Thursday, September 27, 2012

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS:

• Gwyneth Paltrow (actress, Shakespeare In Love, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Shallow Hal, Proof, Iron Man, Contagion, The Avengers; wife of Coldplay's Chris Martin) (40)
• Randy Bachman (singer-guitarist, the Guess Who, Bachman-Turner Overdrive) (69)
• Meat Loaf (rock singer) (65, disputed)
• Robbie Shakespeare (reggae bassist and producer, Sly & Robbie; also worked with Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, Jackson Browne, and Joe Cocker, among others) (59)
• Liz Torres (actress, Permanent Midnight, Gilmore Girls, Joe Dirt) (65)
• Wilford Brimley (actor, The Thing, The China Syndrome, The Electric Horseman, Absence Of Malice, The Natural, Cocoon, The Firm, In & Out) (78)
• Brad Arnold (singer, 3 Doors Down) (34)
• Stephan Jenkins (singer/guitarist, Third Eye Blind) (48)
• Avril Lavigne (pop singer) (28)
• Lil' Wayne (rapper) (30)
• Shaun Cassidy (actor-singer, "Da Doo Ron Ron") (54)

ON THIS DAY:

• 1540, the Society of Jesus Roman Catholic order, better known as the Jesuits, was founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola.
• 1854, the steamship Arctic sank with 300 people on board, in the first great disaster involving anAtlantic Ocean liner.
• 1920 Actor William Conrad (Cannon, Nero Wolfe, Jake & The Fatman; provided voices and was the narrator for many animated TV series, including Rocky & Bullwinkle and Dudley Do-Right) is born. He dies in 1994.
• 1920 Eight Chicago White Sox players are charged with fixing the 1919 World Series.
• 1933 Actor Greg Morris (Barney Collier on TV's Mission: Impossible) is born. He dies in 1996.
• 1939 After nearly four weeks of resistance,Poland surrenders to invading forces from Nazi Germany and theSoviet Union during World War II.
• 1950 The telephone answering machine is invented.
• 1954, The TV series Tonight! (The Tonight Show), hosted by Steve Allen, made its debut on NBC. Allen hosted the ground-breaking late-night talk show, which would be renamed The Tonight Show, for three years, before Jack Paar took over in 1957. Johnny Carson became the host in 1962, a post that he held for 30 years, until he stepped down in 1992.
• 1964 The Beach Boys make their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
• 1964, the Warren Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in assassinating President John F. Kennedy. However, in 1979, the House Select Committee On Assassinations concluded that Kennedy likely was killed as part of a larger conspiracy.
• 1967 Blind Melon singer Shannon Hoon is born. He dies in 1995 of a drug overdose.
• 1969 "Easy To Be Hard" by Three Dog Night peaks at Number Four on the pop chart, where it stays for two weeks.
• 1969 "Green River" by Creedence Clearwater Revival peaks at Number Two on the pop chart.
• 1975 Phil Collins and Andrea Bertorelli are married. They later divorce, which inspires his Face Value album.
• 1979 Elton John collapses on stage at the Universal Amphitheater inUniversal City,California, due to exhaustion from the flu. After resting for 10 minutes, he resumes his three-hour show.
• 1979 Former Paul McCartney & Wings and Thunderclap Newman guitarist Jimmy McCulloch dies at age 27.
• 1979 The Police kick off aU.S. tour at the Hotel Diplomat inNew York City.
• 1980 "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by the Police hits Number One on theU.K. pop chart, where it stays for four weeks.
• 1980 "Late In The Evening" by Paul Simon peaks at Number Six on the pop chart, where it stays for three weeks.
• 1980 Scary Monsters And Super Creeps by David Bowie peaks at Number 12 on theU.S. album chart, the same day it hits Number One in theU.K.
• 1986 "Twist And Shout" by the Beatles peaks at Number 23 on the pop chart after being featured prominently in the movies Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Back To School.
• 1986 "Walk This Way" by Run-D.M.C. & Aerosmith peaks at Number Four on the pop chart.
• 1986 Metallica bassist Cliff Burton dies in a tour bus accident at age 24.
• 1990 Dee Dee Ramone is arrested and charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession inNew York City'sGreenwich Village.
• 1992 Pearl Jam releases "Jeremy" as a single.
• 1994, over 350 Republican candidates for Congress signed the Contract With America, a 10-point platform they pledged to enact if voters elected a Republican Congressional majority. The GOP went on to take over the majority in Congress in the November elections for the first time in over 40 years.
• 1995 Radiohead's debut album, Pablo Honey, is certified platinum.
• 1996 Baltimore Orioles second baseman Roberto Alomar spits in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck. He is later suspended for five games.
• 1996, the Taliban, a band of former Muslim seminary students, drove the government of Afghani President Burhanuddin Rabbani out of Kabul, captured the city, and executed former leader Najibullah.
• 1998 St. Louis Cardinal Mark McGwire ends his record-breaking season with his 69th and 70th home runs.
• 1999, Tiger Stadium closed after 87 years, withDetroit beating the Kansas City Royals 8-2.
• 2000 U2 plays "Beautiful Day" and "Elevation" on the roof of the Clarence Hotel in Dublin, which is owned by frontman Bono and guitarist the Edge. The performances are shot for the BBC TV show Top Of The Pops.
• 2001, President Bush asked the nation's governors to post National Guard troops at airports as a first step toward federal control of airline security.
• 2002 Creed becomes the only rock act to have had four songs in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in the past decade.
• 2002 Motley Crue singer Vince Neil pleads innocent to a charge of misdemeanor battery for allegedly attacking a record producer outside the Rainbow Bar & Grill on the Sunset Strip inWest Hollywood.
• 2002 The Medical Examiner's Office Of Northern Virginia issues a report confirming that Drowning Pool vocalist Dave Williams died of natural causes resulting from a heart problem. Williams was found dead a month earlier on the band's tour bus.
• 2004 Phil Spector is indicted on a murder charge by a grand jury in Los Angeles for the shooting death of 40-year-old actress Lana Clarkson at his home inAlhambra,California, in February 2003.
• 2005 System Of A Down holds a rally at the Illinois office of U.S. Speaker Of The House Dennis Hastert to ask him to allow a vote on legislation in the House Of Representatives that will officially recognize the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands ofTurkey'sOttoman Empire during World War I.
• 2006 My Chemical Romance premieres the video for its new single, "Welcome To The Black Parade," in which the band transforms itself into a different group called the Black Parade.
• 2007 Coldplay singer Chris Martin and his wife, actress Gwyneth Paltrow, join rapper Jay-Z onstage at London's Royal Albert Hall. Martin sings on "Dead Presidents II" and "Heart Of The City (Ain't No Love)" from Jay-Z's classic The Blueprint album, while Mrs. Martin provides backup vocals on several numbers.
• 2007 Van Halen kicks off its first tour in 22 years with original singer David Lee Roth at the Charlotte Bobcats Arena inCharlotte,North Carolina, delivering a 24-song set that includes nearly every classic tune from the band's first six studio albums.