Tuesday, February 16, 2021

February 16

Birthdays:

 

1971 ~ Michael Avenatti (né Michael John Avenatti), American attorney.  He is best known for representing Stormy Daniels, a porn star, in her case against President Donald Trump.  In 2019, he was indicted on multiple charges of tax fraud and his license to practice law was suspended.  In February 2020, he was found guilty on three counts of trying to extort Nike.  He was born in Sacramento, California.

 

1959 ~ John McEnroe (né John Patrick McEnroe, Jr.), American professional tennis player.  He was born in Wiesbaden, Germany.

 

1958 ~ Ice-T (né Tracy Lauren Marrow), American rapper and actor.  He is best known for his role as Detective Odafin Tutuola on the television series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.  He was born in Newark, New Jersey.

 

1957 ~ LeVar Burton (né Levardis Robert Martyn Burton, Jr.), American actor best known for his portrayal of Kunta Kinte in the television miniseries Roots.  He was born in Landstuhl, Germany.

 

1954 ~ Margaux Hemingway (née Margaux Louise Hemingway, d. July 1, 1996), American actress and model.  She was the granddaughter of writer Ernest Hemingway.  She committed suicide at age 42.

 

1941 ~ Kim Jong-il (d. Dec. 17, 2011), 2nd Supreme Leader of North Korea.  He died at age 70.

 

1935 ~ Sonny Bono (né Salvatore Phillip Bono; d. Jan. 5, 1998), American singer and half of the duo Sonny and Cher.  In his later life, he became a politician.  He was killed in a freak skiing accident.  He was 62 years old.

 

1935 ~ Stephen Gaskin (d. July 1, 2014), American hippy visionary who founded a lasting commune, known as The Farm.  He died at age 79.

 

1932 ~ Aharon Appelfeld (d. Jan. 4, 2018), Israeli author and Holocaust survivor.  He died at age 85.

 

1921 ~ Esther Bubley (d. Mar. 16, 1998), American photographer who specialized in photographs of everyday life in America.  She died of cancer a month after her 77th birthday.

 

1921 ~ Hua Guofeng (d. Aug. 20, 2008), Chinese premiere who ushered in the post-Mao era.  He was the 6thChairman of the Communist Party of China from October 1976 until June 28, 1981.  He died at age 87.

 

1920 ~ Anna Mae Hays (née Anna Mae Violet McCabe; d. Jan. 7, 2018), American army nurse who broke the military’s brass ceiling.  She was the first woman to be promoted to the rank of General.  She died of a heart attack at age 97.

 

1918 ~ Patty Andrews (né Patricia Marie Andrews; d. Jan. 30, 2013), last surviving member of the Andrews Sisters vocal trio.  She died 17 days before her 95th birthday.

 

1909 ~ Hugh Beaumont (né Eugene Hugh Beaumont; d. May 14, 1982), American actor best known for his portrayal of Ward Cleaver on the sit-com Leave It to Beaver, which ran from 1957- 1963.  He died of a heart attack at age 73 while visiting his son in Germany.

 

1909 ~ Richard McDonald (d. July 14, 1998), American businessman and co-founder along with his brother Maurice James McDonald (1902 ~ 1971) of McDonald’s.  Richard was born and died in New Hampshire.  He was 89 at the time of his death.  The story of the McDonald’s origin was depicted in the 2016 movie The Founder.

 

1903 ~ Edgar Bergen (né Edgar John Berggren; b. Sept. 30, 1978), American actor and ventriloquist.  He was the father of actress Candice Bergen.  He died at age 75.

 

1893 ~ Katharine Cornell (d. June 9, 1974), American actress.  She was born in Berlin, Germany.  She died in Tisbury, Massachusetts at age 81.

 

1843 ~ Henry Leland (né Henry Martyn Leland; d. Mar. 26, 1832), American inventor and automotive entrepreneur.  He founded the luxury automobiles of Cadillac and Lincoln.  He was born in Vermont.  He died at age 89.

 

1838 ~ Henry Adams (né Henry Brooks Adams; d. Mar. 27, 1918), American historian and novelist.  He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  He died at age 80.

 

1822 ~ Sir Francis Galton (d. Jan. 17, 1911), British polymath, geographer, inventor, and meteorologist.  He died a month before his 89th birthday.

 

1812 ~ Henry Wilson (né Jeremiah Jones Colbath; d. Nov. 22, 1875), Vice President of the United States.  He served as President Ulysses S. Grant’s second Vice President from March 1873 until his death in November 1875.  He died in Office.  He had previously served as a United States Senator from Massachusetts from January 1885 until March 1973.  He was born in Farmington, New Hampshire.  When he was 21, he legally changed his name to Henry Wilson.  He died of a stroke at age 63.

 

1786 ~ Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (d. June 23, 1859).  She was the daughter of Paul I, Tsar of Russia.   She was of the House of Romanov.  She died at age 73.

 

1698 ~ Pierre Bouguer (d. Aug. 15, 1758), French mathematician.  He died at age 60.

 

1514 ~ Rheticus (né Georg Joachim de Porris; d. Dec. 4, 1576), Austrian mathematician and astronomer.  He died at age 60.

 

1304 ~ Jayaatu Khan Tugh Temür (d. Sept. 2, 1332), Chinese Emperor of the Yuan Dynasty.  He first ruled from October 1328 until April 1329.  He abdicated in favor of his brother, Khutughtu Khan Kusala, but after his brother’s death a few months later, he retook the throne and ruled until his death in September 1332.  He died at age 28.

 

1032 ~ Emperor Yingzong of Song (d. Jan. 25, 1067), 5th Emperor of the Song Dynasty.  He was emperor from May 1063 until his death 4 years later.  He died 22 days before his 35th birthday.

 

Events that Changed the World:


2021 ~ Mardi Gras.

 

2015 ~ President’s Day observed in the United States.

 

2010 ~ Mardi Gras.

 

2006 ~ The United States Army decommissioned the last Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH).

 

2005 ~ The Kyoto Protocol, which set binging obligations on industrialized countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, became effective.

 

1987 ~ The trial of accused Nazi guard John Demjanjuk (1920 ~ 2012), known as Ivan the Terrible at the Treblinka extermination camp, began in Jerusalem, Israel.

 

1985 ~ Hezbollah was founded.

 

1968 ~ The first 911 emergency telephone system went into operation.  It was in Haleyville, Alabama.

 

1959 ~ Fidel Castro (1926 ~ 2016) was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba following the overthrowing of Fulgencio Batista (1901 ~ 1973) on January 1st.

 

1937 ~ Wallace Carothers (1898 ~ 1937) received a United States Patent for nylon.

 

1923 ~ Howard Carter (1874 ~ 1939) unsealed the burial chamber of the Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

 

1874 ~ The Silver Dollar became legal tender in the United States.

 

1852 ~ The Studebaker Brothers wagon company was established.  This was a precursor of the automobile manufacturer.

 

1742 ~ Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington (1673 ~ 1743), became the British Prime Minister.  He is considered to be Britain’s second Prime Minister, after Sir Robert Walpole.  Compton served in this capacity for just a little over a year.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been age 70 at the time of his death.

 

Good-Byes:

 

2019 ~ Theodore Rubin (né Theodore Isaac Rubin; b. Apr. 11, 1923), American psychotherapist and author.  He died at age 95.

 

2018 ~ Jim Bridwell (b. July 29, 1944), American renegade rock climber who conquered Yosemite.  He died at age 73 from complications of hepatitis, which he acquired from a tattoo in the 1980s.

 

2016 ~ Boutros Boutros-Ghali (b. Nov. 14, 1922), Egyptian politician and diplomat.  He served as the 6th Secretary General of the United Nations.  He died at age 93.

 

2015 ~ Lesley Gore (né Lesley Sue Goldstein; b. May 2, 1946), American feminist icon and singer best known for her song, It’s My Party.  She died of lung cancer at age 68.

 

2012 ~ Anthony Shadid (b. Sept. 26, 1968), American journalist and reporter who captured the Middle East.  He died of an acute asthma attack while trying to leave war-torn Syria.  He was 43 years old.

 

2012 ~ Gary Carter (né Gary Edmund Carter; b. Apr. 8, 1954), American Hall of Famer who never lost his joy of baseball.  His nickname was The Kid.  He died of cancer at age 57.

 

2011 ~ Santi Santamaria (né Jaume Santamaria i Puig; b. July 26, 1957), Spanish Catalan chef who denigrated cooking’s avant-garde.  He died at age 53 of a heart attack.

 

2009 ~ Konrad Danneberg (b. Aug. 5, 1912), German-born V-2 rocketeer who later worked for NASA.  He was on of the last of the 118 German engineers who came to the United States with Nazi rocket wizard Werner von Braun.  He had been a member of the Nazi party, which he joined in 1932.  He died at age 96.

 

2001 ~ William Masters (né William Howell Masters; b. Dec. 27, 1915), American gynecologist and pioneer in human sexuality, along with his wife Virginia E. Johnson (1925 ~ 2013).  He died of Parkinson’s disease at age 85.

 

1998 ~ Mary Amdur (née Mary Ochsenhirt; b. Feb. 18, 1921), American toxicologist and public health researcher.  The focus of her research was on air pollution.  She died of a heart attack 2 days before her 77th birthday.

 

1997 ~ Chien-Shiung Wu (b. May 31, 1912), Chinese-American physicist and recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics.  She made significant advances in nuclear physics.  She also worked on the Manhattan Project.  She died at age 84.

 

1996 ~ Pat Brown (né Edmund Gerald Brown, Sr.; d. Apr. 21, 1905), 32nd Governor of California.  He served as Governor from January 1959 until January 1967.  He died at age 90.

 

1990 ~ Keith Haring (né Keith Allen Haring; b. May 4, 1958), American graphical artist.  He died of AIDS at age 31.

 

1977 ~ Rózsa Péter (née Rózsa Politzer; b. Feb. 17, 1905), Hungarian mathematician.  She is known as the Mother of Recursion Theory.  She died 1 day before her 72nd birthday.

 

1976 ~ Lyudmila Kedysh (b. Mar. 12, 1904), Russian mathematician best known for her work in set theory and geometric topology.  She died less than a month before her 72nd birthday.

 

1970 ~ Francis Peyton Rous (b. Oct. 5, 1879), American physician and virologist.  He was the recipient of the 1966 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for is research in the discovery of the role some viruses have in the transmission of certain types of cancer.  He died at age 90.

 

1967 ~ Gladys Davis (née Gladys Rockmore; b. May 11, 1901), American artist and impressionist painter.  She was born and died in New York, New York.  She died at age 65.

 

1932 ~ Ferdinand Buisson (né Ferdinand Édouard Buisson; b. Dec. 20, 1841), French pacifist and recipient of the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize.  He died at age 90.

 

1924 ~ Henry Bacon (b. Nov. 28, 1866), American architect who designed the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  He died of cancer at age 57.

 

1907 ~ Giosuè Carducci (né Giosuè Alessandro Guiseppe Carducci, b. July 27, 1835), Italian poet and recipient of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 71.

 

1899 ~ Félix Faure (né Félix François Faure; b. Jan. 30, 1841), President of France.  He served as President from January 1895 until his death in February 1899.  He died in Office of apoplexy just 17 days after his 58th birthday.

 

1862 ~ William Pennington (b. May 4, 1796), American politician.  He served as the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives from Feb. 1860 until March 1861.  He had previously served as the Governor of New Jersey from October 1837 until October 1843.  He died at age 65.

 

1531 ~ Johannes Stöffler (b. Dec. 10, 1452), German mathematician.  He died at age 88.

 

1281 ~ Gertrude of Hohenburg (b. 1225), Queen consort of Germany and wife of Rudolf I of Germany.  The exact date of her birth is not known.

 

1279 ~ Afonso III, King of Portugal (b. May 5, 1210).  He reigned Portugal from January 1248 until his death in February 1279.  He died at age 68.

 

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