Birthdays:
1984 ~ Olivia Wilde (née Olivia
Jane Cockburn), American actress.
1971 ~ Jon Hamm (né Jonathan Daniel Hamm), American actor, best
known for his role as Don Drapper in Mad Men.
1966 ~ Edie Arlisa Brickell, American singer-songwriter.
1964 ~ Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, youngest child of Queen
Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.
1961 ~ Laurel Blair Salton Clark (d. Feb. 1, 2003), American
astronaut who was killed during the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. She died
at age 41.
1958 ~ Sharon Yvonne Stone, American actress.
1957 ~ Osama bin Laden (d. May 2, 2011),
Saudi Islamist and al-Quada terrorist who was killed in Pakistan by US
operatives. President Barack Obama
announced his death on May 1 in the United States, however, due to the time
difference between the United States and Abbottabad, Pakistan, he was actually
killed on May 2 local time. He was 54
years old.
1953 ~ Paul Haggis, Canadian film and televisiondirector.
1947 ~ Kim Campbell (née Avril Phaedra Douglas Campbell), 19th
Prime Minister of Canada. She served as
Prime Minister for 4 months from June 1993 until November 1993.
1940 ~ Chuck Norris (né Carlos Ray Norris), American actor.
1929 ~ Sam Steiger (né Samuel Steiger, d. Sept. 26, 2012), American
conservative politician from Arizona who courted trouble. He is known for shooting two burros,
allegedly in self-defense, much to the outrage of his constituents. He was in the United States House of
Representatives from Arizona. He died at
age 83.
1927 ~ Robert Kearns (d. Feb. 9, 2005), American engineer who
invented the windscreen wiper. He died of
brain cancer a month before his 78th birthday.
1927 ~ Bernard Lansky (d. Nov. 15, 2012), American tailor who lived
in Memphis, Tennessee and who clothed Rock ‘n Roll royalty, starting with Elvis
Presley. He died at age 85.
1926 ~ Marques Haynes (d. May 22, 2015), American professional
basketball player and Harlem Globetrotter who dazzled with his dribbling. He was 89 years old.
1925 ~ Robert Clayton “Bob” Lanier
(d. Dec. 20, 2014), American politician and 58th Mayor of Houston,
Texas. He was Mayor from January 1992
until January 1998. He died at age 89.
1924 ~ Judith Jones (d. Aug. 2, 2017), American editor who
discovered Julia Child. She is also
known for rescuing The Diary of Anne Frank from a discard pile. She was born in Walden, Vermont. She died at age 93.
1923 ~ Val Logsdon Fitch (d. Feb.
5, 2015), American physicist and recipient of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died at age 91.
1920 ~ Alfred Peet (d. Aug. 29, 2007),
Dutch-born businessman and founder of Peet’s Coffee & Tea. He died at age 87.
1903 ~ Clare Boothe Luce (d. Oct.
9, 1987), American journalist and diplomat.
She died at age 84.
1892 ~ Arthur Honegger (né Oscar-Arthur Honegger, d. Nov. 27, 1955), Swiss-French
composer. He died at age 73.
1876 ~ Anna Vaughn Hyatt Huntington (d. Oct. 4, 1973), American
sculptor. She was born in Cambridge,
Massachusetts. She died at age 97.
1867 ~ Lillian Wald (d. Sept. 1, 1940),
American nurse and early advocate for nursing schools. She was an activist in many social causes,
including health care and women’s rights.
She was involved in the formation of the NAACP. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 73
in Westport, Connecticut.
1845 ~ Tsar Alexander III of
Russia (d. Nov. 1, 1894). He died at age
49 of kidney disease.
1796 ~ James “Jim” Bowie (d. Mar. 6, 1836), American pioneer and
soldier. He is credited with inventing
the Bowie knife. He was killed at the
Alamo. The exact date of his birth is
unknown, but is generally considered to be March 10, 1796. He is believed to have died 4 days before his
40th birthday.
1719 ~ Thomas Gage (d. Apr. 2, 1787), British general and American
Revolutionary War figure. He had also
served as Governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay. The exact year of his birth is not known. He is believed to have been born in either
r1719 or 1720. He died at age 67n or 68.
1628 ~ Marcello Malpighi (d. Nov.
29, 1694), Italian astronomer, physician and botanist. He died at age 66.
1503 ~ Ferdinand I, Holy Roman
Emperor (d. July 25, 1564). He reigned
as Holy Roman Emperor from February 1558 until his death 6 years later. He died at age 61.
1452 ~ King Ferdinand V of
Castille, and Ferdinand II of Aragon (d. Jan. 23, 1516), the Spanish king who
supported the travels of Christopher Columbus.
He was also the architect behind the Spanish Inquisition. He died at age 63.
1415 ~ Vasily II of Moscow (d. Mar. 27, 1462), Grand Prince of
Moscow. He ruled over Moscow from
February 1425 until his death in 1462.
He died 17 days after his 47th birthday.
Events that Changed the World:
2008 ~ The New York Times reported on New York Governor,
Eliot Spitzer's, escapades with high-end prostitutes.
1985 ~ Mikhail Gorbachev became
the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
1980 ~ Jean Harris (1923 ~ 2012),
the headmistress of the exclusive Madeira School in New York, shot and killed
her ex-lover, the diet doctor Herman Tarnover (1810 ~ 1980), author of The
Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet. She
was later found guilty and spent several years in prison.
1977 ~ Astronomers discovered that
Uranus had rings.
1952 ~ Fulgencio Batista (1901 ~
1973) lead a successful coup in Cuba and appointed himself as provisional
president.
1933 ~ An earthquake struck Long
Beach, California, killing over 115 people.
1891 ~ Almon Strowger (1839 ~
1902) patented the Strowger switch, a device which led to the automation of
telephone circuit switching.
1876 ~ The first communication by
telephone, when Alexander Graham Bell (1847 ~ 1922) called his Assistant,
saying: Mr. Watson, Come here, I want you!
1864 ~ The Red River Campaign
during the American Civil War began as Union Troops reached Alexandria,
Louisiana. The Red River Campaign was a
series of battles fought along Louisiana’s Red River from March 10 through May
22, 1964. The Red River Campaign was
ultimately a Union failure and did not have a major impact on the outcome of
the Civil War.
1831 ~ The French Foreign Legion
was established by King Louis-Philippe to support his war in Algeria.
1804 ~ A formal ceremony was held
in St. Louis, Missouri to commemorate the transfer of ownership of the
Louisiana Territory from France to the United States.
1629 ~ King Charles I (1600 ~
1649) of England dissolved Parliament, thereby beginning the 11-year period
known as the Personal Rule.
Good-Byes:
2017 ~ Robert James Waller (b. Aug. 1, 1939), American author who
made Madison County famous. He is best
known for his novel The Bridges of
Madison County. He died at age 77.
2014 ~ Joe McGinniss (né Joseph R. McGinnis, Sr., b. Dec. 9, 1942),
American author and journalist. He is
best known for writing true crime books, such as Fatal Attraction. He died of
prostate cancer at age 71 in Worcester, Massachusetts.
2013 ~ Princess Lilian of Sweden, Duchess of Halland (née Lillian May Davies, b. Aug. 30, 1915), Welsh coalminer’s
daughter who became a princess. She died
at age 97.
2012 ~ Frank Sherwood Rowland (b. June
28, 1927), American chemist and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He died at age 84.
2001 ~ Christie Jayaratnam Eliezer
(b. June 12, 1918), Sri Lankan-born mathematician. He died at age 82.
1998 ~ Lloyd Bridges (né Lloyd
Vernet Bridges, Jr., b. Jan. 15, 1913), American actor. He died at age 85.
1966 ~ Frank O’Connor (né Michael Francis O’Donovan, b. Sept. 17, 1903),
Irish writer best known for his short stories.
He died of a heart attack at age 62.
1966 ~ Frits Zernike (b. July 16, 1888),
Dutch physicist and recipient of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died following a long illness at age 77.
1948 ~ Zelda Fitzgerald (b. July
24, 1900), American writer and wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. She was killed in a fire at age 47.
1940 ~ Makhail Bulgakov (b. May 15, 1891), Russian author best known
for his novel The Master and Margarita.
He died of kidney disease at age 48.
1942 ~ Wilbur Scoville (b. Jan. 22, 1865), American pharmacist and
chemist. He is best known for the
development of the Scoville Organoleptic Test, which is the standardized scale
for measuring the pungency and heat of various chili peppers. He was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He died at age 77.
1913 ~ Harriet Tubman (née Araminta Ross, b. 1820),
former slave and American abolitionist, known for being a conductor on the
Underground Railroad. The exact date of
her birth is unknown, but she is believed to have been born in 1820.
1792 ~ John Stuart, 3rd
Earl of Bute (b. May 25, 1713), Scottish politician and Prime Minister of the
United Kingdom. He was Prime Minister during
the reign of King George III, from May 1762 until April 1763. He died at age 78.
1766 ~ Jane Colden (b. Mar. 27, 1724), American botanist. She died in childbirth less than 3 weeks
before her 42nd birthday. She
was the first known female biologist in the United States. Although she was not acknowledged in
published papers, she regularly corresponded with leading botanists and her
work contributed to considerable identification of American plants.
948 ~ Lui Zhiyuan (b. Mar. 4, 895), Chinese emperor and founder of
the Later Han Dynasty. He died 6 days
after his 53rd birthday.
483 ~ Pope Simplicius. He
was Pope from 468 until his death on this date 15 years later. The date of his birth is unknown.
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