November 14

Birthdays:

1954 ~ Condolezza Rice, 66^th Secretary of State.  She served under President George W. Bush from January 2005 until January 2009.  She previously served as the 20^th National Security Advisor under President George W. Bush from January 2001 until January 2005.

1948 ~ Charles, Prince of Wales, and heir to the British throne.

1947 ~ Buckwheat Zydeco (né Stanley Dural, Jr., d. Sept. 24, 2016), American accordion player, born in Lafayette, Louisiana.  He died at age 68.

1947 ~ P.J. O’Rourke (né Patrick Jake O’Rourke), American journalist and author.

1944 ~ Karen Armstrong, English religious scholar and author.

1935 ~ King Hussein of Jordan (d. Feb. 7, 1999).  He was King of Jordon from August 1952 until his death in February 1999.  One of his wives was the American, Lisa Halaby, who became known as Queen Noor, upon her marriage to the King.  He died of cancer at age 63.

1934 ~ Ellis Marsalis, Jr., American pianist and musician from New Orleans, Louisiana.

1930 ~ Edward H. White (d. Jan. 27, 1967), American astronaut.  He was killed in the Apollo 1 fire, along with several other astronauts.  He was 36 years old.

1929 ~ Jimmy Piersall (né James Anthony Piersall, d. June 3, 2017), American eccentric baseball player who battled mental illness.  He was best known for his well-publicized battle with bipolar disorder that was the subject of the book, Fear Strikes Out.  He died at age 87.

1922 ~ Veronica Lake (né Constance Frances Marie Ockelman, d. July 7, 1973), American actress.  She died in Burlington, Vermont at age 50 of renal failure.

1922 ~ Boutros Boutros-Ghali (d. Feb. 16, 2016), Egyptian politician and diplomat.  He served as the 6^th Secretary General of the United Nations.  He died at age 93.

1921 ~ Brian Keith (né Robert Alba Keith, d. June 24, 1997), American actor.  He is best known for his role as Uncle Bill on the television sit-com Family Affair.  He committed suicide at age 75.

1916 ~ Roger Apéry (d. Dec. 18, 1994), Greek-born French mathematician.  He died of Parkinson’s disease about a month after his 78^th birthday.

1908 ~ Joseph McCarthy (b. May 2, 1957), U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, and head of the Un-American Activities Committee who tried to route out Communism in the US.  He fueled the Red Scare in the 1950s and lead the investigations of numerous individuals alleging they supported Communism.  He died at age 48.

1908 ~ Yedidia Shofet (d. June 24, 2005), Chief Rabbi of Iran.  Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, he moved to California.  He died at age 96.

1907 ~ Astrid Lindgren (né Astrid Anna Emilia Ericsson, d. Jan. 28, 2002), Swedish writer and creator of Pippi Longstocking.  She died at age 94.

1907 ~ William Steig (d. Oct. 3, 2003), American cartoonist, whose most familiar character is the ogre, Shrek.  He died at age 95.

1906 ~ Lane Dwinell (né Seymour Lane Dwindel, d. Mar. 27, 1997), 69^th Governor of New Hampshire.  He served as Governor from January 1955 through December 1959.  He died at age 90.

1900 ~ Aaron Copland (d. Dec. 2, 1990), Jewish-American composer.  He died 18 days after his 90^th birthday.

1896 ~ Mamie Doud Eisenhower (d. Nov. 1, 1979), First Lady of the United States and wife of President Dwight David Eisenhower.  She died 13 days before her 83^rd birthday.

1891 ~ Sir Frederick Gant Banting (d. Feb. 21, 1941), Canadian physician who was the principal discoverer of how insulin functions in the human body.  He, along with his co-worker John Macleod, received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for this discovery.  He was killed from injuries sustained in a plane crash at age 49.

1889 ~ Jawaharlal Nehru (d. May 27, 1964), 1^st Prime Minister of India of an independent India from 1947 until 1964.  He was also the father if Indira Gandhi, the country’s 3^rd Prime Minister.  He died at age 74.

1863 ~ Leo Baekeland (né Leo Henricus Arthur Baekland, d. Feb. 23, 1944), Belgian-American chemist.  He was the inventor of Bakelite.  He died at age 80.

1845 ~ Ulisse Dini (d. Oct. 28, 1918), Italian mathematician.  He died 17 days before his 73^rd birthday.

1840 ~ Claude Monet (d. Dec. 5, 1926), French impressionist painter.  He died 3 weeks after his 86^th birthday.

1805 ~ Fanny Mendelssohn (d. May 14, 1847), German composer and pianist.  She was the sister of Felix Mendelssohn and the granddaughter of Mendelssohn.  She died of complications of a stroke at age 41.

1765 ~ Robert Fulton (d. Feb. 24, 1815), American inventor and engineer who created the first successful steam ship.  He died of consumption at age 49.

1650 ~ King William III of England (d. Mar. 19, 1702).  He was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 1689 until his death.  He died at age 51.

Events that Changed the World:

1995 ~ A budget standoff between the Democrats and Republicans in the US Congress forced a federal government shutdown, which temporarily closed national parks and museums.

1979 ~ U.S. President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) issued an Executive Order freezing all Iranian assets in the United States in response to the hostage crisis.

1973 ~ Britain’s Princess Anne (b. 1950) married Captain Mark Phillips (b. 1948) in Westminster Abby.  They divorced in 1992.

1969 ~ NASA launched Apollo 12.  This was the second manned mission to the surface of the moon.  The mission ended on November 24 when the craft landed back on Earth.

1967 ~ Theodore Maiman (1927 ~ 2007) was granted a patent for his ruby laser systems, which were the first known lasers.

1960 ~ Ruby Bridges (b. 1954) became the African-American child to attend an all-white elementary school in Louisiana.  U.S. Marshals escorted her to the William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans.  She was six years old.  The event was depicted in a painting by Norman Rockwell.

1956 ~ The Knesset agreed to an Israeli withdrawal from the territory captured during the Sinai campaign.

1941 ~ German forces in Slonim, Russia, began Operation Barbarossa and murdered 9000 Jews in a single day.

1940 ~ The city of Coventry, England was heavily bombed by German bombers during World War II.  Coventry Cathedral was almost completely destroyed.

1935 ~ The Nazis began the First Implementation Order to the Reich Citizenship, which defined a Jew as “a person descended from at least three grandparents who were full Jews by race.”

1922 ~ The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) began its radio service in the United Kingdom.

1918 ~ Czechoslovakia became a republic.

1889 ~ Journalist Nellie Bly (née Elizabeth Cochran, 1864 ~ 1922) began to trip around the world.  She hoped to circumnavigate the world in less than 80 days and succeeded by completing the trip in 72 days.

1886 ~ German inventor Friedrich Soennecken (1848 ~ 1919) filed a patent for the two-hole punch.

1851 ~ Herman Melville’s novel, Moby Dick, was first published.

1532 ~ Conquistadors from Spain, lead by Francisco Pizarro, arrived in Cajamarca in the Incan empire.

Good-Byes:

2016 ~ Gwen Ifill (née Gwendolyn Ifill, b. Sept. 29, 1955), African-American journalist and newscaster.  She died of endometrial cancer at age 61.

2014 ~ Glen Larson (b. Jan. 3, 1937), American writer-producer who churned out hit television shows.  He created such shows as Battleship Galactica and Quincy, M.D.  He died at age 77.

2014 ~ Jane Byrne (b. May 24, 1933), American politician and first female mayor of Chicago.  She was the City’s 50^th Mayor and served from April 1979 until April 1983.  She died at age 81.

2014 ~ Eugene Dynkin (b. May 11, 1924), Russian-born mathematician.  He died at age 90 in Ithaca, New York.

1956 ~ Elisabeth of Romania (b. Oct. 12, 1894).  She was the Queen consort of the Hellenes.  She was married to George II of Greece.  She died just over a month after her 62^nd birthday.

1918 ~ Robert Anderson Van Wyck (b. July 20, 1849), 91^st Mayor of New York City.  He was the first Mayor of New York after the consolidation of the 5 boroughs into the City of Greater New York in 1898.  He was Mayor from January 1898 through December 1901.  He died at age 69.

1916 ~ Saki (né Hector Hugh Munro, b. Dec. 18, 1870), British short story writer.  He was killed by a German sniper during World War I.  He died just over a month before his 46^th birthday.

1915 ~ Booker T. Washington (b. Apr. 5, 1856), African-American educator and civil rights activist.  He died at age 59.

1831 ~ Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (b. Aug. 27, 1770), German philosopher.  He died at age 61.

1716 ~ Gottfried Leibniz (b. July 1, 1646), German mathematician.  He died at age 70.

1687 ~ Nell Gwynne (née Eleanor Gwyn, b. Feb. 2, 1650), mistress of King Charles II of England.  She died at age 37.

565 ~ Justinian the Great, Byzantine Emperor (b. May 11, 482).  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been 83 years old at the time of his death.