Birthdays:
1970 ~ Ted Cruz (né Rafael Edward Cruz), Canadian-born American politician who launched a campaign for the 2016 United States Presidential election. He is a United States Senator from Texas. He was born in Calgary, Canada.
1968 ~ Lauralee Bell, American soap opera actress known for her role as Christine Blair on The Young and the Restless. She was born in Chicago, Illinois.
1962 ~ Ralph Fiennes (né Ralph Nathaniel Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes), English actor. He was born in Ispwich, England.
1960 ~ Jean-Michel Basquiat (d. Aug. 12, 1988) American artist. He died at age 27 of a heroin overdose.
1956 ~ Colo (d. Jan. 17, 2017), the first gorilla bred in captivity, was born at the Columbus Zoo in Columbus, Ohio. On December 22, 2016, Colo celebrated her 60th birthday. She died on January 17, 2017, just 25 days after her 60thbirthday.
1955 ~ Thomas C. Südhof (né Thomas Christian Südhof), German-born American biochemist and recipient of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his study of synaptic transmission. He was born in Göttingen, Germany
1949 ~ Maurice Gibb (né Maurice Ernest Gibb; d. Jan. 12, 2003), British musician and member of the Bee Gees. He was the twin brother of Robin Gibb (1949 ~ 2012). Maurice died 3 weeks after his 53rd birthday. He was born in Douglas, Isle of Man.
1949 ~ Robin Gibb (né Robin Hugh Gibb; d. May 20, 2012), British musician and the brother who launched the Bee Gees during the disco era. His twin brother was Maurice Gibb (1949 ~ 2003). Robin died of cancer at age 62. He was born in Douglas, Isle of Man.
1945 ~ Diane Sawyer (né Lila Diane Sawyer), American television journalist. She was married to Mike Nichols. She was born in Glasgow, Kentucky.
1943 ~ Gianni Bernardinello (d. Nov. 9, 2020), Italian baker who helped those in need during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. He handed out free bred, pizzas and sweets from his bakery in Milan, Italy. He died of Covid-19 at age 76.
1935 ~ Donald Harrington (né Donald Douglas Harrington; d. Nov. 7, 2009), American novelist who created a surreal Ozark world. He was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He died at age 73 in Springdale, Arkansas.
1931 ~ Adolfo Calero (d. June 2, 2012), Nicaraguan who lead the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the largest contras rebel group opposing the Sandinista government. He died of complications of pneumonia and kidney disease at age 80. He was born and died in Managua, Nicaragua.
1927 ~ John Najarian (né John Sarkis Najarian; d. Sept. 1, 2020), American surgeon who tackled the toughest transplants. Prior to entering medical school, he was a college football star. He was born in Oakland, California. He died at age 92 in Stillwater, Minnesota.
1922 ~ Jim Wright (né James Claude Wright, Jr.; d. May 6, 2015), United States Speaker of the House of Representatives who resigned in 1989 in scandal amid allegations he was receiving kickbacks from business associates and lobbyists. He had served from January 1987 until his ouster. He was the congressional representative from Texas. He was 92 years old at the time of his death.
1917 ~ Gene Rayburn (né Eugen Peter Jeljenic; d. Nov. 29, 1999), American game show host. He hosted the Match Game for over 20 years. He died of congestive heart failure in Gloucester, Massachusetts 23 days before his 82ndbirthday.
1915 ~ Barbara Billingsley (née Barbara Lillian Combes; d. Oct. 16, 2010), American actress. She is best known for her role as June Cleaver on Leave It to Beaver. She died at age 94.
1912 ~ Lady Bird Johnson (née Claudia Alta Taylor; d. July 11, 2007), First Lady of the United States and wife of President Lyndon B. Johnson. She died at age 94.
1908 ~ Leo Aikman (né James Leo Aikman; d. Dec. 1, 1978), American journalist and historian. He died following heart surgery just 21 days before his 70th birthday.
1903 ~ Haldan Keffer Hartline (d. Mar. 17, 1983), American physiologist and recipient of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in analyzing the neurophysiological mechanisms of vision. He was born in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. He died at age 79 in Fallston, Maryland.
1901 ~ André Kostelanetz (d. Jan. 13, 1980), Russian-born American orchestra conductor and composer. He died of pneumonia 22 days after his 78th birthday.
1898 ~ Vladimir Fock (d. Dec. 27, 1974), Russian mathematician. He died 5 days after his 76th birthday.
1887 ~ Srinivasa Ramanujan (d. Apr. 26, 1920), Indian mathematician. He was the subject of the 2015 movie The Man Who Knew Infinity. He died at age 32 from tuberculosis.
1869 ~ Dmitri Egorov (d. Sept. 10, 1931), Russian mathematician. He died at age 61.
1869 ~ Edward Arlington Robinson (d. Apr. 6, 1935), American poet from Maine. He died of cancer at age 65.
1862 ~ Connie Mack, (né Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy; d. Feb. 8, 1956), American baseball manager and executive who helped organize Baseball’s American League. He was born in Massachusetts. He died at age 93.
1858 ~ Giacomo Puccini (d. Nov. 29, 1924), Italian composer best known for his opera Madame Butterfly. He died 23 days before his 66th birthday of complications from throat cancer.
1856 ~ Frank B. Kellogg (né Frank Billings Kellogg; d. Dec. 21, 1937), 45th United States Secretary of State. He served under Presidents Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover from March 1925 until March 1929. He was also the recipient of the 1929 Nobel Peace Prize. He died of pneumonia following a stroke just 1 day before his 81stbirthday.
1853 ~ Yevgraf Fyodorov (d. May 21, 1919), Russian mathematician. He died at age 65.
1823 ~ Thomas Wentworth Higginson (d. May 9, 1911), American abolitionist and Unitarian pastor. He was born and died in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He died at age 87.
1823 ~ Jean-Henri Fabre (né Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre; d. Oct. 11, 1815), French naturalist. He was fired from his teaching job because he allowed girls to attend his science classes. He died at age 91.
1819 ~ Pierre Ossian Bonnet (d. June 22, 1892), French mathematician. He died at age 72.
1789 ~ Levi Woodbury (d. Sept. 4, 1851), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was nominated to the High Court by President James K. Polk. He served on the Court from September 1845 until his death 6 years later in September 4, 1851. He replaced Joseph Story on the Court. He was succeeded by Benjamin Curtis. He had previously served as the 13th United States Secretary of the Treasury during the administrations of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. He also served as the 9th United States Secretary of the Navy from May 1831 until June 1834 during the Andrew Jackson administration. Prior to that, he had served as the 9th Governor of New Hampshire from June 1823 until June 1824. He was also a United States Senator from New Hampshire, a position he held from March 1841 until November 1845. He was born in Francetown, New Hampshire and died at age 61 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
1765 ~ Johann Friedrich Pfaff (d. Apr. 21, 1825), German mathematician. He died at age 59.
1696 ~ James Oglethorpe (d. June 30, 1784), English general and founder of the colony of Georgia in what would later become the United States. He died at age 88.
1639 ~ Jean Racine (né Jean-Baptiste Racine, d. Apr. 21, 1699), French dramatist. He died at age 59.
Events that Changed the World:
2019 ~ Chanukah began at sunset.
2010 ~ President Barack Obama (b. 1961) signed into law the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that banned homosexuals from serving openly in the United States military.
2001 ~ Richard Reid (b. 1973), a British member of al-Qaeda, attempted to blow up American Airlines Flight 63, by igniting explosives hidden in his shoes. He was arrested and pled guilty. He was sentenced to 3 consecutive life sentances plus 110 years without parole. His plan to blow-up the plan failed, but his actions changed airline regulations by requiring passengers to remove their shows when entering the boarding areas in airports.
1990 ~ Lech Wałęsa (b. 1943) was elected President of Poland. He served as President from December 1990 until December 1995.
1989 ~ Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate reopened after nearly 30 years, thereby ending the division between East and West Germany.
1989 ~ The authoritarian regime of Romania’s Communist ruler, Nicolae Ceauşescu (1918 ~ 1989), ended following a bloody uprising. Ion Iliescu (b. 1930) took over as President of Romania. Ceauşescu and his wife Elena tried to flee Bucharest in a helicopter. They were ultimately captured and executed 3 days later, on Christmas Day.
1984 ~ Bernard Goetz (b. 1947) shot and wounded four African-American alleged muggers on a subway train in Manhattan, New York. Goetz was later charged with attempted murder, but was acquitted of these charges in a jury trial.
1968 ~ During the Chinese Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong (1893 ~ 1976) issued the edict that all intellectual youth were required to go into the country to be reeducated by living in rural poverty.
1937 ~ The Lincoln Tunnel, connecting New Jersey with New York City, opened to traffic.
1894 ~ The Dreyfus affair began in France, in a case that triggered worldwide protests of anti-Semitism, after French naval officer Alfred Dreyfus (1859 ~ 1935) was wrongly convicted of treason.
1885 ~ Itō Hirobumi (1841 ~ 1909), a samurai, became the first Prime Minister of Japan.
1885 ~ The roller coaster was patented by LaMarcus Adna Thompson (1848 ~ 1919).
1864 ~ Savannah, Georgia fell to Union General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 ~ 1891), thereby concluding his self-proclaimed “March to the Sea” during the American Civil War.
1808 ~ Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 ~ 1827) conducted and performed at a concert in Vienna, Austria. It was the premiere of his Fifth Symphony.
1135 ~ Stephen of Blois (1092 ~ 1154) became King of England.
Good-Byes:
2018 ~ Simcha Rotem (né Szymon Rathajzer; b. Feb. 24, 1924), Polish-Israeli veteran. He was the last survivor of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising during World War II. He died in Jerusalem at age 94.
2014 ~ Joe Cocker (né John Robert Joseph Cocker, b. May 20, 1944), British singer-songwriter. He died of lung cancer at age 70.
1995 ~ Butterfly McQueen (née Thelma McQueen; b. Jan. 7, 1911), American actress, best known for her role as Prissy, Scarlett O’Hara’s maid in Gone with the Wind. She died 16 days before her 85th birthday.
1995 ~ James Meade (né James Edward Meade, b. June 23, 1907), British economist and recipient of the 1977 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He died at age 88.
1989 ~ Samuel Beckett (né Samuel Barclay Beckett; b. Apr. 13, 1906), Irish playwright best known for his play, Waiting for Godot. He was also the recipient of the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died at age 83.
1986 ~ Ida Cook (b. Aug. 24, 1904), British romantic novelist. She wrote under the pen name of Mary Burchell. She is also known as being an advocate for Jewish refugees during World War II. She and her sister, Mary Louise Cook (1901 ~ 1991) were honored as the Righteous Among the Nations in Israel. She died at age 82.
1979 ~ Darryl F. Zanuck (né Darryl Francis Zanuck, b. Sept. 5, 1902), American actor and movie director. He died of jaw cancer at age 77.
1966 ~ Lucy Burns (b. July 28, 1879), American social activist and leader in the women’s rights. She was a co-founder, along with Alice Paul, of the National Woman’s Party. She was born and died in Brooklyn, New York. She died at age 87.
1943 ~ Beatrix Potter (née Helen Beatrix Potter, b. July 28, 1866), English author and creator of the Peter Rabbitstories. She died of pneumonia and heart disease at age 77.
1940 ~ Nathanael West (né Nathan Weinstein, b. Oct. 17, 1903), American author. He was killed in a car accident at age 37.
1923 ~ Georg Luger (né Georg Johann Luger; b. Mar. 6, 1849), Austrian designer of the Luger pistol. He died at age 74 in Berlin, Germany.
1915 ~ Rose Bullard (née Rose Talbot; b. Apr. 16, 1864), American medical doctor and medical school professor. She taught gynecology at the University of Southern California. She died suddenly of complications following surgery from a dental infection. She was 51 years old.
1880 ~ George Eliot (née Mary Anne Evans; b. Nov. 22, 1819), English writer, best known for her novels, Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner. She died a month after her 61st birthday.
1867 ~ Jean-Victor Poncelet (b. July 1, 1788), French mathematician. He died at age 79.
1828 ~ Rachel Jackson (née Rachel Donelson; b. June 15, 1767), wife of President Andrew Jackson. She died at age 61 in Nashville, Tennessee. She died after Jackson had been elected President, but before his inauguration, hence, she never served as First Lady.
1809 ~ William Cooper (b. Dec. 2, 1754), American politician and founder of Cooperstown, New York. He was also a member of the United States House of Representatives from New York State. He was the father of author James Fenimore Cooper. He died 20 days after his 55th birthday in Albany, New York.
1767 ~ John Newbery (b. July 9, 1713), English publisher known as the Father of Children’s Literature. The Newbery Award for children’s literature is named after him. He died at age 54.
1660 ~ André Tacquet (b. June 23, 1612), Flemish mathematician. He died at age 48.
1115 ~ Olaf Magnusson (b. 1099), King of Norway. The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been 17 when he died of an illness.
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