ROSS SIMPSON

John Marwood Cleese is 77 today. He once studied Law at
Cambridge.

2001

Alfred Bernhard Nobel (October 21, 1833 – December 10, 1896)

Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor of dynamite, Alfred Nobel used his
fortune posthumously to institute the Nobel Prizes. In his lifetime he issued
350 patents internationally and established 90 armaments factories. He grew
up wealthy after his father invented modern plywood and filed his first patent
himself in 1857, for a gas meter. While studying explosives, a shed he was
using for the preparation of nitroglycerin, exploded at a factory in Heleneborg, 
Stockholm and killed five people, including his younger brother Emil.

TIM MAGUIRE

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is 90 today.

Chuck Berry performed for the first time at Sumner High School. He
became immortalized for songs such as "Roll Over Beethoven," which
reached #29 on the Billboard Top 100 chart.

According to authorities, Berry stole a car at gunpoint and was sent to
the Intermediate Reformatory for Young Men at Algoa from 1944 to
1947. He was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986.

TIM MAGUIRE

Jessica McClure Morales turned 30 in March.

CARLATA BRADLEY

Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby, Jr. (May 3, 1903 – October 14, 1977)

"Swinging on a Star" was introduced by Bing Crosby in the 1944 film Going My Way, winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song that year, and has been recorded
by numerous artists since then. In 2004 it finished at #37 in AFI’s 100 Years…100
Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema.