Born On This Day: Monica Bellucci turns 48 today An Italian actress and fashion model. Monica Bellucci began modeling at age 13 by posing for a local photo enthusiast. In 1988, Bellucci moved to one of Europe's fashion centers, Milan, where she signed with Elite Model Management. By 1989, she was becoming prominent as a fashion model in Paris and across the Atlantic, in New York City. In that year, Bellucci made the transition to acting and began taking acting classes.

In Memoriam: James Dean died 57 years ago today An American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were as loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955), and as the surly ranch hand, Jett Rink, in Giant (1956). Dean's enduring fame and popularity rests on his performances in only these three films, all leading roles.

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Born On This Day: Jerry Lee Lewis turns 77 today An American rock and roll and country music singer-songwriter and pianist. He is known by the nickname "The Killer". An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis had hits in the late 1950s with songs such as "Great Balls of Fire", "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On", "Breathless" and "High School Confidential".

In Memoriam: Tony Curtis died 2 years ago today An American film actor whose career spanned six decades, but had his greatest popularity during the 1950s and early 1960s. He acted in more than 100 films in roles covering a wide range of genres, from light comedy to serious drama. In his later years, Curtis made numerous television appearances.

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Born On This Day: Naomi Watts turns 44 today A British-Australian actress who began her career in Australian television, where she appeared in series such as Hey Dad..! (1990), Brides of Christ (1991), E Street (1991) and Home and Away (1991). Her film debut was the 1986 drama For Love Alone. Her following portrayals included roles in B-class movies, such as the 1996 horror film Children of the Corn IV: The Gathering.

In Memoriam: Miles Davis died 21 years ago today An American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006.

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Born On This Day: Meat Loaf turns 65 today Michael Lee Aday known by his stage name, Meat Loaf, is an American hard rock musician and actor. He is noted for the Bat Out of Hell album trilogy consisting of Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose. Bat Out of Hell has sold more than 43 million copies.

In Memoriam: Cliff Burton died 26 years ago today An American musician, best known as the bass guitarist for the American heavy metal band Metallica. Burton joined the band in 1982 and performed on its debut studio album, Kill 'Em All. He performed on two more Metallica albums, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets.

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Born On This Day: Linda Hamilton turns 56 today An American actress best known for her portrayal of Sarah Connor in The Terminator and its sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Catherine Chandler in the television series Beauty and the Beast, for which she was nominated for two Golden Globes and an Emmy.

In Memoriam: Daniel Boone died 192 years ago today An American pioneer, explorer, and frontiersman whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky, which was then part of Virginia but on the other side of the mountains from the settled areas.

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Born On This Day: Mark Hamill turns 61 today An American actor, voice artist, producer, director, and writer, best known for his performance as Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars trilogy, as well as his voice role as the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series, its various spin-offs, and the video games Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City. Hamill has also lent his voice to various other villains and anti-heroes in animated productions.

In Memoriam: Marie Under died 32 years ago today One of the greatest Estonian poets. Under attended a private German girl's school. In her free time, she wrote poetry in German. In 1902, she married an Estonian accountant, Carl Hacker. The couple had two children in Kutshino, a suburb of Moscow. However, in 1904, she fell in love with the Estonian artist Ants Laikmaa. Laikmaa convinced her to translate her poetry into Estonian.

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Born On This Day: Kevin Sorbo turns 54 today An American actor best known for the roles of Hercules in Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Captain Dylan Hunt in Andromeda and Kull in Kull the Conqueror. Sorbo started his acting career in the late 1980s making guest appearances in several television series such as 1st & Ten, Murder She Wrote and The Commish. He was considered for and lost out to Dean Cain as Superman in Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.

In Memoriam: Dr. Seuss died 21 years ago today An American writer, poet, and cartoonist most widely known for his children's books written under the pen names Dr. Seuss, Theo LeSieg and, in one case, Rosetta Stone. He was a perfectionist in his work and he would sometimes spend up to a year on a book. It was not uncommon for him to throw out 95% of his material until he settled on a theme for his book. For a writer he was unusual in that he preferred to only be paid after he finished his work not in advance.

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Born On This Day: Jason Alexander turns 53 today An an American actor, director, producer, writer, singer, and comedian. He is best known for his role as George Costanza on Seinfeld, appearing from 1989 to 1998. He also has had an active career on the stage, appearing in several Broadway musicals including Jerome Robbins' Broadway in 1989, for which he won the Tony Award as Best Actor in a Musical. He appeared in the Los Angeles production of The Producers with Martin Short. He is the Artistic Director of "Reprise! Broadway's Best in Los Angeles," where he has directed several musicals. Alexander is also an avid poker player.

In Memoriam: Sigmund Freud died 73 years ago today An Austrian neurologist who became known as the founding father of psychoanalysis. Freud's parents were poor, but they ensured his education. Interested in law as a student, he moved instead into medicine, undertaking research into cerebral palsy, aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy. He went on to develop theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst.

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Born On This Day: Nick Cave turns 55 today An Australian musician, songwriter, author, screenwriter, composer and occasional film actor. He is best known for his work as a frontman of the critically acclaimed rock band Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, established in 1983, a group known for its eclectic influences and musical styles. Before that, he had fronted the group The Birthday Party.

In Memoriam: Nathan Hale died 236 years ago today A soldier for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an intelligence-gathering mission in New York City but was captured by the British. He is probably best remembered for his purported last words before being hanged: "I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."

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Born On This Day: Bill Murray turns 62 today An American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack (1980), Ghostbusters (1984), and Groundhog Day (1993). Murray gained additional critical acclaim later in his career, starring in Lost in Translation (2003).

In Memoriam: Jacqueline Susann died 38 years ago An American novelist. Her most famous work is Valley of the Dolls. Jacqueline Susann was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Robert Susann, a portrait painter, and Rose Jans, a schoolteacher. In school, Susann was an intelligent but lazy student. She scored the highest on her class's IQ test, a 140, prompting her mother to predict that she would someday become a good writer.

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Born On This Day: Sophia Loren turns 78 today An Italian actress. Loren is widely recognized as the most awarded Italian actress. She was the first actress of the talkie era to win an Academy Award for a non-English-speaking performance, for her portrayal of Cesira in Vittorio De Sica's Two Women.

In Memoriam: Jim Croce died 39 years ago today An American singer-songwriter. Between 1966 and 1973, Croce released five studio albums and 11 singles. His singles "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" and "Time in a Bottle" were both number one hits on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.

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Born On This Day: Adam West turns 84 today An American actor best known for his lead role in the Batman TV series on the ABC TV network and the 1966 Batman feature film. He is currently known for portraying eccentric or delusional characters, as well as his voice work on animated series such as The Fairly Odd Parents and Family Guy, in both of which he voices a fictional version of himself.

In Memoriam: Orville Redenbacher died 17 years ago An American businessman most often associated with the brand of popcorn that bears his name. In 1951, he and partner Charlie Bowman bought the George F. Chester and Son seed corn plant near Valparaiso, Indiana. Naming the company "Chester Hybrids," they tried tens of thousands of hybrid strains of popcorn before achieving success.

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Born On This Day: Lance Armstrong turns 41 today An American former professional road racing cyclist who won the Tour de France a record seven consecutive times after having survived testicular cancer. He is also the founder and chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation for cancer support.

In Memoriam: Russ Meyer died 8 years ago today An American director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor and photographer. Meyer is known for writing and directing a series of successful low-budget sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women.

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Born On This Day: Cassandra Peterson turns 61 today An American actress best known for her on-screen horror hostess character Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. She gained fame on Los Angeles television station KHJ wearing a black, gothic, cleavage-enhancing gown as host of Movie Macabre, a weekly horror movie presentation. Her vampish appearance is offset by her comical character, quirky personality, and Valley girl-type speech.

In Memoriam: Red Skelton died 15 years ago today An American entertainer best known for being a national radio and television comedian between 1937 and 1971. Skelton, who has stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, began his show business career in his teens as a circus clown and continued on vaudeville and Broadway and in films, radio, TV, night clubs, and casinos, all while he pursued an entirely separate career as an artist.

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Born On This Day: B.B. King turns 87 today An American songwriter, vocalist, and famed blues guitarist. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No. 6 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. and No. 17 in Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time. According to Edward M. Komara, King "introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending and shimmering vibrato that would influence virtually every electric blues guitarist that followed." King was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

In Memoriam: John died 9 years ago today Also known as lilo, was the founder of the freenode IRC network and Executive Director of the PDPC charity that helped fund freenode. A computer programmer since 1968, he worked as an administrator and an applications programmer from 1978 until his death. He worked to encourage the use of IRC for Free Software and Open Source projects. He was one of the founders of the OpenProjects Network (OPN), which grew to become the largest IRC network used by the free software community.

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Born On This Day: Tommy Lee Jones turns 66 today An American actor and film director. He has received three Academy Award nominations, winning one as Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the film The Fugitive.

In Memoriam: Richard Wright died 4 years ago today An English pianist, keyboardist and songwriter, best known for his career with Pink Floyd. Wright's richly textured keyboard layers were a vital ingredient and a distinctive characteristic of Pink Floyd's sound.

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Born On This Day: Sam Neill turns 65 today A New Zealand actor who won a broad international audience in 1993 for his roles as Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Alisdair Stewart in The Piano. Neill also had high-profile roles in Reilly, Ace of Spies, Omen III: The Final Conflict, Merlin, The Hunt for Red October, and The Tudors.

In Memoriam: Patrick Swayze died 3 years ago today An American actor, dancer and singer-songwriter. He was best known for his tough-guy roles, as romantic leading men in the hit films Dirty Dancing and Ghost, and as Orry Main in the North and South television miniseries. He was named by People magazine as its "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1991.

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Born On This Day: Fiona Apple turns 35 today An American singer-songwriter and pianist. Apple garnered international acclaim for her 1996 debut album, Tidal, which was a critical and commercial success. She received a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Criminal" from that album in 1998. After Tidal, Apple released the critically acclaimed, though less commercially successful albums, When the Pawn... (1999), Extraordinary Machine (2005).

In Memoriam: Tupac Shakur died 16 years ago today An American rapper and actor. Shakur had sold over 75 million records worldwide as of 2010, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. Rolling Stone Magazine named him the 86th Greatest Artist of All Time. The themes of most of Tupac's songs are the violence and hardship in inner cities, racism, social problems, and conflicts with other rappers during the East Coast–West Coast hip hop rivalry.

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Born On This Day: Neil Peart turns 60 today A Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer and lyricist for the rock band Rush. Peart has received numerous awards for his musical performances, and is known for his technical proficiency and stamina. Early in his career, Peart's performance style was deeply rooted in hard rock. He drew most of his inspiration from drummers such as Keith Moon and John Bonham. As time passed, however, he began to emulate jazz and big band musicians Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.

In Memoriam: Johnny Cash died 9 years ago today An American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. Although he is primarily remembered as a country music icon, his songs and sound spanned many other genres including rockabilly and rock and roll—especially early in his career—as well as blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal led to Cash being inducted in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Gospel Music Hall of Fame.

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Born On This Day: Moby turns 47 today Richard Melville Hall, known by his stage name Moby, is an American musician, DJ, and photographer. He is well known for his sample-based electronic music, his vegan lifestyle, and support of animal rights. Moby gained attention in the early 1990s with his electronic dance music work, which dabbled in the techno and breakbeat hardcore (also known as "rave") genres.

In Memoriam: John Ritter died 9 years ago today An American actor, voice over artist and comedian perhaps best known for having played Jack Tripper and Paul Hennessy in the sitcoms Three's Company and 8 Simple Rules. Also known for being the voice of the Clifford in the PBS television series Clifford the Big Red Dog. Don Knotts called him the "Greatest physical comedian on the planet".

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Born On This Day: Bill O'Reilly turns 63 today An American television host, author, syndicated columnist and political commentator. He is the host of the political commentary program The O'Reilly Factor on the Fox News Channel, which is the most watched cable news television program on American television.

In Memoriam: William Morgan died 408 years ago today Bishop of Llandaff and of St Asaph, and the translator of the first version of the whole Bible into Welsh from Greek and Hebrew. He graduated BA in 1568 and MA in 1571, before seven years of Biblical studies, including a study of the Bible in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.

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Born On This Day: Adam Sandler turns 46 today An American actor, comedian, screenwriter, musician, and film producer. After becoming a Saturday Night Live cast member, Sandler went on to star in several Hollywood feature films that grossed over $100 million at the box office. He is best known for his comedic roles, such as in the films Billy Madison (1995), Happy Gilmore (1996), The Waterboy (1998), Big Daddy (1999), and Mr. Deeds (2002).

In Memoriam: Mao Zedong died 36 years ago today Commonly referred to as Chairman Mao. A Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, anti-imperialist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution. He was the architect and founding father of the People's Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949, and held authoritarian control over the nation until his death in 1976.

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Born On This Day: Sid Caesar turns 90 today An Emmy award winning American comic actor and writer best known for the 1950s television series Your Show of Shows and Caesar's Hour, and for his role as Coach Calhoun in Grease and Grease 2. Caesar was born in Yonkers, New York, son of Max Caesar and his wife Ida, Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire who ran a restaurant.

In Memoriam: Ann Lee died 228 years ago today Leader of the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, or Shakers. In 1774 she and a small group of her followers emigrated from England to New York. After several years, they gathered at Niskayuna. They worshiped by ecstatic dancing or "shaking", which dubbed them as the Shaking Quakers, or Shakers.

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Born On This Day: Gloria Gaynor turns 63 today An singer, best known for the disco era hits; "I Will Survive" (Hot 100 number 1, 1979), "Never Can Say Goodbye" (Hot 100 number 9, 1974), "Let Me Know (I Have a Right)" (Hot 100 number 42, 1980) and "I Am What I Am" (R&B; number 82, 1983).

In Memoriam: Keith Moon died 34 years ago today An English musician, best known for being the drummer of the English rock group The Who. He gained acclaim for his exuberant and innovative drumming style, and notoriety for his eccentric and often self-destructive behaviour..

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Born On This Day: Roger Waters turns 69 today An English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. He was a founder member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd, serving as bassist and co-lead vocalist. Following the departure of bandmate Syd Barrett in 1968, Waters became the band's lyricist, principal songwriter and conceptual leader. The band subsequently achieved worldwide success in the 1970s with the concept albums The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals and The Wall.

In Memoriam: Luciano Pavarotti died 5 years ago today An Italian operatic tenor, who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, and established himself as one of the finest tenors of the 20th century. He was one of The Three Tenors and became well known for his televised concerts and media appearances. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work.

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