June 3
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Events on This Day
1800 - John Adams moved to Washington DC. He was the first President to live in what became the capital of the United States. It would be November before he would move into the People’s House, or the Executive Mansion, later known as the White House. Where did President Adams live until he moved into that big house? Holiday Inn, of course.1856 - Cullen Whipple of Providence, RI patented the screw machine -- a machine that made screws.
1871 - The Ocobock Brothers’ Bank in Corydon, IA was relieved of the sum of $6,000 in cash by 24-year-old Jesse James and his gang of outlaws.
1888 - There was no joy in Mudville this day, as Casey at the Bat was first published in The San Francisco Examiner. The author was not given a byline in the paper, but he was given $5. Ernest Thayer wrote a series of comic ballads for the San Francisco paper. Casey at the Bat was the last, and the only one to live on through the years. William DeWolf Hopper, the well-known actor, first recited the poem at Wallach's Theatre in New York City this same year. That five minutes and 40 seconds became part of DeWolf Hopper's repertoire. It is said that he had told the tale of Mudville some 10,000 plus times.
1916 - The ROTC (Reserve Officer Training Corps) was established in the U.S. by the National Defense Act, signed this day President Woodrow Wilson.
1925 - The Goodyear airship Pilgrim made its first flight. The blimp was launched from the company's Wingfoot Lake airship facility, near Akron, Ohio.
1931 - The Band Wagon, a Broadway musical, opened in New York City. The show ran for 260 performances.
1932 - Lou Gehrig connected for four consecutive home runs -- setting a major-league baseball record.
1932 - John J. McGraw retired as manager of the New York Giants. McGraw had led the Giants to ten National League pennants and three World Series championships.
1937 - Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson of Baltimore, MD, the woman who was the cause of King Edward VIII’s abdication of the British throne, was married this day to the former King (The Duke of Windsor). This was the storybook romance; the king in love with the commoner gives up his throne to spend the rest of his life with the woman he loves. They lived happily ever after ... in France.
1946 - Mutual Radio debuted The Casebook of Gregory Hood. The show was the summer replacement series for Sherlock Holmes. The mystery series became a regular weekly program in the fall of 1946.
1946 - The U.S. Supreme court ruled (in Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia) that race separation on buses was/is unconstitutional.
1948 - Korczak Ziolkowski began his sculpture of Crazy Horse near Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota.
1952 - Frank Sinatra recorded the classic Birth of the Blues for Columbia Records.
1959 - The first class to graduate from the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO did so on this day.
1959 - The Chinese city of Singapore became self governing -- under British supervision.
1963 - Pope John XXIII (1958-1963) died at the age of 81, ending a papacy marked by innovative reforms in the Roman Catholic Church. He was succeeded by Pope Paul the Sixth (1963-1978).
1964 - The Hollywood Palace on ABC-TV hosted the first appearance of the first U.S. concert tour of The Rolling Stones (aired June 13, 1964). Dean Martin emceed the show. One critic called the Stones “dirtier and streakier and more disheveled than The Beatles.”
1965 - Gemini IV was launched. Astronaut Edward White became the first American to walk in space (for 22 minutes) during the flight. (White was later killed when a fire broke out aboard Apollo 1.)
1969 - Oh Happy Day, by the Edwin Hawkins Singers, was certified Gold by the RIAA.
1970 - The Kinks’ lead singer Ray Davies made an 6,900-mile round trip from New York to London to change one word on the recording of Lola. The reference to “Coca-Cola” became “cherry cola” because the BBC banned all commercial references in songs.
1972 - Sally J. Priesand, 25, became the first woman rabbi in the U.S.
1973 - A Soviet supersonic airliner crashed at the Paris air show. Tupolev 144, dubbed Concordski because it closely resembled the Anglo-French Concorde, killed 15 people when it went down.
1975 - Chicago opened in New York. Set in Prohibition-era Chicago, the musical was based on a 1926 play of the same name by reporter Maurine Dallas Watkins about actual criminals and crimes she reported on. The story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice and the concept of the ‘celebrity criminal’. Bob Fosse choreographed the production, which played for 936 performances at Broadway’s 46th Street Theatre -- closing Aug 27, 1977.
1978 - Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams combined their singing talents to reach the number one spot on the nation’s pop music charts with Too Much, Too Little, Too Late.
1979 - Ixtoc 1, a Gulf of Mexico exploratory oil well, blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it was the largest known oil spill, it had little environmental impact.
1979 - The (33rd annual) Tony Awards show was held at the at the Shubert Theatre, New York. Winners included The Elephant Man (best Play); Sweeney Todd (best Musical); Tom Conti in Whose Life is it Anyway? (best Actor Dramatic); Constance Cummings in Wings (best Actress Dramatic); Len Cariou in Sweeney Todd (best Actor Musical); and Angela Lansbury in Sweeney Todd (best Actress Musical).
1983 - The (37th annual) Tony Awards show was held at the at the Uris/Gershwin Theatre, New York. Winners included Torch Song Trilogy (best Play); Cats (best Musical); On Your Toes (best Reproduction [Play or Musical]); Harvey Fierstein in Torch Song Trilogy (best Actor Play); Jessica Tandy in Foxfire (best Actress Play); Tommy Tune in My One and Only (best Actor Musical); and Natalia Makarova in On Your Toes (best Actress Musical).
1984 - The (38th annual) Tony Awards show was held at the at the Gershwin Theatre, New York. Winners included The Real Thing (best Play); La Cage Aux Folles (best Musical); Death of a Salesman (best Reproduction [Play or Musical]); Jeremy Irons in The Real Thing (best Actor Play); Glenn Close in The Real Thing (best Actress PLay); George Hearn in La Cage aux Folles (best Actor Musical); and Chita Rivera in The Rink (best Actress Musical).
1985 - After five years, the characters of Nancy and Chris Hughes returned to As the World Turns. CBS-TV brought the couple back to the daytime serial to add more “homespun values” to the show.
1987 - George Michael’s I Want Your Sex was banned by the BBC (for daytime play). Michael had tried to explain that the song was about love, not lust.
1989 - Iran’s spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died.
1990 - The (44th annual) Tony Awards show was held at the at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York City. Winners included The Grapes of Wrath (best Play); City of Angels (best Musical); Gypsy (best Revival); Robert Morse in Tru (best Actor Dramatic); Maggie Smith in Lettice and Lovage (best Actress Dramatic); James Naughton in City of Angels (best Actor Musical); and Tyne Daly in Gypsy (best Actress Musical).
1991 - The Unzen volcano in southern Japan erupted. 43 people were killed, including three volcanologists, and some 2,300 were left homeless.
1992 - TV host Joan Lunden was ordered to pay her ex-husband $18,000 a month support.
1992 - During the U.S. presidential campaign, Democratic candidate Bill Clinton played his saxophone on The Arsenio Hall Show. He wailed his way through Heartbreak Hotel and God Bless the Child.
1992 - Actor Robert Morley died in Reading, England. He was 84 years old. The British actor first appeared on Broadway as the lead in Ocsar Wilde. His film debut was as Louis XVI with Norma Shearer in Marie Antoinette (1938). Morley appeared some ninety films.
1994 - Bob McBride, lead singer of the 1970s group Lighthouse (One Fine Morning), was sentenced in Ottawa, Canada to 90 days in jail. McBride had robbed a drugstore twice to feed his heroin addiction. (McBride died in 1998 at home in Toronto.)
1998 - U.S. President Bill Clinton urged Congress to renew normal trade benefits for China. Clinton said good relations with Beijing were crucial amid fears of a nuclear arms race in South Asia.
1998 - A high-speed train derailed and crashed into a bridge in Eschede, Germany. 102 people were killed. It was the worst rail accident in Germany in fifty years.
1998 - An 87-foot memorial to Crazy Horse, sculpted into rock near Custer in the South Dakota Black Hills by Korczak Ziolkowski, was dedicated after 50 years of work. The face of Crazy Horse was actually completed on this day. Work continues on the rest of the mountain.
2000 - William E. Simon, Secretary of the Treasury from 1974-1977, died at the age of 72. From 1977-1980 he served as treasurer of the U.S. Olympic Committee.
2001 - The (55th annual) Tony Awards show was held at the at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. Winners included Proof (best Play); The Producers (best Musical); One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (best Play Revival); 42nd Street (best Musical Revival); Richard Easton in The Invention of Love (best Actor Play); Mary-Louise Parker in Proof (best Actress Play); Nathan Lane in The Producers (best Actor Musical); and Christine Ebersole in 42nd Street (best Actress Musical).
2001 - The Broadway musical, The Producers, won a record twelve Tony Awards. Mel Brooks, creator of the $100+-per-ticket smash, said, “I want to thank Hitler — for being such a funny guy on stage.” Nathan Lane won the Tony for leading actor in a musical. Both he and co-star Matthew Broderick had been nominated for the prize. The previous record for most Tonys won by a single production was 10, set in 1964 by Hello, Dolly!.
2002 - Movie and music mogul Lew Wasserman died in Beverly Hills, CA at 89 years of age. Wasserman was the former chairman and chief executive of the Music Corporation of America (MCA), and was arguably the most powerful and influential Hollywood titan in the four decades after World War II.
2003 - Sammy Sosa was ejected in the first inning of Chicago’s 3-2 win over the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Home plate umpire Tim McClelland had found cork in Sosa’s shattered bat.
2003 - Miss Dominican Republic, 18-year-old Amelia Vega, was crowned Miss Universe 2003 at the pageant in Panama City, Panama.
2004 - Julio Franco hit a grand-slam home run in Atlanta’s 8-to-4 victory over Philadelphia. At age 45, Franco was the oldest player to accomplish that feat.
2005 - New movies in U.S theatres: Cinderella Man, directed by Ron Howard, starring Russell Crowe, Renée Zellweger, Paul Giamatti, Craig Bierko, Bruce McGill and Paddy Considine; and Lords of Dogtown, with Emile Hirsch, Victor Rasuk, John Robinson, Michael Angarano, Heath Ledger, Nikki Reed, Jeremy Renner, Eddie Cahill and Shea Whigham.
2005 - Blairo Maggi, governor of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state and the world’s largest soybean farmer, froze the issuing of logging permits. Maggi also fired his environment chief, one of dozens who had been arrested the previous day on illegal forest-clearing charges.
2006 - The 2006 World Philatelic Exposition ended in Washington, DC. The stamp-collectors expo is held in the U.S. every ten years.
2006 - Venezuela President Hugo Chavez inaugurated a film studio to counter what he called Hollywood’s cultural “dictatorship.”
2007 - Some 2,000 men and women participated in a series of nude group photos in Amsterdam. The photo shoot was a part of a project by U.S. photographer Spencer Tunick.
2007 - Pope Benedict XVI named four new saints -- from France, Malta, the Netherlands and Poland -- at a ceremony in St. Peter’s Square. Honored were Charles of St. Andrew (Dublin), born Karel Van Sint Andries Houben in the Netherlands in 1821; George Preca of Malta, who founded the Society of Christian Doctrine in 1932 as a group of lay people who teach the faith to others; Szymon z Lipnicy of Poland, a Franciscan monk who comforted Poles afflicted by the plague that broke out in Krakow from 1482-1483 and died of it himself; and Marie Eugenie de Jesus Milleret, a French nun who in 1839 founded the Religious of the Assumption to educate young girls.
2007 - A landslide nearly obliterated one of Russia’s most noted natural wonders, the Valley of Geysers. A snow-covered mound collapsed and triggered the massive landslide (a mile long and 600 feet wide), burying two-thirds of the valley.
2008 - As the U.S. presidential primary season came to an end (with the Montana primary New Mexico Republican primary South Dakota primaries), Senator Barack Obama had all but wrapped up the Democratic nomination. Hillary Clinton refused to give up, but said she would be interested in the vice-presidential spot on the Democratic ticket.
2009 - Unmistaken Child opened in U.S. theatres. The documentary follows the journey of a Tibetan monk in search of the reincarnation of his master.
2009 - U.S. President Barack Obama visited King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi King staged a lavish welcome after Obama’s all-night flight to Riyadh. Obama and Abdullah discussed several subjects, from Arab-Israeli peace efforts to Iran’s nuclear program.
2010 - The City of New York agreed to pay $9.9 million to Barry Gibbs, who spent 19 years behind bars after being framed by a NYC police detective who had doubled as a killer for the mob.
2010 - Actress Rue McClanahan died at 76 years of age. She starred with Bea Arthur in Maude (1972-1978) and played Blanche Devereaux in The Golden Girls (1985-1992).
2011 - New motion pictures in U.S. theatres: X-Men: First Class, starring Jennifer Lawrence, Rose Byrne , James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, January Jones, January Jones, Nicholas Hoult and Kevin Bacon; Beginners, with Ewan McGregor, Christopher Plummer, Mélanie Laurent, Goran Visnjic, and Lou Taylor Pucci; the documentary The Last Mountain, from Bill Haney; the gospel music documentary Rejoice and Shout, featuring Bill Carpenter, Andraé Crouch, The Selvy Family, Anthony Heilbut, Marie Knight, Darrel Petties, Smokey Robinson and Mavis Staples; and Submarine, with Sally Hawkins, Paddy Considine, Noah Taylor, Craig Roberts, Gemma Chan and Yasmin Paige.
2011 - Former North Carolina U.S. Senator John Edwards was charged with using $925,000 in under-the-table campaign contributions to hide his pregnant mistress during his 2008 run for president.
2011 - Deaths on this day included actor James Arness (88) at his home in Los Angeles; he played in some 50 films and TV movies and starred as Marshal Matt Dillon in the TV series Gunsmoke, one of TV’s longest running series. And singer-songwriter Andrew Gold (Lonely Boy, Thank You for Being a Friend) of cancer, at age 59 in Los Angeles.
2012 - Some 300 Mormons marched in a gay pride parade in Salt Lake City, Utah holding signs that read, “God Loves His Children.” It was a display of support from believers in a religion that had long been opposed to homosexuality.
2013 - The California Coastal Commission and Napster co-founder Sean Parker said they had reached a $2.5 million settlement to pay for coastal conservation programs. This, after Parker had built a large movie-set-like wedding site in an ecologically sensitive area of Big Sur without being issued the proper permits.
2014 - POTUS Barack Obama said the U.S. was preparing to spend $1 billion to help boost defensive capabilities of European allies. The announcement in Poland came at the start of a three-country swing through Europe steeped in both historical significance and regional anxiety over the crisis in Ukraine.
2015 - From our Big -- but Very Crooked -- Business Dept: A Romanian court handed Mihai Necolaiciuc, the former (2000-2004) GM of the state railway company, a 10-year prison sentence for defrauding the company of €56.7 million ($63 million). Two former railway managers were handed eight-year sentences in the same case. Necolaiciuc had been caught in the U.S. in 2009.
2016 - Movies opening in the U.S. included: Me Before You, with Emilia Clarke, Sam Claflin and Jenna Coleman; Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping, starring Imogen Poots, Andy Samberg and Martin Sheen; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows, with Stephen Amell, Megan Fox and Laura Linney.
2016 - U.S. boxing legend Muhammad Ali died at 74 years of age in a hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. He was born Cassius Clay in Louisville, Kentucky January 17, 1942. At 18 years of age Clay won a gold medal in the light heavyweight division at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome and turned professional later that year. In 1964, at age 22, he won the WBA, WBC, and lineal heavyweight titles from Sonny Liston in a big upset. Clay then converted to Islam and changed his name from Cassius Clay, which he called his “slave name,” to Muhammad Ali. Ali’s actions as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam war (he refused to be drafted) made him a hero for the larger counterculture generation. In 1984 Ali was diagnosed with Parkinson’s syndrome, a disease thought to sometimes result from head trauma from violent physical activities -- such as boxing. He fought the disease for some 32 years.
2016 - The Louvre and Orsay museums in Paris, France moved scores of art works and precious artifacts to safety and soldiers evacuated residents trapped in some outlying suburbs. All this, as the swollen river Seine hit its highest level in 30 years.
2017 - U.S. federal contractor Reality Leigh Winner was arrested in Augusta, Georgia, following the leak of a classified intelligence report that suggested Russian hackers attacked at least one U.S. voting software supplier days before the 2016 presidential election. The indictment was filed on June 8 in US District Court charging the 25-year-old Winner with a single count of illegally retaining and transmitting national defense information.
2017 - SpaceX launched its first recycled cargo ship to the International Space Station aboard an unmanned Falcon rocket. And the first stage booster returned to Cape Canaveral for a successful vertical touchdown.
2018 - A man on a moped rode into a park in Dallas and opened fire on spectators as a football game was being played. Five people were wounded and the gunman was never caught.
2019 - China warned its students and academics about the risks involved in studying in the United States, pointing to U.S. limits on the duration of visas and visa refusals. This, amid a bitter (Trump invoked) trade war. Relations between China and the U.S. tanked because of their trade conflict, U.S. sanctions on Chinese tech firm Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, tension over the disputed South China Sea, and U.S. support for Chinese-claimed Taiwan.
2020 - Swedish epidemiologist Anders Tegnell defended the country’s laissez-faire coronavirus strategy but acknowledged that Sweden had too many deaths from Covid-19 and should have done more to curb the spread of the virus.
2020 - Former defense secretary Jim Mattis denounced President Donald Trump’s heavy-handed use of military force to quell protests near the White House and said his former boss was setting up a “false conflict” between the military and civilian society.
2020 - Minnesota charged three officers with aiding and abetting the murder of George Floyd. The state also upgraded to second-degree murder the charge against Derek Chauvin, the officer who pinned his knee on Floyd’s neck and held it for some 9 minutes. The tougher charge required prosecutors to prove Chauvin intended to kill Floyd or that he did so while committing another felony. Protests across the country were still going on, but were largely peaceful, and most police forces kept a mainly hands-off policy, even after curfews took effect.
2020 - Philadelphia removed a statue of former mayor Frank Rizzo, who aggresively went after black and gay people in the 1960s and 1970s. Mayor Jim Kenney said the statue, unveiled in 1999, represented bigotry, hatred and oppression for too many people for too long.
2021 - United Airlines announced its purchase of 15 jets from Boom Supersonic -- with an option for 35 more -- once the start-up company designs a plane that flies faster than the speed of sound while meeting safety and environmental standards.
2021 - Defense lawyer F. Lee Bailey died in Atlanta at 87 years of age. Bailey pioneered the use of polygraph tests and forensic technology to defend clients whose grievous crimes made headlines. In 1966, he won a U.S. Supreme Court case overturning the murder conviction of Sam Sheppard, a Cleveland physician who had served 10 years in prison for bludgeoning his pregnant wife to death. In 1971, Bailey secured the acquittal of Captain Ernest Medina in a court-martial case over his role in failing to prevent some of the murders in the My Lai massacre of hundreds of civilians by U.S. troops during the Vietnam War, an incident that galvanized opposition to the conflict. In the 1990s, Bailey became involved in what was called “The Trial of the Century.” A member of O.J. Simpson’s Dream Team of lawyers, Bailey joined Johnnie Cochran Jr., Robert Kardashian, Robert Shapiro and others in winning a 1995 not-guilty verdict for the former football star and media celebrity, who was charged with killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.
2021 - President Joe Biden issued an executive order barring Americans from investing in Chinese firms linked to the country’s military -- or that sell surveillance technology used to repress dissent or religious minorities, both inside and outside China.
2022 - Movies scheduled to open in U.S. theatres included: the documentary Deep in the Heart: A Texas Wildlife Story; and Watcher, starring Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman and Tudor Petrut.
2022 - As part of Queen Elizabeth II’s ongoing jubilee festivities, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle attended the National Service of Thanksgiving at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. It was the couple’s first public event with the royal family since they made their dramatic exit in 2020. They were met with cheers, as well as some boos, from the crowd as they arrived. The queen herself, however, wasn’t in attendance for the service, as Buckingham Palace said she would skip the event due to experiencing “discomfort.”
2022 - The north facade of the White House was covered in orange light starting at sunset (until 1:30 a.m.) in recognition of National Gun Violence Awareness Day, which followed multiple high-profile, deadly mass shootings. Certain other government buildings — like City Hall in New York City — were also lit up in orange. This, a day aftrer President Biden urged Congress to take action and enact common-sense gun laws to keep Americans safe. “How much more carnage are we willing to accept?” he asked.
2023 - A parent upset by a series of book bans protested against the trend by getting the Bible banned from some of Utah’s schools. The complaint by the parent (whose name was withheld) said the bid to ban the holy book was a protest against a 2022 state law that made it easier to remove “pornographic or indecent” content from schools. “Now we can all ban books and you don’t even need to read them or be accurate about it,” they said. “Heck, you don’t even need to see the book!”
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Birthdays on This Day June 3
1780 - William Hone
author: [The Every-Day Book] Everlasting Calendar of Popular Amusements; “A good lather is half the shave.”; died Nov 6, 18421808 - Jefferson Davis
President of the Confederate States of America [1861-1865]; U.S. Senator and Secretary of War; died Dec 5, 18891844 - Garret A. Hobart
Vice President of the United States [1987-1899]; died Nov 21, 18991878 - Barney Oldfield
Motorsports Hall of Famer: the first American to drive a mile in a minute [1903]; testimonial for Firestone tires: “My only life insurance.”; died Oct 4, 19461881 - Hubert Eaton
founder of Forest Lawn Memorial Park in southern California, established the ‘memorial park’ concept, revolutionizing the funeral industry; died Sep 20, 19661901 - Maurice Evans
actor: Macbeth, Planet of the Apes, Batman, Bewitched; died Mar 12, 1989; more1903 - Eddie Acuff
actor: Code 645, Life With Blondie, Hers To Hold, Dr. Kildare’s Crisis, Young Fugitives; died Dec 17, 19561904 - Jan Peerce (Jacob Pincus Perlemuth)
opera singer: tenor; actor: Goodbye, Columbus; died Dec 15, 19841906 - Josephine Baker
dancer, singer: I Wonder Where My Baby is Tonight?, King for a Day, Confessin’ (That I Love You), I’ve Got You Under My Skin, Pretty Little Baby; died Apr 12, 19751910 - Paulette Goddard (Pauline Marion Levy)
actress: So Proudly We Hail!, Time of Indifference, Sins of Jezebel, Reap the Wild Wind, The Women; died Apr 23, 19901911 - Ellen Corby
actress: The Waltons, The Andy Griffith Show, I Remember Mama, All the Way Home, The Story of Pretty Boy Floyd, Napoleon and Samantha, Cannon, Angel in My Pocket, The Glass Bottom Boat; died Apr 14, 19991917 - Leo Gorcey
actor: Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys series: Bowery Buckaroos, Here Come the Marines, ’Neath Brooklyn Bridge, Smuggler’s Cove; died June 2, 19691918 - Lili St. Cyr (Willis Marie Van Schaak)
actress: The Naked and the Dead, Son of Sinbad; died Jan 29, 19991922 - Alain Resnais
director: Last Year at Marienbad, Stavisky, Providence, On connaît la chanson; died Mar 1, 20141924 - Colleen Dewhurst
Tony Award-winning actress: All the Way Home [1960], A Moon for the Misbegotten [1974]; Desire Under the Elms, Long Day’s Journey into Night, Mourning Becomes Electra, Ah, Wilderness; Emmy Award-winner: Between Two Women [1986], Those She Left Behind [1989], Murphy Brown: Bon and Murphy and Ted and Avery [1991]; died Aug 22, 19911924 - Jimmy Rogers
blues musician: harmonica, guitar: The World is in a Tangle, Money, Marbles and Chalk, Back Door Friend, Left Me with a Broken Heart, Act Like You Love Me, Sloppy Drunk, Chicago Bound; died Dec 19, 19971925 - Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz)
actor: Some Like It Hot, The Great Impostor, The Defiant Ones, Houdini, Trapeze, The Boston Strangler, Christmas in Connecticut, The Count of Monte Cristo; died Sep 29, 20101926 - (Irwin) Allen Ginsberg
Beat Generation poet: Howl, and Other Poems, Kaddish and Other Poems, Reality Sandwiches, The Fall of America: Poems of These States; died Apr 5, 19971927 - Boots Randolph
musician: saxophone: Yakety Sax; important contributor to the Nashville Sound; studio musician: performed in 200-300 studio sessions per year; died Jul 3, 20071929 - Chuck Barris
producer: Dating Game, Newlywed Game, Three’s a Crowd; producer/host: The Gong Show; songwriter: Palisades Park; novelist: You and Me, Babe; died Mar 21, 20171930 - Dakota Staton (Aliyah Rabia)
jazz singer: No Man is Going to Change Me, The Late Late Show, Dynamic!, Crazy He Calls Me, Time to Swing; died Apr 10, 20071931 - Raul Castro
politician: succeeded his brother Fidel Castro as president of Cuba in 20081932 - Lillian Briggs
musician: trombone; singer [‘The Queen of Rock & Roll’]: Shake, Rattle and Roll, I Want You to Be My Baby; died Apr 11, 19981934 - Jim Gentile
‘Diamond Jim’: baseball: Brooklyn Dodgers, LA Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles [2 grand slams in same game: 1961/record shared with 8 others], KC Athletics, Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians; more1939 - Ian Hunter (Patterson)
guitar, singer, songwriter: group: Mott the Hoople: All the Young Dudes, Ballad of Mott, All the Way to Memphis, The Golden Age of Rock ’n’ Roll, Saturday Gigs; book: Diary of a Rock Star1942 - Curtis Mayfield
songwriter; Grammy Award-winning singer: Superfly, Freddie’s Dead; group: The Impressions; inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame [3-15-99]; died Dec 26, 19991943 - Billy Cunningham
‘Kangaroo Kid’: Basketball Hall of Famer: basketball: Philadelphia 76ers; Carolina Cougars: ABA player of the year [1972]; coach of Philadelphia ’76ers1943 - Emmitt Thomas
Pro Football Hall of Fame cornerback: Kansas City Chiefs [1966-1978] AFL champs 1966, 1969; Super Bowl IV champs 1970; Thomas was an NFL assistant coach for six teams in 26 years, then interim head coach of Atlanta Falcons in 2007; secondary coach of the Kansas City Chiefs [2010]1945 - Hale Irwin
golf champion: U.S. Open: 1974, 1979, 1990: at age 45, he was the oldest U.S. Open winner1946 - Michael Clarke (Michael Dick)
musician: drummer: group: The Byrds: Mr. Tambourine Man, Turn! Turn! Turn!; died Dec 19, 19931946 - Eddie Holman
singer: Hey There Lonely Girl; made first singing appearance at age of two at Metropolitan AME Zion church, Norfolk, VA; ordained Baptist minister since the early 1980s1947 - Michael Burton
swimmer: Olympic Gold medalist: 1,500-meter freestyle [1968, 1972], 400-meter freestyle [1968] - the only swimmer to win this event twice; founded Des Moines, Iowa Aquatic Club1950 - Suzi Quatro (Susan Kay Quatro)
singer: Stumblin’ In [w/Chris Norman]; actress: Happy Days1950 - Deniece Williams
singer: Let’s Hear It for the Boy, Too Much, Too Little, Too Late [w/Johnny Mathis], Free, It’s Gonna Take a Miracle1951 - Jill Biden
U.S. first lady: wife of 46th U.S. President Joe Biden; professor of English at Northern Virginia Community College; advocate for the rights of military families; U.S. second lady, wife of U.S. Vice President Joe Biden [2009-2017]1952 - Billy Powell
musician: keyboards: group: Lynryd Skynyrd: Sweet Home Alabama; died Jan 28, 20091954 - Dan Hill
singer: Sometimes When We Touch1957 - Clive Mantle
actor: The Poseidon Adventure [2005], Second Nature, The Nearly Complete and Utter History of Everything, Framed, The Secret Life of Ian Fleming1958 - Scott Valentine
actor: Family Ties, Midnight Caller, Object of Obsession, Out of Annie’s Past, To Sleep with a Vampire, Write to Kill, Dangerous Pursuit, Deadtime Stories1960 - Steve Lyons
baseball [pitcher]: Chicago White Sox, Boston Red Sox, Atlanta Braves, Montreal Expos1961 - Charles Hart
Broadway lyricist: Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love1964 - James Purefoy
actor: Rome, The Following, Women Talking Dirty, A Knight’s Tale, Camelot, Ironclad, Injustice, Revenge, John Carter, Richard II, Revenge1967 - Anderson Cooper
TV news correspondent, host: CNN: Anderson Cooper 360°, CBS: 60 Minutes1971 - Carl Everett
baseball: Florida Marlins, NY Mets, Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox, Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox, Montreal Expos1973 - Michele Hicks
actress: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI: NY, Cold Case, The Shield, Heist1973 - Jason Jones
comedian, actor: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Pitch Perfect, Pitch Perfect 2, The Switch, Creative Galaxy, Hot Tub Time Machine 2; married to comedian Samantha Bee1974 - Arianne Zucker
actress: Days of Our Lives, Looking for Bobby D1975 - José Molina
baseball [catcher]: Chicago Cubs [1999]; Anaheim/Los Angeles Angels [2001–2007]: 2002 World Series champs; New York Yankees [2007–2009: 2009 World Series champs] Toronto Blue Jays [2010–2011] Tampa Bay Rays [2012–2014]1976 - Jamie McMurray
race car driver: 2010 Daytona 500, Brickyard 400 winner; 2014 Sprint All-Star1986 - Rafael Nadal
Spanish tennis pro: won eleven Grand Slam singles titles, including an all-time record eight French Open titles, the 2008 Olympic gold medal in singles, a record 23 ATP World Tour Masters 1000 tournaments, a record 14 ATP World Tour 500 tournaments; was also part of the Spain Davis Cup team that won finals in 2004, 2008, 2009, 2011; he completed his Career Grand Slam by winning the 2010 U.S. Open [seventh player to achieve that]; more1989 - Katie Hoff
swimmer: three gold medals at the 2005 FINA World Championships1986 - Oona Chaplin
actress: Quantum of Solace, The Devil’s Double, Salar, The Sorrows, The Hour, Game of Thrones; granddaughter of Charlie Chaplin; great-granddaughter of American playwright Eugene O’Neill1991 - Yordano Ventura
baseball [pitcher]: Kansas City Royals [2013-2016]: 2015 World Series champs; killed in car crash Jan 22, 20171993 - Otto Porter Jr.
basketball: forward: NBA: Washington Wizards [2013–2019]; Chicago Bulls [2019–2021]; Orlando Magic [2021]; Golden State Warriors [2021–2022]; Toronto Raptors [2022–2024]
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Hit Music on This Day June 3
1944Long Ago and Far Away (facts) - Helen Forrest & Dick Haymes
I’ll Get By (facts) - The Harry James Orchestra (vocal: Dick Haymes)
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1971
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2007
2016
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
