May 18
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Events on This Day
1798 - The first Secretary of the U.S. Navy was appointed. He was Benjamin Stoddert.1860 - Abraham Lincoln of Springfield, IL was nominated for the U.S. Presidency by Republican party leaders at a meeting in Chicago. (Lincoln’s running mate was Hannibal Hamlin.)
1927 - 45 people, mostly children, were killed and 58 were injured when disgruntled and demented school board member Andrew Kehoe dynamited the new school building in Bath, Michigan. Kehoe, also a part-time handyman at the school, blamed the property tax used to build the school for his farm being foreclosed upon. Over several months (while doing his handyman work) he had planted hundreds of pounds of dynamite throughout the school. On the morning of May 18, 1927, he killed his wife, set his farm on fire, and set off the dynamite under the school. He then drove to the school in his truck (loaded with dynamite and shrapnel), and detonated it amongst the rescuers. That explosion killed him and three others.
1931 - Race jockey Eddie Arcaro rode his first race -- at Bainbridge, OH. He finished sixth. Later, Arcaro would become a racing legend, finishing first in over 4,100 races, including four Kentucky Derby wins. Arcaro won the Derby in 1941, 1945, 1948 and again in 1952. He rode Hill Gail, Hoop, Jr., Whirl-A-Way and Citation. Arcaro won the Triple Crown with Whirl-A-Way and Citation.
1933 - U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) Act for flood control and rural electrification. FDR described the TVA as “a corporation clothed with the power of government but possessed of the flexibility and initiative of a private enterprise.”
1934 - TWA began commercial service with the DC-2 (the production version of the DC-1 and forerunner of the DC-3) on its Columbus to Pittsburgh to Newark route.
1942 - David Harding, Counterspy was heard on the NBC Blue network for the first time. The program enjoyed a long run on radio, lasting for 15 years.
1944 - Allied forces occupied Monte Cassino in Italy after a four-month struggle that claimed some 20,000 lives.
1951 - The United Nations moved out of temporary headquarters in Lake Success, New York, to its permanent home in Manhattan.
1953 - The first woman to fly faster than the speed of sound, Jacqueline Cochran, piloted an F-86 Sabrejet over California at an average speed of 652.337 miles-per-hour.
1954 - Former heavyweight boxing titleholder Max Schmeling came back to the U.S. after 15 years. He returned to referee a boxing match in Milwaukee, WI. He stayed for the beer and bratwurst, no doubt...
1957 - Jockey Eddie Arcaro rode Bold Ruler to the winner’s circle in the Preakness Stakes in Maryland.
1959 - Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa was pictured on the cover of LIFE magazine. And the headline read. “A National Threat: Hoffa’s Teamsters.”
1963 - If You Wanna Be Happy, by Jimmy Soul, hit #1. The song stayed at the pinnacle of popdom for two weeks. “If you wanna be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife. So from my personal point of view, get an ugly girl to marry you...”
1963 - Bill Shoemaker won the 88th Preakness Stakes -- with a little help from a horse named Candy Spots.
1964 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to deprive naturalized citizens of citizenship if they return to their home country for three years or more.
1967 - Andy Clyde, Hopalong Cassidy’s sidekick, died at 75 years of age.
1968 - Tiny Tim’s warbly Tiptoe through the Tulips was released. An eventual top twenty hit, Tiptoe was a remake of a number one hit for Nick Lucas in 1929. Grab your banjo and sing along. “Ohhhhh, Tiptoe through the Tuuuuulips....”
1969 - Apollo 10 blasted off with crew Thomas P. Stafford, John W. Young, and Eugene A. Cernan. The mission tested the lunar module and docking procedure in lunar orbit.
1970 - Opening this night in New York City was The Me Nobody Knows at the Orpheum Theatre, just off Broadway. The rock musical had a run of 586 performances.
1974 - The Streak started a 3-week run at number one on the Billboard pop music chart. The novelty tune, by Ray Stevens, was about people running nekkid where they shouldn’t be nekkid, like, in public. It was the second number one hit for the comedian who made numerous appearances on Andy Williams’ TV show in the late 1960s, as well as his own show in the summer of 1970. His first number one hit, just prior to The Streak, was Everything is Beautiful. Both songs won gold records, as did his comedic Gitarzan, a top ten hit in 1969. “Booga-da, booga, da!”
1974 - India detonated its first nuclear device, saying it was for atomic research and not weapons. India became the sixth nation to explode an atomic bomb (the first five were the U.S., The Soviet Union, the U.K., France, and China).
1975 - Composer, orchestra leader Leroy Anderson died. He was 66 years old.
1979 - A federal jury in Oklahoma City awarded $10.5 million to the estate of Karen Silkwood, a laboratory technician contaminated by radiation at a Kerr-McGee plutonium plant in 1974. Silkwood herself couldn’t collect. She died in a hit-and-run automobile accident while on her way to give information about the plant to a newspaper reporter.
1980 - 9,677-foot Mt. St. Helens, quiet for 93 years, blew its top. The volcanic blast was five hundred times more powerful than the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima. Steam and ash erupted more than eleven miles into the sky and darkened skies in a 160-mile radius. Forest fires erupted around the volcano and burned out of control. The eruption, and those that followed, left some sixty dead and caused damage amounting to nearly three billion dollars.
1981 - Actor Arthur O’Connell (Mr. Peepers, The Second Hundred Years) died the age of 73.
1981 - Writer, playwright and humanitarian William Saroyan died in Fresno, CA. Saroyan wrote some 60 books, including The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze (1934), The Human Comedy, which became a 1943 film, and the 1939 play, The Time of Your Life.
1982 - Unification Church founder Reverend Sun Myung Moon was convicted of tax evasion.
1985 - Pat Day aboard Tank’s Prospect won the 110th Preakness Stakes.
1988 - Daws Butler, the cartoon voice of Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, and many other characters, died. He was 71 years old.
1989 - Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev concluded his historic visit to China, which officially marked the end of a 30-year Sino-Soviet rift. And historic for another reason also. The Chinese government had allowed U.S. TV networks to bring in their own satellite up-links for the Gorbachev visit. For that reason, the network coverage was in place when Chinese students occupied Tiananmen Square and began peace protests. Neither the networks nor the Chinese had counted on that happening.
1990 - 54-year-old actress Jill Ireland died of cancer. Ireland made her screen debut as a ballerina in Oh, Rosalind. In 1957, she married actor David McCallum, with whom she appeared in several episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. Her second husband was action star Charles Bronson, whom she married in 1967. From then on, Jill Ireland seldom appeared onscreen without Bronson; their best collaborative efforts include Hard Times (1975) and From Noon Til Three (1976).
1991 - Hansel won the 116th running of the Preakness Stakes, ridden by jockey Jerry Bailey.
1992 - The season finale of Murphy Brown aired on CBS with Murphy Brown, played by Candice Bergen, giving birth to an illegitimate son (Avery Brown). The following day, U.S. V.P. Dan Quayle publicly lambasted the comedy, saying that the program ‘glorified’ single-parenthood. Quayle also complained that the TV situation made a mockery of families with fathers.
1995 - Deaths this day: Actor Elisha Cook Jr. (Maltese Falcon, Shane) at 91 years of age; actor, ballet dancer Alexander Godunov (found dead -- age 45); actor Robert Harris (Werewolf of London) at the age of 95; and actress Elizabeth Montgomery (Bewitched) at 62.
1996 - Jockey Pat Day won his third consecutive Preakness Stakes this day, and his fifth Preakness overall, after riding horse Louis Quatorze to victory.
1997 - Sammy Sosa played in his 22nd career multi-homer game as the Chicago Cubs beat the San Francisco Giants 5-3. Sosa’s first homer that day (off Shawn Estes) was his 150th as a member of the Cubs.
1998 - The Justice Department filed a lawsuit accusing Microsoft of anti-competitive practices. U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno says Microsoft used what she called its “monopoly power” to get a “chokehold” on Internet browser software. She says in doing so, Microsoft stifled competition, and restricted the choices available to consumers.
1998 - The series finale of the sitcom Murphy Brown aired on CBS-TV this night. The show featured Candice Bergen as Murphy Brown, an investigative journalist and news anchor for FYI, a fictional TV newsmagazine. Murphy Brown had debuted Nov 14, 1988. (See 1992, above.)
2000 - The mother and son of Sante and Kenneth Kimes were convicted in New York of murdering Irene Silverman in a plot to steal her elegant townhouse mansion. The body of the 82-year-old millionaire widow has not been found.
2001 - Films debuting in the U.S.: Angel Eyes, starring Jennifer Lopez, Jim Caviezel, Terrence Howard and Sonia Braga; and Shrek, about a reclusive ogre and a chatterbox donkey, with the voices of Mike Myers (as Shrek, the Blind Mouse and the narrator), Eddie Murphy (as the Donkey), Cameron Diaz (Princess Fiona) and John Lithgow (Lord Farquaad of Duloc).
2002 - War Emblem won the Preakness Stakes, setting up a shot at the Triple Crown. (War Emblem came up short at the Belmont Stakes, which was won by long shot Sarava.)
2002 - Cartoonist John Dempsey died at 83 years of age. Since 1954, his work had lampooned contemporary America in Playboy magazine.
2003 - Les Miserables closed on Broadway after more than 16 years and 6,680 performances.
2004 - Legendary jazz drummer and bandleader Elvin Ray Jones died in new Jersey at 76 years of age. During his career, Jones was a member of John Coltrane’s quartet and also played alongside Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.
2004 - Randy Johnson, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ ‘Big Unit’ became the 17th baseball pitcher to pitch a perfect game (when no batter reaches a base during a complete game of at least nine innings). Johson was also the oldest to accomplish the feat as he led his Arizona Diamondbacks to a 2-0 victory over the Atlanta Braves -- in Atlanta.
2006 - Typhoon Chanchu ravaged southern China, killing at least eight people and leaving 27 Vietnamese fishermen missing after their boats sank in Chinese waters.
2007 - Shrek the Third opened in U.S. theatres. The animated comedy features the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, Antonio Banderas, Rupert Everett, Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Justin Timberlake, Eric Idle, John Krasinski, Cheri Oteri, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Amy Sedaris and Ian McShane.
2007 - Deep-sea explorers said they have mined what could be the richest shipwreck treasure in history, bringing home 17 tons of colonial-era silver and gold coins from an undisclosed shipwreck off England. The estimated value was $500 million.
2007 - Microsoft agreed to buy online-ad specialist aQuantive for $6 billion. It was the largest acquisition in Microsoft’s history.
2008 - Talk about stern punishment: Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh (24), an Afghan journalism student was sentenced to death for insulting Islam. He was accused of downloading an article from the Internet that criticized, in fairly harsh terms, Islam’s position on women. Kambakhsh was further accused of having distributed the offending material to three or four of his classmates in the journalism department of Balkh University. He denied the charge before an appeals court, saying he only confessed to questioning the religion’s treatment of women after he was tortured.
2008 - The 97th running of the Bay to Breakers race (some say its a party disguised as a footrace) in San Francisco drew some 60,000 participants. 33,000 of them had actually registered.
2009 - The U.S. Justice Department accused Wyeth, one of the biggest U.S. drug makers, of cheating Medicaid programs out of hundreds of millions of dollars by overcharging for a stomach acid drug.
2009 - Mudslides rumbling down a rain-soaked mountain buried dozens of shanties in a gold mining village in the southern Philippines, killing at least 26 people.
2010 - The discovery of tar balls at Florida’s Key West fanned fears that a massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill was spreading through ocean currents. This, as energy giant BP worked to capture more of the crude leaking from its gushing Deepwater Horizon well.
2010 - India’s home minister, Palaniappan Chidambaram, said his government was willing to begin peace talks with Maoist rebels, but only if the insurgents halted all attacks for 72 hours. The offer followed a rebel ambush that killed 31 police officers and civilians on a bus in central India. The attack highlighted the Maoists’ strength despite an Indian government offensive aimed at ending one of Asia’s longest rebellions.
2012 - New movies in the U.S.: Battleship, with Taylor Kitsch, Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgård, Brooklyn Decker, Rihanna and Peter MacNicol; What to Expect When You’re Expecting, starring Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick, Genesis Rodriguez, Cameron Diaz, Dennis Quaid, Jennifer Lopez, Brooklyn Decker, Megan Mullally and Chris Rock; Hysteria, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal, Hugh Dancy, Jonathan Pryce, Felicity Jones, Rupert Everett, Ashley Jensen and Sheridan Smith; and Polisse, with Karin Viard, Joey Starr, Marina Foïs, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Maïwenn, Karole Rocher and Emmanuelle Bercot.
2013 - Conservative religious lawmakers in Afghanistan blocked legislation designed to strengthen women’s freedoms, arguing that parts of the new law violated Islamic principles and encouraged disobedience.
2014 - Bosnian officials reported some 300 landslides, triggered by unprecedented rains, had left hundreds of people homeless. The floods and landslides unearthed minefield warning signs from the 1992-1995 war and, in many cases, the unexploded mines.
2015 - U.S. prosecutors said several Southwest Airlines baggage handlers had been charged with sneaking bags containing marijuana past security checkpoints in Oakland, CA, before handing them off to passengers bound for Arkansas, Louisiana and Tennessee.
2015 - Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a law banning cities in the state from banning fracking. The legislation outraged officials in some towns that had sought to blunt the effects of drilling and blasting for oil close to homes, schools and businesses. But in Austin, the law sailed through the Republican-dominated Legislature.
2016 - Two earthquakes at magnitude 6.7 and 6.8 struck Ecuador leaving one person dead and dozens injured.
2016 - Strikes by French railway and port workers cut train services and prompted cancellation of ferry links to Britain. And French police staged demonstrations in about 60 cities against a surge of “anti-cop hatred” which they say they have suffered at a series of anti-government protests in recent months.
2017 - Conservative media mogul Roger Ailes died in Palm Beach, FL following a fall at his home a week earlier. Rupert Murdoch had tapped Ailes, a GOP operative, to help build the Fox cable channel in 1996.
2017 - News agency Reuters reported that Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald Trump’s campaign had been in contact with Russian officials -- and others with Kremlin ties -- in phone calls and emails during the last seven months of the 2016 U.S. presidential race.
2018 - Movies debuting in U.S. theatres included: Book Club, starring Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda and Candice Bergen; Deadpool 2, with Morena Baccarin, Josh Brolin and Zazie Beetz; Show Dogs, starring Alan Cumming, Stanley Tucci and Natasha Lyonne; First Reformed, with Amanda Seyfried, Ethan Hawke and Cedric the Entertainer; On Chesil Beach, starring Saoirse Ronan, Emily Watson and Anne-Marie Duff; and the documentary, Pope Francis—A Man of His Word.
2018 - Russian President Vladimir Putin wished “good health” to former agent Sergei Skripal as he was released from a British hospital, after recovering from a nerve agent poisoning alleged to have been orchestrated by -- Vladimir Putin. Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who was visiting from Moscow, collapsed on March 4, 2018 on a bench in Salisbury, the city in southwestern England where the former double agent lives. The poisoning sparked a diplomatic crisis that saw Russia and the West expelling dozens of diplomats in tit-for-tat moves. Britain accused Russia of being behind the poisoning, saying it was caused by a type of nerve agent known as Novichok which was developed in the Soviet Union.
2018 - 17-year-old Dimitrios Pagourtzis went on a shooting rampage at his high school in Santa Fe, Texas, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others. He carried out the attack with a shotgun and a .38 revolver that were legally owned by his father. Sabika Sheikh (17), an exchange student from Pakistan, was among the 10 students and staff slain at Santa Fe High School. The Galveston County Sheriff said officers engaged Pagourtzis within four minutes, and allowed for the safe evacuation of other students and faculty. In April 2019, it was announced that Pagourtzis was facing U.S. federal charges.
2019 - Actress Eva Longoria said restrictive abortion laws passed in Alabama and Missouri are a threat to women. Her comment came as a group of female stars led by Charlotte Gainsbourg, Spanish actress Rossi de Palma and French director Claire Denis protested for abortion rights on the Cannes (France) Film Festival red carpet.
2019 - Boeing acknowledged it had corrected flaws in its 737 MAX flight simulator software used to train pilots. This, after two deadly crashes involving the aircraft had killed 346 people. Its statement marked the first time Boeing acknowledged there was a design flaw in software linked to the 737 MAX, whose MCAS anti-stall software had been blamed in large part for an Ethiopian Airlines crash.
2020 - Congressional Democrats said Steve Linick, the State Department watchdog fired by POTUS Trump, was investigating impropriety in a massive arms sale to Saudi Arabia, adding new questions about the watchdog’s abrupt dismissal.
2020 - The United Nations reported flooding in central Somalia had affected nearly 1 million people, displacing about 400,000. At least 24 people have died in the flash floods that hit Beledweyne and Jowhar, two agricultural centers in Somalia’s central area.
2020 - COVID-19 news:
1)POTUS Trump bragged that he had been taking the drug, hydroxychloroquine, and a zinc supplement daily “for about a week and a half now” to keep from getting the virus. And, as if that wasn’t nutty enough, Trump threatened to permanently cut U.S. funding for the World Health Organization unless it committed to “substantive improvements.” U.S. America’s allies urged support for the WHO, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying, “This is the time for all humanity to rally around a common cause.”
2)China’s president Xi Jinping made a high-profile pledge of $2 billion to the WHO, plus more aid to countries in need.
3)The big three Detroit automakers and their suppliers began restarting assembly lines after a two-month coronavirus lockdown. This, in a slow revival of a sector that employed nearly 1 million people in the U.S.
4)New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called attention to a COVID-19-related illness in children. Known as Multi-system Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed that the illness did have a link to the coronavirus.
5)The first-ever trial by jury to be held virtually in the U.S. went ahead, with jurors hearing the case by Zoom and the trial being live-streamed from Texas on YouTube.
6)American biotech company Moderna announced that its vaccine for the novel coronavirus had been generally safe and well tolerated in the first phase of a clinical trial.
7)France’s highest administrative court ruled that Paris police could no longer use drones to surveil public compliance with coronavirus-related restrictions.2021 - The Biden administration restored citizenship rights to children born abroad to married same-sex couples from the United States -- as long as one parent is a U.S. citizen and the child is related either genetically, or gestationally, to one parent.
2021 - Governor Jay Inslee signed 12 bills into law that included bans on chokeholds and no-knock warrants. Washington joined several other states that had passed police reform bills since George Floyd’s killing in 2020.
2021 - Bank of America Corp said it was raising its minimum wage for U.S. workers to $25 an hour (by 2025). It was the latest in a series of major employers promising more pay to workers after a year of pandemic risks.
2022 - A report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives showed a massive surge in guns made and sold in the U.S. over the previous two decades. The number of guns produced jumped from about 4 million in 2000 to over 11 million in 2020. Demand for semiautomatic handguns grew the fastest. On this day, there were over 400 million guns in the United States -- or more than one gun for every adult and child living in the country.
2022 - Primary election results were in from Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Oregon, North Carolina and Idaho. In Pennsylvania, state Senator Doug Mastriano won the Republican gubernatorial primary. Mastriano was a far-right politician who was endorsed by Donald Trump, an election denier who took part in the January 6 protests outside the Capitol and funded charter buses to take supporters to Washington, D.C., ahead of the insurrection. He has long claimed Trump won the 2020 election. (Mastriano was defeated in November 2022 by democratic state attorney general Josh Shapiro.)
and more...
Birthdays on This Day May 18
1897 - Frank Capra
Academy Award-winning director: It Happened One Night [1934], Mr. Deeds Goes to Town [1936], You Can’t Take It with You [1938]; It’s a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon, Pocketful of Miracles; died Sep 3, 19911902 - Meredith Willson (Reiniger)
composer: The Music Man, The Unsinkable Molly Brown; died June 15, 19841911 - Big Joe (Joseph Vernon) Turner
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame rhythm & blues singer: Corrine Corrina, Cherry Red, Still in the Dark, Chains of Love, Sweet Sixteen; died Nov 24, 19851912 - Perry (Pierino) Como
Grammy Award-winning singer: Catch a Falling Star [1958, his first Grammy], Round and Round, Ko Ko Mo [I Love You So], Hot Diggity, It’s Impossible, Temptation, Dream along with Me [I’m on My Way to a Star], And I Love You So, Till the End of Time, Because, Prisoner of Love, Wanted, Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes, Papa Loves Mambo; 15 gold records; Emmy Award-winning TV show: The Perry Como Show [1954, 1955, 1956, 1958-9]; TV host: The Chesterfield Supper Club, The Kraft Music Hall; Christopher Award-winner [1956]; Variety Club’s Personality of the Year [1956]; Kennedy Center Honors [1987]; films: Something for the Boys, Doll Face, If I’m Lucky, Words and Music; former barber; died May 12, 20011914 - Pierre Balmain
fashion designer; died June 29, 19821914 - Robert J. Wilke
actor: High Noon, Stripes, The Texas Rangers, The Great Monkey Rip-Off, How the West Was Won, The Boy Who Cried Werewolf, The Rookies, Laramie, Gunsmoke; died Mar 28, 19891919 - Dame Margot Fonteyn
ballet dancer: Sadler Wells Company; danced with Rudolph Nureyev; died Feb 21, 19911920 - Pope John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla)
264th pope of the Roman Catholic Church: the first Polish pope; died April 2, 20051922 - Bill Macy
actor: Maude, The Jerk, My Favorite Year, Perry Mason & The Case of the Murdered Madame, Seinfeld; died Oct 17, 20191922 - Kai Winding
jazz musician: trombone: More [theme from Mondo Cane]; died May 6, 19831924 - Priscilla Pointer
actress: Dallas, Carrie, The Onion Field, Mommie Dearest, Twilight Zone: The Movie, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, L.A. Law, The A-Team, Judging Amy, The Rockford Files, Cold Case1924 - Jack Whitaker
Broadcasters Hall of Famer: CBS Sports, ABC Sports, WCAU-TV, Philadelphia; died Aug 18, 2019; more1928 - Pernell Roberts
actor: Bonanza, Trapper John, M.D., Ride Lonesome; died Jan 24, 20101931 - Robert Morse
Tony Award-winning actor: Tru [1990], How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Secret Storm, Wild Palms, Where Were You When the Lights Went Out; died Apr 20, 20221934 - Dwayne Hickman
actor: The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Cat Ballou; died Jan 9, 20221937 - Brooks (Calbert) Robinson
Baseball Hall of Famer: third baseman: Baltimore Orioles [all-star: 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974/Baseball Writer’s Award: 1964/World Series: 1966, 1969, 1970, 1971]1941 - Miriam Margolyes
BAFTA Award-winning actress: The Age of Innocence [1994]; Ladies in Lavender, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Cats and Dogs, End of Days1941 - Diane McBain
actress: Surfside 6, Besotted, The Broken Hearts Club: A Romantic Comedy, Puppet Master 5: The Final Chapter, The Red Fury, Donner Pass: The Road to Survival1942 - Albert Hammond
singer: It Never Rains in Southern California; songwriter: The Air That I Breathe [Hollies]1945 - Alana Stewart
actress: Between, Swing Shift, Wasted in Babylon, Small Sacrifices, Funny Lady, Night Call Nurses1946 - Reggie (Reginald Martinez) Jackson
‘Mr. October’: Baseball Hall of Famer: Kansas City Athletics, Oakland Athletics [all-star: 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975/World Series: 1973, 1974/American League MVP: 1973], Baltimore Orioles, NY Yankees [World Series: 1977, 1978, 1981/all-star: 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981], California Angels [all-star: 1982, 1983, 1984]; World Series record: 10 home runs including 4 in a row, 24 RBI’s and a .357 batting average in 27 games; 563 career home runs [only Aaron, Ruth, Mays, Frank Robinson and Killebrew have hit more]1948 - Joe Bonsall
singer: The Oak Ridge Boys: Talk about the Good Times, Where the Soul Never Dies, Cryin’ Again, American Made, Love Song, I Guess It Never Hurts to Cry Sometimes, Everyday, Make My Life with You, Little Things, Touch a Hand Make a Friend1949 - Dave Atkins
football: Univ. of Texas-El Paso, San Francisco 49ers, Honolulu Hawaiians [WFL], San Diego Chargers; coach: Univ. of Texas-El Paso, San Diego State, Philadelphia Eagles, New England Patriots, Arizona Cardinals, New Orleans Saints, Minnesota Vikings1949 - Rick Wakeman
songwriter, musician: keyboards: groups: The Strawbs; Yes: Roundabout; solo LPs: Journey to the Center of the Earth, The Myths and Legends of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; composer: films scores: The Phantom of the Opera [1990], Playing for Keeps, Creepshow 2, Bullet to Beijing, Midnight in St. Petersburg1949 - Bill Wallace
musician: guitar: group: The Guess Who: No Time, American Woman, These Eyes, Laughing, No Sugar Tonight, Hand Me Down World, Share the Land, Clap for the Wolfman1950 - Rodney Milburn Jr.
Olympic Gold Medalist: 110-meter hurdles [1972]: set a world record of 13.1 seconds [1973]; died Nov 11, 1997 after falling into a tank of scalding bleach at his workplace1951 - James Stephens
actor: The Paper Chase, Father Dowling Mysteries, Pancho Barnes, Mysterious Two, First Monday in October1952 - George Strait
singer: LPs: Strait Country, Ocean Front Property, Beyond the Blue Neon, Holding My Own, Strait out of the Box, Blue Clear Sky, Carrying Your Love with Me, One Step at a Time1955 - Yun-Fat Chow
actor: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, A Better Tomorrow, The Killer, Hard Boiled1960 - Jari Kurri
Hockey Hall of Famer [right wing]: Edmonton Oilers [5 Stanley Cups, 1 Lady Bing Memorial Trophy], LA Kings, NY Rangers, Anaheim Mighty Ducks, Colorado Avalanche1962 - Nathaniel Parker
actor: The Haunted Mansion, The Inspector Lynley Mysteries: A Great Deliverance, Trust, Vanity Fair, Into Thin Air: Death on Everest, Beverly Hills Ninja1967 - Eric Young
baseball: Rutgers Univ; LA Dodgers, Colorado Rockies, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, SF Giants, Texas Rangers, SD Padres
1969 - Holly Aird
actress: Waking the Dead, Soldier Soldier, Fever Pitch, Possession, Dreaming of Joseph Lees, Rules of Engagement, Circles of Deceit: Dark Secret, Carry on Columbus, Sea Dragon1969 - Martika (Marrero)
singer: Toy Soldiers, Water, More Than You Know, I Feel the Earth Move, Alibis, Love...Thy Will Be Done; actress: Kids, Inc., Wiseguys1970 - Tina Fey
actress: Mean Girls, Martin and Orloff, Saturday Night Live [also head writer]; married to actor, composer Jeff Richmond1971 - Rich Garces
baseball [pitcher]: Venezuela Univ; Minnesota Twins, Chicago Cubs, Florida Marlins, Boston Red Sox1971 - Craig Hentrich
football [punter]: Notre Dame Univ; GB Packers, Tennessee Oilers/Titans1972 - Turner Stevenson
hockey [right wing]: Montreal Canadiens, NJ Devils, Philadelphia Flyers1973 - Tory James
football [defensive back]: Louisiana State Univ; Denver Broncos, Oakland Raiders, Cincinnati Bengals1974 - Nelson Figueroa
baseball [pitcher]: Arizona Diamondbacks, Philadelphia Phillies, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates1975 - Olandis Gary
football [running back]: Univ of Georgia; Denver Broncos; Detroit Lions1975 - Jack Johnson
songwriter, musician: guitar, singer: LPs: Brushfire Fairytales, On and On, In Between Dreams, Sleep Through the Static, To the Sea, From Here to Now to You; singles: Flake, Better Together, Banana Pancakes; philanthropist [w/wife Kim]: created Johnson Ohana Charitable Foundation and Kokua Hawaii Foundation; more1976 - Ron Mercer
basketball [forward, guard]: Univ of Kentucky; NBA: Boston Celtics, Denver Nuggets, Orlando Magic, Chicago Bulls, Indiana Pacers, San Antonio Spurs, New Jersey Nets1977 - Ken Amato
football [linebacker]: Montana State Univ; NFL: Tennessee Titans1979 - Jens Bergensten
video game designer: Minecraft, Harvest: Massive Encounter, Cobalt1979 - David Nail
singer: Let It Rain, Red Light; LPs: I’m About to Come Alive, The Sound of a Million Dreams1981 - Allen Leech
actor: Downton Abbey, Rome, Primeval, Black Mirror, The Sweeney, Assassin’s Creed III, Grand Piano, In Fear, Hello Darkness1996 - Violett Beane
actress: The Flash, Truth or Dare, Flay, God Friended Me
and still more...
Hit Music on This Day May 18
1946All Through the Day (facts) - Perry Como
The Gypsy (facts) - The Ink Spots
1955
1964
1973
1982
1991
2000
2009
2018
and even more...
Those were the days, my friend. We thought they’d never end...
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