May 21
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Events on This Day
1819 - The first bicycles in the United States were called swift walkers and were seen for the first time on the streets of New York City on this day.1881 - The United States National Lawn Tennis Association was formed in New York City.
1891 - From the You Won’t Believe Your Eyes department: Peter Jackson and Jim Corbett fought to a draw in San Francisco, CA. Nothing wrong with that except the boxing match went an unprecedented 61 rounds! No wonder it was a draw. The boxers couldn’t raise their arms anymore! What did they do, holler at each other? And was there a dinner break? How about other necessities of nature? Was the crowd enthusiastic the entire time? How many times did the fighters just stand around and stare at each other for an entire round? Inquiring sports minds want to know!
1906 - Louis Henry Perlman of New York City received his patent for the demountable tire-carrying rim -- similar to the ones we use on our cars, only wider.
1922 - The cartoon On the Road to Moscow, by Rollin Kirby, won a Pulitzer Prize. It was the first cartoon awarded the Pulitzer.
1927 - Charles A. Lindbergh arrived to a hero’s welcome in Paris, in his spindly monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis (the famous plane is now displayed in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC). Lindbergh’s flight marked the first time that a person had flown across the Atlantic Ocean. The event got more press coverage than any other single even in history to that time. In American newspapers alone, it was estimated that some 27,000 columns of words were used to describe Lindbergh’s epic journey. A depiction of that famous flight was portrayed by one of America’s great motion picture actors, Jimmy Stewart, in the film, The Spirit of St. Louis. Upon his return to American soil, Lucky Lindy was given another hero’s welcome.
1929 - The first automatic electric stock quotation board was put into operation by Sutro and Company of New York City.
1932 - Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic solo, from Newfoundland to Ireland. She took off in a Lockheed Vega, in an attempt to become the second person after Charles Lindbergh (and first woman) to fly solo across the Atlantic. Starting from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, her flight lasted almost 15 hours. She touched down in a pasture near Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
1940 - Will Bradley and his orchestra recorded one of the best of the Big Band era. Ray McKinley played drums and did the vocal for the boogie-woogie tune, Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar. The song, on Columbia Records, was so long it took up both sides of the 78 rpm platter.
1945 - Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart were married. Legend has it that the couple fell in love in 1943 during making of the film, To Have and Have Not. Theirs would become one of Hollywood’s most enduring marriages.
1945 - Nazi war criminal Heinrich Himmler was captured, along with two aides, after they were stopped at a checkpoint set up by former Soviet POWs.
1947 - Joe DiMaggio and five of his New York Yankees teammates were slapped with $100 fines. Why? They had not fulfilled contract requirements to do promotional duties for the team.
1952 - Actor John Garfield died at age 39 in New York, apparently of a heart attack. Having developed heart problems, he had been told by doctors to take it easy. Garfield ignored the advice, continuing to work in films and drink and smoke heavily. He was one of the first of the ‘rebel actors’, with James Dean and Marlon Brando soon to follow. His films include Pride of the Marines, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Body and Soul, and Gentleman’s Agreement.
1955 - Chuck Berry went into a recording session for Chess, performing a restyled version of Ida Red. What came out of that hot session was Ida Red's new name and Chuck Berry’s first hit, Maybellene. Maybellene topped the R & B charts at #1, and the pop charts at #5. And Beethoven rolled over...
1956 - The first hydrogen bomb to be dropped from the air was exploded by the U.S. over the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific.
1959 - Gypsy, a musical based on the life of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, opened on Broadway. Ethel Merman played Gypsy’s mother, Rose, who pushed her two daughters into burlesque. With music by Jule Styne and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Gypsy closed on March 25, 1961 after 702 performances.
1963 - Little Stevie Wonder’s Fingertips (Part 2) was recorded live in Detroit. The single, and album from which it was taken (The 12 Year-Old Genius), topped the Billboard charts simultaneously -- a first. Fingertips was also the first live recording to reach number one. (Despite the album title, Wonder had turned 13 eight days before the concert was recorded.)
1964 - The Baltimore Lighthouse, on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, became the first nuclear-powered lighthouse. “I don’t remember nuclear-powered lighthouses catching on,” you say? Ah, correct you are. This strontium 90 fuel-cell test lasted a year. The atomic fuel cell was then replaced by a conventional electric generator.
1968 - The nuclear-powered U.S. submarine Scorpion, with 99 men aboard, was last heard from on this day. The remains of the sub were later found on the ocean floor 400 miles southwest of the Azores.
1973 - The sensual Pillow Talk, by Sylvia (Sylvia Vanderpool), earned a gold record. The artist first recorded with Hot Lips Page for Columbia Records back in 1950 and was known as Little Sylvia. She was half of the singing duo Mickey & Sylvia, who recorded Love is Strange in 1957. Pillow Talk was her only major solo hit and made it to number three on the pop music charts.
1979 - Former San Francisco City Supervisor Dan White was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for slaying Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. He served five years and one month in prison. (White committed suicide Oct 21, 1985.)
1980 - The Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back premiered.
1982 - British troops landed at San Carlos Bay in the Falkland Islands.
1985 - Marvin Gaye’s last album was released. Dream of a Lifetime featured songs that critics considered too offensive, such as the controversial, pop version of The Lord’s Prayer. Three of the songs from the album were completed after Gaye’s death. Marvin Gaye was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.
1988 - Risen Star won the Preakness Stakes.
1989 - One million people in Hong Kong, a sixth of the population of that city, demonstrated in support of rebellious students in Beijing after authorities imposed martial law in the capital.
1991 - The prime minister of India from 1984 until 1989, Rajiv Gandhi was in the midst of a campaign rally for reelection when a bomb exploded in his hand. Like his mother, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated. The bomb was hidden in a bouquet of flowers handed to Rajiv by a so-called admirer.
1994 - Tim McGraw’s Not a Moment Too Soon was the #1 album in the U.S. The tracks were: It Doesn’t Get Any Countrier Than This, Give It to Me Strait, Wouldn’t Want It Any Other Way, Down on the Farm, Not a Moment too Soon, Indian Outlaw, Refried Dreams, Don’t Take the Girl, 40 Days and 40 Nights and Ain’t That Just Like a Dream.
1995 - The Recording Industry Association of America reported that Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 album Born in the USA had sold more than 15-million copies. That tied it with Boston’s self-titled album as the #3 best-selling album. Only Michael Jackson’s Thriller (24 million) and Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (17 million) had sold more.
1996 - An overloaded Tanzanian ferry, MV Bukoba, capsized in Lake Victoria near the town of Mwanza. In east Africa’s worst marine disaster, as many as 894 people (of the estimated 1,000 on board), many of them teen-agers, drowned.
1999 - The Love Letter debuted in the U.S. The dramatic comedy stars Kate Capshaw, Blythe Danner, Ellen Degeneres, Geraldine Mcewan, Julianne Nicholson, Tom Everett Scott, Tom Selleck and Gloria Scott.
2000 - Dancer in the Dark won the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. The Grand Prize went to Devils on the Doorstep (Guizi lai le).
2000 - English actor Sir John Gielgud died in Aylesbury, England at age 96. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, Gielgud played his first Hamlet in 1930 and quickly established himself as one of the most eminent Shakespearean interpreters of his time, as well as a respected director. He made his screen debut in 1924 in Who is the Man? and appeared in Hitchcock’s Secret Agent in 1936. His other films include: St Joan, Becket (nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of King Louis VII of France), The Charge of the Light Brigade, Oh What a Lovely War, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, The Elephant Man, Arthur and Chariots of Fire. Gielgud also wrote three novels - Early Stages (1939), Stage Directions (1963) and Distinguished Company (1972).
2001 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled, six-to-three, that a radio host cannot be sued for airing a phone conversation taped illegally by a third party.
2003 - In Algeria a 6.8 earthquake struck near Algiers. More than 2,200 people were killed and some ten thousand injured. Thenia, 40 miles east of Algiers, was worst hit.
2003 - Ruben Studdard edged Clay Aiken to win the second American Idol competition on FOX TV.
2005 - Commedian, actor Howard Morris died at his home in Hollywood. He was 85 years old. Morris is best remembered as a regular on Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows and for playing the grizzled rock-tossing, poetry-spouting hillbilly Ernest T. Bass on the Andy Griffith Show.
2006 - 62,000 runners participated in the annual Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco. Gilbert Okari (27) of Kenya won in 34 minutes and 20 seconds. The women’s winner was Ukrainian Tetyana Hladyr won in 39:09. S.F. Mayor Gavin Newsom (38) finished the 7.46 miles in 59:04.
2006 - Montenegro voted (the Montenegrin independence referendum) to secede from Serbia and form a separate nation. In June 2006, the split bacame permanent and the last vestiges of the former Yugoslavia were erased.
2007 - A spectacular fire in Greenwich, England heavily damaged the Cutty Sark. The clipper ship, which was undergoing a £25m restoration, was being kept in a dry dock at Greenwich in south-east London. The Cutty Sark originally left London on its first voyage on Feb 16, 1870 and made only eight voyages to China in the tea trade, as steamships replaced sailing vessels on the high seas.
2008 - American Airlines announced the scrapping of 75 of its 954 aircraft in its fleet and the start of charging passengers $15 to check a suitcase -- to fight expenses resulting from the increasing cost of fuel.
2010 - Movies debuting in the U.S.: Kites, with Hrithik Roshan, Bárbara Mori, Steven Michael Quezada, Kabir Bedi, Luce Rains; MacGruber, starring Val Kilmer, Kristen Wiig, Will Forte, Ryan Phillippe, Maya Rudolph, Powers Boothe, Dalip Singh, Chris Jericho, Rhys Coiro, Glenn Jacobs, Paul Wight, Antonio Banks, Mark Henry, Andy Mackenzie, Jasper Cole, Timothy V. Murphy, Matt Wood, DJ NuMark, Cliff Gravel, Steven Blacksmith and Larry Goldstein; the animated Shrek Forever After, featuring the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Julie Andrews, Jon Hamm, John Cleese, Craig Robinson, Walt Dohrn, Jane Lynch, Lake Bell, Kathy Griffin, Mary Kay Place, Kristen Schaal and Meredith Vieira; and Solitary Man, starring Jenna Fischer, Michael Douglas, Jesse Eisenberg, Susan Sarandon and Mary-Louise Parker.
2011 - Leaders of Japan, China and South Korea travelled to Fukushima, Japan in a show of solidarity over the ongoing nuclear crisis, visiting evacuees left homeless by the earthquake and tsunami.
2012 - U.S. Roman Catholic officials filed federal lawsuits against the Obama administration mandate that employers must provide workers with birth control coverage.
2013 - NASA awarded a six-month grant to a company developing the world’s first 3-D food printer. Storing the various components of food in powder cartridges would theoretically enable users to mix them together, like the ingredients in normal recipes, to create a diverse array of nutritious meals.
2014 - Brazil, World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and many ‘partners’ agreed to create a $215 million fund to expand protected areas of the Amazon rain forest by more than 34,000 square miles (150 million acres) and to help pay for its management for 25 years.
2015 - Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow and Baghdad were expanding military cooperation. The announcement came during talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in the Kremlin. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said before the talks began that Russia was ready to supply weapons to Iraq to help it combat Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants.
2016 - Cyclone Roanu unleashed heavy rain and strong winds on the southern coastal region of Bangladesh. About 100,000 people were forced from their homes on Moheshkhali island in Cox's Bazar. The storm killed 26 people in Bangladesh and over 200 in Sri Lanka.
2017 - The 146-year-old Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus closed. The final show was presented at the Nassau County Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. “After 36 years of PETA protests, which have awoken the world to the plight of animals in captivity, PETA heralds the end of what has been the saddest show on earth for wild animals, and asks all other animal circuses to follow suit, as this is a sign of changing times,” Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, wrote. “This is not a win for animal rights activists,” Kenneth Feld, the circus’ CEO said. “This is not a win for anyone.” “Entertainment has changed,” Feld said of the reason for the closing. “The traditional family unit is different.”
2017 - Japan and other membersof the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed to pursue their trade deal without the United States. On the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific meeting in Hanoi the 11 remaining countries of the TPP agreed to explore how they could move ahead without erstwhile leader the United States.
2018 - American actor Clint Walker died in Grass Valley, CA (congestive heart failure; nine days shy of his 91st birthday). Waler was best known as Cheyenne Bodie in the Cheyenne TV series (1955-1963). His films include Fort Dobbs (1958), The Night of the Grizzly (1966), Maya (1966) and The Dirty Dozen (1967).
2018 - A Japanese survey of women working for Japanese newspapers and TV networks found 156 cases of alleged sexual misconduct reported by 35 women, about one-third of which involved lawmakers, government officials and law enforcers. Professor Mayumi Taniguchi, a gender studies expert, said another 40 percent of the cases reportedly occurred at the journalists’ workplaces and that the remainder had involved their news sources and others.
2019 - The International Tracing Service in Germany said it had uploaded more than 13 million documents from Nazi concentration camps, including prisoner cards and death notices. This, to help Holocaust researchers and others investigate the fate of victims. The ITS also announced it was changing its name to "Arolsen Archives - International Center on Nazi Persecution."
2019 - California sued the U.S. government to prevent the Trump administration from canceling a nearly a $1 billion federal grant for its high-speed rail. The state accused Donald Trump of undermining the rail project as punishment for California’s opposition to the Trump’s Mexican border wall.
2019 - The United Nations human rights office called on U.S. authorities to ensure that women have access to safe abortions, saying, “evidence and experience have shown that complete bans on abortions do not reduce their number, but drive them underground jeopardizing the life, health and safety of the women concerned.”
2020 - The White House issued a 20-page report attacking China’s predatory economic policies, military buildup, disinformation campaigns and human rights violations.
2020 - The U.S. Navy said an active shooter at its Corpus Christi naval air station in Texas had been “neutralized,” after one security force member was injured. The FBI said the case was being investigated as terrorism related.
2020 - COVID-19 news:
1)Potus Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen was released from federal prison because of coronavirus concerns -- to serve the rest of his three-year sentence at home.
2)Some 9,479 Russian medical workers in more than 70 regions had been infected with the coronavirus in the previous month, and several hundred died.
3)The United Nations launched an initiative to sign up “digital first responders” around the world to counter misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic and to spread fact-based information and advice to their networks of family, friends and followers.2021 - Movies released in the U.S. (theatres and virtual) this day included: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, with Riva Krymalowski, Marinus Hohmann and Carla Juri; Army of the Dead, starring Dave Bautista, Ella Purnell and Ana de la Reguera; Dream Horse, with Toni Collette, Damian Lewis and Owen Teale; The Dry, starring Eric Bana, Genevieve O’Reilly and Keir O’Donnell; Lawrence: After Arabia, with Brian Cox, Hugh Fraser and Michael Maloney; The Retreat, starring Aaron Ashmore, Rossif Sutherland and Celina Sinden; and Seance, with Suki Waterhouse, Madisen Beaty and Megan Best.
2021 - President Joe Biden said he would not allow the Deptartment of Justice to seize journalists’ phone records and emails calling the practice “wrong.” His comments came as CNN reported the Trump administration Justice Department secretly obtained the 2017 phone records of one of their correspondents. It was the latest revelation of an apparent investigation aimed at identifying a journalist’s sources that was launched during the dastardly Trump administration.
2021 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture said that it would soon begin making loan forgiveness payments to thousands of minority farmers as part of the Biden administration’s $4 billion debt relief program.
2021 - The WHO said official tolls showing some 3.3 million deaths directly or indirectly attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic were likely to be a significant undercount. It was feared that 6-8 million people had died so far.
2022 - President Biden signed into law a bill aimed at bolstering access to baby formula. The new law was meant to ensure families in need could continue using government-provided WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) benefits to buy baby formula. The U.S. had experienced a severe shortage of infant formula as a result of the 2021–2022 global supply chain crisis -- compounded by a large scale product recall when two babies had died after consuming Abbott infant formula.
2022 - Russia cut off natural gas supplies after Finland refused to pay for its fuel in rubles, as Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered. Poland and Bulgaria had lost access to Russian supplies for the same reason. Not so coincidentally, the dispute came after Finland’s decision to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alongside neighboring Sweden.
2023 - The first female Arab astronaut, Rayyanah Barnawi, from Saudi Arabia, went to the International Space Station (ISS) on Axiom Space’s second private mission. Barnawi rode along with fellow Saudi Ali Alqarni and Americans Peggy Whitson and John Shoffner.
2023 - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise appearance at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan. Zelensky, dressed in his trademark military themed clothing, made a headline-grabbing entrance as he touched down on board a French government plane in the Japanese city that had been obliterated by a U.S. nuclear bomb. The leaders spoke in one voice on a series of positions related to China, including the need to counter “economic coercion” and protect advanced technologies that could threaten national security, while also stressing that cooperation with Beijing was necessary.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day May 21
1471 - Albrecht Dürer
artist: Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand, Adoration of the Magi, Young Hare; engraver: Knight, Death and the Devil, The Smaller Passion; died Apr 6, 15281688 - Alexander Pope
poet: the Pastorals, An Essay on Criticism, The Rape of the Lock, The Art of Sinking in Poetry, The Dunciad, An Essay on Man; died May 30, 17441844 - Henri Rousseau
artist: The Sleeping Gypsy; died Sep 2, 19101898 - Armand Hammer
industrialist: Occidental Petroleum Co.; physician: donated millions to aid cancer research; died Dec 10, 19901901 - Horace Heidt
bandleader: Horace Heidt and His Musical Knights; radio show host: Pot O’ Gold; talent show host: Youth Opportunity; died Dec 1, 19861904 - Robert Montgomery (Henry Montgomery Jr.)
actor: Private Lives, Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Here Comes Mr. Jordan; director: Eye Witness, Lady in the Lake, The Gallant Hours; host: Robert Montgomery Presents; father of actress, Elizabeth Montgomery; died Sep 27, 19811904 - Fats (Thomas Wright) Waller
blues musician: piano, organ, song writer: Ain’t Misbehavin’, Honeysuckle Rose; led sextet: It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie, Smarty, All My Life, Two Sleepy People; actor: King of Burlesque, Hooray for Love, Ain’t Misbehavin’, Stormy Weather; died Dec 15, 19431909 - Sister Maria Innocentia Hummel
kindergarten art teacher: her work was inspiration for the famous Hummel figurines; died Nov 6, 19461916 - Dennis Day (Eugene Denis McNulty)
singer: Mam’selle, Danny Boy, Clancy Lowered the Boom; actor: The Jack Benny Show, The RCA Victor Show, The Dennis Day Show, The Powers Girl, I’ll Get By, Golden Girl; died June 22, 19881916 - Harold Robbins (Francis Kane)
writer: The Carpetbaggers, The Piranhas, Stiletto, The Dream Merchants, The Betsy; died Oct 14, 19971917 - Raymond (William Stacy) Burr
actor: Perry Mason, Ironside, Rear Window, A Place in the Sun, The Defense Never Rests, Godzilla; died Sep 12, 19931920 - Anthony (Maitland) Steel
actor: Wooden Horse, Malta Story, Perfect Crime; married to actress Anita Ekberg; died Mar 21, 20011921 - Andrei Sakharov
physicist: produced first Soviet atomic bomb, also hydrogen bomb; human rights activist: formulated concepts of perestroika and glasnost; died Dec 14, 19891923 - Ara Parseghian
College Football Hall of Famer: head coach: Notre Dame, Northwestern, Miami; TV sports commentator; chairman of Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation; died Aug 2, 20171924 - Peggy (Mary Margaret) Cass
comedienne: To Tell the Truth; actress: The Hathaways, Women in Prison, Aunty Mame, Paddy, Gidget Goes Hawaiian, Cheaters; radio serial: The Doctors; died Mar 8, 19991924 - Ed (Edward Raymond) Fitz Gerald
baseball: catcher: Pittsburgh Pirates, Washington Nationals, Washington Senators, Cleveland Indians; died Jun 14, 20201926 - Robert Creeley
author: Have a Heart; poet: Windows; died Mar 30, 20051928 - Tom Donahue
Rock & Roll Hall of Famer: DJ: KMPX, KSAN (San Francisco); invented ‘free form’ radio, considered by some to be the Father of FM Progressive Radio; died of a heart attack Apr 28, 1975 [age 46]1928 - Alice Drummond
actress: Ghostbusters, Kate & Allie, Law & Order, Boston Legal, Yes, Dear, Furry Vengeance, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar, Pieces of April; Broadway: The Chinese; died Nov 30, 20161930 - Tommy Bryant
jazz/studio musician: bassist: played w/Dizzy Gillespie, Jo Jones, Sonny Rollins, Benny Golson; [brother of Ray Bryant]; died Jan 3, 19821939 - David Groh
actor: Rhoda, Trapper John, M.D., Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Police Story, Fantasy Island, L.A. Law, Baywatch, Law & Order, Murder, She Wrote, Melrose Place, The X-Files, JAG, Victory at Entebbe, Get Shorty; died Feb 12, 20081939 - Heinz Holliger
musician: oboe virtuoso, composer, conductor: Siebensgesang for oboe voices and orchestra1941 - Bobby Cox
baseball: New York Yankees [1968–1969]; manager: Atlanta Braves [1978–1981]: 1977 World Series champs Toronto Blue Jays [1982–1985] Atlanta Braves [1990–2010]: 1995 World Series champs1941 - Ronald Isley
singer: group: The Isley Brothers: Shout, Twist and Shout, This Old Heart of Mine [Is Weak for You], It’s Your Thing, That Lady, Fight the Power1943 - Hilton Valentine
musician: guitar: group: The Animals: House of the Rising Sun, It’s My Life, We Gotta Get Out of This Place, Don’t Let Me Be Understood; died Jan 29, 20211944 - Marcie Blane
singer: Bobby’s Girl1944 - Janet Dailey
novelist: The Glory Game, Silver Wings, Santiago Blue, The Pride of Hanna Wade, Calder Saga, Notorious, The Rogue, Rivals, Tangled Vines, The Keeper; died Dec 14, 2013; more1945 - Richard Hatch
actor: Battlestar Galactica, Ghetto Blaster, Party Line, Delta Force, Commando 2; radio host: Love on the Edge; died Feb 7, 20171947 - Bill Champlin
singer: group: Chicago [since 1982]: Love Me Tomorrow, Hard Habit to Break, You’re the Inspiration, sI Don’t Wanna Live Without Your Love, Look Away1948 - Carol Potter
actress; Beverly Hills 90210, Today’s F.B.I.1948 - Leo Sayer (Gerard Hugh Sayer)
singer: Long Tall Glasses, You Make Me Feel like Dancing, When I Need You, More Than I Can Say1951 - Al Franken
actor, comedian: Saturday Night Live, Stuart Saves His Family; radio, TV talk host: The Al Franken Show; U.S. Senator from Minnesota [2009-2018]1952 - Mr. T (Lawrence Tureaud)
actor: The A-Team, Rocky III, The Magic of the Golden Bear: Goldy 3, Spy Hard, Inspector Gadget1955 - Stan Lynch
musician: drums: group: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: American Girl, Don’t Do Me like That, Don’t Come Around Here No More, Jammin’ Me1957 - Judge Reinhold (Edward Ernest Reinhold Jr.)
actor: The Wharf Rat, The Right to Remain Silent, Beverly Hills Cop series, Baby on Board, Ruthless People, Gremlins, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Stripes1959 - Nick Cassavetes
actor: Face/Off, The Wraith, Life, Class of 1999 II: The Substitute, Backstreet Dreams, The Astronaut’s Wife; director: John Q, Alpha Dog, She’s So Lovely, Unhook the Stars, The Notebook, My Sister’s Keeper1960 - Kent (Alan) Hrbek
baseball: Minnesota Twins [all-star: 1982/World Series: 1987, 1991]1961 - Brent Briscoe
actor: Spider-Man 2, Waking Up in Reno, Journey of Redemption, The Majestic, Mulholland Dr., Driven, Double Take; died Oct 18, 2017
1966 - Lisa Edelstein
actress: House M.D., Special Delivery, Night of the Hurricane, Blue-Eyed Butcher, The Good Wife, The Legend of Korra, Castle, Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce1969 - Reid Simpson
hockey [left wing]: Philadelphia Flyers, Minnesota North Stars, NJ Devils, Chicago Blackhawks, TB Lightning, SL Blues, Montreal Canadiens, Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Penguins
1970 - Bryce Florie
baseball [pitcher]: San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers, Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox1970 - Dorsey Levens
football [running back]: Georgia Tech Univ; NFL: GB Packers, Philadelphia Eagles, NY Giants
1970 - Tom Martin
baseball [pitcher]: Houston Astros, Cleveland Indians, NY Mets, TB Devil Rays, LA Dodgers, Atlanta Braves
1970 - Roman Turek
hockey [goalie]: Dallas Stars, SL Blues, Calgary Flames1971 - Chris Widger
baseball [catcher, first base, outfield]: Montreal Expos, Seattle Mariners, New York Yankees, St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox1972 - The Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace)
rapper: LPs: Ready to Die, Life After Death, Born Again; shot and killed in Los Angeles Mar 9, 1997 [killer has yet to be identified]1973 - Stewart Cink
golf: PGA Tour Rookie of the Year [1996 and 1997]1973 - Noel Fielding
comedian, actor, TV host: The Great British Bake Off, The Mighty Boosh, The IT Crowd, Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy1975 - Todd White
hockey [center]: Chicago Blackhawks, Philadelphia Flyers, Ottawa Senators, Minnesota Wild1976 - Travis Harper
baseball [pitcher]: Tampa Bay Devil Rays1976 - Lyn-Z (Lindsey Ann Way)
musician: bass: group: Mindless Self Indulgence: Shut Me Up, Straight to Video, Never Wanted to Dance, (It’s 3AM) Issues, On It, Pay for It, Evening Wear/Mark David Chapman1977 - Ricky Williams
football [running back]: Univ of Texas; NFL: New Orleans Saints, Miami Dolphins1981 - Josh Hamilton
baseball [outfielder]: Cincinnati Reds [2007]; Texas Rangers [2008–2012]: World Series 2010, 2011; Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim [2013–2014]; Texas Rangers [2015]1981 - Wes Welker
football [wide receiver]: NFL: San Diego Chargers [2004]; Miami Dolphins [2004–2006]; New England Patriots [2007–2012]; Denver Broncos [2013–2014]: 2014 Super Bowl XLVIII; St. Louis Rams [2015]1984 - Gary Woodland
golf champ: 3 PGA Tour wins, including 2018 Waste Management Phoenix Open; USGA: 2019 U.S. Open1990 - Scotty Leavenworth
actor: 7th Heaven, The Majestic, Life as a House, Erin Brockovich, The Green Mile, Come On, Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story, Simon Birch
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day May 21
1949Riders in the Sky (facts) - Vaughn Monroe
Again (facts) - Gordon Jenkins
1958
1967
1976
1985
1994
2003
2012
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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