NOTABLE DATES, UPCOMING U.S. OBSERVANCES
TODAY – Inauguration Day
TODAY – Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
January 27, Monday – Int’l Holocaust Remembrance Day (UN)
January 29, Wednesday – Chinese New Year (The Year of the Wood Snake)
February 2, Sunday – Groundhog Day
February 12, Wednesday – Lincoln’s Birthday
February 14, Friday – Valentine’s Day
February 17, Monday – Presidents Day / Washington’s Birthday
March 9, Tuesday – Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras
March 9, Sunday – Daylight Saving Time Begins
March 17, Monday – St. Patrick’s Day
March 20, Thursday – Spring begins, Spring Equinox is 5:01 a.m. EDT
BIRTHDAYS
Evan Peters (actor, “American Horror Story”) … 38
Skeet Ulrich (actor, “Riverdale,” “Scream”) … 55
Rainn Wilson (actor, “Mom,” “The Office”) … 59
John Michael Montgomery (Country singer) … 60
James Denton (actor, “Desperate Housewives”) … 62
Bill Maher (comedian, TV host) … 69
Paul Stanley (guitarist with Kiss, real name Stanley Harvey Eisen) … 73
Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin (former U.S. astronaut, 2nd person on the Moon) … 95
Today’s Birthdays grade: Boomers who watched the moon landings on TV will be amazed Buzz Aldrin is 95 and hope they can make it that far. We also have a linchpin castmember of “The Office,” one of the first giant TV shows of the 21st Century. And some other people. Grade: B-minus.
[Want to try something different with the daily birthdays? Try grading them! Some days have “good” celebs, some have “great” celebs, some have “lousy” celebs. For fun, give the group an arbitrary grade: A-plus through F-minus. Sidekick will give you our take on it; you can to take the concept and run with it.]
BIRTHDAY QUOTE QUIZ – Ask your listeners “Who said it?” HINT: Today’s their birthday!
“I never, ever in my life tried to be outrageous.”
(A) Madonna
(B) Lady Gaga
(C) Bill Maher
ANSWER: (C) Bill Maher
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
1986 – Britain and France announced plans to build a tunnel under the English Channel.
* A tunnel under the English Channel! Are they nuts? That’ll never – huh? Oh, they did? Oh. Congratulations.
1982 – Five companies (Hitachi, JVC, Philips, Matsushita and Sony) agreed to cooperate on the construction of a camera with a built-in videocassette recorder, which later became the “camcorder.”
* This would have been a good day to sell your stock in companies that made slide projectors.
1981 – Iran released 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan.
* Nice. They came home just in time for a recession.
1892 – The first officially recognized basketball game was played in Springfield, Massachusetts.
* After the game, the winning coach was doused with a pitcher of “sarsparilla.”
1885 – The roller coaster was patented.
* For a few cents, riders could take a turn, and feel nauseous in just a few minutes. Over a hundred years later, you could get the same sensation free of charge by tuning in to “Dr. Pimple Popper.”
1783 – Fighting in America’s War of Independence formally ended when U.S. and British officials signed a preliminary “Cessation of Hostilities.”
* Well, SOMEBODY must have held a grudge, ’cause we were back on the mats in 1812.
THIS DAY IN MUSIC HISTORY
2017 – Sir Paul McCartney sued Sony/ATV Music Publishing over control of The Beatles’ back catalogue, sold to Sony by Michael Jackson’s estate for $750m in 2016. In June, McCartney reached a confidential settlement.
1997 – Ben and Jerry’s introduced “Phish Food,” a new flavor of ice cream named after the rock group Phish. The ingredients were chocolate ice cream, marshmallows, caramel and fish-shaped fudge.
1996 – Bobby Brown was fined $1,000, sentenced to 2 years probation and ordered to attend anger management classes after assaulting a security guard.
1982 – During a show in Des Moines, Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat, which he later said he thought was a toy tossed up on stage by a fan. He was taken to a hospital for a rabies injection.
