July 18

Birthdays:

1978 ~ Ben Sheets (né Benjamin Michael Sheets), American baseball player and coach.  He was born in Baton Rogue, Louisiana and went to college at Northeast Louisiana University.

1969 ~ Elizabeth M. Gilbert, American writer, best known for her memoir Eat, Pray Love.  She was born in Waterbury, Connecticut.

1967 ~ Vin Diesel (né Mark Sinclair), American actor.

1961 ~ Elizabeth McGovern (née Elizabeth Lee McGovern), American actress.  She was born in Evanston, Illinois.

1950 ~ Sir Richard Branson (né Richard Charles Nicholas Branson), British businessman who founded the Virgin Group.  He was born in London, England.

1948 ~ Hartmut Michel, German biochemist and recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He was born in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

1940 ~ James Brolin (né Craig Kenneth Bruderlin), American actor.  He played the family patriarch on the television sit-com, Life in Pieces.  He was born in Westwood, California.

1937 ~ Hunter S. Thompson (né Hunter Stockton Thompson; d. Feb. 20, 2005), American journalist.  He was born in Louisville, Kentucky.  He died by suicide at age 67 in Woody Creek, Colorado.

1937 ~ Roald Hoffmann (né Roald Safran), Polish chemist and recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He was born in Zolochiv, Ukraine.

1927 ~ Kurt Masur (d. Dec. 19, 2015), German conductor.  He was known as one of the last old-style maestros.  He died at age 88.

1921 ~ John Glenn, Jr. (né John Herschel Glenn, Jr.; d. Dec. 8, 2016), American astronaut and politician.  He was the first American astronaut to circle the earth in Space.  He died at age 95.

1918 ~ Nelson Mandela (d. Dec. 5, 2013), 1^st President of South Africa and recipient of the 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.  He was the anti-apartheid icon who forged a new South Africa.  He died at age 95.

1916 ~ L. Patrick Gray (né Louis Patrick Gray, III; d. July 6, 2005), Acting Director of the FBI following the death of J. Edgar Hoover.  He was appointed to head the FBI by President Richard Nixon.  He served in that office from May 1972 until April 1973.  He was born in St. Louis, Missouri.  He died in Atlantic Beach, Florida 12 days before his 89^th birthday.

1913 ~ Red Skelton (né Richard Bernard Eheart; d. Sept. 17, 1997), American actor and comedian.  He died at age 84.

1911 ~ Hume Cronyn (né Hume Blake Cronyn, Jr.; d. June 15, 2003), Canadian actor.  He died of prostate cancer about a month before his 92^nd birthday.

1909 ~ Andrei Gromyko (d. July 2, 1989), Soviet politician.  He died two weeks before his 80^th birthday.

1909 ~ Harriet Nelson (née Peggy Lou Snyder; d. Oct. 2, 1994), American actress.  She is best known for her role in the television comedy The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.  She died of congestive heart failure at age 85.

1908 ~ Beatrice Aitchison (d. Sept. 22, 1997), American mathematician.  She died at age 89.

1906 ~ Clifford Odets (d. Aug. 14, 1963), American playwright.  He died of stomach cancer less than a month after his 57^th birthday.

1902 ~ Jessamyn West (née Mary Jessamyn West; d. Feb. 23, 1984), American writer.  She died at age 81.

1895 ~ George “Machine Gun” Kelly (d. July 18, 1954), American gangster.  He died in prison of a heart attack on his 59^th birthday.

1891 ~ Emil Julius Gumbel (d. Sept. 10, 1966), German mathematician.  The Nazi regime forced him to flee Germany.  He first moved to France, then in 1940, immigrated to the United States.  He was born in Munich, Germany.  He died at age 75 in New York, New York.

1867 ~ Margaret Brown (née Margaret Tobin, d. Oct. 26, 1932), American socialite and social activist.  She is best known, however, as being a Titanic survivor.  The 1960 Broadway musical The Unsinkable Molly Brown was based on her life.  She died of a brain tumor at age 65.

1853 ~ Hendrik Lorentz (né Hendrick Antoon Lorentz, d. Feb. 4, 1928), Dutch physicist and recipient of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 74.

1843 ~ Virgil Earp (né Virgil Walter Earp; d. Oct. 19, 1905), United States lawman in the American Wild West.  He died at age 62.

1818 ~ Baron Louis Gerhard De Geer (d. Sept. 24, 1896), 1^st Prime Minister of Sweden.  He served as Prime Minister from March 1876 until April 1880.  He died at age 78.

1811 ~ William Makepeace Thackerary (d. Dec. 24, 1863), British author.  He is best known for his satirical novel Vanity Fair.  He died at age 52.

1552 ~ Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor (d. Jan. 20, 1612).  He ruled as the Holy Roman Emperor from October 1576 until his death in January 1612.  He was regarded as an ineffective leader whose actions led to the Thirty Years’ War.  He died at age 59.

1501 ~ Isabella of Austria, also known as Elisabeth (d. Jan. 19, 1526), Queen consort of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden and wife of Christian II of Denmark.  She died of an illness at age 24.

1013 ~ Hermann of Reichenau (d. Sept. 24, 1054), German composer, astronomer and mathematician.  He died in a monastery at age 41.

Events that Changed the World:

2013 ~ The City of Detroit, Michigan filed for bankruptcy, claiming up to $20 billion in debt.

2012 ~ A bomb exploded on an Israeli tour bus at the Burgas Airport in Bulgaria, killing 7 people and injuring 32 others.

1994 ~ The bombing of the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (Argentinean Jewish Communal Center) in Buenos Aires killed 85 people and injured over 300.  Most of the victims were Jewish.

1976 ~ During the Summer Olympics, Romanian gymnast Nadia Comǎneci (b. 1961) became the first person in Olympic Games history to score a perfect 10 in gymnastics.

1969 ~ Ted Kennedy (1932 ~ 2009) drove his vehicle off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, killing his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne (1940 ~ 1969), who died just 8 days before her 29^th birthday.  This event was depicted in the 2018 film, Chappaquiddick.

1968 ~ Intel, a semiconductor chip manufacturer, was founded in California.

1966 ~ Gemini 10 was launched from Cape Kennedy on a 70-hour mission that involved docking with an orbiting Agena target vehicle.  It was the 8^th manned Gemini flight.  The two astronauts were John Young (1930 ~ 2018) and Michael Collins (b. 1930).

1936 ~ An army uprising in Spanish Morocco initiated the Spanish Civil War.

1870 ~ The First Vatican Council degreed the dogma of papal infallibility.

1290 ~ King Edward I of England (1239 ~ 1307) issued the Edict of Expulsion banishing all Jews from England.  This event occurred on Tisha b’Av on the Hebrew calendar, which is a day that commemorates many Jewish calamities, including the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E.  It was not until 1635, when Oliver Cromwell allowed Jews to return to England.

Good-Byes:

2018 ~ Adrian Cronauer (né Adrian Joseph Cronauer; b. Sept. 8, 1938), American United States airman and innovative disc jockey who inspired the 1987 movie, Good Morning, Vietnam.  He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He died at age 79 in Troutville, Virginia.

2018 ~ Burton Richter (b. Mar. 22, 1931), American physicist and recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He was born in Brooklyn, New York.  He died at age 87 in Palo Alto, California.

2015 ~ Alex Rocco (né Alessandro Federico Petricone, Jr.; b. Feb. 29, 1936), American character actor who found fame with The Godfather.  He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He died of pancreatic cancer at age 79.

2012 ~ Yosef Shalom Eliashiv (b. Apr. 10, 1910), Lithuanian-Israeli Haredi rabbi.  He died at age 102.

2005 ~ General William Westmoreland (né William Childs Westmoreland, b. Mar. 26, 1914), American general who was in charge of all military commands during the Vietnam War from 1964 until 1968.  He died at age 91.

1999 ~ Meir Ariel (b. Mar. 2, 1942), Israeli singer-songwriter.  He was born in Mishmarot, Israel.  He died of Mediterranean Spotted Fever at age 57 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

1990 ~ Karl Menninger (né Karl Augustus Menninger, b. July 22, 1893), American psychiatrist and founder of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas.  He died of abdominal cancer 4 days before his 97^th birthday.

1989 ~ Rebecca Schaeffer (née Rebecca Lucile Schaeffer; d. Nov. 6, 1967), American actress who was murdered by a deranged fan at age 21.

1969 ~ Mary Jo Kopechne (b. July 26, 1940), American secretary and aide to Teddy Kennedy.  She was killed when the car she was riding in that was driven by Ted Kennedy went off the road into Chappaquiddick Bay.  Her story is told in the 2017 movie entitled Chappaquiddick.  She died 8 days before her 29^th birthday.

1968 ~ Corneille Heymans (b. Mar. 28, 1892), Belgian physiologist and recipient of the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for showing how blood pressure and the oxygen content of blood are transmitted to the brain.  He died of a stroke at age 76.

1954 ~ George “Machine Gun” Kelly (b. July 18, 1895), American gangster.  He died in the Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary on his 59^th birthday.

1942 ~ George Sutherland (né George Alexander Sutherland; b. Mar. 25, 1862), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was born in Stony Stratford, England, but his family moved to Utah territory when he was a year old because his father had converted to Mormonism.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Warren Harding.  He served on the court from September 1922 until January 1938.  He replaced John Clarke on the Court.  He was succeeded by Stanley Reed. He died in while on vacation in Stockbridge, Massachusetts at age 80.

1938 ~ Marie of Romania (b. Oct. 29, 1875), Queen Consort of Romania.  She was the wife of King Ferdinand I of Romania.  She was the last queen of Romania.  She was the granddaughter of England’s Queen Victoria.  She died at age 62.

1935 ~ Annie Smith Peck (b. Oct. 19, 1850), American mountaineer.  She wrote several books encouraging Americans to travel and explore.  She was born in Providence, Rhode Island.  She died of bronchial pneumonia at age 84 in Manhattan, New York.

1899 ~ Horatio Alger, Jr. (b. Jan. 13, 1832), American minister and author.  He was born in Chelsea, Massachusetts and died in Natick, Massachusetts at age 67.

1892 ~ Thomas Cook (b. Nov. 23, 1808), English travel agent and founder of the Thomas Cook Group.  He died at age 83.

1872 ~ Benito Juárez (b. Mar. 21, 1806), President of Mexico.  He served as President from January 1858 until his death of a heart attack in July 1872.  He was 66 years old.

1817 ~ Jane Austen (b. Dec. 16, 1775), English novelist.  She died at age 41.

1792 ~ John Paul Jones (né John Paul, b. July 6, 1747), American naval commander during the American Revolution.  He is sometimes referred to as the Father of the American Navy.  He died 12 days after his 45^thbirthday.

1721 ~ Jean-Antoine Watteau (b. Oct. 10, 1684), French painter.  He died of tuberculosis at age 36.

1610 ~ Caravaggio (né Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, b. Sept. 28, 1571), Italian artist.  He died under mysterious circumstances at age 38.

912 ~ Zhu Wen (b. Dec. 5, 852), Chinese emperor at the end of the Tang dynasty.  He reigned from June 907 until his death 5 years later.  He died at age 59.