February 26
Jump to:
Events on This Day
1907 - Members of the U.S. Congress raised their own pay to $7500 each. Both House and Senate members got the same bucks. The Cabinet members and the Vice President would earn twelve grand. If you don’t think they were being paid very much for their services, consider that the Veep was getting enough to buy at least half a dozen houses ... and the richest man in the world was said to be John D. Rockefeller, whose oil fortune was worth no more than $300 million at the time.1916 - Mutual signed Charlie Chaplin to a film contract. Three years later, the ‘old’ Charlie Chaplin films were released and were very successful at the box office.
1917 - The first jazz recording for Victor Records was released. The Original Dixieland ‘Jass’ Band performed on the tune The Dixie Jass Band One Step. The word ‘Jass’ was later changed to ‘Jazz’ because it sounded, uh, jazzier.
1919 - The Grand Canyon was established as a National Park by an act of the U.S. Congress. The gigantic gorge that cuts through the high plateaus of the northwest corner of Arizona was formed by thousands of years of erosion. The raging Colorado River was the culprit.
1922 - Dancing to jazz music and tango bands was criticized in Paris. It seems that dancing was detracting the French from their postwar reconstruction, according to La Revue Mondiale. We guess that the cancan was not detrimental to France’s economy since it wasn’t an imported dance craze.
1939 - Eleanor Roosevelt, wife of F.D.R. resigned from the Daughters of the American Revolution in support of African American opera singer Marian Anderson. Anderson had encountered racism, discrimination, and segregation in the U.S. (Although the DAR now forbids discrimination in membership based on race or creed, some members held segregationist views when segregation was tolerated in the U.S.)
1942 - A big banquet, Biltmore Hotel style, was the setting for Hollywood’s 14th Academy Awards. Dinner guests were addressed by the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt, heard via radio, thanked the film industry for its WWII defense preparedness work. The final course served up Oscars in sealed envelopes (the first time) to John Ford (Best Director, How Green Was My Valley); Gary Cooper (Best Actor, Sergeant York); Joan Fontaine (Best Actress, Suspicion); Mary Astor (Best Supporting Actress, The Great Lie) and Donald Crisp (Best Supporting Actor: How Green Was My Valley. Then all toasted the Best Picture of the Year, How Green Was My Valley. This was the third Best Director statuette presented to John Ford. He received his second, a year earlier for The Grapes of Wrath, and the first for the 1935 film, The Informer.
1945 - A midnight curfew on nightclubs, bars and other places of entertainment went into effect across the U.S. The curfew was intended to save fuel, keep wartime production high and factory absenteeism low.
1951 - Minnesota was the 36th (of 41 total) state to ratify the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. (At the time, ratification required 36 states out of 48. Today, ratification would require 38 states out of 50.) The amendment limited a U.S. president to two terms in office.
1957 - The Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award was established by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).
1962 - The Best Play award winner of 1962, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mama’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feeling So Sad opened at the Phoenix Theatre off-Broadway in New York City on this night (and for 454 performances). Not the longest run on the Great White Way, certainly, but, one of the longest titles of a show. Imagine standing at the ticket booth and asking for tickets to ODPDMHYITCAIFSS.
1969 - Prime Minister Levi Eshkol died of a heart attack. Golda Meir became PM.
1972 - Harry Nilsson started his second week at number one with that toe-tapping ditty, Without You. The whiny love song stayed at the top for a total of four weeks.
1977 - The Eagles’ New Kid in Town landed in the top spot on the pop music charts for one week beginning this day.
1979 - The situation comedy Flatbush debuted on CBS-TV. It featured the exploits of the Flatbush Fungos, five, recent, high-school graduates living in a middle-class, Italian neighborhood in Brooklyn’s Flatbush area. The ethnic stereotypes offended Brooklyn’s Borough president. He demanded that the series be removed from the air before it gave Brooklyn a bad name. (As you recall, Brooklyn, in 1979, was known as the garden spot of the U.S.) CBS beat the prez to it, however, and canceled the show after 3 episodes -- before Flatbush gave the network a bad name.
1983 - Charley Pride’s Why Baby Why topped the country charts. The song was written by George Jones (who found national fame with his own version in 1955) and Darrell Edwards. Legend has it that inspiration for the song came when Edwards overheard a couple squabbling in their car in Orange, TX. Don’t ever tell us you haven’t learned anything by reading this stuff...
1983 - Michael Jackson’s Thriller hit #1 in the U.S. The album spent a total of 37 weeks at number one. The tracks: Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, Baby Be Mine, The Girl is Mine (w/Paul McCartney), Thriller, Beat It, Billie Jean, Human Nature, P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing), The Lady in My Life.
1985 - This was the night for the seventh highest-rated TV music show of the 1980s. A 23.8 share of the TV audience watched The Grammy Awards. The award for Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Male was presented to Phil Collins for his Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now); Best New Artist for the year 1984 was Cindi Lauper and the Best Album of the year award, for Can’t Slow Down, was presented to Lionel Richie. Tina Turner was a big winner at the 27th annual platter prize parade, copping Best Song, Best Record and Best Pop Vocal Performance by a Female for What’s Love Got to Do with It.
1988 - Eric Arturo Delvalle, who had been ousted as president of Panama by its National Assembly, called for a national strike to repudiate General Manuel Antonio Noriega.
1993 - Six people were killed and more than a thousand injured in New York City. A van packed with a 1,210-pound bomb exploded in the parking garage underneath the World Trade Center. The explosion left a gigantic crater 200 feet wide and caused over 591 million dollars in damage. Fourteen of his followers and Dr. Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman were accused of the bombing. Rahman is now serving a life sentence in a U.S. prison.
1995 - Barings PLC, Great Britain’s oldest investment banking firm, was forced into bankruptcy. Seems an employee in Singapore, Nicholas William Leeson, had speculated in derivatives on Tokyo stock prices that resulted in losses exceeding $1.4 billion.
1997 - Change the World (by Eric Clapton & Babyface) won four awards -- including record of the year -- at the 39th Grammy Awards. Celine Dion’s Falling Into You won album of the year and best pop album.
1998 - AMARILLO, Texas - A jury rejected a lawsuit by Texas cattlemen who claimed Oprah Winfrey’s televised comments about mad-cow disease caused the beef market to plummet and cost them millions of dollars.
1999 - These films debuted in the U.S.: 8MM: Eight Millimeter, starring Nicolas Cage and Joaquin Phoenix; Just the Ticket, with Andy Garcia and Andie Macdowell; The Other Sister, starring Juliette Lewis, Diane Keaton and Tom Skerritt; and 200 Cigarettes, with Ben Affleck Casey Affleck Dave Chappelle.
2001 - Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered the destruction of all statues including the Buddha statues carved into the stone cliffs of Bamiyan, Afghanistan; and all pre-Islamic statues and sanctuaries.
2002 - Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling insisted during a U.S. Senate hearing that he knew nothing about manipulation of company books. Skilling also denied misleading Congress as alleged by some lawmakers and Enron officials.
2003 - New York City chose an airy spire that would stand taller than any other building in the world (at a height of 1,776 feet), to replace the World Trade Center. The new building was designed by Daniel Libeskind.
2004 - Russian President Vladimir Putin opened a stretch of highway in far eastern Russia. The road made it possible for the first time to drive to Asia. The 6,214-mile Moscow to Vladivostok route openened a window to the ever-expanding Chinese market.
2005 - In a speech to U.S. governors, Microsoft’s Bill Gates delivered a scathing critique of U.S. high schools, calling them obsolete and saying that elected officials should be ashamed of a system that leaves millions of students unprepared for college and for technical jobs.
2006 - As the Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy wound down, Sweden beat rival Finland 3-2 for the Olympic men’s hockey gold medal. Final medal tally: Germany led with 29, the U.S. won 25, Canada 24, Austria 23 and Russia 22.
2007 - Former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned that the American economy could slip into recession by the end of 2007.
2007 - Officials said that after nearly a decade of trying, Japan had succeeded in establishing a network of spy satellites that could peer at any point on the globe.
2007 - The Postal Regulatory Commission recommended a ‘forever’ stamp, good for first class U.S. letters no matter how much postal rates might increase.
2008 - The doomsday seed vault opened deep within an Arctic mountain in the remote Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard. The vault was built to protect millions of food crops from climate change, wars and natural disasters. Though Norway owns the one-of-a-kind global seed bank, other countries were invited to store their seeds in it -- and are allowed to remove them as needed. The genes in the seeds may someday be needed to adapt crops to endure climate change, droughts, blights, and other potential catastrophes.
2008 - Buddy Miles, former drummer with Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and other rock musicians, died in Texas at 60 years of age. During his career, Miles appeared in over 70 albums.
2009 - U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the Obama administration had reversed an 18-year ban on news coverage of war dead, allowing photographs of flag-covered caskets -- when families of the fallen troops agree.
2009 - The Royal Bank of Scotland posted a 2008 loss of 24.1 billion pounds, the largest in British corporate history.
2010 - New movies in U.S. theatres: Cop Out, starring ruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Adam Brody, Kevin Pollak, Guillermo Diaz, Seann William Scott, Jason Lee and Ana de la Reguera; Formosa Betrayed, with James Van Der Beek, John Heard, Leslie Hope and Tzi Ma; the documentary The Art of the Steal, directed by Don Argott; The Crazies, starring Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell, Danielle Panabaker, Joe Anderson, Brett Rickaby, Christie Lynn Smith, Preston Bailey, Joe Reegan and Justin Welborn; and The Yellow Handkerchief, with William Hurt, Maria Bello and Kristen Stewart.
2010 - Iraq reinstated 20,000 former army officers who had been dismissed after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion. Defense Ministry Spokesman Mohammed al-Askari denied that the move was linked to the upcoming (March 7) elections, insisting that funding for the 20,000 positions had only just become available.
2010 - Canada won the Olympic men’s speed skating short track 5,000 meters relay with Charles Hamelin picking up his second gold of the day.
2011 - Some 70,000 people waved American flags, sang the national anthem and called for the defeat of a Wisconsin state plan to curb public sector unions.
2012 - Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun replaced the defunct News of the World in Britain. In the paper, an editorial titled A new Sun rises today said the newspaper was appointing a so-called Readers’ Champion to deal with complaints and correct errors, while also vowing that its journalists would be ethical. But, hold on. This just in: Four current and former journalists from The Sun were arrested on suspicion of bribing police.
2012 - 17-year-old Trayvon Martin of Miami was shot dead in Sanford (central Florida) by George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old white Neighborhood Watch captain. Martin was returning to his father’s home after taking a ten-minute walk to a convenience store to buy snacks. Zimmerman was later charged with, but found not guilty of, second-degree murder. The circumstances of Martin’s death, the initial decision not to charge Zimmerman, and questions about Florida’s Stand Your Ground law received national and international attention. Allegations of racist motivation for both the shooting and police conduct, along with intense media reporting that was sometimes inaccurate, contributed to public demands for Zimmerman’s arrest.
2013 - Former NBA star Dennis Rodman took his basketball skills and flamboyant style to North Korea. Rodman was joined by three members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team for a VICE Media production on HBO. Rodman and VICE’s producers said the Americans hoped to engage in a little ‘basketball diplomacy’ by putting on a basketball camp for children and by playing with North Korea’s top basketball stars.
2014 - A U.S. appeals court ordered YouTube to take down an anti-Muslim film that sparked violent riots in parts of the Middle East and death threats for the actors. The 2012 video, Innocence of Muslims, had led to rioting and deaths because of its negative portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. YouTube had argued that the filmmakers and not the actors of owned the copyright and only they could remove it.
2015 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to enforce ‘net neutrality’ rules for the broadband industry.
2015 - The Islamic State group released a video showing militants using sledgehammers to smash ancient artifacts in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul. The destruction was part of a continuing campaign by Islamic State to eliminate items that they viewed as heresy. The militants believed that Islam was the only religion and ordered it to be adopted by followers of all faiths. The militants targeted minorities and destroyed their places of worship. Those who remained were forced to choose between conversion and execution.
2016 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres included: Eddie the Eagle, starring Taron Egerton, Hugh Jackman and Christopher Walken; Gods of Egypt, with Gerard Butler, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau and Abbey Lee; Triple 9, starring Teresa Palmer, Kate Winslet and Gal Gadot; Against the Wild 2 Survive the Serengeti, with Jeri Ryan, Ella Ballentine and John Paul Ruttan; the documentaries King Georges and The Last Man on the Moon; Standoff, starring Thomas Jane, Laurence Fishburne and Ella Ballentine; and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, with Donnie Yen, Michelle Yeoh and Harry Shum Jr.
2016 - A Belgian judge charged Swiss bank UBS with money laundering and “serious and organized tax evasion,” saying it directly sought clients in the country to help them skip paying taxes. (In December 2016 French prosecutors accused UBS France, its Swiss headquarters and French and Swiss bankers of orchestrating a vast cross-border system of “tax fraud money laundering.”)
2017 - Deaths on this day included actor (Apollo 13, Titanic) Bill Paxton (age 61; complications after heart valve and aorta surgery) in Los Angeles; and Joseph Wapner, the California judge who presided over the TV hit The People’s Court (1981-1993) (age 97; respiratory failure) in Los Angeles.
2017 - At the 89th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Moonlight was awarded the best picture Oscar after it was erroneously awarded to La La Land in a moment of onstage crisis and confusion. La La Land ended up with six Oscars including director and lead actress (Emma Stone). Casey Affleck took home the lead actor award for Manchester by the Sea, while Moonlight’s Mahershala Ali took home the trophy for supporting actor. Viola Davis won the supporting actress Oscar for her work in Fences.
2018 - An Arctic storm dubbed the ‘Beast from the East’ saw temperatures across much of Europe plummet to their lowest level of the winter. The blast brought a rare snowstorm to Rome, paralyzing the city -- but giving its residents the chance to ski, sled and build snowmen.
2019 - British Prime Minister Theresa May, under intense political pressure, handed control of Brexit to Parliament. May offered lawmakers the chance to vote for no-deal on Brexit or to delay Britain’s exit from the European Union.
2019 - In Indonesia an unlicensed gold mine collapsed and buried dozens of people. Rescuers dug desperately with their bare hands and farm tools to unearth victims calling for help from beneath the rubble. Makeshift wooden structures in the mine in Bolaang Mongondow district collapsed due to unstable soil and the large number of mining holes, burying people in the mine pit.
2020 - The U.S. stepped up travel advisories for Iran, Italy and Mongolia, warning of the risks of COVID-19 coronavirus and/or disruptions related to efforts to control the disease’s spread.
2020 - U.S. health officials said a coronavirus case in California -- a resident of Solano County -- was the first in the U.S. that had no known connection to travel abroad -- or another known case.
2020 - Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer unveiled an $8.5 billion response to the COVID-19 outbreak. It was more than triple POTUS Trump’s $2.5 billion request. Lawmakers had questioned whether the request was sufficient.
2020 - World health officials said the COVID-19 coronavirus had spread to 37 counties. The WHO reported that the number of new cases reported outside China exceeded the number of new cases in China for the first time.
2021 - Movies released in the U.S. (theatres and virtual) this day included: the animated Tom and Jerry, revealing how Tom and Jerry first meet and form their rivalry; Cherry, with Tom Holland, Ciara Bravo and Jack Reynor; Crisis, starring Gary Oldman, Armie Hammer and Evangeline Lilly; The Father, starring Anthony Hopkins, Olivia Colman and Mark Gatiss; Things Don’t Stay Fixed, with William Gregory Lee, Tara Ochs and Brenda Bynum; and The Vigil, with Dave Davis, Menashe Lustig and Malky Goldman.
2021 - A federal judge approved a $650 million settlement of a privacy lawsuit against Facebook for using photo face-tagging and other biometric data without the permission of its users. The lawsuit accused Facebook of violating an Illinois privacy law by failing to get consent before using facial-recognition technology to scan photos uploaded by users to create and store faces digitally. The case eventually wound up as a class-action lawsuit in California. Facebook has since changed its photo-tagging system.
2021 - Belgium delayed a relaxation of coronavirus restrictions after hospital admissions of people infected with COVID-19 spiked.
2021 - South Korea administered its first available shots of coronavirus vaccines to people at long-term care facilities, launching a mass immunization campaign. Health authorities hoped the shots would restore some level of normalcy in the coming months.
2022 - The U.S. and Europe expelled big Russian banks from the main global payments system and added other measures to limit Moscow’s use of a $630 billion war chest of central bank reserves.
2022 - SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk said the company’s Starlink satellite broadband service was available in Ukraine and SpaceX was sending more terminals to the country, whose internet was disrupted by the Russian invasion.
2022 - Russian President Vladimir Putin’s official website, kremlin.ru, was down, along with five other Russian government sites, after cyberattacks on various Russian government and state media websites.
2023 - Violent revenge attacks were carried out by mobs of Israeli settlers, who burned 200 buildings in Palestinian villages and killed at least one person after a Palestinian gunman killed two Israelis in the northern West Bank.
2023 - A winter storm deposited snow in parts of southern California for the first time in decades. Snow fell all the way down to the 1,000-foot level, and was some 80 feet deep in the San Bernardino Mountains.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day February 26
1802 - Victor Hugo
author: Les Miserables; famous quote: “An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come.”; died May 22, 18851808 - Honoré Daumier
artist, caricaturist: satirical lithographs; died Feb 10, 18791829 - Levi Strauss
creator of blue jeans or Levi’s; died Sep 26, 19021846 - William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody
American frontiersman; showman; died Jan 10, 19171887 - Grover Cleveland Alexander
Baseball Hall of Famer [pitcher]: Philadelphia Phillies [1911–1917], Chicago Cubs [1918–1926], St. Louis Cardinals [1926–1929], Philadelphia Phillies [1930]; his 373 wins are tied for the most as a National League pitcher; died Nov 4, 19501887 - William Frawley
actor: I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, My Three Sons, Lord Loveland Discovers America, The Lemon Drop Kid, Three Married Men, High, Wide, and Handsome, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Those Were the Days, The Fighting Seabees, My Wild Irish Rose, Miracle on 34th Street, The Lemon Drop Kid; died Mar 3, 19661902 - Jean Bruller aka Vercors
author: Silence of the Sea: first clandestine novel published under Nazi occupation of France [1941]; died June 10, 19911906 - Madeleine Carroll
actress: The 39 Steps, Secret Agent, The General Died at Dawn, The Prisoner of Zenda, On the Avenue; One Night in Lisbon, My Favorite Blonde, The Fan; at the peak of her success she was the highest paid actress in the world, earning a then staggering $250,000 [1938]; died Oct 2, 19871907 - Dub Taylor
actor: Maverick, Falling From Grace, My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, Once Upon a Texas Train, Cannonball Run II, Used Cars, How the West Was Won [TV]; died Oct 3, 19941914 - Robert Alda
actor: Code Red, Every Girl Should Have One, Greatest Heroes of the Bible, Fame, The Squeeze, Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood, Quincy M.E.; died May 3, 19861916 - Jackie (Herbert John) Gleason
comedian, actor: The Honeymooners, The Hustler, Smokey and the Bandit; died Jun 24, 19871919 - Mason Adams
radio actor: Pepper Young’s Family; TV actor: Lou Grant, F/X, Houseguest, Morningstar/Evening Star; TV commercial voice-overs: “With a name like Smucker’s, it has to be good!”; died Apr 26, 20051920 - Tony Randall (Leonard Rosenberg)
actor: The Odd Couple, Pillow Talk, Seven Faces of Dr. Lao, Fatal Instinct, The Alphabet Murders; regular cameo appearances on David Letterman’s Late Show; died May 17, 20041921 - Betty Hutton (Elizabeth Thornberg)
actress: Annie Get Your Gun, The Greatest Show on Earth, Hollywood Clowns; died Mar 12, 20071927 - Tom Kennedy
TV game show host: You Don't Say!, Name That Tune, Split Second, Password Plus, The Big Game, Doctor IQ, It’s Your Bet, Break the Bank, 50 Grand Slam, To Say the Least, Whew!, Body Language, The Price Is Right; died Oct 7, 20201928 - Fats (Antoine) Domino
pianist, songwriter, singer: Ain’t That a Shame, Goin’ Home, I’m in Love Again, Blue Monday, I’m Walkin’, Blueberry Hill; died Oct 24, 20171928 - Ariel Sharon
major-general in Israel Defense Forces; longtime Israeli politician: 11th Prime Minister of Israel [2001-2006]; suffered stroke on Jan 4, 2006 and was left in a permanent vegetative state; died Jan 11, 20141932 - Johnny Cash
guitarist, Grammy award-winning country singer: Folsom Prison Blues [1968]; I Walk the Line, Don’t Take Your Guns to Town, A Boy Named Sue, Ring of Fire; TV show with wife June Carter; died Sep 12, 20031933 - Godfrey Cambridge
actor: Watermelon Man, The Last Angry Man, The President’s Analyst, Beware! The Blob, Friday Foster; died Nov 29, 19761933 - James Goldsmith
Anglo-French financier, corporate raider; died July 18, 1997
1937 - Cliff Osmond
actor: For Which He Stands, Copacabana, In Search of a Golden Sky, Incident at Crestridge, California Gold Rush, The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again; died Dec 22, 20121943 - Bill Duke
actor: Broadway: Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death; TV/films: Car Wash, American Gigolo, Knots Landing, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, The Golden1943 - Bob Hite
singer: group: Canned Heat: On the Road Again, Same All Over, Let’s Work Together, Bullfrog Blues, Time Was, Boogie Music, Going Up the Country; died Apr 5, 19811945 - Mitch Ryder (William Levise)
singer: group: Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels: Devil with a Blue Dress On, Little Latin Lupe Lu1947 - Sandie Shaw (Goodrich)
singer: There’s Always Something There to Remind Me, Puppet on a String, Long Live Love, Girl Don’t Come1950 - Jonathan Cain
musician: keyboard, guitar: groups: Babys, Journey: Who’s Crying Now, Open Arms1953 - Michael Bolton
Grammy Award-winning singer: When a Man Loves a Woman [1991], How Am I Supposed to Live Without You [1989]1958 - Greg Germann
actor: Ally McBeal, Child’s Play 2, Quarantine, Spectacular!, Friends with Money, Bolt, In Case of Emergency, House of Lies, NCIS1958 - Tim Kaine
politician: Virginia’s 70th governor [2006-2010]; U.S. senator from Virginia [2013- ]; 2016 Democratic party nominee for VP of U.S.1959 - Rolando Blackman
basketball: Kansas State Univ [his jersey was retired by KSU]; NBA: Dallas Mavericks [1981-1992: his jersey #22 was retired by the Mavericks]; New York Knicks [1992-1994]1961 - John-Jon (John Andrew Foster)
musician: group: Bronski Beat: LPs: Age of Consent, Hundreds & Thousands, Truthdare Doubledare1963 - Chase Masterson
actress: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, General Hospital, Yesterday Was a Lie, Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles, ER, Sliders, Sometimes They Come Back… for More, Major, Ballerina Finale, Digital Man; more1964 - Mark Dacascos
martial artist, actor: Hawaii Five-0 [2010], Iron Chef America, Iron Chef Australia, The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, Brotherhood of the Wolf, Crying Freeman1965 - Alison Armitage
model: Playboy Playmate of the Month [Oct 1990]; actress: Jerry Maguire, Miracle Beach, Secret Games, Acapulco H.E.A.T., The New Adventures of Robin Hood1966 - Jennifer Grant
actress: Beverly Hills, 902101968 - DeRay Davis
comedian, actor: Barbershop, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Reno 911, Empire, Entourage, Semi-Pro, 21 Jump Street1968 - J.T. Snow
baseball [first base]: Univ of Arizona; New York Yankees, California Angels, San Francisco Giants, boston Red Sox1970 - Linda Brava (Linda Lampenius)
Finnish classical violinist: LPs: Linda Lampenius, Linda Brava, Nordic Light, Celtic Origins [Live], Taking Chances; actress: Kymmenen riivinrautaa, Kadonnut naky, Akseli ja Elina, Kultajukka and kumppanit; model: cover: Playboy Sex & Music issue [1998]1971 - Rick Lyle
football [defensive end[: Univ of Missouri; NFL: Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, New York Jets, New England Patriots1973 - Marshall Faulk
Pro Football Hall of Fame running back: San Diego State Univ; NFL: Indianapolis Colts, St. Louis Rams1975 - Sam Cowart
football [linebacker]: Florida State Univ; NFL: Buffalo Bills, New York Jets, Minnesota Vikings1977 - Tim Thomas
basketball [forward]: Villanova Univ; NBA: Philadelphia 76ers, Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, Chicago Bulls1979 - Corinne Bailey Rae
musician: guitar: Grammy Award winning singer: Best R&B Performance: Is This Love [2012], Album Of The Year for her participation on Herbie Hancock’s The Joni Letters [2008]; LPs: Corinne Bailey Rae, The Sea; singles: Put Your Records On, Like a Star, Trouble Sleeping1981 - Robert Mathis
football [linebacker]: NFL: Indianapolis Colts [2003-2016]: 2007 Super Bowl XLI champs1982 - DeRay Davis
comedian, actor: Barbershop, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Semi-Pro, 21 Jump Street, How High 2, Reno 911, ComicView, Empire, Wild ’n Out, Short Circuitz, Snowfall, Entourage; TV host: Mind of a Man, Hip Hop Squares1982 - Li Na
tennis pro: first Asian player to win a Grand Slam; won 7 WTA and 19 ITF singles titles; retired in 2014 after chronic knee injuries1982 - Nate Ruess
lead singer of rock band Fun.: We Are Young, Some Nights, Carry On, Why Am I the One, All Alone1986 - Teresa Palmer
actress: Sorcerer’s Apprentice, The Grudge 2, December Boys, Bedtime Stories, I Am Number Four, Take Me Home Tonight, Warm Bodies, Wish You Were Here, Bear, Quirky Girl, Love and Honor1993 - Taylor Dooley
actress: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl 3-D, Whitepaddy, House M.D., The Alyson Stoner Project1993 - Morgan Brian
footballer [striker]: U.S. women’s soccer team [2013- ]; 2015 World Cup Championship team
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day February 26
1951If (facts) - Perry Como
My Heart Cries for You (facts) - Guy Mitchell
1960
1969
1978
1987
1996
2005
2014
2023
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
