December 10

Birthdays:

1960 ~ Kenneth Branagh, Irish actor.

1956 ~ Rod Blagojevich, 40^th Governor of Illinois who was convicted on federal corruption charges.  He was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.

1952 ~ Susan Dey, American actress.

1934 ~ Howard Martin Temin (d. Feb. 9, 1994), American geneticist and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died of lung cancer at age 59.

1922 ~ Agnes Nixon (née Agnes Eckhardt, d. Sept. 28, 2016), American soap opera writer who but taboo subjects on television.  She died of Parkinson’s disease at age 93.

1914 ~ Dorothy Lamour (d. Sept. 22, 1996), American actress.  She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  She died at age 81.

1911 ~ Chet Huntley (né Chester Robert Huntley, d. Mar. 20, 1974), American television journalist.  He died of lung cancer at age 62.

1907 ~ Rumer Godden (née Margaret Rumer Godden, d. Nov. 8, 1998), British writer.  She died a month before her 91^st birthday.

1891 ~ Nelly Sachs (d. May 12, 1970), German-born, Swedish writer and recipient of the 1966 Nobel Prize in Literature.  She died of cancer at age 78.

1851 ~ Melvil Dewey (d. Dec. 26, 1913), American librarian and creator of the Dewey Decimal System for cataloging library books.  He died of a stroke 16 days after his 80^th birthday.

1830 ~ Emily Dickinson (d. May 15, 1886), American poet.  She was born and died in Amherst, Massachusetts.  She died at age 55.

1815 ~ Ada Lovelace, Countess of Lovelace (née Augusta Ada King-Noel, d. Nov. 27, 1852), British mathematician and computer scientist.  She died of uterine cancer 13 days before her 37^th birthday.

1813 ~ Zachariah Chandler (d. Nov. 1, 1879), 12^th United States Secretary of the Interior.  He served under President Ulysses S. Grant from October 1875 until March 1877.  He was born in Bedford, New Hampshire.  He died at age 65.

1804 ~ Carl Gustav Jakob Jacobi (d. Feb. 18, 1851), German mathematician.  He died at age 46.

1787 ~ Reverend Thomas H. Gallaudet (d. Sept. 10, 1851), American educator for the deaf.  He died at age 63.

1452 ~ Johannes Stöffler (d. Feb. 16, 1531), German mathematician.  He died at age 88.

553 ~ Houzhu (d. Dec. 16, 604), last Chinese emperor of the Chen dynasty.  He died 6 days after his 51^st birthday.

Events that Changed the World:

1983 ~ Raúl Alfonsín (1927 ~ 1009) became president of Argentina, marking the restoration of democracy in the country.

1978 ~ Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Began (1913 ~ 1992) and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat (1918 ~ 1981) were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

1963 ~ Zanzibar gained its independence from the United Kingdom.

1955 ~ The Mighty Mouse Playhouse debuted on television.

1953 ~ Winston Churchill (1874 ~ 1965) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1949 ~ During the Chinese Civil War, the People’s Liberation Army began its siege of Chengdu, the last Kuomintang-held city in mainland China.  This action forced Chiang Kai-shek, the president of the Republic of China and its government, to flee to Taiwan.

1948 ~ The United Nations General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

1936 ~ King Edward VIII (1894 ~ 1972) signed the Instrument of Abdication, thereby relinquishing his rights to the British throne.

1911 ~ Calbraith Rogers (1879 ~ 1912) completed the first transcontinental flight across the United States.  He began the flight on September 17, 1911, from Sheepshead Bay, New York.

1909 ~ Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf (1858 ~ 1940) became the first woman writer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

1906 ~ President Theodore Roosevelt (1858 ~ 1919) became the first American to win a Nobel Prize when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  He was given this award for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War.

1902 ~ Women were given the right to vote in Tasmania.

1901 ~ The first Nobel Prizes were awarded.

1898 ~ The Treaty of Paris was signed, officially ending the Spanish-American War in which Spain ceded the Philippines to the United States.

1884 ~ The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain (1835 ~ 1910) was published.

1869 ~ The Kappa Sigma fraternity was founded at the University of Virginia.

1869 ~ The territory of Wyoming authorized women to vote and to hold political office.

1868 ~ The first traffic lights were installed outside of the Palace of Westminster in London, England.

1861 ~ Kentucky became the 13^th State of the Confederate States of America.

1817 ~ Mississippi became the 20^th State of the Union.

1799 ~ France adopted the meter as its official unit of length.

1541 ~ English courtiers Thomas Culpepper (1514 ~ 1541) and Francis Dereham (1513 ~ 1541) were executed for allegedly having affairs with Catherine Howard, Queen of England and wife of Henry VIII.

1520 ~ Martin Luther (1483 ~ 1546) burned his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine.

Good-Byes:

2014 ~ Robert Oakley (b. Mar. 12, 1931), American diplomat who thrived in danger zones.  He served as the 19^th United States Ambassador to Pakistan.  He died at age 83.

2010 ~ John Bennett Fenn (b. June 15, 1917), American chemist and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 93.

2006 ~ Augusto Pinochet (b. Nov. 25, 1915), President of Chile.  He ruled as a dictator from December 1874 until March 1990.  He died 15 days after his 91^st birthday.

2005 ~ Richard Pryor (b. Dec. 1, 1940), American actor and comedian.  He died 9 days after his 65^th birthday.

2005 ~ Eugene “Gene” McCarthy (b. Mar. 29, 1916), American United States Senator from Minnesota.  In 1968, he was the Democratic candidate for President.  He died at age 89.

1999 ~ Franjo Tuđman (b. May 14, 1922), Croatian politician and 1^st President of Croatia following its independence from Yugloslavia.  He served in Office from May 1990 until his death 9 years later.  He died of cancer at age 77.

1990 ~ Armand Hammer (b. May 21, 1898), American businessman, physician and philanthropist.  He founded Occidental Petroleum.  He died at age 92.

1978 ~ Edward Wood, Jr. (b. Oct 10, 1924), American filmmaker.  He is best known for his low-budget science fiction movies, such as Plan 9 From Outer Space.  He died at age 54 of a heart attack.

1967 ~ Otis Redding (b. Sept. 9, 1941), American musician.  He was killed in a plane crash at age 26.

1936 ~ Luigi Pirandello (b. June 28, 1867), Italian writer and recipient of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 69.

1926 ~ Nikola Pašić (b. Dec. 18, 1845), Prime Minister of Serbia and Yugoslavia.  He died 8 days before his 81^st birthday.

1920 ~ Horace Elgin Dodge (b. May 17, 1868), American automobile manufacturer and co-founder, along with his brother John (1864 ~ 1920), of the Dodge car company.  He died of complications of pneumonia from the Spanish Flu and liver disease at age 52.

1911 ~ Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (b. June 30, 1817), English botanist.  He died at age 94.

1896 ~ Alfred Bernhard Nobel (b. Oct. 21, 1833), Swedish chemist and industrialist, noted for inventing dynamite.  His will established a fund, largely based on profits from his dynamite, to be used to award outstanding individuals in various fields.  The first Nobel prizes were awarded in 1901, the 5^th anniversary of his death.  Interestingly, there is no Nobel Prize in mathematics.  He was 63 years old at the time of his death.

1878 ~ Henry Wells (b. Dec. 12, 1805), American businessman and co-founder of Wells Fargo and American Express.  He was from Thetford, Vermont.  He died two days before his 73^rd birthday.

1865 ~ King Leopold I of Belgium (b. Dec. 16, 1790).  He died 6 days before his 75^th birthday.

1853 ~ Tabitha Babbitt (b. Dec. 9, 1779), American tool maker and inventor.  She was credited with inventing the circular saw.  She was a member of the Harvard Shaker Community.  Because she was a Shaker, she never patented any of her inventions.  The exact date of her birth is unknown, but she is believed to have been 73 or 74 at the time of her death.

1808 ~ James Sullivan (b. Apr. 22, 1744), 7^th Governor of Massachusetts.  He was Governor from May 1807 until his death at age 64 on December 10, 1808.

1725 ~ Nicholas Hartsoeker (b. Mar. 26, 1656), Dutch mathematician.  He died at age 69.

1626 ~ Edmund Gunter (b. 1581), English mathematician.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been 45 at the time of his death.

1192 ~ Averroes (b. Apr. 14, 1126), Spanish physician, mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher.  He is sometimes known as the Father of Secular Thought in Western Europe.  He died at age 72.