Magic Johnson (born 1959) is a retired American professional basketball player who played point guard for the Los Angeles Lakers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After winning championships in high school and college, Johnson was selected first overall in the 1979 NBA Draft by the Lakers. He won a championship and an NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award in his rookie season, and won four more championships with the Lakers during the 1980s. Johnson retired in 1991 after announcing that he had HIV, but returned to play in the 1992 All-Star Game, winning the All-Star MVP Award. He retired again for four years, but returned in 1996 to play 32 games for the Lakers before retiring for the third and final time. Johnson's career achievements include three NBA MVP Awards, nine NBA Finals appearances, twelve All-Star games, and ten All-NBA nominations. He led the league in regular-season assists four times, and is the NBA's all-time leader in assists per game. Johnson was a member of the "Dream Team", the U.S. basketball team that won the Olympic gold medal in 1992. He was honored as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996, and enshrined in the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2002.
Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_Johnson
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1385:
Forces under John I defeated the Castilians in the Battle of Aljubarrota, ending the 1383–1385 Crisis in Portugal. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aljubarrota
1842:
American Indian Wars: United States general William Jenkins Worth declared the Second Seminole War to be over. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Seminole_War
1888:
A recording of English composer Arthur Sullivan's The Lost Chord (audio clip right), one of the first recordings of music ever made, was played during a press conference introducing Thomas Edison's phonograph in London. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Chord
1994:
Leftist revolutionary and mercenary Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known as Carlos the Jackal, was handed over to French agents by his own bodyguards. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_the_Jackal
2005:
Helios Airways Flight 522 crashed into a mountain north of Marathon and Varnava, Greece, killing all 121 on board. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios_Airways_Flight_522
2006:
The United Nations brokered a ceasefire in the Lebanon War between Lebanon and Israel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Lebanon_War
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
eavesdrop (v): To hear a conversation one is not intended to hear http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/eavesdrop
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
Life seemed to be an educator's practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong. --Russell Baker http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Russell_Baker