SANDY KOZEL

On this day in 1940, the 114-day Battle of Britain began during World
War II.

The Telstar Communications satellite was launched on this day
in 1962. It relayed TV and telephone signals between Europe and
the U.S.

Millard Fillmore (January 7, 1800 – March 8, 1874)

Following Zachary Taylor’s death, Millard Fillmore (above)
became the 13th President of the United States on this day
in 1850. He was the last member of the Whig Party to hold
the office of president.

Zachary Taylor (November 24, 1784 – July 9, 1850)

The identity and source of Taylor’s illness are the subject
of historical speculation, although it is known that Taylor
and several of his cabinet members had come down with
similar intestinal ailments on July 4, 1850, while attending
holiday celebrations during a fund-raising event.

Shamil Salmanovich Basayev
(January 14, 1965 – July 10, 2006) 

Basayev was a Chechen militant Islamist and
a leader of the Chechen movement.

He was killed by an explosion on July 10,
2006.  Controversy still surrounds who was
responsible for his death.

Folk singer/songwriter Arlo Davy Guthrie is 71 years older today.

Like his father, Woody Guthrie, he is known for singing songs of protest
against social injustice, and storytelling around a song.

Voice actor/comedian Melvin Jerome Blanc
(May 30, 1908 – July 10, 1989)

Having earned the nickname The Man of a Thousand Voices, Blanc is
regarded as one of the most influential people in the voice acting
industry.

Mel Blanc died of advanced coronary artery disease on this day in
1989 at Cedars-Sinai, at the age of 81.

Mel Blanc at the KGW radio studio in Portland,
Oregon, circa 1948.

John Mahoney (June 20, 1940 – February 4, 2018)

John Mahoney was a stage, film, and television actor, best known for
playing the blue-collar patriarch, Martin Crane, in the American sitcom
Frasier on NBC from 1993 to 2004. He also worked as a voice actor, and
performed on Broadway and in Chicago theatre. Mahoney died Sunday
while in hospice care in Chicago after a short illness.
                                                                                           

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Yitzhak Edward "Ed" Asner 

Ed Asner is an actor, voice actor and a former president of the
Screen Actors Guild. He is primarily known for his role as Lou
Grant during the 1970s and early 1980s, on both The Mary
Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant (both CBS),
making him one of the few television actors to portray the same
leading character in both a comedy and a drama. He is also
known for playing Santa Claus in the comedy film Elf (2003)
and its animated remake Elf: Buddy’s Musical Christmas
(2014). He attended the University of Chicago and served
in the U.S. Signal Corps.

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John A. "Jack" Riley Jr. (December 30, 1935 – August 19, 2016)

NEW YORK (AP) –  Jack Riley, who played a counseling client on "The Bob
Newhart Show" and also voiced a character on Nickelodeon’s animated
"Rugrats," died Friday. The 80-year-old actor died in Los Angeles, according
to his representative Paul Doherty.

Besides portraying grumpy, self-absorbed Mr. Carlin on the 1970s "Newhart"
sitcom and providing the voice for absent-minded dad Stu Pickles on "Rugrats"
and its spinoff, "All Grown Up!," Riley appeared in the Mel Brooks films "History
of the World: Part I," ”High Anxiety" and "Spaceballs."

In a statement, Newhart said Riley created one of TV’s "most endearing"
situation comedy characters with his Carlin portrayal.

From right: Bob Newhart and Jack Riley

Marni Nixon (Margaret Nixon McEathron)
(February 22, 1930 – July 24, 2016)

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood voice double Marni Nixon, whose singing
was heard in place of the leading actresses in such classic movie musicals
as "West Side Story,” ”The King and I" and "My Fair Lady," has died.

Michael Kirsten, senior vice president of Nixon’s talent agency, Harden-
Curtis Associates, said she died Sunday of cancer in New York. He said 
"She passed away peacefully with her family at her side. 

Nixon, who was initially unaccredited for her work, early on resented the
dubbing work but later came to terms with it. "I realized now that this was
something that would outlive me. Something that would last," she wrote
in her 2006 memoir, "I Could Have Sung All Night."