Thursday, March 17, 2022

March 17

St. Patrick’s Day

 

Birthdays:

 

1979 ~ Stormy Daniels (née Stephanie Gregory), American pornographic actress and stripper.  She is best known for having had an affair with Donald Trump and was paid $130,000 in hush money to keep quiet about the affair during his 2016 Presidential campaign.  She was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 

1972 ~ Mia Hamm (née Mariel Margaret Hamm), American soccer player.  She was born in Selma, Alabama.

 

1969 ~ Alexander McQueen (né Lee Alexander McQueen, d. Feb. 11, 2010), English fashion designer who embraced audacity.  He was born and died in London, England.  He died by suicide at age 40 on the eve of his mother’s funeral.  His mother had died 9 days earlier.

 

1964 ~ Rob Lowe (né Robert Hepler Lowe), American actor.  He was born in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

1962 ~ Kalpana Chawla (d. Feb. 1, 2003), Indian-born astronaut.  She was aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia and was killed at age 40 when the shuttle exploded over Texas upon returning to earth.  She was born in Karnal India.

 

1961 ~ Dana Reeve (né Dana Charles Morosini; b. Mar. 6, 2006), wife and widow of Christopher Reeve and activist for medical health.  She was born in Teaneck, New Jersey.  She died of lung cancer 11 days before her 45th birthday in Manhattan, New York.

 

1959 ~ Danny Ainge (né Daniel Ray Ainge), American basketball player who had a long career with the Boston Celtics.  He was born in Eugene, Oregon.

 

1955 ~ Gary Sinise (né Gary Alan Sinise), American actor.  He was born in Blue Island, Illinois.

 

1954 ~ Lesley-Anne Down, English actress.  She was born in London, England.

 

1951 ~ Kurt Russell (né Kurt Vogel Russell), American actor.  He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts.

 

1949 ~ Patrick Duffy, American actor best known for his role as Bobby Ewing on the television drama Dallas.  He was born in Townsend, Montana.

 

1948 ~ William Gibson (né William Ford Gibson), American-Canadian speculative fiction novelist.  He was born in Conway, South Carolina.

 

1945 ~ Valery Senderov (d. Nov. 12, 2014), Soviet dissident and mathematician.  He was known for his advocacy against state-sponsored antisemitism.  He was born and died in Moscow, Russia.  He died at age 69.

 

1945 ~ Michael Hayden (né Michael Vincent Hayden), Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  He served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.  He served as the Director from May 2006 until February 2009.  He had previously served as the Director of the National Security Agency from March 1999 until April 2005, during the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations.  He was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

 

1940 ~ Mark White, Jr. (né Mark Wells White, Jr.; d. Aug. 5, 2017), 43rd Governor of Texas.  He was governor from 1983 until 1987.  He was born in Henderson, Texas.  He died of a heart attack at age 77 in Houston, Texas.

 

1938 ~ Rudolf Nureyev (d. Jan. 6, 1993), Russian-born dancer and choreographer.  He died of complications of AIDS at age 54 in France.

 

1920 ~ Donald Hornig (né Donald Frederick Hornig; d. Jan 21, 2013), American scientist who babysat the first atom bomb.  He was an explosives expert and developed the firing unit that triggered the bomb’s detonation.  He also served as the President of Brown University from 1970 to 1976.  He was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  He died in Providence, Rhode Island at age 92.

 

1919 ~ Nat King Cole (né Nathaniel Adams Coles; d. Feb. 15, 1965), African-American singer and musician.  He was born in Montgomery, Alabama.  He died of lung cancer a month before his 46th birthday in Santa Monica, California.

 

1917 ~ Bernard Barker (né Bernard Leon Barker; d. June 5, 2009), Cuban-born undercover operative in the CIA who was a Watergate burglar.  He was convicted and spent a year in prison.  He was born in Havana, Cuba.  He died of lung cancer at age 92 in Miami, Florida.

 

1886 ~ Princess Patrica of Connaught (d. Jan. 12, 1974), member of the royal family.  When she married Sir Alexander Ramsay in 1919, she relinquished her royal title.  She was of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha until 1917 when the family became know as Windsor.  She was the daughter of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia.  She was the granddaughter of Victoria, Queen of the British Empire.  She died at age 87.

 

1881 ~ Walter Rudolf Hess (d. Aug. 12, 1973), Swiss physiologist and recipient of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for mapping areas of the brain that control internal organs.  He died of heart failure at age 92.

 

1866 ~ Pierce Butler (d. Nov. 16, 1939), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was nominated to the High Court by President Warren Harding.  He replaced William Day on the Court.  He was succeeded by Frank Murphy.  He served on the Court from December 1922 until his death in November 1939.  He was born in Dakota County, Minnesota.  He died at age 73 in Washington, D.C.

 

1834 ~ Gottlieb Daimler (né Gottlieb Wilhelm Damler; d. Mar. 6, 1900), German businessman and founder of the Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft automobile company.  He was a pioneer in the internal-combustion engineer and automobile development.  He died 11 days before his 66th birthday.

 

1832 ~ Walter Q. Gresham (né Walter Quintin Gresham; d. May 28, 1895), 33rd United States Secretary of State.  He served under President Grover Cleveland from March 1893 until his death on May 28, 1895.  He had previously served as the 35th United States Secretary of the Treasury for a month from September to October 1884 during the Chester Arthur administration.  He had also served as the 31st United States Postmaster General from April 1883 until September 1884 also during the Chester Arthur administration.  He was born in Lanesville, Indiana.  He died in Washington, D.C., while in the Office of Secretary State at age 63.

 

1806 ~ Norbert Rillieux (d. Oct. 8, 1894), African-American inventor and chemical engineer.  He is best known for inventing the multiple-effect evaporator, an innovation in the sugar industry.  He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He died at age 88 in Paris, France.

 

1777 ~ Roger B. Taney (né Roger Brooke Taney; d. Oct. 12, 1864), 5th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Andrew Jackson.  He is best known for presiding over the Court when the Dred Scott decision was rendered.  He served on the Court from March 1936 until his death at age 87 on October 12, 1864.  Prior to serving on the Supreme Court, he served as the 11th United States Attorney General under President Jackson from July 1831 until November 1833, when he became the 12th United States Secretary of the Treasury.  He served in that position from September 1833 until June 1834.  He was born in Calvert County, Maryland and died in Washington, D.C.

 

1764 ~ William Pinkney (d. Feb. 25, 1822), 7th United States Attorney General.  He served under James Madison from December 1811 until February 1814.  He argued many cases before the United States Supreme Court, including McCulloch v. Maryland.  He subsequently became a United States Senator from the State of Maryland.  He served as Senator from December 21,1819 until his death.  He was born in Annapolis, Maryland.  He died 3 weeks before his 58thbirthday in Washington, D.C.

 

1665 ~ Élizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (née Élizabeth Jacquet; d. June 27, 1729), French musician and composer.  She died at age 64 in Paris, France.

 

1473 ~ James IV, King of Scotland (d. Sept. 9, 1513).  He reigned over Scotland from June 1488 until his death in September 1513.  He was married to Margaret Tudor.  He was of the House of Stewart.  He was the son of James III, King of Scotland and Margaret of Denmark.  He died at age 40 in the Battle of Flodden.

 

Events that Changed the World:

 

2013 ~ The largest meteorite that NASA observed, since observing the moon in 2005, hit the moon.

 

2008 ~ David Paterson (b. 1954) became the 55th Governor of New York State after Eliot Spitzer (b. 1959) resigned due to a sex scandal involving a high-end prostitute.

 

1992 ~ The Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aries, Argentina was attacked with a suicide car bomb, killing 29 and injuring over 240 others.

 

1970 ~ The United States Army charged 14 officers with suppressing information relating to the My Lai Massacre.

 

1969 ~ Golda Meir (1898 ~ 1978) became the first female Prime Minister of Israel.

 

1959 ~ The 14th Dalai Lama (b. 1935) fled Tibet and went to India.

 

1950 ~ Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley announced the creation of the element 98, which they named Californium.

 

1942 ~ The first Jews from the Lvóv Ghetto were gassed at the Belzec concentration camp, in what is now eastern Poland.

 

1941 ~ The National Gallery of Art was officially opened by President Franklin Roosevelt (1882 ~ 1945).

 

1776 ~ During the American Revolutionary War, British forces left Boston, Massachusetts, ending the Siege of Boston, after George Washington (1732 ~ 1799) and Henry Knox (1750 ~ 1806) placed artillery in positions that overlooked the city.

 

1762 ~ Irish soldiers in the British army held the first St. Patrick’s Day Parade in New York City.

 

1337 ~ Edward, the Black Prince (1330 ~ 1376), was made Duke of Cornwall, the first Duchy in England.

 

Good-Byes:

 

2021 ~ Dick Hoyt (b. June 1, 1940), American marathoner who ran with his disabled son.  His son, Rick, born in 1962, was a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy.  In 1977, he and his son, who was in a wheelchair, began running marathons, including the Boston Marathon.  He was born in Winchester, Massachusetts.  He died at age 80 in Holland, Massachusetts.

 

2020 ~ Betty Williams (née Elizabeth Smyth; b. May 22, 1943), Irish activist and recipient of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize.  She was born and died in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  She died at age 76.

 

2017 ~ Sir Derek Walcott (né Derek Alton Walcott; b. Jan. 23, 1930), West Indies writer and recipient of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 87.

 

2016 ~ Meir Dagan (né Meir Hubermann; b. Jan. 30, 1945), Israeli military officer and Director of Mossad from 2002 until 2011.  He died of cancer at age 71.

 

2015 ~ Guido Zappa (b. Dec. 7, 1915), Italian mathematician.  He was born in Naples, Italy.  He died at age 99 in Florence, Italy.

 

2014 ~ L’Wren Scott (née Laura Bambrough; b. Apr. 28, 1964), the American fashion designer who styled the stars.  She was Mick Jagger’s long-time girlfriend.  She was born in Salt Lake City, Utah.  She committed suicide at age 49 in New York, New York.

 

2014 ~ Bunny Mellon (née Rachel Lowe Lambert; b. Aug. 9, 1910), American heiress who designed the Rose Garden at the White House.  She was born in Princeton, New Jersey.  She died at age 103 in Upperville, Virginia.

 

2012 ~ Chaleo Yoovidhya (b. Aug. 17, 1923), Thai businessman and duck hunter’s son who created Red Bull.  He died at age 88.

 

2012 ~ John Demjanjuk (né Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk; b. Apr. 3, 1920), Ukrainian-American convicted Nazi war criminal who managed to escape detection for many years.  He was convicted of murdering many Jews while a guard at concentration camps during World War II.  He was ultimately convicted of war crimes in 2011.  He died 17 days before his 92nd birthday.

 

2007 ~ John Backus (né John Warner Backus; b. Dec. 3, 1924), American mathematician and computer scientist.  He was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  He died at age 82 in Ashland, Oregon.

 

2006 ~ Oleg Cassini (né Oleg Cassini Loiewski; b. Apr. 11, 1913), American fashion designed who designed many of the clothes Jackie Kennedy wore while in the White House.  He was born in Paris, France.  He died from complications of an aneurism less than three weeks before his 93rd birthday in Manhasset, New York.

 

2005 ~ Gary Bertini (b. May 1, 1927), Israeli conductor.  He died at age 77.

 

2005 ~ László Fejes Tóth (b. Mar. 12, 1915), Hungarian mathematician.  He died 5 days after his 90th birthday in Budapest, Hungary.

 

2003 ~ Su Buqing (b. Sept. 23, 1902), Chinese mathematician.  He died at age 100 in Shanghai, China.

 

1993 ~ Helen Hayes (née Helen Hayes Brown; b. Oct. 10, 1900), American stage actress.  She was known as the First Lady of American Theater.  She was born in Washington, D.C.  She died at age 92 in Nyack, New York.

 

1983 ~ Haldan Keffer Hartline (b. Dec. 22, 1903), American physiologist and recipient of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He was born in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania.  He died at age 79 in Fallston, Maryland.

 

1974 ~ Louis Kahn (né Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky, b. Mar. 5, 1901), Russian-American architect.  He was born in Russia and the calendar in use at the time was the Julian calendar, so his birthday is sometimes noted as February 20th.  He was born in the Russian Empire (now Estonia).  He died in New York City of a heart attack shortly after his 73rd birthday.

 

1962 ~ Wilhelm Blaschke (né Wilhelm Johann Eugen Blaschke; b. Sept. 13, 1885), Austrian-German mathematician.  He was a member of the Nazi Party.  He was born in Graz, Austria.  He died at age 76 in Hamburg, Germany.

 

1961 ~ Susanna M Salter (née Susanna Madora Kinsey; d. Mar. 2, 1860), United States politician and activist.  She was elected mayor of Argonia, Kansas, thereby becoming the first woman elected mayor of any United States city, and one of the first women to be elected to any political office in the United States.  She was born in Lamira, Ohio.  She died 15 days after her 101st birthday in Norman, Oklahoma.

 

1958 ~ Bertha De Vriese (née Bertha Coletta Constantia De Vriese; b. Sept. 26, 1877), Belgian physician.  She was the first woman physician to graduate from Ghent University, where she also became a researcher.  She was born and died in Ghent, Belgium.  She died at age 80.

 

1956 ~ Irène Joliot-Curie (b. Sept. 12, 1897), French physicist and recipient of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  She was the daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie.  She died at age 58 of leukemia.

 

1956 ~ Fred Allen (né John Florence Sullivan; b. May 31, 1894), American comedian and radio personality.  He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He died of a heart attack at age 61 in Manhattan, New York.

 

1937 ~ Sir Austen Chamberlain (né Joseph Austen Chamberlain; b. Oct. 16, 1863), English politician and recipient of the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize.  He was the half-brother of British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain.  He died at age 73.

 

1866 ~ Menachem Mendel Schneerson (b. Sept. 9, 1789), Polish Orthodox rabbi.  He was the 3rd Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement.  He died at age 77.

 

1853 ~ Christian Doppler (né Christian Andreas Doppler; b. Nov. 29, 1803), Austrian physicist and mathematician.  He is best known for his principle known as the Doppler effect, that the observed frequency of a wave depends upon the relative speed of the source and the observer.  He died at age 49 of pulmonary disease in Venice, Austrian Empire.

 

1849 ~ William II, King of the Netherlands (b. Dec. 6, 1792).  He reigned from October 1840 until his death in March 1849.  He was married to Anna Pavlovna of Russia.  He was of the House of Orange-Nassau.  He was the son of William I, King of the Netherlands and Wilhelmine of Prussia.  He died at age 56.

 

1846 ~ Friedrich Bessel (né Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel; b. July 22, 1784), German mathematician.  He died at age 61.

 

1829 ~ Sophia Albertina (b. Oct. 8, 1753).  She was the last Princess-Abbess of Quedlinburg Abbey.  She was of the House of Holstein-Gottorp.  She never married.  She was the daughter of Adolf Frederick, King of Sweden and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia.  She was born and died in Stockholm, Sweden.  She died at age 75.

 

1782 ~ Daniel Bernoulli (b. Feb. 8, 1700), Dutch-Swiss mathematician and physicist.  He died at age 82.

 

1680 ~ François de La Rochefoucauld (b. Sept. 15, 1613), French author best known for his maxims and memoirs.  He was born and died in Paris, France.  He died at age 66.

 

1611 ~ Princess Sophia of Sweden (b. Oct. 29, 1547), Duchess consort of Saxe-Lauenburg and wife of Magnus II, Duke of Saxe-Lauernburg.  She was of the House of Basa.  She was the daughter of Gustav I, King of Sweden and Margaret Leijonhufvud.  She died at age 63.

 

1058 ~ Lulach, King of Scotland.  He ruled Scotland from August 1057 until his death 9 months later.  He was known as The Unfortunate.  He was of the House of Moray.  He was the son of Gille Coemgáin of Moray and Gruoch of Scotland. The date of his birth is not known.

 

1040 ~ Harold I, King of England (b. 1016).  He was known as Harold Harefoot because he was fleet of foot.  He is believed to have been married to a woman named Ælfgifu.  He was of the Jelling dynasty.  He was the son of Cnut the Great and Ælfgifu of Northampton.  The actual date of his birth is unknown.  He is believed to have been 24 at the time of his death.

 

460 ~ St. Patrick (b. 387), Patron saint of Ireland.  This is the date sometimes ascribed to his death.  The actual dates of his birth and death are unknown.

 

180 ~ Marcus Aurelius (b. Apr. 26, 121), this is the traditional date ascribed to the birth of this Roman emperor.  He ruled the Roman Empire from March 161 until his death in March 180.  He died about the age of 58.


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