Advanced search
- TITLES
- NAMES
- COLLABORATIONS
Search filters
Enter full date
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
Only includes names with the selected topics
to
or just enter yyyy, or yyyy-mm below
to
1-50 of 632
- Additional Crew
- Actor
- Director
Bob Fosse was born on 23 June 1927 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He was an actor and director, known for Cabaret (1972), All That Jazz (1979) and Lenny (1974). He was married to Gwen Verdon, Joan McCracken and Mary Ann Niles. He died on 23 September 1987 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Christine White was born on 4 May 1926 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She was an actress, known for Magnum Force (1973), Ichabod and Me (1961) and General Electric Theater (1953). She died on 14 April 2013 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Robert Prosky was born on 13 December 1930 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for Thief (1981), Broadcast News (1987) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). He was married to Ida Hove. He died on 8 December 2008 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Actor
- Soundtrack
Character actor Carmen Filpi was born on March 22, 1923 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The son of Remigio and Rosa Gatto Filpi, Carmen graduated from Pittsfield High School in 1942. Moreover, Filpi served in the U.S. Army in the Pacific during World War II. Carmen began his acting career as part of a comedy team with fellow Pittsfield resident George Morell; the duo performed in minstrels and floor show troupes in touring shows as well as in the Washington area. Filpi moved to Hollywood, California in the late 1960's in order to further pursue his acting career. Outside of his substantial film and television credits, Carmen also appeared in numerous TV commercials. Filpi was often cast as drunken bums and mangy drifters in a career that spanned over forty years. Carmen died at age 80 on May 9, 2003 at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Washington, D.C. He was survived at the time of his death by his sister Carmena and brothers John and Peter.- George Mitchell was born on 21 February 1905 in Larchmont, New York, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Andromeda Strain (1971), Dark Shadows (1966) and The Twilight Zone (1959). He was married to Katherine Squire and Mary Alice Shroyer. He died on 18 January 1972 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Al Freeman, Jr. was an actor and director who was the first African American to win a Daytime Emmy Award for acting. His most famous role was that of Police Captain Ed Hall in the soap opera One Life to Live (1968), which brought him the Emmy in 1979. He was a regular on the soap from 1972 through 1987, and appeared off and on as Captain Hall from 1988 through 2000. He received three additional Emmy nominations playing the role in 1983, '86 and '87. Freeman also was the first African American to direct a TV soap opera, helming "One Life to Live" episodes.
Born on March 21, 1934 in San Antonio, Texas, he was raised primarily by his father, an actor and jazz musician, after his parents divorced. Al Freeman father and son left Texas, moving to Cleveland, Ohio. After studying drama at Los Angeles City College, Freeman fils moved to New York City to act in the theater, making his Broadway debut in Ketti Frings's "The Long Dream" in 1960, a flop that closed after five performances. He had a major success playing the lead in James Baldwin's play "Blues for Mister Charlie" in 1964. In 1970, he appeared in "Look to the Lilies" on Broadway, a musical version of the 1963 movie Lilies of the Field (1963), playing the part of Homer Smith, the role that brought Sidney Poitier an Oscar. Despite a prestigious production team that included director Joshua Logan, composer Jule Styne and lyricist Sammy Cahn, the show was a flop.
Freeman made his reputation primarily in television. He debuted as a television actor in the series Suspicion (1957) in 1958, and his soap opera debut came in 1967 in The Edge of Night (1956). He was nominated for Primetime Emmy Awards for My Sweet Charlie (1970) and for Roots: The Next Generations (1979), in which he played Malcolm X.
In 1958, Freeman made his movie debut in an uncredited role in the Glenn Ford WWII picture _Torpedo Run (1958)_ and first received billing in the 1960 gang war B-movie potboiler This Rebel Breed (1960). His most memorable role was the lead in Amiri Baraka's Dutchman (1966) opposite Shirley Knight, who was named Best Actress at the 1967 Venice Film Festival. Freeman won the N.A.A.C.P. Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture for playing Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad in Spike Lee's Malcolm X (1992).
Freeman was a professor in the drama department of Howard University. When he died on August 9, 2012, in Washington, D.C. at the age of 78, he had established himself as a legend in the African American arts community.- Writer
- Soundtrack
Abraham Lincoln was an American politician from Kentucky. He was the second presidential candidate of the then-new Republican Party, following John Charles Frémont (1813 - 1890). He served as President of the United States from 1861 to 1865, during the American Civil War. He was assassinated in April 1865, the first of four American presidents to be assassinated during their term in office.
In February 1809, Lincoln was born in a one-room log cabin, located on the Sinking Spring Farm . The Farm itself was located near the modern city of Hodgenville, Kentucky, which was incorporated in 1836. Lincoln was the second child born to the illiterate farmer Thomas Lincoln (1778-1851) and his first wife Nancy Hanks (1784-1818). Both of his parents were born in Virginia.
Lincoln was a namesake grandson of Captain Abraham Lincoln (1744 - 1786), a military veteran of the American Revolutionary War. The senior Abraham was born in Pennsylvania, and settled in the areas of modern Kentucky in 1781. He was shot by an unnamed Native American in May 1786, while working in his field. The Lincoln family were descendants of Samuel Lincoln (1622 - 1690), an English weaver who had settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637.
Lincoln's father Thomas bought or leased various farms in Kentucky, but lost most of his land in court disputes over property titles. In 1816, the Lincoln family settled in Indiana, which at the time had a more reliable and surveying system. Indiana was a "free-state", having abolished slave-holding in 1816. This suited Thomas' religious beliefs. He had joined the Separate Baptists, a religious group which forbade its members to own slaves.
In October 1818, Lincoln's mother Nancy died due to milk sickness. She had ingested milk cow containing the poison tremetol. She was 34-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln was only 9-years-old at the time. The boy's primary caregiver for a while was his older sister Sarah Lincoln (1807 - 1828), who took over most household duties.
In December 1819, Lincoln's father married his second wife Sarah Bush (1788 - 1869). She was a widow, with three children of her own from a previous marriage. Lincoln grew close to his stepmother, and started calling her mother. By that time, Lincoln was old enough to start working in the farm. He reportedly never liked the physical labor, and his family regarded him as particularly lazy.
Lincoln received little formal schooling, relying on brief tutoring by itinerant teachers. He learned to read at the age of 7, but was not trained to write for several years. However, he became a bibliophile and spend most of his free time "reading, scribbling, writing, ciphering, writing Poetry, etc" He was largely self-educated, reading on a variety of topics.
As a teenager, Lincoln was "tall, strong, and athletic". He was trained in the "catch-as-catch-can" style of wrestling, a grappling style, and had a career as an amateur wrestler. He earned his reputation in the sport by defeating the leader of "the Clary's Grove Boys", a local gang of troublemakers.
In 1830, the Lincoln family moved to Macon County, Illinois. By that time, Lincoln was 21-years-old, legally entering adulthood. His relationship with his father Thomas became difficult, as young Lincoln craved for financial independence. In 1831, Thomas and most of his family settled in a new homestead, located in Coles County, Illinois. Lincoln decided not to follow them, and started living on his own. He settled for a few years in New Salem, Illinois.
In 1831, Lincoln and his partner Denton Offutt purchased a general store in New Salem. Lincoln gained a reputation of honesty, when he realized that he had accidentally overcharged a customer and voluntarily returned the money to him. By 1832, the general store had failed. The partnership was dissolved.
Also In 1832, Lincoln stood as a candidate for the Illinois General Assembly. He was an unlikely candidate, as he was rather poor and lacked political connections. He received 277 votes, nearly every vote in the village of New Salem. He lost the election as he was unknown outside this village.
In the early 1830s, Lincoln worked as New Salem's postmaster, and then as county surveyor. He aspired to become a lawyer, and read law on his own. He extensively studied legal texts in order to qualify. He later claimed that he was entirely self-taught. In 1834, Lincoln sought election to the Illinois General Assembly again. This time, he stood as a candidate for the powerful Whig Party and won the election. He served four terms in the General Assembly.
Lincoln's first known romantic relationship involved Ann Rutledge (1813 - 1835), a local woman who was reputedly engaged to another man. Rutledge died in August 1835, during a typhoid epidemic. She was only 22-years-old at the time of her death. Lincoln became severely depressed following her death. Biographers think that he wrote the poem "The Suicide's Soliloquy"(1838), to record his own suicidal thoughts during this period.
In 1836, Lincoln was admitted to the Illinois bar, and moved to Springfield Illinois to practice law. He started his career as a lawyer by practicing law under experienced lawyer John Todd Stuart (1807 - 1885), who happened to be a long-time friend of Lincoln. Lincoln gained a reputation as a formidable trial lawyer in cases involving cross-examinations.
In his political career in the 1830s, Lincoln championed the construction of the Illinois and Michigan Canal, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. He later served as a Canal Commissioner. He voted to expand suffrage to all white males, not only white landowners. He adopted a "free soil" policy, vocally opposing both slavery and abolitionism. He favored the plan of the Whig party leader Henry Clay (1777 - 1852) to use freedmen in the colonization of Liberia.
In 1839, Lincoln became romantically interested in Mary Todd (1818 - 1882), a daughter of the wealthy businessman Robert Smith Todd (1791-1849). They were engaged in 1840, and were married in 1842. They had four sons. Mary had a higher social standing than Lincoln, being part of the gentry in Springfield, Illinois. She had reputedly rejected several suitors. Her most notable suitor before Lincoln was the successful lawyer Stephen Arnold Douglas (1813 -1861).
In 1842, Lincoln's last term in the Illinois General Assembly ended. In 1843, he sought the Whig nomination for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He lost the nomination to John Jay Hardin (1810 - 1847), but convinced party officials to not renominate Hardin in the next election. Lincoln won the Whig nomination in 1846, and went on to win the election. He served as a congressman from 1847 to 1849. During this time, Lincoln was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation.
During his term in congress, Lincoln proposed a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, and to compensate slave owners for the loss of property. The bill failed to gain sufficient support, even from his own party. Lincoln spoke out against the country's involvement in the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), warning that the price of glory would be "showers of blood".
Lincoln did not seek renomination to Congress in the 1848 election, honoring a 1846 pledge to serve a single term. He supported Zachary Taylor's campaign to win the Whig nomination for the presidency. When Taylor won the presidential election, Lincoln expected political favors from the new president. Taylor offered to Lincoln an appointment as secretary or governor of the Oregon Territory, which was at that time a stronghold of the Democratic Party. Lincoln declined the offer, as it would require him to abandon his legal career in Illinois. He resumed life as a lawyer.
During the 1850s, Lincoln was one of Illinois' leading lawyers. He appeared before the Illinois Supreme Court in 175 cases, and was the sole counsel in 51 of these cases. He solidified his reputation as a defense lawyer in two murder trials. In the trial of Duff Armstrong (1833-1899), Lincoln was able to prove that a key eyewitness was actually lying about what he had seen. Lincoln found that the witness stood at too great a distance in nighttime conditions to have seen anything. In the trial of Simeon Quinn "Peachy" Harrison (a cousin of Lincoln), Lincoln was able to convince a judge that the dying declaration of the murder victim should not be excluded as hearsay, That declaration was that the victim had actively provoked Harrison into attacking, helping the defense's case.
In 1854, Lincoln resumed his active participation in political life by speaking out against the controversial Kansas-Nebraska Act, a law that repealing the Missouri Compromise (1820), and would allow for the expansion of slavery to the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska. The Whig Party split in two due to its factions' different reactions to the new law. The Party's anti-slavery faction helped establish the new Republican Party, which also attracted anti-slavery politicians from the Free Soil Party, the Liberty Party, and the Democratic Party.
In 1854, Lincoln stood as a Whig candidate to the United States Senate. He was not able to secure the election, but managed to convince his supporters to vote for Lyman Trumbull (1813 - 1896), an anti-slavery Democrat with similar views to their own. Trumbull won the election. In 1856, Lincoln formally joined the Republican Party. At the June 1856 Republican National Convention, Lincoln was one of the candidates for the party's nomination for Vice President of the United States. Lincoln received 110 votes, finishing second among the candidates. The vice-presidential nomination was instead won by William Lewis Dayton (1807 - 1864).
In 1858, Lincoln stood as a Republican candidate for the United States Senate. His opponent was Stephen Arnold Douglas, a leading Democrat politician. The Senate campaign featured seven debates between Lincoln and Douglas, which attracted nationwide attention. The candidates argued extensively over the legal and moral status of slavery in the United States. In this elections, the Republican Party won the popular vote, but the Democratic Party won more seats. The legislature re-appointed Douglas to the Senate. But Lincoln had become nationally famous, and he was often mentioned by the press as a likely presidential candidate.
In 1860, Lincoln received early endorsements as a presidential candidate. In the 1860 Republican National Convention, he secured the party's nomination. His most significant rival for the nomination was William Henry Seward (1801-1872), who finished second among the various candidates. Only Lincoln and Seward received over 50 votes from delegates. The party's nomination for vice president was secured by Hannibal Hamlin (1809 - 1891), a former Democrat who had opposed slavery for most of his career.
In the 1860 United States presidential election, the Democratic Party was split into two rival factions, which nominated different candidates. In the election, Lincoln received 1,866,452 votes, or 39.8% of the popular vote. In the electoral college, he received 180 votes, winning the election. Lincoln every one of the free Northern states, plus California and Oregon in the recently annexed Western United States. He received no votes at all in 10 of the 15 slave states.
Lincoln started his presidency in March 1861. By that time, 7 states had already seceded from the Union in reaction to his victory (in chronological order: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas). The American Civil War started in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, a bombardment of a Union fort located near Charleston, South Carolina. On April 15, Lincoln called on the states to send a total of 75,000 volunteer troops to recapture forts, protect Washington, and "preserve the Union". In Baltimore rioting crowds started attacking Union forces. Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus in select areas, allowing the government forces to confine people without formal trials. Thousands of suspected Confederate sympathizers were confined.
Lincoln soon established his executive control over the Union's war effort, and helped shape its military strategy, He expanded his war powers, and exercising "unprecedented authority" over the country. He had the full support of the Republican-controlled Congress, as well as popular support in states loyal to the Union. His political opposition consisted of two different factions, the Copperheads and the Radical Republicans. The Copperheads were a faction of the Democratic Party which demanded a compromise on the matter of slavery, and a peace settlement with the Confederates. The Radical Republicans were a faction of the Republican Party which demanded the "permanent eradication of slavery", and rejected any ideas concerning compromises with slave-owners.
In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the emancipation of slaves in 10 Confederate states. The Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. By the spring of 1863, Lincoln had started recruiting "black troops" in massive numbers. By the end of the year, 20 regiments of African Americans from the Mississippi Valley had been recruited by the Union.
Lincoln ran for re-election in the 1864 United States presidential election. He united the main factions of the Republican Party and the War Democrats (a pro-Union faction of the Democratic Party) into a coalition known as Union Party. The remaining factions of the Democratic Party made the mistake of nominating retired general George Brinton McClellan (1826 - 1885) as their presidential candidate. McClellan held a grudge against Lincoln, but rejected any ideas concerning peace with the Confederates. Meaning that the Copperheads could see little difference between him and Lincoln.
Lincoln won the presidential election with 2,218,388 votes, representing 55.0% of the popular vote. 78% of Union soldiers. voted fort him, as they did not want a compromise to end the War. Lincoln won 212 electoral votes, and had the support of 22 out of the Union's 25 states. His new vice-president was Andrew Johnson (1808 - 1875), a prominent War Democrat.
In 1865, the Union seemed to be winning the American Civil War. On April 14, 1865, Lincoln and his wife attended Ford's Theatre in Washington D.C. They wanted to see a performance of the then-popular British play "Our American Cousin" (1858) by Tom Taylor (1817 - 1880). During the performance, Lincoln was assassinated by the well-known actor John Wilkes Booth (1838 - 1865). Booth was a Confederate sympathizer, and hoped to turn the tide of the War. Lincoln was 56-years-old at the time of his death.
Lincoln's corpse was returned for burial to Springfield, Illinois, where he had lived for decades. On May 4, 1865, Lincoln was interred at the Oak Ridge Cemetery in Springfield. The Lincoln Tomb later became a state historic site. His wife and three of their four sons were later buried there as well.
Historians tend to rank Lincoln among the top Presidents of the United States. Due to his violent death, he came to be regarded as "a national martyr". Several political factions trace their origins to Lincoln's ideas and policies. He has been described as "a classical liberal" of the 19th-century, and is well-regarded for his policies favoring trade and business.- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Dick Gregory was born on 12 October 1932 in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Hot Chick (2002), The Leisure Seeker (2017) and Reno 911! (2003). He was married to Lillian Gregory. He died on 19 August 2017 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Actor
- Director
Mostly remembered today as the father of Anthony Perkins, Osgood Perkins enjoyed a successful career on Broadway, appearing in 22 major productions from 1924-36, often produced by Brock Pemberton. The highlight of his stage career was starring in the hit "The Front Page" as Walter Burns at the Times Square Theatre in 1928. Despite his status on Broadway, he was considered merely a character actor in Hollywood and died far too young of a heart attack at age 45.- Madeleine Albright was born on 15 May 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia [now Czech Republic]. She was an actress, known for Gilmore Girls (2000), Madam Secretary (2014) and Parks and Recreation (2009). She was married to Joseph Medill Patterson Albright. She died on 23 March 2022 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Chad Keller was born on 8 October 1971 in Manhattan Beach, California, USA. Chad died on 11 September 2001 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Writer
- Actor
- Casting Department
John Edgar Hoover was an American law enforcement administrator who served as the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. He was appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation - the FBI's predecessor - in 1924 and was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director for another 37 years until his death in 1972 at the age of 77. Hoover built the FBI into a larger crime-fighting agency than it was at its inception and instituted a number of modernization's to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. Hoover also established and expanded a national blacklist, referred to as the FBI Index or Index List.- Writer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Dwight D. Eisenhower was born on Tuesday, October 14, 1890, as Dwight David Eisenhower, in Denison, Texas. He was the third of seven sons born to David Jacob Eisenhower and Ida Elizabeth Stover. Both of his parents were of German descent. Eisenhower studied at the West Point Military Academy from 1911-1915. He served with the infantry, became the #3 leader of the tank corps, and rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel by the end of the First World War. From 1922-1924 he served in the Panama Canal Zone as executive officer to General, Fox Conner. From 1925-1926 he studied at the Command and General Staff College in Kansas, and from 1928-1933 he served as executive officer to Gen. George V. Moseley: Assistant Secretary of War, in Washington, DC.
Eisenhower was chief military aide to Gen. Douglas MacArthur from 1933-1935. He accompanied MacArthur to the Philippines in 1935, and served there as assistant military adviser to the Philippine government until 1939. Back in Washington, he held various staff positions and was promoted to Brigadier General in September 1941. Shortly after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, on Sunday, December 7th, 1941. Eisenhower was assigned to the General Staff. There he gradually rose to Assistant Chief of Staff under the Chief of Staff, Gen. George C. Marshall. Although Eisenhower had no experience in active military command, Marshall recognized his organizational and administrative strength. It was his association with Marshall that brought Eisenhower to London in June 1942 as Commanding General of the European Theater of Operations. He was also appointed Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces of the North African Theater of Operations, which was renamed the Mediterranean Theater of Operations after the capitulation of the German army in Africa. In September of 1943 Eisenhower oversaw the Allied invasion of Sicily and then of Italy, which led to the immediate surrender of Italian forces in southern Italy. However, the German Winter Line fortifications in Italy, kept fighting even after the fall of Berlin.
Eisenhower was in charge of planning and carrying out the Allied landings in Normandy, France, and the invasion of Germany. The first part of his plan, named Operation Overlord, was the largest seaborne operation in history. Under this plan, 2.8 million Allied troops from 12 nations crossed the English Channel. Starting on Tuesday, June 6th, 1944, known as "D-Day", they landed on the beaches of Normandy, France. After extremely fierce heavy fighting, the Allies breached the fortifications and pushed back the defending German forces. Two months later they reached Paris. Adolf Hitler had ordered the German commander of Paris to destroy the city rather than let it fall into Allied hands, but that officer refused to carry out those orders and eventually surrendered the city to the Allies. After fighting that was not as fierce as was expected, the city of Paris was liberated on Friday, August 25th, 1944. Eisenhower was with French Gen. Charles de Gaulle at the Hotel de Ville, where they greeted the Allied forces and took part in the French victory parade. After liberating Belgium and the Netherlands, the Allied troops crossed into Germany. In 1945 US and Soviet armies linked up on the Elbe River, west of Berlin. Soon Eisenhower met with Russian Gen. Georgi Zhukov and the two made a trip to the Soviet Union; the first (and only) time Eisenhower did so. After the German surrender on Tuesday, May 8th, 1945, Eisenhower was made the Military Governor of the US Occupied Zone in Germany, based in Frankfurt. He ordered the detailed search, documentation, photographing and widespread dissemination of what went on in the Nazi death camps. By actions such as these, Eisenhower began the process of documenting the horrors of the Holocaust.
Although he had never been in action himself, Eisenhower was respected as a brilliant military strategist and skilled political leader during the Second World War. He successfully dealt with conflicting demands from many sides, and managed to mollify such tough and determined personalities as Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, Gen. Bernard L. Montgomery and Gen. George S. Patton. From 1945 to 1948 Eisenhower was Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, and from 1950-1952 was Supreme Commander of all NATO forces.
Eisenhower won the 1952 US presidential elections, with Richard Nixon as his Vice President, and brought the Republicans back to national power after 20 years. He was President from 1953-1960, becoming the first and only army general to serve as President in the 20th Century, formally becoming a civilian during his term in office. He ended the Korean War and offered peaceful co-existence with the Soviet Union after the death of Stalin in 1953. He authorized the 1953 Iranian coup d'etat and the 1954 Guatemalan coup d'etat. He invited Nikita Khrushchev to his first visit to the US in 1959, and hosted him at his farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where his children and grandchildren met the family of the Soviet leader. Shortly after that, however, the Soviets shot down an American U2 spy plane, captured the pilot and canceled Eisenhower's reciprocal visit to the Soviet Union. Relations between the two superpowers deteriorated very quickly, leading to an increasingly rapid nuclear arms race and a dangerous standoff in the Cold War.
Domestically, Eisenhower began the modernization and integration of American roads into the interstate highway system, modeled after the autobahn, which he saw in Germany. In spite of some serious setbacks with US-Soviet relations, overall his presidency was a successful example of a non-partisan approach to politics.
After his presidential term expired (US Presidents can only serve two terms), Eisenhower was again commissioned a five-star general in the army. He lived in retirement on his farm in Gettysburg, where he wrote his memoirs. He died on Friday, March 28th, 1969, at the Army Hospital in Washington, DC, and was laid to rest in Abilene, Kansas, at the Eisenhower Presidential Library.
The complete lifetime of Dwight D. Eisenhower, was from Tuesday, October 14th, 1890, to Friday, March 28th, 1969. He lived 28,654 days, equaling 4,093 weeks & 3 days.- Ruth Bader Ginsburg was born on 15 March 1933 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. She was married to Martin D. Ginsburg. She died on 18 September 2020 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Colin Luther Powell (April 5, 1937 - October 18, 2021) was an American politician, statesman, diplomat, and United States Army officer who served as the 65th United States Secretary of State from 2001 to 2005. He was the first African-American Secretary of State. He served as the 15th United States national security advisor from 1987 to 1989 and as the 12th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989 to 1993.
- Norman Wexler was born in New Bedford Mass and attended Harvard University. In addition to his acclaim as the writer of Saturday Night Fever, he also suffered from manic depression, and in 1972 was arrested by the FBI for saying he was planning to shoot then-president Nixon.
- Son of the late-great actor, James Cagney, James Jr. was adopted along with sister Cathleen (nickname "Casey") by the senior Cagney and wife 'Bill' in the early forties. James Jr. pre-deceased both his parents, dying of a heart attack in the early eighties. His appearance in "The Gallant Hours" as an infantryman was accompanied by a similarly brief appearance of director Robert Montgomery's son, Bob Jr.
- Actress
- Writer
Mary Fuller's entrance into motion pictures was quite accidental. She was with a theatrical troupe that was on its way to tour the South in 1908 when, during a short stopover in New York City, the company broke up. Stranded, Mary made her way to the Vitagraph film studio looking for a job and, with her experience and attractiveness, was put to work in action and comedy one-reelers. By 1914 she had achieved enough recognition for Edison to give her the lead in a serial, which was a big hit. Universal Pictures took notice of her, and she headed west. However, two years later she just packed up and walked away from Hollywood. She made one picture in 1917, then disappeared. A magazine writer found her in 1924, living in Washington, DC, with her mother. She said that she had tired of the hard work involved in making pictures, that she had invested her money and was living comfortably. She mentioned that she was thinking of going back to making films, but soon after the interview was published, she disappeared again. Nothing was ever heard from her until 1973, when it was discovered that she had died, of natural causes, in a Washington, DC, mental hospital. No one had ever been able to find out for certain what happened to her between her 1924 interview and her death in 1973.- Diane Sommerfield was born on 24 October 1949 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA. She was an actress, known for Trapper John, M.D. (1979), Love in a Taxi (1980) and Back Roads (1981). She died on 9 March 2001 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Martin Sherwin was born on 2 July 1937 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a writer, known for Oppenheimer (2023), The Day After Trinity (1981) and The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer (2010). He was married to Susan Smukler. He died on 6 October 2021 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Douglas MacArthur (26 January 1880 - 5 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He was Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s, and he played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. MacArthur received the Medal of Honor for his service in the Philippines campaign. This made him along with his father Arthur MacArthur Jr. the first father and son to be awarded the medal. He was one of only five to rise to the rank of General of the Army in the U.S. Army, and the only one conferred the rank of field marshal in the Philippine Army.
- Producer
- Actor
- Writer
John McLaughlin was born on 29 March 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. He was a producer and actor, known for Mission: Impossible (1996), Independence Day (1996) and Dave (1993). He was married to Christina Vidal McLaughlin and Ann Dore. He died on 16 August 2016 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Actress
- Soundtrack
Helen Flint was born on 14 January 1898 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Midnight (1934), Ah Wilderness! (1935) and Blonde Trouble (1937). She was married to Harmon Spencer Auguste. She died on 9 September 1967 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Texas born, Harvard educated, Jack Valenti has led several lives; a wartime bomber pilot, advertising agency founder, political consultant, White House Special Assistant, movie industry leader. In his current role as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Motion Picture Association of America, Valenti has presided over a worldwide sea change in the industry, which has radically changed the landscape of the American film and television industry here and abroad. It is Valenti's duty and challenge to lead the U.S. film and TV industry's confrontation with these global dangers and opportunities. Born in Houston, Texas, Valenti was the youngest (age 15) high school graduate in the city. He began work a a 16-year-old office boy with the Humble Oil Company (now Exxon). As a young pilot in the Army Air Corps in World War II, Lieutenant Valenti flew 51 combat missions as the pilot-commander of a B-25 attack bomber with the 12th Air Force in Italy. He was decorated with the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal with four clusters, the Distinguished Unit Citation with one cluster, the European Theater Ribbon with four battle stars. He has a B.A. from the University of Houston (doing all his undergraduate work at night, working during the day). He graduated from Harvard with an M.B.A. In 1952, he co-founded the advertising/political consulting agency of Weekley & Valenti. In 1955, he met the man who would have the largest impact on his life, the then Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Lyndon B. Johnson. Valenti's agency was in charge of the press during the visit of President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Johnson to Texas. Valenti was in the motorcade in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Within hours of the murder of John F. Kennedy, Valenti was on Air Force One flying back to Washington, the first newly hired special assistant to the new President. On June 1, 1966, Valenti resigned his White House post to become only the third man in MPAA history to become its leader. Valenti has written four books, three non-fiction, The Bitter Taste Of Glory (World Publishing); A Very Human President (W. W. Norton Co.); Speak Up With Confidence (Wm. Morrow Co.); his newest book is a political novel, Protect Aand Defend (Doubleday, 1992). He has written numerous essays for the New York Times, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Reader's Digest, Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, Cox newspapers and other publications. France awarded him its highly prized Legion d'Honneur, the French Legion of Honor. He has been awarded his own Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He and his wife, Mary Margaret Valenti, lived in Washington, though he spent half his time in Los Angeles. They had three children, Courtenay Valenti, John Valenti and Alexandra Valenti. He died from complications of a stroke in April 2007.
- Actor
- Writer
Eric Sevareid was born on 26 November 1912 in Velva, North Dakota, USA. He was an actor and writer, known for The Right Stuff (1983), Taxi (1978) and World News Roundup (1957). He was married to Suzanne St. Pierre, Belén Marshall and Lois Finger. He died on 9 July 1992 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- George Catlett Marshall Jr. GCB (December 31, 1880 - October 16, 1959) was an American army officer and statesman. He rose through the United States Army to become Chief of Staff of the US Army under Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman, then served as Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense under Truman. Winston Churchill lauded Marshall as the "organizer of victory" for his leadership of the Allied victory in World War II. After the war, he spent a frustrating year trying and failing to avoid the impending Chinese Civil War. As Secretary of State, Marshall advocated a U.S. economic and political commitment to post-war European recovery, including the Marshall Plan that bore his name. In recognition of this work, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.
- Mona Tera was born on 30 December 1964 in the USA. She was an actress, known for ABC Afterschool Specials (1972), Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In (1967) and Ironside (1967). She died on 5 May 1997 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Jeane Dixon was, arguably, the most famous American astrologer and psychic in the pop culture of the post-World War II period due to her syndicated newspaper column, television talk-show appearances, and a best-selling biography. Dixon proved more of a celebrity and entertainer than a serious soothsayer, more of a Criswell than an Edgar Cayce. Jeane Dixon herself attributed her prophetic abilities to God; while few doubted her sincerity, more than a few skeptics and believers alike doubted the efficacy of her psychic abilities.
Born Lydia Emma Pinckert in Medford, Wisconsin, on January 5, 1904, the future Jeane Dixon was raised in Missouri and California. The devoutly Catholic Miss Pinckert married James Dixon in 1939 and remained married to him until his death. The couple, who ran a successful real estate business, apparently had no children: Mrs. Dixon was notoriously stingy about personal details, even though she was the subject of one of the best-selling biographies of all time in American publishing, at the time.
Richard Nixon, whom she erroneously predicted would win the 1960 Presidential election (and later predicted, again erroneously, would honorably serve his country), called Dixon "the soothsayer" and went so far as to have the government put on alert for a terrorist attack she predicted. The attack never materialized. Despite being proved wrong publicly many, many times, Dixon served as one of the house astrologers who advised First Lady Nancy Reagan Reagan while her husband Ronald Reagan occupied the Oval Office.
Jeane Dixon died of cardiac arrest in Washington, D.C. on January 26, 1997, three weeks after her 93rd birthday. - Born on September 8th 1930 in Washington D.C. Vantile Emmanuel Whitfield was the only son of Lugene Ellen Green and Theodore Roosevelt Whitfield. Vantile has two daughters, Bellina Logan, Elizabeth Whitfield and son Lance Vantile Whitfield.
Vantile E. Whitfield was a director, teacher, playwright, set designer, and was the founding director of the Expansion Arts Program at the National Endowment of the Arts ("NEA") under Nancy Hanks.
In the late '60's, he directed "Watts Gospel Festival" and "Watts Rhythm and Blues Festival" for KCET-TV in Los Angeles. He conceived, produced, and co-hosted "From the Inside Out" on Channel 11 in Los Angeles and directed the "The Third Bill Cosby Special" for NBC network in 1971. - Doris Rankin was born on 24 August 1887 in New York, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for The Great Adventure (1921), Love at First Sight (1929) and Society Smugglers (1939). She was married to Roger Malcolm Mortimer and Lionel Barrymore. She died in 1946 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Writer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Jim Lehrer was born on 19 May 1934 in Wichita, Kansas, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Zoolander 2 (2016), PBS NewsHour (1975) and Viva Max (1969). He was married to Kate Tom Staples. He died on 23 January 2020 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Jean Schertler was born on 14 October 1923 in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, USA. She was an actress, known for Runaway Bride (1999), Pecker (1998) and The Invasion (2007). She was married to Leon Anthony Schertler. She died on 19 December 2013 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Frank Mankiewicz was born on 16 May 1924 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Dave (1993), One Bright Shining Moment (2005) and Our World (1986). He was married to Patricia O'Brien and Hollie Lou Jolley. He died on 23 October 2014 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election. As president, Wilson changed the nation's economic policies and led the United States into World War I in 1917. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his progressive stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism.
- Robert S. McNamara was born in San Francisco, California on June 9, 1916. He graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1937 with a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and Philosophy. He went on to earn a Masters degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration in 1939 and had a job of teacher here from 1940 to 1943. He left in 1943 to join the Army Air Force, where he was awarded the Legion of Merit and promoted to lieutenant colonel before going on inactive duty in April 1946. After leaving the military he was hired by Henry Ford II who wanted educated people to help him modernize the Ford Motor Company that was near bankruptcy after years of bad management by its founder, Henry Ford. He was elected as a director of the company in 1957, and became the president in 1960. His short stay as president came to an end in January 1961 when President John F. Kennedy appointed him as Secretary of Defense.
In October 1962, he was one of the key officials in the Cuban Missile Crisis. During the Vietnam War, McNamara found himself increasingly at odds with the administration's policies, particularly when Lyndon B. Johnson became president after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His growing opposition to both US involvement in Vietnam and deployment of a major missile defense shield troubled military officials. Robert McNamara resigned from office on 29 February 1968. President Johnson awarded McNamara the Medal of Freedom and the Distinguished Service Medal. He became president of the World Bank Group of Institutions in April of 1968, retiring in 1981. Since his retirement he has written 5 books and spoken on a variety of humanitarian subjects, which earned him numerous honorary degrees and prizes. - Producer
- Director
- Writer
Charles Guggenheim was born into a wealthy Cincinnati family (his father was a furniture manufacturer). While studying agriculture in college in 1943, Guggenheim was drafted into the army. Upon discharge from the service he decided against an agricultural career and moved to New York to pursue a career in broadcasting. He founded Charles Guggenheim and Associates, a film production company. He developed an interest in politics, and soon moved the company from New York to Washington, DC, where he became a media adviser to many Democratic political figures. After Robert F. Kennedy's assassination, Guggenheim put together a tribute to him culled from the thousands of feet of film he had shot of Kennedy over the years. The resulting film, Robert Kennedy Remembered (1968), won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short. Although Guggenheim occasionally ventured into feature film production, he stayed mostly with documentaries, where he received his first Academy Award for 1964's Nine from Little Rock (1965), about the desegregation effort in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1957. He won two more Oscars for documentary filmmaking, in 1989 and 1994. His last documentary, Berga: Soldiers of Another War (2003), was about a group of 350 American soldiers captured by the Nazis during the Battle of the Bulge who, because they were either Jewish or the Nazis thought they "looked Jewish", were sent to concentration camps instead of POW camps (Guggenheim had been assigned to the unit that was captured, but a severe illness resulted in his being left behind when it was sent to the front lines so he was not with them when the men were captured). He finished the film just a few months before his death in October of 2002.- Peter Hackes was born on 2 June 1924 in New York City, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Broadcast News (1987), True Colors (1991) and Today (1952). He died on 17 April 1994 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States (1909-1913) and the tenth chief justice of the United States (1921-1930), the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but was defeated for reelection in 1912 by Woodrow Wilson after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft to be chief justice, a position he held until a month before his death.
- Maren Pedersen was born on 9 March 1842 in Gærum, Sejlstrup, Denmark. She was an actress, known for Häxan (1922) and A Sacrilege of Witches. She was married to Carl Frederik Pedersen. She died on 22 December 1920 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Editorial Department
- Actor
Tim Russert was born on 7 May 1950 in Buffalo, New York, USA. He was an actor, known for Meet the Press (1947), The Tim Russert Show (1994) and The American President (2000). He was married to Maureen Orth. He died on 13 June 2008 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.- Eugene McCarthy, the U.S. Senator from Minnesota whose maverick anti-war Presidential campaign in 1968 toppled Lyndon B. Johnson from power, was born on March 29, 1916, in the small town of Watkins, Minnesota. He took degrees from St. John's University (Collegeville, Minnesota) and the University of Minnesota before becoming a teacher. After a stint as a civilian War Department employee during World War II, he became a college economics and sociology professor. A omen Catholic deeply committed to social justice, he spent a year in a monastery. Eventually, he turned to politics.
McCarthy served 10 years in the U.S. House of Representatives after wining election in 1948, then two terms in the Senate, elected in both 1958 and 1964. As a Congressman, McCarthy supported the U.S. intervention in favor of South Korea during the 1950-53 Korean Conflict, but he came out as an opponent of the Vietnam War. In 1968, he thew his hat into the ring in the New Hampshire presidential primary as an anti-war candidate, opposing sitting President Lyndon B. Johnson for the Democratic nomination. He stunned the nation and changed political history when he won the primary, racking up 42% of the vote. A humiliated Johnson soon withdrew from the race, leaving the field open.
A well-educated person, McCarthy was an extremely erudite individual, and he attracted support from not only anti-war youth but from intellectuals, and many celebrities, including movie superstar Paul Newman, who had actively campaigned for McCarthy in New Hampshire. McCarthy's chances at the presidency were diminished, however, when Senator Robert F. Kennedy came out against the war and joined the field. Despite being denounced by many as an opportunist, Kennedy was an attractive candidate and represented the legacy of Camelot, his late brother John F. Kennedy's presidency. Some McCarthy supporters, like Richard Goodwin, defected to Kennedy. RFK was despised by Lyndon Johnson, and the president threw his support to his Vice-President and McCarthy's fellow Minnesotan, Hubert H. Humphrey, a mixed blessing at best as Humphrey, a noted liberal, was left with the job of defending Johnson's war in Vietnam. Despite Johnson's support of Humphrey, the race initially evolved into a contest between the two Irish Catholic anti-war candidates, McCarthy and Kennedy, a struggle that was terminated by RFK's assassination.
Humphrey, with the backing of Establishment Democrats, won the Democratc nomination at the Chicago convention, which was the scene of what was later termed a "police riot" by Democratic mayor Richard M. Daley's law enforcement operations targeting the army of anti-war protesters that had descended on the City of Broad Shoulders and hard police batons. The debacle was symbolic of the wider conflict between idealistic youth & other anti-establishment elements and the old guard of machine politicians & entrenched, pro-war government hacks that tore apart the party created by Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. Norman Mailer, in his book about the party conventions "Miami and the Siege of Chicago", said that during the mêlées that took place between protesters and police in Chicago, McCarthy worried that Daley might have his children imprisoned, beaten or murdered. The Chicago convention, in which CBS reporter Dan Rather was punched in the stomach on-camera by a Chicgo plain-clothes detective, was one of the nadirs of American politics.
Hubert Humphrey narrowly lost the November presidential election to Richard Nixon in November. Third-party candidate George Wallace, an Alabama Democrat, had siphoned-off support from traditional Democratic demographic groups by running on a anti-integrationist platform. Capitalizing on the "politics of rage", Wallace effectively split-off parts of the old party base, the heart of the Solid South and many working class Democrats, by a blunt appeal to racism. It effectively handed the election to Nixon, who won with less than half the popular vote.
A revolution had occurred in American politics, the effects of which are felt to this day, with the defecting of the Southeastern states from their traditional home in the Democratic Party to what was once the hated Republican Party of Reconstruction over the issue of civil rights, and the wooing of the working class, traditional Democrats, by the GOP with the use of "wedge" issues that touched on social anxieties.
Eugene McCarthy declined to run for a third term in the Senate in 1970 (his seat was won by Hubert Humphrey) and devoted much of his time to writing, including poetry. He ran for the Democratic presidential nomination four more times, in 1972, 1976, 1988 and 1992, but never came close to generating the enthusiasm of his first campaign.
McCarthy believed that the Democratic Party greatest achievements were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the enactment of the national health insurance programs "Medicare" and "Medicaid" as part of LBJ's vision of the "Great Society". However, he blamed the ratcheting up of Vietnam War by Johnson for the failure of part of the Great Society agenda, as it took the focus of revitalizing America. Not surprisingly, McCarthy was a critic of George W. Bush, whom he considered an "amateur", and Bush's war in Iraq.
Eugene McCarthy died in his sleep on December 11, 2005. He was 89 years old. - Marjorie Merriweather Post was born on 15 March 1887 in Springfield, Illinois, USA. She was married to Herbert Augustus May, Joseph Edward Davies, Edward Francis Hutton and Edward Bennett Close. She died on 12 September 1973 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- John von Neumann was born on 28 December 1903 in Budapest, Austria-Hungary [now Hungary]. He was married to Klára Dán and Marietta Kövesi. He died on 8 February 1957 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Joseph Tydings was born on 4 May 1928 in Asheville, Buncombe County, North Carolina, USA. He was married to Kate Geny (Dawson) Clark, Terry Huntingdon, Virginia Reynolds Campbell and Rosemary Margaret Anne (Elliott) Keyser. He died on 8 October 2018 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- CNN's main anchor in Washington, D.C., Shaw, who co-anchored "The International Hour" and The World Today (1992), made a name for himself in the 1988 U.S. presidential debates when he shocked candidate Michael Dukakis with his opening question asking if Dukakis would drop his opposition to the death penalty if his wife were raped and killed. It is thought that Dukakis, being caught off-guard and responding meekly, lost a lot of momentum and support. Shaw, in an interview later that year, angered vice presidential candidate Dan Quayle by asking him if he had joined the National Guard out of fear of being drafted and killed in Vietnam. Before joining CNN, Shaw worked at ABC news for three years, during which time he was a senior Capitol Hill correspondent and bureau chief. He was one of the first reporters on scene at the Jonestown, Guyana, mass suicide, as well as being on the scene early during the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis. He began his career at WNUS in Chicago, Illinois, one of the country's first all-news radio stations.
- Martha Mitchell was born on 2 September 1918 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA. She was married to John Mitchell and Clyde Jennings, Jr.. She died on 31 May 1976 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Stubby (1916 - 1926) was a Boston Terrier mix who was adopted by Corporal James Robert Conroy of the 26th Infantry Division (Yankee). He reputedly is the most decorated war dog from the first World War. He served 18 months and participated in 17 battles on the Western Front, as the unofficial mascot of the U.S. 102nd Infantry Regiment in World War I. During his tour of duty, he repeatedly distinguished himself on the front and saved lives. He alerted his regiment impending surprise mustard gas attacks. He alerted his unit to duck for cover, since he could hear the whine of incoming artillery shells before humans. He located wounded soldiers in no man's land. He captured a German spy in the Argonne. He comforted wounded soldiers and improved morale when was sent to the rear for convalescence, after twice being injured himself by hand grenades and mustard gas. Stubby was promoted to the rank of Sergeant and earned three Service Stripes, a French Battle of Verdun Medal, Republic of France Grande War Medal, a St Mihiel Campaign Medal, a Chateau Thierry Campaign Medal, a Purple Heart and two wound chevrons, a 1st Annual American Legion Convention Medal, a New Haven WW1 Veterans Medal among other military decorations.
- Harrison, who was born on a plantation, also came from a distinguished family of planters and politicians. His father, Benjamin Harrison, was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He was governor of Virginia between 1781 and 1784. William Harrison initially studied at college and at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1792 he joined the army. In 1794 he was used against the Indians in Ohio. A year later, Harrison married Anna Tuthill Symmes, an Ohio girl. In 1798, Harrison left the army as a captain. Harrison was then elected as a representative in the US Congress. In 1801, President John Adams made him governor of Indiana. During his 12 years in office, Harrison proved himself in the fight against the Indians, who had come together to form a federation under the leadership of Tecumseh.
During the war with Great Britain from 1812 to 1814, he secured American rule over Indiana and the Northwest. Returning to Ohio, William Harrison was elected to the House of Representatives in 1816, where he was represented until 1819. In 1825 he was elected to the US Senate, where William Harrison was active until 1828. In 1828, President John Quincy Adams sent Harrison as an envoy to Colombia, but he was recalled the following year. After a temporary withdrawal from politics, Harrison was considered a candidate in the presidential election in 1836, which was won by Martin van Buren. In the following election campaign in 1840, Harrison was able to garner the majority of votes. In March 1841 he took office as the ninth President of the USA.
William Henry Harrison died of pneumonia in Washington just one month later, on April 4, 1841. He was succeeded by John Tyler. - Betty Friedan was born on 4 February 1921 in Peoria, Illinois, USA. She was an actress, known for Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child (1995), Camera Three (1955) and Ex Libris (1988). She was married to Carl Friedan. She died on 4 February 2006 in Washington, District of Columbia, USA.
- Mamie Eisenhower was wife of United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower and thereby First Lady of the United States from 1953 to 1961.
Mamie married Dwight Eisenhower at age 19 in 1916. The young couple moved frequently between military quarters in many postings, from Panama to the Philippines. As First Lady, she entertained a wide range of foreign dignitaries, who reacted well to her confident style and clothing choices.