December 20
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Events on This Day
1606 - The Susan Constant, Godspeed and Discovery set sail from London. Their destination: America. Captain Christopher Newport commanded the three tiny ships (and, we do mean tiny -- check out Jamestown village in Virginia to see for yourself. The ships are on display and you can climb aboard) for the royally chartered Virginia Company. Their landing at Jamestown, VA was the start of the first permanent English settlement in America.1803 - The United States finally took possession of the Louisiana Territories from France on this day. The treaty that France drew up, giving the Territories to the United States for $15 million, was actually dated April 30, 1803 and signed on May 2. It didn’t reach Washington until July 14. After much objection from Federalists and a bit of stretching of Constitutional Law, Congress ratified the treaty on October 25 with possession final on December 20. The Louisiana Purchase effectively doubled the size of the existing U.S. With 827,987 square miles in the deal, that price translates to roughly $18 per square mile -- under 3 cents per acre.
1860 - South Carolina became the first state to secede from the United States. South Carolina was followed within two months by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
1892 - Alexander T. Brown and George Stillman of Syracuse, New York patented the pneumatic tire. So, if you are feeling flat from all that holiday hustle and bustle, get a pneumatic tire today for a quick pick-me-up. Makes a perfect gift! Buy several!
1920 - An English-born comedian named Leslie Townes Hope became an American citizen. He had lived in the United States since 1908 and became one of the nation’s true ambassadors for show business and charity. We say, “Thanks for the memory,” to Bob Hope.
1928 - For the first time, a living actress in the United States had a theatre named after her. The Ethel Barrymore Theatre opened in New York City. In fact, the theatre was not only named for Ethel Barrymore, it was built just for her.
1928 - International mail delivery by dog sled began -- in Lewiston, Maine. It took Alden William Pulsifer and his six dogs twenty-five days to reach Montreal, Canada.
1932 - Al Jolson recorded April Showers on Brunswick Records.
1938 - Vladimir Kosma Zworykin of Wilkinsburg, PA patented the iconoscope television system. The system did catch on, but the name didn’t. No one could say, “You can be sure if it’s Zworykin.”
1941 - Japanese troops landed and took over Davao on the island of Mindanao.
1944 - U.S. General Dwight D. Eisenhower was promoted and given his 5th star.
1949 - Harry Belafonte had his second session with Capitol Records. Included in the session were Whispering and Farewell to Arms. With eight tunes then recorded and little enthusiasm from record buyers, Capitol decided to part company with Belafonte by not renewing the singer’s contract. He went to RCA Victor in April, 1952 and the rest is musical history. Day-O!
1951 - EBR-I (Experimental Breeder Reactor-I) ushered in a new era in nuclear history when it became the first reactor to generate useable amounts of electricity from nuclear energy. It accomplished this feat by lighting four light bulbs this day at the National Reactor Testing Station of Argonne National Laboratory, Butte County, Idaho. EBR-I was registered as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
1952 - Jimmy Boyd reached the #1 spot on the record charts with the Christmas song of the year, I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.
1954 - Buick Motor Company signed Jackie Gleason to one of the largest contracts ever entered into with an entertainer. Gleason agreed to produce 78 half-hour shows over a two-year period for $6,142,500. How sweet it was!
1962 - A world indoor pole-vault record was set by Don Meyers in Chicago, IL as he cleared 16 feet, 1-1/4 inches.
1963 - The Berlin Wall was opened for the first time. It remained open for the holiday season, but closed again on January 6, 1964. 4,000 people crossed over to visit relatives during this period.
1967 - The Graduate, starring Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft, premiered.
1968 - Author John Steinbeck, 66, died from heart failure in New York City. Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Grapes of Wrath in 1940.
1969 - Peter, Paul & Mary’s Leaving on a Jet Plane reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
1972 - Jack Albertson and Sam Levine starred as two retired vaudevillians in Neil Simon’s classic comedy, The Sunshine Boys, which opened at the Broadhurst Theatre in NYC. The play had a run of 538 performances. The movie version later became a box office smash.
1973 - Singer Bobby Darin died following open-heart surgery at the age of 37. He left a legacy of memories in rock ’n’ roll and pop tunes, as well as on television and in movies (even an Oscar nomination for his role in Captain Newman, M.D.). The story of Darin being groomed to replace Frank Sinatra at Capitol Records is absolutely true. Unfortunately, Capitol didn’t think the grooming was going so well, and withheld many of Darin’s songs for many years; releasing them in a compilation CD in 1995. Good stuff to listen to: Splish Splash, Queen of the Hop, Dream Lover, Mack the Knife, Beyond the Sea, If I Were a Carpenter, etc. At the end, Darin, who had recorded for Atco, Capitol and Atlantic Records had just begun recording for Motown.
1975 - Paul Simon’s 50 Ways to leave Your Lover jumped on U.S. singles charts. It hit number one (for three weeks) Feb 7, 1976. For you trivia fans out there, this is Paul Simon’s only #1 single (so far). “Just slip out the back, Jack; Make a new plan, Stan; You don't need to be coy, Roy; Just get yourself free...”
1978 - Former White House chief of staff H.R. Haldeman was released from prison after serving 18 months for his role in the Watergate cover-up.
1980 - TV experimented, as NBC covered the meaningless NFL game between the New York Jets (4-11) and the Miami Dolphins (8-7). No announcers were in the booth. The only sounds heard were field noise and spectators as the pictures tried to convey the emotion of the game. Headlines the next day read, “Jets Silence Dolphins 24-17.”
1981 - Dreamgirls opened at the Imperial Theatre on Broadway in New York City. Based on the show business aspirations and successes of rhythm and blues acts like The Supremes, The Shirelles, James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and others, the musical follows the story of a female singing trio from Chicago, Illinois called The Dreams, who become music superstars. The show was nominated for 13 Tony Awards, including the Tony Award for Best Musical, and won six. It was later adapted into a motion picture from DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures in 2006. Dreamgirls thrilled audiences 1,521 times, closing Aug 11, 1985.
1983 - Joe Gibbs of the Washington Redskins was named NFL Coach of the Year by the Associated Press. He became the first head coach to receive this honor in consecutive years since 1961-62 (when Allie Sherman, of the New York Giants, was so honored). Joe Gibbs took the Redskins to a 14-2 finish in the 1983 season.
1985 - Robert Penn Warren was designated Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry of the U.S. Library of Congress for 1986-1987. The library has used consultants since 1937, when Joseph Auslander was appointed the first Consultant in Poetry, but Robert Penn Warren was the first to be called Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.
1986 - The Bangles’ Walk like an Egyptian moved to the top of the Billboard Hot 100. It was #1 for three weeks. “Foreign types with the hookah pipes say; Ay oh whey oh, ay oh whey oh; Walk like an Egyptian...”
1989 - The U.S. launched Operation Just Cause, sending 12,000 troops into Panama to topple the government of General Manuel Noriega after he had declared war on the U.S. Noreiga found sanctuary in the Vatican Embassy in Panama City and later gave himself up to U.S. authorities and was flown to Miami, Florida for trial.
1990 - Russian Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, a key figure in the Soviet reform that helped end the Cold War, resigned.
1993 - Alina Fernandez Revuelta, a daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro, flew to Spain, where she was granted political asylum by the U.S. Embassy.
1994 - Former Secretary of State Dean Rusk died in Athens, GA at age 85.
1995 - Nixon opened in U.S. theatres. The film starred Anthony Hopkins as Richard M., Joan Allen as the president’s wife, Pat, Powers Boothe as Alexander Haig, Ed Harris as E. Howard Hunt, Bob Hoskins as J. Edgar Hoover, E.G. Marshall as John Mitchell, David Paymer as Ronald Ziegler, David Hyde Pierce as John Dean, Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger, Mary Steenburgen as Hannah Nixon, J.T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman, and James Woods played H.R. Haldeman.
1995 - 163 people aboard an American Airlines passenger jet en route from Miami died when it crashed into a mountain while on approach to the Cali, Colombia airport. Four people did survive the crash.
1996 - Astronomer, educator and Pulitzer Prize-winning author (1978: The Dragons of Eden) Carl Sagan died after a two-year battle with a bone marrow disease at age 62. Sagan became one of the best-known scientists in the U.S. by enthusiastically conveying the wonders of the universe to millions of people on TV and in books. Dr. Sagan was also familiar to TV viewers from appearances in the 1970s and 1980s on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, who was known to don a black wig and perform a Sagan impersonation. Carson delighted in parodying Sagan’s references to “billions and billions of stars” in the universe.
1996 - Movies that opened in the U.S.: Ghosts of Mississippi (“In 1963, civil rights leader Medgar Evers was gunned down in front of his wife and children. In 1994, the time was right for justice.”), with Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, James Woods and Craig T. Nelson; My Fellow Americans (“A comedy about life, liberty and the pursuit of two ex-presidents.”), starring Jack Lemmon and James Garner; and One Fine Day (“She was having a perfectly bad day... Then he came along and spoiled it.”), with Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney.
1998 - Green Bay’s Brett Favre connected three times with Antonio Freeman in the first half against the Tennessee Oilers en route to a 30-22 victory this day. In doing so, Favre became the first quarterback in NFL history to pass for 30 or more touchdowns in five consecutive seasons (33 in 1994, 28 in 1995, 39 in 1996, 35 in 1997, and 30 in 1998).
1999 - The Vermont Supreme Court ruled that homosexual couples were entitled to the same benefits and protections as married couples of the opposite sex.
1999 - Country music legend Hank Snow died in Nashville, TN. He was 85 years old.
2000 - U.S. President-elect George Bush (II) appointed Paul O’Neill (65) head of the Treasury Dept., Ann Veneman (51) Sec. of Agriculture, Mel Martinez (54) Sec. of Housing and Urban Development, and Don Evans (54) Sec of Commerce. Andrew Card (53) was appointed Chief of Staff and Karen Hughes (43) Communications Director.
2001 - Comedian Foster Brooks, known for his fake drunk act, died in Encino, CA at age 89.
2002 - Movies opening in the U.S: Gangs of New York, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Liam Neeson, Cameron Diaz, Pete Postlethwaite and Henry Thomas; Two Weeks Notice, with Sandra Bullock, Hugh Grant, Alicia Witt, Mark Feuerstein, Dana Ivey and Robert Klein; and the animated adventure The Wild Thornberrys Movie, starring the voices of Brenda Blethyn, Jodi Carlisle, Lacey Chabert, Tim Curry, Rupert Everett, Flea, Danielle Harris, Tom Kane, Lynn Redgrave, Marisa Tomei and Alfre Woodard.
2002 - Trent Lott of Mississippi stepped down as U.S. Senate Majority Leader, two weeks after igniting a political firestorm with racially charged remarks. Lott’s resignation followed weeks of mounting pressure after Lott made comments at the hundredth birthday party for former Senator Strom Thurmond -- comments that appeared to condone racial segregation.
2003 - A rescue team found two injured British adventurers whose helicopter had crashed in the Antarctic during a round-the world voyage. Jennifer Murray and Colin Bodill, who were attempting to circumnavigate the Earth across both poles, were found “safe and well.”
2004 - Robbers made off with more than £26.5 million ($39 million) from the Belfast headquarters of Northern Bank in the biggest robbery in Northern Ireland history. The gang gained entry by kidnapping the families of two executives and forcing the executives to open the vault.
2005 - Judge John E. Jones III ruled (Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District) that it was unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom in the U.S.
2005 - Local 100 of the Transport Workers Union called a New York City transit strike after negotiations failed. The strike shut down the largest subway and bus system in the U.S. Millions of commuters were affected and the strike was ended in two days.
2006 - In the United Arab Emirates, hand-selected voters cast the third and final round of votes to choose members of a government advisory panel. It was the oil-rich country’s first elections.
2006 - Pennsylvania cleared the way for five slot machine casino licenses -- two in Philadelphia, one in Pittsburgh, one in Bethlehem, and one in the Pocono Mountains.
2007 - U.S. regulators cleared a plan by search giant Google to acquire online advertising giant DoubleClick.
2007 - Global investment bank Bear Stearns reported the first quarterly loss in its 84-year history as it wrote down $1.9 billion in mortgage assets.
2008 - China announced its dispatching of two destroyers and a supply vessel to the seas off Somalia to back international efforts to fight piracy.
2009 - Old Man Winter was blowing up storms: One blanketed swaths of the mid-Atlantic U.S. with nearly 2 feet of snow and reaching southern New England, causing several deaths, crippling travel and leaving stores empty that would normally be crammed with holiday shoppers. Another left tens of thousands of European travelers stranded in rail stations, traffic jams and airports as heavy snow and ice caused massive disruption at the start of the Christmas holiday season.
2009 - 32-year-old actress Brittany Murphy, star of films such as Clueless and 8 Mile, died after collapsing at her Hollywood Hills home. On February 4, 2010, the Los Angeles County coroner stated that the primary cause of Murphy‘s death was pneumonia, with secondary factors of iron-deficiency anemia and multiple drug intoxication. On February 25, 2010, the coroner released a report stating that Murphy had been taking a range of over-the-counter and prescription medications, probably to treat a cold or respiratory infection. The drugs included hydrocodone, acetaminophen, L-methamphetamine and chlorpheniramine. All of the drugs were legal and her death was ruled an accident...
2010 - Pakistan militants in the Khyber tribal region fired rockets at a NATO convoy carrying supplies to Afghanistan, destroying two oil tankers, killing a driver. This, a week after a review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan was released stating that the Afghanistan war could not be won unless Pakistan rooted out militants on its side of the border, reflecting the concerns of military commanders that insurgents freely cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan to fight U.S. troops before running back to relative safety across the Pakistan border.
2011 - The European Court of Human Rights ordered Russia to pay more than €1 million ($1.3 million) to dozens of plaintiffs over the country’s bungled efforts to end a 2002 Moscow theater siege by Chechen militants.
2012 - A Thai court ordered the extradition of 65-year-old Vito Roberto Palazzolo. The fugitive Italian banker had been found guilty of laundering money for some of Italy’s top mobsters through New York pizzerias from 1975-1984. The Pizza Connection heroin trafficking ring operated between Turkey, Sicily and New York.
2013 - Movies opening in the U.S.: The animated, Walking with Dinosaurs 3D, featuring the voices of John Leguizamo, Justin Long, Tiya Sircar and Skyler Stone; All the Light in the Sky, starring Jane Adams, Sophia Takal and Kent Osborne; The Past, with Bérénice Bejo, Tahar Rahim and Ali Mosaffa; Wrong Cops, starring Mark Burnham, Eric Judor and Steve Little; Inside Llewyn Davis, with Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan and John Goodman; and Saving Mr. Banks, starring Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Ruth Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, Rachel Griffiths and Victoria Summer.
2013 - Canada’s highest court struck down the country’s anti-prostitution laws. The ruling was a victory for sex workers who had argued that a ban on brothels and other measures made their profession more dangerous.
2013 - A U.S. federal judge scrapped Utah’s ban on same-sex marriages. The ban was approved by 66% of state voters in 2004.
2014 - China state media reported that the country had offered more than $3 billion in loans and aid to neighbors Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos -- for improvements to infrastructure and production, and to help fight poverty.
2015 - 24-year-old Lakeisha Holloway, with a toddler in her car, swerved multiple times onto a busy sidewalk on the Las Vegas Strip, killing one person and injuring 30 others. No one knows why Holloway went on the rampage, but police said she had been in Las Vegas for at least a week and told them she was trying to sleep in her car at casinos but was “run off by security” at various properties.
2015 - Colombian contestant Ariadna Gutierrez Arevalo had already put on the Miss Universe crown when host Steve Harvey returned to announce on live TV that he had mistakenly read from a cue card, and that Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, the contestant from the Philippines, was the actual winner.
2016 - British-based Lloyds of London said it was buying the MBNA United Kingdom credit card business from Bank of America for £1.9 billion ($2.4 billion) “Lloyds will be broadly doubling up its exposure to credit cards at a particularly benign point in the bad debt cycle and ahead of a potential slow-down, once the terms of the U.K.'s exit from the E.U. are reached,” Gary Greenwood of Shore Capital said.
2016 - An explosion at a crowded fireworks market in the Mexico City suburb of Tultepec killed at least 31 people and injured 72 others. Three injured children were sent to Galveston, Texas to be treated for their burns. The explosion leveled the fireworks market in Tultepec. “Everything was catching fire. Everything was exploding,” survivor Crescencia Francisco Garcia said. “The stones were flying, pieces of brick, everything was flying.” The San Pablito Market had a history of trouble -- it had been the scene of at least two previous explosions -- but this was the first one to turn deadly.
2017 - Movies opening in the U.S. included The Greatest Showman, with Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson and Hugh Jackman; and Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, starring Dwayne Johnson, Karen Gillan and Kevin Hart.
2017 - Turkey’s state-run news agency said prosecutors were seeking more than four years in prison for NBA player Enes Kanter on charges of insulting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Kanter, who grew up in Turkey, was a vocal supporter of Fethullah Gulen, the U.S.-based cleric blamed by Turkey for 2016’s failed military coup. “The only thing you can do is just pray for all these innocent people in Turkey,” Kanter said. “People don’t understand. They’re saying your family is still back in Turkey -- why are you doing all of this? Why are you talking? I’m just trying to be the voice of all of these innocent people, man. Because all of these innocent people are just going through really tough times. Journalists, innocent people in jail getting tortured and killed and kidnapped. And it’s pretty messed up.”
2018 - U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis resigned in protest of POTUS Donald Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria and his rejection of longstanding international alliances.
2018 - North Korea said it would never unilaterally give up its nuclear weapons unless the U.S. first removes what Kim Jong Un called a nuclear threat (U.S. troops and the nuclear umbrella defending South Korea and Japan).
2018 - The U.S. Justice Department charged Chinese citizens Zhu Hua and Zhang Shillong with carrying out an extensive hacking campaign to steal data from U.S. companies. Court papers filed in Manhattan federal court alleged the hackers were able to breach the computers of more than 45 entities in 12 states -- and were acting on behalf of China’s main intelligence agency.
2019 - Movies opening in U.S. theatres included: Cats, with Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, Ian McKellen, Francesca Hayward, Rebel Wilson, Judi Dench, Mette Towley, James Corden, Ray Winstone and Jennifer Hudson; Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, starring Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, Billie Lourd and Mark Hamill; Bombshell, starring Margot Robbie, Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman; Dabangg 3, with Salman Khan, Sonakshi Sinha and Sudeep; and Invisible Life, starring Julia Stockler, Carol Duarte and Flávia Gusmão.
2019 - POTUS Donald Trump blasted Christianity Today, a prominent Christian magazine founded by the late Reverend Billy Graham, that had published an editorial arguing that Trump should be removed from office.
2019 - Record rainfall hit Seattle as a major storm began to move out across western Washington on the first day of winter. It was the wettest day in Seattle in the past 10 years, with the most rain recorded for Dec. 20 since record-keeping at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport began in 1945.
2019 - A Swedish court sentenced Raghdan al-Hraishawi, a 46-year-old Iraqi man, to 2 1/2 years in prison on charges of spying for Iran. He had gathered information about Iranian refugees in Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands.
2020 - Mike Fannin, editor (since 2008) of The Kansas City Star, apologized for past decades of racially biased coverage as the newspaper posted a series of stories examining how it had ignored the concerns and achievements of Black residents and, in the process, helped keep Kansas City segregated.
2020 - Congress reached a deal on a new $900 billion coronavirus relief package. The legislation will include stimulus checks of $600 per person, with smaller benefits for those who earned more than $75,000 in 2019.
2021 - The European Medicines Agency (EMA) approved Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine for people 18 years and older, giving a boost to the U.S. biotech after long delays. The EMA’s recommendation followed a positive opinion from the agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP).
2021 - The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) banned imports from Malaysian glove manufacturer Brightway Group over forced labor practices.
2021 - The State Department warned U.S. citizens to reconsider travel to Ukraine amid increased threats from Russia. “We don’t know whether President Putin has made the decision to invade. We do know that he is putting in place the capacity to do so on short order should he so decide,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
2022 - Multinational company 3M promised to discontinue manufacturing all fluoropolymers, fluorinated fluids, and PFAS-based additive products. Known as ‘forever chemicals’, the substances had been linked to health problems such as cancer.
2022 - The ruling Taliban suspended university education for female students in Afghanistan. The move was part of a wider crackdown on women’s rights in the country. Why? The Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has insisted upon these measures to suppress women’s rights apparently out of personal conviction and to assert his authority over the movement and the country. In others words, he is afraid women will overpower him...
2022 - The Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 379 million potentially fatal doses of illegal fentanyl in 2022 -- enough “to kill everyone in the United States,” DEA Administrator Anne Milgram said. The DEA had confiscated more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder and 50.6 million illegal fentanyl tablets by mid-December, twice as many tablets as it confiscated in 2021.
and more...
Birthdays on This Day December 20
1868 - Harvey Firestone
industrialist: founder of Firestone Tire and Rubber Company; died Feb 7, 19381881 - (Wesley) Branch Rickey
‘The Mahatma’: baseball: SL Browns, NY Highlanders; died Dec 9, 19651895 - Susanne Langer
philosopher; author: Philosophy in a New Key: A Study in the Symbolism of Reason, Rite, and Art; died July 17, 19851898 - Irene (Marie) Dunne
actress: Leathernecking, Cimarron, Back Street, Magnificent Obsession, Roberta, Show Boat, Theodora Goes Wild, The Awful Truth, Love Affair, A Guy Named Joe, Anna and the King of Siam, Life with Father, I Remember Mama, My Favorite Wife, It Grows on Trees; Alternate Delegate to the United Nations; Kennedy Center Honors Lifetime Achievement Award [1985]; died Sep 4, 19901900 - Gabby (Charles Leo) Hartnett
Baseball Hall of Famer [catcher]: Chicago Cubs [World Series: 1929, 1932, 1935, 1938/all-star: 1933-1938/NL MVP: 1935]; .297 lifetime average w/236 home runs; caught 100 or more games 12 times; manager: Chicago Cubs [as rookie manager in 1938, he hit homer in near darkness to beat Pirates and lead Cubs to pennant]; died Dec 20, 19721902 - Sidney Hook
philosopher, writer: From Hegel to Marx : Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx, The Metaphysics of Pragmatism, The Hero in History : A Study in Limitation and Possibility; died Jul 12, 19891902 - Max Lerner
educator, author, columnist: New York Post; died June 5, 19921908 - Dennis Morgan (Stanley Morner)
singer; actor: 21 Beacon Street, Pearl of the South Pacific, It’s a Great Feeling, Christmas in Connecticut, The Great Ziegfeld, Two Guys from Milwaukee, Desert Song, Kitty Foyle, My Wild Irish Rose; died Sep 7, 19941911 - Hortense Calisher
novelist: In the Slammer with Carol Smith, The Hollow Boy; died Jan 13, 20091918 - Audrey Totter
actress: The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Carpetbaggers; died Dec 12, 20131921 - George Roy Hill
director: Funny Farm, The World According to Garp, A Little Romance, Slap Shot, The Sting, Slaughterhouse Five, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Hawaii, The World of Henry Orient, Toys in the Attic, Period of Adjustment, Min & Bill, Kraft Television Theatre; died Dec 27, 20021924 - Charlie Callas
comedian, actor: Horrorween, Crooks, Dracula: Dead and Loving It, Vampire Vixens From Venus, Hysterical, History of the World: Part I; died Jan 27, 20111926 - David Levine
caricaturist: New York Review of Books; “Probably the greatest American caricaturist.” -- The New York Times; died Dec 29, 20091927 - Jim Simpson
sportscaster: NBC radio, TV NFL coverage; ESPN; died Jan 13, 20161928 - Jack Christiansen
Football Hall of Famer: Detroit Lions: NFL Individual Record: 8 Career punt returns for touchdowns [1951-1958]; died June 29, 19861931 - Mala Powers
actress: Cyrano de Bergerac, Tammy and the Bachelor, Surfside 6, 77 Sunset Strip, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Doomsday Machine; died Jun 11, 20071932 - John Hillerman
Emmy Award-winning actor: Magnum P.I. [1986-1987]; Hands of a Murderer, Chinatown, Blazing Saddles, Paper Moon, The Last Picture Show; died Nov 9, 20171939 - Kathryn Joosten
Emmy Award-winning actress: Desperate Housewives [2005, 2008, 2010]; The West Wing, Roseanne, Home Improvement, Picket Fences, Murphy Brown, ER, Seinfeld, Frasier, Just Shoot Me!, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dharma & Greg, Las Vegas, The Drew Carey Show, My Name is Earl, Spin City, The X-Files, Judging Amy, Monk, Charmed, Will & Grace, Malcolm in the Middle, Grey’s Anatomy, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Reba, So Little Time, Gilmore Girls, The Closer, Joan of Arcadia; died Jun 1, 20121939 - Kim Weston
actress singer: It Takes Two [w/Marvin Gaye]1942 - Bob Hayes
Pro Football Hall of Famer [wide receiver]: Dallas Cowboys, San Francisco 49ers; died Sep 18, 20021943 - Angel Tompkins
actress: Walking Tall, Part II, The Bees1944 - Bobby Colomby
musician: drums, singer: group: Blood, Sweat & Tears: And When I Die, You Made Me So Very Happy, Spinning Wheel, Hi De Ho1946 - Uri Geller
psychic, clairvoyant, spoon-bender1945 - Peter Criss (Crisscoula)
musician: drums: group: KISS [The Catman]: Strutter, Deuce, Got to Choose, Hotter Than Hell, C’Mon and Love, Rock and Roll All Nite, Detroit Rock City, Shout It Out Loud; more1946 - John Spencer
Emmy Award-winning actor [The West Wing (2002)]; Carousel [stage], The Patty Duke Show, Black Rain, Presumed Innocent, Ravenous, The Negotiator, Twilight, Cop Land, The Rock, Forget Paris, A Perry Mason Mystery: The Case of the Grimacing Governor, L.A. Law; died Dec 16, 20051946 - Dick Wolf
TV producer: Miami Vice, Law & Order et al., Hill Street Blues, South Beach, Dragnet [2003], Chicago Fire, Chicago PD1947 - Bo Ryan
basketball coach: Wisconsin-Milwaukee [1999–2001]; Univ of Wisconsin [2001–2015]: 2015 NCAA championship game1948 - Dick Gibbs
basketball: Univ. of Texas at El Paso1948 - Alan Parsons
musician: keyboards; music engineer: worked on The Beatles’ Abbey Road LP and early Wings LPs; producer: The Alan Parsons Project: Eye in the Sky, Games People Play1948 - Little Stevie Wright
singer: group: The Easybeats: She’s So Fine, Wedding Ring, Sad and Lonely and Blue, Woman, Come and See Her, Friday on My Mind, Hello How are You, Good Times; solo LP: Hard Road1949 - Cecil (Celester) Cooper
baseball: Boston Red Sox [World Series: 1975], Milwaukee Brewers [all-star: 1979, 1980, 1982, 1983, 1985/World Series: 1982]1949 - Oscar (Charles) Gamble
baseball: Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies, Cleveland Indians, NY Yankees [World Series: 1976, 1981], Chicago White Sox, San Diego Padres, Texas Rangers1950 - Bill Clement
hockey: NHL: Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals, Atlanta Flames, Calgary Flames; TV analyst: ESPN1951 - Joey Silvera
actor [1974-2012]: X-rated films: The Party, Blame It on Ginger, The Huntress, Mr. Billion’s Dollar Babies, Every Which Way She Can, Starship Intercourse; has appeared in over 1,300 films and directed some 2701952 - Jenny Agutter
Emmy Award-winning actress: The Snow Goose [1971-1972]; Logan’s Run, An American Werewolf in London, Child’s Play1954 - Michael Badalucco
Emmy Award-winning supporting actor: The Practice [1999]; Raging Bull, The Search for One-eye Jimmy, The Man Who Wasn’t There, In My Sleep, Finding Hope Now1956 - Blanche Baker
Emmy Award-winning actress: Holocaust [1978]; films: Pure Life, Jersey Justice, Dead Funny, Shakedown, Sixteen Candles, Mary and Joseph: A Story of Faith, Hypothermia1957 - Billy (Steven) Bragg
songwriter, musician: guitar, singer: The Milkman of Human Kindness, A New England, Man in the Iron Mask, St. Withins Day, Island of No Return, Between the Wars, World Turned Upside Down, Which Side are You On?, Levi Stubbs’ Tears1960 - Mark Keyloun
actor: Separate Vacations, Gimme an F, Mike’s Murder, Sudden Impact1963 - Joel Gretsch
actor: The 4400, Saving Grace B. Jones, Commerce, Truck Stop, Taken, V1965 - Rich Gannon
football [quarterback]: Univ of Delaware; NFL: Minnesota Vikings, Washington Redskins, Kansas City Chiefs, Oakland Raiders1966 - Chris Robinson
singer: group: The Black Crowes1969 - Chisa Yokoyama
actress: Tenchi Muyo! Ryo Oki, Kido senkan Nadeshiko: Prince of Darkness, Sakura taisen, Gall Force: The Revolution, Rojin Z, Robotto kânibaru1970 - Travis Green
hockey [center]: New York Islanders, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Phoenix Coyotes, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins1970 - Todd Phillips
film director: The Hangover film series, Road Trip, Old School, Due Date, Project X1973 - Cory Stillman
hockey [left wing]: Calgary Flames, St. Louis Blues, Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes1976 - Aubrey Huff
baseball [third base]: Univ of Miami; MLB: Detroit Tigers, Tampa Bay Devil Rays, Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles1978 - Amanda Swisten
actress: American Wedding, The Last Run, The Girl Next Door, Freezer Burn, I’m With Her, Two and a Half Men, Quintuplets, Joey1981 - James Shields
baseball [pitcher]: Tampa Bay Devil Rays [2006-2012]; Kansas City Royals [2013-2014]: 2014 World Series1982 - David Wright
baseball [3rd base]: New York Mets [2004-2016, 2018]: 2015 World Series; 6-time All-Star, 2-time Gold Glove Award winner, 2-time Silver Slugger Award1983 - Jonah Hill
actor: Superbad, Knocked Up, Funny People, Get Him to the Greek, Moneyball, 21 Jump Street, The Watch, I Heart Huckabees, Night at the Museum 21990 - JoJo (Joanna Noëlle Blagden Levesque)
singer: Leave [Get Out], Too Little Too Late, In the Dark, Disaster1993 - Austin Falk
actor: 2 Broke Girls, Awkward, Tales of Halloween, Expecting Amish, Devilish Charm, Tales of Halloween
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day December 20
1946Ole Buttermilk Sky (facts) - The Kay Kyser Orchestra (vocal: Mike Douglas & The Campus Kids)
White Christmas (facts) - Bing Crosby
1955
1964
1973
1982
1991
2000
2009
2018
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
TWtD Calendar
