440 International Those Were the Days
December 4
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Events on This Day   

1867 - The National Grange of Husbandry was founded.The organization of farmers was known, typically, as the Grange. The group contributed to agriculture and served as a focus for rural social life in America. How many of you remember going to a Sweet 16 party at the local Grange Hall? Just another piece of Americana for your memory banks...

1927 - Duke Ellington’s big band began a 4-year run at the famed Cotton Club in Harlem. It was the first appearance of the Duke’s new and larger group.

1928 - Whoopee! premiered on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theatre. The two-act musical starred Eddie Cantor, and introduced the hit song Love Me or Leave Me, sung by Ruth Etting. Produced by Florenz Ziegfeld and directed by Seymour Felix, Whoopee! closed on November 23, 1929 after 407 performances.

1932 - “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. North and South America and all the ships at sea. Let’s go to press!” The Walter Winchell Show, later The Jergens Journal and still later, Kaiser-Frazer News, was first heard on the NBC Blue network. Winchell kept that gossip show going on the radio for 23 years. It was sponsored at first by Jergens lotion and, later, by Dryad deodorant, Kaiser-Frazer cars and Richard Hudnut shampoo.

1933 - Tobacco Road, a play based on Erskine Caldwell’s book, premiered at the Masque Theatre in New York City. The play ran for eight years and 3,182 shows.

1933 - One of America’s great radio shows made the leap to the big time. Ma Perkins moved from WLW in Cincinnati, OH to the NBC-Red network. The show proved to be so popular that it was later carried on both CBS and NBC radio.

1934 - Ethel Merman recorded I Get a Kick Out of You, from Cole Porter’s musical, Anything Goes. She was backed by the Johnny Green Orchestra. The tune was recorded for Brunswick Records.

1942 - The U.S. 9th Air Force, stationed in French North Africa, launched its first raid against the Italian mainland as it hit the Italian port of Naples.

1947 - There were rave reviews for the Tennessee William play A Streetcar Named Desire. The play, starring starring Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy, had premiered the previous evening at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway.

1952 - More than 4,000 people perished in three weeks as the ‘Killer Fog’ covered London, England. London residents had burned excessive amounts of coal to keep their houses warm. As normal wind currents ceased, stagnant air set in and the dense fog layered the city.

1955 - As part of an NBC-TV special, mime artist Marcel Marceau appeared on television for the first time. In a rare speaking role, Marceau was heard to deliver the memorable line, “          .” Pretty funny stuff for a mime...

1956 - The Million Dollar Session was held at Sun Records in Memphis, TN. Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis gathered for an impromptu jam session. Six songs by the artists were recorded at this session. None of the songs was released for nearly three decades.

1957 - In St. John’s, England 92 people were killed and 187 injured when one commuter train crashed into another in heavy fog.

1962 - Actor (The Godfather) James Caan moved into TV in A Fist of Five, an episode of The Untouchables on ABC-TV, starring Robert Stack.

1965 - Composer, lyricist, and singer, Jacques Brel made his American debut in concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Brel composed Jackie, You’re Not Alone, If You Go Away and more.

1965 - The United States launched the Gemini 7 spacecraft. Air Force Lt. Col. Frank Borman and Navy Commander James A. Lovell, Jr. were aboard. Their primary mission was to prove that humans could live in weightlessness for 14 days, a space endurance record that stood until 1970.

1969 - Police raided a West Side Chicago apartment, killing Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark and wounding four others.

1970 - Frank Reynolds was seen co-hosting the ABC Evening News with Howard K. Smith for the final time this night. Reynolds commented on the switch to a new co-host (Harry Reasoner) saying, “Due to circumstances beyond my control, the unemployment statistics rose yesterday.”

1972 - Billy Paul from Philadelphia received a gold record for his smash hit, Me and Mrs. Jones.

1974 - A Dutch Martinair DC-8 carrying Moslems to Mecca crashed on its landing approach to Colombo, Sri Lanka. All 191 persons aboard were killed.

1976 - Actress Elizabeth Taylor married soon-to-be U.S. Senator John Warner of Virginia.

1977 - Jean-Bédel Bokassa crowned himself emperor of the Central African Empire in a ceremony costing more than $100 million. The money didn’t get him very far as Bokassa was deposed in 1979. (He died Nov. 3 1996 at age 75.)

1978 - City Supervisor Dianne Feinstein became San Francisco’s first female mayor. Feinstein was named to replace the assassinated George Moscone.

1982 - Running back Herschel Walker of the University of Georgia received the Heisman Trophy as the nation’s finest college football player. Walker was only the seventh junior to receive the award.

1984 - The discovery of a Bronze Age shipwreck off the southern coast of Turkey was announced by the National Geographic Society. The find dated back to when King Tutankhamen (Tut, to you) ruled Egypt.

1986 - Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound premiered at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York City.

1988 - Former Venezuelan president Carlos Andrés Pérez was declared re-elected on this day.

1991 - Pan American World Airways flew its last flight this day. After years of sacrifices by their employees to save the airline, Pan Am filed for bankruptcy and went out of business. (Pan Am was reincarnated by new owners as a discount carrier in 1996, but went bankrupt again in 1998.)

1993 - Frank Zappa died at his Los Angeles home, shortly before his 53rd birthday (he was born Dec 21, 1940). Zappa led The Mothers of Invention in the 1960s. With that band and/or as a solo performer, he released some 50 albums. Zappa had battled prostate cancer for several years.

1995 - The first rush of a 60,000-strong NATO force surged into Bosnia and Croatia in a peacekeeping mission in the Balkans. The troops arrival came two days after Serb military leader Gen. Ratko Mladic rejected the Dayton peace accord. He demanded a reconsideration of the accord’s transfer of control over Serb areas around Sarajevo to a new Muslim-Croat federation.

1996 - The Mars Pathfinder was launched from Cape Canaveral on a 310 million-mile odyssey to explore the planet’s surface. It had a remote-controlled 22-pound, 6-wheel, roving vehicle to sample Martian soil and rock and send data back beginning on July 4, 1997.

1997 - The National Basketball Association suspended all-star Latrell Sprewell of the Golden State Warriors for one year for choking and threatening to kill his coach, P.J. Carlesimo.

1998 - The remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic Psycho opened in U.S. theatres. Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche starred. By 2001, the film had grossed $21.486 million in the U.S. Considering it cost $25 million (plus a heafty marketing campaign), the bottom line is pretty scary for this flick. The original has brought in some $16 million, but cost just $800,000 to make in 1960.

1999 - NASA scientists waited in vain for a signal from the Mars Polar Lander, wondering about the whereabouts of the $165-million probe. (It was later believed that the spacecraft was destroyed after it plunged toward the Red Planet.)

2000 - PepsiCo agreed to pay $13.4 billion to acquire the Quaker Oats Company.

2000 - In a pair of legal setbacks for Al Gore, a Florida state judge refused to overturn George W. Bush’s certified victory in Florida and the U.S. Supreme Court set aside a ruling that had allowed manual recounts.

2001 - The United States froze the financial assets of organizations linked to Hamas, the group that claimed responsibility for deadly suicide attacks in Israel.

2001 - Stepping up reprisals for suicide bombings by Palestinian militants, Israel unleashed air strikes. Three missiles hit near Yasser Arafat’s office as the Palestinian leader worked inside.

2002 - Jesus Antonio Nunez, mayor of the Colombian town of Ambalema, was assassinated, after attending a meeting with the country’s main rebel group. He was the thirteenth Ambalema mayor to be killed that year.

2003 - U.S. President George Bush (II) lifted tariffs on imported steel to averted a trade war with Europe.

2003 - A U.S. poll reported that some 29 million Americans selected ‘none’ for their religious affiliation. The ranks of those shedding organized religion had more than doubled in a decade. (The American Religious Identification Survey of 2001, a telephone survey of 50,000 Americans, was also conducted in 1990.)

2003 - Barry Bonds, San Francisco Giants star, told a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream supplied by BALCO, but he never thought they were steroids.

2004 - Aspiring high school teacher Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia, Miss Peru, was crowned Miss World in Southern China.

2005 - British news reports claimed that the CIA’s use of Scotland’s airports was part of an alleged CIA operation to transfer terrorist suspects to secret prison camps in Europe. The three airports allegedly involved were Glasgow International, Glasgow Prestwick, and Edinburgh Airport.

2006 - German-born artist Tomma Abts won the Turner Prize. She was the first female painter in the 22-year history of Britain’s controversial modern-art award.

2006 - Bank of New York Co. agreed to take over Mellon Financial Corp. It was a $16.5-billion all-stock deal that created the largest securities servicing company in the world.

2006 - Rescuers found Kati Kim and her two daughters near Grants Pass, OR. They, along with their husband/father James Kim, had been missing for nine days while on a road trip from their home in San Francisco. James, who had set out on foot looking for help on Dec 2, was nowhere to be found. (James Kim, an editor for CNET, was found dead Dec 6, 2006. His body was found less than a mile, separated by a sheer cliff, from where his family’s station wagon was stuck in the snow.)

2007 - The governors of the U.S. states of Washington and Oregon declared emergencies after hurricane-force winds and several inches of rain hit the states. At least four people were killed by the Great Coastal Gale of 2007.

2007 - Census data reported one in five people in Canada in 2006 was born in another country -- the highest proportion since the 1930s.

2008 - Rioting by Jewish settlers spread in the West Bank after Israeli soldiers forcibly removed about 250 extremists from a disputed house in the center of Hebron. Banks in the Gaza Strip shut down to count their dwindling cash.

2008 - Armed robbers (some disguised as women) snatched €85 million ($108 million) worth of diamond rings, necklaces and luxury watches from a posh boutique in Paris. (In June 2009, French police arrested 25 suspects in connection with the robbery and recovered some of the jewelry.)

2009 - Opening in U.S. movie theatres: Across the Hall, with Mike Vogel, Brittany Murphy and Danny Pino; Armored, starring Matt Dillon, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne, Skeet Ulrich, Amaury Nolasco, Andre Jamal Kinney, Milo Ventimiglia, Fred Ward and Columbus Short; Brothers, with Natalie Portman, Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sam Shepard, Mare Winningham, Bailee Madison and Taylor Grace Geare; Everybody’s Fine, starring Robert De Niro, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell; Paa, with Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Vidya Balan and Paresh Rawal; The Last Station, starring Christopher Plummer, Helen Mirren, James McAvoy, Paul Giamatti and Anne-Marie Duff; Transylmania, starring Patrick Cavanaugh, James DeBello, Tony Denman, Paul H. Kim, Jennifer Lyons, Oren Skoog, Irena A. Hoffman, David Steinberg, Musetta Vander, Natalie Garza and Nicole Garza; Until the Light Takes Us, with Varg Vikernes, Fenriz, Harmony Korine and Hellhammer; and Up in the Air, starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick, Jason Bateman, Tamala Jones and Chris Lowell.

2009 - GM and its Chinese partner SAIC announced a joint venture to produce small cars in India.

2010 - A Nevada panel voted to establish the state’s first-ever bear hunting season. Some 200-300 bears were living along Nevada’s eastern Sierra.

2012 - Iran claimed to have captured a U.S. drone that it said had entered Iranian airspace over the Persian Gulf. NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said in a statement, “The UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) to which the Iranians are referring may be a U.S. unarmed reconnaissance aircraft that had been flying a mission over western Afghanistan late last week.”

2013 - The Norman Rockwell painting, Saying Grace, sold for $46 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York City. The Rockwell piece was painted for the cover of The Saturday Evening Post Thanksgiving issue of Nov 24, 1951.

2013 - OPEC leaders meeting in Vienna, Austria agreed to hold the crude production ceiling at 30 million barrels per day. This, despite oversupply concerns and growing competition from cheaper shale oil. Meanwhile, Iran announced that it would pump as much oil as it could, once sanctions on its crude exports were lifted, even if its extra output would drive prices into the basement.

2014 - Australia exercised sweeping new security powers allowing it to block citizens from traveling to overseas conflict zones such as those in Iraq and Syria. The new laws were aimed at stopping Australians from joining Islamist militant groups.

2015 - Motion pictures opening in the U.S. included: Krampus, starring Allison Tolman, Toni Collette and Adam Scott; Chi-raq, with Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris and Anya Engel-Adams; Christmas Eve, starring Jon Heder, Patrick Stewart and James Roday; Dementia, with Gene Jones, Kristina Klebe and Hassie Harrison; Every Thing Will Be Fine, starring Rachel McAdams, James Franco and Peter Stormare; the documentaries, Hot Water and Orion: The Man Who Would Be King; The Lady in the Van, starring Maggie Smith, Dominic Cooper and James Corden; Macbeth, with Michael Fassbender, Elizabeth Debicki and Marion Cotillard; The Messenger, starring Robert Sheehan, Joely Richardson and David O’Hara; and MI-5, with Kit Harington, Lara Pulver and Tuppence Middleton.

2015 - Emmy- and Oscar-nominated actor Robert Loggia died from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 85 years old. Italian-American Loggia, from Staten Island, appeared on movie and TV screens over some seven decades. His films include Scarface, Prizzi’s Honor, Lost Highway and Big.

2016 - Israel was embroiled in controversy over its purchase of submarines from a German company (which in itself was ironic) after reports that the country’s arch-enemy Iran held a stake in the firm.

2016 - The Army Corps of Engineers turned down the request for an easement for the Dakota Access Pipeline to build under the Missouri River, after months of protests from Native American and climate activists.

2017 - POTUS Donald Trump endorsed Roy Moore, Alabama’s candidate for the U.S. Senate. Trump’s support for Moore came despite numerous women having said that Moore pursued relationships and sexual encounters with them when he was in his 30s -- and they were teenagers. One woman said that she was 14 when Moore sexually assaulted her. Trump went out his way to endorse Moore, even after the sexual misconduct accusations kept coming to light.

2018 - Texas executed Joseph Garcia, a member of the ‘Texas 7’ gang of escaped prisoners, for the fatal shooting of a Dallas police officer on Christmas Eve in 2000. Garcia was the 22nd inmate put to death in the U.S. in 2018 and the 12th in Texas.

2018 - Thousands of Israeli women protested against domestic violence in a nationwide strike, calling for more action and state funding to deal with the problem. The strike came after two girls were killed, bringing the number of women and girls murdered in Israel in 2018 to 24.

2019 - Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the U.S. was rapidly developing its military forces for potential operations in space and that Washington openly viewed space as a potential theatre of war. Putin said that Moscow categorically opposed the militarization of space but that the U.S. moves meant Russia had to further develop its own space sector.

2019 - The European Environment Agency warned that Europe is facing extreme heat waves every two years as the effects of climate change drive up global temperatures. The E.U. also said that it would likely miss its target for reducing greenhouse gases by 2030.

2020 - Films scheduled to open in U.S. theatres (many theatres were still closed by the Covid-19 crisis): All My Life, starring Jessica Rothe, Harry Shum Jr and Marielle Scott; Billie, the Billie Holiday documentary; Black Bear, with Aubrey Plaza, Sarah Gadon and Christopher Abbott; Dear Santa, a documentary shining a light on the 100-year-old ‘Operation Santa’ program of the United States Postal Service; Evergreen, starring Olivia Grace Applegate, David Bianchi and Tanner Kalina; Half Brothers, with José Zúñiga, Vincent Spano and Luis Gerardo Méndez; I’m Your Woman, starring Rachel Brosnahan, Marsha Stephanie Blake and Arinzé Kene; Nomadland, with Frances McDormand, Gay DeForest and Patricia Grier; and Wander starring Aaron Eckhart, Tommy Lee Jones and Katheryn Winnick.

2020 - U.S. Judge Nicholas Garaufis directed Donald Trump to fully restore the Deferred Action for Child Arrivals program, which was designed during the Obama administration to protect younger undocumented immigrants from deportation. Garaufis ordered the terms of the federal program restored to what they were “prior to the attempted rescission of September 2017” when Trump began a series of maneuvers to dismantle the program.

2020 - Courts in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, and Wisconsin ruled against Donald Trump and his allies in lawsuits seeking to overturn the results of the presidential election.

2020 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americans to always wear masks indoors when they were not in their homes. It was the first time the CDC had made that recommendation.

2021 - CNN anchor Chris Cuomo was fired over his efforts to help his brother, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, fight off a sexual harassment scandal.

2021 - The Semeru volcano on the Indonesian island of Java erupted, killing one person, injuring at least 35 and trapping some people in buildings. The death toll from the smoke and ash soon rose to around 70.

2022 - Kennedy Center Honors were bestowed on Gladys Knight, Amy Grant, George Clooney, U2, and Tania León in Washington DC.

2022 - A Beautiful Noise, The Neil Diamond Musical opened at Broadhurst Theatre, NYC. A jukebox musical based on the life and music of Neil Diamond. The show is structured around a series of therapy sessions during which Diamond reacts to his lyrics as they are read by his psychiatrist from a second-hand copy of "The Complete Lyrics of Neil Diamond".

2022 - Republican lawmakers rebuked former POTUS Trump for his call for the “termination” of the Constitution over his unfounded claims of mass electoral fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Representative Mike Turner of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said that he “vehemently” condemned Trump’s remarks.

and more...
HistoryOrb, HistoryPod, On-This-Day,
TODAYINSCI, The day’s front pages

Jump to Top Birthdays on This Day    December 4

1795 - Thomas Carlyle
writer: Critical and Miscellaneous Essays; historian; died Feb 5, 1881

1835 - Samuel Butler
author: Erewhon, The Way of All Flesh; died June 18, 1902

1858 - Chester Greenwood
inventor: ear muffs; died Jul 5, 1937

1860 - Lillian Russell (Helen Louise Leonard)
singer, actress: Wild Fire; burlesque: The Great Mogul [1881]; died Jun 6, 1922

1913 - Claude Renoir
cinematographer: The Spy Who Loved Me, The River; son of artist Pierre Renoir; died Sep 5, 1993

1912 - Pappy (Gregory) Boyington
aviator: USMC: commanding officer of WWII Black Sheep Squadron [VMF 214]; received Congressional Medal of Honor; died Jan 11, 1988

1915 - Eddie Heywood Jr.
pianist, composer: Canadian Sunset; died Jan 2, 1989

1921 - Deanna Durbin
actress: Summer Stock, Lady on a Train, 100 Men and a Girl, It Started with Eve, Can’t Help Singing; died Apr 20, 2013

1928 - Dena Dietrich
actress: The Ropers, The Practice, Karen, Adam’s Rib; died Nov 21, 2020

1930 - Harvey (Edward) Kuenn
baseball: Detroit Tigers [American League Rookie of the Year: 1953/all-star: 1953-1959], Cleveland Indians [all-star: 1960], SF Giants [World Series: 1962], Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies; manager: Milwaukee Brewers: American League Manager of the Year [1982]; died Feb 28, 1988

1931 - Alex Delvecchio
Hockey Hall of Famer: Detroit Red Wings: Lady Bing Trophy-winner [1959, 1966, 1969]

1933 - Horst Buchholz
actor: Faraway, So Close!, Avalanche Express, Raid on Entebbe, The Savage Bees, Fanny, The Magnificent Seven; died Mar 3, 2003

1934 - Victor French
actor: Choices, Little House on the Prairie, The Other, Spencer’s Mountain, Highway to Heaven, The Hero, Get Smart, Carter Country; died June 15, 1989

1934 - Wink (Winston Conrad) Martindale
radio DJ/TV host: Tic Tac Dough, Can You Top This?; singer?: Deck of Cards

1937 - Max Baer Jr.
actor: The Beverly Hillbillies, Macon County Line; producer: Ode to Billy Joe; son of boxing great Max Baer, Sr.

1940 - Freddy Cannon (Frederick Anthony Picariello)
singer: Tallahassee Lassie, Way Down Yonder in New Orleans, Palisades Park, Transistor Sister Features Spotlight

1941 - Marty Riessen
tennis champion: shares record for most US Open mixed doubles, won by an individual male [4]

1942 - Bob Mosley
musician: bass: group: Moby Grape

1942 - Chris Hillman
musician: guitar, bass, mandolin: groups: The Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn!; Golden State Boys, Hillmen, Green Grass Group, Flying Burrito Brothers, Manassas, Souther-Hillman-Furay Band, Desert Rose Band; solo: LPs: Slippin’ Away, Clear Sailin’, The Hillman, Morning Sky, Desert Rose, Ever Call Ready

1943 - Gary Sabourin
hockey: NHL: SL Blues, Toronto Maple Leafs, California Seals, Cleveland Barons

1944 - Dennis Wilson
musician: drums, keyboards; singer: group: The Beach Boys: I Get Around, Help Me Rhonda, Good Vibrations, California Girls, Surfin’ USA, Little Deuce Coupe, Surfer Girl, Be True to Your School; died in drowning accident Dec 28, 1983

1946 - Skip Vanderbundt
football [linebacker]: San Francisco 49ers [1969–1977]; New Orleans Saints [1978])

1948 - Southside Johnny (Lyon)
singer: group: Southside Johnny and The Asbury Jukes: I Don’t Wanna Go Home, The Fever, This Time It’s for Real, Hearts of Stone

1948 - Randy Vataha
football: Stanford Univ., New England Patriots WR; sports consultant

1949 - Brooke Adams
actress: Made-Up, Days of Heaven, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Cuba, The Dead Zone, Key Exchange, Gas Food Lodging, At Last, The Legend of Lucy Keyes; Broadway: The Cherry Orchard, Lend Me a Tenor; married to actor Tony Shalhoub

1949 - Jeff Bridges
Academy Award-winning actor: Crazy Heart [2010]; White Squall, Wild Bill, Blown Away, The Vanishing, American Heart, The Fisher King, The Fabulous Baker Boys, Starman, Against All Odds, The Last Picture Show, The Company She Keeps, Fearless, Thunderbolt & Lightfoot, Sea Hunt; songwriter; son of actor Lloyd Bridges; brother of actor Beau Bridges; more

1949 - Pamela Stephenson
comedian, actress: Saturday Night Live, Lost Empires, Funny Man, Those Dear Departed, Finders Keepers, Superman III, The Comeback, McManus, Private Collection; clinical psychologist w/practice in Beverly Hills, CA

1950 - Samantha Fox (Stasia Therese Angela Micula)
actress [1977-1984]: X-rated films: Swedish Sorority Girls, Dr. Love and His House of Perversions, That Lucky Stiff, This Lady is a Tramp, The Devil in Miss Jones, Part II, The Story of X

1951 - Skip Bayless
TV sportscaster: First Take [ESPN2], Skip and Shannon: Undisputed

1951 - Gary Rossington
musician: guitar: group: Lynyrd Skynyrd: Freebird, Sweet Home Alabama; Rossington Collins band: LPs: Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere, This is the Way

1951 - Patricia Wettig
Emmy Award-winning actress: thirtysomething [1987-88, 1989-90, 1990-91]; Stephen King’s The Langoliers, City Slickers 2: The Legend of Curly’s Gold, City Slickers

1954 - Tony Todd
actor: Night of the Living Dead, Candyman, Platoon, Beg, Night of the Living Dead, The Crow, The Rock, Wishmaster, Minotaur, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Changing the Game, Final Destination film series, Hatchet, Hatchet II

1955 - Brian Prout
musician: drums: group: Diamond Rio: Meet in the Middle, Mirror Mirror, Mama Don’t Forget to Pray for Me, Norma Jean Riley, Nowhere Bound, In a Week or Two, Oh Me, Oh My Sweet Baby

1955 - Cassandra Wilson
Grammy Award winning singer: New Moon Daughter [1997], Loverly [2009]

1956 - Bernard King
basketball: New Jersey Nets, Utah Jazz, Golden State Warriors, New York Knicks: led NBA in scoring [32.9 points per game, 1984-85], Washington Bullets; actor: Fast Break, Miami Vice, Ryan’s Hope

1964 - Jonathan Goldstein
actor: Drake & Josh, The Guru Singh-Cinderelli, Tube, The Auteur Theory, Shock Television, Body of Influence 2, Target of Suspicion

1964 - Marisa Tomei
Academy Award-winning actress: My Cousin Vinny [1993]; Chaplin, Oscar, The Paper, Untamed Heart, A Different World, The Flamingo Kid, As the World Turns

1966 - Fred Armisen
comedian, actor: Saturday Night Live, The Post Grad Survival Guide, The Rocker, Baby Mama, Fast Track, Wake Up, Ron Burgundy: The Lost Movie, Like Mike, Portlandia, Forever

1969 - Jay-Z (Shawn Corey Carter)
rapper: Young Forever, Empire State of Mind, Run This Town, Show Me What You Got, Hard Knock Life [Ghetto Anthem], Wishing on a Star; business mogul: co-owner of The 40/40 Club, part-owner of the NBA’s New Jersey Nets, creator of the clothing line Rocawear, former CEO of Def Jam Recordings

1970 - Jeff Blake
football [quarterback]: East Carolina Univ; NFL: New York Jets, Cincinnati Bengals, New Orleans Saints, Baltimore Ravens, Arizona Cardinals, Philadelphia Eagles, Chicago Bears

1970 - Kevin Sussman
actor: The Big Bang Theory, Ugly Betty, Heavy Petting, For Your Consideration, Funny Money, Hitch, Little Black Book, Changing Lanes, Sweet Home Alabama

1972 - Howard Eisley
basketball [guard]: Boston College; NBA: Minnesota Timberwolves, San Antonio Spurs, Utah Jazz, Dallas Mavericks, New York Knicks, Phoenix Suns

1972 - Ted Johnson
football [linebacker]: Univ of Colorado; NFL: New England Patriots

1973 - Tyra Banks
actress: Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Higher Learning; model: Cover Girl cosmetics

1973 - Corliss Williamson
basketball [forward]: Univ of Arkansas; NBA: Sacramento Kings, Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76ers

1984 - Lindsay Felton
actress: Thunder Alley, Stray Dog, The Metro Chase

1987 - Orlando Brown
actor: Family Matters, The Jamie Foxx Show, Eddie’s Million Dollar Cook-Off, Max Keeble’s Big Move, The 70s, A Walton Easter, Major Payne

1989 - Nafessa Williams
actress: Black Lightning, Streets, One Life to Live, Code Black

1992 - Jin (Kim Seok-jin)
singer, songwriter: member of the South Korean boy band BTS: Awake, Epiphany, Moon; solo Yours, Super Tuna, The Astronaut, Abyss

and still more...
IMDb, iafd (adult), FAMOUS, NNDB,
BASEBALL, BASKETBALL, HOCKEY, PRO-FOOTBALL

Jump to Top Hit Music on This Day    December 4

1948Buttons and Bows (facts) - Dinah Shore
On a Slow Boat to China (facts) - The Kay Kyser Orchestra (vocal: Harry Babbitt & Gloria Wood
Hair of Gold, Eyes of Blue (facts) - Gordon MacRae
One Has My Name (The Other Has My Heart) (facts) - Jimmy Wakely

1957Jailhouse Rock (facts) - Elvis Presley
You Send Me (facts) - Sam Cooke
My Special Angel (facts) - Bobby Helms
Jailhouse Rock (facts) - Elvis Presley

1966Winchester Cathedral (facts) - The New Vaudeville Band
Good Vibrations (facts) - The Beach Boys
Devil with a Blue Dress On & Good Golly Miss Molly (facts) - Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels
Somebody Like Me (facts) - Eddy Arnold

1975Fly, Robin, Fly (facts) - Silver Convention
The Way I Want to Touch You (facts) - Captain & Tennille
Let’s Do It Again (facts) - The Staple Singers
It’s All in the Movies (facts) - Merle Haggard

1984Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (facts) - Wham!
Out of Touch (facts) - Daryl Hall & John Oates
I Feel for You (facts) - Chaka Khan
Your Heart’s Not in It (facts) - Janie Fricke

1993I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That) (facts) - Meat Loaf
Again (facts) - Janet Jackson
Shoop (facts) - Salt-N-Pepa
American Honky-Tonk Bar Association (facts) - Garth Brooks

2002Die Another Day (facts) - Madonna
Lose Yourself (facts) - Eminem
The Game of Love (facts) - Santana featuring Michelle Branch
These Days (facts) - Rascal Flatts

2011We Found Love (facts) - Rihanna featuring Calvin Harris
Sexy and I Know It (facts) - LMFAO
Someone Like You (facts) - Adele
Country Must Be Country Wide (facts) - Brantley Gilbert

2020Life Goes On (facts) - BTS
Mood (facts) - 24kGoldn featuring Iann Dior
Dynamite (facts) - BTS
I Hope (facts) - Gabby Barrett

and even more...
Billboard, Pop/Rock Oldies, Songfacts, Country


Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...


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Written and edited by Carol Williams and John Williams
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