Wednesday, January 8, 2020

January 8

Birthdays:

1983 ~ Kim Jong-un, 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea.  The date of his birth is somewhat in dispute as some records indicate he was born in 1984.  He assumed office in December 2011.

1958 ~ Betsy DeVos (née Elizabeth Dee Prince), 11th United States Secretary of Education.  She began her service in the Donald Trump administration in February 2017.  She was born in Holland, Michigan.

1952 ~ Peter McCullagh, Irish mathematician.

1949 ~ John Podesta (né John David Podesta, Jr.), 20th White House Chief of Staff.  He served in the Bill Clinton administration from January 2014 until February 2015.  He was born in Chicago, Illinois.

1947 ~ David Bowie (né David Robert Jones; d. Jan. 10, 2016), English musician.  He was the ever-changing British rocker who transcended music, art, and fashion.  He died of liver cancer 2 days after his 69th birthday.

1944 ~ Vladimir Miklyukov (d. Oct. 1, 2013), Russian mathematician.  He died at age 69.

1943 ~ Brian Kelley (d. Sept. 19, 2011), American CIA counterintelligence officer.  He was falsely accused of being a double agent, spying for the USSR; however, he was not.  He died at age 68.

1942 ~ Stephen Hawking (né Stephen William Hawking; d. Mar. 14, 2018), English theoretical physicist and author.  He was the visionary physicist who brought cosmology to the masses.  Hawking was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease as a young man.  His life story was depicted in the 2014 movie, The Theory of Everything.  He died at age 76.

1941 ~ Graham Chapman (né Graham Arthur Chapman; d. Oct. 4, 1989), British actor and comedian.  He was one of the six members of Monty Python.  He died of cancer at age 48.

1939 ~ Carolina Herrera (née Maria Carolina Josefina Pacanins y Niño), Venezuelan fashion designer.  She was born in Caracas, Venezuela.

1939 ~ Sir Alan Wilson (né Alan Geoffrey Wilson), British mathematician.  He was born in Bradford, England.

1935 ~ Elvis Presley (né Elvis Aaron Presley; d. Aug. 16, 1977), American singer.  He died at age 42.

1933 ~ Charles Osgood (né Charles Osgood Wood, III), American journalist and commentator.  He was born in New York City.

1927 ~ George Galiaferro (b. Oct. 8, 2018), American football player who broke an NFL color line.  He was the first African-American drafted by the National Football League.  He died at age 91.

1926 ~ Soupy Sales (né Milton Supman; d. Oct. 22, 2009), American comedian and actor who relished pies in the face.  He died at age 83.

1912 ~ José Ferrer (né José Vincente Ferrer de Otero y Cintrón; d. Jan. 26, 1992), Puerto Rican actor and the first Hispanic actor to win an Oscar for his performance in the title role of the film Cyrano de Bergerac.  He died 18 days after his 80th birthday.

1912 ~ Lawrence Walsh (né Lawrence Edward Walsh; d. Mar. 19, 2014), Canadian-born American lawyer and United States Deputy Attorney General.  He was in office during the Eisenhower administration from 1957 to 1960.  He is best known for serving as Independent Counsel to investigate the Iran-Contra affair during the Ronald Reagan administration.  He died at age 102.

1911 ~ Gypsy Rose Lee (née Rose Louise Hovick; d. Apr. 26, 1970), American burlesque entertainer famous for her striptease act.  She died of lung cancer at age 59.

1891 ~ Walther Bothe (né Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe; d. Feb. 8, 1957), German physicist and recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died a month after his 66th birthday.

1888 ~ Richard Courant (d. Jan. 27, 1972), German-born American mathematician.  The Courant Institute of Mathematical Science in New York City was named in his honor.  He died 19 days after his 84th birthday.

1883 ~ Patrick J. Hurley (né Patrick Jay Hurley; d. July 30, 1963), 51st United States Secretary of War.  He served under President Herbert Hoover from December 1929 until March 1933.  He died at age 80.

1881 ~ William Piper, Sr. (né William Thomas Piper; d. Jan. 15, 1970), American businessman and founder of Piper Aircraft.  He died 7 days after his 89th birthday.

1873 ~ Iuliu Maniu (d. Feb. 5, 1953), Prime Minister of Romania.  He served for three terms as Prime Minister between 1928 and 1933.  He died less than a month after his 80th birthday.

1867 ~ Emily Greene Balch (d. Jan. 9, 1961), American economist, writer and pacifist.  She was the recipient of the 1946 Nobel Peace Prize.  She was a central leader of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, for which she was awarded the Nobel Prize.  She died in Cambridge, Massachusetts 1 day after her 94th birthday.

1864 ~ Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale (d. Jan. 14, 1892), oldest son of King Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark.  He was also the grandson of Queen Victoria.  He died of pneumonia just 6 days after his 28th birthday.

1862 ~ Frank Doubleday (né Frank Nelson Doubleday; d. Jan. 30, 1934), American publisher and founder of the Doubleday Publishing Company.  He died 22 days after his 72nd birthday.

1854 ~ Fanny Workman (née Fanny Bullock; d. Jan. 22, 1925), American mountaineer, geographer and cartographer.  She traveled around the world, including in the Himalayas, and wrote several travel books.  She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She died following a long illness just 2 weeks after her 66th birthday.

1824 ~ Wilkie Collins (né William Wilkie Collins, d. Sept. 23, 1889), British author best known for his novels, The Woman in White and Moonstone.  He died of a stroke at age 65.

1821 ~ James Longstreet (d. Jan. 2, 1904), Confederate General during the American Civil War.  He died 6 days before his 83rd birthday.

1805 ~ John Bigler (d. Nov. 29, 1871), 3rd Governor of California.  He served as Governor from January 1852 until January 1856.  He died at age 66.

1786 ~ Nicholas Biddle (d. Feb. 27, 1844), American banker and financier.  He died at age 58.

1735 ~ John Carroll (d. Dec. 3, 1815), American archbishop and founder of Georgetown University.  He died at age 80.

1638 ~ Elisabetta Sirani (d. Aug. 28, 1665), Italian painter and printmaker.  She established an academy for other women artists.  She died under mysterious circumstances at age 27.

1601 ~ Baltasar Gracián y Morales (d. Dec. 6, 1658), Spanish Jesuit priest and philosopher.  He died about a month before his 58th birthday.

Events that Changed the World:

2011 ~ Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (b. 1970) was shot in the head while at a speaking engagement.  Twelve other people were wounded and six people, including a state judge, were killed by the deranged gunman.

2009 ~ A 6.1 magnitude earthquake in Costa Rica killed 15 people and injured over 30 others.

2002 ~ The No Child Left Behind Act was signed into law, which was designed to assist disadvantaged students in schools.

1982 ~ AT&T agreed to divest itself of 22 subdivisions, thereby breaking up the Bell Telephone System so as not to be a monopoly.

1975 ~ Ella Grasso (1919 ~ 1981) became Governor of Connecticut, the first woman to be elected governor.  Other women had served as governor, but they had succeeded the office following the death of their husbands.

1964 ~ President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 ~ 1973) declared a “War on Poverty” in the United States.

1963 ~ Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was exhibited for the first time in the United States when it was loaned to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

1918 ~ President Woodrow Wilson (1856 ~ 1924) announced his “Fourteen Points” for the aftermath of World War I.

1877 ~ Crazy Horse (d. 1877) and his warriors fought their last battle against the United States Cavalry at Wolf Mountain in the Montana Territory.  Crazy Horse would be killed several months later.

1867 ~ African American men were granted the right to vote in Washington, D.C.

1835 ~ The United States national debt was $0 for the only time.

1828 ~ The Democratic Party of the United States was organized.

1815 ~ Andrew Jackson (1767 ~ 1845) defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans during the War of 1812.

1811 ~ Charles Deslondes led an unsuccessful slave revolt in St. Charles and St. James Parish, Louisiana, known as the German Coast Uprising.  The German Coast was a region of an early settlement located near New Orleans on the east coast of the Mississippi River.  It was called that because the areas was largely settled by German immigrants.  Somewhere between 200 and 500 slaves marched towards the river plantations and successfully burned 5 homes and several sugar houses and crops.  During the course of the revolt, 95 slaves were killed, but only two white men killed before the revolt was quashed.

1790 ~ George Washington (1732 ~ 1799) delivered the first State of the Union address in New York, New York.

1499 ~ King Louis XII (1462 ~ 1515) of France married Anne of Brittany (1477 ~ 1517).

1297 ~ The House of Grimaldi began ruling Monaco when François Grimaldi (d. 1309), disguised as a monk, led his men to capture the fortress protecting the Rock of Monaco.  Although he failed to capture the fortress, he was the first to attempt to do so.

Good-Byes:

2016 ~ Maria Teresa de Filippis (b. Nov. 11, 1926), Italian race car driver.  In 1958, she became the first woman to race in Formula One.  She died at age 89.

2009 ~ Don Galloway (né Donald Poe Galloway; b. July 27, 1937), American actor.  He is best known for his role as Detective Sergeant Ed Brown on the television drama Ironsides.  He died of a stroke at age 71.

2009 ~ Richard John Neuhaus (b. May 14, 1936), conservative Catholic theologian who worked to forge ties between Catholics and evangelic Christians, which helped energize the Republican party under George W. Bush.  He began his career as a Lutheran minister before converting to Catholicism.  He was a staunch conservative and opposed to abortion.  He died of cancer at age 72.

2007 ~ Jane Bolin (née Jane Matilda Bolin; b. Apr. 11, 1908), African-American lawyer and judge.  She was the first African-American woman to graduate from Yale Law School.  In 1939, she was appointed a judge of the New York State Domestic Relations Court, becoming the first black woman judge in the United States.  She died at age 98.

2002 ~ Dave Thomas (né Rex David Thomas; b. July 2, 1932), American fast food entrepreneur and founder of Wendy’s Restaurant.  He named his restaurant after his daughter, whose nickname was Wendy.  He died at age 69.

2002 ~ Alexander Prokhorov (b. July 11, 1916), Russian physicist and recipient of the 1964 Nobel Prize in Physics for his research on lasers.  He died at age 85.

1997 ~ Melvin Calvin (né Melvin Ellis Calvin; b. Apr. 8, 1911), American chemist and recipient of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 85.

1996 ~ François Mitterrand (né François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand; b. Oct. 26, 1916), President of France under the Fifth Republic from May 1981 until May 1995.  He died of prostate cancer at age 79.

1985 ~ Eva Bowring (née Eva Kelley; b. Jan. 9, 1892), American lawyer and United States Senator from Nebraska from April 1954 until November 1954.  She died 1 day before her 93rd birthday.

1976 ~ Zhou Enlai (b. Mar. 5, 1898), 1st Premier of the People’s Republic of China.  He died at age 77.

1958 ~ Mary Jane Colter (née Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter; b. Apr. 4, 1869), American architect.  She was one of a very small group of female architects.  She died at age 88.

1941 ~ Lord Robert Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell (né Robert Stephenson Smyth Baton-Powell, b. Feb. 22, 1857), British soldier, author and founder of the Boy Scouts.  He was married to Olave, Lady Baden-Powell, who was born on his 32nd birthday.  He died at age 83 in Kenya.

1952 ~ Antonia Maury (née Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury; b. Mar. 21, 1866), American astronomer and astrophysicist.  She was born in Cold Spring, New York.  She died at age 85.

1925 ~ George Bellows (né George Wesley Bellows; b. Aug. 12, 1825), American artist.  He was known for his realistic paintings.  The exact date of his birth is in question.  He may actually have been born on August 19th.  He died at age 42 of a ruptured appendix.

1918 ~ Ellis H. Roberts (né Ellis Henry Roberts, b. Sept. 30, 1827), 20th Treasurer of the United States.  He served under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt from July 1897 until June 1905.  He died at age 90.

1917 ~ Mary Arthur McElroy (née Mary Arthur; b. July 5, 1841), sister of President Chester Arthur.  She served as First Lady during his term as President.  She died at age 75.

1825 ~ Eli Whitney (b. Dec. 8, 1765), American inventor who developed the cotton gin.  He was born in Westborough, Massachusetts.  He died in New Haven, Connecticut a month after his 59th birthday.

1642 ~ Galileo Galilei (b. Feb. 15, 1564), Italian astronomer, scientist and philosopher.  He died at age 77.

1337 ~ Giotto (né Giotto di Bondone; b. 1266), Italian painter and architect.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been about 70 at the time of his death.  The exact date of his birth is not known.

1324 ~ Marco Polo (b. Sept. 15, 1254), Italian explorer and merchant.  The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown, but he is believed to have been about 69 or 70 at the time of his death.

1198 ~ Pope Celestine III (né Giacinto Bobone; b. 1106).  He reigned for almost 7 years, from 1191 until his death on this date in 1198.  The exact date of his birth is not known.

1107 ~ Edgar, King of Scotland (b. 1074).  The exact date of his birth is not known.

307 ~ Jin Huidi (b. 259), 2nd Chinese emperor of the Jin Dynasty.  He reigned from May 290 until February 301 when he was usurped by his great uncle.  He then regained the throne and ruled again from June 301 until he was poisoned in January 307.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been about 47 or 48 at the time of his assassination.

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