Today is the birthday
… of Kevin Costner. Costner won the Oscars for director and best picture for Dances With Wolves and was nominated for the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Lt. John Dunbar. He’s 57 today.
… of hockey hall-of-famer Mark Messier. He’s 51.
Mark Messier’s nickname, “the Moose,” is a tribute to his size, strength and determination. A player renowned for his leadership abilities and one of the all-time leading NHL scorers, Messier emerged from the great Edmonton Oilers teams of the 1980s to become a hockey superstar. He was a powerful skater who combined playmaking skill and a goal-scoring touch with the toughness necessary to survive and thrive in the corners. Six times his teams sipped from the Stanley Cup and on two occasions Messier took home the Hart Trophy as the league’s most valuable player.
Like Gordie Howe, Messier is credited with being the most complete player of his generation. He was a power forward, a two-way left winger and sometime center with talent and overwhelming power and size and an unpredictable mean streak. . . .
… of Jesse L. Martin. The Law & Order actor is 43.
It’s also the birthday of Cary Grant (Archibald Alexander Leach, 1904-1986) and Danny Kaye (David Daniel Kaminski, 1913-1987). Both won honorary Oscars though neither won the real thing; Grant had two nominations.
Oliver Hardy was born in Harlem, Georgia, on this date in 1892. Hardy was the larger member of the great comedy team he formed with Stan Laurel.
Thomas A. Watson was born on January 18, 1854. Watson was the first person to receive a telephone call: “Mr. Watson. Come here. I want to see you.” So said, Alexander Graham Bell on March 10, 1876.
Joseph Farwell Glidden was born on January 18, 1812. Glidden received the patent for barbed wire in 1874.
Daniel Webster was born on January 18, 1782.
When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic… not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as “What is all this worth?” nor those other words of delusion and folly, “Liberty first and Union afterwards”; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,— Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!
From “Second Reply to Hayne” January 27, 1830
The first college basketball game with five players on a side was played on this date in 1896 at Iowa City, Iowa. The University of Chicago defeated the University of Iowa 15 to 12.