Saturday, February 16, 2013

TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS:

• LeVar Burton (actor, best known for his roles as Kunta Kinte in Roots and blind engineer Geordi LaForge on Star Trek: The Next Generation and its assorted spin-off movies, Ali) (56)
• Ice-T (rapper-actor, New Jack City, Ricochet, Trespass, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit) (55)
• John McEnroe (four-time Number One-ranked tennis player, known for his wild hair and on-court tantrums) (54)
• Patty Andrews (singer, of the Andrews Sisters) (95)
• Jeremy Bulloch (actor, original Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi) (68)
• Pete Willis (original guitarist, Def Leppard) (53)
• Christopher Eccleston (actor, Doctor Who, Gone in 60 Seconds, Elizabeth, The Others, Thor: The Dark World) (49)
• Andy Taylor (guitarist, Duran Duran, the Power Station) (52)
• Lisa Loring (actress, played Wednesday on the TV version of The Addams Family) (55)
• Elizabeth Olsen (actress, Silent House, Martha Marcy May Marlene; sister of Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen) (24)
• Dave Lombardo (drummer, Slayer) (48)

ON THIS DAY:

• 1903, ventriloquist Edgar Bergen, actress Candice Bergen's father and the man behind dummy Charlie McCarthy, was born. He died September 30th, 1978, at age 75.
• 1935, Congressman Sonny Bono was born. He went into politics after first catching America's attention as one half of the singing and comedy duo Sonny & Cher. He died in a skiing accident on January 5th, 1998, at age 62.
• 1937, DuPont research chemist Dr. Wallace Hume Carothers received a patent for his invention of the synthetic fiber nylon.
• 1942 North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il is born. He dies in December 2011.
• 1948, NBC began airing its first nightly newscast, The Camel Newsreel Theatre.
• 1950, the game show What's My Line? debuted on CBS.
• 1959, Fidel Castro became Cuba's premier after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista. 1968, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Alabama.\
• 1964 The Beatles perform for the second time on The Ed Sullivan Show, live from the Deauville Hotel inMiami,Florida.
• 1968 The first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system is inaugurated inHaleyville,Alabama.
• 1968, The Beatles fly to India to study with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
• 1980, "Fool In The Rain" by Led Zeppelin peaks at Number 21 on the pop chart.
• 1982, Lee Majors and Farrah Fawcett divorce.
• 1989, investigators said a bomb inside a radio-cassette player brought down Pan Am Flight 103 the previous December over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing all 259 passengers on board and 11 people on the ground.
• 1992, basketball's Los Angeles Lakers retired Magic Johnson's Number 32 jersey during halftime at L.A.'s Great Western Forum.
• 1997, at age 25, Jeff Gordon became the youngest winner in Daytona 500 history.
• 1999, the Heisman Trophy awarded to O.J. Simpson in 1968 brought $230,000 at auction in Los Angeles. The sale was ordered to help settle part of the $33.5 million civil judgment against Simpson for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson had previously been acquitted of criminal charges in the killings.
• 2000 Creed's Human Clay is certified triple platinum.
• 2000 Rage Against The Machine's self-titled home video is certified double platinum.
• 2001 Tesla plays the first show of their reunion tour inBoise,Idaho.
• 2005 3 Doors Down's third album, Seventeen Days, debuts at Number One on the Billboard 200 chart, selling 231,000 copies in its first week of release and marking the Mississippi band's first chart-topping debut.
• 2005 Kid Rock is arrested byNashville police on an assault charge after he allegedly punches a disc jockey at an "adult entertainment" club in downtownNashville.
• 2006 Metallica officially announces that Rick Rubin will produce their ninth studio album, ending the band's 15-year working relationship with Bob Rock.
• 2006 Us Weekly confirms that a six-year-old homemade sex tape showing former Creed singer Scott Stapp and Kid Rock participating in explicit sex acts with several women is about to be released.