February 24
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Events on This Day
1835 - Siwinowe Kesibwi (The Shawnee Sun) was issued as the first Indian language monthly publication in the United States.1839 - Mr. William S. Otis of Philadelphia, PA picked up a patent for the steam shovel.
1857 - The first shipment of perforated postage stamps was received by the U.S. Government. Only imperforated ones had been used previously. When stamp sheets were issued years later for the first time, someone thought it a good idea to return to the non-perforated style so that folks had to cut the stamps off the page. That idea didn’t last long. Customer complaints brought the perforated stamps to the sheets of stamps as well.
1866 - The Capitol in Washington, DC displayed an American flag made entirely of American bunting -- another first.
1925 - A thermite reaction was used for the first time to break up an ice jam. The 250,000-ton jam had clogged the St. Lawrence River near Waddington, NY. Why was it called a thermite? Becauth ith wath tho cold that peopleth couldn’th thay “ith breaker,” we thimk.
1938 - The first nylon bristle toothbrush was made in Arlington, NJ. It was the first time that nylon yarn had been used commercially. Two years later, nylon hosiery was introduced. A tip: Never brush your teeth with your nylon hosiery.
1940 - Frances Langford recorded one of the classic songs of all time -- and one that would become a Walt Disney trademark. When You Wish Upon a Star was recorded on Decca Records during a session in Los Angeles. Many artists have recorded the song, including Linda Ronstadt (with the Nelson Riddle Orchestra in the early 1980s). One can hear the song not only on record, but as the theme in the opening credits of any Disney movie, video and TV program and those “I’m going to Disneyland/World!” commercials, too.
1942 - The Voice of America (VOA) signed on for the first time. The worldwide, shortwave radio service, a department of the U.S. Government, continues to beam a variety of programming around the globe under the auspices of the United States Information Agency (USIA).
1949 - Israel and Egypt signed an armistice agreement. Egyptian forces besieged in the Faluja Pocket were allowed to return to Egypt with their weapons, and the area was handed over to Israeli military control.
1949 - A two-stage rocket was launched from the White Sands proving grounds in, N.M. It was the first rocket to reach outer space.
1955 - Cole Porter’s Silk Stockings opened at the Imperial Theater on Broadway. The musical ran for 478 performances. Starring in the Cole Porter production were Don Ameche, Hildegarde Neff, George Tobias and Gretchen Wyler.
1968 - The discovery of the first pulsar was announced by Jocelyn Bell.
1969 - Johnny Cash recorded his second live prison performance. It followed a concert the previous year at Folsom Prison. The LP Johnny Cash at San Quentin, with the hit single A Boy Named Sue, was recorded live as part of a British TV.
1973 - Roberta Flack’s Killing Me Softly with His Song hit #1 in the U.S. on the Billboard Hot 100. The ballad remained at the top for four weeks: “...Killing me softly with his song; Killing me softly with his song; Telling my whole life with his words; Killing me softly with his song...”
1976 - Eagles Their Greatest Hits became the first LP in the U.S. to be certified platinum - two-million copies sold. It rose to number one in the U.S. on March 13, 1976.
1980 - The U.S. Hockey Team won its “Do you believe in miracles?” gold medal. Final score: U.S. 4, Finland 2. The drama had begun with the U.S. team’s upset win over the powerful Soviet team on February 22. When the U.S. polished off Finland for the gold medal, folks all over the U.S. decided to start believing, indeed!
1983 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 1100 mark for the first time. The stock market moved 24.87 points on this day to close at 1121.81. The 1100 plateau had been reached in 1972, but a rally was not able to keep the benchmark high at that point at the end of the trading day. That’s it from the financial desk...
1985 - Quarterback Doug Flutie played his first game as a pro on this day. Flutie led the New Jersey Generals against Birmingham, losing 38-28. The former Boston College standout had a shaky start in his USFL debut, but still completed 12 of 18 passes in the fourth quarter of the game.
1985 - Yul Brynner reprised his role in The King and I -- setting a box office record for weekly receipts. The show took in $520,920.
1988 - Hustler Magazine, Inc. et al.v. Jerry Falwell; aka The First Amendment on Trial: The U.S. Supreme Court overturned a $200,000 award that Rev. Jerry Falwell, leader of the ‘Moral Majority’, had won against Hustler magazine and publisher Larry Flynt, the self-proclaimed ‘Duke of Raunch’. Hustler had run an ad parody of Falwell’s first sexual experience.
1989 - Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was so irritated by Salman Rushdie’s novel, The Satanic Verses, that he sentenced the author to death and slapped a one to three-million-dollar bounty (depending upon who got him) on his head. Talk about “2 thumbs down...”
1989 - United Airlines Flight 811, out of Honolulu on its way to Sidney, was 100 miles southwest of Hawaii when its cargo door blew out. The explosion in the Boeing 747 created a 10x40-ft. hole in the fuselage, knocked out the two engines on the right side and caused damage to the flaps and hydraulics. Nine passengers were sucked out of the jetliner to their deaths 20,000 ft over the Pacific.
1990 - Crooner Johnnie Ray died in Los Angeles of liver failure at age 63. Ray was known at various times in his career as the ‘Prince of Wails’ and the ‘Howling Success’ because of his highly emotional singing and apparent ability to cry at will. His biggest hit was his double-sided 1951 million-seller: Cry and The Little White Cloud that Cried.
1991 - Country music star Webb Pierce died in Nashville at age 65. The official cause of death was heart failure, but he also suffered from pancreatic cancer. Pierce racked up 13 #1 singles on the Billboard country chart, with 97 singles on the chart between 1952 and 1982.
1993 - British rock legend Eric Clapton won six Grammys, including record, album (Unplugged) and song of the year (Tears in Heaven). Clapton wrote Tears in Heaven as a tribute to his infant son, Conor, who died in 1991 when he fell out of a window in Clapton’s 53rd floor New York apartment.
1994 - Dinah Shore, star of radio, TV, records and movies, died in Beverly Hills, California of cancer. She was 77 years old. A Tennessee native, Shore moved to New York in 1938. Two years later, she signed a recording contract with RCA, and a year after that, joined Eddie Cantor’s radio show. Her TV career started in 1951 with The Dinah Shore Show, sponsored by Chevrolet. She once said that people identified her most with the slogan from that show: “See the USA in your Chevrolet.” Shore’s musical hits included I’ll Walk Alone, The Gypsy, Anniversary Song, Buttons and Bows and Blues in the Night.
1996 - Cuba shot down two small planes operated by a Cuban-American group over the waters north of Havana. The two planes with four people on board were twin-engine Cessna aircraft operated by the group ‘Brothers to the Rescue’, a Miami-based group of Cuban exiles funded by private donations. The group has flown hundreds of missions to spot Cuban rafters attempting to flee their island nations. Group founder Jose Basulto was on a third plane that escaped the gunfire and made it safely back to Miami.
1997 - A nationally televised funeral for China’s leader Deng Xiaoping was held at a military hospital in Beijing.
1998 - Henny Youngman died in New York City. He was 91 years old. Youngman was a tireless comic whose quip, “Take my wife -- please,” and countless other one-liners, kept audiences laughing during a career that spanned seven decades.
1999 - Singer Lauryn Hill won a record five awards at the 41st annual Grammys, including album of the year and best new artist. Her solo debut album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, was the reason for the wins.
2000 - Texas executed 62-year-old Betty Lou Beets for the 1983 murder of her fifth husband. Governor George W. Bush refused to intervene. Beets was the second woman to be executed in Texas since the Civil War.
2001 - Mathematician and computer scientist Claude Shannon died in Medford, MA. He was 84 years old. Shannon’s theories about binary code became the basis for mass communications networks.
2002 - The XIX Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City came to a close. In one of the last events, Canada beat the U.S. hockey team 5-2 for the gold medal. Cross-country skier from Spain and Russia were stripped of gold medals after failing drug tests.
2003 - CBS newsman Dan Rather interviewed Saddam Hussein via satellite and Hussein proposed a live debate with U.S. President George Bush (II). Hussein said he would rather die than leave his country.
2004 - U.S. President George Bush (II) called for a constitutional amendment to ban marriage between members of the same sex.
2004 - Character actor John Randolph died in Hollywood at 88 years of age. Randolph appeared in some 150 films, including Seconds (1966), Pretty Poison (1968), Number One (1969), There Was a Crooked Man (1970), Serpico (1973), Prizzi’s Honor (1985), Sibling Rivalry (1990), A Foreign Field (1993) and You’ve Got Mail (1998).
2005 - Prime Minister Paul Martin said that Canada would not join the U.S. Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) program.
2006 - Films debuting in the U.S.: The animated Doogal, featuring the voices of Kenan Thompson, Jimmy Fallon, Jon Stewart, Whoopi Goldberg, William H. Macy, Chevy Chase, Judi Dench, Kylie Minogue, Ian McKellen, Kevin Smith, Bill Hader and Cory Edwards; Running Scared, with Paul Walker, Cameron Bright, Vera Farmiga, Chazz Palminteri, Johnny Messner, Alex Neuberger, Karel Roden, Ivana Milicevic, Bruce Altman and Elizabeth Mitchell; and Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion, starring Tyler Perry, Blair Underwood, Lynn Whitfield, Boris Kodjoe, Henry Simmons, Lisa Arrindell Anderson, Rochelle Aytes, Jenifer Lewis, Keke Palmer, Tangi Miller, Maya Angelou and Cicely Tyson.
2006 - NASA announced an unusual gamma ray burst GRB 060218 that might have been a predecessor to a supernova; it was located 440 million light-years away and lasted for 33 minutes -- closer and longer than any previous gamma ray burst.
2006 - Four heavily armed men entered a museum in Rio de Janeiro, overpowered the guards, forced them to turn off the internal security cameras and stole valuable oil paintings by Picasso, Dalí, Matisse and Monet. The men made their getaway by running into the crowd of Carnival revelers in front of the museum.
2007 - 24-year-old Denver Broncos’ running back Damien Nash collapsed and died after a charity basketball game in suburban St. Louis. An autopsy ruled that death was of “cardiac origin,” but the exact cause of death was not determined.
2008 - The 80th Annual Academy Awards celebration was held at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood. Host Jon Stewart presided over the handing out of the coveted statuettes. And (some of) the Oscars went to: No Country for Old Men (Motion Picture); Daniel Day-Lewis for There Will Be Blood (Actor in a Leading Role); Marion Cotillard for La Môme (Actress in a Leading Role); Javier Bardem for No Country for Old Men (Actor in a Supporting Role); Tilda Swinton for Michael Clayton (Actress in a Supporting Role); Ethan Coen, Joel Coen for No Country for Old Men (Directing); Diablo Cody for Juno (Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen); Joel Coen and Ethan Coen for No Country for Old Men (Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published); Robert Elswit for There Will Be Blood (Cinematography); Alexandra Byrne for Elizabeth: The Golden Age (Costume Design); Dario Marianelli for Atonement (Original Score); Glen Hansard, Markéta Irglová for Falling Slowly from Once (Original Song); Scott Millan, David Parker, Kirk Francis for The Bourne Ultimatum (Sound); and Ratatouille (Animated Feature Film).
2009 - China closed Tibet to foreign tourists a few weeks ahead of the highly sensitive 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
2010 - SeaWorld (Orlando, FL) trainer Dawn Brancheau was killed after Tilikum, a 12,000 pound killer whale, grabbed her hair and pulled her under water.
2010 - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved fresh curbs on shorting stocks. The new rules created a so-called ‘circuit breaker’ for stock prices, restricting for the rest of a trading session and all of the next one any short-selling of a stock that had dropped 10 percent or more.
2011 - The U.S. Air Force awarded Boeing a $35 billion deal to build 200 aerial refueling tankers. The news was met with delight and rejoicing by Northwest U.S. aircraft workers and politicians.
2011 - Toyota recalled 2.17 million vehicles in the U.S. to address problems with accelerator pedals that got caught in floor mats or jammed in driver’s side carpeting.
2012 - Movies debuting in the U.S.: Act of Valor, with Alexander Asefa, Drea Castro, Jason Cottle, Aurelius DiBarsanti, Timothy Gibbs, Carla Jimenez; Wanderlust, starring Jennifer Aniston, Malin Akerman, Paul Rudd, Justin Theroux, Ray Liotta, Alan Alda and Lauren Ambrose; and The Fairy, with Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Philippe Martz, Bruno Romy, Vladimir Zongo and Destiné M’Bikula Mayemba.
2012 - Chemical giant Monsanto agreed to pay up to $93 million to test thousands of current and former Nitro, West Virginia residents for disease and to help them clean up their homes. A judge had approved the settlement in the class-action suit that had accused Monsanto of polluting the area by burning dioxin wastes left over from the production of Vietnam-era defoliant Agent Orange.
2013 - Oscars were awarded to the outstanding movies of 2012 on this day. The 85th Annual Academy Awards show was held at the newly named Dolby Theatre (formerly the Kodak Theatre) in Hollywood, California. Actor Seth MacFarlane hosted the show for the first time. And the awards included: Jennifer Lawrence won the Best Actress for Silver Linings Playbook; Daniel Day-Lewis was chosen Best Actor for Lincoln; Best Picture prize went to Argo. Life of Pi won four awards including Best Director for Ang Lee. Argo won three, including Best Picture and was only the fourth film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture without its director being nominated. Other winners included Les Misérables (three awards); Django Unchained, Lincoln and Skyfall (two each); and Amour, Anna Karenina, Brave, Curfew, Inocente, Paperman, Searching for Sugar Man, Silver Linings Playbook, and Zero Dark Thirty (each got one Oscar).
2014 - Ukraine’s transitional government issued an arrest warrant for ousted President Viktor Yanukovych -- charged with crimes against the protesters who stood up for months against his rule. The head of the city administration in Sevastopol quit amid the turmoil, and protesters replaced a Ukrainian flag near the city hall building -- with a Russian flag. Andriy Klyuyev, Yanukovych’s former chief of staff, was wounded by gunfire and hospitalized.
2014 - Pope Francis announced a major overhaul of the Vatican’s bureaucracy, creating an economics secretariat to control all economic, administrative, personnel and procurement functions of the Holy See.
2015 - Brazil inspectors conducting water testing in Rio de Janeiro’s sewage filled Guanabara Bay found thousands of carcasses of twaite shad fish. This, at the site for sailing events in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
2016 - In a wild U.S. weather day, a major wind and snow storm downed power lines, closed highways and schools and grounded hundreds of flights over a wide swath of the U.S. Midwest. This, while violent thunderstorms and tornadoes lashed the U.S. Southeast and mid-Atlantic region, killing at least 4 people in Virginia and one in South Carolina.
2016 - Astronaut Tim Peake presented singer Adele with a Brit Award from the International Space Station, as the singer swept the annual British music awards.
2017 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres included: Collide, starring Nicholas Hoult, Felicity Jones and Anthony Hopkins; Get Out, with Allison Williams, Lakeith Stanfield and Catherine Keener; Rock Dog, starring Luke Wilson, Eddie Izzard and J.K. Simmons; Bitter Harvest, with Barry Pepper, Terence Stamp and Max Irons; Drifter, starring Aria Emory, Drew Harwood and Monique Rosario; The Girl with all the Gifts, with Gemma Arterton, Glenn Close and Sennia Nanua; the animated, My Life as a Zucchini, featuring the voices of Gaspard Schlatter, Sixtine Murat, Paulin Jaccoud, Michel Vuillermoz and Raul Ribera; Tulip Fever, starring Alicia Vikander, Cara Delevingne and Dane DeHaan; and Year by the Sea, with Karen Allen, Yannick Bisson and Celia Imrie.
2017 - Iraqi forces entered west Mosul neighborhoods that were key strongholds in the shrinking ‘caliphate’ of the Islamic State group. The army’s assault took them from desert and farmland into a densely packed city, where fighting was expected to intensify dramatically.
2017 - Fourteen donor countries meeting in Norway, with the U.S. conspicuously absent, pledged $672 million in emergency aid for people threatened by famine after eight years of Boko Haram violence in the Lake Chad region (Cameroun, Chad, Niger, Nigeria) of Africa. But the $672 million was just a fraction of what the U.N. said was needed.
2018 - At The Forum in Inglewood (Los Angeles), California Thai dynamo Srisaket Sor Rungvisai retained his World Boxing Council title by beating challenger Juan Estrada, holding on in the later rounds of the HBO-televised fight to come out with a close majority decision.
2018 - More 2016 election-meddling news from Russia: The Associated Press reported that it had learned that St. Petersburg restaurateur Yevgeny Prigozhin controls more than a dozen news portals in Russia that attract tens of millions of visitors and serve as an important state propaganda weapon for President Vladimir Putin. Prigozhin was indicted Feb 16, 2018 in the U.S., along with his Internet Research Agency Ltd., Concord Management and Consulting Company and others, for internet trolling and attempting to influence the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections.
2019 - Pope Francis ended his extraordinary summit of Catholic leaders summoned to Rome for a tutorial on preventing clergy sexual abuse and protecting children from predator priests. He called for an “all-out battle” against a crime that should be “erased from the face of the earth ... I would state clearly: If in the Church there should emerge even a single case of abuse - which already in itself represents an atrocity - that case will be faced with the utmost seriousness.” Francis said.
2019 - Greenbook won the best picture award at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony. Rami Malek won the lead actor Oscar for his performance as rock singer Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. Olivia Colman won the lead actress award for her performance as Queen Anne in The Favourite. The ceremony, held at the Dolby Theatre (formerly the Kodak Theatre) in Hollywood, Los Angeles, was the first in three decades (since the 61st Academy Awards in 1989) to be conducted without a formal host.
2020 - The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by more than 950 points at the open, erasing all gains for the blue-chip index for the year. This, after a spike in the number of reported cases of coronavirus fueled fears that the epidemic would have a serious impact on global economic growth.
2020 - A jury in New York City reached a verdict in the rape trial of Harvey Weinstein. The jury of seven men and five women found the movie mogul guilty of a criminal sex act in the first degree for forcing oral sex on the former Project Runway production assistant Miriam Haley in 2006. The count carries a minimum prison sentence of five years and a maximum of up to 25 years. The jury also convicted Weinstein of the (3rd degree) rape of a woman in a New York hotel in 2013. This count carried a maximum sentence of four years in prison and no minimum, though it requires Weinstein to register as a sex offender. Weinstein was acquitted of three other charges, including the two most serious counts of predatory sexual assault which carried a possible life sentence and an alternative count of rape in the first degree.
2020 - NASA scientists said the InSight lander, which touched down on the surface of Mars in November 2018, has since detected around 450 marsquakes, most of modest strength.
2021 - A Beijing, China divorce court ordered a man to compensate his wife for the housework she did during their five-year marriage. In the landmark legal first, the woman was to receive 50,000 yuan ($7,700; £5,460) for five years of unpaid labor.
2021 - A 30-year-old man, walking three of Lady Gaga’s French bulldogs, was shot by a man who took off with two of the dogs. Lady Gaga offered $500,000 for the return of the dogs. On Feb. 26 a woman brought the dogs into a Los Angeles police station. That woman was later arrested after police connected her to one of several dog thieves involved.
2021 - President Joe Biden reopened the U.S. to people seeking green cards, ending the ban on legal immigration
that Donald Trump had imposed.2022 - Russian troops advanced into Ukraine, and Russian planes and missile launchers attacked Ukrainian cities and airports. Ukrainian military said they have shot down six Russian fighters and a helicopter during intense battles to maintain control over cities. The Kremlin said that the length of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine depended on how it progressed and on its aims, and that the assault should ideally cleanse the country of “Nazis” and would neutralize Kyiv’s military potential. Putin warned other countries that any attempt to interfere would lead to “consequences you have never seen.”
2022 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on all citizens who were ready to defend the country from Russian forces to come forward, saying Kyiv would issue weapons to everyone who wants them. Zelenskiy said Ukraine was listening to the sound of a new iron curtain falling as Russian troops advanced across his country’s territory.
2022 - Russia’s Aeroflot was banned from flying to the United Kingdom after President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine. Other efforts were launched to isolate Vladimir Putin diplomatically. One was a challenge to Russia’s right to a permanent seat of the UN security council on the grounds that Russia took the seat from the defunct Soviet Union in 1991 without proper authorization. No decision to permit Russia to the security council was ever put to the General Assembly. The UN charter was never amended after the USSR broke up. It still references the Soviet Union, and not Russia, as one of the permanent members of the UN.
2022 - President Biden met with his counterparts from the Group of Seven allies to map out more severe measures against Russia after Vladimir Putin launched what Biden called “a premeditated war against Ukraine.” Sanctions will limit Russia’s ability to do business in dollars, euros, pounds and yen, Biden said.
2023 - Movies set to open in the U.S. included: Cocaine Bear, starring Ray Liotta, Keri Russell and Margo Martindale; Jesus Revolution, with Nicholas Cirillo, Jonathan Roumie and Kelsey Grammer; and My Happy Ending, starring Andie MacDowell, Miriam Margolyes and Tom Cullen.
2023 - Nearly a million customers in the Midwest were left without power amid freezing temperatures as a historic winter storm brought extreme weather to most of the nation. About 75 million people in 29 states faced winter weather advisories. Meanwhile, many southern states were experiencing record heat. The temperature in Washington, DC topped 80 degrees Fahrenheit, shattering a 150-year-old record for the date.
2023 - In its first-ever blizzard warning, the National Weather Service in San Diego said the San Bernardino County mountains could see 3 to 5 feet of snow. Blizzard warnings were also issued for Los Angeles and Ventura counties with up to 5 feet of snow possible and some isolated areas seeing between 7 and 8 feet. The National Weather Service’s Los Angeles office issued its last blizzard warning on February 4, 1989.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day February 24
1786 - Wilhelm Grimm
author w/brother Jakob: Grimm’s Fairy Tales: Rumpelstiltskin, Snow-White, The Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb; died Dec 16, 18591836 - Winslow Homer
artist: On a Lee Shore, Mending the Nets, Eating Watermelon, Inside the Bar, The Maine Coast; died Sep 29, 19101874 - Honus (John Peter) Wagner
‘The Flying Dutchman’: Baseball Hall of Famer: Louisville Colonels [hit .344: 1897]; Pittsburgh Pirates [World Series: 1903, 1909]; 17 consecutive .300 seasons, eight as NL batting champ, lifetime average of .329; stole 720 bases, led league in stolen bases on six occasions; died Dec 6, 19551885 - Chester Nimitz
U.S. Navy Admiral: WWII Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas; signed the Japanese surrender papers; died Feb 20, 19661890 - Marjorie Main (Mary Tomlinson)
actress: Ma of Ma and Pa Kettle, The Egg and I, The Harvey Girls, Friendly Persuasion; died Apr 10, 19751908 - Milton Frome
actor: Beyond Reason, The Shaggy D.A., The Strongest Man in the World, With Six You Get Eggroll, The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Batman; died Mar 21, 19891914 - Zachary Scott (Zachary Thomson Scott, Jr.)
actor: Flamingo Road, The Young One, The Southerner, Appointment in Honduras; died Oct 3, 19651921 - Abe Vigoda
actor [TV/film career spanned eight decades]: Barney Miller, Fish, The Godfather, Joe Versus the Volcano, Fist of Honor; died Jan 26, 20161922 - Steven Hill
actor: Law & Order, Mission: Impossible, The Firm, Billy Bathgate, Legal Eagles, Yentl, A Child is Waiting; died Aug 23, 20161927 - Mark Lane
attorney, author: Rush to Judgment, Eyewitness Chicago; conspiracy theorist: the Kennedy assassination; died May 10, 20161928 - Bubba (John Melvin) Phillips
baseball: Detroit Tigers, Chicago White Sox [World Series: 1959], Cleveland Indians; died June 22, 19931929 - Richard B. Shull
actor: Splash, Trapped in Paradise, The Big Bus, Tune in Tomorrow, The Marriage of Bette and Boo; died Oct 14, 19991932 - Michel Legrand
Academy Award-Winning composer: The Windmills of Your Mind [from The Thomas Crown Affair [1968], Summer of ’42 [1971], Yentl [1983]; Brian’s Song, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Ice Station Zebra; wrote many emorable songs in addition to 200+ film and television scores; died Jan 26, 20191932 - John Vernon
actor: The Outlaw Josey Wales, National Lampoon’s Animal House, Hostage for a Day, Dirty Harry, Hunter, Point Blank, I’m Gonna Git You Sucka; died Feb 1, 20051934 - Renata Scotto
opera soprano: made operatic debut at age 18; best known for performances as Violetta in La Traviata, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Mimi [and the occasional Musetta] in La Bohème, Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth and Francesca in Francesca da Rimini; opera director; died Aug 16, 20231936 - Lance Reventlow
millionaire playboy, auto racer: designed/drove Chevy-powered Scarabs [1960s]; son of Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton; former husband of actress Jill St. John; killed in crash of light plane July 24, 19721938 - James Farentino
actor: Dynasty, Cool Million, The Story of a Woman, Ensign Pulver, The Final Countdown; died Jan 24, 20121938 - Phil Knight
entrepreneur, billionaire: founder of Nike shoes [chairman, CEO 1978-2015]1940 - Jimmy Ellis
boxing: WBA world heavyweight champ [1968-1970]1941 - Joanie Sommers
actress: 77 Sunset Strip, Burke’s Law, Love, American Style, singer: Johnny Get Angry1942 - Paul Jones
musician: harmonica, singer: group: Manfred Mann: 5-4-3-2-1, Pretty Flamingo, Semi Detached Suburban Mr. James1942 - Jenny O’Hara
actress: Forty Shades of Blue, Matchstick Men, Mystic River, Nancy Drew, If These Walls Could Talk 2, An Unexpected Life1943 - George Harrison
Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Famer, former Beatle: My Sweet Lord, Isn’t It a Pity, What is Life?, All Those Years Ago, Concert for Bangla-Desh; actor: A Hard Day’s Night, Help!, The Beatles, Magical Mystery Tour, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, The Concert for Bangladesh, Shanghai Surprise, You Can't Do That! The Making of ‘A Hard Day's Night’; Harrison believed for most of his life his birthday was Feb 25 but a family birth record has his birth at near 11:50 p.m. Feb 24 (also see Reference Library: George Harrison's Birthdate; died Nov 29, 2001; more1945 - Barry Bostwick
actor: Spy Hard, Weekend at Bernie’s 2, War & Remembrance, A Woman of Substance, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Foul Play, Dads1947 - Mike Fratello
basketball: coach: Atlanta Hawks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Memphis Grizzlies; 1,215 games coached: 667 regular season wins; sports broadcaster: YES net, TNT1947 - Rupert Holmes
musician, songwriter: over 300 songs & jingles; singer: Escape [The Pina Colada Song], Him, Answering Machine; arranger, producer: Barbra Streisand1947 - Edward James Olmos
Emmy Award-Winning Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series: Miami Vice [1985]; Stand and Deliver, Blade Runner1947 - Lonnie Turner
musician: bass, singer: group: The Steve Miller Band: Living in the USA, Motherless Children1950 - George Thorogood
musician: guitar; blues singer: Bad to the Bone, Move It on Over, House Rent Boogie/One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer, Who Do You Love?; group: Delaware Destroyers: 16 studio albums, two certified Platinum, six certified Gold: have sold 15 million albums worldwide; more1951 - Debra Jo Rupp
actress: That ’70s Show, Friends, Better With You, She’s Out of My League, Spooky Buddies, She Wants Me1951 - Helen Shaver
actress: The Craft, Born to be Wild, Desert Hearts, The Color of Money, The Amityville Horror, Starship Invasions, WIOU1952 - Tom Burleson
basketball: North Carolina State, Seattle Supersonics1953 - Frank (Joseph) Riccelli
baseball: pitcher: SF Giants, Houston Astros1953 - Greg Westbrooks
football: LA Rams linebacker: Super Bowl XIV1953 - Mike (Michael David) Sember
baseball: Chicago Cubs1955 - Bob Abrams
musician: guitar, singer: group: The Buckinghams: Kind of a Drag, Don’t You Care, Mercy, Mercy, Mercy1955 - Steve Jobs
CEO: Apple Computer [co-founded the company in 1977 w/Steve Wozniak]; CEO of Pixar Animation Studios; in Forbes magazine’s listing of the 400 richest Americans in 2005 [#67 with a total worth of $3.3 Billion]; died Oct 5, 20111955 - Alain Prost
race car driver: four-time Formula One Drivers’ Champion1956 - Eddie (Clarence) Murray
baseball: Baltimore Orioles [American League Rookie of the Year: 1977/all-star: 1978, 1981-1986/World Series: 1979, 1983], LA Dodgers [all-star: 1991], NY Mets, Cleveland Indians [World Series: 1995]1956 - Paula Zahn
TV journalist: CBS This Morning, Public Eye with Bryant Gumbel, Fox News Channel, CNN: American Morning with Paula Zahn, Paula Zahn Now1958 - Sammy Kershaw
singer: Cadillac Style, Don’t Go Near the Water, Anywhere But Here, She Don’t Know She’s Beautiful, Haunted Heart, Third Rate Romance, Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On1958 - Mark Moses
actor: Desperate Housewives, Mad Men, Platoon, The Doors, Born on the Fourth of July, Big Momma’s House 2, Platoon, Star Trek: Voyager, Seeking a Friend for the End of the World1959 - Beth Broderick
actress: The Inner Circle, Psycho Beach Party, Fools Rush In, Maternal Instincts, Justice in a Small Town, Are You Lonesome Tonight?1965 - Kristin Davis
actress: Sex and the City, Melrose Place, Friends, Will and Grace, Seinfeld, Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Kids, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3D, The Shaggy Dog, Deck the Halls, Three Days, Couples Retreat1966 - Billy Zane
actor: Bloodrayne, The Pleasure Drivers, Silver City, The Kiss, Imaginary Grace, Big Kiss, The Phantom, Titanic, Boston Public, The Deep End1970 - Jeff Garcia
football: [quarterback]: San Jose State Univ, NFL: SF 49ers, Cleveland Browns1971 - Brian Savage
hockey [left, right wing]: Montreal Canadiens, Phoenix Coyotes, St. Louis Blues, Philadelphia Flyers1974 - Mike Lowell
baseball [3rd base]: New York Yankees [1998], Florida Marlins [1999–2005], Boston Red Sox [2006–2010]: MVP of 2007 World Series1974 - Simeon Rice
football [defensive end]: Univ of Illinois; NFL: Arizona Cardinals, Tampa Bay Buccaneers1974 - Bonnie Somerville
actress: NYPD Blue, Grosse Pointe, Friends, The O.C., Kitchen Confidential, Cashmere Mafia, Golden Boy1976 - Crista Flanagan
comedic actress: MADtv [2005-2009], Fool for Love, The Time of Our Life, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, The Marriage of Figaro and Oklahoma!, But wait…I have Impressions!1976 - Zach Johnson
golf pro: 2007 Masters, 2015 British Open champ; 12 PGA Tour wins1977 - Bronson Arroyo
baseball [pitcher]: Pittsburgh Pirates [2000–2002]; Boston Red Sox [2003–2005]: 2004 World Series champs; Cincinnati Reds [2006–2013]; Arizona Diamondbacks [2014]; Cincinnati Reds [2017]1977 - Floyd Mayweather Jr
professional boxer: five-division world champion, won eight world titles and the Lineal championship in three different weight classes; record 43-0 [26 knockouts]1978 - Nicole Lyn
actress: Student Bodies, Deliver Us from Eva, Bless the Child, On Thin Ice: The Tai Babilonia Story, Meet Julie1981 - Lleyton Hewitt
tennis pro: youngest male to be ranked World No. 1 [age 20]: won 2000 U.S. Open men’s doubles, 2001 U.S. Open, 2002 Wimbledon men’s singles, back-to-back Tennis Masters Cup [now ATP World Tour Finals] titles [2001, 2002]1984 - Wilson Bethel
actor: All Rise, Hart of Dixie, The Young and the Restless, Daredevil, Stupid Hype, How to Get Away with Murder1989 - Daniel Kaluuya
actor: Black Panther, Get Out, Kick-Ass 2, Psychoville, Babylon, Widows, Queen & Slim1991 - O’Shea Jackson Jr. aka OMG
rapper: Jackin’ for Beats, OMG, Ain’t No Place; actor: Straight Outta Compton, Ingrid Goes West; son of rapper Ice Cube
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day February 24
1949Far Away Places (facts) - Margaret Whiting
Powder Your Face with Sunshine (facts) - Evelyn Knight
1958
1967
1976
1985
1994
2003
2012
2021
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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