November 18
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Events on This Day
1307 - The story of William Tell shooting the apple off of his young son’s noggin is said to have taken place on this day. The story is of either Swiss, Norwegian, Danish, Icelandic, or Persian origin. In other words, Who knows?1626 - St. Peter’s Basilica was dedicated in Rome by Urban VIII.
1894 - The New York World published the first full-color Sunday comic.
1919 - One of the first ticker-tape parades was held -- to welcome the Prince of Wales to New York City. Ticker tape came from Wall Street, you know. Rolls of paper were used to record stock trades long before computers were invented. As the paper rolled over pins that punched stock information read by stock brokers, it would leave holes. When a big parade was organized, the shredded tape was scooped up and thrown out of windows on the marchers below. We now call the stuff confetti, since ticker tape isn’t used anymore.
1919 - Irene, the musical, opened at the Vanderbilt Theatre on Broadway. The show ran for 675 performances, at the time the record for the longest-running musical in Broadway history, which it maintained for nearly two decades. It starred Edith Day in the title role, who repeated the role in a London production. Irene was revived on Broadway in 1923, filmed twice, and had a major Broadway revival in 1973, starring Debbie Reynolds, followed by a 1976 London run that lasted for 974 performances.
1928 - Walt Disney debuted his talking, animated cartoon, Steamboat Willie, at the Colony Theatre in New York. The short film featured a character who had been named Mortimer. Walt changed the name to Mickey Mouse. Steamboat Willie was the first cartoon with synchronized sound. And, for those of you who don’t remember, Steamboat Willie was in black and white. Disney’s first color cartoon wasn’t released for another four years. The star of the film has changed somewhat over the years; but Mickey Mouse is still with us, in full living color, in cartoons, on TV, in books and even in his own stores. What a great success story -- especially for a mouse!
1932 - For the first time, a tie occurred for the Best Actor Academy Award. Wallace Beery and Fredric March were only one vote apart so the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences ruled it a tie. Both received an Oscar at the Fifth Annual Academy Awards, March for his performance in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Beery for his role in The Champ. March thought it rather funny that the two were honored for ‘best male performance of the year’ when they each had adopted a child that year. The Champ also was honored when Frances Marion received the Writing/Original Story Academy Award for the film. There was only one Best Actress Award and it was presented to Helen Hayes for her performance in The Sin of Madelon Claudet. Host Lionel Barrymore greeted the film industry this night in the Fiesta Room at LA’s grand hotel, The Ambassador. The movie, Grand Hotel (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer), earned the top honors as Outstanding Production. It was also a grand night for the film, Bad Girl. Its director, Frank Borzage, and its writer (adaptation), Edwin Burke, were both presented with Academy Awards. Walt Disney also received two awards: an honorary award for the creation of Mickey Mouse and for the cartoon short subject, Flowers and Trees. Short Subject awards were presented to two other well-known Hollywood talents on this evening. Hal Roach won his prize for the comedy, The Music Box and Mack Sennett for the novelty short, Wrestling Swordfish. Both were first-time Academy Award winners as were Gordon Wiles for Art Direction (Transatlantic) and Lee Garmes for Cinematography (Shanghai Express). A grand night was had by all.
1942 - Thornton Wilder’s play, The Skin of Our Teeth, opened in New York City. The play was Wilder’s sequel to Our Town. The Skin of Our Teeth starred Tallulah Bankhead, Fredric March, Montgomery Clift and E.G. Marshall. One critic wrote, “As of last evening, the theatre was looking up.”
1943 - British bombers attacked Berlin. This was the first in a series of heavy night attacks by the RAF against the Nazi capitol city.
1949 - Alben W. Barkley married Jane Rucker Hadley in St. Louis. It was the first time a U.S. Vice President married while in office.
1951 - On this, a Sunday afternoon, Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly launched one of the most highly-praised TV productions in history. See It Now debuted on CBS. On that first program, Murrow showed a live camera shot of the Atlantic Ocean, followed by a live shot of the Pacific, then he said, “We are impressed by a medium through which a man sitting in his living room has been able to look at two oceans at once.” In April of 1952, See It Now moved into an evening time slot.
1956 - Morocco’s long struggle for independence from France ended on this day. Morocco had been a French protectorate since 1912.
1960 - Almost a year to the day after Ford ended production of its Edsel line, Chrysler pulled the plug on DeSoto. This, after several years of sharply falling sales. In fact production of the final 1961 models totalled just 3,034 cars.
1963 - The first telephone in the U.S. with push buttons instead of a rotary dial was placed in commercial service in Carnegie and Greensburg, PA.
1966 - Robert Kennedy was pictured on the cover of LIFE magazine. Stories on RFK included his “truce with LBJ” (President Lyndon Baines Johnson) and speculation that Kennedy would run for president in 1968.
1966 - A ruling was announced (to take effect Dec 2) that abstinence from meat on Fridays would no longer be required of U.S. Roman Catholics (except during Lent).
1967 - Lulu’s To Sir with Love, from the movie of the same name, started its fifth and final week at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Lulu was born Marie McDonald McLaughlin Lawrie (November 3, 1948). She changed her name to Lulu (and The Luvvers) in Scotland, early in her career.
1969 - Financier-diplomat Joseph P. Kennedy, patriarch of the Kennedy family, died in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. He was 81 years old.
1970 - Nobel Prize-winner Linus Pauling declared that large doses of Vitamin C could ward off the common cold.
1975 - John Denver received a gold record for I’m Sorry.
1977 - The American Cancer Society held the first nationwide Great American Smokout. Arthur P. Mullaney of Randolph, Massachusetts had come up with the idea in 1971. He asked his neighbors to give up cigarettes for a day and donate the money they would have spent for cigarettes to a high school scholarship fund. In 1976, the California Division of the American Cancer Society had persuaded nearly one million of the state’s 5 million smokers to quit for 24 hours.
1978 - The worst case of murder-suicide in history took place in Jonestown, Guyana. Religious-cult leader Jim Jones (Peoples Temple) directed the ingestion of Kool-Aid (laced with cyanide) by at least 900 of his followers. He and his mistress then followed suit. Earlier in the day, Jones had directed the murder of California Congressman Leo J. Ryan, three newspeople and several ‘defectors’. Ryan, on a fact-finding tour of Jonestown, was boarding a privated airplan with the small group when they were shot down.
1986 - For the first time since his departure from his own late-night TV show, Jack Paar was a guest of Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show. One of TV’s great lines came from the show, when Carson quipped (after one of Paar’s long, long spiels), “Why is it that I feel I’m guesting on your show?”
1986 - Roger Clemens was named the American League’s Most Valuable Player. He was the first American League starter to be so named in 15 years. The Boston Red Sox hurler won the honor one week after earning the Cy Young Award.
1987 - Thirty-one people died in a fire at King’s Cross, London’s busiest subway station.
1989 - The Cosmic Background Explorer satellite was launched. It provided evidence for the ‘Big Bang’ that spawned the universe 10-20 billion years ago. Dr. David T. Wilkinson was the driving force behind the satellite launch.
1991 - Vukovar, capital of eastern Slavonia, fell to Serbian raiders. They removed some 260 wounded Croat patients, hospital staff and political activists sheltered in the Vukovar hospital and took them to the village of Ovcara where most were shot and buried. On Mar 26, 1996 Slavko Dokmanovic, the Serb mayor of Vukovar, was indicted for his role in the incident. Investigators began uncovering bodies from the mass grave in September 1996.
1992 - The movie, Malcolm X, starring Denzel Washington, premiered in the U.S.
1992 - Dorothy Kirsten, U.S. opera soprano, died after a stroke. She was 82 years old.
1994 - Star Trek: Generations premiered in U.S. theatres. The sci-fi action adventure stars Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent Spiner, LeVar Burton, Michael Dorn, Gates McFadden, Marina Sirtis, Malcolm McDowell, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, Alan Ruck, Jacqueline Kim, Jenette Goldstein and Thomas Kopache.
1995 - Tha Dogg Pound’s album Dogg Food hit #1 in the U.S. for one week. The tracks were: Intro, Dogg Pound Gangstaz, Respect, New York, New York (Tha Night I Served 2,000 M.C.s), Smooth, Cyco-Lic-No (Bitch Azz Niggaz) Ridin’, Slipin’ and Slidin’, U Can’t See Me, Big Pimpin 2, Let’s Play House, I Don’t Like to Dream About Gettin Paid, Do What I Feel, If We All Fuc*, Some Bomb Azz Pussy, A Dogg’z Day Afternoon, Reality, "One By One (Subtracting Sucka Azz Niggaz from the Face of the Earth)", Sooo Much Style. This album will make the perfect gift for grandma this Christmas.
1996 - Harold James Nicholson, former CIA station chief, was arrested for espionage. Nicholson passed information to Russia from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in June 1994 and collected as much as $180,000. (He later pleaded guilty to espionage and was sentenced to 23 1/2 years in prison. He was spared a life sentence for cooperating with investigators.)
1997 - Two Willem de Kooning paintings topped the lots at Christie’s blue-chip contemporary sale in New York City. Two Standing Women (1949), sold for $4,182,500 and Woman (Blue Eyes) (1953), which went for about $2 million.
1997 - The Arizona Diamondbacks and Tampa Bay Devil Rays begin taking shape with 35 selections apiece in baseball’s expansion draft. Both the Diamondbacks and Devil Rays began their baseball lives with sufficient funds to contend quickly.
1997 - It was the biggest banking deal to that day. First Union Corporation announced the purchase of CoreStates Financial Corporation for $16.1 billion.
1997 - The FBI concluded its criminal investigation into the TWA Flight 800 disaster. Assistant FBI Director James Kallstrom said the explosion that destroyed the Boeing 747 was not caused by any criminal act.
1999 - A pyramid of logs for a traditional football bonfire collapsed and killed eleven students at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. One of another 28 people who were injured died the next day.
2000 - George W. Bush’s campaign fiercely attacked the hand-recounting of votes in Florida’s presidential election, depicting a process riddled with human error and Democratic bias. Al Gore’s lawyers defended the effort in papers filed with the state Supreme Court.
2001 - Phillips Petroleum Co. and Conoco Inc. announced they were merging in a deal that created the third-largest U.S. oil and gas company. The combined firm was to be known as ConocoPhillips. It was estimated that the value of the new corporation would be approximately $35 billion.
2002 - Actor James Coburn died at 74 years of age. His long list (over 100) of films includes Our Man Flint and The Magnificent Seven.
2003 - The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that a ban on same sex marriage was unconstitutional. Lawmakers were given 180 days to find a solution.
2004 - An estimated 30,000 guests attended the opening of the Clinton Presidential Center. The 30-acre, $165 million glass-and-steel home of artifacts and documents gathered during Bill Clinton’s eight years in the White House is located in Little Rock, AR.
2004 - Composer Cy Coleman died in New York City at 75 years of age. His Broadway musicals include Wildcat (1960), Sweet Charity (1966) and I Love My Wife (1977).
2004 - Great Britain outlawed fox hunting in England and Wales. Legislators used the 1949 Parliament Act to win a dramatic standoff with the House of Lords to ban the popular country sport.
2005 - Opening in U.S. movie theatres: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, starring Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Maggie Smith, Alan Rickman, Robbie Coltrane, David Bradley, Fiona Shaw, Richard Griffiths, Julie Walters, Mark Williams, David Thewlis, Jim Tavare, Timothy Spall, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Frances de la Tour, Roger Lloyd-Pack, Pedja Bjelac, Jeff Rawle, David Tennant, Robert Pattinson, Stanislav Ianevski, Clemence Poesy, Katie Leung, Shefali Chowdhury, Afshan Azad, Angelica Mandy; and Walk the Line, with Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Robert Patrick, Ginnifer Goodwin, Shelby Lynne and Hailey Anne Nelson.
2005 - Tropical Storm Gamma became the 24th named storm of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.
2007 - Detroit, Michigan passed St. Louis, Missouri to become the most dangerous city in the United States. This, according to CQ Press, a unit of Congressional Quarterly Inc. Flint, MI ranked 3rd and Oakland, CA ranked 4th.
2007 - A methane blast tore through a coal mine in eastern Ukraine, killing 101 workers. An investigative commission said negligence by coal-mine managers, eager to ratchet up output, led to the blast -- Ukraine’s deadliest mining disaster since the Soviet breakup. At the time of the explosion, 457 miners were in the complex.
2008 - Conservative John Key became New Zealand’s new prime minister, promising to make the economy his top priority.
2008 - A 17-year-old Cambodian monk was arrested for raping a 39-year-old British woman while he was guiding her to a mountain-top temple in the northwestern Sampov mountains. The monk also allegedly stole $55 and a cell phone from the woman.
2009 - U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval ruled that the Army Corps of Engineers’ failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding during Hurricane Katrina. The ruling represented the first time that the Army Corps had been held liable for damages in a major catastrophe.
2010 - A study by the Pew Research Center, in association with TIME magazine, showed 39 percent of Americans said marriage was becoming obsolete. And the U.S. Census Bureau reported that it was planning to incorporate broader definitions of family when measuring poverty, a shift caused partly by jumps in the number of unmarried couples living together.
2010 - India’s Supreme Court issued a sharp and rare rebuke of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, demanding that he explain why the government took a year to investigate a cell-phone licensing scandal that cost the country some $39 billion —- a sum about equal to India’s defense budget.
2011 - Films debuting in the U.S.: The animated comedy Happy Feet Two, featuring the voices of Carlos Alazraqui, Lombardo Boyar, Jeffrey Garcia, Johnny A. Sanchez, ... Sofía Vergara, Robin Williams, Elijah Wood, Pink, Ava Acres, Benjamin Flores Jr. , Common, Hugo Weaving, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon; The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1, with Taylor Lautner, Gil Birmingham, Billy Burke, Sarah Clarke, Ty Olsson, Kristen Stewart and Ashley Greene; Another Happy Day, starring Ellen Barkin, Ezra Miller, Kate Bosworth, Demi Moore, Thomas Haden Church, George Kennedy and Ellen Burstyn; The Heir Apparent: Largo Winch, with Tomer Sisley, Kristin Scott Thomas, Miki Manojlovic, Mélanie Thierry, Gilbert Melki and Karel Roden; Rid of Me, with Katie O’Grady, John Keyser, Storm Large, Melik Malkasian and Betty Moyer; and Tyrannosaur, starring Peter Mullan, Olivia Colman, Eddie Marsan, Paul Popplewell, Ned Dennehy and Samuel Bottomley.
2011 - New York authorities said an ambitious and organized identity-theft ring recruited waiters at steakhouses and other high-end restaurants to steal diners’ credit-card information, then used it for luxury shopping sprees. 28 people were indicted on racketeering and other charges.
2011 - UC (Univ of California) Davis police calmly pepper-sprayed sitting protesters as onlookers screamed for the officers to stop. The next day video of the incident surfaced online and the chancellor of the University of California described the video images as “chilling.”
2012 - U.S. President Barack Obama cautioned against an escalation of force by Israel’s forces in the Gaza Strip. This, as he defended the Jewish state’s right to defend itself. Obama also warned Palestinians that the crisis could crush peace hopes for years. “Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory,” Obama said.
2013 - Six people were arrested in New York City and charged with participating in a global ‘cyber heist’. Officials said the cyber-ring managed to steal $45 million by manipulating the limits of prepaid debit cards from Abu Dhabi-based National Bank of Ras Al-Khaimah and Bank Muscat of Oman.
2013 - Female serial killer Joanna Dennehy (30) pleaded guilty to murdering three men and dumping their bodies in ditches. Their bodies had been found riddled with stab wounds. In Feb 2014, Dennehy became the third woman in British hitory to be sentenced to serve a whole-life prison term.
2014 - Thai Web radio host Kathawut Boonpitak was sentenced to five years in prison for alleged defamation of the country’s monarchy. Boonpitak was found guilty of lese majesty for comments he made on his radio program. Thai law forbids defaming, insulting or threatening the monarchy.
2015 - A female suicide bomber blew herself up and another militant died when police raided an apartment in the Paris suburb of St. Denis seeking suspects in recent attacks in Paris. Seven people were arrested in the police action and some 5,000 shots were fired.
2016 - New movies in U.S. theatres: Bleed for This, starring Miles Teller, Katey Sagal, Ted Levine; The Edge of Seventeen, with Hailee Steinfeld, Haley Lu Richardson and Blake Jenner; and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, starring Eddie Redmayne, Ezra Miller and Colin Farrell.
2016 - Trump news: 1) U.S. President-elect Donald Trump chose arch-conservative Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to be attorney general and hawkish congressman Mike Pompeo, a strident opponent of the Iran nuclear deal, as his CIA director. Trump turned to Lieutenant General Michael Flynn as national security adviser. 2) Trump agreed to a $25-million lawsuit settlement. Former customers of his now-defunct Trump University accused him of fraud. The agreement came 10 days before jury selection was scheduled to begin in San Diego.
2016 - U.S. Vice President-elect Mike Pence was booed at a performance of the award-winning Broadway musical Hamilton, whose “alarmed and anxious” cast made an unusual call for Donald Trump’s incoming administration to work on behalf of ALL Americans.
2017 - Indian medical student Manushi Chhillar was crowned Miss World at a glitzy event on Hainan Island. Her win brought India even with Venezuela as the countries with most victories in the pageant.
2017 - Doctors Without Borders reported that it had been unable to deliver life-saving medical and humanitarian assistance to the people in dire need in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a because of a blockade by a Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels.
2018 - Police chiefs from around the world gathered in Dubai for Interpol’s general assembly to select a new president after the agency’s former official in the post was arrested in China. Meng Hongwei, who was China’s vice-minister of public security while also leading Interpol, went missing while on a trip to China in September 2018. It later emerged that the long-time Communist Party insider with decades of experience in China’s security apparatus was detained as part of a sweeping purge against allegedly corrupt or disloyal officials under President Xi Jinping’s authoritarian administration.
2018 - Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg donated $1.8 billion to his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Added to his previous donations of some $1.5 billion, the $3.35 billion total was believed to be the largest philanthropic gift ever made to a U.S. academic institution.
2019 - North Korea responded to a tweet by POTUS Trump that had hinted at another summit. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he had no interest in giving Trump further meetings to brag about -- unless he got something substantial in return.
2020 - Apple agreed to pay $113 million to settle a case alleging the company duped consumers by deliberately slowing down older iPhones to help extend the life of their batteries. The payment resolved a case brought by more than 30 states where Apple acknowledged a software update released in 2017 bogged down the performance of older iPhones. It followed a previous settlement requiring Apple to pay up to $500 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought in California.
2020 - The Czech Republic, one of the worst-hit countries in Europe in the second wave of the coronavirus pandemic, reported 5,515 new cases. The country of 10.7 million had reported 475,284 cases of COVID-19. Deaths numbered 6,740. Coronavirus infections in Tokyo, Japan hit a record daily high of 493 cases, as the Japanese capital was preparing to raise its alert level for infections to the highest of four stages.
2021 - A rare first printing of the U.S. Constitution, one of 13 known copies, sold at Sotheby’s in New York for $43.2 million, a record price for a document or book sold at auction.
2021 - Canada struggled to reach 18,000 people stranded in British Columbia after floods and mudslides destroyed roads, houses and bridges in what could be the costliest natural disaster in the country’s history.
2022 - Movies debuting in U.S. theatres included: The Menu, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Hoult, Janet McTeer and John Leguizamo; and She Said, with Carey Mulligan, Zoe Kazan and Patricia Clarkson.
2022 - Elizabeth Holmes, founder and CEO of Theranos Inc, was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. She had defrauded investors (to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars) on the merits of her company’s blood testing machines. Theranos, once valued at $9 billion, claimed it had technology that could detect conditions such as diabetes with just a few drops of blood. The tech, however, never worked. The company collapsed in 2018.
2022 - Two people died in a historic snowstorm in Buffalo that brought activities across western New York state to a screeching halt. In certain areas, six feet of snow fell, a figure considered historic for the time of year.
2023 - France successfully tested a new long-range ballistic missile -- fired from a testing site in the Landes region in southwest France and landing in the Atlantic Ocean “hundreds of kilometers from any coastline,” officials said, though an exact location was not disclosed. The M51.3 projectile did not carry a nuclear warhead, and the test was performed as a show of the “lasting credibility of France’s oceanic deterrence in coming decades,” the defense ministry said.
2023 - The North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted to accept the resignation of hundreds of its congregations over a split on LGBTQ+ issues. The decision was made over differences in belief “related to the practice of homosexuality or the ordination or marriage of self-avowed practicing homosexuals,” the UMC said in a statement. After the church strengthened its bans on partnered LGBTQ clergy and same-sex marriage in 2019, many Methodists predicted that a split was inevitable in this, the second-largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.
2023 - Pop icon Taylor Swift postponed her concert in Brazil “...due to the extreme temperatures in Rio” -- after the death of a fan the prior day. Fans had complained that they weren’t allowed to bring water into the facility.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day November 18
1786 - Carl Maria von Weber
composer: Der Freischutz, Euryanthem Oberon, Invitation to the Dance; began the era of German romantic music; died June 5, 18261787 - Louis Daguerre
theater scene painter, physicist, inventor: daguerreotype photographic process; died July 10, 18511801 - John Butterfield
operator of stagecoach and freight lines: he founded companies that became American Express and Wells Fargo; died Nov 14, 18691836 - Sir William Gilbert
comic opera libretto writer: team: Gilbert & Sullivan: HMS Pinafore, The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance; died May 29, 19111860 - Ignace Jan Paderewski
composer: musician: piano: Minuet in G; Polish patriot: 1st Premier of Poland [1919]; his California Zinfandel wines won several awards with the LA Times saying, “Some of his Zinfandel was as coveted as his music.”; died June 29, 19411882 - Amelita Galli-Curci
opera soprano: “If not the greatest coloratura soprano of all time, she must surely be recognized as among the world’s finest examples of true operatic artistry.”; died Nov 26, 19631899 - Eugene Ormandy
conductor: The Philadelphia Orchestra; died Mar 12, 19851901 - George Gallup
pollster whose opinion polls became famous by predicting FDR’s win in 1936; died in 1984; died July 26, 19841901 - Craig Wood
golf champion: PGA Hall of Famer: Masters [1941], U.S. Open [1941: he had entered 15 times before the win]; died May 7, 19681908 - Imogene Coca
Emmy Award-winning comedienne, actress: Your Show of Shows [1951]; Sid Caesar Invites You, It’s about Time, Grindl, Admiral Broadway Revue, National Lampoon’s Vacation; died June 2, 20011909 - Johnny Mercer
Academy Award-winning composer, lyricist: On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe [1946], In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening [w/Hoagy Carmichael] [1951], Moon River [1961], Days of Wine and Roses [1962]; Autumn Leaves, One for My Baby, Charade, Satin Doll, You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby, Come Rain or Come Shine, Hooray for Hollywood, Jeepers Creepers, I’m An Old Cowhand, Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive; wrote or co-wrote over a thousand songs; died June 25, 19761912 - Arthur Peterson
actor: Soap, Rollercoaster, The Rear Guard, The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid, The Young Animals, One Man’s Way, Yours, Mine and Ours; died Oct 31, 19961919 - Jocelyn Brando
actress: A Question of Love, The Big Heat; Sister of Marlon Brando; died Nov 27, 20051923 - Alan Shepard Jr
astronaut: first American in space; died July 21, 19981925 - Gene Mauch
baseball: Brooklyn Dodgers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Chicago Cubs, Boston Braves, SL Cardinals, Boston Red Sox; manager: Philadelphia Phillies, LA Angels; died Aug 8, 20051926 - Dorothy Collins
singer: My Boy Flattop, Your Hit Parade, sang with Benny Goodman band; actress: Follies; died July 21, 1994;1926 - Roy Sievers
baseball: SL Browns: [Rookie of the Year: 1949], Washington Nationals [all-star: 1956], Washington Senators [all-star: 1957, 1959], Chicago White Sox [all-star: 1961], Philadelphia Phillies; died Apr 3, 20171927 - Hank Ballard
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer, songwriter: group: The Midnighters: The Twist, Finger Poppin’ Time, Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Work with Me Annie, Sexy Ways, Annie Had a Baby; died Mar 2, 20031929 - John McMartin
actor: stage: Sweet Charity, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods; films, TV: Sweet Charity, Beauty and the Beast, Marcus Welby, M.D., Hawaii Five-O, The Golden Girls, Cheers, Murder, She Wrote, Pennies From Heaven, No Reservations; died Jul 6, 20161931 - Roberto Goizueta
businessman: CEO of Coca-Cola Company; died Oct 18, 19971939 - Margaret Atwood
author: Cat’s Eye, Dancing Girls & Other Stories, The Handmaid’s Tale1939 - Brenda Vaccaro
Emmy Award-winning actress: The Shape of Things [1973-1974]; Once is Not Enough, Cactus Flower, The Goodbye People, How Now Dow Jones, Midnight Cowboy, Airport ’77, Ten Little Indians1941 - Gary Bettenhausen
auto racer: fastest Indy 500 qualifying time ever: 224.468 mph [1991]; died Mar 16, 20141941 - David Hemmings
actor: The Deadly Game, Islands in the Stream, The Old Curiosity Shop, Blow Up, Charge of the Light Brigade, Camelot, Barbarella, L.A. Law; died Dec 3, 20031942 - Linda Evans
actress: Dynasty, The Big Valley, Standing Tall, Hunter, North and South, Book II1942 - Susan Sullivan
actress: Castle, It’s a Living, Falcon Crest, Rich Man Poor Man Book II, Having Babies, The George Carlin Show, The Dark Ride, The Incredible Hulk, Deadman’s Curve; commercial spokesperson: Tylenol1947 - Jameson Parker
actor: Simon and Simon, Curse of the Crystal Eye, Prince of Darkness, American Justice, A Small Circle of Friends, The Gathering: Part 2, Anatomy of a Seduction1948 - Andrea Marcovicci
actress: Trapper John, M.D., Berrenger’s, Jack the Bear, The Water Engine, The Stuff, Kings and Desperate Men, The Concorde: Airport ’79, The Devil’s Web; more1948 - Jack Tatum
football [safety]: Oakland Raiders: longest fumble return in history: 104 yards [1972, against the Green Bay Packers]; Super Bowl XI; died Jul 27, 20101949 - Herman Rarebell
musician: drums: group: Scorpions: LPs: Taken by Force, Tokyo Tapes, Lovedrive, Animal Magnetism, Blackout, Love at First Sting, World Wide Live1950 - Graham Parker
singer: group: Graham Parker and The Rumour: Between You and Me, Back to Schooldays, Hey Lord Don’t Ask Me Questions, Discovering Japan, Local Girls, Passion is No Ordinary Word, Stupefaction, The Beating of Another Heart; solo: LPs: Another Grey Area, The Real Macaw, Steady Nerves, The Mona Lisa’s Sister1952 - Delroy Lindo
actor: Malcolm X, Get Shorty, Gone in 60 Seconds, Crooklyn, The Chicago Code, The Good Fight1953 - Kevin Nealon
actor: Saturday Night Live, All I Want for Christmas, Roxanne, Champs, The Wedding Singer, Happy Gilmore, Just Go With It, Blended, Weeds1956 - Warren Moon
football: QB: Univ. of Washington [1978 Rose Bowl MVP]; Houston Oilers, Minnesota Vikings, Seattle Seahawks, KC Chiefs1958 - Oscar Nuñez
actor: The Office, Halfway Home, Benched, Halfway Home, Reno 911!: Miami, The Proposal, Fred: The Movie, Without Men, The 33, Romantically Speaking, Baywatch [2017], People of Earth1960 - Elizabeth Perkins
actress: Moonlight and Valentino, Miracle on 34th Street, The Flintstones, Indian Summer, He Said, She Said, Avalon, Big, About Last Night...1960 - Kim Wilde
singer: Kids in America, Rage to Love, You Keep Me Hangin’ On1961 - Nick Chinlund
actor: Tears of the Sun, Con Air, The Chronicles of Riddick, The Sopranos, House, Castle, NCIS, Training Day, The Legend of Zorro, Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit1962 - Tim Guinee
actor: Iron Man 2, The Pardon, Winged Creatures, Broken English, Elvis, Warning: Parental Advisory, Blade, Courage Under Fire1962 - Kirk Hammett
musician: guitar: group: Metallica: Enter Sandman, Nothing Else Matters1962 - Jamie Moyer
baseball [pitcher]: Chicago Cubs, Texas Rangers, St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, Seattle Mariners1963 - Dante Bichette
baseball: California Angels, Milwaukee Brewers, Colorado Rockies, Boston Red Sox, Cincinnati Reds1964 - Seth Joyner
football [linebacker]: NFL: Philadelphia Eagles, Arizona Cardinals, Green Bay Packers, Denver Broncos1967 - Tom Gordon
baseball [pitcher]: Kansas City Royals, Boston Red Sox, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, Chicago White Sox and New York Yankees1968 - Romany Malco
actor: The 40 Year Old Virgin, Weeds, No Ordinary Family, Blades of Glory, Baby Mama, The Love Guru, Saint John of Las Vegas, A Little Bit of Heaven, Gulliver’s Travels, Think Like a Man1968 - Gary Sheffield
baseball: Milwaukee Brewers, SDiego Padres [all-star: 1992], Florida Marlins [all-star: 1993, 1996]; nephew of baseball all-star Dwight Gooden1968 - Owen Wilson
actor: The Wendell Baker Story, Starsky & Hutch, Shanghai Noon, Shanghai Knights, Behind Enemy Lines, The Royal Tenenbaums, Meet the Fockers, Wedding Crashers, Zoolander, Night at the Museum film series1969 - Sam Cassell
basketball [guard]: Houston Rockets, Dallas Mavericks, New Jersey Nets, Milwaukee Bucks, Minnesota Timberwolves, LA Clippers1970 - Mike Epps
comedian, actor: Next Friday, Friday After Next, The Hangover, Open Season 2, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Extinction, Mac & Devin Go to High School1970 - Megyn Kelly
right-wing TV anchor: FOX [2004-2017]: America Life, America’s Newsroom, The Kelly File; Today [NBC]1970 - Peta Wilson
actress: La Femme Nikita, Naked Jane, Vanishing Point, Other People, Joe and Max1974 - Chloë Sevigny
model, actress: Big Love, Kids, Trees Lounge, Palmetto, The Last Days of Disco, Gummo, Boys Don’t Cry1975 - Lucy Akhurst
actress: All Quiet on the Preston Front, The Land Girls, Trinity, Shaun of the Dead1975 - Shawn Camp
baseball [pitcher]: Toronto Blue Jays, Kansas City Royals, Tampa Bay Devil Rays1975 - David Ortiz
baseball: Minnesota Twins [1997–2002], Boston Red Sox [2003–2016]: World Series Champs: 2004, 2007, 2013 [series MVP]1975 - Jason Williams
basketball [guard]: Sacramento Kings, Memphis Grizzlies, Miami Heat1975 - Matt Wise
baseball [pitcher]: Anaheim Angels and Milwaukee Brewers1979 - Nate Parker
actor: The Birth of a Nation, Beyond the Lights, Red Tails, The Secret Life of Bees, Arbitrage, Non-Stop, Felon, Pride, The Great Debaters1980 - Denny Hamlin
race car champion: 2016 Daytona 500; in 2006 Hamilin was the first rookie in NASCAR history to qualify for the Chase for the Sprint Cup1981 - Christina Vidal
singer, actress: Life With Mikey, The Cosby Mysteries, Welcome to the Dollhouse, Taina, Freaky Friday, See No Evil1982 - Damon Wayans Jr
comedian, actor: Happy Together, New Girl, Happy Endings, The Underground, Let’s Be Cops1985 - Allyson Felix
track and field sprinter: gold medalist sprinter: four gold medals in 2012 London Olympics1986 - Joseph Ashton
actor: Rocket Power, Where the Red Fern Grows, Slappy and the Stinkers, Fallout, The Education of Little Tree, Asylum, The Little Rascals [1994], L.A. Doctors1987 - Jake Abel
actor: I am Number Four, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, Inside, The Host, Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters1992 - Nathan Kress
actor: iCarly, Babe: Pig in the City, Pickled, Chicken Little, Magnus, Inc., Bag, NimBlingDit, Game of Your Life, Victorious, Who Did It to Trina?, Figure It Out1997 - Micheal Ward actor: Blue Story, The Old Guard, Top Boy, The A List, Empire of Light
2001 - Caleb Williams
football [quarterback]: Univ of Oklahoma [2021]; USC [2022 Heisman Trophy winner]; NFL: Chicago Bears [2024– ]
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day November 18
1950All My Love (facts) - Patti Page
Goodnight Irene (facts) - The Weavers
1959
1968
1977
1986
1995
2004
2013
2022
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
