In 1815, the future US General in Chief, Henry Wager Halleck, was born. He was considered to be the brightest officer in the Army at one point, as he wrote and edited military textbooks. However, he wasn't terribly good at putting it all into operation. He got promoted in part because his subordinates //cough US Grant cough/// won a few important battles. He was above them, therefore he got the credit. In the end, Grant was promoted to Lieutenant General, which made him the Big Boss. Halleck was kept in Washington as kind of the Chief Administrative Officer of the Army, which was a role for which he was extremely well-suited.
In 1901, the birthday boy was Frank Zamboni. If you can't guess what he is famous for, then forget it. You either care, or you don't.
Ethel Merman was born on this date in 1908. She was of course a well known singer. I don't know if that was her last appearance, but she was in "Airplane" as Lt. Hurwitz, who is so shell-shocked that he thinks he's Ethel Merman. (NOTE: It was her last film. Am I good, or what?)
Elliot Reid was born on this date in 1920. She looked pretty darned good in Scrubs, for being about 80 years old. And male. Although I guess it could have been a different Reid. The one born in 1920 was also an actor, who did a lot of small roles in comedy on both radio and TV. I wonder if the writers of Scrubs just picked that name as a nice generic, gender-neutral name, or if they were somehow giving the real Mr. Reid a nod. But I don't really care enough to look it up, so there you have it.
If you don't like spiders and snakes, then you have something in common with birthday boy Jim Stafford, born on this date in 1944. In the Day, he was pretty cool- a good guitarist, with a nice gift for doing amusing little ditties about weird things. And on his TV show, he had a sidekick named Rodney, who was a dummy. Really. He might have been a muppet, but I don't recall. But he was fun.
In 1973, we were blessed (?) with Josie Davis. You mostly know her from being the younger, less-ahem-attractive(?) sister from Charles in Charge. If you want my opinion, she was only the less attractive one if you were blind, but okay. She's not well known today, but she's still working a fair amount. More than any of her costars, so that's a good thing. And she is pretty darned hot!
Aaliyah would be celebrating her 1979 birth today, if she had listened to her pilot in 2001. But I guess she knew better. Oops- I guess not. I hate to say it, but that's Darwin in action: If the pilot of your plane says "Gosh, I think we're too overloaded. I don't think it's safe to carry all this weight on the plane", then I think you might want to listen. Oh well. Even rich, famous, talented, and good-looking people can be stupid.
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