Honorable Mention: January 29, 1937: Bobby Scott. Like Sam Cooke, he was a singer, a songwriter, a music producer, and a man who had a hit song titled "Chain Gang." His was in 1956, 4 years before Sam's, and it wasn't as good, but it did hit Number 13 on the pop charts. (Sam's made it to Number 2.) He won a Grammy Award for writing "A Taste of Honey," and he should have won another for co-writing "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother."
Dishonorable Mention: January 29, 1970: Paul Ryan. The Republican from Wisconsin was the 1st person born after I was to be elected to Congress.
10. January 29, 1965: Dominik Hašek. He has the highest career save percentage of any goaltender in NHL history, .922. He won the Vezina Trophy as the League's top goalie 6 times. He won the Hart Memorial Trophy as NHL Most Valuable Player in 1997 and 1998. To put that in perspective: Only 6 other goalies have ever won it even once. In a 1994 Stanley Cup Playoff game, he made 70 saves in 4 overtimes, before his Buffalo Sabres finally beat the New Jersey Devils. That's a record for most saves in a game without allowing a goal.
But the Devils won the series anyway, and that would set the tone for Hašek: Individual achievement, but not the team honors. It took until 1999 for him to reach the Stanley Cup Finals, and his Sabres lost to the Dallas Stars on a controversial goal by Brett Hull. Finally, in 2002 -- with Hull as a teammate -- he won the Cup with the Detroit Red Wings, and another win them in 2008.
Honorable Mention: January 29, 1906: Joe Primeau. A member of the Toronto Maple Leafs'"Kid Line" of the 1930s with Charlie Conacher and Harvey "Busher" Jackson, he won the Stanley Cup as a player in 1932, and as the Leafs' head coach in 1951.
Honorable Mention: January 29, 1943: Pat Quinn. The defenseman was an original member of 2 NHL expansion teams, the 1970 Vancouver Canucks and the 1972 Atlanta Flames. He coached 2 different teams to the Stanley Cup Finals: The Philadelphia Flyers in 1980 and the Canucks in 1994. Like Hašek and Primeau, he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame; unlike them, it was in the "Builder" category, for his coaching.
9. January 29, 1923: Paddy Chayefsky. He won 3 Academy Awards for Best Screenplay: Marty in 1955, The Hospital in 1971, and Network in 1976.
8. January 29, 1880: W.C. Fields. He didn't mean it when he said he didn't like animals and children. But the prodigious drinking was no act, and lots of people had difficulty getting along with him. Nevertheless, he was one of the funniest men who ever lived.
Honorable Mention: A bunch of actors born on a January 29: Victor Mature in 1913, John Raitt (father of rock singer Bonnie) in 1917, John Forsythe in 1918, Katharine Ross in 1940, Tom Selleck in 1945, Ann Jillian in 1950, Nicholas Turturro in 1962, and Sara Gilbert in 1975.
7. January 29, 1761: Albert Gallatin. A native of Switzerland, he served Pennsylvania in both houses of Congress, and was the nation's longest-serving Secretary of the Treasury, from 1801 (serving through both terms of President Thomas Jefferson) to 1814 (serving into the 2nd term of James Madison and through much of the War of 1812). He later served as U.S. Minister (the title was changed to Ambassador in 1893) to Britain and to France. (Not at the same time. He was talented, but not that talented.)
6. January 29, 1874: John D. Rockefeller Jr. The son of the oil baron who became America's 1st billionaire, he was widely seen as being responsible for the Ludlow Massacre, at a mine he owned in Colorado in 1914. This was hardly the case, but it shook him up. He began working with other mining executives to reform the way they were run.
He went further than that. He built Rockefeller Center, a "city within a city" in Midtown Manhattan, including the RCA Building, the Rockefeller Center Skating Rink, and Radio City Music Hall. And he restored Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia as a time-specific theme park. He donated $500 million to various charitable causes.
5. January 29, 1966: Romário de Souza Faria. Like most Brazilian soccer stars, he is best known by only his first name. The forward won Brazilian league titles with Rio de Janeiro teams Vasco da Gama and Flamengo, the Dutch league title with PSV Eindhoven, and the Spanish league title with FC Barcelona. But he is best known for his performance in leading his country to victory in the 1994 World Cup in America. He has now served 7 years in his country's Senate.
Honorable Mention: January 29, 1932: Tommy Taylor. Also a forward, he was one of manager Matt Busby's "Busby Babes" that led Manchester United to win England's Football League in 1956 and 1957. But he was 1 of the 8 United players killed in the Munich Air Disaster in 1958.
4. January 29, 1960: Greg Louganis. The greatest competitive diver ever, he won 2 Gold Medals at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and 2 more in 1988 in Seoul.
3. January 29, 1860: Anton Chekhov. A physician and a playwright, he once said, "Medicine is my lawful wife, and literature is my mistress." He wrote The Seagull, Uncle Vanya, Three Sisters and The Cherry Orchard, all within 8 years. But there would be no more: In 1904, 6 months after The Cherry Orchard premiered, he died of tuberculosis. He was only 44.
2. January 29, 1843: William McKinley. In 1896 and again in 1900, he was elected the 25th President of the United States. A Republican from Ohio, he took the nation out of the depression of the 1890s, through the Spanish-American War, onto the world diplomatic stage, and into the 20th Century.
He was assassinated in 1901, a few months after starting his 2nd term. His Vice President, Theodore Roosevelt, became President. So maybe the best thing McKinley ever did for his country was take that bullet.
1. January 29, 1954: Oprah Winfrey. She started out as a newscaster, and if she had stayed one, she could have been one of the best at that. But she launched her talk show in Chicago in 1984, and nationwide in 1986, and the rest is history.
In 2009, we had the TV on during a visit by my 2-year-old niece Rachel. She saw who was on the screen, and said, "Oprah," as if she knew at that tender age who Oprah was and what she meant. I don't think I knew any celebrity by just one name until I was maybe 4, and then it was Cher, and Johnny (Carson).
Still alive as of this writing: Ryan, Hašek, Ross, Selleck, Jillian, Turturro, Gilbert, Romário, Louganis, Winfrey.