Friday, March 13, 2020

March 13

Birthdays:

1971 ~ Viet Thanh Nguyen, Vietnamese novelist.  He was born in Buon Ma Thuot, Vietnam.

1956 ~ Jamie Dimon, Chairman, CEO and President of JPMorgan Chase.  He was born in New York, New York.

1950 ~ Charles Krauthammer (né Irving Charles Krauthammer; d. June 21, 2018), American journalist and political commentator who became a conservative icon.  He became paralyzed from the neck down in a diving accident when he was in his 20s.  He died of cancer at age 68.

1950 ~ William H. Macy (né William Hall Macy, Jr.), American actor.  He was born in Miami, Florida.

1946 ~ Yonatan Netanyahu (d. July 4, 1976), Israeli soldier and younger brother of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  He was the only soldier killed during the daring raid on Entebbe in 1976 to release hostages.  He was 30 years old.

1945 ~ Anatoly Fomenko (né Anatoly Timofeevich Fomenko), Russian-Soviet mathematician.  He is best known for his work in topology.  He was born in Donetsk, Ukraine when it was then under the USSR.

1944 ~ George Rodrigue (d. Dec. 14, 2013), American artist from New Iberia, Louisiana most famous for his Blue Dog series.  He died of lung cancer at age 69.

1929 ~ Bunny Yaeger (née Linnea Eleanor Yeager; d. May 25, 2014), American photographer who perfected the pin-up.  She was a model as well as a pin-up model.  She was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania and died in North Miami, Florida.  She died of congestive heart failure at age 85.

1923 ~ William F. Bolger (d. Aug. 21, 1989), 65th United States Postmaster General.  He served in this position from March 1975 until January 1985.  He was born in Waterbury, Connecticut.  He died at age 66.

1921 ~ Gitta Sereny (d. June 14, 2012), Austrian-born British author who explored the roots of evil.  She wrote extensively about the Holocaust.  She was born in Vienna, Austria.  She died at age 91 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1920 ~ Ralph Roberts (né Ralph Joel Roberts; d. June 18, 2015), American businessman and co-founder of Comcast Communications.  He died at age 95.

1916 ~ Lindy Boggs (née Marie Corinne Morrison Claiborne; d. July 27, 2013), American politician and first woman from Louisiana to be elected to Congress.  She served as a member of the House of Representatives who legislated with charm.  She was born in New Roads, Louisiana.  She was also the mother of Cokie Roberts.  She died at age 97.

1914 ~ Butch O’Hare (né Edward Henry O’Hare; d. Nov. 26, 1943), American flying ace. He was shot down during a mission during World War II.  He was 29 years old.  The O’Hare Airport in Chicago is named after him.

1913 ~ William J. Casey (né William Joseph Casey; d. May 6, 1987), 13th Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  He served in that office during the Ronald Reagan administration from January 1981 through January 1987.  He died of a brain tumor at age 74.

1911 ~ L. Ron Hubbard (né Lafayette Ronald Hubbard; d. Jan. 24, 1986), American founder of the Church of Scientology.  He was born in Tilden, Nebraska.  He died of a stroke at age 74 in Creston, California.

1910 ~ Sammy Kaye (né Samuel Zarnocay, Jr.; d. June 2, 1987), American musician and saxophonist.  He died at age 77.

1901 ~ Paul Fix (né Peter Paul Fix; d. Oct. 14, 1983), American character actor, best known for his work in Westerns.  He was born in Dobbs Ferry, New York.  He died of kidney failure at age 82 in Los Angeles, California.

1900 ~ Giorgos Seferis (d. Sept. 20, 1971), Greek poet and recipient of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Literature.  His birthday is sometime listed as February 29, because of the calendar in use in Greece at the time of his birth.  He died at age 71.

1899 ~ John Hasbrouck van Vleck (d. Oct. 27, 1980), American physicist and mathematician.  He was the recipient of the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 81 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1892 ~ Janet Flanner (d. Nov. 7, 1978), American journalist and author.  She was the Paris corresponded for The New Yorker.  She died at age 86.

1855 ~ Percival Lowell (né Percival Lawrence Lowell; d. Nov. 12, 1916), American astronomer and mathematician.  He founded the Lowell Observatory in Arizona. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  He died of a stroke at age 61.

1798 ~ Abigail Fillmore (née Abigail Powers; d. Mar. 30, 1853), First Lady of the United States and wife of President Millard Fillmore.  She died of pneumonia just over 2 weeks after her 55th birthday.

1764 ~ Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (d. July 17, 1845), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He served as Prime Minister from November 1830 until July 1834, during the reign of King William IV.  He is also associated with Earl Grey tea.  He died at age 81, eleven years almost to the date of his departure as Prime Minister.

1741 ~ Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. Feb. 20, 1790).  He ruled from August 18, 1765 until his death 25 years later.  He died 3 weeks before his 49th birthday.

1713 ~ Matthew Thornton (d. June 24, 1803), Irish-born early American founder.  He is best known for being a signed of the Declaration of Independence.  He was born in Ireland.  He ultimately settled in New Hampshire.  He died at age 90 in Newburyport, Massachusetts.

1615 ~ Pope Innocent XII (né Antonio Pignatelli; d. Sept. 27, 1700).  He was Pope from July 1691 until his death 9 years later.  He is best known for taking a hard stance against nepotism in the Catholic Church.  He died at age 85.

1372 ~ Louis I, Duke of Orléans (d. Nov. 23, 1407), French prince and son of King Charles V of France and Joanna of Bourbon.  He was murdered at age 35.

963 ~ Anna Porphyrogenita (d. 1011), Grand Princess consort of Kiev and wife of Vladimir the Great, Grand Prince of Kiev.  The date of her death is not known.

Events that Changed the World:

2020 ~ Friday the 13th.

2013 ~ Pope Francis (né Jorge Mario Bergoglio; b. 1936) was elected to succeed Pope Benedict XVI (b. 1927), thereby making him the 266th Pope of the Catholic Church.

1992 ~ A 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit Erzincan in Eastern Turkey, killing over 500 people.

1991 ~ Exxon agreed to pay $1 Billion for the clean-up of the 1989 Exxon-Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska.

1969 ~ The Apollo 9 Spacecraft returned safely to earth after testing the Lunar Module.

1964 ~ Catherine Susan “Kitty” Genovese (b. 1935) was murdered in New York City while her neighbors allegedly did nothing to help her.  This became known as the By-stander or Genovese Effect.

1963 ~ Ernesto Miranda (1941 ~ 1976) was arrested by police in Phoenix, Arizona and charged with kidnap and rape.  His conviction ultimate was set aside by the United States Supreme Court in the 1966 case of Miranda v. Arizona because he was not advised of his rights.  He was retried and his confession was not introduced into evidence.  In his second trial, he was found guilty and sentenced to 20-30 years in prison.  He was released on parole in 1972.  In 1976, he was stabbed to death in a bar fight.

1943 ~ German forces liquidated the Jewish ghetto in Kraków, Poland.

1940 ~ The Russo-Finnish Winter War ended.

1933 ~ Following President Franklin Roosevelt’s mandate for a “Bank Holiday,” banks began to re-open.

1925 ~ The state of Tennessee passed a law, known as the Butler Act, that prohibited the teaching of evolution in the schools.  This eventually led to the Scopes Trial.

1865 ~ The Confederate States of America began using African American troops in its cause against the Union during the American Civil War.

1862 ~ The United States Federal government forbad all Union army officers to return fugitive slaves, thus annulling the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required run-away slaves to their former owners.

1809 ~ Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden (1778 ~ 1837) was deposed in a coup d’état.

1781 ~ William Herschel (1738 ~ 1822) discovered the planet Uranus.  It would be nearly 200 years before other astronomers discovered that there were rings around the planet.

1639 ~ Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., was named for clergyman John Harvard (1607 ~ 1638).  The school had been established three years earlier.

Good-Bye

2016 ~ Hilary Putnam (né Hilary Whitehall Putnam; b. July 31, 1926), American mathematician and computer scientist.  He died at age 89.

2014 ~ Sean Leary (b. Aug. 23, 1975), American extreme athlete who found escape in flight.  He was killed at age 38 in a BASE jumping accident in Utah’s Zion National Park.

2006 ~ Maureen Stapleton (née Lois Maureen Stapleton; b. June 21, 1925), American actress.  She died in Lenox, Massachusetts at age 80.

1990 ~ Bruno Bettelheim (b. Aug. 28, 1903), Austrian-born American psychiatrist.  He died at age 86.

1975 ~ Ivo Andrić (né Ivan Andrić; b. Oct. 9, 1892), Serbo-Croatian writer and recipient of the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 82.

1971 ~ Rockwell Kent (b. June 21, 1882), American painter and illustrator.  He died of a heart attack at age 88.

1964 ~ Kitty Genovese (née Catherine Susan Genovese, b. July 7, 1935) American murder victim.  She was murdered in New York City while her neighbors allegedly did nothing to help her.  This became known as the By-stander or Genovese Effect.  She was 28 years old at the time of her murder.

1960 ~ Yosef Zvi HaLevy (b. 1874), Israeli rabbi and judge.

1943 ~ Stephen Vincent Benét (b. July 22, 1898), American writer.  He died at age 44 of a heart attack.

1938 ~ Clarence Darrow (né Clarence Seward Darrow; b. Apr. 18, 1857), American attorney.  He is best known for defending John Scopes in the famous Monkey Trial, which was about teaching evolution in the Tennessee schools.  He was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union.  He died about a month before his 81st birthday of pulmonary heart disease.

1906 ~ Susan B. Anthony (née Susan Brownell Anthony, b. Feb. 15, 1820), American woman’s suffrage activist.  She was born in Adams, Massachusetts.  She died about a month after her 86th birthday.

1901 ~ Benjamin Harrison (b. Aug. 20, 1833), 23rd President of the United States.  He was President from March 1889 until March 1893.  He was the grandson of President William Henry Harrison.  He died of pneumonia at age 67.

1885 ~ Titian Peale (né Titian Ramsay Peale; b. Nov. 2, 1799), American artist, naturalist and explorer.  He was born and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He died at age 85.

1884 ~ Leland Stanford, Jr. (né Leland Dewitt Stanford; b. May 14, 1868), only son of the American railroad magnate.  He died of typhoid fever at age 15.  His father named Stanford University in California in his memory.

1881 ~ Tsar Alexander II of Russia (b. Apr. 29, 1818).  He ruled from March 2, 1855 until his assassination 26 years later.  He was killed near his palace when a bomb was thrown at him.  In the Julian calendar that was used by Russia at the time, this event was recorded on March 1.  He was 62 at the time of his death.

1879 ~ Adolf Anderssen (né Karl Ernst Aldolf Anderssen; b. July 6, 1818), German mathematician and chess player.  He died at age 60.

1842 ~ Henry Shrapnel (b. June 3, 1761), British general and inventor.  He invented the Shrapnel Shell.  He died at age 80.

1808 ~ King Christian VII of Denmark (b. Jan. 29, 1749).  He reigned as King of Denmark and Norway from January 14, 1766 until his death in March 1808.  He was married to Princess Caroline Matilda of Great Britain in 1766.  They were divorced in 1772.  He died of a stroke at age 59.

1516 ~ Vladislaus II of Hungary (b. Mar. 1, 1456).  He was King of Bohemia from 1471 until his death, and King of Hungary and Croatia from 1490 until his death.  He was married three times.  His first wife was Barbara of Brandenburg.  While married to her, he secretly married Beatrice of Naples.  His first wife had to fight for a divorce.  He had no children with his first two wives.  After Beatrice died, he married Anne of Foix-Candale, with whom he had two children.  He died 12 days after his 60th birthday.

1202 ~ Mieszko II the Old, King of Poland (b. 1120s), Duke of Poland from 1173 until 1177 until he was deposed.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been about 76 at the time of his death.

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