Monday, March 8, 2021

March 8

International Women’s Day

 

Birthdays:

 

1960 ~ Jeffrey Eugenides (né Jeffrey Kent Eugenides), American author.  He is best known for his novels The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex.  He was born in Detroit, Michigan.

 

1959 ~ Lester Holt (né Lester Don Holt, Jr.), African-American newscaster, journalist and anchor of the NBC Evening News.  He was born in San Francisco, California.

 

1959 ~ Aiden Quinn, American actor.  He was born in Chicago, Illinois.

 

1953 ~ Jim Rice (né James Edward Rice), American baseball player who had a long career with the Boston Red Sox.  He was born in Anderson, South Carolina.

 

1948 ~ Jonathan Sacks, Baron Sacks (né Jonathan Henry Sacks; d. Nov. 7, 2020), Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth of England.  He was born in London, England.  He died of cancer in London, England at age 72.

 

1947 ~ Michael S. Hart (né Michael Stern Hart; d. Sept. 6, 2011), American digital rebel who invented the e-book.  He was the founder of Project Gutenberg.  He died of a heart attack at age 64.

 

1947 ~ Carole Bayer Sager (né Carole Bayer), American singer-songwriter.  She was born in Manhattan, New York.

 

1945 ~ Micky Dolenz (né George Michael Dolenz, Jr.), American musician and member of The Monkees.  He was born in Los Angeles, California.

 

1945 ~ Sylvia Margaret Wiegand, American mathematician.  She was born in Cape Town, South Africa.

 

1943 ~ Lynn Redgrave (née Lynn Rachel Redgrave; d. May 2, 2010), the British pedigreed actress who had the common touch.  She died at age 67 of breast cancer.

 

1929 ~ Nicodeme Scarfo (d. Jan. 13, 2017), American ruthless mafia don who ruled Philadelphia.  He was known as Little Nicky.  In 1988, he was convicted on racketeering and murder charges.  He was born in Brooklyn, New York.  He was serving a 55-year sentence when he died at age 87 in the Federal Medical Center in Butner, North Carolina.

 

1924 ~ Georges Charpak (né Jerzy Charpak, d. Sept. 29, 2010), Ukrainain-born physicist and recipient of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 86.

 

1922 ~ Cyd Charisse (née Tula Ellice Finklea; d. June 17, 2008), Leggy American dancer and actress who floated across the silver screen.  She died of a heart attack at age 86.

 

1922 ~ Ralph Baer (né Rudolf Heinrich Baer; d. Dec. 6, 2014), German-born American engineer who became a video game pioneer.  He was known as the Father of Video Games.  His family left Germany to escape from the Holocaust.  He died at age 92 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

 

1921 ~ Alan Hale, Jr. (né Alan Hale MacKahan; d. Jan. 2, 1990), American actor best known for his role as the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island.  He died of thymus cancer at age 68.

 

1912 ~ Meldrim Thomson, Jr. (d. Apr. 19, 2001), 73rd Governor of New Hampshire.  He was Governor from January 1973 until January 1979.  He died at age 89 in Orford, New Hampshire.

 

1912 ~ Preston Smith (né Preston Ernest Smith; d. Oct. 18, 2003), 40th Governor of Texas.  He served as Governor from January 1969 until January 1973.  He died at age 91.

 

1909 ~ Beatrice Shilling (d. Nov. 18, 1990), British engineer and motorcycle racer.  She invented the “Miss Shilling's orifice” which helped prevent engines flooding in fighter aircraft during World War I.  She died at age 81.

 

1886 ~ Edward Calvin Kendall (d. May 4, 1972), American chemist and recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work with hormones of the adrenal glands.  He died at age 86.

 

1879 ~ Otto Hahn (d. July 28, 1968), German chemist and recipient of the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He opposed the actions of the Nazis.  He died at age 89.

 

1859 ~ Kenneth Grahame (d. July 6, 1932), Scottish author, best known for his children’s novel, The Wind in the Willows.  He died at age 73.

 

1841 ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., (d. Mar. 6, 1935), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Theodore Roosevelt.  He served on the Court from December 1902 until January 1932.  He replaced Horace Gray on the Court.  He was succeeded by Benjaman Cardozo.  He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  He died in Washington, D.C.  He died 2 days before his 94th birthday.

 

1839 ~ Josephine Cochrane (née Josephine Garis; d. Aug. 3, 1913), American inventor who produced the first commercially successful dishwasher.  She was born in Ohio.  She died of exhaustion in Chicago, Illinois at age 74.

 

1822 ~ Ignacy Łukasiewicz (né Jan Józef Ignacy Łukasiewicz; d. Jan. 7, 1882), Polish inventor.  He invented the Kerosene lamp.  He died of pneumonia at age 59.

 

1799 ~ Simon Cameron (d. June 26, 1889), 26th United States Secretary of War.  He served under President Abraham Lincoln from March 1861 until January 1862.  He subsequently served as a United States Senator from Pennsylvania from March 1867 until March 1877.  He died at age 90.

 

1783 ~ Hannah Van Buren (née Hannah Hoes; d. Feb. 5, 1819), wife of United States President Martin Van Buren.  Even though she died before her husband became president, she is sometimes considered to be a First Lady.  She died of tuberculosis at about a month before her 36th birthday.

 

1748 ~ William V, Prince of Orange (d. Apr. 9, 1806).  He died a month after his 58th birthday.

 

1702 ~ Anne Bonny (d. Apr. 22, 1782), Irish-American pirate.  The actual dates of her birth and death are unknown, but she is believed to have been born on or about March 8.

 

1495 ~ John of God (d. Mar. 8, 1550), Portuguese priest and saint.  He died on his 55th birthday.

 

1293 ~ Beatrice of Castile (d. Oct. 25, 1359), Queen consort of Portugal and wife of Afonso IV.  She was of the Castilian House of Ivrea.  She was the daughter of Sancho IV of Castile and Maria de Molina.  She died at 66.

 

Events that Changed the World:

 

2014 ~ Malaysian Flight 370 disappeared in the Indian Ocean on a flight to Australia.  The plane was believed to have crashed somewhere in the Indian Ocean.  All 239 people aboard were killed and their remains never found.

 

1978 ~ The BBC Radio 4 began broadcasting Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

 

1974 ~ The Charles de Gaulle Airport opened in Paris, France.

 

1971 ~ In what was billed as the Fight of the Century, a boxing match between Joe Frazier (1944 ~ 2011) and Muhammad Ali (1942 ~ 2016) was held in Madison Square Garden in New York City.  Frazier won the fight in 15 rounds.

 

1957 ~ The Suez Canal was reopened following the Suez Crisis.

 

1936 ~ The Daytona Beach Road Course held its first oval stock car race.

 

1924 ~ One Hundred Seventy-Two coal miners were killed in a mining disaster in Castle Gate, Utah.

 

1917 ~ International Women’s Day protests in St. Petersburg, Russia marked the beginning of the February Revolution.  Russia was still using the Julian calendar on this date, hence the term the February Revolution.

 

1911 ~ Clara Zetkin (1857 ~ 1933), the leader of the Women’s Office for the Social Democratic Party in Germany, instituted International Women’s Day in Copenhagen, Denmark.

 

1910 ~ Raymonde de Laroche (1882 ~ 1919) of France became the first woman to be granted a pilot’s license to fly an airplane.  She was killed at age 36 in a plane crash on July 18, 1919.

 

1884 ~ Susan B. Anthony (1820 ~ 1906) addressed the United States House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee arguing for the right of women to vote.

 

1844 ~ King Oscar I (1799 ~ 1859) became king of Sweden and Norway.  He ruled until his death 15 years later.

 

1817 ~ The New York Stock Exchange was founded.

 

1702 ~ Queen Anne (1665 ~ 1714), became Queen regnant of England, Scotland, and Ireland.

 

1681 ~ Johannes Kepler (1571 ~ 1630) discovered the third law of planetary motion.

 

Good-Byes:

 

2020 ~ Max von Sydow (né Carl Adolf von Sydow; b. Apr. 10, 1929), Swedish actor who played chess with Death.  He is best known for his role as a disillusioned medieval knight who challenged Death to a game of chess in Ingmar Bergman’s 1957 movie The Seventh Seal.  He was born in Lund, Sweden.  He died about a month before his 91stbirthday in Provence, France.

 

2018 ~ Sir John Sulston (né John Edward Sulston; b. Mar. 27, 1942), British chemist and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He was born in Cambridge, United Kingdom.  He died in Buckinghamshire, England of stomach cancer 21 days before his 76th birthday.

 

2018 ~ Togo D. West, Jr. (né Togo Dennis West, Jr.; b. June 821 1942), 3rd United States Secretary of Veteran Affairs.  He served under President Bill Clinton from May 1998 until July 2000.  He was the 2nd African-American to be Secretary of Veteran Affairs.  He was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  He died of a heart attack at age 78 while on a cruise between Barbados and Puerto Rico.

 

2017 ~ George Andrew Olah (né Oláh György; b. May 22, 1927), Hungarian chemist and recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He was born in Budapest, Hungary.  He died in Beverly Hills, California.  He died at age 89.

 

2017 ~ Lou Duva (né Louis Duva; b. May 28, 1922), American scrappy boxing manager who trained champs.  He managed such boxing champions as Evander Holyfield and Darren van Horn over a 7-decade career.  He was born in New York, New York.  He died at age 94 in Paterson, New Jersey.

 

2016 ~ Sir George Martin (né George Henry Martin; b. Jan. 3, 1926), British experimental recording producer who guided the Beatles.  He was sometimes referred to as the Fifth Beatle because of his involvement in each of the Beatles albums.  He died at age 90.

 

2014 ~ Gerard Mortier, Baron Mortier (né Gerard Alfons August Mortier; b. Nov. 25, 1943), Belgium opera director who defied the elite.  He was born in Ghent, Belgium.  He died of pancreatic cancer at age 70 in Brussels, Belgium.

 

2013 ~ Margaret K. Butler (né Margaret Kampschaefer Butler; b. Mar. 27, 1924), American mathematician and computer programmer.  She was born in Evansville, Indiana.  She died 19 days before her 89th birthday.

 

2013 ~ Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin (b. July 10, 1922), German aristocrat who plotted to kill Hitler.  He was involved in a suicide plot to kill Hitler.  The plot failed and he was sent to a concentration camp for the duration of the war.  He died at age 90.

 

2004 ~ Robert Pastorelli (né Robert Joseph Pastorelli; b. June 21, 1954), American actor best known for his role as Eldon on Murphy Brown.  He was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  He died in Hollywood Hills, California of a drug overdose that may have been a suicide.  He was 49 years old.

 

1999 ~ Peggy Cass (née Mary Margaret Cass; b. May 21, 1924), American comedian and game show panelist.  She was a regular on To Tell the Truth.  She was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  She died of heart failure at age 74.

 

1999 ~ Joe DiMaggio (né Joseph Paul DiMaggio; b. Nov. 25, 1914), American baseball player and husband of Marilyn Monroe.  He died at age 84.

 

1993 ~ Billy Eckstein (né William Clarence Eckstein; b. July 8, 1914), African-American trumpet player and singer.  He died at age 78.

 

1980 ~ Max Mideinger (b. Dec. 24, 1910), Swiss typeface designer best known for creating the Helvetica typeface in 1957.  He died at age 69.

 

1971 ~ Harold Lloyd, Sr. (né Harold Clayton Lloyd; b. Apr. 20, 1893), American silent screen actor.  He died of prostate cancer at age 77.

 

1941 ~ Sherwood Anderson (b. Sept. 13, 1876), American author.  He is best known for his novel Winesburg, Ohio.  He died at age 64 of peritonitis while on a cruise in Panama.

 

1930 ~ Edward Terry Sanford (b. July 23, 1865), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He served on the High Court from January 1923 until his death on this date 7 years later.  He was nominated to the Court by President Warren Harding.  He replaced Mahlon Pitney on the Court.  He was succeeded by Owen Roberts.  He died of uremic poisoning following a tooth extraction.  He was 64 years old.

 

1930 ~ William Howard Taft (b. Sept. 15, 1857), 27th President of the United States and 10th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He served as President from March 1909 until March 1913.  He had previously served as the 42nd United States Secretary of War, from February 1904 until June 1908.  Following his term as President, he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Warren Harding.  He served on the Court from July 1921 until Feb. 1930.  He replaced Edward Douglass White on the Court.  He was succeeded by Charles Evans Hughes as Chief Justice.  He died about a month after his retirement from the High Court.  He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio.  He died in Washington, D.C.  He was 72 at the time of his death.

 

1923 ~ Johannes Diderik van der Waals (b. Nov. 23, 1837), Dutch physicist and recipient of the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physics.  His name is associated with van der Waals forces.  He died at age 85.

 

1917 ~ Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (né Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin; b. July 8, 1838), German aircraft manufacture and father of the Zeppelin.  He died at age 78.

 

1887 ~ James Buchanan Eads (b. May 23, 1820), American civil engineer.  He designed and built the Eads Bridge, the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River.  The bridge is in St. Louis, Missouri.  He died at age 66 while on vacation in the Bahamas.

 

1887 ~ Henry Ward Beecher (b. June 24, 1813), American clergyman and social reformer.  He was a strong abolitionist prior to the American Civil War.  He died following a stroke at age 73.

 

1874 ~ Millard Fillmore (b. Jan. 7, 1800), 13th President of the United States.  He was President from July 1850 until March 1853.  He had previously served as the 12th Vice President.  He assumed the Presidency upon the death of Zachary Taylor.  He died at age 74.

 

1872 ~ Priscilla Susan Bury (née Priscilla Susan Falkner, b. Jan. 12, 1799), British botanist and illustrator.  She was born in Liverpool, England.  She died in Croydon, England at age 73.

 

1869 ~ Hector Berlioz (né Louis-Hector Berlioz; b. Dec. 11, 1803), French composer.  He died at age 65.

 

1844 ~ Charles XIV John of Sweden and Norway (né Jean Bernadotte; b. Jan. 26, 1763).  He reigned from February 1818 until his death 28 years later in March 1844.  He was married to Désirée Clary.  He died at age 81.

 

1723 ~ Sir Christopher Wren (b. Oct. 30, 1632), English architect and mathematician.  Following the Great Fire of London in 1666, he re-designed many of the city’s churches.  He is best known as being the lead architect of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.  He died at age 90.

 

1550 ~ John of God (b. Mar. 8, 1495), Portuguese priest and saint.  He died on his 55th birthday.

 

1466 ~ Francesco Sforza (d. July 23, 1401), Duke of Milan.  He was the Duke of Milan from March 1450 until his death 16 years later.  He died at age 64.

 

1144 ~ Pope Celestine II (né Guido di Castello).  He was Pope from September 1143 until his death less than 6 months later.  The date of his birth is unknown.

 

1137 ~ Adela of Normandy (1067 ~ Mar. 8, 1137), Countess of Blois and wife of Stephen II, Count of Blois.  She was the daughter of William I, King of England and Matilda of Flanders.  The exact date of her birth is not known.  She died at about age 69 or 70.

 

1126 ~ Urraca, Queen of León, Castile, and Galicia (b. Apr. 1079).  She was known as Urraca the Reckless.  She claimed the imperial title of Empress of all Hispania.  She reigned from 1109 until her death in 1126.  She died in childbirth at age 46.


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