A controversial artist and leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. Warhol’s works explore the relationship between artistic expression, celebrity culture and advertisement. His studio (The Factory) was a famous gathering place that brought together distinguished intellectuals, drag queens, playwrights, Bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy patrons. He died on this day in 1987.
An American football quarterback in the National Football League (NFL). He won three Super Bowls in four years with the New England Patriots. Brady helped set the record for the longest consecutive win streak in NFL history with 21 straight wins over two seasons (2003-04). In 2007, he led the Patriots to the NFL’s first undefeated 16-game regular season.
Note: Today Brady and the Patriots face the New York Giants in Super Bowl XLVI, a rematch of 2008’s Super Bowl XLII upset. It will be Brady’s fifth Super Bowl.
An Italian politician who led the National Fascist Party and is credited as a key figure in the creation of Fascism. Mussolini became the 40th Prime Minister of Italy in 1922 and remained in power until he was replaced in 1943 during World War II. In 1945, Mussolini attempted to escape to Switzerland, but was captured, executed and taken to Milan for public viewing.
An Australian former tennis player who holds the record for career titles, and was the top-ranked player for seven consecutive years, from 1964 to 1970. Laver is the only tennis player to have twice won the Grand Slam, first as an amateur in 1962 and second as a professional in 1969. He’s one of the greatest tennis players of all time.
Note: This is 8-bit tennis character #1 of 5 for Australian Open week.
The 42nd President of the United States. Born on this day in 1946, Clinton presided over the longest period of peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history. He won a second term, but was impeached (though ultimately acquitted) in a scandal involving a White House intern. He left office with the highest approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II.
A Puerto Rican professional baseball player and humanitarian. He was born on this day in 1934. He played his entire 18-year career with Major League Baseball’s Pittsburgh Pirates (1955-72) and was the first Latin American player elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He died in a plane crash in 1972, while delivering aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
A celebrated 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician who was born on this day in 1786. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet “King of the Wild Frontier.” He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution and died at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.
An American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur born on this day in 1958. Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is the world’s top-selling female recording artist of all time. The Queen of Pop is known for reinventing her image and her music. One trend was the Gaultier cone-bra corset from her 1990 Blond Ambition Tour.
A French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815. His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code, influenced civil law jurisdictions worldwide. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders (see the Napoleonic Wars). He was born on this day in 1769.
P.S. Napoleon had problems, but being short wasn’t really one of them. He was 5′ 6″ or 5′ 7″ tall, which is average for an 18th-century Frenchman (but shorter than most Imperial Guards). Still, he gets the Napoleon complex named after him.
Magic Johnson is an NBA great who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. He won five NBA championships with the Lakers during the 1980s, but retired abruptly in 1991 after contracting HIV. His friendship and rivalry with Larry Bird, whom he faced in the 1979 NCAA finals and three NBA championship series, is widely celebrated. Johnson was born on this day in 1959.
Note: This is 8-bit character #3 of the 13 greatest NBA players of all time.
A Cuban revolutionary and politician born on this day in 1926. He played a key role in the Cuban Revolution, leading a successful guerrilla war against Batista’s forces with the aid of his brother Raúl Castro and friend Che Guevara. Castro became prime minister and president and converted Cuba to a one-party socialist state. In 2006, he delegated his presidential duties to Raúl Castro due to illness. On April 19, 2011, Fidel Castro resigned from the Communist Party central committee, thus stepping down as party leader.
An American professional wrestler, actor and television personality. He was born on this day in 1953 as Terry Bollea. In the 1980s, the Hulk Hogan character led the expansion of professional wrestling’s popularity across North America. This period of time in the history of the World Wrestling Federation is now referred to as the Hulkamania Era.
A noted American aviation pioneer. Born on this day in 1897, she was the first woman to receive the U.S. Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded for becoming the first aviatrix to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean. She disappeared over the central Pacific Ocean on July 2, 1937 while attempting an around-the-world flight.
An American aviator and former NASA astronaut best known as the first person to set foot on the Moon. The first Moon walk occurred exactly 42 years ago today. Armstrong served as commander of the 1969 Apollo 11 moon landing mission, which fulfilled U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s goal of reaching the Moon before the Soviet Union by the end of the 1960s.
