June 15
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Events on This Day
1215 - In a meadow called Ronimed, between Windsor and Staines, England, King John of England sealed the Magna Carta, the first charter of English liberties. The Magna Carta is considered one of the most important historical documents defining political and human freedoms.1752 - It was a dark and stormy night. Since there was nothing on TV worth a darn and, since he had been wondering if there really was electricity up in those dark clouds, Benjamin Franklin tied an iron wire to his kite and let it sail. He flew the kite from a long piece of twine tied to a silk ribbon on the end. Franklin attached a metal key where the twine and silk met. Ben, not being a total dummy, flew the kite high in the wind, but stood in a doorway so the silk ribbon (and he) would not get wet. His idea was that any electricity overhead would be attracted to the wire on top of the kite. Lucky for Franklin, no actual lightning bolt struck the wire or Ben would have been toast! However, as lightning began to flash, he put his hand near the key and sparks flew. The test was a success!
1775 - George Washington became Commander in Chief of the Continental Army on this day.
1836 - First acquired by the United States through the Louisiana Purchase, Arkansas officially became the 25th of the United States of America. The Land of Opportunity as Arkansas is called, was founded in the late 17th century by Frenchman Henri de Tonti. His intrepretation of Quapaw, the Indian tribe that lived in the area, was Arkansas. Little Rock, the state’s largest city is also its capital. The state bird and the state flower are the mockingbird and apple blossom, respectively.
1844 - Vulcanized rubber was patented by Charles Goodyear of New York City. Vulcanized rubber later was made into tires with Goodyear’s name on them. Charles never benefited from his invention and was poverty-stricken.
1869 - England’s Tom Allen was defeated by Mike McCoole of the United States in St. Louis, MO in the first international bare-knuckle fight for an American. Ouch!
1909 - Benjamin Shibe patented the cork-center baseball. A baseball stadium (Shibe Park in Philadelphia) was named for him.
1936 - Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler starred in Burlesque on the Lux Radio Theatre.
1938 - John Vander Meer of Cincinnati became the first pitcher in the major leagues to toss two, consecutive, no-hit, no-run games. He led the Reds to a 6-0 shutout win over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Vandermeer had no-hit Boston just four days earlier. The win over Brooklyn was also the first night game played at Ebbets Field. (FYI: These two games were the only no-hitters Vander Meer threw.)
1940 - In World War II: The French fortress of Verdun was overrun by Nazi Germany, and the Soviets invaded Lithuania.
1944 - American forces began their successful invasion of Saipan in the Central Pacific in World War II.
1947 - The Indian National Congress accepted a British plan for the partition of India. Britain partitioned the subcontinent and Pakistan was founded as an independent country.
1951 - Joe Louis knocked out Lee Savold in a closed-circuit TV fight seen by fight fans in movie theatres in six cities.
1953 - The Ford Motor Company presented one of TV’s biggest events. Ethel Merman and Mary Martin headlined a gala 50th anniversary show for the automaker.
1956 - Sixteen-year-old John Lennon of the music group The Quarrymen met 14-year-old Paul McCartney and invited him to join the group. In a few years, the group became The Beatles.
1963 - Kyu Sakamoto from Kawasaki, Japan, reached the number one spot on the pop music charts with Sukiyaki. The popular song captivated American music buyers and was at the top of the Billboard pop chart for three weeks. In Japan, where Sakamoto was enormously popular, Sukiyaki was known as Ue O Muite Aruko (I Look Up When I Walk). The entertainer met an untimely fate in 1985. Kyu (cue) Sakamoto was one of 520 people who perished in the crash of a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 near Tokyo. He was 43 years old.
1965 - Bob Dylan recorded Like a Rolling Stone, the first of his recordings that featured electronic instruments. Dylan’s smash made it to number two on the Billboard chart Sep 4, 1965.
1968 - Jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery died of a heart attack at age 43. Pop-oriented, string-dominated LPs like A Day in the Life made Montgomery one of the most widely-known jazz musicians of the 1960s.
1969 - Georges Pompidou was elected president of France on the second ballot.
1970 - The claim of conscientious objector status on moral grounds was found to be constitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (United States v. Seeger).
1976 - A 10-inch, mid-June rainfall in Houston, TX made it impossible for the Astros and the Pittsburgh Pirates to play ball in the Astrodome this night. With the parking lot under water and boats the only way to get to the stadium gates, the game was canceled.
1978 - King Hussein of Jordan married 26-year-old American Elizabeth ‘Lisa’ Halaby, and proclaimed his bride Queen Noor al-Hussein, Arabic for “Light of Hussein”.
1982 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (Plyler v. DOE) that all children are entitled to a public education whatever their citizenship.
1983 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down a host of state and local restrictions on abortion, reinforcing its 1973 decision which legalized the procedure.
1987 - Boxer Michael Spinks beat heavyweight Gerry Cooney in round five in their heavyweight boxing match in Atlantic City, NJ. Spinks was shorter and lighter than Cooney -- but a lot better. So was most everyone else who fought Cooney...
1991 - Long-dormant Mount Pinatubo erupted with a vengeance in the Philippines. The volcano covered the surrounding area with ash which turned into mud following severe rainstorms. Villages and U.S. military bases (Clark Air Force Base and Subic Bay Naval Base) were evacuated. The bases were damaged and many people lost their homes.
1992 - U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle, relying on a faulty flash card, erroneously instructed a Trenton, N.J. elementary school student to spell ‘potato’ as ‘potatoe’ during a spelling bee.
1992 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled (U.S. v. Humberto Alvarez-Machain) the government may kidnap criminal suspects from a foreign country for prosecution.
1993 - Former Texas Governor John Connally, who was wounded in the gunfire that killed U.S. President John Kennedy, died at the age of 76.
1994 - Walt Disney’s The Lion King opened in U.S. theaters.
1995 - O.J. Simpson struggled to don a pair of gloves at his murder trial that prosecutors said were worn the night Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were murdered. Defense attorney Johnnie Cochran advised the jury with his infamous line, “If the glove doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
1996 - Ella Fitzgerald, the singing legend who was called “America’s First Lady of Song,” died at her Beverly Hills, California home. She was 78 and had suffered for years with diabetes. Fitzgerald influenced almost every jazz and pop singer around, including Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McCrae, Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett. She gained world-wide fame in 1938 with her hit A Tisket-A Tasket with the Chick Webb band. She perfected a style that came to be known as scat singing, improvising wordlessly with her voice to give the effect of an instrumental soloist. She remained at the forefront of jazz and popular music for the rest of her life.
1997 - English cartoonist Kim Casali died. She created the Love is... syndicated panels of a naked little boy and girl first launched in The Los Angeles Times in 1970.
1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that state prison inmates are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
1999 - Navy vessels from North and South Korea clashed on the Yellow Sea. Some thirty North Korean sailors were killed. The incident followed a series of confrontations in disputed territorial waters.
1999 - Thousands of Ethnic Albanian refugees flooded back into Kosovo while thousands of Serbs fled.
2000 - Denis Savard, Joe Mullen and Walter L. Bush Jr. were selected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
2001 - Lara Croft: Tomb Raider opened in the U.S. The action, adventure stars Angelina Jolie, Iain Glen, Daniel Craig, Noah Taylor, Chris Barrie, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Leslie Phillips, Jon Voight and Richard Johnson.
2001 - The Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 108-96 in game five to win their second straight NBA championship.
2002 - A jury in Houston, Texas convicted accounting firm Arthur Andersen of obstruction of justice, giving a first victory to prosecutors investigating the collapse of energy company Enron. (The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Arthur Andersen conviction on May 31, 2005.)
2002 - An asteroid (2002 MN) the size of a soccer field whizzed by Earth on this day at a distance of 75,000 miles. It was the biggest such space rock in decades to get that close.
2003 - The San Antonio Spurs beat the New Jersey Nets 88-77 in game 6 to win the NBA championship.
2003 - Stage and film actor Hume Cronyn died in Fairfield, CT. He was 91 years old. Cronyn won a Tony Award in 1964 for his performance as Polonius in the Richard Burton Broadway production of Hamlet.
2003 - Golfer Jim Furyk won the U.S. Open. The landmark victory came in his 260th start on the PGA Tour and in his 32nd major tournament.
2004 - The Detroit Pistons beat the Los Angeles Lakers 100-87 in the fifth game of the NBA finals to wrap up their first championship in 14 years.
2005 - Batman Begins began in U.S. theatres. The crime action adventure stars Christian Bale (as Bruce Wayne, the caped crusader), Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson and Rutger Hauer.
2006 - A Colorado state appeals court ruled that a 15-year-old girl may enter into a common-law marriage. Because the state recognizes English common law, it could be legal in Colorado for girls at age 12 and boys at age 14 to enter common-law marriage.
2006 - 50-year-old Microsoft chairman Bill Gates announced that he would hand over his job of chief architect of the software behemoth to 50-year-old Ray Ozzie. The change was to become effective in July 2008.
2007 - New movies in U.S. theatres: Fantastic Four: Rise of The Silver Surfer, starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, Gonzalo Menendez and, Laurence Fishburne; and Nancy Drew, with Emma Roberts, Josh Flitter, Max Thieriot, Rachael Leigh Cook and Tate Donovan)
2007 - The Swiss opened their Löetschberg Base Tunnel. At 34.577 kilometers (21.5 miles), it was the world’s longest overland railway tunnel under the Alps, meant to ease highway traffic jams.
2008 - At the 62nd Annual Tony Awards: Best Play, August: Osage County, won 5 awards and Best Musical, In the Heights, won 4 Tonys. Best Revival of a Musical, South Pacific, with 7 awards, turned out to be the evening’s big winner. Whoopi Goldberg hosted the show at Radio City Music Hall.
2009 - Air France replaced the air speed sensors on its entire fleet of Airbus A330 and A340 long-haul aircraft, a pilots’ union official said. The company had been under pressure from pilots who feared the devices could be linked to the May 31 crash of Flight 447.
2009 - The White House sounded more like the music wing of a high school than a seat of government this day — and that’s just the way First Lady Michelle Obama wanted it. Mrs. Obama launched a White House music festival that brought 150 students together with musical legends like American trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis. A jazz ensemble is like a democracy, Mrs. Obama said, and proves that “when we work together, there’s nothing we can’t do.” The students in the workshop were chosen from top U.S. music schools, including the Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts in Washington, and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in New Orleans. Mrs. Obama said she wanted young people, including her own daughters, Malia and Sasha, to be “aware of all kinds of music — other than hip-hop.”
2010 - The U.S. Federal Reserve adopted new rules to help protect credit card consumers high late-payment charges and other penalty fees. Inactivity fees were also banned.
2010 - The international aid group Mercy Corps said it had suspended its operations in Pakistan after kidnappers killed one of its employees.
2011 - An Arizona grand jury indicted Donald Lapre, a Phoenix-based TV pitchman, who was accused of running a nationwide scheme to sell essentially worthless Internet-based businesses to more than 200,000 people. Victims were defrauded of some $52 million. Lapre’s pitches involved product packages such as The Greatest Vitamin in the World and Making Money Secrets. (On Oct 2, 2011, two days before his trial was scheduled to begin, Lapre was found dead in his prison cell. Press reports indicated that he committed suicide by slashing his neck with a razor.)
2012 - Movies opening in the U.S.: That’s My Boy, starring Adam Sandler, Andy Samberg, Leighton Meester, Vanilla Ice, James Caan, Milo Ventimiglia, Blake Clark, Meagen Fay, Tony Orlando and Will Forte; Rock of Ages, starring Tom Cruise, Bryan Cranston, Malin Akerman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Julianne Hough, Alec Baldwin, Paul Giamatti, Russell Brand and Will Forte; The Woman in the Fifth, with Ethan Hawke, Kristin Scott Thomas, Joanna Kulig, Samir Guesmi, Delphine Chuillot and Julie Papillon; and Your Sister’s Sister, with Emily Blunt, Rosemarie DeWitt, Mark Duplass, Mike Birbiglia and Mel Eslyn.
2012 - A British Columbia Supreme Court justice ruled that laws banning assisted suicide were unconstitutional because they discriminated against severely ill patients.
2015 - The Colorado Supreme Court ruled that businesses can fire employees for using marijuana, even if they are smoking it off the clock and complying with state laws that have legalized the drug. With the ruling was a blow to some medical marijuana patients, but was met with a sigh of relief by employers.
2015 - The Italian newsweekly L’Espresso published a an encyclical on the environment by Pope Francis calling for urgent action to fight global warming.
2016 - French leaders warned the hardline CGT labor union it would be denied permission for further street rallies unless it rooted out troublemakers. This, a day after violent battles between masked youths and police broke out during protest marches in Paris. The protests were in response to French labor reform.
2017 - Comedian and actor Bill Dana died at his home in Nashville, TN. In 1959 Dana presented his comic character Jose Jimenez for the first time on The Steve Allen Show. And The Bill Dana Show, where he played Jose as a hotel bellhop, aired on NBC-TV from 1963-1965. Though he defended the Jose Jimenez character as “a perfect example of a person that wanted to be assimilated into American culture, learn the language, always looked spiffy,” he retired the role in 1970 when he decided it was playing into racial stereotypes and embraced by people he though were intolerant. “It was people I met in this country who would tell me ‘Boy, shore love it when you play the dumb Mexican’ that made me want to drop the character,” Dana told the Los Angeles Times in a 1970 interview.
2017 - Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith, a professor of humanities at Princeton Univsity, was named the U.S. poet laureate -- succeeding Juan Felipe Herrera.
2018 - Movies debuting in the U.S. included: The animated Incredibles 2, featuring the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, Catherine Keener, Sophia Bush, Holly Hunter and Craig T. Nelson; Affairs of State, with Thora Birch, Mimi Rogers and Adrian Grenier; Gotti, starring John Travolta, Spencer Rocco Lofranco andf Kelly Preston; Loving Pablo, with Javier Bardem, Penélope Cruz and Peter Sarsgaard; Race 3, starring Salman Khan, Jacqueline Fernandez and Bobby Deol; Set it Up, with Zoey Deutch, Lucy Liu and Pete Davidson; The Year of Spectacular Men, starring Zoey Deutch, Avan Jogia and Nicholas Braun; and The Yellow Birds, with Alden Ehrenreich, Jennifer Aniston and Tye Sheridan.
2018 - A U.S. federal judge sent Paul Manafort, POTUS Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, to jail ahead of his trial on money laundering, tax and bank fraud charges. the 69-year-old Manafort was jailed after a judge revoked his house arrest over allegations of witness tampering in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
2018 - From April 19 to May 31, 1,995 minors were separated from 1,940 adults at the U.S. border with Mexico. This, according to a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson.
2019 - POTUS Trump accused The New York Times of “a virtual act of treason,” after the newspaper reported the U.S. was stepping up digital incursions into Russia’s electric power grid. Current and former government officials had described the classified deployment of American computer code inside Russia’s power grid and other targets, The Times reported. Trump insisted that the accusations were “not true,” calling the media “corrupt” and repeated accusations that journalists are “the enemy of the people.”
2020 - POTUS Trump said he was cutting the number of American troops in Germany in half because Berlin was “delinquent” in its contributions to NATO and treated the U.S. “badly” on trade. German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said a troop withdrawal would weaken both NATO and the U.S. “The fact is that the presence of U.S. soldiers in Germany serves the entire NATO alliance security, including America’s own security. That is the basis on which we work together,” she said.
2020 - The U.S. Supreme Court (Bostock v Clayton County) ruled that a landmark civil rights law protects LGBT people from discrimination in employment. It was a victory for LGBT rights from a the conservative court.
2020 - The Seattle City Council voted unanimously to bar police from using tear gas, pepper spray and several other crowd control devices after officers had repeatedly used them on mostly peaceful demonstrators protesting racism and police brutality.
2020 - The Russian cities of Penza, Pyatigorsk and Yakutsk joined a list of places that were cancelling military parades over coronavirus fears. This, despite a decision by President Vladimir Putin to press ahead with the main event in Moscow. Coronavirus cases in Russia rose by 8,246 cases over 24 hours raising the total to 537,210 and 7,091 deaths.
2021 - Winners were announced for the annual Goldman Environmental Prize. The six winners were: 1) Sharon Lavigne (68) of Louisiana, who successfully fought the opening of a Chinese chemical plant in St. James Parish; 2) Liz Chicaje Churay (38) of Peru, for helping establish a new national park; 3) Maida Bilal (39) of Bosnia-Herzegovina, for creating an environmental group to protest proposed hydropower dams on the Kruscica River; 4) Kimiko Hirata of Japan, for fighting off construction of new coal power plants following the country's 2011 earthquake and nuclear plant meltdown; 5) Gloria Majiga-Kamoto (30) of Malawi, for bringing pressure on the government to uphold a ban on thin plastics; 6) Thai Van Nguyen (39) of Vietnam, for work to protect pangolins, trafficked for use in traditional Chinese and Vietnamese medicine.
2021 - IBM unveiled one of Europe’s most powerful quantum computers in Germany, boosting the country’s efforts to stay in the race for what was considered a key technology of the future. The quantum computer was housed in Ehningen, which is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) southwest of Stuttgart. It was to be operated by Germany’s Fraunhofer research institute and was IBM’s first quantum computer in use outside of the U.S. (IBM already had more than 30 such computers in the U.S.)
2022 - The Federal Reserve announced an interest rate hike of three-quarters of a percentage point — its largest boost in 28 years. This, as part of an intensifying effort to fight high inflation. The increase came as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continued to push up food and fuel costs, and inflation reached a 40-year high. The Fed also said more hikes were coming.
2023 - Water pumped from underground reservoirs had shifted earth’s axis at the North Pole by 4.36 cm a year, with over 2 trillion tons of water extracted 1993-2010. The tilt of the axis on which any celestial object spins tends to be stable. But small changes can occur when large masses shift location inside a planet and on its surface. “Every mass moving around on the surface of the Earth can change the rotation axis,” said Ki-Weon Seo, a geophysicist at Seoul National University. Gravitational surveys have measured the depletion of underground reservoirs, which is caused in large part by irrigation, especially in northwestern India and western North America.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day June 15
1767 - Rachel Jackson (Donelson Robards)
U.S. First Lady, wife of 7th President Andrew Jackson; died Dec 22, 18281843 - Edvard Grieg
composer: Peer Gynt Suite; died Sep 4, 19071894 - Robert Russell Bennett
musician: orchestration: Victory at Sea TV series; died Aug 18, 19811910 - David Rose
Grammy Award-winning [22] composer: The Stripper; scores: Little House on the Prairie, Bonanza, Sea Hunt, Highway Patrol; David Rose and His Orchestra: The Red Skelton Show, The Tony Martin Show; died Aug 23, 19901912 - Babe (Ellsworth Tenney) Dahlgren
baseball: Boston Red Sox, NY Yankees [World Series: 1939], Boston Braves, Chicago Cubs, Brooklyn Dodgers, SL Browns, Philadelphia Phillies [all-star: 1943], Pittsburgh Pirates; died Sep 04, 19961913 - Tom Adair
film composer: Sleeping Beauty, Julie, Hazel, The Ann Sothern Show, Disneyland, This Is Your Life; lyricist: Let’s Get Away From It All, Will You Still Be Mine?, The Night We Called It a Day, Violets for Your Furs; died May 24, 19881914 - Saul Steinberg
cartoonist: New Yorker magazine [50+ years]: View of the World from 9th Avenue, Luna Park, Prosperity, Taxi; doctorate in architecture; died May 12, 19991914 - Bob Wian
founder of the Big Boy restaurant chain; died Mar 31, 19921917 - Lash La Rue
actor: Pair of Aces, The Dark Power, Alien Outlaw, Please Don’t Touch Me, Hard on the Trail, Thundering Trail, Law of the Lash, Return of the Lash, The Black Lash; died May 21, 19961917 - Leon Payne
singer, songwriter: I Love You Because, Lost Highway, They’ll Never Take Her Love, I Heard My Heart Break Last Night, The Blue Side of Lonesome; died Sep 11, 19691921 - Erroll Garner
ASCAP Award-winning jazz pianist: Misty [1984]; Dreamy, That’s My Kick, Moment’s Delight, Solitaire; died Jan 2, 19771922 - Morris (King) Udall
politician: U.S. Congressman from Arizona; died Dec 12, 19981930 - Marcel Pronovost
Hockey Hall-of-Famer: Detroit Red Wings [4 Stanley Cup winners], Toronto Maple Leafs [Stanley Cup: 1967]; died Apr 26, 20151932 - Mario Cuomo
politician: governor: state of New York [1983-1994]; died Jan 1, 20151937 - Waylon Jennings
Country Music Association [1974] Award-winning singer: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, Good Hearted Woman, Luckenbach, Texas, Theme from "The Dukes of Hazzard"; bass: group: The Crickets [w/Buddy Holly]; actor: Nashville Rebel, Stagecoach, Urban Cowboy; died Feb 13, 20021938 - Billy (Leo) Williams
baseball: Chicago Cubs [Rookie of the Year: 1961/all-star: 1962, 1964, 1965, 1968, 1972, 1973], Oakland Athletics1939 - Ty (Tyrone Alexander) Cline
baseball: Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Braves, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Cubs, SF Giants, Montreal Expos, Cincinnati Reds [World Series: 1970]1941 - Harry (Edward) Nilsson III
singer: Everybody’s Talkin, Without You, Me and My Arrow, Coconut; songwriter: One; scores: Skidoo, The Courtship of Eddie’s Father; died Jan 15, 19941942 - (John) Bruce Dal Canton
baseball: pitcher: Pittsburgh Pirates, Kansas City Royals, Atlanta Braves, Chicago White Sox; died Oct 7, 20081943 - Muff (Mervyn) Winwood
singer, songwriter, musician: bass: group: The Spencer Davis Group: Keep on Runnin’, Somebody Help Me, Gimme Some Loving, I’m a Man; record producer for CBS UK; brother of singer, songwriter Stevie Winwood1945 - Danny O’Shea
hockey: Canadian Olympic Hockey team [1968]; NHL: Minnesota North Stars, Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues1945 - Nicola Pagett
actress: An Awfully Big Adventure, Privates on Parade, Oliver’s Story, There’s a Girl in My Soup, Upstairs Downstairs1946 - Ken (Kenneth Joseph) Henderson
baseball: SF Giants, Chicago White Sox, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Cincinnati Reds, NY Mets, Chicago Cubs1946 - Noddy (Neville) Holder
musician: guitar, singer, songwriter: group: Slade: Get Down and Get with It, Coz I Love You, Mama Weer All Crazee Now, Cum On Feel the Noize, Skweeze Me Pleeze Me, Merry Xmas Everybody, We’ll Bring the House Down, My Oh My, Run Run Away1946 - Janet Lennon
singer: group: The Lennon Sisters: Lawrence Welk Show, The Andy Williams Show1948 - Mike Holmgren
pro football coach: Green Bay Packers, Seattle Seahawks: Super Bowl XL1949 - Dusty (Johnnie B) Baker
baseball: Atlanta Braves, LA Dodgers [World Series: 1977, 1978, 1981/all-star: 1981, 1982], SF Giants, Oakland Athletics1949 - Russell Hitchcock
singer: group: Air Supply: The One that You Love, Love and other Bruises1949 - Jim Varney
actor: The Beverly Hillbillies, Ernest Goes to Jail, Ernest Saves Christmas; died Feb 10, 20001951 - Steve Walsh
musician: keyboards, singer, songwriter: group: Kansas: Carry on Wayward Son, Point of Know Return, Fight Fire with Fire, Song for America, Hold On, No One Together, Dust in the Wind1953 - Xi Jinping
politician: President of People’s Republic of China [2013- ]1954 - Jim Belushi
actor: The Defenders, Saturday Night Live, Trading Places, The Man with One Red Shoe, Little Shop of Horrors, The Principal, Who’s Harry Crumb?, Diary of a Hit Man, Destiny Turns on the Radio, Mighty Ducks the Movie: The Face-Off, Retroactive, Wag the Dog, K-911, According to Jim; John Belushi’s brother1954 - Terri Gibbs
singer: Somebody’s Knockin’1955 - Polly Draper
writer, producer, director, actress: A Perfect Fit, Second Best, The Tic Code, Hudson River Blues, Gold Diggers: The Secret of Bear Mountain1955 - Julie Hagerty
actress: Airplane!, Airplane II: The Sequel, Women of the House, Noises Off, What About Bob?, Reversal of Fortune, Lost in America, The House of Blue Leaves1956 - Robin Curtis
actress: Making Contact, Scorpio One, Dark Breed, Bloodfist VI: Ground Zero, Hostile Intentions, The Unborn II, Hexed, Star Trek: The Next Generation1956 - Lance Parrish
baseball [catcher]: Detroit Tigers [1977–1986] 1984 World Series champs, Philadelphia Phillies [1987–1988], California Angels [1989–1992], Seattle Mariners [1992], Cleveland Indians [1993], Pittsburgh Pirates [1994], Toronto Blue Jays [1995]1956 - Bernie Shaw
singer: group: Uriah Heep: Gypsy, Come Away, Melinda, High Priestess, Lady in Black, Look at Yourself, July Morning, The Wizard, Easy Livin’1957 - Brett Butler
baseball: Atlanta Braves, Cleveland Indians, SF Giants, LA Dodgers, NY Mets1958 - Wade (Anthony) Boggs
baseball: Boston Red Sox [all-star: 1985, 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992/World Series: 1986], NY Yankees [all-star: 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996/World Series: 1996]1959 - Eileen Davidson
actress: The Young and the Restless, The Bold and the Beautiful, Days of our Lives, 3 Day Test, Easy Wheels, Eternity, Sharing Richard, The House on Sorority Row, Goin’ All the Way1963 - Helen (Elizabeth) Hunt
Academy Award-winning actress: As Good As It Gets [1997]; Emmy Award-winning actress: Mad About You [1995-1996, 1996-1997, 1997-1998, 1998-1999]; Swiss Family Robinson, It Takes Two, The Fitzpatricks, Amy Prentiss, Twister, Kiss of Death, Next of Kin, Peggy Sue Got Married, Quarterback Princess, Desperate Lives, The Spell, My Life and Times1964 - Courteney Cox
actress: Cougar Town, Friends, Family Ties, Ace Ventura Pet Detective1969 - Jesse Belanger
hockey [center]: Montreal Canadiens, Florida Panthers, Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, New York Islanders
1969 - Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson)
rapper, actor: Boyz N the Hood, Higher Learning, The Players Club, All About the Benjamins1970 - Leah Remini
actress: Kevin Can Wait, The King of Queens, Living Dolls, Glory Daze, Follow Your Heart1971 - Jake Busey
actor: Starship Troopers, Shimmer, Twister, Contact, Enemy of the State, Shasta McNasty; son of actor Gary Busey1972 - Tony Clark
baseball: San Diego State Univ; Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, NY Mets, NY Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks1972 - Justin Leonard
golf: champ: 1996 Buick Open [1996[, Kemper Open [1997], British Open [1997], The Players [1998], Westin Texas Open [2000]1972 - Sandy McCarthy
hockey: Calgary Flames, TB Lightning, Philadelphia Flyers, Carolina Hurricanes, NY Rangers1972 - Ramiro Mendoza
baseball [pitcher]: NY Yankees, Boston Red Sox1972 - Andy Pettite
baseball [pitcher]: San Jacinto Jr. College; NY Yankees, Houston Astros1973 - Neil Patrick Harris
actor: How I Met Your Mother, Doogie Howser, M.D., Clara’s Heart, Snowbound: The Jim and Jennifer Stolpa Story, My Antonia, Starship Troopers, The Next Best Thing; TV award-show host: Tony Awards [2009, 2011, 2012, 2013]; Primetime Emmy Awards [2009 and 2013]; 87th Academy Awards [2015]1973 - Dean McAmmond
hockey: Chicago Blackhawks, Edmonton Oilers, Philadelphia Flyers, Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche1973 - Matt Stevens
football [safety]: Appalachian State Univ; NFL: Buffalo Bills, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Redskins, NE Patriots, Houston Texans1974 - Mike Flynn
football [guard]: Univ of Maine; NFL: Baltimore Ravens1975 - Elizabeth Reaser
actress: The Twilight Saga, Stay, The Family Stone, Sweet Land, Against the Current, Saved, Grey’s Anatomy, The Ex-List1977 - Michael Doleac
basketball [center]: Univ of Utah; NBA: Orlando Magic, Cleveland Cavaliers, NY Knicks, Denver Nuggets, Miami Heat1977 - Mario Vazquez
singer: Gallery, One Shot, Just a Friend, How We Do It, Cohiba, We Supposed to Be1977 - Darwin Walker
football: Univ of Tennessee; NFL: Philadelphia Eagles1978 - Zach Day
baseball [pitcher]: Montreal Expos, Washington Nationals1978 - Jerome Moiso
basketball [forward]: UCLA; NBA: Boston Celtics, Charlotte/New Orleans Hornets, Toronto Raptors, NJ Nets, Cleveland Cavaliers1981 - Justin Allen
actor: The Brotherhood II: Young Warlocks, Bring the War Home, The Collective, Peace of Mind1984 - Tim Lincecum
baseball [pitcher: 2008, 2009 NL Cy Young Award winner]: San Francisco Giants [2007–2015]: 2010, 2012, 2014 World Series champs; Los Angeles Angels [2016]1984 - Wayne Sermon
musician: group: Imagine Dragons: It’s Time, Radioactive, Demons, On Top : guitarof the World, Monster, Battle Cry, Warriors, I Bet My Life, Gold, Shots1990 - Damian Lillard
basketball: NBA: Portland Trail Blazers [2012– ]: 2013 NBA Rookie of the Year1993 - Jay Ajayi
football [running back]: NFL: Miami Dolphins [2015-2017], Philadelphia Eagles [2017-2018]: 2018 Super Bowl LII champs1993 - Cooper Kupp
football wide receiver: NFL: Los Angeles Rams [2017- ]: 2022 Super Bowl LVI champs/MVP2004 - Sissy Sheridan
actress: Chicken Girls, DIY with Me, Raven’s Home, Maniac Press Play, Odd Man Rush
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day June 15
1947Mamselle (facts) - Art Lund
Linda (facts) - Buddy Clark with the Ray Noble Orchestra
1956
1965
1974
1983
1992
2001
2010
2019
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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