Category Archives: On This Day

Pearl Harbor

Flag at half mast

My personal thanks for all of those who served, lived and died.

Happy Birthday, Walt Disney

Walter Elias Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, visionary, and philanthropist. He was the son of Flora and Elias Disney, and had three brothers and one sister. As the co-founder (with his brother Roy O. Disney) of Walt Disney Productions, Walt became one of the best-known motion picture producers in the world.

Walt Disney

Walt Disney (December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966)

Wikipedia Link

Happy Birthday, Dick Clark!

Dick Clark

Dick Clark (November 30, 1929 - )

Richard Wagstaff “Dick” Clark is an American television personality and businessman, best known for hosting long-running shows such as American Bandstand, various Pyramid game shows, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve.

Clark has long been known for his continued youthful appearance, earning the moniker “America’s Oldest Teenager”, and also for his good health — until he suffered a stroke in 2004. With some speech ability still impaired, Clark made a dramatic return to his New Year’s show on December 31, 2005, and appeared at the Emmy Awards on August 27, 2006.

Wikipedia Link

Happy Birthday, Diablo

On November 30, 1996… we all heard Griswald say, “Hello” for the first time.
Diablo Cover

November 30, 1996 -

RIP Leslie Nielsen

“I am serious. And don’t call me Shirley”

Leslie Nielsen

Leslie Nielsen (February 11, 1926 – November 28, 2010)

Leslie William Nielsen, OC was a Canadian American actor and comedian. Nielsen appeared in over one hundred films and 1,500 television programs over the span of his career, portraying over 220 characters.

Born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, Nielsen enlisted in the Royal Canadian Air Force and worked as a disc jockey before receiving a scholarship to Neighborhood Playhouse. Beginning with a television role in 1948, he quickly expanded to over 50 television appearances two years later. Nielsen appeared in his first films in 1956 and began collecting roles in dramas, westerns, and romance films. Nielsen’s lead roles in the films Forbidden Planet (1956) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972) received positive reviews as a serious actor, though he is primarily known for his comedic roles.

Wikipedia Link

John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963)

The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas, USA at 12:30 p.m. CST (18:30 UTC). John F. Kennedy was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, an employee of the Texas School Book Depository in Dealey Plaza, according to the conclusions of multiple government investigations, including the ten-month investigation of the Warren Commission of 1963-4 and the United States House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) of 1976-9. This conclusion initially met with widespread support among the American public, but polls, since the original 1966 Gallup poll, show a majority of the public hold beliefs contrary to these findings. The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories (even the HSCA, based on disputed acoustical evidence, concluded that Oswald may have had unspecified co-conspirators), though these theories have not generally been accepted by mainstream historians and no single compelling alternative theory has emerged.

Happy Birthday, ISS

On November 20, 1998, the first segment of the ISS, the Zarya FGB, was launched into orbit on a Russian Proton rocket, and was followed two weeks later by the first of three ‘node’ modules, Unity, launched aboard STS-88.

Wikipedia Link

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Edmund FitzgeraldThe SS Edmund Fitzgerald, May 1975.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald was a cargo ship that sank suddenly during a gale storm on November 10, 1975, while on Lake Superior. The ship went down without a distress signal in 530 feet (162 m) of water at 46°59.9′N 85°6.6′W, in Canadian waters about 17 miles (15 nm; 27 km) from the entrance to Whitefish Bay. All 29 members of the crew perished. Gordon Lightfoot‘s hit song, The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, helped make the incident the most famous marine disaster in the history of Great Lakes shipping.

RIP Michael Crichton

John Michael Crichton, M.D., (October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008 ) is best known as the author of Jurassic Park and the creator of NBC’s ER.

Crichton’s books have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide. He was the author of The Andromeda Strain, Congo, Disclosure, Rising Sun, Timeline, State of Fear, Prey, and Next. He was most famous for being the author of Jurassic Park, and its sequels.

His most recent novel, Next, about genetics and law, was published in December 2006.

He had won an Emmy, a Peabody and a Writer’s Guild of America Award for ER.

Today…

In 1886, the ticker-tape parade is invented in New York City when office workers spontaneously throw ticket tape into the streets as the Statue of Liberty is dedicated.

In 1929, the New York Stock Exchange crashes in what will be called the Crash of ’29 or Black Tuesday, ending the Great Bull Market of the 1920s and beginning the Great Depression.

In 1960, in Louisville, Kentucky, Cassius Clay (who later takes the name Muhammad Ali) wins his first professional fight.

In 1969, the first-ever computer-to-computer link is established on ARPANET, the precursor to the Internet.

In 1998, Space Shuttle Discovery blasts-off with 77-year old John Glenn on board, making him the oldest person to go into space. He became the first American to orbit Earth on February 20, 1962.

Happy Birthday, Charlie Daniels

Charles Edward Daniels is an American country music, Southern rock, and jazz singer, fiddler, and guitarist.

Charlie Daniels

Charles Daniels (October 28, 1936 - )

Wikipedia Link

RIP Roger Miller

Roger Dean Miller was an American singer, songwriter, and musician.
Roger Miller

Roger Miller (January 2, 1936 – October 25, 1992)

RIP Don Messick

On October 24, 1997, the animation industry lost a treasure. Don Messick‘s entertainment career spanned seven decades, with forty years of voice work in animation. Messick performed in over 100 animated programs, providing voices for some of the most beloved cartoon characters on television, including Astro and Rudy on “The Jetsons,” Bamm Bamm on “The Flintstones,” Boo Boo and Ranger Smith on “Yogi Bear and Friends,” Dr. Benton Quest and Bandit on “The Adventures of Jonny Quest,” Ricochet Rabbit on “Magilla Gorilla,” Papa Smurf on “The Smurfs,” and his most famous role, Scooby Doo, in countless formats.

Thank you, Don, for one of my most cherished memories of childhood. Scooby Doo was my hero. – James

RIP, Mr. Cunningham…

Tom Bosley

Tom Bosley (October 1, 1927 - October 19, 2010)

Thomas Edward “Tom” Bosley was an American actor, best known for his starring and supporting roles on the television shows Happy Days; Murder, She Wrote and Father Dowling Mysteries, as well as the title role in the Pulitzer Prize-winning Fiorello!

Wikipedia Link

Happy Birthday, Robert Jordan

Robert Jordan was the pen name of James Oliver Rigney, Jr. (October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007), under which he was best known as the author of the bestselling The Wheel of Time fantasy series. He also wrote under the names Reagan O’Neal and Jackson O’Reily.

Happy Birthday, Atari 2600!

Atari 2600

October 14, 1977

Wikipedia Link

White Christmas

White Christmas

The film was released in theaters October 14, 1954.

White Christmas is a 1954 movie starring Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye that featured the songs of Irving Berlin, including the titular White Christmas.

Wikipedia Link

RIP Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor, critic and one of the leaders of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of the macabre, Poe was one of the early American practitioners of the short story and a progenitor of detective fiction and crime fiction. He is also credited with contributing to narrative forms of the emergent science fiction genre.

Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe (January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849)

 Wikipedia Link 

RIP Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)

In the late 1970s, Jobs, with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Mike Markkula and others designed, developed, and marketed one of the first commercially successful lines of personal computers, the Apple II series.

From such humble beginings, a legend was born… Jobs was the driving force behind the Macintosh (seeing potential in the mouse-driven GUI); founded NeXT after leaving Apple; aquired a little Lucasfilm’s computer graphics division (which became Pixar), and returned to Apple and become CEO.  When Pixar was aquired by Disney, he became Disney’s largest individual shareholder ever.

What a story… Wikipedia Link

Happy Birthday, Stevie Ray Vaughan!

Stephen (“Stevie”) Ray Vaughan, born in Dallas, Texas, was an American blues guitarist, known as one of the most influential electric blues musicians in history. He is often referred to by his initials, SRV.

Stevie Ray Vaughan

Stevie Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990)

Wikipedia Link