March 27

Birthdays:

1963 ~ Quentin Tarantino, American film director.

1952 ~ Maria Schneider (née Maria-Hélène Schneider, d. Feb. 3, 2011), French actress best known for her role in The Last Tango in Paris.  She was the vulnerable actress who tangoed with Marlon Brando.  She died of cancer at age 58.

1944 ~ Jesse Brown (d. Aug. 15, 2002), 2^nd United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs.  He served under Bill Clinton from January 1993 until July 1997.  He died at age 58.

1942 ~ Sir John Edward Sulston, British chemist and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1942 ~ Michael York (né Michael Hugh Johnson), English actor.  He is best known for his role of Tybalt in the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet.

1940 ~ Austin Campbell Pendleton, American actor and playwright.

1931 ~ David Janssen (né David Harold Meyer, d. Feb. 13, 1980), American actor best known for his role as Richard Kimble in The Fugitive.  He died of a heart attack at age 48.

1927 ~ Anthony Lewis (d. Mar. 25, 2013), American journalist and author of Gideon’s Trumpet.  He died of a heart attack 2 days before his 86^th birthday.

1926 ~ Frank O’Hara (né Francis Russell O’Hara, d. July 25, 1966), American author.  He died at age 40 from injuries sustained after having been hit by a motor vehicle.

1924 ~ Sarah Lois Vaughan (d. Apr. 3, 1990), African-American jazz singer.  She died of lung cancer a week after her 66^th birthday.

1924 ~ Margaret K. Butler (d. Mar. 8, 2013), American mathematician and computer programmer.  She died 19 days before her 89^th birthday.

1923 ~ Louis Aston Marantz Simpson (d. Sept. 14, 2012), American poet born in Jamaica.  He died at age 89.

1923 ~ Lorenzo Elliot Semple (d. Mar. 28, 2014), American screen writer who made Batman funny on the television series.  He died one day after his 91^st birthday.

1923 ~ Jack O’Neill (d. June 2, 2017), American surfer who invented the modern wetsuit.  He died at age 94.

1921 ~ Phil Chess (né Fiszel Czyż, d. Oct. 18, 2016), Czech-born record producer and co-founder of Chess Records.  He died at age 95.

1917 ~ Cyrus Roberts Vance (d. Jan. 12, 2002), 57^th Secretary of State.  He served during the Carter administration from January 1977 until April 1980.  He had previously served as the 7^th United States Secretary of the Army from July 1962 until January 1964 under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.  He died of pneumonia at age 84.

1914 ~ Budd Schulberg (né Seymour Wilson Schulberg, d. Aug. 5, 2009), American author and screenwriter.  He was the Oscar-winning writer of On the Waterfront.  He died at age 95.

1912 ~ James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff (né Leonard James Callaghan, d. Mar. 26, 2005), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He died 1 day before his 93^rd birthday.

1908 ~ Sol Leschinsky (né Solomon Aaron Leschinsky, d. Jan. 26, 1985), Canadian-born mathematician and inventor.  He died at age 76.

1905 ~ László Kalmár (d. 1976), Hungarian mathematician.  He is considered the founder of mathematical logic and theoretical computer science.  He died at age 71.

1905 ~ László Kalmár (d. Aug. 2, 1976), Hungarian mathematician.  He is considered the founder of mathematical logic and theoretical computer science.  He died at age 71.

1905 ~ Elsie MacGill (née Elizabeth Muriel Gregory MacGill, d. Nov. 4, 1980), Canadian engineer.  She was known as the Queen of the Hurricanes and was the first female aircraft designer.  She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts at age 75.

1901 ~ Eisaku Satō (d. June 3, 1975), Prime Minister of Japan.  He served three terms between November 1964 and July 1972.  He was the recipient of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize for representing the Japanese’s desire for peace and signing the nuclear arms Non-Proliferation treating in 1970.  He died of a stroke at age 74.

1899 ~ Gloria Swanson (née Gloria May Josephine Swanson, d. Apr. 4, 1983), American actress.  She is best known for her role as Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard.  She died about a week after her 84^th birthday.

1897 ~ Douglas Rayner Hartree (d. Feb. 12, 1958), English mathematician and physicist.  He died of heart failure at age 60.

1893 ~ Karl Mannheim (b. Jan. 9, 1947), Hungarian sociologist.  He died at age 53.

1886 ~ Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (né Maria Ludwig Muhuta Michael William Mies, d. Aug. 17, 1969), German-borne architect.  His philosophy towards buildings was “Less is More.”  He died at age 83 in Chicago, Illinois.

1880 ~ Ruth Hanna McCormick (d. Dec. 31, 1944), American politician from Illinois and supporter of woman’s rights.  She died at age 64.

1879 ~ Edward Steichen (d. Mar. 25, 1973), American painter and photographer.  He died 2 days before his 94^th birthday.  He was born in Luxembourg, but his family moved to the United States when he was a child.

1876 ~ Gerhard Kowalewski (d. Feb. 21, 1950), German mathematician and member of the Nazi party.  He is best known for the introduction of the matrices notation.  He is also known as being a strong advocate for female mathematicians.  He died at age 73.

1871 ~ Heinrich Mann (né Luiz Heinrich Mann, d. Mar. 11, 1950), German writer.  His writing often had strong social themes, and his criticism of the growing of fascism in German led him to ultimately flee Germany after the rise of Nazism.  He was the older brother of writer Thomas Mann.  He died less than 3 weeks before his 79^th birthday.

1867 ~ Karl Zsigmondy (d. Oct. 14, 1925), Austrian-Hungarian mathematician.  He died at age 58.

1868 ~ Patty Smith Hill (d. May 25, 1946), American educator and kindergarten teacher.  She is best known for writing Happy Birthday to You.  She died at age 78.

1863 ~ Sir Frederick Henry Royce, 1^st Baronet (d. Apr. 22, 1933), English automobile pioneer who, along with Charles Rolls (1877 ~ 1910) founded Rolls-Royce Limited.  He died 26 days after his 70^th birthday.

1857 ~ Karl Pearson (d. Apr. 27, 1936), English statistician and mathematician.  He died a month after his 79^th birthday.

1847 ~ Otto Wallach (d. Feb. 26, 1931), German chemist and recipient of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on alicyclic compounds.  He died a month before his 84^th birthday.

1845 ~ Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (d. Feb. 10, 1923), German physicist and recipient of the 1901 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the X-ray.  He died at age 77.

1824 ~ Virginia Minor (d. Aug. 14, 1894), American woman’s rights activist.  She died at age 70.

1813 ~ Nathaniel Currier (d. Nov. 20, 1888), American illustrator, who worked with James Ives to create lithographs of current events and life in the mid-1800s America.  Together James Ives and Nathaniel Currier co-founded Currier and Ives.  Currier was from Massachusetts.  He died at age 75.

1801 ~ Alexander Barrow (d. Dec. 29, 1846), American lawyer and United States Senator from Louisiana.  He died at age 45.

1785 ~ King Louis XVII of France (d. June 8, 1795).  He was the youngest son of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.  After his father was executed, he became “king” in the eyes of the royalists.  He was never actually crowned, however, and was imprisoned by the republic.  He died in prison at age 10 of an illness.

1724 ~ Jane Colden (d. Mar. 10, 1766), American botanist.  She died in childbirth less than 3 weeks before her 42^nd 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.

1522 ~ Rachel Akerman (d. 1544), Austrian-Jewish poet.  She is the earliest known Jewish woman known to have written poetry in German.

972 ~ King Robert II of France (d. July 20, 1031).  He was known as Robert the Pius.  He died at age 59.

Events that Changed the World:

2015 ~ Easter Sunday.

2013 ~ A 6.0 magnitude earthquake struck in Taiwan.

2002 ~ A Palestinian suicide bomber killed 29 people participating in a Passover Seder in Netanya, Israel.

2000 ~ A Phillips Petroleum plant exploded in Pasadena, Texas, killing 1 person and injuring over 70 others.

1998 ~ The US Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra for treatment of male impotence.

1980 ~ A Norwegian oil platform collapsed in the North Sea.  Of the 212 crew on the platform, 123 were killed.

1977 ~ Two airplanes collided on the runway in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, killing 583 passengers aboard both planes.  Sixty-one passengers aboard the Pan-Am flight plane survived; all passengers in the KLM flight were killed.

1975 ~ Construction on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline System began.

1964 ~ Alaska was hit by a massive earthquake that measured 9.2 on the Richter scale.  Over 125 people were killed and there was massive damage to the city of Anchorage, Alaska.  The earthquake occurred on Good Friday so is sometimes referred to as the Good Friday earthquake.

1958 ~ Nikita Khrushchev (1894 ~ 1971) became the Premier of the Soviet Union.

1915 ~ Mary “Typhoid Mary” Mallon (Sept. 23, 1869 ~ Nov. 11, 1938), the healthy carrier of Typhoid was put into quarantine, where she lived for the rest of her life.

1912 ~ First Lady Helen Herron Taft (1861 ~ 1943) and Viscountess Chinda, the wife of the Japanese ambassador, planted the first cherry trees in Washington, D.C.

1890 ~ A tornado hit Louisville, Kentucky.  Seventy-six people were killed and another 200 were injured.

1886 ~ Geronimo (1829 ~ 1909), the Apache warrior, surrendered to the United States Army, ending the main phase of the Apache wars.

1794 ~ The United States government established a permanent Navy.

1782 ~ Charles Watson-Wentworth, 2^nd Marquess of Rockingham (1730 ~ 1782), started his first term as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He died 14 weeks after beginning his second term as Prime Minister.

1625 ~ Charles I (1600 ~ 1649) became King of England, Scotland and Ireland.  He also claimed the title King of France as well.

1513 ~ Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León (1474 ~ 1521) is believed to have reached what is now known as The Bahamas on his first voyage to the New World.

Good-Byes:

2014 ~ James Rodney Schlesinger (b. Feb. 15, 1929), American headstrong aide who served three presidents.  He served as the 1^st United States Secretary of Energy under President Jimmy Carter from August 1977 until August 1979.  He served as the 12^th United States Secretary of Defense from July 1973 until November 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.  He also served as the 9^th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  He died at age 85.

2012 ~ Adrienne Cecile Rich (b. May 16, 1929), American poet and feminist.  She died at age 82.

2009 ~ Irving Raskin Levine (b. Aug. 26, 1922), American journalist.  He died at age 86.

2007 ~ Paul Christian Lauterbur (d. May 6, 1929), American chemist and recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work that made MRIs possible.  He died at age 77 of kidney disease.

2007 ~ Charlotte Louise Berry Winters (b. Nov. 10, 1897), American veteran of World War I.  She joined the Navy in 1917.  She died at age 109.

2003 ~ Paul Zindel, Jr. (b. May 15, 1936), American writer best known for his novel, The Pigman.  He died at age 66 of lung cancer.

2002 ~ Dudley Moore (né Dudley Stuart John Moore, b. April 19, 1935), British actor.  He died 23 days before his 67^th birthday.

2002 ~ Milton Berle (né Mendel Berlinger, b. July 12, 1908), American actor and comedian.  He died at age 93.

2002 ~ Billy Wilder (né Samuel Wilder, b. June 22, 1906), Hungarian-born American film director.  He died at age 95.

1998 ~ Ferdinand Anton Ernst Porsche (b. Sept. 19, 1909), Austrian automobile designer.  He died at age 88.

1997 ~ Lane Dwinell (né Seymour Lane Dwindel, b. Nov. 14, 1906), 69^th Governor of New Hampshire.  He served as Governor from January 1955 through December 1959.  He died at age 90.

1972 ~ M.C. Escher (né Maurits Cornelis Escher, b. June 17, 1898), Dutch artist.  He died at age 73.

1968 ~ Yuri Gagarin (b. Mar. 9, 1934), Soviet cosmonaut and first human in space.  He was later killed in a test flight, just 13 days after his 34^th birthday.

1967 ~ Jaroslav Heyrovský (b. Dec. 20, 1890), Czech chemist and recipient of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 76.

1952 ~ Kiichiro Toyoda (b. June 11, 1894), Japanese businessman and founder of Toyota.  He died at age 57.

1925 ~ Carl Gottfried Neumann (b. May 7, 1832), German mathematician.  He died at age 92.

1923 ~ Sir James Dewar (b. Sept. 20, 1842), Scottish chemist and physicist.  He is best known for creating the Dewar’s Flask.  He died at age 80.

1918 ~ Henry Brooks Adams (b. Feb. 16, 1838), American historian and novelist.  He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  He died at age 80.

1910 ~ Alexander Emanuel Rodolphe Agassiz (b. Dec. 17, 1835), Swiss-born ichthyologist, zoologist and engineer.  He died aboard the RMS Adriatic at age 74.

1900 ~ Joseph Albert Campbell (b. May 15, 1817), founder of the Campbell’s Soup Company.  He died at age 82.

1888 ~ Francesco Faà di Bruno (b. Mar. 29, 1825), Italian priest and mathematician.  He died 2 days before his 63^rd birthday.

1875 ~ Juan Crisóstomo Torrico (b. Jan. 21, 1808), Peruvian soldier and President of Peru.  He died at age 67.

1869 ~ James Harper (b. Apr. 13, 1795), 65^th Mayor of New York City.  He served as Mayor for 1 year from 1844 to 1845.  He died 17 days before his 74^th birthday.

1697 ~ Simon Bradstreet (b. Mar. 18, 1603), Early American politician and 20^th Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he was baptized on March 18, 1603.  He presumably died 9 days after his 93^rd birthday.

1625 ~ King James I of England and Ireland, James VI of Scotland (b. June 19, 1566).  He died at age 58.

1462 ~ Vasily II of Moscow (b. Mar. 10, 1415), Grand Prince of Moscow.  He ruled over Moscow from February 1425 until his death in 1462.  He died 17 days after his 47^th birthday.

1378 ~ Pope Gregory XI (né Pierre Roger de Beaufort, b. 1336).  He was the seventh and last Avignon Pope.  He was Pope from December 1370 until his death on his date.  The exact date of his birth is not known.