called for the international community to prevent their further use.
2014 - Two New York comics dealers submitted the winning bid for a rare copy of Action Comics No. 1, the 1938 comic book in which Superman first appeared. Stephen Fishler and Vincent Zurzolo bid a record $3.2 million in an e-Bay auction. The winning bid surpassed the $2.1 million bid for a similarly high-quality copy of the same book in 2011.
2014 - Sir Richard Attenborough, English actor and director, died just five days shy of his 91st birthday. Attenborough’s films included In Which We Serve (1942), Brighton Rock (1947), Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) and Jurassic Park (1993). He won an Oscar in 1993 for directing Gandhi (1982).
2015 - The U.S. stock market fell again as the Dow Jones dropped 588 to 15,871; the S&P fell 77 to 1,893; the Nasdaq fell 179 to 4526. It was what financial experts termed a “correction.”
2015 - French President Francois Hollande awarded France’s highest honor, the Legion d’honneur, to three U.S. citizens and Briton Chris Norman, who on August 21 helped disarm an Islamist militant on a train.
2016 - The world’s largest natural pearl has been unveiled in the Philippines after a local fisherman says he kept it under his bed for ten years. The pearl measured 2.2 feet (61 cm) by 1 foot (30cm) and weighed 34kg (75 lb). The unnamed fisherman told authorities he found the pearl a decade ago while freeing his ship’s anchor off the coast of Palawan Island in the Philippines. The man swam down to pull the anchor up, and in the process dislodged a giant clam that had been cultivating the pearl. He kept the pearl at home as a good luck charm, he explained, until a fire this year forced him to move house, so he brought it to his aunt, a local tourism officer. The pearl is now on public display at the New Green City Hall in Puerto Princesa.
2016 - Earthquakes struck central Italy. The first, 6.2-magnitude quake hit 100 km (65 miles) northeast of Rome, in the Apennine regions, at 3:36 a.m. local time. A second 5.4-magnitude quake followed at 4:33 a.m. The mayor of one of the hardest-hit towns in the Umbrian mountains says there was virtually nothing left standing. The death toll soon climbed to 290. A Polish geologist said it was caused by the slow but constant under-surface movement of the African Plate toward Europe.
2017 - India’s Supreme Court ruled that citizens have a constitutional right to privacy, a landmark decision that would complicate Aadhaar, the government program holding biometric data on over a billion people.
2017 - The Durham, NC Public Schools board voted unanimously to revise its dress code to prohibit the Confederate flag, Ku Klux Klan symbols and swastikas.
2018 - Motion pictures opening in U.S. theatres included: A.X.L., with Thomas Jane, Becky G and Ted McGinley; The Happytime Murders, starring Melissa McCarthy, Elizabeth Banks and Maya Rudolph; Beautifully Broken, with Benjamin A. Onyango, Scott William Winters and Emily Hahn; Blue Iguana, starring Sam Rockwell, Ben Schwartz and Amanda Donohoe; The Bookshop, with Emily Mortimer, Bill Nighy and Patricia Clarkson; Destination Wedding, starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Dj Dallenbach; Papillon, with Rami Malek, Charlie Hunnam and Tommy Flanagan; Support the Girls, starring Regina Hall, Haley Lu Richardson and Dylan Gelula; and What Keeps You Alive, with Hannah Emily Anderson, Brittany Allen and Martha MacIsaac.
2018 - A South Korean court extended by a year the 24-year prison sentence of former President Park Geun-hye for corruption in office. The Seoul High Court handed Park a 25-year prison sentence after concluding that she took more money in bribes than had been initially known. Park was also fined 20 billion won ($18 million).
2018 - Major technology firms including Facebook, Google and Twitter met in San Francisco as part of an effort to coordinate their battle against misinformation campaigns by foreign agents. Microsoft, Snapchat and other tech firms also participated in the gathering called by Facebook cybersecurity head Nathaniel Gleicher. Facebook and Twitter had recently suspended or removed hundreds of accounts linked to Russia and Iran that displayed “inauthentic behavior.”
2019 - Virginia Governor Ralph Northam announced a state commission to review educational standards for teaching black history in the state. Northam, speaking at the 2019 African Landing Commemorative Ceremony in Hampton, said, “We are a state that for too long has told a false story of ourselves. We often fail to draw the connecting lines from those past events to our present day, but to move forward, that is what we must do. We know that racism and discrimination aren’t locked in the past. They weren’t solved with the Civil Rights Act. They didn’t disappear. They merely evolved.”
2019 - Kevin O’Leary, aka Mr. Wonderful of TV’s "Shark Tank", was a passenger on a boat involved in a fatal collision on Muskoka’s Lake Joseph (central Ontario, Canada). O’Leary’s wife, Linda was at the helm. O’Leary said, “...I was a passenger in a boat that had a tragic collision with another craft that had no navigation lights on and then fled the scene of the accident. I am fully cooperating with authorities.” Linda O’Leary was later found not guilty of careless operation of a vessel. The other boater, Richard Ruh, aged 57 years of Orchard Park, NY, was charged with failing to exhibit navigation light(s).
2020 - The New York state attorney general was investigating whether Donald Trump and the Trump Organization improperly manipulated the value of the Trump’s assets to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits. Lawyers for the attorney general said subpoenas were issued as part of the “ongoing confidential civil investigation into potential fraud or illegality.”
2020 - Israeli archaeologists reported the discovery of a trove of early Islamic gold coins found during salvage excavations near the central city of Yavne. The collection of 425 complete gold coins mostly dated to the Abbasid period around 1,100 years ago.
2021 - Hawaii Governor David Ige asked visitors and residents to reduce travel to the islands while the state struggled to control COVID-19 infections.
2021 - The Vatican reported that Pope Francis had sent more than €416,000 ($425,000) in charity funds at his personal disposal to help with emergency relief in Haiti, Bangladesh and Vietnam. $239,000 was going to Haiti to help in the aftermath of the August 14 earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people. Some $69,000 was sent to Bangladesh for continuing recovery assistance from Cyclone Yaas, which left tens of thousands of people homeless, and about $117,000 euros to Vietnam, where food supplies had been hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.
2022 - President Biden announced a plan to cancel student loan debts by $10,000 (for those earning less than $125,000) and $20,000 for those who had received Pell grants. (In June 2023, The Supreme Court ruled against Biden’s student loan plan, and he said shortly thereafter that he would announce a “new path” forward on debt relief that is “legally sound.”
2023 - FIFA opened disciplinary procedings against Luis Rubiales, head of Spanish football, for kissing a player on the lips during celebrations for the Spanish women’s World Cup win. (Rubiales was banned from all football activities for three years.)
2023 - Norwegian Magnus Carlsen defeated Indian teenager Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa in a tiebreak to win the Chess World Cup championship. (Chess World Cup 2023 was a 206-player single-elimination chess tournament that took place in Baku, Azerbaijan from 30 July to 24 August 2023. It was the 10th edition of the Chess World Cup.)
2023 - Donald Trump became the first former U.S. president to have a mug shot taken when he was placed under arrest at the Fulton County jail. He was booked as inmate No. P01135809 after surrendering on more than a dozen charges stemming from his alleged efforts to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. Sources tell CNN that the former president wanted to appear defiant in the mug shot, and purposefully chose not to smile. After he was released on a $200,000 bond, Trump slammed the case as “a travesty of justice,” and told reporters, “I did nothing wrong.” His surrender in Georgia marked the fourth time in the year the former president has turned himself in to local or federal officials after criminal charges were brought against him -- episodes that had also never been seen in U.S. history.
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Birthdays on This Day August 24
1890 - Duke Paoa Kahinu Mokoe Hulikohola Kahanamoku
Olympic swimming champ: [2 gold medals: 1912, 1920, one silver [1924] in 100M freestyle; actor: Mister Roberts, Wake of the Red Witch; died Jan 22, 19681900 - Jimmie Fidler
entertainment gossip columnist; TV host: Hollywood Opening Night; died Aug 9, 19881900 - Preston Foster
actor: The Time Travelers, The Marshal’s Daughter, My Friend Flicka, Dr. X, Annie Oakley, Waterfront; died July 14, 19701911 - Durward (Randall) Kirby
TV announcer: The Garry Moore Show, The Perry Como Show, Auction-Aire; TV host: Candid Camera; died Mar 15, 20001917 - Dennis James (Demie James Sposa)
TV host: Chance of a Lifetime, High Finance, The Name’s the Same, United Cerebral Palsy Telethon; “Okay? Okay!”; died June 3, 19971924 - Louis Teicher
pianist: duo: Ferrante & Teicher: Exodus, Tonight, Theme from "The Apartment", Midnight Cowboy; died Aug 3, 20081928 - Penny (Millicent Maxine) Edwards
actress: Heart of the Rockies, North of the Great Divide, Trail of Robin Hood; died Aug 26, 19981929 - Yasser Arafat
1st president of the Palestinian National Authority [1994-2004], founded the Fatah political party; spent much of his political career fighting Israel; died Nov 11, 20041930 - Roger McCluskey
race driver: National Sprint Car Hall of Famer: winner: PPG Cup [official IndyCar World Series Championship]: 1973; raced in 18 Indianapolis 500 races; Indy Car Driving Champion: 1973; died July 29, 19931933 - Ray Scott
‘godfather of modern bass fishing’: founded Bass Anglers Sportsman Society [B.A.S.S.] in 1967; died May 8, 20221936 - Murray Balfour
hockey: NHL: Montreal Canadiens, Chicago Blackhawks, Boston Bruins; died May 30, 19651938 - David Freiberg
musician: bass guitar: group: Jefferson Starship: We Built this City; Quicksilver Messenger Service: Dino’s Song, The Fool, Who Do You Love1938 - Mason Williams
musician: guitar: Classical Gas; Emmy Award-winning writer: The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour [1968-69]; The Glenn Campbell Goodtime Hour1941 - Ernest Wright
singer: group: Little Anthony and the Imperials: Tears on My Pillow, Shimmy, Shimmy, Ko-Ko-Bop, Hurt So Bad1943 - John Cipollina
musician: guitar: group: Quicksilver Messenger Service: Dino’s Song, Who Do You Love?, The Fool; died May 29, 19891944 - Jim Brady
singer: group: The Sandpipers: Guantanamera, Come Saturday Morning1944 - Gregory Jarvis
aircraft engineer: astronaut; killed Jan 28, 1986 in Challenger space shuttle explosion1945 - Ken Hensley
musician: guitar, keyboard, composer: group: Uriah Heep: July Morning, Easy Livin’1947 - Anne Archer
actress: Fatal Attraction, Paradise Alley, Short Cuts, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Man of the House, Hawaii Five-0 [2010], Beautiful Screamer, Little House on the Prairie, Falcon Crest, Boston Public, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Privileged, Ghost Whisperer1949 - Joe Regalbuto
actor: Murphy Brown, Knots Landing, Writer’s Block, The Queen of Mean, Invitation to Hell, Lassiter1952 - Mike Shanahan
football head coach: Los Angeles Raiders [1988–1989]; Denver Broncos [1995–2008]: 1997 Super Bowl XXXII, 1998 Super Bowl XXXIII champs; Washington Redskins [2010–2013]1954 - Chris (Christopher Sean) Batton
baseball: pitcher: Oakland Athletics1955 - Jeffrey Daniel
singer: group: Shalamar: Take that to the Bank, The Lover in You1955 - Mike Huckabee
politician: Governor of Arkansas [1996-2007]; Republican candidate in 2008 U.S. presidential primaries; Southern Baptist Minister1956 - Tony (Antonio Garcia) Bernazard
baseball: Montreal Expos, Chicago White Sox, Seattle Mariners, Cleveland Indians, Oakland Athletics, Detroit Tigers1957 - Stephen Fry
journalist, comedian, TV presenter, director, actor: The Cellar Tapes, House of Boys, V for Vendetta, MirrorMask, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Le Divorce, Spice World1958 - Steve Guttenberg
actor: Billy, No Soap Radio, Cocoon, Three Men and a Baby, Three Men and a Little Lady, Police Academy series, The Boys from Brazil1960 - Cal (Calvin Edwin) Ripken Jr.
baseball: shortstop: Baltimore Orioles [Rookie of the Year: 1982/World Series: 1983/all-star: 1983 thru 1996/Baseball Writers’ Award: 1991/record: most consecutive games played: 1996]1961 - Mark Bedford
musician: bass: group: Madness: The Prince, Don’t Quote Me on That, Our House, My Girl, Baggy Trousers, Embarrassment, Return of the Los Palmos Seven, Cardiac Arrest, House of Fun, Tomorrow’s Just Another Day, Starvation, Ghost Train1961 - Jared Harris
actor: Mad Men, Fringe, Igby Goes Down, The Rachel Papers, Lost in Space, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, How to Kill Your Neighbor’s Dog, Happiness, Mr. Deeds, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Lincoln1962 - Craig Kilborn
TV host: The Daily Show [1996-1998], The Late Late Show with Craig Kilborn [1999-2004]1965 - Marlee Matlin
Academy Award-winning actress: Children of a Lesser God [1986]; Hear No Evil, Bridge to Silence, Reasonable Doubts1965 - Reggie Miller
basketball [guard]: UCLA; NBA: Indiana Pacers; 2000 NBA finals1968 - Tim Salmon
baseball [outfield]: California, Anaheim, Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim [1992–2006]: 2002 World Series champs1969 - Ariauna Albright
actress: Platoon of the Dead, Horrorvision, Bloodletting, Urban Legend, The Haunted
1973 - David Chappelle
actor, comedian: Undercover Brother, Blue Streak, 200 Cigarettes, You’ve Got Mail, Half Baked, Chappelle’s Show1973 - Carmine Giovinazzo
actor: CSI: NY, Revenge is Best Served Cold, In Enemy Hands, This Is Not a Test, Black Hawk Down1975 - James D’Arcy
actor: Poetic Unreason, An American Haunting, Exorcist: The Beginning, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, Case of Evil, The Trench1976 - Alex O’Loughlin
actor: Hawaii Five-0 [2010], The Shield, Moonlight, Three Rivers, The Back-Up Plan, August Rush, The Invisible, Feed, Oyster Farmer1977 - Rebecca Mader
actress: Lost, Once Upon a Time, All My Children, One Life to Live, Guiding Light, Justice, No Ordinary Family, Fringe, Work It1980 - Sonja Bennett
actress: Held Hostage, Fatal Kiss, Shutter, Nostalgia Boy, Where the Truth Lies, Dents in the Sky1981 - Chad Michael Murray
actor: One Tree Hill, Dawson’s Creek, A Cinderella Story, Freaky Friday, House of Wax1984 - Blake Berris
actor: Days of Our Lives, Breaking Bad, The Big Bang Theory, Numb3rs, The Mentalist, The Starter Wife, Prime Suspect1987 - Anze Kopitar
hockey [center]: Los Angeles Kings [2004- ]: 2012 & 2014 Stanley Cup Champs1988 - Rupert Grint
actor: Harry Potter film series, Wild Target, Into the White, Cherrybomb, Sick Note1990 - Elizabeth Debicki
actress: The Crown, MaXXXine, The Tale, The Night Manager2000 - Griffin Gluck
actor: Locke & Key, Why Him?, Big Time Adolescence, Cruel Summer
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day August 24
1945If I Loved You (facts) - Perry Como
I Wish I Knew (facts) - Dick Haymes
1954
1963
1972
1981
1990
1999
2008
2017
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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