March 6th is the birthday

… of Ed McMahon. Johnny’s sidekick is 84.

… of Alan Greenspan. He’s 81.

… of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 79.

He was in law school in 1948, when a prominent Liberal Party politician was assassinated, and the event triggered a civil war that lasted for more than 10 years. García Márquez stayed in the city to write about the violence, but a riot in his neighborhood started a fire that burned down his house, and all his manuscripts were destroyed. So he moved into a tiny room in a four-story brothel called “the Skyscraper.” Márquez knew he wanted to write fiction, but he wasn’t sure what to write about. Then in 1950, his mother showed up and asked him to travel back to his hometown to help her sell the family home.

The trip filled him with nostalgia and flooded his mind with memories of his childhood and the stories told to him by his grandparents. A fictional town began to take shape in his mind, based on his memories, and he knew he had to write a novel about that town. That novel became One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), which begins, “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

One Hundred Years of Solitude is now considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

The Writer’s Almanac

… of Mary Wilson. The Supreme who is neither Diana Ross nor the one Dream Girls is about is 63 today.

The members of the Supremes – Diana Ross, Florence Ballard and Mary Wilson – first came together in a quartet, the Primettes, that had been recruited by singer Paul Williams as a sister act to his locally popular Detroit group, the Primes (later known as the Temptations). After persistently showing up at Motown’s “Hitsville” headquarters after school, the Supremes were signed to the label in January 1961. The group was slow to find its footing, enduring several years of flop singles before finally clicking with “When the Lovelight Starts Shining Through His Eyes” (#23) in early 1964. After that, it was off to the races for the Supremes, who amassed a dozen Number One hits between 1964-69. In addition to the aforementioned singles, the Supremes’ other chart-toppers were “I Hear a Symphony,” “You Can’t Hurry Love,” “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” “Love Is Here and Now You’re gone,” “The Happening,” “Love Child” and “Someday We’ll Be Together.”

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

… of Rob Reiner. “Meathead” is 60.

… of Shaquille O’Neal. He’s getting up there — 35.

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on this date in 1475.

Detail from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born on this date in 1806.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

Bob Wills was born on this date in 1905.

You can see the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee,
It’s the home of country music, on that we all agree.
But when you cross that ole Red River, hoss,
that just don’t mean a thing,
‘Cause once you’re down in Texas,
Bob Wills is still the King.

(‘Bob Wills Is Still The King’ by Waylon Jennings)

Bob Wills was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1968 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.