August 27
Jump to:
Events on This Day
1660 - John Milton’s books were burned in London, because of the author’s attacks on King Charles II.1858 - The first cabled news dispatch was sent to, and published by, The New York Sun newspaper. The story was about China meeting the peace demands of England and France. The novel fact about the story was that the dispatch had come to New York viâ the newly laid transatlantic telegraph cable.
1859 - A shaft was being sunk deep in the ground at Titusville, PA. The drill had reached 69 feet, 6 inches. W.A. Smith, better known to the drillers and other folk in the small town in Western Pennsylvania, as Uncle Billy, saw a dark film floating on the water, below the derrick floor. Colonel Edwin Drake kept drilling because what Uncle Billy saw was oil. Soon, the first commercial oil well was pumping out 20 barrels of crude oil a day. This was Pennsylvania oil, folks; Titusville, PA, home of the first oil well.
1883 - The volcanic island of Krakatoa erupted with a force of 1,300 megatons. Tidal waves resulting from the cataclysmic explosions in Indonesia’s Sundra Strait claimed some 36,000 lives in Java and Sumatra.
1889 - Boxer Jack (Nonpareil) Dempsey (called Nonpareil because no one had been able to defeat him) was defeated for the first time in his career. George LaBlanche used the pivot punch to knock Dempsey into nighty-night land. The punch was later banned from boxing. There are still other punches hanging around that make boxers see stars and hear birdies...
1889 - Charles G. Conn of Elkhart, IN patented the metal clarinet. More than 100 years later the name, Conn, still represents one of the most popular musical instrument names -- especially for clarinets.
1892 - Fire seriously damaged New York’s original Metropolitan Opera House, located at Broadway and 39th Street. A workman dropped a cigarette in the paint room and, although the fire was discovered at nine o’clock in the morning, shortly after it began, the stage was entirely engulfed by the time firemen arrived.
1912 - Tarzan was born, or rather, came to life on this day. Tarzan of the Apes was published by writer Edgar Rice Burroughs.
1921 - J.E. Clair, who owned the Acme Packing Company, bought a pro football franchise for Green Bay, WI. Cheeseheads could have been their name, but he decided to pay tribute to those who packed the meat at his processing plant. Hence the name: the Green Bay Packers.
1932 - John M. Miller, performing at the National Air Races in Cleveland, OH, dazzled a large crowd as he did a perfect loop-the-loop in his autogyro.
1938 - Monte Pearson led the New York Yankees to a 13-0, no-hit victory over the Cleveland Indians.
1938 - At a poetry reading by Archibald MacLeish, another poet, in a fit of jealousy, set fire to some papers in order to disrupt the recital. That jealous poet, incidentally, was Robert Frost.
1941 - Fumimaro Konoye, prime minister of Japan, announced that he would like to enter into direct negotiations with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in order to prevent the Japanese conflict with China from expanding into world war.
1945 - American troops began landing in Japan following the surrender of the Japanese government at the end of WW II.
1950 - All U.S. railroads were seized by the Army to avert a strike. It took until May 23, 1952, after the railroad owners signed a union contract, for control to be restored to the railroad owners.
1955 - The Guinness Book of World Records was first published. Six months later, it was a best-seller. It has sold more than 70,000,000 copies, more than any other book but the Bible.
1962 - The U.S. launched the Mariner 2 space probe using an Atlas D booster. On December 14, 1962, "Mariner 2" passed within just over 20,000 miles of Venus, reporting an 800F surface temperature, high surface pressures, a predominantly carbon dioxide atmosphere, continuous cloud cover, and no detectable magnetic field.
1964 - Comedienne Gracie Allen of the Burns & Allen duo, died of a heart attack. She was 69 years old. Allen, wife of comedian and actor George Burns, was half of one of America’s most popular comedy couples. They began their careers on the vaudeville stage, then moved to radio, movies, and television. Gracie Allen played a dizzy dame/wife. Her illogical logic and high nasal voice entertained the public for more than four decades.
1966 - (Sir) Francis Chichester began the first solo ocean voyage around the world in his 55-foot sailing yacht, the Gypsy Moth IV. He sailed 14,100 miles to Sydney, Australia in 107 days. On January 29, 1967, he began the return to Plymouth around Cape Horn. That journey took 119 days and 15,517 miles. It was the longest passage made by a small sailing vessel without a port of call. Chichester was knighted in May 1967 by Queen Elizabeth II.
1967 - Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, was found dead in his London flat from a barbiturate overdose. His death was ruled an “accidental suicide by a gradual accumulation of Carbitral.”
1975 - Haile Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia’s 3,000-year-old monarchy, died in Addis Ababa at the age of 83 almost a year after he was overthrown in a military coup.
1979 - British war hero Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed aboard his fishing boat in Donegal Bay, near his home in Ireland, by an explosion set by Irish Republican Army terrorists.
1981 - Divers probing the wreckage of the luxury cruise ship Andrea Doria recovered two safes from the purser’s office. The Andrea Doria sank in a collision with the Swedish liner Stockholm (July 25, 1956). What was in the safes? Oh, only about a million dollars in cash and jewelry.
1982 - Oakland A's outfielder Rickey Henderson stole four bases (Oakland lost 5–4 to Milwaukee) to raise his total to 122 and break Lou Brock’s single-season record of 118 stolen bases. Henderson went on to steal 130 bases that season -- more than some entire teams have stolen in an entire season.
1984 - The Minetta Lane Theatre in Greenwich Village opened. It was the first new off-Broadway theatre to be built in 50 years in New York City. The ribbon cutting was done by ‘America’s First Lady of the Stage,’ Helen Hayes.
1986 - Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros notched career win #250, by leading the Astros to a 7-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs.
1988 - Tracy Chapman’s ablum, titled (hold on to something here) Tracy Chapman, rose to #1 on U.S. album charts. It was number one for one week with these tracks: Talkin’ Bout a Revolution, Fast Car, Across the Lines, Behind the Wall, Baby Can I Hold You, Mountains o' Things, She’s Got Her Ticket, Why?, For My Lover, If Not Now ..., and For You.
1989 - The first U.S. commercial rocket carrying a satellite was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The Delta booster carried the British Satellite Broadcasting Marco Polo I communications satellite.
1990 - Blues guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash after performing at a concert in Wisconsin. Vaughan was 35 years old.
1991 - The Soviet republic of Moldavia declared its independence from the Soviet Union. And the European Community recognized Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as independent nations as the dismantling of the U.S.S.R. continued.
1994 - From the Fantastic Feats Department: The 1998 edition of The Guinness Book of World Records notes that the world’s largest balloon release was accomplished by Disney Home Video. They let 1,592,744 balloons go at Longleat House, England. Why? Our crack research department is hard at work on that question at the moment and cannot be reached for answers...
1995 - Firefighters battled the worst fires in New York in 80 years. Extreme drought conditions contributed to the ferocity of the blazes in Long Island’s Pine Barrens during a two-week period (Aug 24 until Sep 5).
1996 - Actor Greg Morris, of Mission: Impossible TV fame, was found dead at his Las Vegas home. He was 61 years old.
1997 - NBC-TV executive Brandon Tartikoff died. He was 48 years old. The former programming wizard, succumbed to Hodgkin’s disease. Tartikoff was the youngest entertainment president of a major network when he took over the NBC reins in 1980 at the age of 30.
1997 - The annual Burning Man Festival began near Gerlach, Nevada. Some 20,000 people assembled for the torching of a 50-foot effigy.
1998 - Actor/director James Brolin received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Perennial Honorary Hollywood Mayor Johnny Grant recounted Brolin’s career, and the Brolin responded that as a teen-ager growing up in Los Angeles he always wanted to be part of Hollywood. “But I never dreamed I would be implanted in this sidewalk,” he said.
1999 - These films debuted in the U.S.: The Astronaut’s Wife, starring Johnny Depp, Charlize Theron, Joe Morton and Clea Duvall; A Dog of Flanders with Jack Warden, Jeremy James Kissner, Jesse James, Jon Voight, Cheryl Ladd, Steven Hartley and Bruce Mcgill; Dudley Do-Right, featuring Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, Alfred Molina, Robert Prosky, Eric Idle and Alex Rocco; The Muse, with Albert Brooks, Sharon Stone, Andie Macdowell and Jeff Bridges; and The 13th Warrior, featuring Antonio Banderas, Diane Venora, Dennis Storhoi, Vladimir Kulich, Omar Sharif, Anders T. Andersen, Richard Bremmer, Tony Curran, Mischa Hausserman, Neil Maffin and Asbjorn Riis.
2000 - The 1,771-foot Ostankino Tower in Moscow caught on fire and burned for some 26 hours. Two people were found dead in an elevator that fell a thousand feet during the fire. A third body was later found in the elevator shaft. Blame for the fire was placed on a short-circuit in wiring used by a paging company at about 463 meters (1,520 feet) above ground.
2001 - Work began on the World War II Memorial on the U.S. capital’s historic National Mall. The site is between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. The memorial was dedicated May 28, 2004.
2001 - Intel hit the two gigahertz mark. The chip maker said it had a Pentium 4 processor for sale that ran at two Gigahertz, or two billion cycles per second. As Intel marketers put it, “Getting to 1GHz took about 30 years, while the next GHz only took about a year and a half.”
2003 - Workers rolled a massive Ten Commandments monument out of the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial Building to comply with a federal court order. A federal judge, who ruled that the monument violates the separation of church and state, has said that the monument can remain in the building as long as it is away from public view.
2004 - New movies in the U.S.: Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, with Nicholas Hope, Peter Curtin, Eugene Byrd, Morris Chestnut, Nicholas Gonzalez, Matthew Marsden, Johnny Messner, Salli Richardson, Kadee Strickland, Maria Theodorakis and Karl Yune; The Brown Bunny, starring Vincent Gallo, Chloe Sevigny and Cheryl Tiegs; Chooch, with Carmine Famiglietti, Paola Walker, Pete Medina, Kiwi Limone, Gino Cafarelli, Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini, Tami Powers, Stefan Lysenko, Anthony Barrile, Mike Bocchetti, Britney Bunker, Cris Cruz, Santino Jimenez, Linda Sandoval, Joe Summa, Valtair Teixeira and John Sialiano; Hero, starring Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung Man-Yuk, Zhang Ziyi, Chen Dao Ming and Donnie Yen; Super Babies: Baby Geniuses 2, with Jon Voight, Scott Baio, Vanessa Angel, Skyler Shaye, Justin Chatwin, Peter Wingfield, Gerry Fitzgerald, Leo Fitzgerald, Myles Fitzgerald, Max Iles, Michael Iles, Jared Scheideman, Jordan Scheideman, Maia Bastidas and Keana Bastidas; and Suspect Zero, starring Aaron Eckhart, Ben Kingsley, Hary Lennix and Carrie-Anne Moss.
2004 - Thousands of protesters, many on bikes, snarled traffic in New York City. Police arrested several hundred people and confiscated their bicycles in the first significant protest against U.S. President George Bush (II) before the Republican national convention.
2005 - 1,000 detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison were released during the week -- at the request of the Iraqi Government. It was the largest number of prisoners freed since the start of the war.
2006 - A Comair commuter jet crashed in a field and caught fire shortly after taking off in light rain in Kentucky. One person out of the fifty on board survived. The taxi route for commercial jets using Blue Grass Airport’s main runway had been altered just a week before Comair Flight 5191 took the wrong runway.
2006 - The TV spy thriller 24 won an Emmy for best drama series, while the workplace satire The Office was crowned best comedy at the 58th Primetime Emmy Awards.
2007 - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation, effective Sep 17, 2007. The move ended a months-long standoff with Congressional critics who questioned his honesty and competence at the helm of the Justice Department.
2008 - The movie Traitor opened in U.S. theatres. The thriller stars Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels, Neal McDonough, Archie Panjabi, Alyy Kahn and Said Taghmaoui.
2008 - Tens of thousands of people from around the world hurled tons of ripe tomatoes at each other in the annual food fight in the eastern Spanish town of Bunol.
2008 - Democrats officially made Senator Barack Obama their presidential nominee and picked Senator Joe Biden for vice president. This, following speeches by former President Bill Clinton and Senator John Kerry. Obama made a surprise late visit to the convention, following Biden’s acceptance speech, to praise his wife, his former rival, and former President Bill Clinton for supporting him.
2009 - Taiwan’s president announced that he had agreed to let the Dalai Lama visit the island to comfort survivors of a devastating typhoon. China objected to the visit because the Dalai Lama over the years had continued to lobby for self-rule in Tibet. A move china continues to think would destroy its sovereignty.
2010 - Movies debuting in U.S. theatres: Centurion, starring Michael Fassbender, Dominic West, Olga Kurylenko, Noel Clarke and David Morrissey; Takers, with Zoe Saldana, Hayden Christensen, Paul Walker, Matt Dillon and Idris Elba; The Last Exorcism, starring Patrick Fabian, Iris Bahr, Louis Herthum, Ashley Bell and Jamie Alyson Caudle; and The Milk of Sorrow, with Magaly Solier, Susi Sánchez, Efraín Solís. Antolín Prieto and Marino Ballón.
2010 - The Washington Post reported that the CIA was making payments to a significant number of officials in Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration. A former CIA official was quoted as saying the payments to Afghan officials were necessary because “the head of state is not going to tell you everything.”
2011 - One of the popular bondes (trolleys) that run through a scenic Rio de Janeiro, Brazil neighborhood overlooking downtown derailed. The crash killed five and injured thirty others. Cause of the crash was hotly disputed, but the commander of the fire brigade that was sent to the scene noted that the bonde was over its passenger limit (a common occurrence considering how passengers can just hop on and off in mid-journey); at the time of the accident, there were 60 passengers aboard instead of the official limit of 44.
2012 - Hertz, the rental car giant, acquired competitor Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group for some $2.56 billion. The deal ended two years of on-off takeover talks for Dollar Thrifty involving Hertz, the second-largest U.S. car rental company, and third-ranked Avis Group Inc.
2013 - Kyrgyzstan (central Asia) officials scrambled to control the spread of bubonic plague that killed a rural boy. Three more people showed possible symptoms of the disease.
2013 - The November Man opened in U.S. theatres. The action thriller stars Olga Kurylenko, Pierce Brosnan, Eliza Taylor, Will Patton, Perry Weinstein and Caterina Scorsone.
2014 - After three days of heavy shelling, pro-Russian rebel forces entered the town of Novoazovsk in southeastern Ukraine. The move raised fears that separatists were seeking to create a land link between Russia and Crimea.
2015 - Monaco’s Prince Albert II apologized for his country’s role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during World War II. The apology came some seven decades after police rounded up scores of people from Monaco, including those who had sought refuge from the Holocaust in what they had thought to be a safe and neutral land.
2016 - Turkey sent more tanks into Syria to bolster a military offensive against jihadists and Kurdish fighters. The incursion deepened tensions between two major U.S.-backed groups: the CIA/Pentagon-backed Syrian Arab and Turkmen rebels and the Pentagon-backed Kurdish forces -- and pitted them against one another -- forcing their attention away from fighting the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL). The situation illustrated in a big way the challenges the U.S. faced in coordinating the array of armed groups, beset by ethnic and territorial rivalries as well as different agendas, on an increasingly complex, multisided battlefield.
2017 - A gas cloud appeared on the beach and cliffs of Birling Gap, 60 miles south of London, England. A local hospital treated more than 130 people for minor injuries. Neither the gas nor its source were ever nailed down, but authorities later surmised that the mystery haze was most likely from a ship, a wreck or lost cargo in the Channel.
2017 - As had been feared, tropical storm Harvey unleashed catastrophic flooding in Houston, turning streets in Texas’ largest city into raging rivers. Overwhelmed emergency services warned residents to head for high ground or climb onto rooftops -- not into attics -- so they could be seen by rescue helicopters.
2018 - Seth Frotman, the U.S. government’s top official overseeing the $1.5 trillion student loan market, resigned in protest. Frotman cited the open refusal of the White House to protect the millions of student loan borrowers in the U.S.
2018 - A U.S. judge in Seattle blocked the Trump administration from allowing a Texas company to post online plans for making untraceable 3D guns, agreeing with 19 states and the District of Columbia that such access to the plastic guns would pose a security risk.
2018 - A weeklong gathering opened in Geneva, Switzerland to discuss ways to define and deal with killer robots, futuristic weapons systems that could conduct war without human intervention. Amnesty International urged the countries to work toward a ban.
2019 - 33-year-old Illinois nurse Tina Jones was sentenced to 12 years in prison, after she admitted paying a dark web site $12,000 -- in bitcoin -- to have her former lover’s wife killed.
2019 - A $3.3 billion sale of U.S. anti-ballistic missiles to Japan followed closely a series of new ballistic missile tests by North Korea that threatened Japan.
2020 - Lord & Taylor, the first U.S. department store, said it was closing all 38 of its remaining stores. Liquidation sales were underway storewide and online. The flagship store at the Lord & Taylor Building on Fifth Avenue in New York City operated from 1914 until 2019.
2020 - Category 4 Hurricane Laura made landfall near the Louisiana-Texas border. The National Hurricane Center had warned that the expected storm surge would be “unsurvivable,” and said that it could push 40 miles inland. Laura plowed through Louisiana, killing at least six people and ripping apart buildings.
2020 - Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany would impose a minimum fine of 50 euros ($59) for breaching mask-wearing rules as coronavirus infections rose again.
2021 - A Florida judge said school districts could impose mask mandates, ruling that Governor Ron DeSantis had overstepped his authority by issuing an executive order banning the mandates.
2021 - China announced constraints on ‘chaotic’ celebrity fan culture, barring platforms from publishing popularity lists -- and regulating the sale of fan merchandise. It was part of an ongoing state campaign to ‘rectify’ the Internet. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said it would take action against the dissemination of “harmful information” in celebrity fan groups and close down discussion channels that spread celebrity scandals or “provoke trouble.” Chinese video-streaming platform iQiyi announced that it had stopped showing ‘idol competition’ programs. “We will cancel idol talent shows and online voting, be responsible as a platform, resist bad influences, and maintain a healthy and clean Internet, as well as audio-visual environment for our users,” iQiyi said.
2022 - Some 180,000 Pakistanis were forced from their homes after floods destroyed a major bridge in the country’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Pakistan called in the army to assist in disaster relief. The flooding, which began in mid-June due to heavy rainfall, had killed over 900 people in Pakistan and nearly 200 in neighboring Afghanistan.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day August 27
551 B.C. - Confucius (K’ung Fu-tzu)
philosopher; died in 479 B.C.1809 - Hannibal Hamlin
15th U.S. Vice President [under Abraham Lincoln: 1861-1865]; died July 4, 18911850 - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
‘The Duchess’: author: Molly Bawn: “Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.”; died Jan 24, 18971865 - Charles Dawes
30th U.S. Vice President [under Calvin Collidge: 1925-1929]; awarded Nobel Peace Prize [1925]; songwriter: Melody in A Major aka It’s All in the Game; died Apr 23, 19511871 - Theodore Dreiser
novelist: An American Tragedy, Sister Carrie; died Dec 28, 19451877 - Charles Rolls
engineer, co-founder of Rolls-Royce automobile company; died Jul 12, 19101901 - Al Ritz
member of the Ritz Brothers comedy team; actor: Hi’ya, Chum, Behind the Eight Ball, The Three Musketeers [1939], Life Begins in College; died Dec 22, 19651908 - Lyndon Baines Johnson
36th U.S. President: succeeded assassinated President John F. Kennedy Nov 22, 1963 [1963-1969]; married to Claudia ‘Lady Bird’ Alta [two daughters]; nickname: LBJ; died Jan 22, 19731916 - Martha Raye (Margaret Teresa Yvonne Reed)
comedienne, actress: McMillan and Wife, All Star Revue, The Martha Raye Show, The Concorde, Airport ’79, Rhythm on the Range; winner of the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award [1969], Presidential Medal of Freedom [1993]; died Oct 19, 19941918 - Peanuts (Harry Lee) Lowrey
baseball: Chicago Cubs [World Series: 1945/all-star: 1946], Cincinnati Reds, SL Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies; died July 2, 19861927 - Jimmy ‘Cajun’ Newman
singer: Cry, Cry Darling, A Fallen Star, You’re Making a Fool Out of Me, A Lovely Work of Art, Alligator Man, Bayou Talk, DJ for a Day, Artificial Rose; died Jun 21, 20141928 - Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi
Chief Minister of KwaZulu/Natal, South Africa1929 - Ira Levin
writer: Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, The Boys from Brazil, A Kiss Before Dying; died Nov 12, 20071931 - Joe (Joseph Robert) Cunningham
baseball: SL Cardinals [all-star: 1959], Chicago White Sox, Washington Senators; died Mar 25, 20211932 - Jim (James Hubert) King
baseball: Chicago Cubs, SL Cardinals, SF Giants, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians; died Feb 23, 20151935 - Ernie (Ernest Gilbert) Broglio
baseball: pitcher: SL Cardinals, Chicago Cubs; died Jul 16, 20191937 - Alice Coltrane
musician: piano, organ, harp; composer: LPs: Translinear Light, Journey in Satchidananda, Ptah the El Daoud, Illuminations, World Galaxy, Universal Consciousness; wife of jazz great John Coltrane; died Jan 12, 20071937 - Tommy (Adrian) Sands
singer: Teen-Age Crush, Goin’ Steady; actor: Sing Boy Sing, None but the Brave, Babes in Toyland, The Longest Day1937 - Jay Silvester
discus: first to throw over 60m [60.56: 1961]1939 - Edward Patten
singer: group: Gladys Knight & The Pips: Every Beat of My Heart, Letter Full of Tears, Everybody Needs Love, I Heard It Through the Grapevine, If I Were Your Woman, Neither One of Us [Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye]; died Feb 25, 2005
1942 - Daryl Dragon
Grammy Award-winning musician, songwriter: duo: The Captain & Tennille: Love Will Keep Us Together [1975], Muskrat Love, Shop Around, Do That To Me One More Time, The Way I Want To Touch You; died Jan 2, 20191943 - Tuesday Weld (Susan Kerr)
actress: The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Author, Author, Falling Down, Rock, Rock, Rock1944 - G.W. (George William) Bailey
actor: Major Crimes, M*A*S*H TV series, Police Academy film series, The Closer, The Jeff Foxworthy Show, Rustlers’ Rhapsody, Short Circuit, Mannequin1944 - Tim Bogert
musician: bass: groups: Showmen, Cactus, Vanilla Fudge: People Get Ready, Ticket to Ride, Bang, Bang, You Keep Me Hangin’ On, Take Me for a Little While1947 - Barbara Bach (Goldbach)
actress: Caveman, Princess Daisy, Give My Regards to Broadstreet, The Spy Who Loved Me1947 - Harry Reems (Herbert Streicher)
actor [1970-1997]: X-rated films: Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones, Meatball, R.S.V.P.; died Mar 19, 20131949 - Jeff Cook
singer, musician: guitar: group: Alabama: Love in the First Degree, Feels So Right1950 - Cynthia Potter
diving champ: only woman to have won 28 championship titles1951 - Buddy (David Gus) Bell
baseball: Cleveland Indians [all-star: 1973], Texas Rangers [all-star: 1980, 1981, 1982, 1984], Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros1951 - Mack Brown
football coach: Univ of Texas Longhorns [first Texas coach to reach 200 career wins [Nov 27, 2008]1952 - Mike (Michael Lewis) Edwards
baseball: Pittsburgh Pirates, Oakland Athletics1952 - Paul Reubens aka Pee-wee Herman
comedian, actor: Pee Wee’s Playhouse, Batman Returns, Pee Wee’s Big Top; TV host: You Don’t Know Jack1953 - Alex Lifeson
musician: guitar: group: Rush: Rivendell, By-Tor and the Snow Dog, Necromancer, The Fountain of Lamneth, Distant Early Warning1953 - Peter Stormare
actor: LA to Vegas, Fargo [1986], Prison Break, The Big Lebowski, Witless Protection, Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, 22 Jump Street, Rage1955 - Pat (Dale Patrick) Kelly
baseball: catcher: Toronto Blue Jays1956 - Glen Matlock
musician: bass: group: The Sex Pistols: Anarchy in the UK1957 - Bernhard Langer
golf champ: Masters 1985, 1993; one of the world’s leading golfers in 1980s and 1990s, and the first official number-one ranked player in 1986; after turning fifty, he became one of the most successful players on the Champions Tour1961 - Yolanda Adams
gospel singer: LPs: Mountain High...Valley Low, Just as I Am, Through the Storm, Save the World, More Than a Melody, Yolanda..._Live_in_Washington, Songs from the Heart, Christmas with Yolanda Adams, Believe, The Experience, Day by Day, What a Wonderful Time, Becoming; radio host: The Yolanda Adams Morning Show1962 - Adam Oates
hockey [center]: Detroit Red Wings, SL Blues, Boston Bruins, Washington Capitals, Philadelphia Flyers, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Edmonton Oilers
1963 - ‘Downtown’ Julie Brown
MTV VJ, actress: The Homeboy, When, On Seventh Avenue, Spy Hard, Ride, Fist of the North Star1967 - Rob Burnett
football [defensive end]: Univ of Syracuse; NFL: Cleveland Browns, Baltimore Ravens, Miami Dolphins1969 - Chandra Wilson
actress: Grey’s Anatomy, Forever, Accidental Friendship, Philadelphia1970 - Reggie Slater
basketball [forward]: Univ of Wyoming; NBA: Denver Nuggets, Toronto Raptors, Dallas Mavericks, Portland Trail Blazers, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, New Jersey Nets1970 - Jake Steed
actor [1989-2004]: X-rated films: Brentwood Housewife Hookers, Do Me Nurses, White Men Can’t Iron on Butt Row, Ancient Secrets of the Kama Sutra, Freaks Whoes and Flows1970 - Jim Thome
baseball [1st/3rd base]: Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Phillies, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Dodgers, Minnesota Twins, Baltimore Orioles; eighth MLB player to hit 600 career home runs1974 - Manny Fernandez
hockey [goalie]: Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild1976 - Sarah Chalke
actress: Scrubs, Roseanne, Ernest Goes to School, Robin of Locksley, Y2K1976 - Carlos Moyá
tennis pro: French Open singles champion [1998]; Australian Open singles runner-up [1997]; winning Davis Cup team [2004]1977 - Mase/Ma$e (Mason Durell Betha)
rapper: featured in tracks by popular R&B artists such as Brian McKnight, Mariah Carey, Keith Sweat, Brandy, Puff Daddy [Diddy]; solo LP: Harlem World1977 - Justin Miller
baseball [pitcher]: Toronto Blue Jays, Florida Marlins, San Francisco Giants; died Jun 26, 20131979 - Aaron Paul
actor: Westworld, Breaking Bad, Choking Man, Candy Paint, A Fate Totally Worse Than Death, A Piece of My Heart, Kingpin, Van Wilder1979 - Aiden Starr
actress [2002-2012]: X-rated films: Interactive Sex With Alexis Texas, Taboo: Lovers Enslaved, Beggin’ for a Peggin’, Penny Flame’s Expert Guide to Rough Sex, Anchorman XXX: A Porn Parody1981 - Patrick J. Adams
actor: Suits, Cold Case, Jack and Bobby, Lost, Friday Night Lights, Without a Trace, Commander in Chief, Heartland, Ghost Whisperer, NCIS, Cupid, Raising the Bar, Luck1983 - Demetria McKinney
actress: House of Payne, Necessary Roughness, Boulevard West, The Rickey Smiley Show, Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, Raising Izzie1985 - Kayla Ewell
actress: The Vampire Diaries, The Bold and the Beautiful, Freaks and Geeks, Fired Up; more1987 - Darren Mcfadden
football [running back]: Univ of Arkansas; NFL: Oakland Raiders1988 - Alexa Vega
actress: Odd Girl Out, State’s Evidence, Sleepover, Spy Kids film series, Follow the Stars Home, Run the Wild Fields, The Deep End of the Ocean1992 - Blake Jenner
actor: Glee, Supergirl, Everybody Wants Some!!, American Animals, What/If1994 - Ellar Coltrane
actor: Boyhood, Barry, The Last Movie Star, The Circle, Blood Money, Summer Night, Shoplifters of the World, The Good Lord Bird1995 - Cainan Wiebe
actor: Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Haunting Hour, Supernatural, Air Buddies, Sanctuary, Beyond Sherwood Forest, Tony’s Chance, Dinosaur Train, A Pickle
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day August 27
1948A Tree in the Meadow (facts) - Margaret Whiting
My Happiness (facts) - Jon & Sondra Steele
1957
1966
1975
1984
1993
2002
2011
2020
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
