Birthdays:
1967 ~ David Berman (né David Cloud Berman; d. Aug. 7, 2019), American musician, poet and cartoonist. He is best known for his work with the indie-rock band the Silver Jews. He was born in Williamsburg, Virginia. He died by suicide at age 52 in Brooklyn, New York.
1965 ~ Julia Ormond (née Julia Karin Ormond), English actress. She was born in Epsom, United Kingdom.
1964 ~ Dot-Marie Jones (née Dorothy-Marie Jones), American actress and athlete. She is best known for her role as Coach Beiste on Glee. She was born in Turlock, California.
1963 ~ Dave Foley (né David Scott Foley), Canadian comedian and actor. He was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
1958 ~ Andy Borowitz, American writer, satirist, and comedian. He was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio.
1958 ~ Matt Frewer (né Matthew George Frewer), Canadian-American actor. He is best known for portraying Max Headroom. He was born in Washington, D.C.
1945 ~ Richard R. Schrock (né Richard Royce Schrock), American chemist and recipient of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. He was born in Berne, Indiana.
1943 ~ Doris Kearns Goodwin (né Doris Helen Kearns), American historian and writer. She was born in New York, New York.
1940 ~ Brian Josephson (né Brian David Josephson), Welsh physicist and recipient of the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was born in Cardiff, Wales.
1940 ~ Gao Xingjian, Chinese-born novelist and recipient of the 2000 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was born in Ganzhou, China.
1937 ~ Dyan Cannon (née Samille Diane Friesen), American actress. She was also Cary Grant’s 4th wife. She was born in Tacoma, Washington.
1935 ~ Floyd Patterson (d. May 11, 2006), American heavyweight boxing champion. He died at age 71.
1932 ~ Shoshichi Kobayashi (d. Aug. 29, 2012), Japanese mathematician. He was 80 years old.
1930 ~ Don Shula (né Donald Francis Shula; d. May 4, 2020), American NFL football player and coach who kept on winning. He was born in Grand River, Ohio. He died at age 90 in Indian Creek, Florida.
1920 ~ William Colby (né William Egan Colby; d. Apr. 27, 1996), 10th Director of the Central Intelligence. He served under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford from September 1973 until January 1996. He died in what appeared to be a boating accident. He took off on a canoe on April 27, 1996. His body was discovered on May 6, 1996. Although the coroner determined that he died drowning after having suffered a stroke or heart attack, there has been speculation that his death may have been due to foul play or suicide. He was 76 years old.
1914 ~ Herman Franks (né Herman Louis Franks; d. Mar. 30, 2009), American baseball catcher and manager. He was born in Price, Utah. He died at 95 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
1902 ~ John A. McCone (né John Alexander McCone; d. Feb. 14, 1991), 6th Director of the Central Intelligence. He served under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from November 1961 until April 1965. He died at age 89.
1896 ~ Everett Dirksen (né Everett McKinley Dirksen; d. Sept. 7, 1969), United States Senator from Illinois. He died at age 73.
1858 ~ Carter Glass (d. May 28, 1946), 47th United States Secretary of the Treasury. He served during President Woodrow Wilson’s term, from December 1918 until February 1920. He subsequently became a United States Senator from Virginia from February 1920 until his death in May 1946. He died at age 88.
1838 ~ General Tom Thumb (né Charles Sherwood Stratton; d. July 15, 1883), American circus performer. He was a dwarf who achieved fame as a performer in the P.T. Barnum circus. He was born and died in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He died at age 45.
1809 ~ Louis Braille (d. Jan. 6, 1852), French teacher of the blind and inventor of the Braille system of printing and writing for the blind. An accident at age 3, followed by a serious infection, left him blind. He died, most likely of tuberculosis, 2 days after his 43rd birthday.
1785 ~ Jacob Grimm (né Jacob Ludwig Carl Grimm; b. Sept. 20, 1863), German attorney and author. He is best known for his work along with his brother, Wilhelm (1786 ~ 1859), for compiling the Grimm Fairy Tales. He died at age 78.
1772 ~ Caesar Augustus Rodney (d. June 10, 1824), 6th United States Attorney General. He served under Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison from January 1807 until December 1811. He subsequently became a United States Senator from Delaware from January 1882 until January 1823. He was born in Dover, Delaware, He died at age 52 in Buenos Aries, Argentina while serving as the United States Minister to Argentina.
1643 ~ Sir Isaac Newton (d. Mar. 31, 1727), English mathematician, astronomer, physicist, philosopher and natural scientist. He is credited with inventing a branch of mathematics called calculus. Under the old calendar (the Julian calendar), Newton’s birthdate would fall on December 25, 1642, so that date is sometime listed as his actual birthdate. He is believed to have been 84 at the time of his death.
1567 ~ François d’Aguilon (d. Mar. 20, 1617), Belgian Jesuit priest and mathematician. He was born in Brussels, Belgium. He died at age 50 in Antwerp, Belgium.
1077 ~ Emperor Zhezong (d. Feb. 23, 1100), Chinese Emperor of the Song dynasty. He ruled from April 1085 until his death 15 years later. He was of the House of Zhezong. He died at age 24.
Events that Changed the World:
2010 ~ The tallest man-made structure at the time, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, opened. It is 2,717 feet high.
2007 ~ Nancy Peliso (b. 1940) was elected the first female Speaker of the United States House of Representatives by a vote of her peers. She served in that position from January 2007 until January 2011. She served a 2nd term as Speaker of the House beginning in January 2019.
2006 ~ Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (1928 ~ 2014) suffered a second and serious stroke. Ehud Omert (b. 1945) became acting Prime Minister. Sharon remained in a vegetative state until his death on just over 5 years later, on January 11, 2014.
1999 ~ The Euro became legal tender in many countries in Europe.
1999 ~ Former professional wrestler Jesse Ventura (b. 1951) was sworn in as Governor of Minnesota. He served as Governor until January 2003.
1995 ~ The Republicans gained control of the United States Congress for the first time in 40 years.
1987 ~ An Amtrak train traveling to Boston, Massachusetts from Washington, D.C., collided with Conrail engines in Maryland. Sixteen people were killed in the accident.
1965 ~ United States President Lyndon Johnson (1908 ~ 1973) announced his “Great Society” during his State of the Union address.
1948 ~ Burma gained its independence from the United Kingdom.
1903 ~ Topsy the Elephant (1875 ~ 1903) was electrocuted by its owners at Coney Island because the elephant no longer had a handler and was considered dangerous. Thomas Edison’s movie company filmed the electrocution. It was a gruesome death.
1896 ~ Utah became the 45th State of the Union.
1865 ~ The New York Stock Exchange opened its first permanent headquarters near Wall Street in New York City.
1847 ~ Samuel Colt (1814 ~ 1862) sold his first colt pistols to the United States government.
1762 ~ Great Britain entered the Seven Years’ War when it declared war on Spain.
1649 ~ The English Rump Parliament voted to hold a trial of King Charles I (1600 ~ 1949), in furtherance of the English Civil War. He would be found guilty of high treason and executed.
1642 ~ King Charles I of England (1600 ~ 1649) sent his soldiers to arrest members of Parliament, thus instigating England’s Civil War.
871 ~ Æthedred of Wessex (847 ~ 871) was defeated by an invading Danish army during the Battle of Reading.
Good-Byes:
2019 ~ Eugeniu Iordachescu (b. Nov. 8, 1929), Romanian civil engineer who rolled Romanian churches to safety. When the Communist Party came into Romania, it intended to demolish ancient churches in the country. Eugeniu Iordachescu persuaded the government to relocate these churches. He died of a heart attack at age 89.
2019 ~ Harold Brown (b. Sept. 19, 1927), 14th United States Secretary of Defense. He served from January 1977 until January 1981 during the Jimmy Carter Administration. He also served as the 8th United States Secretary of the Air Force from October 1965 until Feb. 1969 during the Lyndon Johnson administration. He was born in New York, New York. He died at age 91 in Rancho Santa Fe, California.
2018 ~ Aharon Appelfeld (b. Feb. 16, 1932), Israeli author and Holocaust survivor. He was born in Bukovina, Romania. He died at age 85 in Petah Tikva, Israel.
2018 ~ Brendan Byrne (né Brendan Thomas Bryne; b. Apr. 1, 1924), 47th Governor of New Jersey. He served as Governor from January 1974 through January 1982. He was born in West Orange, New Jersey. He died at age 93 in Livingston, New Jersey.
2012 ~ Eve Arnold (née Eve Cohen; b. Apr. 21, 1912), American photojournalist. She was the master photographer of telling portraits. She died at age 99.
2010 ~ Tsutomu Yamaguchi (b. Mar. 16, 1916), Japanese survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings during World War II. He was an engineer. He died of stomach cancer at age 93.
2005 ~ Frank Harary (b. Mar. 11, 1921), American mathematician. He specialized in graph theory. He died at age 83.
2005 ~ Robert L. Heilbroner (b. Mar. 24, 1919), American economics and historian of economic thought. He was the educator who made economics interesting. He died at age 84.
2004 ~ Joan Aiken (née Joan Delano Aiken; b. Sept. 4, 1924), English author of gothic novels. She died at age 79.
2001 ~ Les Brown, Sr. (né Lester Raymond Brown; b. Mar. 14, 1912), American saxophonist and bandleader. He died at age 88.
1965 ~ T.S. Eliot (né Thomas Stearns Eliot; b. Sept. 26, 1888), American-born British poet and recipient of the 1948 Nobel Prize for Literature. He died of emphysema at age 76.
1961 ~ Erwin Schrödinger (né Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger; b. Aug. 12, 1887), Austrian physicist and recipient of the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics. He is best known for his thought experiment, or paradox, of Schrödinger’s cat, which illustrated the problem of an interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. Under this theory, a cat is randomly put into a box where it being both alive and dead are possibilities. He died at age 73.
1960 ~ Albert Camus (b. Nov. 7, 1913), Algerian-born French Existentialist writer and philosopher. He was the recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was killed in a car accident at age 46.
1958 ~ Archie Alexander (né Archie Alphonso Alexander; b. May 14, 1888), African-American engineer and mathematician. In 1954, he was appointed to serve as the Governor of the United States Virgin Islands. He served in that position from 1954 until 1955. He was born in Ottumwa, Iowa. He died at age 69 in Des Moines, Iowa.
1941 ~ Henri Bergson (né Henri-Louis Bergson; b. Oct. 18, 1859), French philosopher and recipient of the 1927 Nobel Prize in Literature. He died in occupied France of bronchitis at age 81.
1931 ~ Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife (b. Feb. 20, 1867). She was the eldest daughter of King Edward VII (1841 ~ 1910). She was married to Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife (1849 ~ 1912). She died at age 63.
1926 ~ Mary Eliza Mahoney (b. May 7, 1845), African-American nurse and social activist. She was the first African-American to train and work as a professional nurse. She was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts. She died at age 80 in Boston, Massachusetts.
1904 ~ Anna Winlock (b. Sept. 15, 1857), American astronomer. She was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is best remembered for her calculations and studies of asteroids. She died suddenly at age 47.
1903 ~ Topsy (b. 1875), the circus elephant that was killed by electrocution. The elephant had killed three people, including its abusive trainer, thus the decision was made to put the animal down. Electrocution was new technology and was deemed to be the most humane.
1877 ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt (b. May 27, 1794), American industrialist and philanthropist. He was known as Commodore Vanderbilt. He was the founder of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He died at age 82.
1849 ~ Franz Xaver Gabelsberger (b. Feb. 9, 1789), German inventor of stenography. He was born and died in Munich, Germany. He died about a month before his 60th birthday.
1821 ~ Elizabeth Ann Seton (née Elizabeth Ann Bayley; b. Aug. 28, 1774), American Catholic nun and American saint. She was canonized as a saint in 1975. She died at age 46 of tuberculosis.
1786 ~ Moses Mendelssohn (b. Sept. 6, 1729), German-Jewish philosopher. He died at age 56.
1761 ~ Stephen Hales (b. Sept. 17, 1677), English clergyman, physiologist and chemist. He invented the Forceps for use in medical procedures. He is also the first person known to measure blood pressure. He died at age 83.
1752 ~ Gabriel Cramer (b. July 31, 1704), Swiss mathematician. He died at age 47.
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