Through The Rear Window: TODAY IS ... 15 JANUARY

Friday, January 15, 2010

TODAY IS ... 15 JANUARY

TODAY IS ... 15 JANUARY

BIRTHDAYS -

1990 - Chris Warren Jr. - an American actor, who is best known for playing Zeke in Disney's High School Musical trilogy.

1971 - Regina King – actress: Boyz N the Hood, Jerry Maguire, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Enemy of the State, Mighty Joe Young, Love and Action in Chicago, Leap of Faith

1968 - Chad Lowe - actor: Life Goes On, Siringo, An Inconvenient Woman, True Blood, Silence of the Heart; brother of actor, Rob Lowe

1957 - Mario Van Peebles - actor: Sonny Spoon, Jaws: The Revenge, Hot Shot, Exterminator 2; director, writer, actor: Posse, Panther, New Jack City

1937 - Margaret O’Brien - actress: Meet Me in St. Louis, Little Women [1949], The Secret Garden [1949]

1929 - Martin Luther King Jr. - civil rights activist

1926 - Maria Schell -actress: Samson and Delilah, Voyage of the Damned, The Odessa File, The Hanging Tree, The Brothers Karamazov

1913 - Lloyd Bridges – Actor best known as Mike Nelson, the square-jawed frogman star of the undersea adventure series Sea Hunt. The show ran from 1958-1961 and then continued for years in reruns. In 1980 Bridges' career was resurrected when he played a goofy plane dispatcher in the 1980 satire Airplane! and its 1982 sequel Airplane II. He is the father of the actors Beau Bridges and Jeff Bridges.

OTHER EVENTS –

2009 - Emma Roberts and Jake T. Austin star in Hotel for Dogs which starts screening in Australia. Two kids secretly take in stray dogs at a vacant hotel.

2007 - Disney/Pixar's Cars wins Best Animated Feature Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards. It is the first ever given in the new category of Best Animated Feature. John Lasseter accepts the award.

2006 – X-factor winner Shayne Ward tops the U.K. charts for a fourth week with his debut single “That’s My Goal.”

2006 – James Blunt was at No.1 on the UK album chart with his debut album and biggest selling UK album of 2005 ‘Back To Bedlam.’

2005 – Sheryl Crow, Christina Aquilera and Tim McGraw participate in a benefit for victims of the tsunami in Southern Asia. The hour-long music and celebrity-driven broadcast airs live at 8 p.m. on the East Coast and is tape-delayed on the West Coast across NBC’s broadcast and cable channels, which include USA Networks, Bravo, Trio, SCI FI, MSNBC and CNBC.

2004 - Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe and William Atherton star in The Last Samurai which commences screening in Australia. An American military advisor embraces the Samurai culture he was hired to destroy after he is captured in battle.

2004 - Actor Johnny Depp is nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for his role in Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

2001 - Wikipedia, a Wiki free content encyclopedia, goes online.

2001 – The Brit awards committee announces that U2 will receive an Outstanding Contribution to Music award at the February 26 ceremony in London, despite actually coming from Ireland – not Britain.

2000 – Four thousand people turn out for a Christina Aguilera in-store appearance in Illinois. The department store has to be evacuated due to over-crowding.

1998 – Starring David Arquette, Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox, Scream 2 starts screening in Australia. It has been two years since the tragic events at Woodsboro. Sidney Prescott and Randy Meeks are trying to get on with their lives

1997 - Production begins on Disney's The Emperor's New Groove which will be released in December 2000.

1997 - Princess Diana sparks landmines row - Princess Diana has angered British government ministers after calling for an international ban on landmines. Her comments - made during a visit to Angola to see for herself some of the victims of landmines - are being seen as out of step with government policy.

1993 - Soap opera "Santa Barbara" final show on NBC TV

1992 - The Seventh Annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies are held in New York City. Inductees include Bobby "Blue" Bland, Booker T. and the MGs, Johnny Cash, The Isley Brothers, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Sam and Dave, and The Yardbirds.

1991 - Sean Lennon's remake of his father's "Give Peace A Chance" is released to coincide with the United Nation's midnight deadline for Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. The lyrics are updated to reflect concerns of the 1990's.

1991 - Desert Shield: Deadline for Iraq to withdraw its forces from Kuwait. They failed to meet it, resulting in an Allied Forces invasion hours later.

1989 - "Ain't Misbehavin'" closes at Ambassador Theater New York City after 176 performances

1987 - Paramount Home Video reported that, for the first time, it would place a commercial at the front of one of its video releases: a 30-second Diet Pepsi ad at the beginning of Top Gun. The idea was that Paramount would be able to reduce the price of the video to consumers by $3. The difference would be made up with Pepsi money and more consumers would buy the Tom Cruise flick rather than more expensive videos without the commercial.

1987 – No. 1 Chart Toppers Pop Hit: “Shake You Down,” Gregory Abbott.

1985 - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored actress Myrna Loy at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The 79-year-old actress never received a nomination by the Academy -- though she appeared in 120 films.

1984 - Steve Jobs and Bill Gates sign an agreement rescinding their original Macintosh applications contract, allowing Microsoft to market its own competing products.

1984 – Bette Midler films the video for her cover of the Rolling Stones’ “Beast of Burden” with Mick Jagger.

1983 – Phil Collins had his first UK No.1 single with ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’. A hit for The Supremes in 1966.

1981 - Hill Street Blues: The critically acclaimed TV series debuts on NBC.

1977 – UK singer Leo Sayer went to No.1 on the US singles chart with ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’, it was the first of two US No.1’s for the singer.

1977 – The Eagles went to No.1 on the US album chart with ‘Hotel California’ the group’s third US No.1 album.

1977 – Swedish group ABBA accomplishes a lockdown on the British album charts. Arrival is at No. 1, while Greatest Hits rests at No. 2.

1977 - Linda McCartney is voted one of the ten "Most Watchable Women" by the Bachelors Club

1975 – No. 1 Chart Toppers Pop Hit: “Mandy,” Barry Manilow. The song is Manilow’s first single to reach Chart Toppers’s Hot 100 singles pop chart.

1974 - Happy Days: The TV series debuts on ABC with Ron Howard as Richie Cuningham and Henry Winkler as Da Fonz. . It was a spinoff of a Love, American Style segment called Love and the Happy Day (1972) starring Ron Howard and Anson Williams.

1974 - Brownsville Station's "Smokin' in the Boys' Room" is certified gold

1973 - The Rolling Stones announce an upcoming benefit concert for the people of Managua, Nicaragua, devastated by an earthquake the previous month. (Nicaragua was the birthplace of lead singer Mick Jagger's wife, Bianca.)

1973 - Nixon orders ceasefire in Vietnam - President Nixon has ordered a halt to American bombing in North Vietnam following peace talks in Paris.

1972 – Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’ started a four week run at No.1 in the US singles chart.

1971 - The Aswan High Dam, on the Nile in Egypt and financed by the USSR, was opened.

1970 - A shy, withdrawn English schoolteacher falls for a flashy showgirl in Goodbye Mr Chips which starts screening in Australia. It stars Peter O'Toole, Petula Clark and Michael Redgrave.

Petula Clark sings You and I from Goodbye Mr Chips

1968- John Fred and the Playboy Band's "Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)" is certified gold

1967 - The film The Fastest Guitar Alive, starring Roy Orbison and Sheb Wooley, premieres in New York City.

1967 - Ed Sullivan refuses to let the Rolling Stones sing their big hit "Let’s Spend the Night Together" on his CBS show of the same name unless they change the title and lyrics to "Let's Spend Some Time Together." The band does as it's told, but lead singer Mick Jagger mocks the censorship by making faces at the camera while he sings the cleaned-up line.

1966 - The Rolling Stones receive their third gold record for the album "December's Children." It features the tunes "Get Off My Cloud," "Route 66," "As Tears Go By" and "I'm Free."

1966 - The Rolling Stones' December's Children album is certified gold

1965 - Murray the K, a New York deejay known as the "Fifth Beatle" tells the "New Musical Express" that "outside of the Beatles, British bands can't carry a show by themselves."

1964 - The soundtrack album of the musical, The King and I, starring Yul Brynner, earned a gold record.

1964 - In Chicago, Capitol records obtains an injunction which prohibits Vee-Jay Records from manufacturing or distributing any further Beatles records. Vee-Jay files suit against Capitol and Swan, which owned the rights to "She Loves You."

1962 - The centigrade scale or Celsius scale was used for the first time in British Meteorological Office weather forecasts. It was invented 200 years earlier.

1961 - The Supremes sign with Motown Records.

1960- No. 1 Billboard Pop Hit: ``Running Bear,'' Johnny Preston.

1959 – Torpedo Run starring Glenn Ford, Ernest Borgnine, Diane Brewster and Dean Jones starts screening in Australia. A submarine commander is forced to blow up a Japanese ship with prisoners.

1958 - Elvis Presley records "Hard Headed Woman"

1955- A young singer named Elvis Presley performs at the Louisiana Hayride, Municipal Auditorium, Shreveport, LA, performing "Hearts Of Stone," "That's All Right, Mama" and "Tweedle Dee." In the audience is "Colonel" Tom Parker, who was witnessing Elvis for the first time.

1955 - Billboard magazine reports that "music with an R&B beat is not longer regarded as a passing phase by major recording firms," citing the recent success of white pop covers of R&B hits.

1954 - Disney releases the Donald Duck film Spare the Rod to theaters. Huey, Dewey, and Louie also appear.

1953 - Harry S Truman became the first U.S. President to use radio and television to say farewell as he left office.

1945 - "Make Mine Manhattan" opens at Broadhurst Theater New York City for 429 performances

1943 - The Pentagon was dedicated as the world's largest office building just outside Washington, DC, in Arlington, VA. The structure covers 34 acres of land and has 17 miles of corridors.

1943 - Disney delivers the film The Winged Scourge to the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs. It stars the seven dwarfs from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.

1942 - Kenny Sargent, “one of the handsomest singers ever to grace a bandstand,” vocalized with the Glen Gray Orchestra on Decca Records’ It’s the Talk of the Town.

1936-THE DGA- Several top Hollywood directors including Lewis Milestone, Ruben Mamoulian and William Wellman meet at King Vidor’s house and pledge $100 dollars each to form the Screen Director’s Guild, later the Director’s Guild of America. It was a risky thing to do, previous attempts to form a directors union were broken up with threats by the producers of perpetual blacklisting. Final recognition and contracts were signed by President Frank Capra in 1940. One provision insisted on in the contract was that the director’s credit be the final name in the opening titles before the movie began. And so it remains.

1935-The Tsuni Conference- Chinese Communists elect Mao Tse Tung (or MaoZseDong) as their overall leader