On this day
Revisit the music, news, notable people, and historical moments connected to this date.
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Al Baker News Analysis discusses New York State Governor George E Pataki, who is often counted on to publicly support President George W Bush administration and war in Iraq; notes that New York State was only awarded $64 million of $725 million to help New York City fight terrorism; small amount is largely seen as evidence that Pataki's influence in Bush administration is not great; photo (M)
Nashville Predators player Jordin Tootoo, NHL's first Inuit player, is making name for himself with strange tales of his upbringing in Rankin Inlet, Canada, and his aggressive playing style; map; photos (M)
Dan Barry About New York column discusses practice of auctioning off items in storage units when tenants have fallen into default and voyeuristic nature of assessing someone else's unwanted or merely uncollected belongings (M)
Senate Democrats filibuster to block Janice Rogers Brown, Carolyn B Kuhl and Priscilla R Owen, Pres Bush's judicial nominees; move comes after nearly 40 hours of debate in which Republicans complain about Democrats rejecting Bush's candidates; Democrats have now blocked six candidates, contending they are conservative ideologues who are part of wider effort by administration to shift courts rightward; Republicans are not able to muster necessary 60 votes to break filibuster; photo; chart compares number of confirmations and delays in prior administrations (M)
Jere Longman News Analysis discusses plans by Major League Baseball to test its players more rigorously for steroids; plan is result of report revealing that five to seven percent of players tested positive for steroids (M)
Music on My Birthday
The Top 50 albums for the chart week of November 12, 2003, covering November 15, 2003.
OutKast
Rod Stewart
Clay Aiken
The Strokes
Ludacris
2003Ray Lewis, Canadian runner (born 1910)[†]
Raymond Gray Lewis, CM was a Canadian track and field athlete, and the first Canadian-born black Olympic medalist.
2003Dorothy Loudon, American actress and singer (born 1925)[†]
Dorothy Loudon was an American actress and singer. She won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical in 1977 for her performance as Miss Hannigan in Annie. Loudon was also nominated for Tony Awards for her lead performances in the musicals The Fig Leaves Are Falling and Ballroom, as well as a Golden Globe award for her appearances on The Garry Moore Show.
2003Laurence Tisch, American businessman, co-founded the Loews Corporation (born 1923)[†]
Laurence Alan Tisch was an American businessman, investor and billionaire. He was the CEO of CBS television network from 1986 to 1995. With his brother Bob Tisch, he was part owner of Loews Corporation.
2003Speedy West, American guitarist and producer (born 1924)[†]
Wesley Webb West, better known as Speedy West, was an American pedal steel guitarist and record producer. He frequently played with Jimmy Bryant, both in their own duo and as part of the regular Capitol Records backing band for Tennessee Ernie Ford and many others. The duo also recorded with non-Capitol artists in Los Angeles. In 1960, Speedy played on and produced Loretta Lynn's first single. During his time at Capitol, he played on over 6000 recordings, including pop records by artists like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. West, who began playing Paul Bigsby's second ever pedal steel guitar in 1947, was the first country steel guitarist to use a pedal guitar. Nashville players like Bud Isaacs would adopt it in the early 1950s. After a stroke in 1981, West was unable to play pedal steel, but would continue to attend steel guitar conventions. His health would continue to deteriorate and he would pass away on November 15, 2003.
2003The first day of the 2003 Istanbul bombings, in which two car bombs, targeting two synagogues, explode, kill 25 people and wound 300 more.[†]
The 2003 Istanbul bombings were a series of suicide attacks carried out with trucks fitted with bombs detonated at four locations in Istanbul, Turkey, on 15 and 20 November 2003.
In 2003, the world population was approximately 6,420,361,634 people[†]