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Magic Johnson Fast Facts

By CNN

(CNN) — Here’s a look at the life of entrepreneur, philanthropist and NBA Hall of Fame point guard Magic Johnson.

Personal

Birth date: August 14, 1959

Birth place: Lansing, Michigan

Birth name: Earvin Johnson Jr.

Father: Earvin Johnson Sr., an autoworker

Mother: Christine Johnson, a school custodian

Marriage: Earlitha “Cookie” (Kelly) Johnson (1991-present)

Children: with Cookie Johnson: Elisa and Earvin III “EJ”; with Melissa Mitchell: Andre

Education: Attended Michigan State University, 1977-1979

Other Facts

Johnson is 6’9” tall.

The rivalry with Larry Bird, another NBA superstar, began in college. They became friends while shooting a Converse shoe commercial in 1984. They served as the first co-recipients of the NBA’s lifetime achievement award in 2019.

Helped the Lakers win five NBA championships: 1980, 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988.

Was the NBA Most Valuable Player three times: 1987, 1989 and 1990.

Has explained that the way he contracted HIV was through sexual encounters with multiple female partners in the 1980s.

He is chairman and CEO of Magic Johnson Enterprises, which owns radio stations, movie theaters, magazines, real estate, a cable network, sports teams, and invests in corporate partnerships.

Johnson is also the chairman and CEO of the Magic Johnson Foundation, which was created to assist in the fight against HIV/AIDS through awareness, prevention and education.

Timeline

1974 – Earns the nickname “Magic” after a game his sophomore year of high school, in which he scores 36 points, 18 rebounds and 16 assists. Lansing State Journal sportswriter Fred Stabley Jr. is the first to call him Magic.

1975-1977 – Is named to the All-State team and leads his team to a state championship. He is heavily recruited by college basketball programs nationwide and chooses Michigan State University in East Lansing.

1978 – The Michigan State Spartans win the Big Ten Championship.

March 26, 1979 – MSU wins its first NCAA Championship. The Spartans defeat Bird and the Indiana State University Sycamores, 75-64. Johnson is named MVP.

1979 – Johnson leaves Michigan State to turn pro. He is the NBA first overall draft pick and is selected by the Los Angeles Lakers.

1980 – At 20 years old, Johnson is the youngest and the first rookie named the NBA Finals MVP. The Lakers win the series 4-2 over the Philadelphia 76ers.

1982 – Is named Finals MVP after a 4-2 win over the Philadelphia 76ers.

1986 – UCLA hosts the first annual Midsummer Night’s Magic All-Star charity basketball game. Players include Bird, Dominique Wilkins and Michael Jordan.

1987 – Is named Finals MVP after a 4-2 win over Bird and the Boston Celtics. He is also named League MVP.

1987 – Magic Johnson Enterprises is founded. Johnson is the chairman and CEO.

1988 – Johnson’s fifth NBA championship is the Lakers second championship win in two years, a 4-3 win over the Detroit Pistons.

November 7, 1991 – In a nationally televised press conference Johnson announces he is HIV positive and is retiring from the Lakers, effective immediately.

November 1991 – Establishes the Magic Johnson Foundation.

February 9, 1992 – Voted to the NBA All-Star game for the Western Conference by fans even though he had not played in a game that season. Is named MVP, with 25 points, three three-pointers, nine assists and five rebounds; the West defeats the East 153-113.

February 16, 1992 – The Lakers officially retire his number 32 jersey.

August 8, 1992 – The US Olympic basketball “Dream Team,” the first US Olympic team to include NBA players, wins the gold medal, beating Croatia 117-85 in the final game.

September 29, 1992 – Announces he will come out of retirement and play in the 1992-1993 season for the Lakers.

November 2, 1992 – Announces he is again retiring from basketball, due to the many NBA players voicing concern over possible health risks associated with such a high contact sport and Magic’s HIV status.

November 3, 1992 – His autobiography, “My Life,” is published.

March 23, 1993-April 24, 1994 – Head coach of the Lakers.

June 27, 1994 – Becomes 5% owner of the Lakers.

January 30, 1996 – Returns again to play for the Lakers. In his first game, the Lakers defeat the Golden State Warriors 128-118. NBA rules prohibit players from owning a team. Prior to his return, Johnson sells his interest in the team.

May 14, 1996 – Third, and final NBA retirement: “I am going out on my terms…”

October 1996 – Buys back the minority share of the team he sold to majority owner Jerry Buss earlier in the year.

1998-2010 – Partnership with Starbucks called Urban Coffee Opportunities “to build Starbucks stores in underserved neighborhoods.”

September 27, 2002 – Is inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts. Bird introduces him.

November 4, 2009 – “When the Game Was Ours,” a book co-authored with Bird, is published.

March 6, 2010 – HBO debuts the documentary, “Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals,” about the relationship between Johnson and Bird on and off the court.

October 2010 – Sells his shares of the Lakers.

March 2012 – Along with the Guggenheim Partners, Johnson wins a bidding war to buy the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.15 billion.

April 11-May 12, 2012 – The play “Magic/Bird,” the story of the rivalry and friendship of Johnson and Bird, runs on Broadway.

June 2012 – Launches a new cable television network, Aspire.

February 5, 2014 – The WNBA announces Johnson and a group of investors are purchasing franchise Los Angeles Sparks.

October 2014 – Announces that he is part-owner of the Major League Soccer team, the Los Angeles Football Club.

February 21, 2017 – Johnson is named as the Lakers’ president of basketball operations, as part of a restructuring plan. He will step away from his role at ESPN, where he was on the show “NBA Countdown.”

April 9, 2019 – Announces he is quitting as the Laker’s president of basketball operations.

May 2020 – Johnson announces that EquiTrust Life Insurance Co., of which he owns a majority, is providing $100 million in capital to fund federal loans for minority and women business owners who have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.

March 6, 2022 – HBO debuts the scripted series “Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,” with the first season focusing on the drafting of Johnson and the 1979-1980 season.

April 22, 2022 – “They Call Me Magic,” a documentary focusing on Johnson’s life and NBA career, debuts on Apple TV+.

July 20, 2023 – NFL owners vote to approve the sale of the Washington Commanders franchise to a group led by billionaire Josh Harris, the co-founder of Apollo Global Management. The Commanders’ new ownership group includes Johnson.

January 4, 2025 – Is awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.

Highest resolution view of the sun yet reveals magnetic mysteries

By CNN
(CNN) — The world’s most powerful solar telescope has captured the highest resolution observations of the sun’s visible surface — and uncovered a hidden process that drives solar activity.Scientists used the National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, located near the summit of Haleakalā, a volcano on the Hawaiian island of Maui, to zoom into a magnetically active area near a sunspot. Sunspots are considered hotspots of solar activity.The imagery and time-lapse video reveal an unprecedented look at the sun’s complex and dynamic photosphere, the visible surface of the sun that exists as a thin layer of atmosphere shaped by magnetic fields and currents of fluid plasma.Combining the detailed imagery with computer simulations helped researchers arrive at a major solar physics breakthrough: identifying the signature of small whirlpools on the sun’s surface that could directly impact life on Earth.Known as Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, or KHI, the swirling patterns could explain enduring solar mysteries, such as why the sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, is much hotter than its surface.The swirls could also fuel the buildup of the sun’s magnetic energy, which drives solar flares and coronal mass ejections. When aimed at Earth, this solar activity blasts out particles that can disrupt satellites, power grids and other communications infrastructure.The findings, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, could help scientists understand the sun’s behavior and activity, which is difficult to predict.“Although theoretical models had suggested that the right conditions for Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability could exist in the photosphere, seeing these structures widespread across the surface was still a huge surprise,” lead study author Dr. David Kuridze, assistant astronomer at the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado, wrote in an email. “The vortex formation on the Sun has long been a central question in solar physics. For the first time, we have identified both their origin and their driving mechanism.”A constantly shifting surfaceKelvin-Helmholtz instability occurs when two fluids traveling at different velocities move past one another, creating tiny perturbations that result in spiraling vortices, according to the study.Scientists have observed this instability pattern in lake and ocean waves, cloud formation and the atmospheres of large gaseous planets such as Jupiter and Saturn.“A beautiful example of KHIs happens at the boundaries of Jupiter’s cloud bands, leading to vortices along the edges,” said Dr. Maria Weber, associate professor of physics and planetarium director at Delta State University in Mississippi. “The granddaddy of them all is the Great Red Spot.”Weber was not involved in the new study.The images from the Inouye telescope mark the first time the phenomenon has been seen on the sun.Scientists have long believed that the sun builds up stores of magnetic energy through “flux braiding,” when magnetic field lines twist together. The tension eventually becomes unstable, causing the tangle of magnetic fields to snap apart and then magnetically reconnect, releasing a burst of energy. But researchers never quite understood why these twisting patterns occur in the first place — but the new observations offer a possible explanation.Swirls occurring along the edges of magnetic regions across the solar surface could twist the fields together, the researchers realized. The formations also explain how heat makes its way to the sun’s outer atmosphere.“KHI is a really efficient way for the Sun to break big plasma flows down into smaller motions,” Kuridze said. “When you have KHI in the system, it makes it much easier to trigger an energy cascade toward tiny, microscopic scales and once energy reaches those micro-scales, it can easily be released as heat. Therefore, finding KHI across the solar surface gives us a very important missing piece of the puzzle.”The magnetic vortices generated by Kelvin-Helmholtz instability effectively act like small-scale engines that can generate, transport and release energy throughout the solar surface, he said.“We are still trying to piece together the full story about how the sun generates and sustains its magnetism, on all scales,” Weber said. “This work helps.”The constantly moving whirlpools can act as energy stores for larger solar activity, such as flares and coronal mass ejections. But the sun is firing tiny nanoflares and other smaller-scale activity every second, Kuridze added.“As it turns out, these micro-events are more influential for the Sun’s thermal and magnetic structure than rare, massive flares,” he said. “There is a strong consensus within the solar physics community that unlocking global solar behavior begins with understanding these micro-scales. Solar magnetism is fundamentally shaped by these small-scale events, which ultimately drive the space weather that impacts Earth’s technological infrastructure.”Dr. Nour Rawafi, project scientist for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, said the discovery is a breakthrough that could significantly improve how scientists understand of the dynamics of the sun’s lower atmosphere. Rawafi was not involved in the new study.“It provides a possible mechanism for how the abundant mechanical energy generated in the lower solar atmosphere and convection zone is transformed and transferred into the Sun’s upper atmosphere,” Rawafi wrote in an email. “The widespread swirls and the associated Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities make physical sense — we simply didn’t have the ability to observe the tiny solar structures where they occur so abundantly.”The telescope observations very closely matched advanced computer simulations that were also run by the team during the study. The simulations enabled the team to interpret what they were seeing from the telescope’s data and tease out details that are more difficult to measure with observation alone.Future observations could pinpoint the exact physical connections that enable predictions of large flares and solar storms.The observations were possible thanks to the Inouye telescope, which has provided awe-inspiring solar imagery since 2019.The telescope has a mirror with a 13-foot (4-meter) diameter, an adaptive optics system that corrects image blurring caused by Earth’s atmosphere and instruments that can gather observations across the sun’s photosphere, the second layer of its atmosphere called the chromosphere and the corona, said study coauthor Dr. Friedrich Wöger, senior scientist at the National Solar Observatory.“The scale and performance of the Inouye combined with its unique instrumental capabilities make it a one-of-its-kind world class facility, enabling this kind of work,” Wöger said.Rawafi believes this is just the beginning for what the telescope could reveal about the sun.“It’s opening an entirely new window on the Sun, and I expect many more transformative discoveries to follow,” he wrote.The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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