Sunday, August 12, 2012

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS:

• Peter Krause (actor, Parenthood, , The Truman Show, SportsNight, Six Feet Under's Nate, Dirty Sexy Money) (47)
• George Hamilton (actor-professional tanner, Where The Boys Are, Love At First Bite, The Godfather: Part III, Doc Hollywood) (73)
• Pete Sampras (tennis player) (41)
• Casey Affleck (actor, The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford, Gone Baby Gone, American Pie 1 and 2, Ocean's Eleven, Oceans Twelve, Oceans Thirteen; brother of Ben Affleck) (37)
• Pat Metheny (jazz guitarist) (58)
• Mark Knopfler (guitarist, leader of Dire Straits) (63)
• Rebecca Gayheart (actress; wife of Eric Dane) (41)
• Katherine Narducci (actress, The Sopranos' Charmaine Bucco) (47)
• Sir Mix-A-Lot (rapper) (49)
• Dominique Swain (actress, Lolita, Face/Off, Alpha Dog) (32)

ON THIS DAY:

• 1867, President Andrew Johnson defied Congress by suspending Secretary Of War Edwin M. Stanton. This sparked Congress to move to impeach Johnson.
• 1877, inventor Thomas Edison made the first sound recording by etching a foil-wrapped cylinder with a thin metal needle. He recorded "Mary Had A Little Lamb" on his Edisonphone.
• 1898,Hawaii was formally annexed by theU.S. after Congress passed a joint resolution.Hawaii was granted territorial status in 1900 and statehood in 1959.
• 1898, the peace protocol ending the Spanish-American War was signed.
• 1935 Actor John Cazale (The Godfather movies' Fredo, Dog Day Afternoon, The Deer Hunter) is born. He dies in 1978.
• 1960 Drummer Pete Best passes an audition and becomes a member of the Beatles.
• 1964 Author Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond and author of 12 Bond novels) dies at age 56.
• 1966 The Beatles' final North American tour kicks off at the International Amphitheatre inChicago.
• 1967 "A Girl Like You" by the Young Rascals peaks at Number 10 on the pop chart, where it stays for two weeks.
• 1967 "Baby You're A Rich Man" by the Beatles peaks at Number 34 on the pop chart.
• 1967 "Carrie Anne" by the Hollies peaks at Number Nine on the pop chart.
• 1967 Fleetwood Mac makes their major debut at the Windsor Jazz & Blues Festival inEngland, having already played a few pub gigs.
• 1967 Flowers by the Rolling Stones peaks at Number Three on the album chart, where it spends a total of six weeks.
• 1970, Janis Joplin gave her final concert before her death, atHarvardUniversity.
• 1972 "School's Out" by Alice Cooper hits Number One on theU.K. pop chart.
• 1972, the last American combat ground troops leftVietnam.
• 1981 IBM introduces its personal computer and Bill Gates' operating system, MS-DOS 1.0.
• 1982 Actor Henry Fonda (The Grapes Of Wrath, Mister Roberts, 12 Angry Men, Yours, Mine And Ours, Midway, On Golden Pond; father of Jane Fonda and Peter Fonda; grandfather of Bridget Fonda) dies at age 77.
• 1985, the world's worst single-aircraft disaster occurred when a Japan Air Lines Boeing 747 on a domestic flight crashed into a mountain, killing 520 of 524 people on board.
• 1989 "Once Bitten Twice Shy" by Great White, a cover of the Ian Hunter song, peaks at Number Five on the pop chart, where it stays for two weeks.
• 1989 The Rolling Stones play a warm-up show at the club Toad's Place in New Haven, Connecticut, before opening their Steel Wheels tour. About 700 people pay the $3 cover charge to hear an 11-song, 56-minute set.
• 1993 The Red Hot Chili Peppers decide that Jesse Tobias will replace Arik Marshall on guitar. Three months later, former Jane's Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro is brought in instead.
• 1994 Natural Born Killers, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore, opens in theatres.
• 1994 Pro baseball players begin their first full day on strike. It turns out to be their longest work stoppage in history, at 234 days, causing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time ever.
• 1994, as many as 250,000 people attended the first day of a three-day Woodstock '94 concert in Saugerties, New York, marking the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock in 1969.  The performers on the first day include Jackyl, Del Amitri, Live, James, King's X, Sheryl Crow, Collective Soul, Candlebox, and the Violent Femmes.
• 1994, pro baseball players went on strike. It would turn out to be their longest work stoppage in history, at 234 days, causing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time ever.
• 1996 Metallica's Load is certified triple platinum.
• 1997 The Fleetwood Mac reunion concert special The Dance premieres on MTV.
• 1998, Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion as restitution to Holocaust survivors to settle claims for their assets.
• 1999 Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley and Peter Criss of Kiss receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 2000, the Russian nuclear submarine Kursk and its 118-man crew were lost during naval exercises in theBarents Sea.
• 2001 Blink-182 is named "Choice Rock Group" at the Teen Choice Awards.
• 2004, New Jersey's Democratic Governor James McGreevey resigned, revealing in a stunning announcement with his wife at his side that he's gay and had had an extramarital affair with a man. The twice-married father of two said he'd struggled with his sexual identity most of his life, and had finally come to terms with the truth that he's, quote, "a gay American."
• 2005 Ozzy Osbourne announces that 2005's OzzFest will be his last as a headliner, either with Black Sabbath or as a solo performer, adding that he will limit future performances to only a few selected cities. He headlines again in 2007.