December 12
Jump to:
Events on This Day
1787 - Pennsylvania was ratifed on this day as the second of the United States of America. Also one of the original 13 colonies, Pennsylvania is geographically located in the keystone position in relation to the other 12 colonies, earning the nickname, the Keystone State. The state capital is Harrisburg, a city almost midway between Pennsylvania’s two most well-known cites, Pittsburgh in Western Pennsylvania and Philadelphia in the east. Philadelphia is also where the first Continental Congress met and where the Declaration of Independence was signed. Not so famous is the state bird, the ruffed grouse and the state flower, the mountain laurel.1850 - Wide, Wide World, the novel by Elizabeth Wetherell (whose real name was Susan Warner), was published on this day. The book was called a bestseller by many folks; the first bestseller in America. There were 14 editions printed during the first two years of publication.
1897 - The Katzenjammer Kids (Hans and Fritz) appeared for the first time in The New York Journal. The Rudolph Dirks comic strip became one of the most durable ever produced.
1899 - George Grant of Boston, MA patented the golf tee. Fore!
1900 - Charles M. Schwab formed the United States Steel Corporation; bringing together John Pierpont Morgan and Andrew Carnegie to create one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world. Is it the same Charles M. Schwab of private investment fame? Yes ... along with his son, in fact.
1936 - George VI acceded to the British throne following the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, who stepped down over his love for Mrs. Wallis Simpson.
1937 - The Federal Communications Commission was a bit upset with NBC radio. The FCC scolded the radio network for a skit that starred Mae West. The satirical routine was based on the biblical tale of Adam and Eve. As she flirted with Charlie McCarthy, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen’s dummy, West said, “When you came up to see me in my apartment, ... you didn’t need any encouragement to kiss me.” McCarthy asked, Did I do that?” West replied, “You certainly did. I got marks to prove it. Splinters too...” Following its scolding by the FCC, NBC banned Miss West from its airwaves for 15 years.
1947 - The United Mine Workers union withdrew from the American Federation of Labor (for the second time) as UMW President John L. Lewis refused to sign the non-Communist affidavit required by the Taft-Hartley Labor Act.
1953 - U.S. test pilot Chuck Yeager reached Mach 2.4 in his Bell X-1A rocket plane. At an altitude of 70,000 ft. the aircraft suddenly rolled out of control and began tumblingfor 36,000 ft. It eventually went into an inverted spin, knocking Yeager into semiconsciousness. Fighting the controls, he managed to pull it out at 30,000 ft. (After this, high speed flights were no longer undertaken in the X-1A, although the plane did reach an altitude of 90,440 ft. in Aug, 1954.)
1957 - 22-year-old rocker Jerry Lee Lewis secretly said “I do” for the third time. Lewis married 13-year-old Myra Gale Brown, his third cousin, in Hernando, Tennessee.
1959 - At 22 years and 104 days of age, Bruce McLaren became the youngest driver to win a Grand Prix race as he earned first place at Sebring, Florida.
1961 - Former big band singer (with Kay Kyser) Mike Douglas began a variety TV show from Cleveland. The show became most successful when KYW-TV moved from Cleveland to Philadelphia. Then, when the Douglas show left Philly for Hollywood, it folded. All things considered, it was a successful syndication effort, nationally, for Westinghouse Productions.
1963 - John Fitzgerald Kennedy - A Memorial Album became the fastest-selling record of all time when 4 million copies of the disk, each selling for 99 cents, were sold in six days -- between December 7-12. The memorial tribute was recorded November 22, the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.
1964 - Kenya formally became a republic.
1971 - David Sarnoff, U.S. TV pioneer (RCA), died. He was 80 years old. Sarnoff was a Russian immigrant who transformed NBC from a radio to a TV network.
1980 - Oil tycoon Armand Hammer bought a notebook of writings by Leonardo da Vinci for $5.28 million at auction in London. It was the highest price ever paid for a manuscript. It was 36 pages long and dated back to 1508.
1980 - The U.S. Congress amended the Copyright Act to explicitly recognize that computer programs were protected as literary works.
1983 - Football’s Jim Brown showed up on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine, just as he had in September 1960. It was a span of more than 23 years between spreads, as they say in the publishing biz.
1984 - The group known as Band Aid -- 38 of Britain’s top rock musicians -- recorded Do They Know It’s Christmas? for Ethiopian famine victims. Despite the best of intentions, much of the food raised never got to the starving Ethiopians. In fact, much of it was found rotting on docks, not fit for human consumption. More than a Band-Aid was needed to fix that political mess.
1985 - A chartered Arrow Air DC-8, bringing American soldiers home for Christmas, crashed on takeoff from Gander, Newfoundland. All 256 aboard died.
1986 - James ‘Bonecrusher’ Smith became the first college graduate to win the world heavyweight boxing crown. “If I only had a bwain...,” he said, as he beat the brains out of Tim Witherspoon so badly, poor Tim couldn’t count to ten. “One, duh. Eight. Six. Duh. I’m out.”
1988 - 35 people were killed in a triple train collision during morning rush-hour in south London in what became known as the Clapham Junction rail disaster.
1992 - The soundtrack from the movie The Bodyguard was the #1 album in the U.S. A smash, as they say, it was number one for twenty weeks. The track listing: I Will Always Love You, I Have Nothing, I’m Every Woman, Run to You, Queen of the Night, Jesus Loves Me, all by Whitney Houston; Even If My Heart Would Break, by Kenny G & Aaron Neville; Someday (I’m Coming Back), by Lisa Stansfield; It’s Gonna Be a Lovely Day, by The S.O.U.L S.Y.S.T.E.M.; Peace, Love And Understanding (What's So Funny ’Bout), by Curtis Stigers; Theme from The Bodyguard, by Alan Silvestri; and Trust in Me, by Joe Cocker featuring Sass Jordan.
1994 - IBM stopped shipments of personal computers that contained Intel’s flawed Pentium chip, saying the processor’s problems were worse than earlier believed.
1996 - Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz resigned as Walt Disney Company’s #2 executive.
1996 - Uday Hussein, eldest son of Sadam, was wounded in a car ambush in Iraq. Assailants using machine guns and grenades carried out the attack. The ‘Mohammed Madhlum Dulaimi’ group later claimed responsibility.
1997 - These films opened in U.S. theatres: For Richer or Poorer (dir: Bryan Spicer), with Tim Allen, Kirstie Alley, Jay O. Sanders and Michael Lerner; Home Alone 3 (dir: Raja Gosnell), starring Alex D. Linz, Haviland Morris, Olek Krupa and Rya Kihlstedt; and Scream 2 (dir: Wes Craven), with Neve Campball, Courteney Cox, Jerry O'connell and Liev Schreiber.
1998 - Florida Governor Lawton Chiles died in Tallahassee at the age of 68. Chiles had acquired wealth as one of the original investors in the Red Lobster chain of restaurants.
1999 - Author Joseph Heller (Catch-22) died in East Hampton, NY. He was 76 years old. Heller’s 1998 memoir was titled Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here. Other novels included God Knows (1984) and Closing Time (1994). His final work was Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man.
1999 - The International Olympic Committee enacted sweeping reforms, included a ban on visits by members to bid cities.
2000 - A divided U.S. Supreme Court reversed a Florida court decision for recounts in Florida’s contested election, effectively transforming George W. Bush into the president-elect. The high court agreed, 7-to-2, to reverse the Florida court’s order of a state recount and voted 5-to-4 that there was no acceptable procedure by which a timely new recount could take place.
2000 - Actor George Montgomery died in Rancho Mirage, CA at 84 years of age. The actor, a brawny leading man who started acting in low-budget Western horse operas later starred in musicals and romantic comedies. Montgomery appeared in 87 motion pictures in a six-decade career that also included the Cimarron City TV series. He was married to the late Dinah Shore for 19 years and counted Ronald Reagan as one of his best friends.
2001 - A $200-million U.S. Air Force B-1 bomber crashed into the India Ocean near Diego Garcia Island. The four crewmen were rescued.
2002 - U.S. President George Bush (II) named Wall Street investment banker Stephen Friedman to head the National Economic Council, replacing Lawrence Lindsey, who had been ousted along with Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill.
2002 - Actor Nick Nolte pleaded no contest in Malibu, CA to one count of driving under the influence of drugs. He was placed on probation for three years.
2003 - Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones) was knighted in London, England.
2003 - Paul Martin was sworn in as Canada’s 21st prime minister. He vowed to make drastic changes in the way his country was run.
2003 - Movies debuting in the U.S.: Love Don’t Cost a Thing, with Nick Cannon, Christina Milian, Steve Harvey, Kenan Thompson and Kal Penn; and Something’s Gotta Give, starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Amanda Peet, Frances McDormand and Jon Favreau.
2004 - Researchers said they thought they had discovered the causes of psoriasis, a common and irritating skin ailment. The scientists said they had identified a protein called STAT3 that initiates psoriasis when the body’s immune system is activated to fight off a wound, burn or some other invasion.
2005 - The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe grossed $65.6 million in the U.S. and Canada ($107 million worldwide) on its opening weekend, making it the #2 December opening weekend film of all time -- behind The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and in front of the first two The Lord of the Rings films.
2006 - A U.S. immigration sweep of Swift meat plants in in six states resulted in nearly 1,300 arrests of illegal immigrants. The action concluded a 10-month investigation targeting the use of stolen social security numbers.
2006 - Alan Shugart, disk drive pioneer and founder of Seagate Technology, died in Monterey, CA. He was 76 years old. Shugart led a team of IBM engineers in 1969 that developed the floppy disk.
2006 - Peter Boyle, the actor who played the hilariously grouchy father on Everybody Loves Raymond, died at 71 years of age; his films included Joe (1970), Young Frankenstein (1974) and Taxi Driver (1976).
2007 - The Perfect Holiday opened in U.S. movie houses. the Christmas family flick features Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, Queen Latifah, Terrence Howard, Malik Hammond, Charlie Murphy, Faizon Love, Jeremy Gumbs, Jill Marie Jones and Rachel True.
2008 - New movies in U.S. theatres: The Day the Earth Stood Still, starring Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates; and Defiance, with Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, Allan Corduner and Mark Feuerstein.
2008 - General Motors said it would close 20 factories across North America and make sweeping cuts to its vehicle production as it tried to adjust to weaker demand for cars and trucks.
2008 - Long-time Hollywood film star Van Johnson died in Nyack, New York at 92 years of age. Johnson’s boy-next-door wholesomeness made him popular in the 1940s and 1950s with such films as 30 Seconds over Tokyo, A Guy Named Joe and The Caine Mutiny and many more.
2009 - Human Rights Watch reported that Libya was continuing to subject political dissidents to arbitrary detention and unfair trials. This, despite having made some improvements in freedom of expression since the country began to shed its pariah status in 2003.
2009 - University of Alabama running back Mark Ingram won the 2009 Heisman trophy. In the closest Heisman race ever, Ingram beat out Stanford running back Toby Gerhart, Texas quarterback Colt McCoy, Nebraska defensive lineman Ndamukong Suh and Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. It was the the first Heisman trophy for the University of Alabama.
2010 - Australia released its long-awaited banking reforms, designed to hand more power to Australian consumers. Tough changes were made to finance laws, banning unpopular mortgage fees and cracking down on price collusion between major banks.
2011 - China executed 35-year-old Janice Linden, a South African woman, by lethal injection for drug smuggling. She was convicted of trying to sneak three kg (6.6 pounds) of methamphetamine, hidden in her luggage, into China in 2008 through the southern city of Guangzhou. Amnesty International said China executes more people every year than the rest of the world combined.
2012 - French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius announced that more than 100 countries had recognized the Syrian opposition coalition. Fabius reported the Friends of the Syrian People conference, meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, had made “extraordinary progress.”
2012 - Germany’s parliament voted to keep male circumcision legal, ending an international controversy that started when a Cologne court ruled the practice constituted “bodily harm.”
2013 - U.S. Department of Transportation reported that it had shut down 52 bus companies -- and 340 vehicles -- in a nationwide crackdown on unsafe carriers. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said, “We’re shutting down companies that put passengers at risk and educating the public on safe motor coach travel.”
2014 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Exodus: Gods and King, starring Christian Bale, Aaron Pau, Joel Edgerton, Sigourney Weaver and Ben Kingsley; After the Fall, with Wes Bentley, Vinessa Shaw and Haley Bennett; Free the Nipple, with Monique Coleman, Lola Kirke and Zach Grenier; and the documentary, Magician: The Astonishing Life and Work of Orson Wells.
2014 - Iran announced its extension of temporary visas for 450,000 Afghan refugees for six months. The move lifted, for the moment, a threat to send them back home to a country facing attacks by resurgent militants. But Human Rights Watch complained that the the “visa extension won’t remedy a broken asylum system that routinely results in the detention and deportation of unregistered Afghans without access to refugee status, due process, or an opportunity for legal appeal of their forced removal.”
2014 - Sierra Leone banned any and all public Christmas celebrations as the spiraling caseload of Ebola infections continued to spread alarm.
2015 - Fire swept through a neurological hospital in Russia, killing 23 patients and injuring 23 others. Many were on medication or otherwise unable to walk. The home for mental illness patients was located in Alferovka, a village in the Voronezh region.
2015 - The Golden State Warriors lost to the Milwaukee Bucks 108-95. The loss ended the Warriors’ (combined) winning streak at 28 games.
2016 - British Prime Minister Theresa May introduced an official definition of anti-Semitism in hopes of curbing attacks against Jewish people. The definition states that “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”
2016 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the broad reach of a federal law prohibiting bank fraud. The ruling gave the government more leeway to prosecute financial crimes. The unanimous order came in the case of a California man who illegally siphoned some $307,000 out of a Taiwanese businessman’s Bank of America bank account.
2016 - “I think it’s a big mistake to belittle the intelligence community (as Donald Trump had been doing) because it looks as if you’re trying to politicize it,” said William Cohen, former U.S. secretary of defense. “Most of the time they get it right.”
2017 - Alabama voters elected Democrat Doug Jones over Republican Judge Roy Moore in a special election for a U.S. Senate seat. The election cut the Republican margin in the Senate by one -- to 51-49.
2017 - The Thomas Fire in California grew by about 2,500 acres. It had burned 234,200 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties (100 miles northwest of downtown L.A.) and destroyed almost 900 structures, including some 700 homes.
2017 - The annual NOAA-sponsored Arctic Report Card warned of an increasingly warm Arctic, where temperatures were rising twice as fast as the rest of the planet and ice was melting at an alarming pace.
2018 - Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former devoted lawyer and ‘fixer’, was sentenced to three years in prison, for lying about business deals related to Trump.
2018 - U.S. investigators believe that Chinese intelligence was behind the massive hack of data on some 500 million guests of hotel giant Marriott. The revelation of suspected involvement by China comes amid growing alarm among law enforcement officials about Chinese efforts to steal U.S. technology.
2019 - The United Nations warned that famine was threatening the lives of up to 5.5 million people in South Sudan, where droughts and flooding, compounded by intense political instability, had destroyed crops and livestock.
2019 - Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party won a resounding victory that all but sealed a divorce from the European Union bloc. And the Scottish National Party took back most of the districts it lost in 2017. Such a dramatic outcome, winning 48 of the 59 seats available in Scotland, galvanized the party in its pursuit of the independence referendum leader Nicola Sturgeon.
2020 - John le Carré (89) died after sustaining a fall at his home in Cornwall, England. Le Carré was a best-selling British author of Cold War spy thrillers. Graham Greene described le Carré's best-selling novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963), “the best spy story I have ever read.” During the 1950s and 1960s, le Carré worked for both the Security Service (MI5) and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6). His books include The Looking Glass War (1965), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974), Smiley’s People (1979), The Little Drummer Girl (1983), The Night Manager (1993), The Tailor of Panama (1996), The Constant Gardener (2001), A Most Wanted Man (2008), and Our Kind of Traitor (2010), all of which were adapted for film and/or TV.
2020 - President-elect Joe Biden pledged to rejoin the Paris climate accord on the first day of his presidency, as world leaders staged a virtual gathering to celebrate the fifth anniversary of the international pact aimed at curbing global warming.
2020 - The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approved the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine by pilots and air traffic controllers. (Pilots and controllers were not allowed to fly or conduct safety-related duties for 48 hours after receiving doses, a precaution that turned out to be unnecessary.)
2020 - Country music superstar Charley Pride died in Dallas, Texas due to complications from COVID-19. He was 86 years old. During the peak years of his recording career (1966–1987), Pride had 52 top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart, 30 of which made it to number one. He won the Entertainer of the Year award at the Country Music Association Awards in 1971. Pride was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2000.
2021 - A federal panel on geographical names approved the renaming of Squaw Mountain in Colorado to Mestaa’ehehe Mountain -- after a Cheyenne woman who facilitated relations between white settlers and Native American tribes in the 19th early century. The mountain renaming was part of a broader campaign to replace derogatory place names across the U.S.
2021 - G7 delegates meeting in Liverpool warned that Russia faced massive consequences and severe costs if President Vladimir Putin attacked Ukraine. Putin did not heed the warning and went ahead with his invasion -- at great cost to him and his country.
2022 - British journalist Emma Tucker was appointed editor-in-chief of The Wall Street Journal. She was the first woman to lead the paper. She had been editor of the U.K.’s Sunday Times.
2022 - Twitter dissolved its volunteer Trust and Safety Council, an advisory group of civil, human rights, and other organizations. Council members received the news in an email canceling a scheduled meeting with Twitter reps. The dissolution came after three council members resigned saying that “contrary to claims by Elon Musk, the safety and wellbeing of Twitter’s users are on the decline.”
and more...
Birthdays on This Day December 12
1745 - John Jay
statesman: first Chief Justice of U.S. Supreme Court [1789-1795]; co-author of the Federalist papers; died May 17, 18291805 - William Garrison
poet, journalist: editor: National Philanthropist; antislavery activist: publisher: The Liberator; died May 24, 18791806 - Stand Watie
Cherokee Indian Chief: signer of the Treaty of Echota; brigadier general: 1st Cherokee regiment for the Confederate Army during the U.S. Civil War; died Sep 9, 18711821 - Gustave Flaubert
author: Madame Bovary; died May 8, 18801890 - Buck Jones
Early Western movie actor: his fans were known as Buck Jones Rangers; died [as a result of burns suffered in Boston’s Cocoanut Grove Nightclub fire] Nov 30, 1942; more1893 - Edward G. Robinson (Emmanuel Goldenberg)
actor: Soylent Green, MacKenna’s Gold, The Prize, Key Largo, Double Indemnity, Kid Galahad, Barbary Coast, Little Caesar, Scarlet Street; died Jan 26, 19731909 - Karen Morley
actress: Born to the Saddle, Framed, On Such a Night, Devil’s Squadron, The Crime Doctor, Man About Town, The Sin of Madelon Claudet; died Mar 8, 20031913 - Winston Burdett
newscaster: CBS: World News Roundup; “I don’t want to be quoted, and don’t quote me that I don’t want to be quoted.”; died May 19, 19931913 - Clint Smith
Hockey Hall of Famer [center]: New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks; career: one Stanley Cup, two Lady Byng Trophies; player-coach: Tulsa Oilers (USHL); coach: St. Paul Saints; died May 19, 20091915 - Frank (Francis Albert) Sinatra
‘Chairman of the Board’, ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’: singer: All or Nothing at All; I’ll Never Smile Again; In the Blue of the Evening; I’ll be Seeing You; Five Minutes More; The Loneliest Night of the Week; I’m a Fool to Want You; I’ve Got the World on a String; I’ve Got You Under My Skin; You Make Me Feel So Young; Strangers in the Night; Witchcraft; That’s Life; New York, New York; My Way; 10 Grammy awards including the Lifetime Achievement Award; actor: On the Town; Guys and Dolls; Ocean’s Eleven; Not As a Stranger; The Manchurian Candidate; None But the Brave; Young at Heart; The Tender Trap; High Society; Pal Joey; The Joker Is Wild; Special Oscar for The House I Live In, a short he made to promote racial and religious tolerance; an Oscar nomination for The Man with the Golden Arm, Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his performance in From Here to Eternity; plus the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1970; Emmy in 1965 for Outstanding Musical Special: Frank Sinatra: A Man and His Music; President Ronald Reagan, presented Sinatra with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985; died of a heart attack, May 14, 1998 in Los Angeles, California1918 - Joe Williams (Joseph Goreed)
jazz singer: Every Day [I Have the Blues], Party Blues, Goin’ to Chicago; sang with Count Basie: LP: Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings; actor: The Bill Cosby Show; died Mar 29, 19991923 - Bob Barker
TV game show host: The Price Is Right [Sep 1972-Jun 2007]; died Aug 26, 20231924 - Ed Koch
politician: mayor: New York City; judge: TV’s The People’s Court; died Feb 1, 20131929 - John (James) Osborne
Academy Award-winning playwright: Tom Jones [1963]; The Entertainer, Look Back in Anger; Tony Award-winner: Luther [1964]; died Dec 24, 19941932 - Bob Pettit
Basketball Hall of Famer: St. Louis Hawks: Rookie of the Year [1954-1955], MVP Award [1956, 1959]; the first NBA player to score 20,000 points; NBA Silver Anniversary Team [1971]; NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team [1996]1936 - Wally Dallenbach
auto racer: Fastest Ontario 100 Indy racer [1973]; founder and president of Colorado 500 Invitational Charity Motorcycle Rides1937 - Peter O’Malley
baseball club owner: Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres1938 - Connie Francis (Concetta Franconero)
singer: Stupid Cupid, Where the Boys Are, Lipstick on Your Collar, I’ll Follow the Boys, My Happiness, Who’s Sorry Now, Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool1939 - Terry Kirkman
musician: wind instruments, keyboards: group: The Association: Along Comes Mary, Cherish, Windy, Never My Love; died Sep 23, 20231940 - Shirley Englehorn
golf champ: 1970 LPGA Championship1941 - Dionne Warwick
Grammy Award-winning singer: Do You Know the Way to San Jose [1968], I’ll Never Fall in Love Again [1970], I’ll Never Love This Way Again [1979]; Then Came You [w/Spinners], Walk on By, I Say a Little Prayer, Promises, Promises, Anyone Who Had a Heart1942 - Mike Pinder
musician: keyboards: group: The Moody Blues: Nights in White Satin; solo: LP: Thomas from Mighty Oaks, The Promise, Hopes Dreams and Wishes1943 - Dickie Betts
musician: guitar: group: The Allman Brothers: Ramblin’ Man; solo: LP: Highway Call; group: Great Southern: LP: Dickie Betts and Great Southern, Atlanta Burning Down1943 - Mike Smith
musician: organs, singer: group: The Dave Clark Five: Do You Love Me, Glad All Over, Bits and Pieces, Red Balloon, Everybody Get Together1943 - Grover Washington Jr.
musician: saxophone: Just the Two of Us [w/Bill Withers]; died Dec 17, 19991945 - Ralph Garr
baseball: Atlanta Braves [all-star: 1974], Chicago White Sox, California Angels1946 - Clive Bunker
musician: drums: group: Jethro Tull: Living in the Past, Sweet Dream, Witch’s Promise1946 - Emerson Fittipaldi
race car driver: F1 World Championships [Lotus: 1972, McLaren: 1974]; Indianapolis 500 winner [1989, 1993]; career: races: 144, wins: 14, poles: 6, fastest laps: 6, points: 281; more1947 -Buck Dharma (Donald Roeser)
songwriter, musician: guitar: group: Blue Oyster Cult: [Don’t Fear] The Reaper, Burnin’ for You, Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll, The Red and the Black, Flaming Telepaths, Astronomy, I Love the Night1947 - Wings Hauser
actor: Irish Eyes, The Blue Lizard, The Insider, Broken Bars, Watchers III, Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time1948 - Tom Wilkinson
actor: In The Bedroom, The Patriot, Shakespeare in Love, Rush Hour, John Adams, Michael Clayton, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Lone Ranger, The Grand Budapest Hotel, Snowden; more1949 - Bill Nighy
actor: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Men’s Room, Love Actually, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Underworld film series, Lawless Heart, I Capture the Castle, Shaun of the Dead, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Hot Fuzz, Valkyrie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1, Rango1949 - Paul Rodgers
musician: piano, vocals: Cut Loose; groups: Free, Bad Company, The Firm1950 - Billy Smith
Hockey Hall of Famer [goalie]: New York Islanders: won four Stanley Cups, had 305 wins, 22 shutouts, 3.17 goals-against average; goaltending coach: NY Islanders, Florida Panthers1952 - Rubin Carter
football: Denver Broncos defensive tackle: Super Bowl XII1952 - Cathy Rigby
gymnast: 1968 & 1972 U.S. Olympic Team, World Champion silver medalist [1970]; TV commercials; actress: Peter Pan1953 - Bruce Kulick
songwriter, musician: drums: groups: Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad1953 - Rafael Septien
football: Dallas Cowboys kicker: Super Bowl XIII1956 - Ana Alicia
actress: Falcon Crest, Romero, Coward of the County1957 - Sheila E. (Escovedo)
musician: drums, singer: The Glamorous Life1958 - Sheree J. Wilson
actress: Walker, Texas Ranger, Dallas, Killing Down, Past Tense, Midnight Expression, Hellbound, News at Eleven, Kane and Abel, Fraternity Vacation1959 - Paul Rutherford
singer: group: Frankie Goes to Hollywood: Relax!, Two Tribes, The Power of Love1962 - Tracy Austin
International Tennis Hall of Famer: U.S. Open [and youngest] Singles champion [1979 and 1981]; youngest player to enter Wimbledon; AP Female Athlete of the Year [1979, 1981]; first siblings to win Wimbledon mixed doubles championship [w/brother John] [1980]; USA net, BBC TV tennis analyst1962 - Ray Brown
football [guard]: Arkansas State Univ; NFL: St. Louis/Phoenix Cardinals, Washington Redskins, San Francisco 49ers, Detroit Lions1967 - John Randle
football [defensive tackle]: Texas A&M Univ; NFL: Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks1968 - Kurt Schulz
football [safety]: Buffalo Bills, Detroit Lions1968 - Chris Walsh
football [wide receiver]: Stanford Univ; NFL: Buffalo Bills, Minnesota Vikings1970 - Mädchen Amick
actress: Lies and Deception, Global Effect, Face to Face, Mr. Rock ’n’ Roll: The Alan Freed Story, Heartless, Twist of Fate1970 - Jennifer Connelly
actress: A Beautiful Mind, Mulholland Falls, The Rocketeer, Labyrinth, Once Upon a Time in America1970 - Regina Hall
actress: Scary Movie film series, Ally McBeal, Think Like a Man, Death at a Funeral, Malibu’s Most Wanted, Requiem for a Dream, House of Sand and Fog1975 - Mayim Bialik
actress: Blossom, Molloy, Big Bang Theory, Beaches1977 - Erica Dahm
one of the identical Dahm triplets; actress: Juwanna Mann, Robocop: Prime Directives; Playboy model; sisters are Jaclyn and Nicole Dahm1977 - Jaclyn Dahm
one of the identical Dahm triplets; actress: Juwanna Mann, Robocop: Prime Directives; Playboy model; sisters are Erica and Nicole Dahm1977 - Nicole Dahm
one of the identical Dahm triplets; actress: Juwanna Mann, Robocop: Prime Directives; Playboy model; sisters are Erica and Jaclyn Dahm1977 - Bridget Hall
supermodel: on over 60 International covers, listed in Forbes Magazine as one of the top ten moneymaking Supermodels of the world1977 - Orlando Hudson
baseball [second base]: Toronto Blue Jays [2002–2005]; Arizona Diamondbacks [2006–2008]; Los Angeles Dodgers [2009]; Minnesota Twins [2010]; San Diego Padres [2011–2012]; Chicago White Sox [2012])1978 - Gbenga Akinnagbe
actor: The Wire, Numb3rs, The Savages, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3, Lottery Ticket, The Good Wife1979 - Erin Fritch
actress: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Imaginary Heroes, Pandora, Just a Kiss, Igby Goes Down, Will and Grace, Cyberchase1982 - Ervin Santana
baseball [pitcher]: Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: threw no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians Jul 27, 2011; Kansas City Royals1985 - Andrew Ladd
hockey [left winger]: NHL: Carolina Hurricanes [2005-2007]: 2006 Stanley Cup champs; Chicago Blackhawks [2007-2010]: 2010 Stanley Cup champs; Atlanta Thrashers [2010-2011]; Winnipeg Jets [2012-2016]; Chicago Blackhawks [2015–2016]; New York Islanders [2016–2017]1996 - Lucas Hedges
actor: Moonrise Kingdom, Manchester by the Sea, Lady Bird, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, Boy Erased
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day December 12
1947Near You (facts) - The Francis Craig Orchestra (vocal: Bob Lamm)
You Do (facts) - Dinah Shore
1956
1965
1974
1983
1992
2001
2010
2019
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
