April
Fool’s Day
Birthdays:
1973 ~ Rachel Anne Maddow, American television host and political
analyst.
1961 ~ Susan Magdalane Boyle,
Scottish singer, who won a talent competition in 2009 on Britian’s Got Talent.
1950 ~ Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., Associate Justice of the United
State Supreme Court. He was appointed to
the High Court by President George W. Bush.
He assumed office in January 2006.
1949 ~ Gilbert “Gil” Scott-Heron (d. May 27, 2011), American musician
and reluctant founder of rap. He died at
age 62.
1947 ~ Alain Connes, French mathematician.
1947 ~ Francine Prose,
American novelist.
1941 ~ Gideon Gadot
(d. Sept. 21, 2012), Israeli journalist and politician. He died at age 71.
1940 ~ Wangari Maathai (d. Sept. 25, 2011), Kenyan environmentalist who fought
for Africa’s forests. She was the recipient
of the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize. She was
the first African woman to win this prize for her work in sustainable
development. She died of ovarian cancer
at age 71.
1939 ~ Ali MacGraw (née Elizabeth Alice MacGraw), American actress best known for her
role as the dying wife in Love Story.
1933 ~ Stanley Weston (d. May 1, 2017), American licensing agent who
put G.I. Joe in America’s toy chest. He
sold the concept to Hasbro, but never made much money over the toy. He died a month after his 84th
birthday.
1933 ~ Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, French physicist and recipient of the
1997 Nobel Prize in Physics.
1932 ~ Gordon Jump (né Alexander Gordon Jump, d. Sept. 22, 2003),
American actor. He is best known for his
role as Arthur Carlson in WKRP in Cincinnati and as the Maytag Repairman
in the advertisements. He was 71 years
old.
1932 ~ Bob Beaumont (né Robert Gerald Beaumont, d. Oct. 24, 2011), American car dealership
owner and creator of the electric car in the 1970s. He died at age 79.
1932 ~ Debbie Reynolds
(née Mary Frances Reynolds,
d. Dec. 28, 2016), American bubbly actress and singer who danced to fame in Singin’ in the Rain. She died of a broken heart one day after her
daughter, Carrie Fischer. She was 84
years old.
1929 ~ Milan Kundera, Czech writer, best known for his novel, The
Unbearable Lightness of Being.
1924 ~ Brendan Thomas Byrne
(d. Jan. 4, 2018), 47th Governor of New Jersey. He served as Governor from January 1974
through January 1982. He died at age 93.
1923 ~ Dan Lurie (d. Nov. 6, 2013), American bodybuilder who
arm-wrestled President Ronald Reagan. He
was a founding father of bodybuilding. He
died at age 90.
1922 ~ William Raymond
Manchester (d. June 1, 2004), American historian. He was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts. He died at age 82.
1919 ~ Joseph Edward Murray
(d. Nov. 26, 2012), American physician and recipient of the 1990 Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine. He and his team
performed the first successful kidney transplant in 1954. He was from Massachusetts. He died at age 93.
1917 ~ Sydney Cecil Newman
(d. Oct. 30, 1997), Canadian screenwriter and co-creator of Doctor Who. He died at age 80.
1916 ~ Sheila May Edmonds (d. Sept. 2, 2002), British
mathematician. She died at age 86.
1898 ~ William James
Sidis (d. July 17, 1944), American mathematician. He was a child prodigy and entered Harvard
University at age 11. He died in Boston,
Massachusetts of a brain hemorrhage at age 46.
1885 ~ Clementine Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill (d. Dec. 12,
1977), wife of Winston Churchill. She
died at age 92.
1883 ~ Lon Chaney (né
Leonidas Frank Chaney, Sr. d. Aug. 26, 1930), American actor of silent films
and the father of Lon Chaney, Jr. He
died of a throat hemorrhage, complicated by lung cancer, at age 47.
1874 ~ Ernest William
Barnes (d. Nov. 29, 1953), English mathematician. He was also a member of the clergy. He died at age 79.
1873 ~ Sergei
Rachmaninoff (d. Mar. 28, 1943), Russian composer, pianist and conductor. He died 4 days before his 70th
birthday.
1868 ~ Edmond Rostand
(d. Dec. 2, 1918), French dramatist best known for his play, Cyrano de
Bergerac. He died at age 50 during
the flu epidemic.
1865 ~ Richard Adolf
Zsigmondy (d. Sept. 23, 1929), Austrian chemist and recipient of the 1925 Nobel
Prize in Physics for his work in colloids.
He died at age 64.
1834 ~ James Fisk (d. Jan.
7, 1872), American businessman and stockbroker. He was known as Diamond Jim and was a Robber
Baron. He was born in Vermont but moved
to New York City to become a stockbroker.
He was murdered at age 36 by a disgruntled business associate.
1815 ~ Edward Clark (d.
May 4, 1880), 8th Governor of Texas.
His term coincided with the American Civil War and he was only governor
for about 7 months, from May 1861 until early November 1861. He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana and
died at age 65 in Marshall, Texas.
1815 ~ Otto von
Bismarck (d. July 30, 1898), 1st Chancellor of the German Empire. He
served in that Office from March 1871 until March 1890. He died at age 83.
1776 ~ Marie-Sophie
Germain (d. June 27, 1831), French mathematician. She is best known for elasticity theory. She died of breast cancer at age 55.
1640 ~ Georg Mohr (d.
Jan. 26, 1697), Danish mathematician. He
died at age 56.
1578 ~ William Harvey
(d. June 3, 1657), English physician. He
is best known for his study of blood and the circulatory system. He died at age 79.
Events that Changed the World:
2018 ~ Easter Sunday.
2001 ~ Same-sex
marriage became legal in the Netherlands.
This was the first country to allow such marriages.
1997 ~ The Comet Hale-Bobb passed the earth at the perihelion.
1979 ~ Iran became an
Islamic Republic, officially overthrowing the Shah.
1976 ~ Steve Jobs
(1955 ~ 2011), Steve Wozniak (b. 1950) and Ronald Wayne (b. 1934) incorporated
Apple, Inc.
1970 ~ President
Richard Nixon (1913 ~ 1994) signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into
law. This Act required the Surgeon
General to post a warning on all tobacco products of the health hazards. The Act also banned cigarette advertisements
from television and radio effective January 1, 1971.
1967 ~ The United
States Department of Transportation, which had been authorized by Congress in
1966, began operations.
1957 ~ During is
current affairs program, the BBC broadcast the “Spaghetti Tree Hoax”, which was
a three-minute April Fool’s Day story about a Swiss family harvesting spaghetti
from spaghetti trees. Numerous listeners
believed the story was an actual news story and called the radio station for
advice on growing spaghetti.
1954 ~ President
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 ~ 1969) authorized the creation of the United States
Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
1948 ~ Faroe Islands gained autonomy from Denmark.
1946 ~ An 8.6
magnitude earthquake near the Aleutian Islands caused a massive tsunami that
hit the Hawaiian Islands. Over 150
people, mostly in Hilo, Hawaii, were killed.
1945 ~ United States
troops landed on Okinawa during Operation Iceberg, the last campaign of World
War II.
1939 ~ Generalísimo
Francisco Franco (1892 ~ 1975) announced the end of the Spanish Civil War. The last of the Republican forces
surrendered.
1933 ~ The Nazis
organized a boycott of all Jewish-owned businesses in Germany. This led to widespread acts of anti-Semitism
in Germany.
1924 ~ The Royal
Canadian Air Force was formed.
1919 ~ Walter Gropius
(1883 ~ 1969) founded the Staatliches Bauhaus school in Weimar.
1891 ~ The Wrigley
Company was founded in Chicago, Illinois.
1867 ~ Singapore
became a British crown colony.
1854 ~ The first
episodes of Hard Times by Charles Dickens (1812 ~ 1870) were published
in Household Words magazine.
1826 ~ Samuel Morey
(1762 ~ 1843) patented the internal combustion engine.
1789 ~ The United
States House of Representative met in New York City. Frederick Muhlenberg (1750 ~ 1801) of
Pennsylvania was elected the first Speaker of the House.
Good-Byes:
2012 ~ Miguel de la Madrid (b. Dec. 12, 1934), 52nd
President of Mexico. He served as
president from December 1982 until November 30, 1988. He died at age 77.
2010 ~ John Forsythe (né Jacob Lincoln Freund, b. Jan. 29, 1918),
American actor. He is best remembered
for his role as the conniving patriarch Blake Carrington on the television
drama Dynasty. He was 92 years old.
1991 ~ Martha Graham
(b. May 11, 1894), American dancer and choreographer. She was 96 years old.
1984 ~ Marvin Gaye (né Marvin Pentz, Gay, Jr., b. Apr. 2, 1939),
American singer. He was shot and killed
by his father 1 day before his 45th birthday.
1976 ~ Max Ernst (b. Apr.
2, 1891), German artist. He died 1 day
before his 85th birthday.
1968 ~ Lev Davidovich
Landau (b. Jan. 22, 1908), Russian physicist and recipient of the 1962 Nobel
Prize in Physics. He died at age 60 from
complications of injuries sustained in a serious car accident that had occurred
6 year earlier.
1965 ~ Helena
Rubinstein (né Chaja Rubinstein, b. Dec. 25, 1872), Polish-American business
woman and cosmetics manufacturer. She
founded the Helena Rubinstein Cosmetics, Inc.
She died at age 92.
1950 ~ Charles Richard
Drew (b. June 3, 1904), African-American physician and surgeon. He was active in blood research and blood
transfusions. He was killed at age 45 in
a car accident in North Carolina. A
school in New Orleans was named after him.
1922 ~ Hermann Rorschach (b. Nov. 8, 1884), Swiss psychologist and
author. He is best known for devising
the inkblot test. He died at age 37 of
peritonitis following a rupture appendix.
1917 ~ Scott Joplin
(b. Nov. 24, 1868), African-American ragtime musician and composer. He was known as the King of Ragtime. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but
he is believed to have been about 49 at the time of his death.
1894 ~ Remigio Morales Bermúdez (b. Sept. 30, 1836), President of
Peru. He served from August 1890 until
his death at age 57 on April 1, 1894.
1843 ~ John Armstrong. Jr. (b. Nov. 25, 1758), 7th United
States Secretary of War. He served under
President James Madison. He served in
that office from January 13, 1813 through September 27, 1814. He died at age 84.
1839 ~ Benjamin Pierce
(b. Dec. 25, 1757), 11th Governor of New Hampshire. He was Governor for 1 year, from June 1827
through June 1828. He was the father of
President Franklin Pierce. He died at
age 81.
1683 ~ Roger Williams (b. December 1603), English theologian and
colonist who settled in what is now Rhode Island. The exact dates of his birth
and death are unknown.
1204 ~ Eleanor of Aquitaine (b. 1122). The exact date of her birth is unknown, but
she is believed to have been about 81 at the time of her death.
1085 ~ Emperor Shenzong of Song (b. May 25, 1048), 6th
Chinese emperor of the Song Dynasty. He
died at age 36.
996 ~ Pope John
XV. He was Pope from August 985 until
his death 11 years later. The date of
his birth is not known.
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