Thursday, August 9, 2012

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS:

• Gillian Anderson (actress, The X Files) (44)
• Eric Bana (actor, Black Hawk Down, The Hulk, Troy, Munich, Star Trek, Funny People, The Time Traveler's Wife) (44)
• Kevin McKidd (actor, Rome, Grey's Anatomy, Made of Honor, Trainspotting) (39)
• Melanie Griffith (actress, Working Girl, The Bonfire Of The Vanities, Mulholland Falls; wife of Antonio Banderas; former wife of Don Johnson -- twice) (55)
• Sam Elliott (actor, Mask, Road House, Rush, The Contender, We Were Soldiers, The Hulk) (68)
• Deion Sanders (retired pro football and baseball player) (45)
• Barbara Mason (singer, "Yes, I'm Ready") (65)
• Audrey Tautou (French actress, Amelie, The Da Vinci Code, Coco Before Chanel) (34, somes sources say 36)
• Rhona Mitra (actress, Nip/Tuck, The Gates, Doomsday) (36)
• Kurtis Blow (rap pioneer) (53)
• Ken Norton (former heavyweight boxer) (69)
• Pete Thomas (drummer, Elvis Costello & the Attractions) (58)
• Amanda Bearse (actress, Marcy on Married...With Children) (54)
• Arion Salazar (bass player, formerly of Third Eye Blind) (42)
• Anna Kendrick (actress, Twilight Saga, Up in the Air) (27)
• Jessica Capshaw (actress, Grey's Anatomy's Dr. Arizona Roberts, daughter of Kate Capshaw and stepdaughter of Steven Spielberg) (36)
• Sam Fogarino (drummer, Interpol) (44)
• Audrey Tautou (French actress, Amelie, The Da Vinci Code) (36)

ON THIS DAY:

• 1854, Author Henry David Thoreau published Walden, in which he described his experiences while living in a small cabin near Walden Pond inMassachusetts.
• 1920 Actor Allen "Farina" Hoskins (The Little Rascals) is born. He dies in 1980.
• 1927 Actor Robert Shaw (From Russia With Love, The Sting, Jaws, The Deep, Force 10 From Navarone) is born. He dies in 1978.
• 1936, at the Berlin Olympics, African-American track star Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal of the games in the 4-by-100-meter relay. His relay team set a new world record of 39.8 seconds, which held for 20 years.
• 1944, Smokey Bear (not Smokey The Bear), an advertising character by the U.S. Forest Service and the Wartime Advertising Council, made his debut as spokesbear for forest fire prevention. Only you can prevent forest fires.
• 1945, at 11:02 a.m. local time, three days after the atomic bombing ofHiroshima,Japan, theU.S. dropped a second atomic bomb, the "Fat Man", onJapan, destroying part of the city ofNagasaki. An estimated 74,000 people died from the blast or its after-effects.
• 1963, Whitney Houston (R&B singer and actress) is born. She dies in February 2012, drowning in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel inLos Angeles.
• 1969, actress Sharon Tate and four other people were found brutally murdered in Tate's Los Angeles home. Cult leader Charles Manson and a group of his disciples were later convicted of the crime.
• 1974, at noon ET, President Richard M. Nixon formally resigned as President of the United States, becoming the first person in the history of the country to resign the top political office in the land. Gerald R. Ford was sworn in as the nation's 38th chief executive.
• 1976, Cal Hubbard, with his induction as an umpire into the Baseball Hall Of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, became the first professional athlete to be elected to two Halls Of Fame. In 1963, he was enshrined in the Pro Football Hall Of Fame inCanton,Ohio.
• 1978, The Carol Burnett Show last aired on CBS after 11 years.
• 1985, Pee Wee's Big Adventure starring Paul Reubens opened in theaters.
• 1990 A judge in Daytona Beach, Florida, orders Flea and Chad Smith of the Red Hot Chili Peppers to pay $5,000 each to a rape crisis center and to apologize to a 20-year-old college student, who complained that the two Peppers spanked her and tried to take off her bikini bottom.
• 1995, Northern Exposure last aired on CBS.
• 1995, Rock musician Jerry Garcia, founder and lead singer of the Grateful Dead, died of a heart attack in San Francisco. He was 53.
• 1999 Limp Bizkit's Significant Other is certified triple platinum.
• 1999 Nerine Kidd, the wife of actor William Shatner, is found dead in the swimming pool at their home inStudio City,California.
• 1999 The movie Detroit Rock City -- based on a fan's road trip to see Kiss, and starring Edward Furlong, Natasha Lyonne, and Shannon Tweed -- premieres.
• 1999, for the first time in major league history, five grand slams were hit in a single day. Fernando Tatis of the Cardinals, Jose Vidro of the Expos, Mike Lowell of the Marlins, Bernie Williams of the Yankees, and Jay Buhner of the Mariners all connected to set the record.
• 2000 Citing "personal and professional differences," Creed announces that they are parting ways with founding bass player Brian Marshall. He is never permanently replaced.
• 2000 Courtney Love suffers an ankle injury while training for her role in director John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars, preventing her from appearing in the movie.
• 2000 Korn frontman Jonathan Davis is sued in Los Angeles Superior Court for breach of contract and fraud by his ex-wife, Renee Perez Davis.
• 2001 R.E.M.'s second Unplugged premieres on MTV2.
• 2001, President George W. Bush approved federal funding for research only on existing lines of embryonic stem cells.
• 2002 Oscar-winning actor and National Rifle Association president Charlton Heston reveals that he has symptoms consistent with Alzheimer's disease.
• 2003 Actor-singer-dancer Gregory Hines (History Of The World Part I, White Nights, Running Scared, Waiting To Exhale, Will & Grace) dies at age 57.
• 2005 More than 10,000 fans show up to see a surprise show by Staind at City Hall Plaza inBoston.
• 2006 It is revealed that Hawthorne Heights is suing its former label, Chicago-based Victory Records, charging the company and its chief, Tony Brummel, with fraudulent accounting and of "severely damaging" the band's reputation through "overly-aggressive, unethical and illegal schemes and tactics."
• 2006 People magazine reveals that former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker is filing for divorce from his wife, Shanna Moakler.
• 2006 Stone Sour's second album, Come What(ever) May, sells more than 80,000 copies in its first week of release to debut at Number Four on the Billboard chart.
• 2008 Ozzfest takes place as a one-day destination festival in Dallas, Texas. Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica co-headline, with the event also featuring sets from Korn singer Jonathan Davis, Hellyeah, The Sword, Cavalera Conspiracy and others.