Thursday, January 3, 2013

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS

• Mel Gibson (controversial actor-director, Braveheart, the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon movies, The Patriot, What Women Want, Signs, The Passion Of The Christ, Apocalypto, Edge Of Darkness, The Beaver) (57)
• Bobby Hull (Hockey Hall-Of-Famer) (74)
• Danica McKellar (actress, The Wonder Years' Winnie Cooper) (38)
• Victoria Principal (actress, Dallas's Pamela Barnes Ewing) (63)
• Stephen Stills (musician, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) (68)
• John Paul Jones (bassist-keyboardist, Led Zeppelin, Them Crooked Vultures) (67)
• George Martin (producer, the Beatles) (87)
• Dabney Coleman (actor, Nine To Five, On Golden Pond, Tootsie, WarGames, Inspector Gadget, Stuart Little) (81)
• Robert Loggia (actor, An Officer And A Gentleman, Big, Independence Day, The Sopranos) (83)
• Eli Manning (pro football player) (32)

ON THIS DAY:

• 1521, Martin Luther was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church.
• 1892, novelist J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, was born. He died September 2nd, 1973, at age 81.
• 1956, the TV game show Queen For A Day debuted on NBC.
• 1961, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba, after it was taken over by Fidel Castro, who set up a communist regime.
• 1967, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby, the man who killed accused John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald, died. He was 55, while Oswald was being transferred from his holding cell to an interrogation room by police officers inDallas,Texas.
• Ruby was convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1964, but his sentence was overturned two years later, because it was ruled he couldn't have gotten a fair trial inDallas. He died of natural causes while awaiting a second trial.
• 1969, police at New Jersey's Newark Airport confiscated 30,000 copies of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Two Virgins album, saying the nude cover photo was "pornographic."
• 1973 Ace Frehley auditions for the lead guitarist position in the band that will soon become Kiss.
• 1973, a 12-member group headed by Tampa ship builder George Steinbrenner bought the New York Yankees from CBS for a reported $10-12 million.
• 1989, the syndicated Arsenio Hall Show premiered on late-night TV.
• 1990, ousted Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega surrendered to U.S. forces, 10 days after taking refuge in the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Panama City.
• 1992 Simple Minds leader Jim Kerr marries actress Patsy Kensit.
• 1993, backup quarterback Frank Reich led the Buffalo Bills to a win from 32 points down in the third quarter, in the greatest comeback in NFL history.
• 1993, Presidents Boris Yeltsin and George Bush signed the Start-II Treaty, eliminating about two-thirds of the Russian and U.S. nuclear stockpiles.
• 1997, Bryant Gumbel signed off for the last time as host of NBC's Today show.
• 2000, the last new daily Peanuts strip by Charles Schulz ran in newspapers.
• 2006 Former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth assumes the position of full-time radio host, filling the morning spot vacated by Howard Stern on several East Coast radio stations. His show is canceled less than four months later.