Da da DA… Da da DA!

Happy birthday to Chris Berman, the quintessential sportscaster. He’s been with ESPN since one month after its inception in 1979. Berman turns 52 today.

Today also would have been Fred Astaire’s 98th birthday. Ah, to have a modicum of that guy’s dancing ability. I’d be a lot more popular. *sigh*

If you go back one-hundred forty-eight years on this date, you’ll find that the Transcontinental Railroad was completed today. Go back sixty-seven years, and you can watch Winston Churchill become Prime Minister of Britain. Go back just fifty-three years to the day the classic song “Rock Around the Clock” was released. Twenty-three years ago, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as South Africa’s first black president. And just eight years ago, artist/author/songwriter Shel Silverstein was found dead in Key West, Florida (btw, did you know he penned Johnny Cash’s hit song “A Boy Named Sue”?).