Thursday, December 17, 2020

December 17

 Birthdays:

 

2007 ~ James, Viscount Severn (né James Alexander Philip Theo Mountbatten-Windsor), second child and first son of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

 

1953 ~ Bill Pullman (né William James Pullman), American actor.  He was born in Hornell, New York.

 

1946 ~ Eugene Levy, Canadian comedian and actor.  He was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

 

1945 ~ Ernie Hudson (né Earnest Lee Hudson), African-American actor.  He is best known for his role as Winston Zeddemore in the 1984 movie Ghostbusters. He was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

 

1937 ~ John Kennedy Toole (b. Mar. 26, 1969), American novelist from New Orleans.  His most well-known novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, was published after his death by suicide at age 31.

 

1936 ~ Pope Francis (né Jorge Mario Bergoglio), head of the Catholic Church.  He became the first Jesuit Pope and the first from South America to be elected Pope.  He became Pope in March 2013.  He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

 

1929 ~ William Safire (né William Lewis Safire; d. Sept. 27, 2009), American provocative political columnist who loved language.  He died of pancreatic cancer at age 79.

 

1923 ~ Cullen Hightower (d. Nov. 27, 2008), American writer, best known for his quips.  He was born in Alabama.  He died 20 days before his 85th birthday in Mary Esther, Florida.

 

1921 ~ William Arthur Ward (d. Mar. 30, 1994), American writer known for his inspirational maxims.  He died at age 82.

 

1921 ~ Nadezhda Popova (d. July 8, 2013), Russian “Night Witch” who bombed the Nazis.  She was one of the first female Russian military pilots.  During World War II, she joined a night bombing regiment and bombed Germany to revenge the death of her brother.  She died at age 91.

 

1916 ~ Penelope Fitzgerald (née Penelope Mary Knox; d. Apr. 28, 2000), British author.  She died at age 83.

 

1913 ~ Burt Baskin (d. Dec. 24, 1967), American entrepreneur and co-founder of the Basking and Robbins ice cream franchise.  He died of a heart attack 7 days after his 54th birthday.

 

1908 ~ Willard Libby (né Willard Frank Libby; d. Sept. 8, 1980), American chemist and recipient of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in carbon dating.  He died of complications of pneumonia at age 71.

 

1903 ~ Erskine Caldwell (né Erskine Preston Caldwell; d. Apr. 11, 1987), American author.  He is best known for his novel God’s Little Acre.  He died of lung cancer at age 83.

 

1900 ~ Dame Mary Cartwright (née Mary Lucy Cartwright; d. Apr. 3, 1998), English mathematician.  She was one of the first people to study chaos theory.  She died at age 97.

 

1894 ~ Arthur Fiedler (d. July 10, 1979), American conductor who led the Boston Pops for many years.  He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and died in Brookline, Massachusetts.  He died at age 84.

 

1873 ~ Ford Madox Ford (né Ford Hermann Hueffer; b. June 26, 1939), English writer.  He died at age 65.

 

1853 ~ Pierre Paul Émile Roux (d. Nov. 3, 1933), French physician and immunologist.  He was a co-founder the Pasteur Institute.  He died at age 79.

 

1842 ~ Sophus Lie (né Marius Sophus Lie; d. Feb. 18, 1899), Norwegian mathematician.  The study of Lie algebra is named in his honor.  He died of pernicious anemia at age 56.

 

1835 ~ Alexander Agassiz (né Alexander Emanuel Rodolphe Agassiz; d. Mar. 27, 1910), Swiss-born ichthyologist, zoologist and engineer.  He died while aboard the RMS Adriatic at age 74.

 

1807 ~ John Greenleaf Whittier (d. Sept. 7, 1892), American poet, Quaker, and abolitionist.  He was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts and died in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.  He died at age 84.

 

1795 ~ Benjamin Franklin Butler (d. Nov. 8, 1858), 12th United States Attorney General.  He served under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren from November 1833 until July 1838.  He was born in Kinderhook Landing, New York.  He died at age 62 in Paris, France.

 

1778 ~ Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet (d. May 29, 1829), English chemist.  He is known for inventing the Davy Lamp.  He died at age 50 from complications following a stroke.

 

1770 ~ Ludwig van Beethoven (d. Mar. 26, 1827), German composer.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptized on December 17, 1770.  In his later years he became deaf; yet continued to compose music.  His famous Ninth Symphony was written when he was completely deaf.  He died at age 56.

 

1706 ~ Émilie du Châtelet (née Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, d. Sept. 10, 1749), French mathematician, physicist, and author during the Age of Enlightenment.  She died at age 42 a week after having given birth to her third child.

 

Events that Changed the World:

 

2014 ~ The United States and Cuba re-established diplomatic relations after over 55 years.

 

2010 ~ Street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi (1984 ~ 2011) set himself on fire in Tunis, which became the catalyst for the Tunisian Revolution and the Arab Spring.  He died of his injuries less that 3 weeks later.

 

1996 ~ Peruvian guerillas raided a party at the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru and took hundreds of people hostage.

 

1989 ~ The first episode of the animated cartoon, The Simpson, aired on television.

 

1983 ~ The IRA bombed Harrod’s Department store in London, killing 6 people.

 

1975 ~ John Paul Stevens (1920 ~ 2019) began his term as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He had been nominated to the High Court by President Gerald Ford (1913 ~ 2006).  He served until his retirement in June 2010.

 

1973 ~ In an attack by Palestinian terrorists at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome, 34 passengers were killed.  The Pan Am Flight 110 from Rome to Teheran was attacked shortly before take-off.

 

1938 ~ Otto Hahn (1879 ~ 1968), a German chemist, discovered the nuclear fission of uranium, thus marking the beginning of the so-called Atomic Age.  He went on to win the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He is considered to be the Father of Nuclear Chemistry.

 

1935 ~ The Douglas DC-3 made its maiden flight.

 

1903 ~ Wilber (1867 ~ 1912) and Orville Wright (1871 ~ 1948) made the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

 

1892 ~ The fashion magazine Vogue began publication.

 

1862 ~ General Ulysses S. Grant (1822 ~ 1885) issued General Order No. 11 expelling the Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.  Abraham Lincoln subsequently quashed this Order.  This marked the only time in United States history that Jews were expelled.

 

1837 ~ A fire at the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg occurred.  Thirty guards were killed in the fire.

 

1835 ~ The Great Fire of New York leveled lower Manhattan.

 

1790 ~ The Aztec Sun Stone was rediscovered by workers who were doing repairs on the Mexico City Cathedral.  The Stone is a circular stone marked by carvings of calendar sign and images relating to the Aztec creation myth.  It is believed to have been carved sometime in the early 1500s and is one of the most famous works of Aztec sculpture.  It is currently housed in the National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City.

 

1777 ~ France formally recognized the new country of the United States of America following the American Revolution.

 

1538 ~ Pope Paul III (1468 ~ 1549) excommunicated King Henry VIII of England (1491 ~1547).

 

Good-Byes:

 

2018 ~ Penny Marshall (née Carole Penny Marshall; b. Oct. 15, 1943), American sit-com star who became a big-time director.  She directed Tom Hanks in the movie Big.  Her brother was actor Garry Marshall.  She was born in The Bronx, New York.  She died at age 75 of heart failure caused by diabetes and cardiovascular disease in Los Angeles, California.

 

2016 ~ Henry Heimlich (né Henry Judah Heimlich; b. Feb. 3, 1920), American thoracic surgeon who developed the Heimlich maneuver, a technique for removing an obstacle lodged in one’s throat to prevent a patient from choking.  He died at age 96.

 

2013 ~ Janet Rowley (née Janet Davidson; b. Apr. 5, 1925), American biologist and geneticist.  She was the first scientist to identify chromosomal translocation as the cause of leukemia and other cancers.  She was born in New York, New York.  She died at age 88 in Chicago, Illinois of complications of ovarian cancer.

 

2012 ~ Daniel Inouye (né Daniel Ken Inouye; b. Sept. 7, 1924), American politician and United States Senator from Hawaii.  He died at age 88.

 

2012 ~ James Gower (b. Aug. 17, 1922), American Catholic priest and peace activist.  He was the co-founder, along with Les Brewer, of the College of the Atlantic, a private liberal arts college in Mount Desert Island, Maine.  He died at age 90.

 

2011 ~ Kim Jong-il (b. Feb. 16, 1941), 2nd Supreme Leader of North Korea.  He died at age 70.

 

2005 ~ Jack Anderson (né Jack Northman Anderson; b. Oct. 19, 1922), American journalist.  He died of Parkinson’s disease at age 83.

 

2002 ~ Hank Luisetti (né Angelo Guiseppi Luisetti; b. June 16, 1916), American athlete who revolutionized basketball with his one-handed jump shots.  He died at age 86.

 

1975 ~ Mary Locke Petermann (b. Feb. 25, 1908), American cellular biochemist.  She is best known for her role in the discovery and characterization of animal ribosomes.  She was the first woman to become a full professor at Cornell Medical School.  She was born in Laurium, Michigan.  She died of cancer at age 67 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

 

1967 ~ Harold Holt (b. Aug. 5, 1908), Prime Minister of Australia.  He disappeared while swimming and was presumed to have drowned.  He was 59 years old at the time of his disappearance.

 

1964 ~ Victor Franz Hess (b. June 24, 1883), Austrian-American physicist and recipient of the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of cosmic rays.  He died at age 81.

 

1957 ~ Dorothy L. Sayers (née Dorothy Leigh Sayers; b. June 13, 1893), English writer of crime novels.  She died of coronary thrombosis at age 64.

 

1940 ~ Alicia Boole Stott (née Alicia Boole; b. June 8, 1960), British mathematician.  She died at age 80.

 

1933 ~ 13th Dalai Lama (né Thubten Gyatso, b. Feb. 12, 1876).  He died at age 57.

 

1917 ~ Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (née Elizabeth Garrett; b. June 9, 1836), English physician and woman’s rights advocate.  She was the first woman in Britain to qualify as a physician and surgeon.  She died at age 81.

 

1912 ~ Spiru Haret (b. Feb. 15, 1851), Romanian-born Armenian mathematician and astronomer.  He died at age 61 in Bucharest, Romania.

 

1909 ~ Leopold II of Belgium (b. Apr. 9, 1835).  He reigned over Belgium from December 1865 until his death exactly 44 years later.  He was the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State.  He is known for exploiting the people living in the Congo.  He died at age 74.

 

1907 ~ William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin (b. June 26, 1824), Irish mathematical physicist who introduced the temperature scale that begins at absolute zero (-273.15o C).  Absolute temperatures stated in units of Kelvin are named in his honor.  He died at age 83.

 

1847 ~ Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria (b. Dec. 12, 1791), second wife of Napoleon.  She was the Duchess of Palma in her own right.  After Napoleon died, she married Adam Albert von Neipperg.  They had two children.  After his death, she married Charles René de Bombelles.  She died of what is believed to be pleurisy just 5 days after her 56th birthday.

 

1830 ~ Simón Bolívar (b. July 24, 1783), Venezuelan military commander and 2nd President of Venezuela.  He had also served as the President of Peru and President of Bolivia.  He died at age 47.

 

1471 ~ Isabella of Portugal (b. Feb. 21, 1397), daughter of King John I of Portugal and Philippa of Lancaster.  She was the Duchess consort of Burgundy and third wife of Philip the Good.  She died at age 74.

 

1273 ~ Rumi (b. Sept. 30, 1207), Turkish poet and Islamic Sufi mystic.  His poetry is some of the most widely read in the world today.  Rumi is also known as the founder of the sect of Whirling Dervishes.  He is buried in Konya, Turkey, which is a major pilgrimage site.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been about 65 or 66 at the time of his death.

 

1187 ~ Pope Gregory VIII (né Alberto di Morra; b. 1100).  He was Pope for only 2 months, from October 1187 until his death on this date the same year.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been born between 1100 and 1105.

 

942 ~ William I, Duke of Normandy (b. 893).  He was assassinated at age 49.  The exact date of his birth is not known.

 

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