December 11
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Events on This Day
1719 - The first display of the northern lights was recorded in America. Reports of the sighting in New England said that a mysterious face seemed to appear in the atmosphere; and, since most aurora borealis displays occur in September and October and again in March and April, this was very strange, indeed!
1816 - The Hoosier state, Indiana, entered the United States of America as the 19th state. The nickname, meaning rustic, is not a good decription of Indianapolis, the major metropolis that is its capital. However, much of the state is still farmland, and the little state flower, the peony, grows in many Hoosier front yards. The cardinal, the state bird, is also the state bird of each of the states (except Michigan) that border Indiana: Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio.
1844 - Dr. Horace Wells of Hartford, CT had a tooth extracted. Ouch! But wait. He became the first to receive an anesthetic for this dental procedure. Ah, muth bether, Dothtuh.
1882 - The Bijou Theatre in Boston, MA became the first American theatre to be lighted by electricity.
1919 - The kind citizens of Enterprise, Alabama dedicated the first known monument to an insect! The town turned out to honor the boll weevil; the evil weevil that destroyed cotton plants. However, by forcing folks to diversify their crops, the farmers wound up tripling their income. Thus, the tribute to those bugs.
1936 - Britain’s King Edward VIII abdicated the throne so that he could marry American divorcee Wallis Warfield Simpson.
1939 - Betty Grable and her famous legs were featured on the cover of LIFE magazine. Legend has it that she didn’t care much for the picture, but it became an international symbol of ‘back home’ for those at war.
1939 - Marlene Dietrich recorded Falling In Love Again -- on the Decca label.
1941 - Four days after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Germany and Italy declared war on the United States; the United States responded in kind.
1941 - Japan attacked Wake Island. U.S. Marine Corps. shore batteries successfully repulsed the attempted landing, sinking one destroyer and damaging two cruisers, two destroyers and a transport ship. After the fleet withdrew, Marine Fighter Squadron 211 sank an additional destroyer. It was the only failed Japanese landing of WWII. (The Japanese did mount a full-scale invasion and overrun Wake Island on Dec 23, 1941.)
1944 - The Chesterfield Supper Club debuted on NBC radio. Perry Como, Jo Stafford and many other stars of the day shared the spotlight on the 15-minute show that aired five nights a week. The show was sponsored by Chesterfield cigarettes.
1946 - John D. Rockefeller, Jr. offered up a six-block area of land in New York City for use as world headquarters of the United Nations. The offer was accepted the following day. No one connected with the United Nations has been able to make a decision that quickly since.
1951 - Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball. Joltin’ Joe played only for the New York Yankees during his 13-year career. His lifetime batting average was .325; and his streak of 56 games batted safely in, still stands as a record. Joe’s two brothers, Vince and Dom, were also major-league players.
1952 - An audience of 70,000 people watched from 31 movie theatres as Richard Tucker starred in Carmen from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. The event was the first pay-TV production of an opera. Ticket prices ranged from $1.20 to $7.20.
1961 - U.S. President John F. Kennedy provided an assortment of helicopters and crews to a small country called South Vietnam. It was the first direct American military support for South Vietnam’s battle against Communist guerillas from the north.
1964 - Gospel superstar and rock ’n’ roller Sam Cooke was shot to death at the Hacienda motel in Los Angeles by Bertha Franklin, the motel’s manager. He was 33 years old. Franklin said Cooke had tried to rape 21-year-old Elisa Boyer (whom Cooke had checked into the motel with). Boyer had left the room with most of Cooke’s clothing. Cooke, wearing one shoe and a jacket, broke into the motel’s office where he thought Boyer was hiding. That’s when Franklin, thinking Cooke was coming after her, shot him three times with her .22. (In 1957, Sam Cooke released You Send Me, which became a number #1 hit and sold 1.7 million copies. The smash established him as a commercial artist pop stylist. Other hits followed: Everyone Like to Cha Cha Cha and Only Sixteen (1959); Wonderful World and Chain Gang (1960); Cupid (1961); Twistin’ the Night Away (1962); and Frankie and Johnny (1963).)
1967 - The French prototype Concorde 001 was rolled out in Toulouse, France (the British 002 prototype was not quite finished in Bristol). The joint British-French venture and the world’s first supersonic airliner, took two more years of testing and fine-tuning the powerful engines before it made its maiden flight.
1973 - Karen and Richard Carpenter received a gold record for their single, Top of the World.
1973 - Ron Santo approved his being traded to the Chicago White Sox from crosstown rivals, the Chicago Cubs. On Dec 5th, Santo had become the first major-league baseball player to invoke the rule which permits 10-year veterans of a club to refuse to be traded when he turned down a trade to the California Angels.
1976 - Al Stewart debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 with Year of the Cat. It peaked at #8, but not until March 1977.
1980 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter signed the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). The law created a $1.6 billion environmental superfund to pay for cleaning up chemical spills and toxic waste dumps.
1981 - It was Muhammad Ali’s 61st -- and last -- fight. He lost to future champ Trevor Berbick.
1982 - Toni Basil reached the #1 one position on the pop music charts for the first time, with her single, Mickey. The chorus: “Hey Mickey, you’re so fine, you’re so fine, you blow my mind, hey Mickey, hey Mickey.”
1983 - Noises Off, a London play, opened at the Brooks Atkinson Theatre in New York City. The three-act play was described by critics as “an outrageous slapstick comedy of utter chaos.”
1985 - The most expensive non-oil acquisition in U.S. history took place. General Electric Company agreed to buy RCA Corporation for $6.3 billion. The conglomerate would bring in about $39 billion in revenues. The deal also included NBC radio and TV.
1985 - With the season still in progress, the Chicago Bears declared their intention to appear in and win the Super Bowl. Members of the team, known as Chicago Bears Shufflin’ Crew, released their Superbowl Shuffle. That shuffle worked. The Bears went on to defeat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, 46-10.
“You better start makin’
Your Superbowl plans.
But don’t get ready or go to any trouble,
Unless you practice
The Superbowl Shuffle.”1988 - A Soviet military transport plane crashed at Leninakan, Armenia, killing 78 people involved in Armenian earthquake relief efforts.
1990 - Ivana Trump was divorced from real estate blowhard Donald Trump after twelve years of marriage.
1991 - A jury in West Palm Beach, Florida acquitted William Kennedy Smith of sexual assault and battery. The jury rejected allegations by Patricia Bowman, who said Smith had raped her on the Kennedy estate lawn earlier in 1991.
1993 - Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Doggystyle was number one on U.S. album charts. The rest of the top five: 2-Vs., Pearl Jam; 3-Music Box, Mariah Carey; 4-The Spaghetti Incident?, Guns N' Roses; 5-The Beavis & Butt-Head Experience, Various artists.
1994 - Russia sent tanks and troops into Chechnya in an attempt at ending the rebel territory’s three-year unilateral drive for independence.
1995 - The Malden Mills textile manufacturing plant in Lawrence, MA burned down. Owner Aaron Feuerstein kept all of his employees on full pay until the plant was rebuilt. Malden Mills manufacturs Polartec fleece, synthetic fabrics.
1997 - Negotiators from around the world (more than 150 countries) agreed on a package of measures that for the first time would legally obligate industrial countries to cut emissions of waste industrial (greenhouse) gases that scientists say are warming the Earth’s atmosphere. Or would it?
1998 - Movies debuting in the U.S.: Jack Frost (“Jack Frost is getting a second chance to be the world’s coolest dad... if he doesn’t melt first.”), with Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Mark Addy and Joseph Cross; and Star Trek: Insurrection (“The Battle for Paradise Has Begun”), with Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Levar Burton, Michael Dorn and the rest of the crew of the Enterprise.
1999 - Ron Dayne the University of Wisconsin’s record-setting tailback, was a landslide winner of the Heisman Trophy.
2000 - The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments from lawyers representing George W. Bush and Al Gore concerning the Florida presidential vote recount. Plans for the Jan 20, 2001 inauguration ceremonies continued under the direction of the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, even though the new president had not been decided upon yet.
2001 - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission agreed to the proposed purchase of the Ralston Purina company by Swiss food giant Nestle S.A. Purchase price was $10.3 billion.
2002 - A U.S. congressional report found that intelligence agencies that were supposed to protect Americans from the Sept. 11 hijackers failed to do so because they were poorly organized, poorly equipped and slow to pursue clues that might have prevented the attacks.
2003 - Striking Kroger workers in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio ratified a new contract, ending strike that began Oct 13.
2003 - U.S. health officials reported an early flu outbreak had hit all 50 states and was widespread in 24.
2004 - A doctor said dioxin poisoning caused the mysterious illness of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko.
2005 - A series of explosions at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal -- better known as the Buncefield oil depot -- set fire to several tanks at facility north of London. Damage from the blasts, including broken windows and blown-in or warped front doors, occurred more than a half mile away. Cars in nearby streets caught fire and the roof of at least one house was blown off.
2006 - A boiler explosion in Diyarbakir, Turkey knocked down part of a five-story building housing military families. The blast killed four people and trapped four others.
2006 - Fiji’s military regime banished ousted Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase from the capital and warned that opposition to the takeover would be met with force.
2007 - The Iraqi government ordered all policewomen to surrender their weapons for redistribution to men -- or face having their pay withheld. The order thwarted a U.S. initiative to bring women into the nation’s police force. (The U.S. had begun training women in 2004 and graduated 1000 from the police academy.)
2008 - 70-year-old Bernard Madoff, Wall Street 'investment' firm boss for decades, was arrested and charged with running a $50-billion Ponzi scheme. Madoff’s operation ranks among the biggest fraud schemes in U.S. history.
2008 - Bettie Page, 1950s secretary-turned-model, died at 85 years of age. Her controversial photographs in skimpy attire, or none at all, helped set the stage for the 1960s sexual revolution.
2009 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres: A Single Man, starring Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Matthew Goode, Ginnifer Goodwin, Nicholas Hoult and Paulette Lamori; Invictus, starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon; My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done, with Michael Shannon, Udo Kier, Willem Dafoe, Chloë Sevigny, Brad Dourif, Michael Pena, Bill Cobbs and Grace Zabriskie; Rocket Singh: Salesman of the Year, with Ranbir Kapoor; The Lovely Bones, with Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Michael Imperioli and Saoirse Ronan; The Slammin’ Salmon, with Michael Clarke Duncan, Jay Chandrasekhar, Kevin Heffernan, Steve Lemme, Paul Soter, Erik Stolhanske, Cobie Smulders, April Bowlby, Olivia Munn, Vivica A. Fox and Morgan Fairchild; and Yesterday Was a Lie, starring Kipleigh Brown, Deborah Gibson, John Newton, Mik Scriba, Nathan Mobley and Warren Davis.
2009 - Germany announced Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport would be given the secondary name Willy Brandt, after the former West German chancellor. Brandt championed East-West relations and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1971.
2010 - 46-year-old Mark Madoff, son of Bernard Madoff, was found dead of an apparent suicide in his Manhattan apartment. This, on the second anniversary of his father’s arrest for running a $50-billion Ponzi scheme.
2011 - Former Panama dictator Manuel Noriega was flown back to Panama after 22 years in U.S. and French jails. Noriega was convicted on drug and racketeering charges in 1992 and, at the conclusion of his prison sentence in Miami, was extradited to France in 2010. With his French sentence completed, Noriega could have walked free had Panama not requested his extradition. Many who lost loved ones or were tortured under the Noriega dictatorship (1983-1989), said they would fight for him to face additional trials and demand his accomplices pay, too.
2012 - Michigan’s Republican-led legislature enacted a ban on mandatory union membership, delivering a blow to organized labor in the U.S. Republican Governor Rick Snyder signed a pair of ‘right-to-work’ bills into law as soon as they reached his desk, making Michigan the 24th U.S. state to prohibit unions from requiring employees to join and contribute dues.
2012 - British bank HSBC (founded in London in 1991 by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation) agreed to pay a fine of $1.9 billion for money-laundering allegations by U.S. regulators. HSBC had been under investigation for many years for allegedly assisting in the money laundering of drug dealers and terrorist money, after a probe by the U.S. Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency found that there was “significant potential for unreported money laundering or terrorist financing.”
2013 - Canada’s postal service announced the phasing out of urban door-to-door mail delivery. This, as a result of falling mail volumes and big financial losses. Instead of door-to-door service, Canadians will collect their mail from corner community mailboxes in cities nationwide.
2013 - TIME magazine selected Pope Francis as its Person of the Year, saying the Catholic Church’s leader had changed the perception of the 2,000-year-old institution in an extraordinary way in a short time.
2013 - The United States and Britain suspended all non-lethal aid to the opposition in northern Syria after Islamist rebels seized key bases and warehouses belonging to the Western-backed Free Syrian Army. Fighters from the Islamic Front, a union of seven major rebel groups, took control of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) bases at the Bab al-Hawa crossing on Syria’s northwestern border with Turkey. The above groups should not be confused with the Sunni extremist group ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant), which just about all non-Sunni (and even some Sunni) groups oppose for their hard line, inhumane and radical behavior (they routinely pratice ethnic cleansing and commit other war crimes, such as public executions and the recruiting of child soldiers).
2014 - Hong Kong police arrested more than 200 pro-democracy activists and cleared the protest site, marking an end to more than two months of street demonstrations in the Chinese-controlled city.
2015 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres: In the Heart of the Sea, with Chris Hemsworth, Cillian Murphy and Brendan Gleeson; The Big Short, starring] Brad Pitt, Finn Wittrock and Ryan Gosling; Close Range, with Scott Adkins, Nick Chinlund and Caitlin Keats; The Dark Horse, starring Cliff Curtis, James Rolleston and Kirk Torrance; Dixieland, with Chris Zylka, Riley Keough and Faith Hill; Don Verdean, starring Sam Rockwell, Amy Ryan and Jemaine Clement; the animated Boy and the World, featuring the voices of Marco Aurélio Campos, Vinicius Garcia and Lu Horta; the documentary Snervous Tyler Oakley, and Legend, starring Tom Hardy, Emily Browning and Taron Egerton.
2015 - Indian officials investigating the death of a 30-year-old pregnant woman who had worked at a brick kiln in Telangana state said they had uncovered an organized racket where hundreds of people were being trafficked and forced to work in inhumane conditions.
2015 - The U.S. and Cuba struck a deal to re-established direct mail service, which had been stopped in 1963.
2016 - Tokyo celebrated the groundbreaking for its new $1.5 billion National Stadium to host the 2020 Olympic Games.
2016 - A massive storm was blasting millions of Americans with snow and freezing rain -- from the Great Lakes to the Northeast. The storm dropped new snow from Washington state to Maine with some places getting more than six inches. Snow and ice covered cars, coating roads and sending cars careening off of them.
2017 - Russia’s President Vladimir Putin flew into Syria and ordered “a significant” part of Moscow’s military contingent there to start withdrawing, declaring their work “largely done.” Putin added that Russia would keep the Hmeymim air base in Syria’s Latakia Province and its naval facility in the port of Tartous.
2017 - French President Emmanuel Macron, in a not-so-subtle jab at POTUS Trump, awarded long-term research grants to 18 climate scientists — 13 of them U.S.-based researchers — to relocate to France and pursue their work with the blessing of a government that doesn’t cast doubt on the threat of climate change. The ‘Make Our Planet Great Again’ grants were announced in June, hours after Trump declared he would withdraw the U.S. from the Paris climate accord.
2018 - New Zealand passed a law that making medical marijuana widely available for thousands of patients. This, after years of campaigning by chronically ill New Zealanders who said the drug was the only thing that eased their pain.
2018 - Russian President Vladimir Putin said it was unclear to him why a Russian woman, Maria Butina, had been detained in the U.S. and accused of being a Russian agent. His intelligence chiefs had told him they knew nothing about her. Hah! That’s a good one Vlad. Know any other funny stuff? (Beginning in 2011, Butina worked as an assistant for Aleksandr Torshin, a former member of the Federation Council, a member of Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, and a deputy governor of the Central Bank of Russia. In this role, she worked to infiltrate conservative groups in the U.S., including the National Rifle Association, as part of an effort to promote Russian interests in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In April 2018, Butina told the Senate Intelligence Committee that Konstantin Nikolaev, a Russian billionaire, had provided funding for her gun-rights group. In December 2018, she pled guilty to felony charges of conspiracy to act as an unregistered foreign agent of the Russian state. On April 26, 2019, a U.S. federal judge sentenced her to 18 months in prison. She served more than 15 months in Tallahassee Federal Correctional Institution and was released on October 25, 2019. She was deported back to Russia, where, we assume, Mr. Putin was finally able to meet her.)
2019 - Lachlan Murdoch, son of Rupert Murdoch and the co-chairman of News Corp. bought the 25,000 square-foot Chartwell estate in the Bel Air neighborhood of Los Angeles -- for about $150 million. The 1930s mansion is seen in the credits for The Beverly Hillbillies TV show. The price was said to be the highest ever for a home in California. The amount was also the second-biggest on record in the entire U.S., behind only hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin’s $238 million splurge on a four-floor New York penthouse.
2019 - Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swede who inspired millions of young people to take action against climate change, was named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year for 2019.
2020 - Movies scheduled to open in U.S. theatres included: Archenemy, starring Luis Kelly-Duarte, Skylan Brooks and Zolee Griggs; The Never List, with Fivel Stewart, Keiko Agena and Andrew Kai; The Stand-In, starring Drew Barrymore, Ellie Kemper and Holland Taylor; Wander Darkly, with Vanessa Bayer, Sienna Miller and Aimee Carrero; and Wild Mountain Thyme, starring Emily Blunt, Jamie Dornan and Jon Hamm.
2020 - Russia reported its highest COVID-19 daily death toll, a day after official data revealed a surge in October deaths that had made it the most deadly month in a decade.
2020 - Mexico became the fifth country to approve emergency use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine, following authorization from health regulator Cofepris. The U.S. (approved this day also), Britain, Bahrain and Canada had approved the vaccine.
2021 - Novelist Anne Rice died in Rancho Mirage, CA. She was 80 years old. Rice was best known for her series of novels The Vampire Chronicles, including Interview with a Vampire (1994) and Queen of the Damned (2002). She reinvented the blood-drinking immortals as tragic antiheroes.
2021 - Bryce Young was the second consecutive Alabama player to win the Heisman Trophy. With that, Alabama became the third school in modern history to bring home Heisman Trophies in consecutive years. Oklahoma did it in 2017 & 2018 with Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray after Ohio State’s Archie Griffin did it by himself in 1974 & 1975.
2021 - California Governor Gavin Newsom pledged to empower private citizens to enforce a ban on the manufacture and sale of assault weapons in the state, citing the same authority claimed by conservative lawmakers in Texas to outlaw most abortions. The Texas law allowed private citizens to enforce the ban, empowering them to sue abortion clinics and anyone else who “aids and abets” the procedure.
2022 - U.S. authorities announced that Libyan Abu Agila Mohammad Mas’ud Kheir Al-Marimi was in custody. He was accused of making the bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988.
2022 - Outgoing Arizona Republican Governor Doug Ducey ordered the stacking of shipping containers as a barrier on his state’s border with Mexico. The containers were doubly stacked and topped with razor wire in a high-profile gesture to back up his criticism of the Biden administration’s immigration policy. Environmental agencies had expressed concerns that the containers could halt the flow of natural water in the area and cause lasting damage. The federal government sued the state and Ducey agreed to remove them. A year later, they were sold at auction. But the shipping container project cost Arizona taxpayers more than $200 million.
2022 - Karen Bass was ceremonially sworn in as the first female mayor of Los Angeles by Vice President Kamala Harris -- the first female U.S. vice president. (Bass had been officially sworn in by the Los Angeles City Clerk the previous day.) The new mayor declared a homelessness state of emergency in L.A.
2023 - The Texas Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling that would have let a woman obtain an emergency abortion under an exception to Texas’ near-total ban. The court said a doctor’s good faith belief that the woman, 31-year-old mother-of-two Kate Cox, needed an abortion for medical reasons was not sufficient -- under state law.
2023 - Epic Games won its antitrust lawsuit against Google. A San Francisco jury found that Google’s app store was an illegal monopoly. Google had been able to avoid losing most lawsuits and being forced to make changes despite years of allegations that it was violating competition laws.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day December 11
1803 - Hector Berlioz
musician, composer, major force in the development of musical form during the Romantic Era; died Mar 8, 18691863 - Annie Jump Cannon
astronomer: discovered five stars; National Academy of Science Draper Medal-winner; died Apr 13, 19411882 - Fiorello LaGuardia
‘Little Flower’: politician: NYC mayor [1933-45]; LaGuardia Airport in NY bears his name; died Sep 20, 19471904 - Marjorie Buell
cartoonist: Little Lulu; died May 30, 19931905 - Gilbert Roland
actor: Barbarosa, Islands in the Stream, Cheyenne Autumn, Treasures of Pancho Villa, Thunder Bay, Captain Kidd, The Cisco Kid series; died May 15, 19941912 - Carlo Ponti
producer, director: Marriage, Italian Style; died Jan 10, 20071916 - Pérez Prado
musician: piano, organ: Patricia, Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White, Mambo No. 5, Mambo No. 8; died Sep 14, 19891918 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
dissident Russian writer: One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich; died Aug 3, 20081921 - Liz Smith
actress: Imperium: Nerone, Donovan Quick, Oliver Twist, Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Doggin’ Around, Dakota Road, Bert Rigby, You’re a Fool; died Dec 24, 20161923 - Betsy Blair
actress: Broadway: Panama Hattie, The Beautiful People; films: The Guilt of Janet Ames, A Double Life, The Snake Pit, Another Part of the Forest, Marty; married to dancer Gene Kelly [1940-1957]; died Mar 13, 20091926 - Willie Mae ‘Big Mama’ Thornton
blues singer: pre-Elvis version of Hound Dog; died July 25, 19841930 - Jean-Louis Trintignant
actor: Trois Couleurs: Rouge, Is Paris Burning?, And God Created Woman, A Man and a Woman; died Jun 17, 20221931 - Anne Heywood
actress: The Fox, The Equalizer, Memories of Manon, Sadat, A Terrible Beauty, I Want What I Want, Trader Horn; died Oct 27, 20231931 - Rita Moreno
dancer, Academy Award-winning actress: West Side Story [1961]; The Wharf Rat, I Like It Like That, Portrait of a Showgirl, The Four Seasons, Anatomy of a Seduction, Carnal Knowledge, Summer and Smoke, The King and I, Singin’ in the Rain; Emmy Award-winning actress: The Muppet Show [1976-77], The Paper Palace, The Rockford Files [1/20/78]; won Academy, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Awards1931 - Pierre Pilote
Hockey Hall of Famer: NHL: Chicago Black Hawks defenseman: Norris Trophy winner [1964, 1965, 1966], Toronto Maple Leafs; died Sep 9, 20171934 - Lee Maye
baseball: Milwaukee Braves, Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox; died July 17, 20021934 - Curtis Williams
singer: group: The Penguins: Earth Angel; died Aug 10, 19791935 - Tom Brumley
musician: steel guitar: group: Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, Stone Canyon Band; died Feb 3, 20091935 - Ron Carey
comedian, actor: Barney Miller, The Out of Towners, High Anxiety, History of the World Part I; died Jan 16, 20071938 - Fred Cox
football: Minnesota Vikings; invented the Nerf football; died Nov 20, 20191939 - Tom Hayden
politician: California state assembly member [1982-1992] and state senator [1992-2000]; author: The Other Side, Rebellion in Newark: Official Violence, Ghetto Response; former husband of actor Jane Fonda; died Oct 23, 20161940 - David Gates
musician: guitar, keyboard, singer: solo: Goodbye Girl; group: Bread: Make It With You, If, Baby I’m-A Want You, Diary, Aubrey1940 - Donna Mills
actress: Knots Landing, The Good Life, False Arrest, Curse of the Black Widow, Beyond the Bermuda Triangle, Play Misty for Me1941 - Larry Stallings
football: Georgia Tech, SL Cardinals LB1943 - John Kerry
U.S. Senator [Massachusetts: 1985-2013]; Democratic Party candidate for U.S. president [2004]; U.S. Secretary of State [2013-2017]1944 - Teri Garr
actress: Tootsie, Young Frankenstein, Oh, God!, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Mr. Mom, After Hours; TV: Star Trek, It Takes a Thief, McCloud; died Oct 29, 2024
1944 - Lynda Day George
actress: Young Warriors, Casino, Ants, The Barbary Coast, The Silent Force, Roots, Rich Man, Poor Man-Book I, Mission: Impossible1944 - Brenda Lee
singer: I’m Sorry, All Alone Am I, I Want to Be Wanted, Sweet Nothin’s, That’s All You Gotta Do1945 - Earlie Thomas
football: NY Jets1952 - Robert Cochran
skier: U.S. slalom champion [1969, 1970], downhill champion [1971, 1973], Alpine combined champion [1971, 1972], giant slalom champion [1971, 1974]; 1972 U.S. Olympic Ski Team1952 - Susan Seidelman
film director: Desperately Seeking Susan, She-Devil, Making Mr. Right, Smithereens1953 - Bess Armstrong
actress: The Skateboard Kid, Jaws 3, Nothing in Common, Four Seasons, On Our Own, My So-Called Life, Married People1954 - Jermaine Jackson
singer: Daddy’s Home, Let’s Get Serious; group: The Jackson Five: I’ll be There; brother of Michael, Janet, La Toya, Tito, Randy, Marlon and Jackie1958 - Tom Shadyac
film director: Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Bruce Almighty, Liar Liar, I Am1958 - Nikki Sixx
musician: bass: group: Motley Crue: LPs: Too Fast for Love, Theatre of Pain1962 - Ben Browder
actor: Farscape, Stargate SG-1, Stargate: The Ark of Truth, Stargate: Continuum, The Adventures of RoboRex, Chuck, Doctor Who1965 - Jay Bell
baseball: Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Arizona Diamondbacks, New York Mets1966 - Gary Dourdan
actor: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, A Different World, Weekend at Bernie’s II, Alien: Resurrection, King of the World1967 - Mo’Nique
Academy Award-winning supporting actress: Precious [2010; The Parkers, Phat Girlz, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, The Mo’Nique Show; more1968 - Derek Bell
baseball [third base, outfield]: Toronto Blue Jays, San Diego Padres, Houston Astros, New York Mets, Pittsburgh Pirates1969 - Max Martini
actor: Saving Private Ryan, Level 9, The Great Raid, The Unit, Silver Bells, Taken, Desert Son, Love Lessons, The Great Raid, Bosch: Legacy1971 - Willie McGinest
football [defensive end]: Univ of Southern Calif; NFL: New England Patriots: 2× Pro Bowl selection [1995, 2003], 3× Super Bowl champion [XXXVI, XXXVIII, XXXIX]1972 - Rusty Joiner
fashion model: Prada, Abercrombie and Fitch, American Eagle, Levi’s, Powerade; covers and pages: Vanity Fair, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Men’s Fitness; appeared in RuPaul’s video Looking Good, Feeling Gorgeous; actor: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, Resident Evil: Extinction, Stuck in Love, Last Ounce of Courage1973 - Mos Def
Grammy Award-winning rapper: Urban/Alternative Performance: Sex, Love & Money [2005]; Urban/Alternative Performance: Ghetto Rock [2006]; Rap Solo Performance: Undeniable [2007]; Rap Solo Performance: Casa Bey & Best Rap Album: The Ecstatic [2010]; Short Form Music Video: Stylo [with Bobby Womack and Gorillaz] [2011]; actor: Something the Lord Made, Next Day Air, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Be Kind Rewind, The Italian Job, Dexter; active in several social and left-wing political causes1976 - Shareef Abdur-Rahim
basketball [forward]: Univ of California; NBA: Vancouver Grizzlies, Atlanta Hawks, Portland Trail Blazers, Sacramento Kings1979 - Rider Strong
actor: Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World, Cabin Fever, Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever, Invasion America, Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles, Kim Possible, Pepper Dennis1981 - Jared Hillman
actor: Hannah Montana TV series, Eviction, The Favor, Still Standing, Stacked, Without a Trace, Boston Public1985 - Zach Miller
football [tight end]: NFL: Oakland Raiders [2007–2010] Seattle Seahawks [2011–2014]: 2014 Super Bowl XLVIII champs1985 - Karla Souza
actress: How to Get Away with Murder, Verano de Amor, Los Heroes del Norte, Jacob’s Ladder, The Jesuit, Sundown, Everybody Loves Somebody1990 - Alexa Demie
actress: Brigsby Bear, Mid90s, Waves, Ray Donovan, Love, Euphoria1996 - Jack Griffo
actor: The Thundermans, Jinxed, Splitting Adam, Alexa & Katie, The 2nd, The Christmas High Note1996 - Hailee Steinfeld
actress: True Grit, Grand Cru, Summer Camp, Without Wings, She’s a Fox, Heather: A Fairytale
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day December 11
1946Ole Buttermilk Sky (facts) - The Kay Kyser Orchestra (vocal: Mike Douglas & The Campus Kids)
Rumors are Flying (facts) - The Frankie Carle Orchestra (vocal: Marjorie Hughes)
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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