Today In History

1314 - Scottish ****** led by Robert the Bruce won over Edward II of England at the Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland.

1340 - The English fleet defeated the French fleet at Sluys, off the Flemish coast.

1497 - Italian explorer John Cabot, sailing in the service of England, landed in North America on what is now Newfoundland.

1509 - Henry VIII was crowned King of England.

1664 - New Jersey, named after the Isle of Jersey, was founded.

1675 - King Philip's War began when Indians massacre colonists at Swansee, Plymouth colony.

1793 - The first republican constitution in France was adopted.

1812 - Napoleon crossed the Nieman River and invaded Russia.

1844 - Charles Goodyear was granted U.S. patent #3,633 for vulcanized rubber.

1859 - At the Battle of Solferino, also known as the Battle of the Three Sovereigns, the French army led by Napoleon III defeated the Austrian army under Franz Joseph I in northern Italy.

1861 - Federal gunboats attacked Confederate batteries at Mathias Point, Virginia.

1862 - U.S. intervention saved the British and French at the Dagu forts in China.

1869 - Mary Ellen "*****" Pleasant officially became the Vodoo Queen in San Francisco, CA.

1896 - Booker T. Washington became the first African American to receive an honorary MA degree from Howard University.

1910 - The Japanese army invaded Korea.

1913 - Greece and Serbia annulled their alliance with Bulgaria following border disputes over Macedonia and Thrace.

1922 - The American Professional Football Association took the name of The National Football League.

1931 - The Soviet Union and Afghanistan signed a treaty of neutrality.

1940 - France signed an armistice with Italy.

1940 - TV cameras were used for the first time in a political convention as the Republicans convened in Philadelphia, PA.

1941 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt pledged all possible support to the Soviet Union.

1947 - Kenneth Arnold reported seeing flying saucers over Mt. Rainier, Washington.

1948 - The Soviet Union began the Berlin Blockade.

1953 - John F. Kennedy and Jacqueline Bouvier announced their engagement.

1955 - Soviet MIG's down a U.S. Navy patrol plane over the Bering Strait.

1962 - The New York Yankees beat the Detroit Tigers, 9-7, after 22 innings.

1964 - The Federal Trade Commission announced that starting in 1965, cigarette manufactures would be required to include warnings on their packaging about the harmful effects of smoking.

1968 - "Resurrection City," a shantytown constructed as part of the Poor People's March on Washington D.C., was closed down by authorities.

1970 - The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to repeal the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.

1970 - The movie "Myra Breckinridge" premiered.

1971 - The National Basketball Association modified its four-year eligibility rule to allow for collegiate hardship cases.

1975 - 113 people were ****** when an Eastern Airlines Boeing 727 crashed while attempting to land during a thunderstorm at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

1985 - Natalia Solzhenitsyn the wife of exiled, Soviet author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, became a U.S. citizen.

1997 - 18-year-old Melissa Drexler was charged with ****** in the death of her baby. Drexler had given birth during her prom.

1997 - The U.S. Air ***** released a report on the "Roswell Incident," suggesting the ***** bodies witnesses reported seeing in 1947 were actually life-sized dummies.

1998 - AT&T Corp. struck a deal to buy cable TV giant Tele-Communications Inc. for $31.7 billion.

1998 - Walt Disney World Resort admitted its 600-millionth guest.

2002 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that juries, not judges, must make the decision to give a convicted killer the death penalty.

2002 - A painting from Monet's Waterlilies series sold for $20.2 million.

2003 - In Paris, France, manuscripts by novelist Georges Simenon brought in $325,579. The original manuscript of "La Mort de Belle" raised $81,705.


Current Birthdays


Minka Kelly turns 29 years old today.


90 Al Molinaro
Actor ("Happy Days")


86 Jack Carter
Comedian


67 Michele Lee
Actress ("Knot's Landing")


66 Georg Stanford Brown
Actor, director


65 Arthur Brown
Rock singer


64 Colin Blunstone
Rock singer (The Zombies)


64 George Pataki
Former governor of New York


62 Mick Fleetwood
Rock musician (Fleetwood Mac)


62 Peter Weller
Actor


60 John Illsley
Rock musician (Dire Straits)


59 Nancy Allen
Actress


59 Derrick Simpson
Reggae singer (Black Uhuru)


53 Joe Penny
Actor


52 Astro
Reggae singer (UB40)


50 Andy McCluskey
Rock musician (Orchestral Manoevres in the Dark)


49 Juli Inkster
Golfer


48 Curt Smith
Rock singer, musician (Tears for Fears)


44 Danielle Spencer
Actress


42 Sherry Stringfield
Actress ("ER")


39 Glenn Medeiros
Singer


30 Mindy Kaling
Actress, producer ("The Office")


23 Solange Knowles
R&B singer

Historic Birthdays


Jack Dempsey

6/24/1895 - 5/31/1983
American world heavyweight boxing champion



86 Theodore Beza
6/24/1519 - 10/13/1605
French author, translator, educator and theologian


56 Robert Dudley Leicester
6/24/1532 - 9/4/1588
English favorite of Queen Elizabeth I


49 Saint John of the Cross
6/24/1542 - 12/14/1591
Spanish mystic and poet


66 John Hughes
6/24/1797 - 1/3/1864
Irish-born American religious leader; first Roman Catholic archbishop of New York


73 Henry Ward Beecher
6/24/1813 - 3/8/1887
American Congregational minister


63 Gustavus Swift
6/24/1839 - 3/29/1903
American business leader; founded Swift & Co.


81 Victor Francis Hess
6/24/1883 - 12/17/1964
Austrian-born Nobel Prize-winning physicist (1936)


81 Irving Kaufman
6/24/1910 - 2/1/1992
American judge; presided over the Rosenberg case


75 Norman Cousins
6/24/1915 - 11/30/1990
American essayist and editor of The Saturday Review


69 John Ciardi
6/24/1916 - 3/30/1986
American poet, critic and translator
 
0841 - Charles the Bald and Louis the German defeated Lothar at Fontenay.

1080 - At Brixen, a council of bishops declared Pope Gregory to be deposed and Archbishop Guibert as antipope Clement III.

1580 - The Book of Concord was first published. The book is a collection of doctrinal standards of the Lutheran Church.

1658 - Aurangzeb proclaimed himself emperor of the Moghuls in India.

1767 - Mexican Indians rioted as Jesuit priests were ordered home.

1788 - Virginia ratified the U.S. Constitution and became the 10th state of the United States.

1864 - Union troops surrounding Petersburg, VA, began building a mine tunnel underneath the Confederate lines.

1867 - Lucien B. Smith patented the first barbed wire.

1868 - The U.S. Congress enacted legislation granting an eight-hour day to workers employed by the Federal government.

1868 - Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina were readmitted to the Union.

1870 - In Spain, Queen Isabella abdicated in favor of Alfonso XII.

1876 - Lt. Col. Custer and the 210 men of U.S. 7th Cavalry were ****** by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn in Montana. The event is known as "Custer's Last Stand."

1877 - In Philadelphia, PA, Alexander Graham Bell demonstrated the telephone for Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin) and Emperor Pedro II of Brazil at the Centennial Exhibition.

1906 - Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw, the *** of coal and railroad baron William Thaw, shot and ****** Stanford White. White, a prominent architect, had a tryst with Florence Evelyn Nesbit before she married Thaw. The shooting took place at the premeire of Mamzelle ********* in New York.

1910 - The U.S. Congress authorized the use of postal savings stamps.

1917 - The first American fighting troops landed in France.

1920 - The Greeks took 8,000 Turkish prisoners in Smyrna.

1921 - Samuel Gompers was elected head of the AFL for the 40th time.

1938 - Gaelic scholar Douglas Hyde was inaugurated as the first president of the Irish Republic.

1941 - Finland declared war on the Soviet Union.

1946 - Ho Chi Minh traveled to France for talks on Vietnamese independence.

1948 - The Soviet Union tightened its blockade of Berlin by intercepting river barges heading for the city.

1950 - North Korea invaded South Korea initiating the Korean War.

1951 - In New York, the first regular commercial color TV transmissions were presented on CBS using the FCC-approved CBS Color System. The public did not own color TV's at the time.

1952 - John Christie, the British ******** of 10 Rillington Place, was sentenced to death for ******* six women.

1959 - The Cuban government seized 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.

1959 - Eamon De Valera became president of Ireland at the age of 76.

1962 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the use of unofficial non-denominational prayer in public schools was unconstitutional.

1964 - U.S. President Lyndon Johnson ordered 200 naval personnel to Mississippi to assist in finding three missing civil rights workers.

1966 - "Dark Shadows" began running on ABC-TV.

1968 - Bobby Bonds (San Francisco Giants) hit a grand-slam home run in his first game with the Giants. He was the first player to debut with a grand-slam.

1970 - The U.S. Federal Communications Commission handed down a ruling (35 FR 7732), making it ******* for radio stations to put telephone calls on the air without the permission of the person being called.

1973 - Erskine Childers Jr. became president of Ireland after the retirement of Eamon De Valera.

1973 - White House Counsel John Dean admitted that U.S. President Nixon took part in the Watergate cover-up.

1975 - Mozambique became independent. Samora Machel was sworn in as president after 477 years of Portuguese rule.

1981 - The U.S. Supreme Court decided that male-only draft registration was constitutional.

1985 - ABC’s "Monday Night Football" began with a new line-up. The trio was Frank Gifford, Joe Namath and O.J. Simpson.

1985 - New York Yankees officials enacted the rule that mandated that the team’s bat boys were to wear protective helmets during all games.

1986 - The U.S. Congress approved $100 million in aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua.

1987 - Austrian President Kurt Waldheim visited Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. The meeting was controversial due to allegations that Waldheim had hidden his **** past.

1990 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of an individual, whose wishes are clearly made, to refuse life-sustaining medical treatment. "The right to die" decision was made in the Curzan vs. Missouri case.

1991 - The last Soviet troops left Czechoslovakia 23 years after the Warsaw Pact invasion.

1991 - The Yugoslav republics of Slovenia and Croatia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1993 - Kim Campbell took office as Canada's first woman prime minister. She assumed power upon the resignation of Brian Mulroney.

1996 - Outside the Khobar Towers near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia a truck bomb exploded. The bomb ****** 19 Americans and injured over 500 Saudis and Americans.

1997 - The Russian space station Mir was hit by an unmanned cargo vessel. Much of the power supply was knocked out and the station's Spektr module was severely damaged.

1997 - U.S. air pollution standards were significantly tightened by U.S. President Clinton.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the line-item veto thereby striking down presidential power to cancel specific items in tax and spending legislation.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that those infected with HIV are protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act.

1998 - Microsoft's "Windows 98" was released to the public.

1999 - Germany's parliament approved a national Holocaust memorial to be built in Berlin.

2000 - U.S. and British researchers announced that they had completed a rough draft of a map of the genetic makeup of human beings. The project was 10 years old at the time of the announcement.

2000 - A Florida judge approved a class-action lawsuit to be filed against American Online (AOL) on behalf of hourly subscribers who were ****** to view "pop-up" advertisements

Current Birthdays


Ricky Gervais(twat) turns 48 years old today.


85 Sidney Lumet
Director


84 June Lockhart
Actress ("Lassie," "Lost in Space")


74 Eddie Floyd
R&B singer


70 Barbara Montgomery
Actress


67 Willis Reed
Basketball hall of famer


65 Gary David Goldberg
Writer, producer ("****** Ties," "Spin City")


64 Carly Simon
Singer


63 Allen Lanier
Rock musician (Blue Oyster Cult)


63 Ian McDonald
Rock musician (Foreigner, King Crimson)


62 Jimmie Walker
Actor, comedian ("Good Times")


61 Michael Lembeck
Actor, director


60 Phyllis George
TV personality


57 Tim Finn
Rock singer (Crowded House)


55 David Paich
Rock musician (Toto)


54 Michael Sabatino
Actor


46 John Benjamin Hickey
Actor


46 George Michael
Singer


45 Erica Gimpel
Actress


43 Dikembe Mutombo
Basketball player


42 Richie Rich
Rapper, producer


41 Candyman
Rapper


38 Sean Kelly
Rock musician (Six Pence None the Richer)


38 Angela Kinsey
Actress ("The Office")


37 Mike Kroeger
Rock musician (Nickelback)


35 Mario Calire
Rock musician


34 Linda Cardellini
Actress ("ER")


31 Aramis Ramirez
Baseball player


30 Busy Philipps
Actress ("ER")


Historic Birthdays


George Abbott

6/25/1887 - 1/31/1995
American theatrical director, producer, playwright and actor


79 Edward Holyoke
6/25/1689 - 1/1/1769
American educator; president of Harvard University (1737-69)


73 Antonio Gaudi
6/25/1852 - 6/10/1926
Spanish (Catalan) architect


64 Robert Henri
6/25/1865 - 7/12/1929
American painter


47 Crystal Eastman
6/25/1881 - 7/8/1928
American lawyer, suffragist and writer


66 Benito Lynch
6/25/1885 - 12/23/1951
Argentine novelist and short story writer


63 Henry Harley Arnold
6/25/1886 - 1/15/1950
American military strategist


95 Hermann Oberth
6/25/1894 - 12/29/1989
Austrian-born German scientist


79 Lord Louis Mountbatten
6/25/1900 - 8/27/1979
English statesman, naval leader and last viceroy of India


68 William H. Stein
6/25/1911 - 2/2/1980
American Nobel Prize-winning biochemist (1972)
 
1096 - Peter the Hermit's crusaders ****** their way across Sava, Hungary.

1243 - The Seljuk Turkish army in Asia ***** was wiped out by the Mongols.

1483 - Richard III usurped himself to the English throne.

1541 - Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish Conqueror of Peru, was ******** by his former followers.

1794 - The French defeated an Austrian army at the Battle of Fleurus.

1804 - The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached the mouth of the Kansas River after completing a westward trek of nearly 400 river miles.

1819 - The bicycle was patented by W.K. Clarkson, Jr.

1844 - John Tyler took Julia Gardiner as his bride, thus becoming the first U.S. President to marry while in office.

1870 - The first section of the boardwalk in Atlantic City, NJ, was opened to the public.

1894 - The American Railway Union called a general strike in sympathy with Pullman workers.

1900 - The United States announced that it would send troops to fight against the Boxer rebellion in China.

1900 - A commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease yellow fever.

1907 - Russia's nobility demanded drastic measures to be taken against revolutionaries.

1908 - Shah Muhammad Ali's ****** squelched the reform elements of Parliament in Persia.

1917 - General John "Black Jack" Pershing arrived in France with the American Expeditionary *****.

1925 - Charlie Chaplin's comedy, "The Gold Rush," premiered in Hollywood.

1926 - A memorial to the first U.S. troops in France was unveiled at St. Nazaire.

1924 - After eight years of occupation, American troops left the Dominican Republic.

1942 - The Grumman F6F Hellcat fighter was flown for the first time.

1945 - The U.N. Charter was signed by 50 nations in San Francisco, CA.

1948 - The Berlin Airlift began as the U.S., Britain and France started ferrying supplies to the isolated western sector of Berlin.

1951 - The Soviet Union proposed a cease-fire in the Korean War.

1959 - CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow interviewed Lee Remick. It was his 500th and final guest on "Person to Person."

1959 - U.S. President Eisenhower joined Britain's Queen Elizabeth II in ceremonies officially opening the St. Lawrence Seaway.

1961 - A Kuwaiti vote opposed Iraq's annexation plans.

1963 - U.S. President John Kennedy announced "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner) at the Berlin Wall.

1971 - The U.S. Justice Department issued a warrant for Daniel Ellsberg, accusing him of giving away the Pentagon Papers.

1975 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency due to "deep and widespread conspiracy."

1976 - The CN (Canadian National) Tower in Toronto, Canada, opened.

1979 - Muhammad Ali, at 37 years old, announced that he was retiring as world heavyweight boxing champion.

1981 - In Mountain Home, Idaho, Virginia Campbell took her coupons and rebates and bought $26,460 worth of groceries. She only paid 67 cents after all the discounts.

1985 - Wilbur Snapp was ejected after playing "Three Blind Mice" during a baseball game. The incident followed a call made by umpire Keith O'Connor.

1987 - The movie "Dragnet" opened in the U.S.

1996 - The U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Virginia Military Institute to admit women or forgo state support.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Communications Decency Act of 1996 that made it ******* to distribute indecent material on the Internet.

1997 - The U.S. Supreme Court upheld state laws that allow for a ban on doctor-assisted suicides.

1998 - The U.S. and Peru open school to train commandos to patrol Peru's rivers for **** traffickers.

1998 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that employers are always potentially liable for supervisor's sexual misconduct toward an employee.

2000 - The Human Genome Project and Celera Genomics Corp. jointly announced that they had created a working draft of the human genome.

2000 - Indonesia's President Abdurrahman Wahid declared a state of emergency in the Moluccas due to the escalation of fighting between Christians and Muslims.

2001 - Ray Bourque (Colorado Avalanche) announced his retirement just 17 days after winning his first Stanley Cup. Bouque retired after 22 years and held the NHL record for highest-scoring defenseman and playing in 19 consecutive All-Star games.

2002 - David Hasseloff checked into The Betty Ford Center for treatment of alcoholism.

2002 - WorldCom Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Current Birthdays


Derek Jeter turns 35 years old today.


87 Eleanor Parker
Actress


75 Dave Grusin
Jazz pianist, film composer


75 Josef Sommer
Actor


70 Charles Robb
Former Virginia governor and U.S. senator


69 Billy Davis Jr.
Singer (The Fifth Dimension)


66 Georgie Fame
Rock singer


63 Clive Francis
Actor


63 Brenda Holloway
R&B singer


59 Michael Paul Chan
Actor ("The Closer")


56 Robert Davi
Actor


54 Mick Jones
Rock singer, musician (The Clash, Big Audio Dynamite)


54 Gedde Watanabe
Actor ("ER")


53 Chris Isaak
Rock singer, musician


52 Patty Smyth
Rock singer, musician


48 Terri Nunn
Pop singer (Berlin)


46 Harriet Wheeler
Rock singer (The Sundays)


41 Shannon Sharpe
Football player


40 Colin Greenwood
Rock musician (Radiohead)


39 Paul Thomas Anderson
Writer, director


39 Sean Hayes
Actor ("Will and Grace")


39 Matt Letscher
Actor


36 Rebecca Budig
Actress


35 Gretchen Wilson
Country singer


33 Chad Pennington
Football player


30 Nathan Followill
Rock musician (Kings of Leon)


30 Ryan Tedder
Rock musician (OneRepublic)


29 Jason Schwartzman
Actor


29 Michael Vick
Football player


23 Kaitlin Cullum
Actress


17 Jennette McCurdy
Actress, singer ("iCarly"


Historic Birthdays


Babe Zaharias

6/26/1911 - 9/27/1956
American athlete


44 Arthur Middleton
6/26/1742 - 1/1/1787
American; signed the Declaration of Independence


94 Bernard Berenson
6/26/1865 - 10/6/1959
American art critic


63 Albert Siklos
6/26/1878 - 4/3/1942
Hungarian cellist, composer and musicologist


80 Pearl Buck
6/26/1892 - 3/6/1973
American Nobel Prize-winning author (1938)


80 Willy Messerschmitt
6/26/1898 - 9/17/1978
German aircraft engineer and designer


87 Stuart Symington
6/26/1901 - 12/14/1988
American politician; U.S. senator from Missouri (1953-76)


75 William Lear
6/26/1902 - 5/14/1978
American industrialist and electrical engineer


87 Antonia Brico
6/26/1902 - 8/3/1989
Dutch-born American conductor and pianist


59 Peter Lorre
6/26/1904 - 3/23/1964
Hungarian-born American film actor
 
1806 - A Spanish army repelled the British during their attempt to retake Buenos Aires, Argentina.

1811 - Venezuela became the first South American country to declare independence from Spain.

1814 - U.S. troops under Jacob Brown defeated a superior British ***** at Chippewa, Canada.

1830 - France occupied the North African city of Algiers.

1832 - The German government began curtailing freedom of the press after German Democrats advocate a revolt against Austrian rule.

1839 - British naval ****** bombarded Dingai on Zhoushan Island in China and then occupied it.

1863 - U.S. Federal troops occupied Vicksburg, MS, and distributed supplies to the citizens.

1865 - William Booth founded the Salvation Army in London.

1892 - Andrew Beard was issued a patent for the rotary engine.

1916 - Adelina and August Van Buren started on the first successful transcontinental motorcycle tour to be attempted by two women. They started in New York City and arrived in San Diego, CA, on September 12, 1916.

1935 - "Hawaii Call" was broadcast for the first time.

1935 - U.S. President Roosevelt signed the National Labor Relations Act into law. The act authorized labor to organize for the purpose of collective bargaining.

1940 - During World War II, Britain and the Vichy government in France broke diplomatic relations.

1941 - German troops reached the Dnieper River in the Soviet Union.

1943 - The battle of Kursk began as German tanks ****** the Soviet salient. It was the largest tank battle in history.

1946 - The bikini bathing suit, created by Louis Reard, made its debut during a fashion show at the Molitor Pool in Paris. Micheline Bernardini wore the two-piece outfit.

1947 - Larry Doby signed a contract with the Cleveland Indians, becoming the first black player in the American League.

1948 - Britain's National Health Service Act went into effect, providing government-financed medical and dental care.

1950 - U.S. ****** engaged the North Koreans for the first time at Osan, South Korea.

1951 - Dr. William Shockley announced that he had invented the junction transistor.

1962 - Algeria became independent after 132 years of French rule.

1975 - Arthur Ashe became the first black man to win a Wimbledon singles title when he defeated Jimmy Connors.

1984 - The U.S. Supreme Court weakened the 70-year-old "exclusionary rule," deciding that evidence seized with defective court warrants could be used against defendants in criminal trials.

1989 - Former U.S. National Security Council aide Oliver North received a $150,000 fine and a suspended prison term for his part in the Iran-Contra affair. The convictions were later overturned.

1991 - Regulators shut down the Pakistani-managed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in eight countries. The charge was fraud, **** money laundering and ******* infiltration into the U.S. banking system.

1995 - The U.S. Justice Department decided not to take antitrust action against Ticketmaster.

1998 - Japan joined U.S. and Russia in space exploration with the launching of the Planet-B probe to Mars.

2000 - Jordanian security agents shot and ****** a Syrian hijacker after he threw a grenade that exploded and wounded 15 passengers aboard a Royal Jordanian airliner.

2000 - 10 Bengal tigers, including 7 rare white tigers, died at the Nandankanan *** in India. The tigers died of trypanosomiasis (******** sickness).

2000 - Euan Blair, the oldest *** of British prime minister Tony Blair, was arrested after police found him ***** and lying on the ground in London's Leicester Square.

2002 - In Algeria, 35 people were ****** in violent attacks on the day that the country celebrated its 40 years of independence from France.

2002 - Former **** SS officer Friedrich Engel was convicted of 59 counts of ****** stemming from massacre of Italian resistance fighters on May 19, 1944.


Current Birthdays


Edie Falco turns 46 years old today.


80 Katherine Helmond
Actress ("Soap," "Who's the Boss")


73 Shirley Knight
Actress


66 Robbie Robertson
Rock singer, musician (The Band)


61 Julie Nixon Eisenhower
******** of President Richard Nixon


59 Huey Lewis
Rock singer


58 Rich "Goose" Gossage
Baseball Hall of Famer


58 Roger Wicker
U.S. senator, R-Miss.


57 Charles Ventre
Country musician


53 James Lofton
Football Hall of Famer


50 Marc Cohn
Rock singer, songwriter


44 Kathryn Erbe
Actress ("Law & Order: Criminal Intent")


40 Brent Flynn
Country musician (Flynnville Train)


40 RZA
Rapper (Wu-Tang Clan)


36 Joe
R&B Singer


36 Bengt Lagerberg
Rock musician (The Cardigans)


34 Dale Godboldo
Actor


33 Bizarre
Rapper


30 Amelie Mauresmo
Tennis player


29 Jason Wade
Rock singer (Lifehouse)


28 Ryan Hansen
Actor


27 Dave Haywood
Country musician (Lady Antebellum)


24 Nick O'Malley
Rock musician (Arctic Monkeys)


18 Jason Dolley
Actor


Historic Birthdays


P. T. Barnum

7/5/1810 - 4/7/1891
American showman


69 David Farragut
7/5/1801 - 8/14/1870
American Civil War admiral


59 Robert Fitzroy
7/5/1805 - 4/30/1865
English naval officer; commanded the H.M.S. Beagle


48 Cecil Rhodes
7/5/1853 - 3/26/1902
English financier and empire builder of South Africa


84 Edouard Herriot
7/5/1872 - 3/26/1957
French premier (1924-5, 1926, 1932)


71 Judah Leon Magnes
7/5/1877 - 10/27/1948
American founder of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem


66 Dwight Davis
7/5/1879 - 11/28/1945
American tennis player


80 Wanda Landowska
7/5/1879 - 8/16/1959
Polish-born harpsichordist


101 Willem Drees
7/5/1886 - 5/14/1988
Dutch prime minister (1948-58)


95 John Howard Northrop
7/5/1891 - 5/27/1987
American Nobel Prize-winning biochemist (1946)


82 Henry Cabot Lodge
7/5/1902 - 2/27/1985
American diplomat and U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1937-44, 1947-52)


62 Georges Pompidou
7/5/1911 - 4/2/1974
French premier (1962-8) and president (1969-74)


30 Manolete
7/5/1917 - 8/29/1947
Spanish bullfighter
 
1483 - King Richard III of England was crowned.

1535 - Sir Thomas More was executed in England for treason.

1699 - Captain William Kidd, the pirate, was captured in Boston, MA, and deported back to England.

1777 - British ****** captured Fort Ticonderoga during the American Revolution.

1854 - In Jackson, MI, the Republican Party held its first convention.

1858 - Lyman Blake patented the shoe manufacturing machine.

1885 - Louis Pasteur successfully tested his anti-rabies vaccine. The ***** used in the test later became the director of the Pasteur Institute.

1893 - In northwest Iowa 71 people were ****** by a tornado.

1905 - Fingerprints were exchanged for the first time between officials in Europe and the U.S. The person in question was John Walker.

1917 - During World War I, Arab ****** led by T.E. Lawrence captured the port of Aqaba from the Turks.

1919 - A British dirigible landed in New York at Roosevelt Field. It completed the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.

1923 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was established.

1928 - "The Lights of New York" was previewed in New York's Strand Theatre. It was the first all-talking movie.

1932 - The postage rate for first class mail in the U.S. went from 2-cents to 3-cents.

1933 - The first All-Star baseball game was held in Chicago. The American League beat the National League 4-2.

1942 - Diarist Anne Frank and her ****** took refuge from the Nazis in Amsterdam.

1944 - A fire broke out in the main tent of the Ringling *******, Barnum and Bailey Circus. 169 people died.

1945 - U.S. President Truman signed an order creating the Medal of Freedom.

1945 - Nicaragua became the first nation to formally accept the United Nations Charter.

1947 - "Candid Microphone" began airing on ABC radio.

1948 - Frieda Hennok became the first woman to serve as the commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

1957 - Althea Gibson won the Wimbledon women’s singles tennis title. She was the first black athlete to win the event.

1966 - Malawi became a republic within the Commonwealth with Dr. Hastings Banda as its first president.

1967 - The Biafran War erupted. The war lasted two-and-a-half years. About 600,000 people died.

1981 - The Dupont Company announced an agreement to purchase Conoco, Inc. (Continental Oil Co.) for $7 billion. At the time it was the largest merger in corporate history.

1983 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that retirement plans could not pay women smaller monthly payments solely because of their gender.

1983 - Fred Lynn of the California Angels hit the first grand slam in an All-Star game. The American League defeated the National League 13-3.

1985 - Martina Navratilova won her 4th consecutive Wimbledon singles title.

1985 - The submarine Nautilus arrived in Groton, Connecticut. The vessel had been towed from Mare Island Naval Shipyard.

1987 - Sikh extremists made their first of three attacks over a two day period. The gunmen attacked a bus loaded with Hindu passengers. Over the two day period a total of 72 people were ****** by the extremists.

1988 - 167 North Sea oil workers were ****** by explosions and fires that destroyed the Piper Alpha drilling platform.

1988 - Several popular beaches were closed in New York City due to medical waste and other debris began washing up on the seashores.

1989 - The U.S. Army destroyed its last Pershing 1-A missiles at an ammunition plant in Karnack, TX. The dismantling was under the terms of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear ****** Treaty.

1994 - On Storm King Mountain, in Colorado, 14 firefighters were ****** while fighting a several-day-old fire.

1995 - In Los Angeles, the prosecution rested at the O.J. Simpson ****** trial.

1996 - Steffi Graf won her seventh Wimbledon title.

1997 - The Mars Pathfinder released Sojourner, a robot rover on the surface of Mars. The spacecraft landed on the red planet on July 4th.

1997 - In Cambodia, Second Prime Minister Hun Sen ousted First Prime Minister Norodom Ranariddh and claimed to have the capital under his control.

1998 - Protestants rioted in many parts of Northern Ireland after British authorities blocked an Orange Order march in Portadown.

2000 - In Orlando, FL, the body of Cory Erving was found in his vehicle in a pond near his families home. Julius "Dr. J" Erving had reported his *** missing on June 4, 2000.

2000 - A jury awarded former NHL player Tony Twist $24 million for the unauthorized use of his name in the comic book Spawn and the HBO cartoon series. Co-defendant HBO settled with Twist out of court for an undisclosed amount.


Current Birthdays


Nancy Reagan turns 88 years old today.


87 William Schallert
Actor ("The Patty Duke Show")


78 Donal Donnelly
Actor


78 Della Reese
Singer, actress ("Touched by an Angel")


72 Ned Beatty
Actor


72 Gene Chandler
Singer


69 Jeannie Seely
Country singer


64 Burt Ward
Actor ("Batman")


63 George W. Bush
Former president of the United States


63 Fred Dryer
Actor


63 Sylvester Stallone
Actor


61 Nathalie Baye
Actress


58 Geoffrey Rush
Actor


57 John Bazz
Rock musician (The Blasters)


57 Grant Goodeve
Actor ("Eight is Enough")


56 Nanci Griffith
Country singer


55 Allyce Beasley
Actress


55 Willie Randolph
Baseball player, manager


54 Rick Braun
Jazz trumpeter


53 John Jorgenson
Country musician


50 John Keeble
Rock musician (Spandau Ballet)


43 Brian Posehn
Actor


39 Inspectah Deck
Rapper (Wu-Tang Clan)


31 Tamera Mowry
Actress


31 Tia Mowry
Actress


27 Brandon Jacobs
Football player


26 Gregory Smith
Actor ("Everwood")


22 Kate Nash
Rock singer


19 Jeremy Suarez
Actor ("The Bernie Mac Show")

Historic Birthdays


Frida Kahlo

7/6/1907 - 7/13/1954
Mexican painter

45 John Paul Jones
7/6/1747 - 7/18/1792
American Revolutionary War naval hero


80 Sir William Hooker
7/6/1785 - 8/12/1865
English botanist


34 Maximilian
7/6/1832 - 6/19/1867
Austrian archduke and emperor of Mexico (1864-7)


80 Vernor von Heidenstam
7/6/1859 - 5/20/1940
Swedish author; awarded Nobel Prize (1916)


87 Godfrey Malvern
7/6/1883 - 5/8/1971
English-born prime minister of Southern Rhodesia (1933-53)


57 Marc Bloch
7/6/1886 - 6/16/1944
French historian and educator; leader in Resistance


79 Axel Theorell
7/6/1903 - 8/15/1982
Swedish biochemist; awarded Nobel Prize (1955)


82 Dorothy Kirsten
7/6/1910 - 11/18/1992
American opera singer


55 Bill Haley
7/6/1925 - 2/9/1981
American singer and songwriter
 
1754 - Kings College opened in New York City. It was renamed Columbia College 30 years later.

1846 - U.S. annexation of California was proclaimed at Monterey after the surrender of a Mexican garrison.

1862 - The first railroad post office was tested on the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad in Missouri.

1865 - Four people were hanged in Washington, DC, after being convicted of conspiring with John Wilkes Booth to assassinate U.S. President Lincoln.

1885 - G. Moore Peters patented the cartridge-loading machine.

1898 - The United States annexed Hawaii.

1917 - Aleksandr Kerensky formed a provisional government in Russia.

1920 - A device known as the radio compass was used for the first time on a U.S. Navy airplane near Norfolk, VA.

1930 - Construction began on Boulder Dam, later Hoover Dam, on the Colorado River.

1937 - Japanese ****** invaded China.

1946 - ****** Frances Xavier Cabrini was canonized as the first American saint.

1949 - "Dragnet" was first heard on NBC radio.

1950 - The UN Security Council authorized military aid for South Korea.

1969 - Canada's House of Commons gave final approval to a measure that made the French language equal to English throughout the national government.

1981 - U.S. President Reagan announced he was nominating Arizona Judge Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first female justice on the U.S. Supreme Court.

1983 - Eleven-year-old Samantha Smith of Manchester, Maine, left for a visit to the Soviet Union at the personal invitation of Soviet leader Yuri V. Andropov.

1987 - Public testimony at the Iran-Contra hearing began.

1998 - A jury in Santa Monica, CA, convicted Mikail Markhasev of ********* Ennis Cosby, Bill Cosby's only ***, during a roadside robbery.

1999 - In Sierra Leone, President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and rebel leader Foday Sankoh signed a pact to end the nation's civil war.

2000 - Cisco Systems Inc. announced that it would buy Netiverse Inc. for $210 million in stock. It was the 13th time Cisco had purchased a company in 2000.

2000 - Amazon.com announced that they had sold almost 400,000 copies of "Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire," making it the biggest selling book in e-tailing history.

2003 - In Liberia, a team of U.S. military experts arrived at the U.S. embassy compound to assess whether to deploy troops as part of a peacekeeping ***** in the country.

2005 - In London, at least 66 people were ****** and at least 700 were injured when several bombs were set off in subway cars and double-decker buses.

Current Birthdays


Pinetop Perkins turns 96 years old today.


82 Charlie Louvin
Country singer


82 Doc Severinsen
Bandleader


76 David McCullough
Author


69 Ringo Starr
Rock musician (The Beatles)


65 Warren Entner
Singer-musician (The Grass Roots)


64 Jim Rodford
Rock musician


63 Joe Spano
Actor


62 David Hodo
Singer (The Village People)


62 Linda Williams
Country singer


60 Shelley Duvall
Actress


58 Roz Ryan
Actress


50 Billy Campbell
Actor


47 Mark White
Rock musician (Spin Doctors)


46 Vonda Shepard
Singer, songwriter ("Ally McBeal")


43 Jim Gaffigan
Actor, comedian


43 Ricky Kinchen
R&B musician (Mint Condition)


41 Jorja Fox
Actress ("C.S.I.")


40 Cree Summer
Actress


37 Lisa Leslie
Basketball player


37 Kirsten Vangsness
Actress ("Criminal Minds")


36 Troy Garity
Actor


33 Hamish Linklater
Actor


29 Michelle Kwan
Figure skater


27 Cassidy
Rapper


27 Gabbie Nolen
Country singer


Historic Birthdays


Satchel Paige

7/7/1906 - 6/8/1982
American professional baseball pitcher


82 Joseph-Marie Jacquard
7/7/1752 - 8/7/1834
French inventor of the Jacquard loom


91 Abraham Cahan
7/7/1860 - 8/31/1951
Russian-born American editor of the Jewish Daily Forward (1903-51)


50 Gustav Mahler
7/7/1860 - 5/18/1911
Austrian composer and conductor


97 Marc Chagall
7/7/1887 - 3/28/1985
Belorussian-born French painter, printmaker and designer


83 George Cukor
7/7/1899 - 1/24/1983
American motion-picture director


73 Vittorio De Sica
7/7/1901 - 11/13/1974
Italian motion-picture director


80 Robert Heinlein
7/7/1907 - 5/8/1988
American science-fiction writer


73 Lawrence O'Brien
7/7/1917 - 9/28/1990
American politician and N.B.A. commissioner (1975-84)


53 Ezzard Charles
7/7/1921 - 5/28/1975
American world heavyweight boxing champion (1950-1)
 
1099 - Christian soldiers on the First Crusade march around Jerusalem.

1608 - The first French settlement at Quebec was established by Samuel de Champlain.

1663 - King Charles II of England granted a charter to Rhode Island.

1693 - Uniforms for police in New York City were authorized.

1709 - Peter the Great defeated Charles XII at Poltava, in the Ukraine, The Swedish empire was effectively ended.

1755 - Britain broke off diplomatic relations with France as their disputes in the New World intensified.

1776 - Col. John Nixon gave the first public reading of the U.S. Declaration of Independence to a crowd at Independence Square in Philadelphia.

1794 - French troops captured Brussels, Belgium.

1795 - Kent County Free School changed its name to Washington College. It was the first college to be named after U.S. President George Washington. The school was established by an act of the Maryland Assembly in 1723.

1815 - Louis XVIII returned to Paris after the defeat of Napoleon.

1865 - C.E. Barnes patented the machine ***.

1879 - The first ship to use electric lights departed from San Francisco, CA.

1881 - Edward Berner, druggist in Two Rivers, WI, poured chocolate syrup on ice cream in a dish. To this time chocolate syrup had only been used for making ice-cream sodas.

1889 - The Wall Street Journal was first published.

1889 - John L. Sullivan defeated Jake Kilrain, in the last championship bare-knuckle fight. The fight lasted 75 rounds.

1907 - Florenz Ziegfeld staged his first "Follies" on the roof of the New York Theater in New York City.

1919 - U.S. President Wilson returned from the Versailles Peace Conference in France.

1947 - Demolition work began in New York City for the new permanent headquarters of the United Nations.

1950 - General Douglas MacArthur was named commander-in-chief of United Nations ****** in Korea.

1953 - Notre Dame announced that the next five years of its football games would be shown in theatres over closed circuit TV.

1960 - The Soviet Union charged Gary Powers with espionage. He was shot down in a U-2 spy plane.

1963 - All Cuban-owned assets in the United States were frozen.

1969 - The U.S. Patent Office issued a patent for the game "Twister."

1970 - The San Francisco Giant’s Jim Ray Hart became the first National League player in 59 seasons to collect six runs batted (RBI) during a single inning.

1986 - Kurt Waldheim was inaugurated as president of Austria despite controversy over his alleged ties to **** war crimes.

1993 - Charles Keating, chief of Lincoln Savings & Loan Association, was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison for ********* California security and fraud laws.

1997 - The Mayo Clinic and the U.S. government warned that the diet-**** combination known as "fen-phen" could cause serious heart and lung damage.

1997 - NATO invited Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic to join the alliance in 1999.

2000 - J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" was released in the U.S. It was the fourth Harry Potter book.


Current Birthdays


Kevin Bacon turns 51 years old today.

83 John Dingell
U S. representative, D-Mich.


77 Jerry Vale
Singer


74 Steve Lawrence
Singer


67 Phil Gramm
Former U.S. senator, R-Texas


65 Jeffrey Tambor
Actor ("Arrested Development")


62 Kim Darby
Actress


61 Raffi
********'s performer


58 Anjelica Huston
Actress


57 Jack Lambert
Football Hall of Famer


57 Anna Quindlen
Writer


48 Andy Fletcher
Rock musician (Depeche Mode)


48 Graham Jones
Rock musician (Haircut 100)


48 Toby Keith
Country singer


47 Rob Burnett
Writer, producer


47 Joan Osborne
Rock singer


44 Corey Parker
Actor


41 Billy Crudup
Actor


41 Michael Weatherly
Actor


39 Beck
Rock musician


39 Drew Womack
Country singer (Sons of the Desert)


34 Stephen Mason
Rock musician (Jars of Clay)


32 Milo Ventimiglia
Actor ("Heroes")


32 Tavis Werts
Rock musician


30 Ben Jelen
Rock singer


28 Lance Gross
Actor


27 Sophia Bush
Actress ("One Tree Hill")


24 Jamie Cook
Rock musician (Arctic Monkeys)


23 Jake McDorman
Actor ("Greek")


11 Jaden Smith
Actor ("The Pursuit of Happyness")


Historic Birthdays


John D. Rockefeller

7/8/1839 - 5/23/1937
American industrialist and philanthropist

78 Samuel Gross
7/8/1805 - 5/6/1884
American surgeon, teacher and author


54 Alfred Binet
7/8/1857 - 10/18/1911
French psychologist; developed measures of intelligence


77 Kathe Kollwitz
7/8/1867 - 4/22/1945
German graphic artist and sculptor


78 Percy Grainger
7/8/1882 - 2/28/1961
Australian-born American composer, pianist and conductor


92 Ernst Bloch
7/8/1885 - 8/4/1977
German Marxist philosopher


83 Alec Waugh
7/8/1898 - 9/3/1981
English novelist and travel writer


81 David Lilienthal
7/8/1899 - 1/15/1981
American businessman and government official


70 Nelson Rockefeller
7/8/1908 - 1/26/1979
American politician; New York governor (1959-73) and U.S. vice president (1974-7)


66 Louis Jordan
7/8/1908 - 2/4/1975
American singer, saxophonist and bandleader


78 Billy Eckstine
7/8/1914 - 3/8/1993
American singer and bandleader
 
0118 - Hadrian, Rome's new emperor, made his entry into the city.

0455 - Avitus, the Roman military commander in Gaul, became Emperor of the West.

1540 - England's King Henry VIII had his 6-month-old marriage to his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, annulled.

1553 - Maurice of Saxony was mortally wounded at Sievershausen, Germany, while defeating Albert of Brandenburg-Kulmbach.

1609 - In a letter to the crown, the emperor Rudolf II granted Bohemia freedom of worship.

1755 - General Edward Braddock was ****** when French and Indian troops ambushed his ***** of British regulars and colonial militia.

1776 - The American Declaration of Independence was read aloud to Gen. George Washington's troops in New York.

1789 - In Versailles, the French National Assembly declared itself the Constituent Assembly and began to prepare a French constitution.

1790 - The Swedish navy captured one third of the Russian fleet at the naval battle of Svensksund in the Baltic Sea.

1792 - S.L. Mitchell of Columbia College in New York City became the first Professor of Agriculture.

1808 - The leather-splitting machine was patented by Samuel Parker.

1816 - Argentina declared independence from Spain.

1847 - A 10-hour work day was established for workers in the state of New Hampshire.

1850 - U.S. President Zachary Taylor died in office at the age of 55. He was succeeded by Millard Fillmore. Taylor had only served 16 months.

1868 - The 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

1872 - The doughnut cutter was patented by John F. Blondel.

1877 - Alexander Graham Bell, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, Thomas Sanders and Thomas Watson formed the Bell Telephone Company.

1878 - The corncob pipe was patented by Henry Tibbe.

1900 - The Commonwealth of Australia was established by an act of the British Parliament, uniting the separate colonies under a federal government.

1910 - W.R. Brookins became the first to fly an airplane a mile in the air.

1918 - 101 people were ****** when an inbound local train collided with an outbound express in Nashville, TN.

1922 - Johnny Weissmuller became the first person to swim the 100 meters freestyle in less than a minute.

1935 - Norman Bright ran the two mile event in the record time of 9 minutes, 13.2 seconds at a meet in New York City.

1943 - American and British ****** made an amphibious landing on Sicily.

1947 - The engagement of Britain's Princess Elizabeth to Lt. Philip Mountbatten was announced.

1951 - U.S. President Truman asked Congress to formally end the state of war between the United States and Germany.

1953 - New York Airways began the first commuter passenger service by helicopter.

1968 - The first All-Star baseball game to be played indoors took place at the Astrodome in Houston, TX.

1971 - The United States turned over complete responsibility of the Demilitarized Zone to South Vietnamese units.

1982 - A Pan Am Boeing 727 crashed in Kenner, LA, all 146 people aboard and eight people on the ground were ******.

1985 - Herschel Walker of the New Jersey Generals was named the Most Valuable Player in the United States Football League (USFL).

1985 - Joe Namath signed a five-year pact with ABC-TV to provide commentary for "Monday Night Football".

1997 - Mike Tyson was ****** from the boxing ring and fined $3 million for biting the ear of opponent Evander Holyfield.

2005 - Danny Way, a daredevil skateboarder, rolled down a large ramp and jumped across the Great Wall of China. He was the first person to clear the wall without motorized aid.

Current Birthdays


Tom Hanks turns 53 years old today.

82 Ed Ames
Actor, singer


77 Donald Rumsfeld
Former defense secretary


73 James Hampton
Actor


71 Brian Dennehy
Actor


67 Richard Roundtree
Actor


64 Dean Koontz
Author


62 O.J. Simpson
Football Hall of Famer


58 Chris Cooper
Actor


57 John Tesh
Musician, TV personality


56 David Ball
Country singer


55 Debbie Sledge
R&B singer (****** Sledge)


54 Lisa Banes
Actress


54 Jimmy Smits
Actor


54 Lindsey Graham
U.S. senator, R-S.C.


52 Marc Almond
Rock singer (Soft Cell)


52 Kelly McGillis
Actress


50 Jim Kerr
Rock singer (Simple Minds)


45 Courtney Love
Rock singer


44 Frank Bello
Rock musician (Anthrax)


44 David O'Hara
Actor


41 Xavier Muriel
Rock musician (Buckcherry)


38 Scott Grimes
Actor


36 Enrique Murciano
Actor ("Without a Trace")


33 Dan Estrin
Rock musician (Hoobastank)


33 Fred Savage
Actor ("The Wonder Years")


31 Pat Allingham
Country musician


29 Megan Parlen
Actress


23 Kiely Williams
Actress, R&B singer (3lw)


18 Mitchel Musso
Actor ("Hannah Montana")


14 Georgie Henley
Actress ("The Chronicles of Narnia")


Historic Birthdays


Hassan II

7/9/1929 - 7/23/1999
Moroccan king (1961-99)


40 Thomas De La Warr
7/9/1577 - 6/7/1618
English official; one of the founders of the Virginia colony


48 Thomas Davenport
7/9/1802 - 7/6/1851
American inventor; developed successful electric motor


48 Elias Howe
7/9/1819 - 10/3/1867
American inventor of the sewing machine


56 Ottorino Respighi
7/9/1879 - 4/18/1936
Italian composer


66 Mikhail Borodin
7/9/1884 - 5/29/1951
Russian Comintern agent


88 Samuel Eliot Morison
7/9/1887 - 5/15/1976
American biographer and historian


67 Dorothy Thompson
7/9/1893 - 1/30/1961
American journalist and writer


92 Albert Wedemeyer
7/9/1897 - 12/17/1989
American military leader during W. W. II


87 Carmen Franco
7/9/1900 - 2/6/1988
Spanish consort of Francisco Franco


57 Mervyn Peake
7/9/1911 - 11/17/1968
English novelist, poet, playwright and illustrator


89 Edward Heath
7/9/1916 - 7/17/2005
British prime minister (1970-1974)
 
1223 - In France, Louis VIII succeeded his ******, Philip Augustus.

1430 - Joan of Arc, taken prisoner by the Burgundians in May, was handed over to Pierre Cauchon, the bishop of Beauvais.

1456 - Hungarians defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Belgrade.

1536 - France and Portugal signed the naval treaty of Lyons, which aligned them against Spain.

1789 - French Revolution began with Parisians stormed the Bastille prison and released the seven prisoners inside.

1798 - The U.S. Congress ****** the Sedition Act. The act made it a federal crime to write, publish, or utter false or malicious statements about the U.S. government.

1868 - Alvin J. Fellows patented the tape measure.

1891 - The primacy of Thomas Edison's lamp patents was upheld in the court decision Electric Light Company vs. U.S. Electric Lighting Company.

1900 - European Allies retook Tientsin, China, from the rebelling Boxers.

1908 - "The Adventures of Dolly" opened at the Union Square Theatre in New York City.

1911 - Harry N. Atwood landed an airplane on the lawn of the White House to accept an award from U.S. President William Taft.

1914 - Robert H. Goddard patented liquid rocket-fuel.

1933 - All German political parties except the **** Party were outlawed.

1940 - A ***** of German Ju-88 bombers attacked Suez, Egypt, from bases in Crete.

1941 - Vichy French Foreign Legionaries signed an armistice in Damascus, which allowed them to join the Free French Foreign Legion.

1945 - American battleships and cruisers bombarded the Japanese home islands for the first time.

1946 - Dr. Benjamin Spock’s "The Common Sense Book of Baby and ***** Care" was first published.

1951 - The first sports event to be shown in color, on CBS-TV, was the ***** Pitcher Handicap at Oceanport, NJ.

1951 - The George Washington Carver National Monument in Joplin, MO, became the first national park to honor an African American.

1958 - The army of Iraq overthrew the monarchy.

1965 - The American space probe Mariner 4 flew by Mars, and sent back photographs of the planet.

1966 - In a Chicago dormitory, Richard Speck ******** eight student nurses.

1967 - Eddie Mathews of the Houston Astros hit his 500th career home run.

1968 - Hank Aaron, while with the Atlanta Braves, hit his 500th career home run.

1981 - The All-Star Game was postponed because of a 33-day-old baseball players strike. The game was held on August 9.

1998 - Los Angeles sued 15 tobacco companies for $2.5 billion over the dangers of secondhand smoke.

2001 - Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympics. It was the first time that the China had been awarded the games.

2003 - Jerry Springer officially filed papers to run for the U.S. Senate from Ohio.

Current Birthdays


Jackie Earle Haley turns 48 years old today


92 Arthur Laurents
Playwright ("West Side Story," "Gypsy")


86 Dale Robertson
Actor


83 Harry Dean Stanton
Actor


81 Nancy Olson
Actress


79 Polly Bergen
Actress, singer


77 Rosey Grier
Football player


63 Vincent Pastore
Actor ("The Sopranos")


60 Tommy Mottola
Music company executive


57 Jerry Houser
Actor


57 Stan Shaw
Actor


57 Eric Laneuville
Actor, director


51 Scott Rudin
Movie producer


49 Kyle Gass
Rock musician (Tenacious D)


49 Ray Herndon
Country musician


49 Jane Lynch
Actress


43 Tanya Donelly
Rock singer, musician


43 Matthew Fox
Actor ("Lost")


43 Ellen Reid
Rock musician (Crash Test Dummies)


42 Patrick Kennedy
U.S. representative, D-R.I.


39 Missy Gold
Actress


34 Tameka Cottle
R&B singer (Xscape)


34 Tim Hudson
Baseball player


34 Jamey Johnson
Country singer


34 *****
Hip-hop musician (Black-Eyed Peas)


30 Scott Porter
Actor ("Friday Night Lights")



Historic Birthdays


James McNeill Whistler

7/14/1834 - 7/17/1903
American painter and designer

58 Cardinal Jules Mazarin
7/14/1602 - 3/9/1661
Italian-born French cardinal and statesman


60 John Gibson Lockhart
7/14/1794 - 11/25/1854
Scottish critic, novelist and biographer


69 Emmeline Pankhurst
7/14/1858 - 6/14/1928
English leader of women's suffrage movement


55 Gustav Klimt
7/14/1862 - 2/6/1918
Austrian painter


92 Happy Chandler
7/14/1898 - 6/15/1991
American politician and baseball commissioner (1945-51)


73 Pancho Barnes
7/14/1901 - 3/?/1975
American aviator and movie stunt pilot


86 Irving Stone
7/14/1903 - 8/26/1989
American author


55 Woody Guthrie
7/14/1912 - 10/3/1967
American folk singer and songwriter


75 Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson
7/14/1921 - 9/26/1996
English Nobel Prize-winning chemist (1973)
 
Interesting to see about Edison's light bulb patents-he certainly didn't invent the light bulb , it had already been demonstrated and patented in England in 1841.
 
1099 - Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders.

1410 - Poles and Lithuanians defeated the Teutonic knights at Tannenburg, Prussia.

1685 - The Duke of Monmouth was executed in Tower Hill in England, after his army was defeated at Sedgemore.

1788 - Louis XVI jailed 12 deputies who protested new judicial reforms.

1789 - The electors of Paris set up a "Commune" to live without the authority of the government.

1806 - Lieutenant Zebulon Pike began his western expedition from Fort Belle Fountaine, near St. Louis, MS.

1813 - Napoleon Bonaparte's representatives met with the Allies in Prague to discuss peace terms.

1834 - Lord Napier of England arrived in Macao, China as the first chief superintendent of trade.

1857 - British women and ******** were ******** in the second Cawnpore Massacre during the Indian Mutiny.

1863 - Confederate raider Bill Anderson and his Bushwhackers attacked Huntsville, MO, where they stole $45,000 from the local bank.

1870 - Georgia became the last of the Confederate states to be readmitted to the Union.

1876 - George Washington Bradley of St. Louis pitched the first no-hitter in baseball in a 2-0 win over Hartford.

1888 - "Printers’ Ink" was first sold.

1895 - Ex-prime minister of Bulgaria, Stephen Stambulov, was ******** by Macedonian rebels.

1901 - Over 74,000 Pittsburgh steel workers went on strike.

1904 - The first Buddhist temple in the U.S. was established in Los Angeles, CA.

1916 - In Seattle, WA, Pacific Aero Products was incorporated by William Boeing. The company was later renamed Boeing Co.

1918 - The Second Battle of the Marne began during World War I.

1922 - The duck-billed platypus arrived in America, direct from Australia. It was exhibited at the Bronx *** in New York City.

1940 - Robert Wadlow died at the age of 22. At that time he was 8 feet, 11-1/10 inches tall and weighed 439 pounds.

1942 - The first supply flight from India to China over the 'Hump' was carried to help China's war effort.

1958 - Five thousand U.S. Marines landed in Beirut, Lebanon, to protect the pro-Western government. The troops withdrew October 25, 1958.

1965 - The spacecraft Mariner IV sent back the first close-up pictures of the planet Mars.

1965 - Joan Rivers and Edgar Rosenberg were married.

1968 - ABC-TV premiered "One Life to Live".

1968 - Commercial air travel began between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., when the first plane, a Soviet Aeroflot jet, landed at Kennedy International Airport in New York.

1971 - U.S. President Nixon announced he would visit the People's Republic of China to seek a "normalization of relations."

1973 - Nolan Ryan of the California Angels became the first pitcher in two decades to win two no-hitters in a season.

1976 - A 36-hour ****** ordeal began for 26 schoolchildren and their bus driver when they were ******** by three gunmen near Chowchilla, CA. All of the captives escaped unharmed.

1981 - Steven Ford, *** of former President Gerald R. Ford, appeared in a seduction scene of "The Young and the Restless" on CBS-TV. Ford played the part of Andy.

1985 - Baseball players voted to strike on August 6th if no contract was reached with baseball owners. The strike turned out to be just a one-day interruption.

1997 - Gianni Versace was shot to death by Andrew Phillip Cunanan outside his home in Miami, FL. Cunanan was found dead eight days later.

1999 - Harold Greene received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2002 - John Walker Lindh plead guilty to two felonies. The crimes were supplying services to Afghanistan's former Taliban government and for carrying explosives during the commission of a felony. Lindh agreed to spend 10 years in prison for each of the charges.


Current Birthdays


Arianna Huffington turns 59 years old today


78 Clive Cussler
Author


74 Alex Karras
Actor


74 Ken Kercheval
Actor


73 George Voinovich
U.S. senator, R-Ohio


70 Patrick Wayne
Actor


65 Millie Jackson
R&B singer


65 Jan-Michael Vincent
Actor


64 Peter Lewis
Rock singer, musician (Moby Grape)


63 Linda Ronstadt
Singer


61 Artimus Pyle
Rock musician (Lynyrd Skynyrd)


57 Terry O'Quinn
Actor ("Lost")


57 John Stallworth
Football Hall of Famer


53 Marky Ramone
Rock musician (The Ramones)


53 Joe Satriani
Rock musician


52 Mac McAnally
Country singer, songwriter


49 Kim Alexis
Model


49 Willie Aames
Actor ("Eight is Enough")


48 ****** Davidovich
Actress


48 Forest Whitaker
Actor ("The Last King of Scotland")


46 Brigitte Nielsen
Actress


43 Jason Bonham
Rock musician (Led Zeppelin)


43 Kristoff St. John
Actor ("The Young and the Restless")


42 Phillip Fisher
Rock musician


41 Eddie Griffin
Actor, comedian


41 Stan Kirsch
Actor


40 Reggie Hayes
Actor


37 John Dolmayan
Rock musician


37 Scott Foley
Actor ("The Unit," "Felicity")


36 Brian Austin Green
Actor ("Beverly Hills 90210")


33 Jim Jones
Rapper


33 Diane Kruger
Actress


32 Lana Parrilla
Actress ("Swingtown")


36 Ray Toro
Rock musician (My Chemical Romance)


30 Travis Fimmel
Actor


28 Kia Thornton
R&B singer (Divine)

Historic Birthdays


Dame Iris Murdoch

7/15/1919 - 2/8/1999
British novelist and philosopher


78 Inigo Jones
7/15/1573 - 6/21/1652
English architect, painter and designer


63 Rembrandt Van Rijn
7/15/1606 - 10/4/1669
Dutch painter, draftsman and etcher


83 Clement Moore
7/15/1779 - 7/10/1863
American scholar; wrote "The Night Before Christmas"


73 Sir Henry Cole
7/15/1808 - 4/18/1882
English art patron and educator


67 ****** Cabrini
7/15/1850 - 12/22/1917
Italian-born American founder of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart; canonized in 1946


57 Alfred Northcliffe
7/15/1865 - 8/14/1922
English newspaper publisher


38 Jacques Riviere
7/15/1886 - 2/14/1925
French writer, critic and editor


69 Thomas Francis, Jr.
7/15/1900 - 10/1/1969
American microbiologist and epidemiologist


62 Philly Joe Jones
7/15/1923 - 8/30/1985
American jazz percussionist
 
1099 - Jerusalem fell to the Crusaders.

It's always been fascinating to me that of the two most famous Crusades - the First and Third - the only one to do real military work was the First. King Richard I could have re-taken Jerusalem, but couldn't - or wouldn't unite the Crusaders again during the Third Crusade.
 
It's always been fascinating to me that of the two most famous Crusades - the First and Third - the only one to do real military work was the First. King Richard I could have re-taken Jerusalem, but couldn't - or wouldn't unite the Crusaders again during the Third Crusade.

And King Richard nearly bankrupted the country with the Crusades and left his ******* John to clear up the mess.Yet Richard is well regarded and John is seen as the villain of the piece.
 
1212 - The Moslems were crushed in the Spanish crusade.

1453 - France defeated England at Castillon, France, which ended the 100 Years' War.

1762 - Peter III of Russia was ********. Catherine II the Great took the throne.

1785 - France limited the importation of goods from Britain.

1815 - Napoleon Bonaparte surrendered to the British at Rochefort, France.

1821 - Spain ceded Florida to the U.S.

1862 - National cemeteries were authorized by the U.S. government.

1866 - Authorization was given to build a tunnel beneath the Chicago River. The three-year project cost $512,709.

1867 - Harvard School of Dental Medicine was established in Boston, MA. It was the first dental school in the U.S.

1898 - U.S. troops under General William R. Shafter took Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American War.

1917 - The British royal ****** adopted the Windsor name.

1920 - Sinclair Lewis finished his novel "Main Street".

1941 - The longest hitting streak in baseball history ended when the Cleveland Indians pitchers held New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio hitless for the first time in 57 games.

1941 - Brigadier General Soervell directed Architect G. Edwin Bergstrom to have basic plans and architectural perspectives for an office building that could house 40,000 War Department employees on his desk by the following Monday morning. The building became known as the Pentagon.

1944 - 232 people were ****** when 2 ammunition ships exploded in Port Chicago, CA.

1945 - U.S. President Truman, Soviet leader Josef Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill began meeting at Potsdam in the final Allied summit of World War II. During the meeting Stalin made the comment that "Hitler had escaped."

1946 - Chinese communists opened a drive against the Nationalist army on the Yangtze River.

1950 - The television show "The Colgate Comedy Hour" debuted featuring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

1954 - The Brooklyn Dodgers made history as the first team with a majority of black players.

1955 - Disneyland opened in Anaheim, CA.

1960 - Francis Gary Powers pled guilty to spying charges in a Moscow court after his U-2 spy plane was shot down over the Soviet Union.

1966 - Ho Chi Minh ordered a partial mobilization of North Vietnam ****** to defend against American air strikes.

1975 - An Apollo spaceship docked with a Soyuz spacecraft in orbit. It was the first link up between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

1979 - Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigned and fled to Miami in exile.

1981 - Two skywalks suspended from the ceiling over the atrium lobby at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, MO, collapsed. 114 people were ******. Five years later two design engineers were convicted for their negligence.

1986 - The largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history took place when LTV Corporation asked for court protection from more than 20,000 creditors. LTV Corp. had debts in excess of $4 billion.

1987 - Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North and rear Admiral John Poindexter begin testifying to Congress at the "Iran-Contra" hearings.

1995 - The Nasdaq composite stock index rose above 1,000 for the first time.

1996 - 230 people were ****** when TWA Flight 800 exploded and crashed off Long Island, NY.

1997 - After 117 years, the Woolworth Corp. closed its last 400 stores.

1998 - Nicholas II, the last of Romanov czars, was buried in Russia 80 years after he and his ****** were executed by the Bolsheviks.

1998 - An entire village was swept away in Papua New Guinea by a 23-foot wave that was triggered by an undersea earthquake. Eight days later the government reported that 1,500 people were dead, 2,000 were missing and thousands were homeless.

1998 - Biologists reported that they had deciphered the genome (genetic map) of the syphilis bacterium

Current Birthdays


Angela Merkel turns 55 years old today.



97 Art Linkletter
TV personality


92 Phyllis Diller
Comedian


84 Jimmy Scott
Jazz singer


74 Diahann Carroll
Actress, singer


74 Donald Sutherland
Actor


67 Spencer Davis
Rock singer, musician


67 Connie Hawkins
Basketball Hall of Famer


62 Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall
Wife of Britain's Prince Charles


60 Terry "Geezer" Butler
Rock musician (Black Sabbath)


58 Lucie Arnaz
Actress


57 David Hasselhoff
Actor ("Baywatch," "America's Got Talent")


57 Fran Smith Jr.
Rock musician (The Hooters)


57 Phoebe Snow
R&B singer


53 Bryan Trottier
Hockey Hall of Famer


49 Mark Burnett
TV producer ("Survivor," "The Apprentice")


49 Nancy Giles
Actress


46 Regina Belle
R&B singer


45 Craig Morgan
Country singer


43 Lou Barlow
Rock musician


43 Guru
Hip-hop singer (Gang Starr)


42 Susan Ashton
Contemporary Christian singer


41 Andre Royo
Actor ("The Wire")


41 Bitty Schram
Actress


40 Jason Clarke
Actor


38 JC
R&B singer (PM Dawn)


36 Sole
Rapper


33 Luke Bryan
Country singer


33 Eric Winter
Actor


21 Summer Bishil
Actress


Historic Birthdays


James Cagney

7/17/1899 - 3/30/1986
American motion-picture actor

73 William Gargan
7/17/1905 - 2/16/1979
American motion-picture and television actor


71 Georges Lemaitre
7/17/1894 - 6/20/1966
Belgian astronomer and cosmologist


80 Erle Stanley Gardner
7/17/1889 - 3/11/1970
American mystery novelist and lawyer


81 S. Y. Agnon
7/17/1888 - 2/17/1970
Israeli novelist and short-story writer


86 Ernest Rhys
7/17/1859 - 5/25/1946
English editor


90 Sir Erskine Holland
7/17/1835 - 5/24/1926
English legal scholar


84 John Jacob Astor
7/17/1763 - 3/29/1848
German-born American founder of the Astor dynasty


70 Elbridge Gerry
7/17/1744 - 11/23/1814
American Revolutionary leader and U.S. vice president (1813-14)


47 Alexander Baumgarten
7/17/1714 - 5/26/1762
German philosopher and educator
 
1801 - A 1,235 pound cheese ball was pressed at the **** of Elisha Brown, Jr. The ball of cheese was later loaded on a *****-driven wagon and presented to U.S. President Thomas Jefferson at the White House.

1810 - Colombia declared independence from Spain.

1859 - Brooklyn and New York played baseball at Fashion Park Race Course on Long Island, NY. The game marked the first time that admission had been charged for to see a ball game. It cost $.50 to get in and the players on the field did not receive a salary (until 1863).

1861 - The Congress of the Confederate States began holding sessions in Richmond, VA.

1868 - Legislation that ordered U.S. tax stamps to be placed on all cigarette packs was ******.

1871 - British Columbia joined Confederation as a Canadian province.

1881 - Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull, a fugitive since the Battle of the Little Big Horn, surrendered to federal troops.

1917 - The draft lottery in World War I went into operation.

1935 - NBC radio debuted "G-men." The show was later renamed "Gangbusters."

1942 - The first detachment of the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps, (WACS) began basic training at Fort Des Moines, Iowa.

1944 - An attempt by a group of German officials to assassinate Adolf Hitler failed. The bomb exploded at Hitler's Rastenburg headquarters. Hitler was only wounded.

1944 - U.S. President Roosevelt was nominated for an unprecedented fourth term of office at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

1947 - The National Football League (NFL) ruled that no professional team could sign a player who had college eligibility remaining.

1951 - Jordan's King Abdullah Ibn Hussein was assassinated in Jerusalem.

1961 - "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off" opened in London.

1969 - Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr. became the first men to walk on the moon.

1974 - Turkish ****** invaded Cyprus.

1976 - America's Viking I robot spacecraft made a successful landing on Mars.

1977 - A flash flood hit Johnstown, PA, ******* 80 people and causing $350 million worth of damage.

1982 - U.S. President Ronald Reagan pulled the U.S. out of comprehensive test ban negotiations indefinitely.

1985 - Treasure hunters began raising $400 million in coins and silver from the Spanish galleon "Nuestra Senora de Atocha." The ship sank in 1622 40 miles of the coast of Key West, FL.

1992 - Vaclav Havel, the playwright who led the Velvet Revolution against communism, stepped down as president of Czechoslovakia.

1993 - White House deputy counsel Vincent ****** Jr. was found shot to death, a suicide, in a park near Washington, DC.

1997 - Seven people were arrested after New York City police found scores of deaf Mexicans kept in slave-like conditions and ****** to peddle trinkets for the smugglers who had brought them to the U.S.

1998 - Russia won a $11.2 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund to help avert the devaluation of its currency.

2003 - In India, elephants used for commercial work began wearing reflectors to avoid being hit by cars during night work.


Current Birthdays


Julianne Hough turns 21 years old today.



79 Sally Ann Howes
Actress, singer


74 Sleepy LaBeef
Rockabilly singer


73 Barbara Mikulski
U.S. senator, D-Md.


71 Diana Rigg
Actress ("The Avengers")


66 John Lodge
Rock musician (The Moody Blues)


65 T.G. Sheppard
Country singer


64 Kim Carnes
Rock singer


64 Larry Craig
Former U.S. senator, R-Idaho


62 Carlos Santana
Rock musician


53 Paul Cook
Rock musician (The Sex Pistols)


52 Donna Dixon
Actress


51 Mick McNeil
Rock musician (Simple Minds)


50 Radney ******
Country singer


46 Frank Whaley
Actor


45 Chris Cornell
Rock singer


43 Stone Gossard
Rock musician (Pearl Jam)


42 Reed Diamond
Actor


40 Josh Holloway
Actor ("Lost")


40 Vitamin C
Singer


36 Peter Forsberg
Hockey player


35 Simon Rex
Actor


34 Judy Greer
Actress


31 Charlie Korsmo
Actor


31 Elliott Yamin
Singer ("American Idol")


29 Gisele Bundchen
Supermodel


29 Mike Kennerty
Rock musician (The All-American Rejects)


27 Percy Daggs III
Actor ("Veronica Mars")


24 John Francis Daley
Actor


13 Billi Bruno
Actress ("According to Jim")



Historic Birthdays


Elliot Richardson

7/20/1920 - 12/31/1999
American politician; attorney general during the Watergate scandal (1973)

69 Petrarch
7/20/1304 - 7/19/1374
Italian scholar and poet


48 Giuseppe La Farina
7/20/1815 - 9/5/1863
Italian writer and leader of the Risorgimento


60 Augustin Daly
7/20/1838 - 6/7/1899
American playwright and theatrical manager


90 Sir George Otto Trevelyan
7/20/1838 - 8/17/1928
English historian, statesman and biographer


87 Max Liebermann
7/20/1847 - 2/8/1935
German painter and etcher


70 Miron Cristea
7/20/1868 - 3/6/1939
Romanian; first patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church


59 Santos-Dumont Alberto
7/20/1873 - 7/23/1932
Brazilian aviation pioneer


56 George II
7/20/1890 - 4/1/1947
Greek king (1922-4; 1935-47)


79 Errett Lobban Cord
7/20/1894 - 1/2/1974
American automobile manufacturer
 
1715 - The first lighthouse in America was authorized for construction at Little Brewster Island, Massachusetts.

1827 - The first swimming school in the U.S. opened in Boston, MA.

1829 - William Burt patented the typographer, which was the first typewriter.

1877 - The first municipal railroad passenger service began in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1886 - Steve Brodie, a New York saloonkeeper, claimed to have made a daredevil plunge from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River.

1904 - The ice cream cone was invented by Charles E. Menches during the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, MO.

1914 - Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the ******* of Archduke Francis Ferdinand by a Serb assassin. The dispute led to World War I.

1938 - The first federal game preserve was approved by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The area was 2,000 acres in Utah.

1945 - The first passenger train observation car was placed in service by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.

1952 - Egyptian military officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew King Farouk I.

1954 - A law is ****** that states that "The Secretary of the Navy is authorized to repair, equip, and restore the United States Ship Constitution, as far as may be practicable, to her original appearance, but not for active service, and thereafter to maintain the United States Ship Constitution at Boston, Massachusetts."

1958 - The submarine Nautilus departed from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, under orders to conduct "Operation Sunshine." The mission was to be the first vessel to cross the north pole by ship. The Nautils achieved the goal on August 3, 1958.

1962 - The "Telstar" communications satellite sent the first live TV broadcast to Europe.

1967 - In Detroit, MI, rioting that claimed some 43 lives.

1972 - Eddie Merckx of Belgium won his fourth consecutive Tour de France bicycling competition.

1972 - The U.S. launched Landsat 1 (ERTS-1). It was the first Earth-resources satellite.

1977 - A jury in Washington, DC, convicted 12 Hanafi Muslims of charges stemming from the hostage siege at three buildings the previous March.

1984 - Miss America, Vanessa Williams, turned in her crown after it had been discovered that nude photos of her had appeared in "Penthouse" magazine. She was the first to resign the title.

1986 - Britain's Prince Andrew married Sarah Ferguson at Westminster Abbey in London. They divorced in 1996.

1997 - Police in Miami Beach, FL, found the body of Andrew Cunanan. He was the suspected killer of Gianni Versace.

1998 - U.S. scientists at the University of Hawaii turned out more than 50 "carbon-copy" mice, with a cloning technique.

2000 - Lance Armstrong won his second Tour de France.


Current Birthdays


Philip Seymour Hoffman turns 42 years old today.



84 Gloria DeHaven
Actress


73 Anthony Kennedy
Supreme Court justice


71 Ronny Cox
Actor


69 Don Imus
Radio personality


66 Tony Joe White
Country singer


62 David Essex
Rock singer


62 Larry Manetti
Actor


61 John Hall
Singer (Orleans), U.S. congressman


59 Belinda Montgomery
Actress


59 Blair Thornton
Rock musician (Bachman Turner Overdrive)


48 Martin Gore
Rock musician (Depeche Mode)


48 Woody Harrelson
Actor


47 Eriq La Salle
Actor ("ER")


46 Yuval Gabay
Rock musician


44 Slash
Rock musician (Guns 'n' Roses)


41 Nick Menza
Rock musician (Megadeth)


41 Stephanie Seymour
Model


39 Charisma Carpenter
Actress ("Angel," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer")


39 Sam Watters
R&B singer


38 Dalvin DeGrate
R&B singer


38 Chad Gracey
Rock musician (Live)


37 Marlon Wayans
Actor, comedian


36 Shannon Brown
Country singer


36 Omar Epps
Actor ("House M.D.")


36 Nomar Garciaparra
Baseball player


35 Stephanie March
Actress


33 Alison Krauss
Country singer-musician


32 David Pichette
Country musician (Emerson Drive)


29 Michelle Williams
R&B singer (Destiny's *****)


20 Daniel Radcliffe
Actor ("Harry Potter" movies)



Historic Birthdays


Haile Selassie I

7/23/1892 - 8/26/1975
Ethiopian emperor from 1930 to 1974



64 Francesco Sforza
7/23/1401 - 3/8/1466
Italian condottiere and duke of Milan


86 Sir Thomas Brisbane
7/23/1773 - 1/27/1860
English soldier and astronomical observer


84 Sir Jonathan Hutchinson
7/23/1828 - 6/26/1913
English medical researcher


92 S. H. Kress
7/23/1863 - 9/22/1955
American retail businessman and art collector


91 Sunny Jim Fitzsimmons
7/23/1874 - 3/11/1966
American racehorse trainer


65 Emil Jannings
7/23/1884 - 1/2/1950
Swiss-born German stage and screen actor


62 Sir Arthur Whitten Brown
7/23/1886 - 10/4/1948
English aviator; co-captained the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic


70 Raymond Chandler
7/23/1888 - 3/26/1959
American author of detective stories


66 Harry Cohn
7/23/1891 - 2/27/1958
American co-founder of Columbia Pictures


57 Elio Vittorini
7/23/1908 - 2/13/1966
Italian novelist, translator and literary critic


79 Pimen
7/23/1910 - 5/3/1990
Russian Orthodox patriarch of Moscow and Russia
 
1847 - Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers arrived in the valley of the Great Salt Lake in present-day Utah.

1847 - Richard M. *** patented the rotary-type printing press.

1849 - Georgetown University in Washington, DC, presented its first Doctor of Music Degree. It was given to Professor Henry Dielman.

1866 - Tennessee became the first state to be readmitted to the Union after the U.S. Civil War.

1923 - The Treaty of Lausanne, which settled the boundaries of modern Turkey, was concluded in Switzerland.

1929 - U.S. President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy.

1933 - The first broadcast of "The Romance of Helen Trent" was heard on radio. 7,222 episodes were aired.

1933 - U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave his fourth "Fireside Chat."

1948 - Soviet occupation ****** in Germany blockaded West Berlin. The U.S.-British airlift began the following day.

1956 - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis ended their team. They ended the partnership a decade after it began on July 25, 1946.

1969 - The Apollo 11 astronauts splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

1974 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Nixon had to turn over subpoenaed White House tape recordings to the Watergate special prosecutor.

1978 - Billy Martin was fired for the first of three times as the manager of the New York Yankees baseball team.

1984 - Terry Bradshaw retired from the National Football League.

1985 - Walt Disney released their 25th full-length cartoon. The work was "The Black Cauldron."

1987 - Hulda Crooks, at 91 years of age, climbed Mt. Fuji. Hulda became the oldest person to climb Japan’s highest peak.

1998 - A gunman burst into U.S. Capitol and opened fire ******* two police officers. Russel Weston Jr., was later ruled incompetent to stand trial.

1998 - Roy O. Disney received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

2003 - The U.S. released pictures of the bodies of Odai and Qusai Hussein. The two died during a battle with U.S. ****** near Mosul, Iraq.

Current Birthdays


Anna Paquin turns 27 years old today.

88 Billy Taylor
Jazz pianist


80 Peter Yates
Director


79 Jacqueline Brookes
Actress


76 John Aniston
Actor ("Days of Our Lives")


74 Pat Oliphant
Political cartoonist


73 Ruth Buzzi
Comedian ("Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In")


73 Mark Goddard
Actor


69 Dan Hedaya
Actor


67 Chris Sarandon
Actor


63 Gallagher
Comedian


62 Robert Hays
Actor ("Airplane!" movies)


60 Michael Richards
Actor ("Seinfeld")


58 Lynda Carter
Actress ("Wonder Woman")


57 Gus Van Sant
Director


56 Claire McCaskill
U.S. senator, D-Mo.


53 Charlie Crist
Governor of Florida


52 Pam Tillis
Country singer


46 Karl Malone
Basketball player


45 Barry Bonds
Baseball player


44 Kadeem Hardison
Actor


41 Kristin Chenoweth
Actress, singer


41 Laura Leighton
Actress


41 John P. Navin Jr.
Actor


40 Rick Fox
Actor


40 Jennifer Lopez
Actress, singer


34 Eric Szmanda
Actor ("CSI")


30 Rose Byrne
Actress ("Damages")


28 Summer Glau
Actress ("Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles")


27 Elisabeth Moss
Actress ("Mad Men")


22 Mara Wilson
Actress

Historic Birthdays


Bella Abzug

7/24/1920 - 3/31/1998
American politician, lawyer and activist

53 Benedetto Marcello
7/24/1686 - 7/24/1739
Italian composer, writer and poet


47 Simon Bolivar
7/24/1783 - 12/17/1830
South American soldier and statesman


68 Alexander Dumas
7/24/1802 - 12/5/1870
French author and dramatist; wrote "The Three Musketeers"


89 Alexander Davis
7/24/1803 - 1/14/1892
American architect, designer and illustrator


84 William Gillette
7/24/1853 - 4/29/1937
American playwright and actor; portrayed Sherlock Holmes


90 Robert Graves
7/24/1895 - 12/7/1985
English poet, novelist, critic and classical scholar


40 Amelia Earhart
7/24/1897 - 7/2/1937
American aviator; the first woman to fly alone over the Atlantic


84 James Rhyne Killian
7/24/1904 - 1/29/1988
American president of M.I.T. (1948-59); helped create NASA


70 John D. MacDonald
7/24/1916 - 12/28/1986
American mystery and science fiction writer


77 Cootie Williams
7/24/c 1908 - 9/15/1985
American jazz musician
 
0326 - Constantine refused to carry out the traditional pagan sacrifices.

1394 - Charles VI of France issued a decree for the general expulsion of Jews from France.

1564 - Maximillian II became emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

1587 - Japanese strong-man Hideyoshi ****** Christianity in Japan and ordered all Christians to leave.

1593 - France's King Henry IV converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism.

1759 - British ****** defeated a French army at Fort Niagara in Canada.

1799 - Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Ottomans at Aboukir, Egypt.

1805 - Aaron Burr visited New Orleans with plans to establish a new country, with New Orleans as the capital city.

1845 - China granted Belgium equal trading rights with Britain, France and the United States.

1850 - In Worcester, MA, Harvard and Yale University freshmen met in the first intercollegiate billiards match.

1850 - Gold was discovered in the Rogue River in Oregon.

1854 - The paper collar was patented by Walter Hunt.

1861 - The Crittenden Resolution, which called for the American Civil War to be fought to preserve the Union and not for slavery, was ****** by the U.S. Congress.

1866 - Ulysses S. Grant was named General of the Army. He was the first American officer to hold the rank.

1868 - The U.S. Congress ****** an act creating the Wyoming Territory.

1871 - Seth Wheeler patented perforated wrapping paper.

1907 - Korea became a protectorate of Japan.

1909 - French aviator Louis Bleriot flew across the English Channel in a monoplane. He traveled from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes. He was the first man to fly across the channel.

1914 - Russia declared that it would act to protect Serbian sovereignty.

1924 - Greece announced the deportation of 50,000 Armenians.

1934 - Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss was shot and ****** by Nazis.

1939 - W2XBS TV in New York City presented the first musical comedy seen on TV. The show was "Topsy and Eva".

1941 - The U.S. government froze all Japanese and Chinese assets.

1943 - Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini was overthrown in a coup.

1946 - The U.S. detonated an atomic bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. It was the first underwater test of the device.

1946 - Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis staged their first show as a team at Club 500 in Atlantic City, NJ.

1947 - Fortune Gordien of Oslo, Norway set a world record discus throw of 178.47 feet.

1952 - Puerto Rico became a self-governing commonwealth of the U.S.

1956 - The Italian liner Andrea Doria sank after colliding with the Swedish ship Stockholm off the New England coast. 51 people were ******.

1978 - Louise Joy Brown, the first test-tube baby, was born in Oldham, England. She had been conceived through in-vitro fertilization.

1978 - Pete Rose of the Cincinnati Red's broke the National League record for consecutive base hits as he got a hit in 38 straight games.

1984 - Soviet cosmonaut Svetlana Savitskaya became the first woman to walk in space. She was aboard the orbiting space station Salyut 7.

1987 - The Salt Lake City Trappers set a professional baseball record as the team won its 29th game in a row.

1994 - Israel and Jordan formally ended the state of war that had existed between them since 1948.

1997 - K.R. Narayanan became India's president. He was the first member of the Dalits caste to do so.

1998 - The USS Harry S. Truman was commissioned and put into service by the U.S. Navy.

1998 - U.S. President Clinton was subpoenaed to appear before a federal grand jury regarding the Monica Lewinsky case. The subpoena was withdrawn when Clinton agreed to give videotaped testimony with his lawyers present.

1999 - Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France. He was only the second American to win the race. He won the race again in 2000.

2000 - A supersonic Concorde crashed outside Paris, France, ******* all 109 people aboard and 5 on the ground.

Current Birthdays


Robert Zoellick turns 56 years old today.


74 Barbara Harris
Actress


68 Nate Thurmond
Basketball Hall of Famer


66 Jim McCarty
Rock musician (The Yardbirds)


58 Verdine White
Rock musician (Earth, Wind and Fire)


54 Jem Finer
Rock musician (The Pogues)


54 Iman
Model, actress


52 Ray Billingsley
Cartoonist


51 Thurston Moore
Rock musician (Sonic Youth)


48 Bobbie Eakes
Actress, singer ("All My ********")


48 Katherine Kelly Lang
Actress ("The Bold and the Beautiful")


44 Marty Brown
Country singer


44 Illeana Douglas
Actress


42 Matt LeBlanc
Actor ("Friends")


41 Paavo Lotjonen
Rock musician (Apocalyptica)


40 D.B. Woodside
Actor


38 Miriam Shor
Actress


38 Billy Wagner
Baseball player


24 James Lafferty
Actor ("One Tree Hill")


14 Faryl Smith
Singer

Historic Birthdays


Arthur James Balfour

7/25/1848 - 3/19/1930
British statesman

56 Henry Knox
7/25/1750 - 10/25/1806
American Revolutionary war general and first U.S. secretary of war


78 Maria Weston Chapman
7/25/1806 - 7/12/1885
American abolitionist


74 Richard Oglesby
7/25/1824 - 4/24/1899
American governor of Illinois (1865-69, 1873, 1885-89) and U.S. senator (1873-79)


71 Thomas Eakins
7/25/1844 - 6/25/1916
American painter


77 David Belasco
7/25/1853 - 5/14/1931
American theatrical producer and playwright


95 Maxfield Parrish
7/25/1870 - 3/10/1966
American illustrator and painter


49 Davidson Black
7/25/1884 - 3/15/1934
Canadian physician and physical anthropologist


80 Eric Hoffer
7/25/1902 - 5/21/1983
American longshoreman, philosopher and writer


89 Elias Canetti
7/25/1905 - 8/14/1994
Bulgarian Nobel Prize-winning novelist and playwright (1981)


63 Johnny Hodges
7/25/1906 - 5/11/1970
American jazz saxophonist; soloist in Duke Ellington's orchestra
 
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