October 15
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Events on This Day
1582 - Pope Gregory XIII dropped ten days from the year, skipping from October 4th to October 15th. He also completed modification of the old intercalation rule by specifying that any year whose number ended with 00 must also be evenly divisible by 400 in order to have a 29-day February. And Gregory changed the ecclesiastical table of moon phases used to help determine Easter’s date. Because of Gregory’s refinement of the leap year rule, the Western calendar has almost kept pace with the seasons.1860 - Grace Bedell, age 11, wrote Abe Lincoln with a suggestion. She urged Lincoln to grow a beard. If he did, she’d try to get her four brothers to vote for him for president. Lincoln won the election in November -- then he grew a beard.
1892 - The U.S. government convinced the Crow Indians to give up 1.8 million acres of their reservation for 50 cents per acre. On this day, by presidential proclamation, the land in the mountainous area of western Montana was opened to settlers.
1905 - President Grover Cleveland wrote an article for Ladies Home Journal, joining others in the U.S. who opposed women voters. The president said, “We all know how much further women go than men in their social rivalries and jealousies... sensible and responsible women do not want to vote.”
1917 - Mata Hari, a Dutch dancer who had spied for the Germans, was executed by a French firing squad near Paris, France.
1931 - The production of The Cat and the Fiddle opened in New York. It played for 395 performances. Meow!
1932 - The War Memorial Opera House became the first municipally-owned opera palace -- in San Francisco, CA. Tosca was the first opera presented.
1946 - With two outs, and St. Louis Cardinals’ Enos Slaughter on first, Harry Walker hit a line drive to left-center. Slaughter got an early jump as Boston Red Sox pitcher Bob Klinger failed to hold him on the bag. Leon Culberson (in center) bobbled Walker’s single and shortstop Johnny Pesky hesitated on the cutoff (checking the runner on first instead of throwing home). Ignoring third base coach Mike Gonzalez, Slaughter rounded third and scored. Pitcher Harry Brecheen shut down the Red Sox in the ninth and St. Louis won the game, 4-3, and the World Series, four games to three. The ’46 Series will always be remembered in Red Sox lore as the one in which “Pesky held the ball.”
1946 - Nazi war criminal Hermann Göring committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule he had smuggled into prison. His suicide came just two hours before his scheduled execution.
1948 - Frances L. Willoughby was sworn in as the first woman doctor in the U.S. Navy.
1948 - Gerald R. Ford married model/dancer Betty Bloomer.
1951 - I Love Lucy debuted on CBS-TV. The show ran to May 6, 1957, with a total of 180 half-hour episodes spanning those six seasons.
1953 - The Teahouse of the August Moon opened on Broadway to begin a long and successful run (1,027 performances).
1955 - The Grand Ole Opry finally made it to TV on this day. The ABC network carried just one hour of Opry (it continued through the night), live from Nashville. This arrangement only lasted for one year; although the Grand Ole Opry was used as a staging arena for other successful shows like Classic Country Featuring Stars of the Grand Ole Opry and Hayride. Then, Grand Ole Opry came to TV. In 1985, the Nashville Network (TNN) positioned the show on Saturday nights. In 2001, Opry was carried on Country Music Televison (CMT). In 2003, Grand Ole Opry (Opry Live) moved to GAC (Great American Country). Although Grand Ole Opry is no longer seen on TV, the show continues to be broadcast on 650 AM WSM as well as wsmonline.com. Also, the radio program, America’s Opry Weekend, is available across the U.S.
1959 - Van Johnson was originally slated to play Eliot Ness, but he backed out in a dispute over money the weekend before filming was to begin. Robert Stack was hastily recruited for the starring role in The Untouchables on a Sunday morning. He was fitted for costumes in the afternoon, and started filming the first episode, The Empty Chair, on Monday morning. The Untouchables, with the chatter of machine-gun fire and the squeal of tires on the streets of Chicago, began a four-year run this day on ABC-TV. With Stack, as G-man Ness, were Nick Georgiade (as Enrico Rossi), Jerry Paris (as Martin Flaherty), Abel Fernandez (as William Youngfellow), Anthony George (as Cam Allison), Paul Percerni (as Lee Hobson), Steve London (as Agent Rossman) and Bruce Gordon (as Frank Nitti). The unforgettable narrator was radio’s famous Walter Winchell.
1959 - The Fritz the Cat comic strip debuted. One of Robert Crumb’s most famous characters, Fritz took his name and personality from two felines in the young Crumb’s household.
1964 - An American treasure died. Cole Porter, renowned lyricist and composer, died at age 73. I’ve Got You Under My Skin and hundreds of other classics crossed all musical style and format boundaries throughout his long and rich career.
1964 - For St. Louis, it was the first time a Cardinal team had appeared in the World Series since 1946 (see above), and the first of three Series appearances in the 1960s. For the Yankees, it was their last Series appearance for 12 years, and the last hurrah in a long string of Fall Classics for legendary players Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle. The Cards won the Series in seven games, with Bob Gibson’s complete game, nine strike-out performance in game seven. Lou Brock’s fifth-inning home run triggered a second 3-run inning and a 6-0 lead for Gibson. Mickey Mantle, Clete Boyer, and Phil Linz homered for New York, but it wasn’t enough. The Cards won the game, 7-5, and the series, four games to three.
1964 - One day after being replaced (by Leonid I. Brezhnev) as first secretary of the Communisty Party, Nikita S. Khrushchev lost his position as premier -- to Alexei N. Kosygin. Khrushchev had been vacationing in Crimea when the Presidium voted him out of office and refused to permit him to take his case to the Central Committee.
1965 - New York police made their first arrest under a Federal draft-card-burning law. The lucky arrestee was David Miller.
1965 - A photo of the Pope in Yankee Stadium graced the cover of LIFE magazine with an accompanying story about "Pope Paul VI in America".
1966 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed a bill creating the Department of Transportation.
1969 - It was Vietnam Moratorium Day. Millions of peace demonstrators staged protests across the U.S. including a candlelight march around the White House.
1970 - The Baltimore Orioles overcame a 3-0 deficit to beat the Cincinnati Reds, 9-3, and win the World Series in five games. It was the first Series on artificial turf and the first at Riverfront Stadium (Cincinnati). And it was the Brooks Robinson show. With the Orioles’ third baseman leading the way, the Orioles avenged their World Series loss (to the NY Mets) of a year earlier by getting beating the Reds in five games.
1970 - Anwar Sadat was elected president of Egypt, succeeding Gamel Abdel Nasser.
1970 - A span of the West Gate Bridge over the Yarra River in Melbourne Australia collapsed. The crash killed 35 people.
1971 - Rick Nelson was booed off the stage when he didn’t stick to all oldies at the seventh Annual Rock ’n’ Roll Revival show at Madison Square Garden, New York. He tried to slip in some of his new material and the crowd did not approve. The negative reaction to his performance inspired Nelson to write his last top-40 hit, Garden Party, which hit the top-ten about a year after the Madison Square Garden debacle. Garden Party, ironically, was Nelson’s biggest hit in years, “...If you gotta play at garden parties, I wish you a lotta luck; But if memories were all I sang, I rather drive a truck.”
1973 - “From those of us working the late shift in Southern California, sweet dreams.” Tom Snyder would use this phrase to close his late-night show, Tomorrow, which debuted on NBC-TV this night. Tom would yuk it up with some of TV’s most interesting chatter -- right after the Tonight show. NBC would later add critic Rona Barrett to the show. Tomorrow ran until January of 1982.
1974 - The Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Paul J. Flory for “his fundamental achievements, both theoretical and experimental, in the physical chemistry of the macromolecules.”
1976 - In the first debate of its kind between vice-presidential nominees, Democrat Walter F. Mondale and Republican Bob Dole faced off in Houston, Texas. Going into debate, Dole had said that people would rather watch a Friday night high school football game than watch the vice-presidential candidates face off.
1982 - The U.S. Centers for Disease Control warned that a new epidemic was impacting Americans and that over 200, mostly gay young men, had died from AIDS. At a White House press briefing this day, reporter Lester Kinsolving asked Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, Larry Speakes, if the president was aware of the ‘gay plague’, and the CDC announcement. Speakes joked, “I don’t have it — do you?”
1984 - Public telephones flew on 20 flights beginning this day for those who had credit cards. Costs for the Airfone service: $7.50 for a three-minute call, $1.25 for each additional minute anywhere you wanted to call in the United States. (Airfone service was discontinued on airline flights in 2006.)
1988 - Red Red Wine, by UB40, was the first reggae hit to make it to number one in the U.S. From the album Labour of Love, Red Red Wine was #1 for only one week, but turned out to be UB40’s signature song.
1989 - Evangelist Billy Graham was given the 1,900th star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
1990 - Mikhail Gorbachev, President of the USSR (1985-1991), won the Nobel Peace Prize. Gorbachev is widely credited for “helping to end the Cold War, change the map of Europe and usher in a new era in world affairs.”
1991 - Despite sexual harassment allegations by Anita Hill the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court (52 to 48).
1993 - African National Congress leader Nelson (Rolihlahla) Mandela and South African President F.W. (Frederik Willem) de Klerk were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts to usher in reforms that 1) ended South Africa’s era of white minority rule and 2) laid the foundations for democracy.
1994 - REM’s Monster was a monster of an album -- #1 in the U.S. The album, featuring What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?, Crush with Eyeliner, King of Comedy, I Don’t Sleep, I Dream, Star 69, Strange Currencies, Tongue, Bang and Blame, I Took Your Name, Let Me In, Circus Envy and You, was number one for two weeks.
1995 - The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to British physicist Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs for their efforts to lessen the importance of nuclear arms in international politics.
1997 - British Royal Air Force pilot Andy Greendrove (piloted?) the first land-based vehicle (at Black Rock Desert, NV) to break the sound barrier: a two-way average speed of 763.035 mph – mach 1.020. And, considering he had to use one hand just to hold on to his hat, that is an impressive feat...
1998 - The Federal Reserve made surprise cuts in the discount interest rate and the overnight loan rate of banks by .25%. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 331 points in response to the move.
1999 - The humanitarian group Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1999 - These films opened in the U.S.: Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf Aday and Jared Leto; The Omega Code, starring Casper Van Dien, Michael York, Catherine Oxenberg and Michael Ironside; The Story of Us, with Michelle Pfeiffer, Bruce Willis, Rita Wilson, Rob Reiner, Julie Hagerty, Paul Reiser and Tim Matheson; and The Straight Story, starring Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton, Everett Mcgill, John Farley and Kevin Farley
2000 - The New York Times movie and drama critic Vincent Canby died at 76 years of age.
2000 - 31 people were killed in landslides as heavy rains drenched the Alps of Switzerland and Italy. 23 died in northern Italy and 8 in southern Switzerland.
2001 - Bethlehem Steel Corporation filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Company officials said they could not overcome the injury caused by record levels of unfairly traded steel imports and the slowing economy that severely reduced prices, shipments and production.
2001 - Mail service was suspended at the U.S. Capitol after tests on a letter opened in Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle’s office Monday came back positive for anthrax. And it was revealed that the infant son of an ABC News producer in New York had developed skin anthrax.
2002 - ImClone Systems founder Sam Waksal pleaded guilty in New York in the biotech company’s insider trading scandal.
2002 - Saddam Hussein won the presidential referendum in Iraq for another 7-year term. He claimed a 100% victory the next day. Now, that’s a landslide -- or, rather, how “elections” turn out in a dictatorship.
2003 - The Florida Marlins defeated the Chicago Cubs 9-6 in game 7 to wrap up the National League pennant.
2003 - A Staten Island Ferry pilot passed out and allowed the vessel to slam into a pier, killing ten people and injuring 42 (an eleventh victim died of her injuries two months later).
2004 - Shall We Dance? opened in the U.S. The musical comedy stars Jennifer Lopez, Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Stanley Tucci, Bobby Canavale, Nick Cannon, Richard Jenkins, Mya, Lisa Ann Walter and Deborah Yates; also opening: the thriller Stephen King’s Riding the Bullet, with Jonathan Jackson, David Arquette, Erika Christensen, Matt Frewer, Chris Gauthier, Barbara Hershey, Nicky Katt, Barry W. Levy, Robin Nielsen and Cliff Robertson; and Team America: World Police, a mock of action, disaster films, starring Trey Parker, Elle Russ, Stanley G. Sawicki and Matt Stone.
2005 - Crown Princess Mary of Denmark gave birth to her first child, a boy. Named Christian Valdemar Henri John, the prince is second in line of succession to Europe’s oldest crown.
2006 - A 6.7-magnitude earthquake hit Hawaii’s Big Island at 7:07 a.m., followed by aftershocks. It caused several landslides, and major blackouts on the island of Oahu (Honolulu), but no fatalities. Structural damage on the Big Island was estimated at $100 million.
2007 - Internet addresses became available in 11 languages that do not use the Roman alphabet: Arabic, Persian, simplified and traditional Chinese, Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil.
2007 - Airbus finally delivered its first A380 superjumbo jet. Singapore Airlines took delivery of the double-decker jet, the world’s largest passenger plane, almost two years late.
2007 - News Corporation’s Fox Business Network launched a new cable channel that will focus on financial markets and global economy news.
2008 - Actress, singer Edie Adams died at 81 years of age. The blonde beauty won a Tony Award as Daisy Mae in Li’l Abner on Broadway. She played the television foil to her husband, comedian Ernie Kovacs. Kovacs was a noted cigar smoker, and you may remember that Adams did a long-running series of TV commercials for Muriel cigars.
2008 - Senators John McCain and Barack Obama went at each other in their final TV debate of the 2008 U.S. presidential contest. The debate, at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY, was moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS.
2009 - Thousands of demonstrators swarmed the financial hub in San Juan, Puerto Rico, blocking highways and setting fires in the streets. All in protest of massive layoffs of government workers. Meanwhile, Governor Luis Fortuño insisted the dismissal of more than 20,000 public employees was necessary to close a $3.2 billion deficit and pull the economy out of a 3-year recession.
2010 - Movies debuting in the U.S.: Conviction, starring Sam Rockwell, Hilary Swank, Juliette Lewis, Minnie Driver and Clea DuVall; Jackass 3-D, with Johnny Knoxville, Bam Margera, Steve-O [Glover], Chris Pontius and Jason Acuña; and Red, starring Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Karl Urban and John Malkovich.
2010 - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, Sergei Sobyanin, was nominated to be Moscow’s next mayor. Political analysts said move was an attempt to bring the capital’s sizable political and business interests under the direct control of the Kremlin. (Sobyanin became mayor of Moscow Oct 28, 2010.)
2010 - Swiss engineers smashed through the last stretch of rock to create the world’s longest tunnel (35.4 miles), the Gotthard Base rail tunnel. The costly, technically difficult project had been 60 years in the making.
2011 - Reverend and cable news talker Al Sharpton led a rally near the Washington Monument, where speakers called for easier job access and decried the gulf between rich and poor. This, before the crowd marched to the new Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.
2012 - U.S. scholars Alvin Roth of Harvard and Lloyd Shapley of UCLA were awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences “for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design.” That is, studies on the match-making that takes place when doctors are coupled up with hospitals, students with schools and human organs with transplant recipients.
2012 - A teenage girl in Mali received 60 lashes in Timbuktu after Islamist extremists convicted her of speaking to men on the street. The girl, about 15 years old, had been caught by the Islamists of Ansar Dine, the group in control of Timbuktu and much of northern Mali. One resident said the girl was warned repeatedly by the Islamists to stop what she was doing, but persisted in talking to men in public.
2013 - The European Space Agency announced the development of a technology that allows metal parts for spacecraft and nuclear reactors to be ‘printed’ as a single piece. The AMAZE (Additive Manufacturing Aiming Towards Zero Waste & Efficient Production of High-Tech Metal Products) project involved 28 industrial partners across Europe and was expected to create massive cost savings.
2014 - The Italian tennis world was rocked by controversy. The media printed transcripts of Skype conversations that linked Italian professionals Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali to fixing matches in 2007 and 2011.
2015 - Citing ‘very fragile’ security, POTUS Barack Obama said he would slow the pace of withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, prolonging the 14-year U.S. engagement there and effectively handing off the task of pulling out to his successor.
2016 - A ferry sank about 85 miles (137 km) northwest of Mandalay, Myanmar’s second biggest city. 73 bodies were later found, in addition to 159 passengers who were rescued alive.
2016 - Police said a speeding drunken driver smashed into another car on Long Island, New York, breaking the hit car in half. Miraculously, nobody suffered life-threatening injuries in the crash.
2017 - Hundreds of protesters marched through Sydney, Australia calling for detainees, being held in controversial centers for asylum seekers to be allowed to stay in Australia. Australia’s hardline immigration policy required asylum seekers intercepted at sea to be sent for processing to two remote Pacific locations - one on Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) Manus Island and the other on the Micronesian island nation of Nauru. And they were told they would never be settled in Australia.
2018 - Egyptian security forces killed nine terrorists in a raid on a cave hideout along the Nile River. The raid targeted men who were planning attacks on vital installations, resulting in the shootout.
2018 - U.S. retailer Sears Holdings filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and said it was closing 142 stores nationwide. The company, which also owned retailer Kmart, had seen big sales declines amid a perilous retail landscape in which customers were increasingly shopping online -- or seeking out more-appealing alternatives.
2019 - The U.N. Security Council ended 15 years of peacekeeping operations in Haiti, voicing regret that the country is still saddled with huge economic, political and social woes. The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was established on 1 June 2004 by Security Council resolution 1542. The U.N. mission succeeded a Multinational Interim Force (MIF) authorized by the Security Council in February 2004 after President Bertrand Aristide departed Haiti for exile in the aftermath of an armed conflict which spread to several cities across the country. Then, he devastating earthquake of 12 January 2010, which resulted in more than 220,000 deaths (according to Haitian Government figures), including 96 U.N. peacekeepers, delivered another blow to country’s already shaky economy and infrastructure. The Security Council, by resolution 1908 of 19 January 2010, had endorsed the Secretary-General’s recommendation to increase the overall force levels of MINUSTAH to support the immediate recovery, reconstruction and stability efforts in the country.
2019 - The fourth Democratic party presidential debate featured the most candidates on one stage -- Biden, Warren, Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Beto O’Rourke, Julian Castro, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard. Almost all the candidates displayed a willingness to go on the attack — with Warren being the most frequent target. It was a stark reflection that time was running out for those struggling in the polls and for raising money.
2019 - A Wisconsin jury awarded $450,000 to Leonard Pozner, the father of a boy killed in the Dec 14, 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting. Pozner had filed a defamation lawsuit against conspiracy theorist writer James Fetzer who claimed the 2012 massacre in Connecticut never happened. James Fetzer, a retired University of Minnesota Duluth professor now living in Wisconsin, and Mike Palacek co-wrote a book, "Nobody Died at Sandy Hook", in which they claimed the Sandy Hook shooting never took place but was instead an event staged by the federal government as part of an Obama administration effort to enact tighter gun restrictions. Pozner emphasised that the case was not about First Amendment protections for free speech. “Mr Fetzer has the right to believe that Sandy Hook never happened. He has the right to express his ignorance,” he said. “This award, however, further illustrates the difference between the right of people like Mr Fetzer to be wrong and the right of victims like myself and my child to be free from defamation, free from harassment and free from the intentional infliction of terror.”
2020 - YouTube said it was prohibiting videos that promote conspiracy theories that “justify real-world violence.” In effect, it was banning QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy threory that found much of its audience through -- YouTube.
2020 - Nearly half of the continental U.S. was in a drought. The most severe in the U.S. since 2013.
2020 - Italy experienced 8,804 new coronavirus infections and 83 COVID-19-related deaths over 24 hours, the highest daily tally since the start of the outbreak. Health officials declared that the resurgence of the virus had reached an “acute phase.” Massimo Galli, director of infectious diseases at Milan’s Luigi Sacco hospital, said Italy’s surge was not the result of record testing, as policy makers had suggested, but a sign of a real return among the population most at risk. The country had recorded 36,372 fatalities to that point.
2020 - Human Rights Watch released a 167-page report titled Targeting Life in Idlib, that named 10 senior Syrian and Russian civilian and military officials who were implicated in war crimes. The accused group included Russian President Vladimir Putin, Syrian President Bashar Assad, along with defense ministers and top generals. The monthslong Russian-backed Syrian offensive killed and wounded thousands and displaced nearly a million people.
2021 - New movies scheduled to open in the U.S. included: The spooky, Halloween Kills, starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Kyle Richards and Judy Greer; The Last Duel, with Jodie Comer, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck; Hard Luck Love Song, starring Michael Dorman, Sophia Bush and Dermot Mulroney; and Needle in a Timestack, with Freida Pinto, Orlando Bloom and Cynthia Erivo.
2021 - David Amess, a 69-year-old lawmaker in Britain’s Conservative Party, was stabbed to death by a 25-year-old man at a meeting with voters in Leigh-on-Sea, east of London. Ali Harbi Ali, the son of an ex-media adviser to a former prime minister of Somalia, was soon arrested by British police under anti-terrorism laws.
2021 - India reopened to fully vaccinated tourists traveling on chartered flights. It was a continuation of the easing of coronavirus restrictions as infection numbers declined.
2022 - 41 people in northern Turkey were killed in a coal mine explosion. The explosion happened in the mining town of Amasra, off the coast of the Black Sea, when there were a reported 110 miners working in the shaft. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters that at least 41 miners were confirmed to have died, with an additional 11 injuries already accounted for. There were an additional 58 people who managed to escape the mine unharmed, Soylu said. An initial investigation said the explosion was likely caused by flammable gases. 25 people were later arrested in connection with the explosion (workers had reportedly complained about a smell of gas in the mine for several days before the deadly blast).
2022 - Saturday Night Live began its cold opening by poking fun at the final public hearing of the investigating the Jan 6 U.S. Capitol attack. The sketch spoofed a number of key moments from the actual hearing, including a parody of behind-the-scenes footage of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (who seemed to be more concerned with lunch than the chaos unfolding around him). Another moment also saw a parody of former POTUS Trump casually asking if his vice president, Mike Pence, had died yet.
2023 - A powerful 6.3-magnitude earthquake struck Afghanistan, just days after a deadly quake had devastated its western Herat province. Officials estimated that more than 2,000 people across Herat province had been killed.
2023 - Bedbug paranoia was growing in Europe, leaving many people anxious. Paris reported a widespread rise in bedbugs, including sightings on public transit. Concerns also spread to other cities and countries, including London and the Netherlands. As for precautionary measures, experts say travelers should inspect their rooms before unpacking -- and do not place a suitcase on the floor in a corner of a room, as this increases the chance of bringing bedbugs home with you.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day October 15
70 B.C. - Virgil
poet: The Aeneid; died Sep 21, 19 B.C.1844 - Friedrich Nietzsche
philosopher: “Plato was a bore.”; The Birth of Tragedy, Thoughts out of Season, Human, All Too Human, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, Twilight of the Idols, The Antichrist; died Aug 25, 19001858 - John L. Sullivan
International Boxing Hall of Famer: World Heavyweight champion [1881-1889], Marquis of Queensbury Champion [1885-1892]; last bareknuckle championship fight [75 rounds in 1889]; actor: The Great John L. Sullivan, vaudeville; died Feb 2, 19181881 - P.G. (Sir Pelham Grenville) Wodehouse
author: Leave It to Psmith, The Inimitable Jeeves, The Code of the Woosters, French Leave, Carry on Jeeves, Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves; died Feb 14, 19751900 - Fritz Feld
actor: Homer & Eddie, Freaky Friday, Hello, Dolly!, Call Me Madam; his trademark was his slapping his mouth with the palm of his hand to create a ‘pop’ sound that indicated both his superiority and his annoyance; died Nov 18, 19931900 - Mervyn LeRoy
director: Gypsy, Mister Roberts, The Bad Seed, The F.B.I. Story, Homecoming, Little Women, Madame Curie, A Majority of One, Quo Vadis, Rose Marie, Random Harvest, Thirty Seconds over Tokyo, Three on a Match; died Sep 13, 19871903 - Mule (George William) Haas
baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates, Philadelphia Athletics [World Series: 1929-1931], Chicago White Sox; died June 30, 19741904 - Marty Mann
social activist: first woman to stay sober in Alcoholics Anonymous [AA], founded National Committee for Education on Alcoholism; author: A New Primer on Alcoholism; died Jul 22, 19801908 - John Kenneth Galbraith
economist; author: The Affluent Society, The New Industrial State, The Anatomy of Power; U.S. ambassador to India [1961-1963]; died Apr 29, 20061909 - Robert Trout
journalist: radio/TV; TV moderator: Presidential Timber; emcee: Who Said That?; died Nov 14, 20001913 - David Carroll
musician, conductor, arranger: Melody of Love, It’s Almost Tomorrow; record producer for The Diamonds, The Platters; died Mar 22, 20081917 - Arthur (Meier) Schlesinger Jr.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author/historian: The Age of Jackson [1946 prize in history], A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House [1966 prize in biography]; The Age of Roosevelt, The Imperial Presidency, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times; presidential special assistant and speech writer [1961-64]; died Feb 28, 20071920 - Chris Economaki
auto sports writer, broadcaster: ABC Sports; died Sep 28, 20121920 - Mario Puzo
novelist: The Godfather, Fourth K.; screen playwright: The Godfather series, Earthquake, Superman: The Movie, Superman 2, The Cotton Club, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery; died July 2, 19991922 - Tommy Edwards
singer: It’s All in the Game, Please Mr. Sun, The Morning Side of the Mountain, I Really Don’t Want to Know; died Oct 22, 19691924 - José Quintero
director: Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, Medea; died Feb 26, 19991924 - Lee (Lido) Iacocca
mechanical engineer, automobile executive: chairperson of Chrysler Corporation, president of Ford Motor Company; author: Iacocca; chairperson: centennial rehabilitation of Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island foundation; died Jul 2, 20191925 - Mickey (McHouston) Baker
musician: guitar, singer: duo: Mickey & Sylvia: Love is Strange, There Oughta Be a Law, Baby You’re So Fine; solo: session player: Losing Hand, [Mama] He treats Your Daughter Mean; died Nov 27, 20121926 - Jean Peters
actress: Three Coins in the Fountain, Apache, Broken Lance, Viva Zapata, It Happens Every Spring; died Oct 13, 20001934 - Peter Haskell
actor: Robot Wars, Child’s Play, Christina, Bracken’s World, The Law and Harry McGraw, Rich Man, Poor Man-Book II, Rituals; died Apr 12, 20101935 - Barry McGuire
singer, songwriter: group: The New Christy Minstrels: Green, Green; solo: Eve of Destruction1935 - Bobby Morrow
National Track & Field & Olympic Hall of Famer: Gold Medalist: [3-1956]: 100-meter, 200-meter, 4x100 relay; Sullivan Award [1957]; died May 30, 20201937 - Linda Lavin
Tony Award-winning actress: Broadway Bound [1987]; Alice, Barney Miller, Room for Two, B Positive1938 - Marv Johnson
singer: You Got What It Takes, I Love the Way You Love, Come to Me, I Miss You Baby [How I Miss You]; in film: The Teenage Millionaire [1962]; died May 16, 19931942 - Dick Lotz
golf: PGA Tour [1969]; champ: [Kemper Open: 1970]1942 - Don Stevenson
musician: drums, singer: group: Moby Grape: LPs: Moby Grape, Wow, Grape Jam1943 - Penny (Carole) Marshall
actress: Laverne & Shirley, The Odd Couple, The Bob Newhart Show; director: Renaissance Man, Big, A League of Their Own, Awakenings, Jumpin’ Jack Flash; sister of director, producer Garry Marshall; died Dec 17, 20181945 - Jim (James Alvin) Palmer
Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher: Baltimore Orioles [World Series: 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1979, 1983/all-star: 1970, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1977, 1978/Cy Young Award-winner: 1975, 1976]; broadcaster: ABC Sports; spokesperson, model: Jockey underwear1946 - Richard Carpenter
musician, composer, singer: Grammy Award-winning group: Carpenters: [They Long to Be] Close to You [1970], Best New Artist [1970], LP: The Carpenters [1971]; We’ve Only Just Begun, Rainy Days and Mondays, Superstar, Goodbye to Love, Yesterday Once More, Sing, Top of the World, Only Yesterday; TV host: Make Your Own Kind of Music1946 - Victor Banerjee
actor: Bitter Moon, Foreign Body, The Home and the World, A Passage to India1946 - Jim Beirne
football: Purdue [All-American: 1966], Houston Oilers1948 - Chris De Burgh (Christopher John Davidson)
singer, songwriter: The Lady in Red, A Spaceman Came Travelling, Ship to Shore, Don’t Pay the Ferryman, High on Emotion, The Ecstacy of Flight [I Love the Night], Transmission Ends1951 - Roscoe Tanner
tennis champion: Australian Open [1977]1953 - Tito (Toriano) Jackson
singer: group: The Jackson Five: I Want You Back, ABC, The Love You Save, I’ll Be There; brother of Michael, Janet, Jermaine, LaToya; died Sep 15, 20241955 - Tanya Roberts (Leigh)
actress: Charlie’s Angels, Deep Down, Sins of Desire, Body Slam, A View to a Kill, Tourist Trap, California Dreaming, Forced Entry; died Jan 4, 20211959 - Sarah Ferguson
Duchess of York: ‘Fergie’1959 - Emeril Lagasse
celebrity chef, TV host: Emeril Live, Essence of Emeril; actor: Emeril; restaurateur: owns restaurants in New Orleans, Las Vegas, Orlando1965 - Trace Armstrong
football: Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins, Oakland Raiders1967 - Carlos Garcia
baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates, Toronto Blue Jays, Anaheim Angels, San Diego Padres1968 - Vanessa Marcil
actress: Las Vegas, General Hospital, Beverly Hills 90210, This Space Between Us, Nice Guys Sleep Alone, Storm Watch1969 - Dominic West
actor: The Wire, Appropriate Adult, Chicago, The Hour, Burton & Taylor, The Affair1975 - Steve McKinney
football [center]: Texas A&M Univ; NFL: Indianapolis Colts, Houston Texans1978 - Juan Cruz
baseball [pitcher]: Chicago Cubs, Atlanta Braves, Oakland Athletics, Arizona Diamondbacks1989 - Anthony Joshua
British professional boxer: 2012 Olympic gold medalist; IBF heavyweight champ [2016]1995 - Billy Unger
actor: Lab Rats, Kickin’ It, Sonny with a Chance, A.N.T. Farm, No Ordinary Family, Ghost Whisperer, Hawthorne, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Mental, Medium, Desperate Housewives, Cold Case, Scrubs, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, You Again, Monster Mutt, Opposite Day, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rock Slyde1999 - Bailee Madison
actress: Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Just Go with It, Good Witch, Bridge to Terabithia, Brothers, Parental Guidance, Northpole, The Strangers: Prey at Night
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day October 15
1952You Belong to Me (facts) - Jo Stafford
Wish You Were Here (facts) - Eddie Fisher
1961
1970
1979
1988
1997
2006
2015
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
