Birthdays:
1957 ~ Darryl Dawkins (d. Aug. 27, 2015), African-American basketball player. He died of a heart attack at age 58.
1954 ~ Kailash Satyarthi, Indian engineer and children’s peace activist. He campaigned against child labor and advocated for the universal right to education. He was the recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. He was born in Vidisha, India.
1948 ~ Larry Harvey (d. Apr. 28, 2018), American artist and freethinker who co-founded Burning Man. He died of a massive stroke at age 70.
1942 ~ Clarence Clemmons (né Clarence Anicholas Clemmons, Jr.; d. June 18, 2011), African-American saxophonist who was the Big Man who gave Springsteen soul. He was a member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. He died of a stroke at 69 years old.
1933 ~ Jack Yufe (d. Nov. 9, 2015), the Jewish man who found his identical ex-Nazi twin. He and his brother, Oskar Stöhr (d. 1997), were born to a German Catholic mother and a Romanian Jewish father. Their parents split when the boys were 6 months old. Oskar lived with his mother in Germany, while Jack lived with his father who settled in the United States. Jack was raised Jewish and for a time served in the Israeli navy. Oskar, who was raised Catholic and joined the Hitler Youth, kept his Jewish identity a secret. The two met up again as young adults in 1954. Jack was 82 at the time of his death.
1930 ~ Rod Taylor (né Rodney Sturt Taylor; d. Jan. 7, 2015), Australian actor who battled The Birds in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 movie. He died 4 days before his 85th birthday.
1925 ~ Grant Tinker (né Grant Almerin Tinker; d. Nov. 28, 2016), American television producer. His second wife was Mary Tyler Moore. He died at age 90.
1924 ~ Roger Guillemin (né Roger Charles Louis Guillemin), French neuroendocrinologist and recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on neurohormones. He was born in Dijon, France.
1923~ Carroll Shelby (né Carroll Hall Shelby; d. May 10, 2012), Texan chicken farmer and hot-rod designer. He was portrayed in the 2019 movie Ford vs. Ferrari. He was 89 years old.
1921 ~ Juanita Kreps (née Clara Juanita Morris; d. July 5, 2010), 24th United States Secretary of Commerce. She served under President Jimmy Carter from January 1977 through October 1979. She was the first woman to hold that position and only the 4th woman to hold any cabinet position. She died at age 89.
1918 ~ Gunnar Sønsteby (d. May 10, 2012), Norwegian saboteur who foiled the Nazis. He was a member of the Norway resistance movement during German occupation. He was 94 years old.
1911 ~ Brunhilde Pomsel (d. Jan. 27, 2017), the German secretary who kept her Nazi past secret. She was the private secretary to Joseph Goebbels and last surviving eyewitness to the Nazi power scheme but did not speak about her role in the War until after she was 100. She died 16 days after her 106th birthday.
1907 ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel (d. Dec. 23, 1972), Polish-born American rabbi, theologian and philosopher. Heschel was a leader in the American Civil Rights movement in the US. He died 19 days before his 66th birthday.
1906 ~ Albert Hofmann (d. Apr. 29, 2008), Swiss chemist who was the first to synthesize and try LSD. He died of a heart attack at age 102.
1885 ~ Alice Paul (née Alice Stokes Paul; d. July 9, 1877), American suffragist. She was from New Jersey. She died at age 92.
1870 ~ Alexander Stirling Calder (d. Jan. 7, 1945), American sculptor. He was the father of a son also named Alexander Calder. Alexander the father died 4 days before his 75th birthday.
1858 ~ Harry Gordon Selfridge, Sr. (d. May 8, 1947), American businessman and founder of the Selfridges Department Store. A British television series entitled Mr. Selfridge, is a fictional account of his life. He died of pneumonia at age 89.
1845 ~ Albert Victor Bäcklund (d. Feb. 23, 1922), Swedish mathematician. He died at age 77.
1842 ~ William James (d. Aug. 26, 1910), American philosopher and psychologist. He has been called the Father of American Psychology. He died of heart failure at age 68 in Chocorua, New Hampshire.
1815 ~ Sir John A. Macdonald (né John Alexander Macdonald; d. June 6, 1891), 1st Prime Minister of Canada. He served as Prime Minister during the reign of Queen Victoria, from October 1878 until June 1891. He died at age 76.
1807 ~ Ezra Cornell (d. Dec. 9, 1874), American businessman and founder of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. He died about a month before his 68th birthday.
1760 ~ Oliver Wolcott, Jr. (d. June 1, 1833), American lawyer and 2nd United States Secretary of the Treasury. He served as Secretary of the Treasury from February 1795 until December 1800, under both Presidents Washington and John Adams. He subsequently served as the Governor of Connecticut from May 1817 until May 1827. He died at age 73.
1755/1757 ~ Alexander Hamilton (d. July 12, 1804), 1st United States Secretary of the Treasury. The exact year of his birth is not known. He was born in Nevis. He was killed one day after being shot in a duel by Aaron Burr. He is believed to have been between 47 and 49 at the time of his death. In 2015, the Broadway rap musical, Hamilton, which is based on his life, premiered in New York.
347 ~ Theodosius I (d. Jan. 17, 395), Roman emperor from January 379 until his death in January 395. He was known as Theodosius the Great. He was the last Roman emperor to have ruled both the eastern and western portions of the Roman Empire. He is believed to have died 6 days after his 48th birthday.
Events that Changed the World:
1972 ~ East Pakistan was renamed Bangladesh.
1964 ~ The United States Surgeon General, Dr. Luther Terry (1911 ~ 1985), published the first report saying smoking may be unhealthy.
1962 ~ An avalanche on Mount Husacarán in Peru, which was caused by a rapid increase in temperature, killed approximately 4,000 people when several towns and villages on the mountain were buried in the snow.
1949 ~ The first recorded case of significant snowfall in Los Angeles, California. Up to a foot of snow covered the city. In some places, nearly a foot of snow accumulated.
1935 ~ Amelia Earhart (1897 ~ 1937) became the first person to fly solo from Hawaii to California.
1927 ~ Louis B. Mayer (1884 ~ 1957), head of the film studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, announced the creation of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
1922 ~ Insulin was first used to treat diabetes.
1912 ~ Immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts went on strike to protest the reduction in wages which the mill owners made in response to the mandated shorter work week.
1861 ~ Alabama became the 4th state to secede from the Union in the pre-Civil War era.
1787 ~ William Herschel (1738 ~ 1822) discovered two moons of Uranus.
1759 ~ The first American life insurance company was incorporated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1693 ~ Mount Etna erupted in Italy, which was followed by a powerful earthquake that destroyed parts of Sicily and Malta.
1158 ~ Vladislaus II, Duke of Bohemia (1110 ~ 1174) became King of Bohemia.
1055 ~ Theodora (980 ~ 1056) was crowned Empress of the Byzantine Empire.
Good-Byes:
2019 ~ Sir Michael Atiyah (né Michael Francis Atiyah; b. Apr. 22, 1929), British mathematician specializing in geometry. He died at age 89.
2015 ~ Anita Ekberg (née Kerstin Anita Marianne Ekberg; b. Sept. 29, 1931), Swedish bombshell who lit up La Dolce Vita. She was a former Miss Sweden. She died at age 83.
2015 ~ Vernon Mountcastle (Vernon Benjamin Mountcastle; b. July 15, 1919), American scientist who revealed the brain’s secrets. He discovered and characterized the columnar organization of the cerebral cortex. He died of complications of the flu at age 96.
2014 ~ Ariel Sharon (né Ariel Scheinermann, b. Feb. 26, 1928), 11th Prime Minister of Israel. He was a retired General. He had been a commander in the Israeli Army from its inception in 1948, thus he lead Israel in war and peace. He suffered a massive stroke in January 2006 and remained in a coma for the rest of his life. He died at age 85.
2013 ~ Aaron Swartz (né Aaron Hillel Swartz; b. Nov. 8, 1986), Computer wizard whose activism for an open Web led to wire-fraud charges. He was arrested on computer hacking and died by suicide before his trial. He was 26 years old.
2010 ~ Éric Rohmer (né Maurice Henri Joseph Schérer; b. Mar. 21, 1920), French film director who specialized in art-house fare. He died at age 89.
2010 ~ Miep Gies (née Hermine Santruschitz; b. Feb. 15, 1909), Dutch secretary who help hide Anne Frank and her family during World War II. Following the War, she discovered and preserved Anne Frank’s diary. She died about a month before her 101st birthday.
2008 ~ Sir Edmund Hillary (né Edmund Percival Hillary; b. July 20, 1919), New Zealand mountaineer and explorer. He led the first expedition known to have reached the top of Mt. Everest. He died at age 88.
2004 ~ Spalding Gray (né Spalding Rockwell Gray; b. June 5, 1941), American actor and writer. He died by a drowning suicide at age 62.
2000 ~ Ivan Combe (né Ivan DeBlois Combe; b. Apr. 21, 1911), American businessman and developer of Clearasil. He died at age 88.
1991 ~ Carl David Anderson (b. Sept. 3, 1905), American physicist and recipient of the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died at age 85.
1988 ~ Isidor Isaac Rabi (né Israel Isaac Rabi; b. July 29, 1898), Hungarian-born American physicist and recipient of the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of nuclear magnetic resonance. He died at age 89.
1982 ~ Paul Lynde (né Paul Edward Lynde; b. June 13, 1926), American comedian and game show panelist. He died of a heart attack at age 55.
1968 ~ Moshe Zvi Segal (b. Sept. 23, 1876), Israeli rabbi and Talmudic scholar. He died at age 91.
1954 ~ Oscar Straus (né Oscar Nathan Strauss; b. Mar. 6, 1870), Viennese operetta composer. He died at age 83.
1941 ~ Emanuel Lasker (b. Dec. 24, 1868), German mathematician. He was the World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 until 1921. He died of a kidney infection 17 days after his 72nd birthday.
1928 ~ Thomas Hardy (b. June 2, 1840), English writer best known for his novels, Jude the Obscure and Far from the Madding Crowd. He died at age 87.
1914 ~ Carl Jacobsen (né Carl Christian Hillman Jacobsen; b. Mar. 2, 1842), Dutch brewer and patron of the arts. The Carlsberg Brewery is named after him. He died at age 71.
1905 ~ Yehudah Aryeh Leib Alter (b. Apr. 15, 1847), Hasidic rabbi. He died at age 57.
1893 ~ Benjamin Franklin Butler (b. Nov. 5, 1818), 33rd Governor of Massachusetts. He served as Governor from January 1883 until January 1884. He was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire. He died at age 74.
1874 ~ Gail Borden, II (b. Nov. 9, 1801), American publisher and inventor. He invented condensed milk. After his death, the name of his company, the New York Condensed Milk Company, was renamed the Borden Dairy Company. He died at age 72.
1843 ~ Francis Scott Key (b. Aug. 1, 1779), American lawyer who is best known for writing the words to the Star Spangled Banner, the American National Anthem. He died at age 63.
1836~ John Molson (b. Dec. 28, 1763), English-born Canadian brewer and founder of the Molson Brewing Company. He died 14 days after his 72nd birthday.
1794 ~ Robert Forsythe (b. 1754), the first United States Marshal to be killed while carrying out his duties. He was born in Scotland. He was killed in Augusta, Georgia while trying to serve court papers. He was about 40 years old at the time of his death and left a widow with 2 sons.
1757 ~ Louis Bertrand Castel (b. Nov. 15, 1688), French Jesuit priest and mathematician. He died at age 68.
1494 ~ Domenico Ghirlandiao (b. June 2, 1449), Italian Renaissance painter from Florence. He died at age 45.
937 ~ Lui, Chinese Empress of Later Tang and wife of Li Congke. She died in a mass suicide. The date of her birth is not known.
937 ~ Li Congke (b. Feb. 11, 885), Chinese Emperor and last emperor of the Later Tang dynasty. He ruled from May 834 until January 937. He died in a mass suicide a month before his 52nd birthday.
937 ~ Cao, Chinese Empress of Later Tang and wife of Later Tang’s second Emperor Li Siyuan. The date of her birth is not known. She died in a mass suicide.
705 ~ Pope John VI. He was Pope from October 701 until his death on this date 3 years later. The exact date of his birth is unknown.
142 ~ Pope Hyginus. Very little is known about this Pope who reigned from approximately 136 until his death in 142.
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