Short answers, pulled from the story.
Bing Crosby is most famous for recording "White Christmas", the bestselling single of all time with over 50 million copies sold worldwide. He was also the number one box office attraction from 1944 to 1948, won the Academy Award for Best Actor for Going My Way in 1944, and recorded more than 1,600 songs over a career spanning more than five decades.
Crosby pioneered the use of magnetic tape recording for radio broadcasts, investing $50,000 in Ampex to build commercial-grade tape recorders based on German Magnetophon technology. He became the first performer to pre-record his radio programs and master commercial recordings onto magnetic tape, a practice that became the industry standard. His organization also accidentally created the laugh track during an Ampex recording session in 1948.
Crosby introduced "White Christmas" on a Christmas Day radio broadcast in 1941. His Decca recording hit the charts on the 3rd of October 1942 and reached number one on the 31st of October, remaining there for eleven weeks. The song topped the charts again in 1945 and a third time in January 1947.
Bing Crosby's full legal name was Harry Lillis Crosby Jr. He was born on the 3rd of May 1903 in Tacoma, Washington, in a house his father built at 1112 North J Street. The family moved to Spokane, Washington, three years later, where Crosby grew up.
According to the Associated Press as early as February 1932, and confirmed by Crosby himself and his biographer Charles Thompson, a neighbor named Valentine Hobart gave young Harry the name "Bingo from Bingville" around 1910. The name came from a comic feature in the local paper called The Bingville Bugle, which Harry enjoyed. Over time, Bingo was shortened to Bing.
From 1946 until his death in 1977, Crosby owned a 25% share of the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team. The team won two World Series during his ownership, in 1960 and 1971. Crosby was too nervous to watch Game 7 of the 1960 World Series in person and traveled to Paris to listen to its radio broadcast instead, while Ampex equipment recorded the NBC telecast.