January 20
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Events on This Day
1885 - The roller coaster was patented by La Marcus Thompson of, where else, Coney Island, NY. His coaster was 450 feet long with the highest drop being 30 feet.1892 - The first organized basketball game was played by students at the Springfield, MA YMCA Training School.
1920 - The American Civil Liberties Union was organized. 64 people, including Helen Keller and Felix Frankfurter served on the first Board. Founder Roger Baldwin served as the Executive Director, a position he held for thirty years.
1929 - In Old Arizona was released. The movie was the first full-length talkie to be filmed outdoors. Mainly, the great outdoors of the states of Utah and California.
1937 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first U.S. President to be inaugurated on January 20th. The 20th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution set the date, officially, for the swearing in of the President and Vice President. The amendment was ratified by Congress in 1933.
1941 - Franklin D. Roosevelt was inaugurated for his third term as U.S President.
1942 - Harry Babbitt sang as Kay Kyser and his orchestra recorded, Who Wouldn’t Love You, on Columbia Records. The record went on to be a big hit for Kyser.
1944 - The Royal Air Force raided Berlin, dropping 2300 tons of bombs.
1945 - President Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn into office for an unprecedented fourth term as President of the United States.
1949 - U.S. President Harry S Truman was sworn in for a second term of office. In his inaugural address, Truman branded communism a “false philosophy” as he outlined his program for U.S. leadership of the world.
1952 - Patricia McCormick debuted as the first professional woman bullfighter! She got herself two bulls in the contest held in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.
1953 - Dwight D. Eisenhower took the oath of office as president of the United States. Richard Nixon was sworn in as vice president. The event was the first live coast-to-coast inauguration address.
1954 - The National Negro Network was formed on this date. Some 40 radio stations were charter members of the network.
1954 - The lowest temperature ever recorded in the 48 contiguous states happened at Rogers Pass, in Lewis and Clark County, Montana: minus 69.7 degrees (Fahrenheit).
1957 - Dwight D. Eisenhower took the oath of office for the second time as president of the United States. It was a private ceremony in the East Room of the White House. Why so private? Jan 20, 1957 was a Sunday, but the country still neeeded a president. The big blowout was held the following day on the east portico of the U.S. Capitol.
1958 - The rock ’n’ roll classic, Get a Job, by The Silhouettes, was released.
1958 - Elvis Presley reported to the Memphis draft board and was declared 1A. He told the assembled horde of press, “It’s a duty I’ve got to fill and I’m going to do it...” After a sixty-day deferment because of his contracted film for Paramount, King Creole, Elvis was indeed off to join the army.
1959 - Alcoa Presents was seen for the first time on ABC-TV. Later, the show would be renamed One Step Beyond. The program was based on “true events that are strange, frightening and unexplainable in terms of normal human experience.” A lot like this stuff you are reading right now...
1960 - Elvis Presley was promoted to sergeant in the U.S. Army.
1961 - John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th U.S. president. He said as part of his brief address, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Robert Frost recited Gift Outright at the inauguration.
1964 - This was a big day in U.S. record stores as the first album by The Beatles was released. The LP, Meet the Beatles, became a huge success and was #1 on the charts by February 15, 1964. The British Invasion had begun. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
1965 - Alan Freed, the ‘Father of Rock ’n’ Roll’, died in Palm Springs, CA. Freed was one of the first radio disc jockeys to program black music, or race music, as it was termed, for white audiences. In the 1950s, Freed, called ‘Moon Doggy’ at WJW Radio in Cleveland, coined the phrase, “rock ’n’ roll,” before moving to WABC in New York. He was fired by WABC for allegedly accepting payola (being paid to play records by certain artists and record companies). The 1959-1960 congressional investigation into payola made Freed the scapegoat for what was a wide spread practice. Freed, not so incidentally, died nearly penniless after the scandal was exposed.
1965 - Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as president of the United States by Chief Justice Earl Warren. Johnson had first taken the oath of office on board Air Force One on November 22, 1963, the day President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. The election of 1964 was a landslide victory for the Democratic Party.
1969 - Richard M. Nixon was inaugurated as the 37th U.S. president. The election of 1968 had been the culmination of a wrenching national experience that included the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, violence at the Democratic National Convention, and widespread demonstrations against the Vietnam War. In the end, Nixon won on a campaign of “law and order.”
1973 - U.S. President Richard M. Nixon was inaugurated for his second term.
1974 - After an auto accident that had almost taken his life five months earlier, Stevie Wonder was back at work, playing a gig at the Rainbow Theatre in London.
1974 - Golfing great Johnny Miller (way before he was a TV golf star announcer) won the Tucson Open Golf Tournament and became the first pro golfer to win four consecutive major tournaments.
1977 - U.S. President Jimmy Carter was sworn in. After the inaugural ceremony, the president and his family walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.
1978 - Fred Silverman quit as head honcho of programming for ABC-TV. He accepted an offer to be president of NBC. Silverman had developed shows like Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, Charlie’s Angels and Three’s Company to earn ABC its highest ratings ever. His magic, however, didn’t work as well at NBC. Silverman’s Waterloo, so to speak, was a most expensive TV bomb: Super Train, starring Steve Lawrence. Grant Tinker replaced Silverman and took the Peacock Network to number one in a few years. Silverman went on to become one of Hollywood’s top, independent producers.
1980 - Super Bowl XIV (at Pasadena): Pittsburgh Steelers 31, Los Angeles Rams 19. The Rams led 13-10 at the half and 19-17 at the end of the third quarter. A 73-yard pass completion to John Stallworth and a Franco Harris 1-yard run changed that in the fourth quarter. MVP: Steelers’ QB Terry Bradshaw. Tickets: $30.00.
1981 - Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the 40th president of the United States. That same day, 52 American hostages were released by Iran after 444 days in captivity.
1985 - Super Bowl XIX (at Palo Alto): San Francisco 49ers 38, Miami Dolphins 16. The only Super Bowl played at Stanford University Stadium saw Bill Walsh’s 49ers overwhelm Don Shula’s Dolphins. The 1984 49ers, the first team to win 15 games in a regular season (15-1), outscored opponents by 2 to 1 and had ten players voted to the Pro Bowl. MVP: 49ers QB Joe Montana. Tickets: $60.00. It was the most-watched Super Bowl game in history, seen by an estimated 115.9 million people. The program with the largest audience ever (aside from man landing on the moon) was the final episode of "M*A*S*H" in 1983. Super Bowl XIX also marked the first time that TV commericals sold for a million dollars a minute! That breaks down to less than a penny a person or a CPM (cost per thousand) under $9 or, in other words... not such a bad advertising deal... if you could remember the sponsors.
1985 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan was sworn in for a second term at a private Sunday ceremony in the North Entrance Hall of the White House. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger administered the oath, as he did at the public inauguration at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda the next day.
1986 - New footage of the 1931 horror classic, Frankenstein, was found. It depicted the monster, played by Boris Karloff, throwing a girl into a lake and showed a hypodermic needle in the monster’s arm! Yeeeeeow! The scenes had been cut because they were considered too shocking for the 1930’s theatre crowd. They have since been put back in and the film has been rereleased.
1987 - Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite was kidnapped while on a mission to Beirut negotiating the release of westerners being held hostage in Lebanon. He would not be released until November 1991.
1989 - George Bush was sworn in as the 41st president of the U.S. Dan Quayle was sworn in as VP.
1990 - Actress Barbara Stanwyck died in Santa Monica, CA. She was 82 years old. Stanwyck appeared in over 80 films, was nominated four times for an Academy Award (Stella Dallas [1937], Ball of Fire [1941], Double Indemnity [1944] and Sorry, Wrong Number [1948]), and starred in several TV series, including The Big Valley, The Thorn Birds and The Colbys.
1992 - A French Airbus A-320 crashed near Strasbourg (northeastern France), killing 87 people.
1993 - U.S. President Bill Clinton picked up his saxophone to jam with Ben E. King, Clarence Clemons, Herbie Hancock, Dionne Warwick, Chuck Berry and others at several of the dozen balls honoring his inauguration.
1994 - Shannon Faulkner became the first woman to attend classes at the Citadel in South Carolina. She joined the cadet corps in Aug 1995, under court order, but soon dropped out, citing isolation and stress.
1996 - Yasser Arafat was elected president in the first Palestinian elections. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians turned out to vote in the festive first election, solidly endorsing Arafat and his peace policies.
1997 - U.S. President Bill Clinton and VP Al Gore were sworn in for second terms of office. In his inaugural address, Clinton called for an end to “the politics of petty bickering and extreme partisanship.”
1998 - The headline read, “Cloned Calves Offer Promise of Medicines.” The calves were cloned from the cells of cow fetuses by University of Massachusetts scientists, James Robl and Steven Stice, who also worked for Advanced Cell Technology Inc., a biotech start-up in Worcester, MA. The hope is for genetically customized calves that will be able to safely, easily and cheaply produce medicines for humans in their milk.
1999 - The Malcolm X postage stamp went on sale. It was the 22nd in the U.S. Black heritage series.
2000 - Census 2000 officially got under way as U.S. Census Bureau Director Kenneth Prewitt knocked on the door of a small wood-frame house in Unalakleet, Alaska, to begin the nationwide head count.
2001 - Movies opening in the U.S.: The American Astronaut, with Cory McAbee, Rocco Sisto, Gregory Russell Cook, Annie Golden, James Ransone and Joshua Taylor; and L.I.E., starring Brian Cox, Paul Dano, Billy Kay, Bruce Altman and James Costa.
2001 - George W. Bush, son of former President George H.W. Bush, was sworn in as 43rd President of the United States. Richard Cheney was sworn in as vice president.
2002 - Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind was named best drama and its star, Russell Crowe, the top dramatic actor at the 59th annual Golden Globes ceremony. Sissy Spacek was named best dramatic actress for In the Bedroom while Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge won three awards including best musical or comedy.
2003 - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, faced with stiff resistance and calls to go slow, bluntly told the U.N. Security Council that the United Nations “cannot shrink” from its responsibility to disarm Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
2004 - Salvation Army officials announced a $1.5 billion donation by the late Joan Kroc, heiress to the McDonald’s fortune.
2005 - The inauguration ceremony for U.S. President George Bush (II) was held in Washington DC. The event was estimated to have cost $40 million. The Bush administration asked the District of Columbia to use $11.9 million of its federal homeland security funds to help pay costs. Meanwhile, inaugural protests were held in cities across the U.S.
2006 - Movies opening in the U.S.: End of the Spear, with Louie Leonardo, Chad Allen, Jack Guzman, Christina Souza, Chase Ellison, Sean McGowan, Cara Stoner, Beth Bailey, Stephen Caudill, Matt Lutz, Cheno Mepaquito, Jose Liberto Caizamo, Patrick Zeller and Magdalena Condoba Traci Dinwiddie; and Underworld: Evolution, starring Kate Beckinsale, Michael Sheen, Scott Speedman, Shane Brolly, Bill Nighy and Derek Jacobi.
2006 - Iraq’s election commission released the final vote results from the Dec 2005 legislative elections. The United Iraqi Alliance, a combination of Shiite religious parties, won the most seats in the new National Assembly.
2007 - George Smathers, former 3-term U.S. Senator from Florida, died at 93 years of age. While in the Senate, Smathers helped pass bills to create Medicare, the Small Business Administration and Everglades National Park. He also pushed for federal holidays to be moved to Mondays and ardently supported the war in Vietnam.
2008 - A bus carrying Hindus on a religious pilgrimage skidded off a hill and plunged into a gorge in western India. The crash killed 38 people and injured 40 others.
2009 - Vacancy 2: The First Cut, opened in the U.S. The horror, thriller stars features Agnes Bruckner, Lola Davidson, Angel Oquendo, David Moscow, Nelson Lee, Brian Klugman, Gwendoline Yeo and Trevor Wright.
2009 - Toyota selected Akio Toyoda, grandson of the automaker’s founder, to be its president.
2009 - Some two-million people packed the National Mall in Washington, DC to celebrate the inauguration of Barack Obama. He was sworn into office by Chief Supreme Court Justice John Roberts and then give his inaugural address. “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works,” said America’s 44th president.
2010 - President Hugo Chavez opened the new 1.8 km. cable system in Caracas Venezuela. Cable Caracas Metro is a network of cable cars running to the poorest areas of the capital, allowing inhabitants of the neighborhoods in the mountainous regions to be transported quickly and safely to the city center.
2010 - U.S. researchers estimated that shaving 3 grams (half a teaspoon) off their daily salt intake could save Americans up to 66,000 strokes, 99,000 heart attacks and 92,000 deaths, while saving $24 billion in health costs per year.
2011 - U.S. FBI agents dealt a major blow to New York’s Mafia crime families by arresting some 127 suspected mobsters throughout the Northeast on charges including murder, extortion and narcotics trafficking.
2012 - Movies debuting in U.S. theatres: Underworld: Awakening, starring Kate Beckinsale, India Eisley, Charles Dance, Michael Ealy, Kris Holden-Ried, Theo James and Sandrine Holt; Red Tails, with Bryan Cranston, Josh Dallas, Cuba Gooding Jr, Daniela Ruah, Terrence Howard and Michael B. Jordan; Haywire, starring Channing Tatum, Michael Fassbender, Ewan McGregor, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas and Michael Angarano; Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, starring Tom Hanks, Thomas Horn, Sandra Bullock, Zoe Caldwell, Dennis Hearn, Paul Klementowicz and Julian Tepper; the documentary Carol Channing: Larger Than Life; and Coriolanus, with Jessica Chastain, Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave and James Nesbitt.
2012 - The U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had closed down one of the world’s largest file sharing sites. Megaupload.com, which had over 180 million registered users, was accused of operating as an organization dedicated to copyright infringement. Its founder, Kim Dotcom (aka Kim Schmitz), was arrested in New Zealand.
2013 - The United Nations reported that Afghan authorities were still torturing prisoners, hanging them by their wrists and beating them with cables. This, a year after the U.N. first documented the abuse and the Afghan government promised to institute detention reform.
2013 - Because January 20th fell on a Sunday, President Barack Obama took the oath of office in an intimate swearing-in ceremony at the White House. The formal public ceremony was held at the U.S. Capitol the following day.
2014 - In an interim nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers, Iran halted its production of 20 percent enriched uranium. And the U.S. eased some sanctions on Iran, pausing efforts to reduce Iranian crude oil exports. The EU also agreed to suspend some economic sanctions against Iran as part of the ground-breaking nuclear deal.
2015 - Oilfield services company Schlumberger Ltd, with principal offices in Paris, Houston, London and The Hague, said it was spending some $1.7 billion for a minority stake in a big Russian energy company at a time when that country’s relations with the West were under strain and as energy prices hit multiyear lows. Schlumberger Ltd employed about 120,000 people.
2015 - U.S. President Barack Obama delivered his 6th State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. His proposals included making two years of community college free, expansion of broadband access for more communities, legislation to protect consumers online and improve corporate cybersecurity.
2016 - Amnesty International reported Iraqi Kurdish forces were deliberately destroying Arab villages recaptured from the Islamic State group (Isis). Arab civilians were also being barred from returning to their villages by Kurdish forces. “The forced displacement of civilians and the deliberate destruction of homes and property without military justification may amount to war crimes,” said Donatella Rovera of AI.
2017 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: The Founder, starring Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch; Split, with Anya Taylor-Joy, James McAvoy and Haley Lu Richardson; xXx: Return of Xander Cage, starring Vin Diesel, Donnie Yen and Deepika Padukone; Detour, with Emory Cohen, Tye Sheridan and Stephen Moyer; the animated, dialogue-less film The Red Turtle; The Resurrection of Gavin Stone, with Brett Dalton, Anjelah Johnson-Reyes and Shawn Michaels; Staying Vertical, with Damien Bonnard, India Hair and Raphaël Thiéry; and Trespass Against Us, starring Michael Fassbender, Brendan Gleeson and Lyndsey Marshal.
2017 - Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, ushering in a new political era that was cheered and feared in equal measure. Some attended the ceremony, gathering in the National Mall to hear the swearing in and Trump’s inaugural address, while others clashed with police in some of Washington’s streets. An estimated 800,000 people attended Trump’s inauguration. According to CNN, more than 1.8 million people attended Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009 and roughly 1 million attended the second inauguration in 2013.
2017 - Six journalists were charged with felony rioting after they were arrested while covering violent protests that took place just blocks from the inauguration parade of POTUS Trump. The journalists were among 230 people detained in the anti-Trump protests.
2018 - One fisherman was killed and nine others were rescued after their boat collided with Vestas 11th Hour Racing some 30 nautical miles off Hong Kong. The yacht was sailing toward the finish line of Leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race.
2018 - The British Army’s Ice Maiden team became the first all-female group to cross Antarctica using only muscle power. The team skied a total of 1,700 km (1,056 miles), traveling coast to coast pulling sleds weighing 80 kg (176 pounds) over 62 days.
2019 - Thousands of Colombians dressed in white marched in the streets to repudiate terrorism after the January 17 car bombing at a Bogota police academy killed 21 people and left dozens more wounded.
2019 - Two people died and 25 more were injured in a fire at the ski resort of Courchevel in the French Alps. The blaze spread rapidly after breaking out around 4:30a.m. on an upper floor of the building that housed nearly 60 resort workers. Several people were forced to jump from windows.
2020 - Thousands of gun-rights activists in Virginia, some brandishing their military-style rifles, crowded the streets surrounding Richmond’s Capitol building to protest plans by the state to pass gun-control legislation. (On Apr 10, 2020 Governor Ralph Northam signed several gun violence prevention measures into law, including legislation to enact an Extreme Risk Protective Order, require background checks on all gun sales, mandate reporting of lost and stolen firearms, prevent children from accessing firearms, and reinstate Virginia’s successful one-handgun-a-month policy.)
2020 - Chinese President Xi Jinping said the country would try to curb the spread of an outbreak of pneumonia caused by the new coronavirus (2019-nCoV). A leading Chinese epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan, announced for the first time that the virus was transmissible from person to person. The development raised the probability that it could spread quickly and widely.
2021 - POTUS Trump used his final hours in office to wipe out convictions and prison sentences for a roster of corrupt politicians and business executives and bestow pardons on allies like Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, and Elliott Broidy, one of his top fund-raisers in 2016. Trump departed Washington ahead of the inauguration rather than accompany his successor to the Capitol.
2021 - Joe Biden swore the oath of office at noon to become the 46th president of the United States. Kamala Harris was sworn in as the first female vice president of the United States.
2021 - President Biden signed 17 executive orders, memorandums and proclamations hours after his inauguration. These included an order requiring masks where he has the authority to do so — in federal buildings, for example — as well as a separate order creating a White House position to improve the government’s response to the COVID-19 virus. Biden also signed a letter to re-enter the United States in the Paris climate accords and began the reversal of a slew of the Trump administration’s environmental policies, including revoking the permit for the Keystone XL pipeline; reversing the rollbacks to vehicle emissions standards; undoing decisions to slash the size of several national monuments; enforcing a temporary moratorium on oil and natural gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; and re-establishing a working group on the social costs of greenhouse gasses. A pause on all border wall work within a week was among the 17 orders.
2021 - The World Health Organization said that three COVID-19 vaccines were in the late stages of review for emergency use listing, in addition to the one made by Pfizer and BioNTech already approved. The WHO said shots from Moderna, AstraZeneca and China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac could win emergency go-ahead in coming weeks or months.
2022 - Meat Loaf (74), the larger-than-life rocker born as Marvin Lee Aday, died on this day. His 1977 debut, Bat Out of Hell became one of the best-selling albums of all time. Meat Loaf also appeared in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Fight Club and other films.
2022 - The CIA said it had found that most cases of the mysterious ailments known as Havana syndrome were unlikely to have been caused by Russia or another foreign adversary. A majority of 1,000 cases looked at by the CIA were explained by stress or natural causes, officials said. But, some two dozen cases remained unexplained, and officials said a foreign actor/state could not be ruled out there.
2022 - Airbus announced it was pulling out of a contract with Qatar Airways for 50 new A350s. Qatar had sought some $600 million in compensation over A350 flaws.
2023 - Movies set to open in U.S. theatres included: Missing, with Nia Long, Amy Landecker and Storm Reid; and Alice, Darling, starring Anna Kendrick, Kaniehtiio Horn, Charlie Carrick.
2023 - An influx of migrants from Cuba and Nicaragua in December resulted the highest number of illegal border crossings during any month of President Biden’s time in office. Officials said they stopped illegal crossings along the US-Mexico border 251,487 times in December, a 40 percent jump from December 2021. Cubans were stopped 43,000 times and Nicaraguans were stopped more than 35,000 times, according to the data.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day January 20
1889 - Leadbelly (Huddie William Ledbetter)
American guitarist, blues singer, songwriter: The Rock Island Line, The Midnight Special, Goodnight Irene; died Dec 6, 19491896 - George Burns (Nathan Birnbaum)
entertainer: vaudeville, radio, TV: The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show [“Say goodnight, Gracie.”], films [w/Gracie]: International House, We’re Not Dressing, A Damsel in Distress, College Swing, Honolulu; Academy Award-winning actor: The Sunshine Boys [1975]; Oh, God!, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Going in Style, Oh, God! Book 2, Two of a Kind, Oh, God! You Devil, Radioland Murders; died Mar 9, 19961901- Wolfgang Zilzer
actor: Casablanca, FDR: A One Man Show, Neunzig Minuten nach Mitternacht, Women in the Night, Enemy of Women, The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler; died Jun 26, 19911906 - Aristotle Onassis
Greek Argentine shipping magnate: married Jacqueline Kennedy on Oct 20, 1968; died Mar 15, 19751910 - Joy Adamson (Gessner)
naturalist, writer: Born Free, Living Free,Forever Free; died (murdered by an irate former employee) Jan 3, 19801920 - Federico Fellini
director, screenwriter: Oscar-winning Best foreign-language [Italian] films: La Strada [1956], The Nights of Cabiria [1957], 8 1/2 [1963], Amarcord [1974]; died Oct 31, 19931920 - DeForest Kelley
actor: Star Trek series, Apache Uprising, The Law and Jake Wade, Gunfight at O.K. Corral, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Fear in the Night; died June 11, 19991922 - Ray Anthony (Antonini)
bandleader: themes from Dragnet, Peter Gunn; Bunny Hop, Dancing in the Dark, Melody of Love; host of 1950s TV show; film: Daddy Long Legs, ex of Mamie Van Doren1924 - Lee Pockriss
songwriter: Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, Catch a Falling Star, Johnny Angel, My Polliwog Ways [sung by Kermit the Frog]; Broadway: Ernest in Love, Tovarich; died Nov 14, 20111924 - Slim Whitman
singer: Indian Love Call, Secret Love, Rose-Marie, Cattle Call, More Than Yesterday, Guess Who, Something Beautiful [To Remember]; has sold 70,000,000 records worldwide; died Jun 19, 20131926 - Patricia Neal
Academy Award-winning actress: Hud [1963]; All Quiet on the Western Front, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Heidi, In Harm’s Way; died Aug 8, 20101928 - Lionel Hebert
golf champ: PGA [1957]; died Dec 30, 20001929 - Arte Johnson
Emmy Award-winning comedian: Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In [1968-1969]; actor: Love at First Bite, Evil Toons; died Jul 3, 20191929 - (Edward Glenn) Fireball Roberts
stock car driver: Daytona 500 winner [1962]; died July 2, 1964 from injuries sustained May 24 during the World 600 race at Charlotte Motor Speedway1930 - Buzz (Edwin) Aldrin Jr.
astronout: Gemini 12 [Nov 11, 1966]: made then-record 5.5 hour space walk; Apollo 11: one of first trio of American men to land on the moon [July 16, 1969]1933 - Earl Grant
singer: [At] The End [Of a Rainbow], Ebb Tide; killed in car crash June 10, 19701933 - Ron Townson
singer: group: The 5th Dimension: Up Up and Away, Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In, One Less Bell to Answer, [Last Night] I Didn’t Get to Sleep at All; died Aug 2, 20001934 - Tom Baker
actor: Doctor Who, Dungeons and Dragons, Backtime, The Law Lord, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, The Zany Adventures of Robin Hood, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Monarch of the Glen1934 - Camilo (Alberto Lus) Pascual
‘Little Potato’: baseball: pitcher: Washington Nationals, Washington Senators [all-star: 1959, 1960], Minnesota Twins [World Series: 1965/all-star: 1961, 1962, 1964/AL strikeout leader: 1963 (202 in 18 games)], Cincinnati Reds, LA Dodgers, Cleveland Indians1935 - Milt Plum
football [quarterback]: Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions, LA Rams, NY Giants1935 - Dorothy Provine
actress: It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World; died Apr 25, 20101937 - Bailey Howell
Basketball Hall of Famer: (Boston Celtics, Detroit Pistons, Baltimore Bullets, Philadelphia 76ers; career: 950 games, scored 17,770 points, 9,383 rebounds, two NBA Championships1937 - William Wellman Jr.
actor: The Puppet Masters, Lies of the Heart: The Story of Laurie Kellogg, Image of the Beast, A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story1939 - Murle Lindstrom Breer
golf: U.S. Women’s Open Champion: 19621940 - Carol Heiss
skater: five women’s world titles for figure skating [1956-1960], Olympic silver medal [1956], Olympic gold medal [1960]; married 1956 men’s gold medalist Hayes Jenkins1942 - Buddy Blake Cunningham
recording artist: recorded for Sun Records as B.B. Cunningham and Buddy Blake; record executive: Cover Record Co., Sam Phillips’ Holiday Inn label; died Oct 14, 20121945 - Eric Stewart
guitarist: group: Mindbenders: Game of Love; Hotlegs then 10cc: Donna, I’m Not in Love, The Things We Do for Love1946 - David Lynch
director: Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet, Dune, The Elephant Man1947 - George Grantham
drummer: group: Poco: Crazy Eyes, A Good Feelin’ to Know1950 - Chuck Lefley
hockey: NHL: Montreal Canadiens, SL Blues1952 - Paul Stanley (Eisen)
singer: formed group: Kiss [the clown]: Rock and Roll All Nite1956 - Bill Maher
TV host, commentator, activist: Politically Incorrect, Real Time with Bill Maher; more1958 - Lorenzo Lamas
actor: Falcon Crest, Renegade, SnakeEater, Bad Blood1962 - Sophie Thompson
actress: Four Weddings and a Funeral, Emma, Eat Pray Love, Dancing at Lughnasa, Gosford Park, Fat Slags, Relative Values, Morris: A Life with Bells On, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Jonathan Creek, So What Now?, Persuasion, Midsomer Murders, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, A Harlot’s Progress, Magnolia, A Room with a View, EastEnders1963 - James Denton
actor: Desperate Housewives, The Pretender, Jumbo Girl, Primary Colors, Face/Off, That Old Feeling, Hunter’s Moon, Theives Quartet, Ally McBeal, The West Wing, Threat Matrix1964 - Ozzie Guillén
baseball: Chicago White Sox, Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, TB Devil Rays1964 - Ron Harper
basketball: Univ of Miami; Cleveland Cavaliers, LA Clippers, Chicago Bulls, LA Lakers1964 - Fareed Zakaria
journalist, author: columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, editor-at-large for TIME magazine; TV host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS1965 - John Michael Montgomery
singer: CMA Single of the Year [I Swear: 1994], ACM Song of the Year [I Love The Way You Love Me: 1994]; Be My Baby Tonight, If You’ve Got Love, Sold [The Grundy County Auction Incident], I Can Love You Like That, The Little Girl1966 - Tracii Guns
musician: guitar: groups: Guns N' Roses, Brides of Destruction, L.A. Guns: Bricks, Electric Gypsy, Rip N Tear, Heartful of Soul, One More Reason, Disbelief1966 - Chris Morris
basketball [forward]: University of Auburn; NBA: New Jersey Nets, Utah Jazz, Phoenix Suns1966 - Rainn Wilson
actor: The Office, Six Feet Under, Numb3rs, Almost Famous, House of 1000 Corpses, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen1967 - Stacey Dash
actress: Clueless, Moving, Mo’ Money, Renaissance Man, View from the Top, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Single Ladies, Celebrity Circus1968 - Melissa Rivers
TV host, comedienne: E! Academy Awards Preshow; daughter of comedienne Joan Rivers1969 - Reno Wilson
actor: Mike & Molly, Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Heist; voice actor: Transformers film series1970 - Edwin McCain
singer: I’ll Be, Solitude, Coming Down, Couldn’t Love You More, Save the Rain, Darwin’s Children, Holy City1970 - Skeet Ulrich
actor: Jericho, Into the West, Kevin of the North, Takedown, The Newton Boys, As Good as It Gets, The Craft, Last Dance1971 - Brian Giles
baseball [right, center field]: Cleveland Indians, Pittsburgh Pirates, San Diego Padres1971 - Jane Hall
actress: Code 11-14, Finding Hope, Dead Letter Office, Halifax f.p: Someone You Know, Kangaroo Palace1973 - Eddie Kennison
football: Louisiana State Univ; NFL: SL Rams, NO Saints, Chicago Bears, KC Chiefs1973 - Julio Santana
baseball [pitcher]: Texas Rangers, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Boston Red Sox, Montreal Expos, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers, Philadelphia Phillies1975 - David Eckstein
baseball [shortstop]: Univ of Florida; Anaheim Angels [World Series 2002], St. Louis Cardinals [World Series MVP 2006], Toronto Blue Jays, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres; more1975 - Eric Landry
hockey: Calgary Flames, Montreal Canadiens1979 - Rob Bourdon
musician: drums: group: Linkin Park: Numb, Encore, One Step Closer, Crawling, Faint, Lying From You, Breaking the Habit, Somewhere I Belong1985 - Brantley Gilbert
singer: Country Must Be Country Wide, You Don’t Know Her Like I Do, Bottoms Up, One Hell of an Amen1987 - Evan Peters
actor: American Horror Story, Kick-Ass, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Invasion, The Good Doctor, The Lazarus Effect1989 - Nick Foles
football [quarterback]: NFL: Philadelphia Eagles [2012–2014]; St. Louis Rams [2015]; Kansas City Chiefs [2016]; Philadelphia Eagles [2017-2018]: MVP of 2018 Super Bowl LII; Jacksonville Jaguars [2019]; Chicago Bears [2020–2021]; Indianapolis Colts [2022]
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day January 20
1950Dear Hearts and Gentle People (facts) - Dinah Shore
A Dreamer’s Holiday (facts) - Perry Como
1959
1968
1977
1986
1995
2004
2013
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
