Today

Birthdays:

• Fra Bartolommeo, Italian artist, March 28, 1472 – October 31, 1517


• Freddie Bartholomew, Irish actor, March 28, 1924 – January 23, 1992



• Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov, aka Maxim Gorky, author, March 28, 1868 - June 14, 1936


• Willem Mengelberg, conductor, March 28, 1871 – March 22, 1951


• Paul Whiteman, bandleader, March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967


• Rudolf Serkin, pianist, March 28, 1903 – May 8, 1991


• Marlin Perkins, zoologist and television host, March 28, 1905 - October 5, 1986


• Edmund Muskie, politician, March 28, 1914 – March 26, 1996


• Sir Derek Jules Gaspard Ulric Niven van den Bogaerde, aka Dirk Bogarde, actor and author, March 28, 1921 - May 8, 1999


• Ken Howard, actor, 1944


• John Evans, aka John Evan, keyboard player with Jethro Tull, 1948


• Dianne Wiest, actress, 1948


• Karen Kain, ballerina, 1951


• Reba McEntire, singer and actress, 1955


• Chris Myers, radio host/sportscaster, 1959

RIP:

• Modest(e) Petrovich Mussorgsky, one of five Russian composers known as The Mighty Handful, innovator of Russian music, March 21, 1839 – March 28, 1881


• Virginia Woolf (née Stephen), author, considered to be one of the foremost modernist/feminist literary figures of the twentieth century, January 25, 1882 – March 28, 1941


• Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff, composer, pianist, and conductor, April 1, 1873, – March 28, 1943


• Jacobus Franciscus JIM Thorpe (Sac and Fox Nation: Wa-Tho-Huk), athlete, May 28, 1887 – March 28, 1953


• William Christopher Handy, blues composer and musician, often known as "the Father of the Blues," November 16, 1873 – March 28, 1958


• Dwight David Eisenhower, aka IKE, 34th president of the United States, October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969


• Arthur BIG BOY Crudup, delta blues singer and guitarist, also known for writing songs later covered by Elvis Presley, and dozens of other artists, August 24, 1905 – March 28, 1974


• Emmett Kelly, clown, December 9, 1898 – March 28, 1979


• Marc Chagall, painter, July 7, 1887 – March 28, 1985


• Patrick Troughton, actor [The Second Doctor], March 25, 1920 – March 28, 1987


• Morris MOE Koffman, musician and composer, played the flute, alto and tenor saxophone, and clarinet, December 28, 1928 - March 28, 2001


• Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov, born Peter Alexander von Ustinov, actor, writer, dramatist and raconteur, April 16, 1921 – March 28, 2004

Also:

• In Pennsylvania, a pump in the reactor cooling system fails at Three Mile Island, resulting in the evaporation of some contaminated water causing a nuclear meltdown, 1979
  
• President George H. W. Bush posthumously awards Jesse Owens the Congressional Gold Medal, 1990