Birthdays:
1966 ~ Carolyn
Bessette-Kennedy (d. 1999), wife of John F. Kennedy, Jr. She was killed when the small plane husband
was piloting crashed into the Atlantic Ocean while they were on their way to
Martha’s Vineyard to attend a family wedding.
She was 33 years old.
1964 ~ Nicolas Cage, American actor.
1963 ~ Rand Paul, American ophthalmologist and presidential
candidate in the 2016 United States Presidential campaign.
1957 ~ Katie Couric, American journalist and news reporter.
1956 ~ David Caruso, American actor best known for his role as
Horatio on CSI:Miami.
1941 ~ John E. Walker, English chemist and recipient of the 1997
Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
1925 ~ Gerald Durrell (d.
1995), British naturalist and author. He
wrote The Whispering Lands, which is
about Patagonia. He died 23 days after
his 70th birthday.
1916 ~ Elena Ceauşescu (d. 1989),
Romanian politician and wife of former Romanian president, Nicolae Ceauşescu
who was executed for her crimes against humanity. She died 13 days before her 74th
birthday.
1912 ~ Charles Addams (d. 1988), American cartoonist who became
famous for his dark humor. His cartoons
were published in The New Yorker. His characters inspired The Addams family,
which was a TV series in the 1960s, and later became a Broadway musical. He died at age 76.
1911 ~ Thelma “Butterfly”
McQueen (d. 1995), African-American actress best known for her roll as Prissy,
Scarlett O’Hara’s maid in Gone with the
Wind. She died 15 days before her 85th
birthday.
1911 ~ Jean Carroll (née Celine Zeigman, d. 2010),
American female comic who blazed new trails in stand-up. She died 6 days before her 99th
birthday.
1910 ~ Orval Faubus (d.
1994), 36th Governor of Arkansas.
He is best known for his 1957 stand against desegregation of the public
schools in Little Rock. He died 3 weeks
before his 85th birthday.
1873 ~ Adolph Zukor (d. 1976), Hungarian-American film producer
and co-founder of Paramount Pictures.
1891 ~ Zora Neale Hurston
(d. 1960), African-American author. She
died 2 weeks after her 69th birthday.
1871 ~ Émile Borel (né Félix
Édouard Justin Émile Borel, d. 1956), French mathematician, known for his work
in areas of measure theory and probability.
He died less than a month after his 85th birthday.
1858 ~ Eliezer Ben-Yehuda (d. 1922), a Jewish lexicographer who
was the driving spirit behind the revival of the Hebrew language in the modern
era. He died 3 weeks before his 65th
birthday.
1837 ~ Thomas Henry Ismay
(d. 1899), founder of the White Star Line shipping company, which was the owner
of the Titanic. He died at age 62.
1827 ~ Sir Sanford Fleming
(d. 1915), Canadian engineer who introduced the Universal Standard Time to the
world. He died at age 88.
1800 ~ Millard Filmore (d. 1874), the 13th President
of the United States. He inherited the
Presidency following the death of President Zachary Taylor. He was President from July 1850 until March
1853. He died at age 74.
1786 ~ John Catron (d.
1865), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was appointed to the High Court by
President Andrew Jackson. He served on
the Court from March 1837 until his death at age 79 in May 1865.
1713 ~ Israel Putnam (d.
1790), American Revolutionary War general, best known for his role in leading
the Battle of Bunker Hill. He died at
age 72.
1502 ~ Pope Gregory XIII (né
Ugo Boncompagni, d. 1585). He reigned
for almost 13 years, beginning in May 1572 until his death in 1585. He died at age 83.
Events that Changed the
World:
2015 ~ Islamic terrorists entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine
office, in Paris, France, and opened fire killing 12 people, and injuring 11
others.
2010 ~ Muslim gunmen in Egypt fired on a crowd of Coptic
Christians who were celebrating Christmas Mass.
Nine people were killed including eight of the Christians and one Muslim
bystander.
1999 ~ The Senate trial in
the impeachment of President Bill Clinton (b. 1946) began.
1990 ~ The Leaning Tower of Pisa was closed to the public for
safety concerns. After several years of
corrective reconstruction and stabilization, the Tower reopened in December
2001.
1989 ~ Prince Akihito (b. 1933) was sworn in as emperor of Japan
following the death of his father, Emperor Hirohito (1901 ~ 1998).
1980 ~ President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) authorized legislation
granting $1.5 Billion in loans to bail out the Chrysler Corporation.
1979 ~ Pol Pot (1925 ~ 1998)
and the Khmer Rouge were ousted from the Cambodian government.
1973 ~ Mark Essex’s (1949 ~ 1973) 8-day killing spree ended
after he fatally shot 10 people and wounded 13 others at a Howard Johnson’s
hotel in New Orleans. He was then shot
and killed. The killing began when he
began to target New Orleans police officers on New Year’s Eve.
1959 ~ The United States
recognized the Cuban government of Fidel Castro (1926 ~ 2016).
1955 ~ Marian Anderson (1897 ~ 1993) performed in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera at the Metropolitan
Opera. She was the first
African-American to perform at the Met.
1942 ~ The siege of the
Bataan Peninsula in the Philippines, began. The Battle of Bataan was one the most intense
phases of Japan’s invasion of the Philippines.
1940 ~ During the Winter War, the Finnish 9th
Division stopped and completely destroyed the Russian forces.
1927 ~ The first
transatlantic telephone service was established from New York to London,
England.
1894 ~ William Kennedy
Dickson (1860 ~ 1935) received a patent for motion picture film.
1785 ~ The first balloon
flight crossed the English Channel from Dover, England to Calais, France,
carrying Jean-Pierre Blanchard (1753 ~ 1809) and American John Jeffries (1745 ~
1819).
1782 ~ The first American
commercial bank, the Bank of North America, opened.
1610 ~ Galileo (1564 ~ 1642)
observed four moons of the planet Jupiter, known as the Galilean moons:
Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa (although technically, the latter two were distinguishable
until the following day).
1608 ~ A fire destroyed Jamestown, Virginia.
1598 ~ Boris Godunov (1551 ~
1605) became Czar of Russia by seizing the throne. His coronation would take place in September
1598.
1558 ~ France took Calais, the last continental possession of
England.
1325 ~ Alfonso IV (1291 ~ 1357) became King of Portugal.
Good-Byes:
2015 ~ Rodney Taylor (b. 1930), Australian actor who
battled The Birds in Alfred
Hitchcock’s 1963 movie. He died 4 days
before his 85th birthday.
2013 ~ Richard Ben Cramer (b.
1950), American political journalist and author. He died of lung cancer at age 62.
2012 ~ Herbert Wilf (b.
1931), American mathematician. He died
at age 80.
1998 ~ Vladimir Prelog (b. 1906), Croatian chemist and recipient
of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He
died at age 91.
1988 ~ Hirohito, Emperor of
Japan (b. 1901), leader of Japan during World War II. He died at age 87.
1984 ~ Alfred Kaster (b.
1902), French physicist and recipient of the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died at age 81.
1945 ~ Alexander Stirling
Calder (b. 1870), American sculptor. He
was the father of son, also named Alexander Calder. Alexander the father died 4 days before his
75th birthday.
1944 ~ Lou Henry Hoover (b. 1874), First Lady and wife of
President Herbert Hoover. She died at
age 69.
1943 ~ Nikola Tesla (b. 1856), Serbian-American
physicist and inventor. He is born in
what is now considered modern Croatia, but at the time of his birth was under
the Austrian empire. He died at age 86
in New York City.
1893 ~ Jožef Stafan (b.
1835), Slovenian physicist and mathematician.
He died at age 57.
1864 ~ Caleb Blood Smith (b.
1808), 6th United States Secretary of the Interior. He served under President Abraham Lincoln
from March 1861 through December 1862.
He then became a Judge for the United States District Court for the
District of Indiana. He died at age 55.
1655 ~ Pope Innocent X (né
Giovanni Battista Pamphilj, b. 1574). He
reigned as Pope for over 10 years, from 1644 until his death in January 1655. He died at age 80.
1536 ~ Catherine of Aragon
(b. 1485), first wife of Henry VIII of England. Henry’s attempt to have their marriage
annulled ultimately led to England’s split from the Catholic Church. Henry defied the Pope and declared supremacy
over religious matters, thereby allowing him to terminate his marriage to
Catherine. Catherine died 3 weeks after
her 50th birthday.
1451 ~ Antipope Felix V (b. 1383). He died at age 67.
1325 ~ King Denis of Portugal (b. 1261). He died at age 63.
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