Friday, December 29, 2023

December 29

Birthdays:

 

1990 ~ Nightbirde (née Jane Kristen Marcezewski; d. Feb. 19, 2022), American singer-songwriter.  She was born in Zanesville, Ohio.  She died of cancer at age 31 in San Clemente, California.

 

1982 ~ Alison Brie (née Alison Brie Schermerhorn), American actress.  She is best known for her role as Annie Edison on the television sit-com Community and as Trudy Campbell on the television drama Mad Men.  She was born in Hollywood, California.

 

1972 ~ Jude Law (né David Jude Heyworth Law), English actor.  He was born in London, England.

 

1963 ~ Sean Payton (né Patrick Sean Payton), American football player and coach.  He is the head coach for the New Orleans Saints.  He was born in San Mateo, California.

 

1959 ~ Patricia Clarkson (née Patricia Davies Clarkson), American actress.  She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

 

1959 ~ Paula Poundstone, American comedian.  She was born in Huntsville, Alabama.

 

1954 ~ Albrecht Böttcher, German mathematician who specialized in functional analysis.  He was born in Oberwiesenthal, Germany.

 

1952 ~ Gelsey Kirkland, American ballerina and choreographer.  She was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

 

1951 ~ Yvonne Elliman (née Yvonne Marianne Elliman), American singer and songwriter.  She was born in Honolulu, Hawaii.

 

1947 ~ Ted Danson (né Edward Bridge Danson, III), American actor.  He is best known for his role as Sam Malone on the television sit-com Cheers.  He was born in San Diego, California.

 

1938 ~ Jon Voight (né Jonathan Vincent Voight), American actor and father of Angelina Jolie.  He was born in Yonkers, New York.

 

1936 ~ Mary Tyler Moore (d. Jan. 25, 2017), American sit-com star who defined the modern career woman.  She died of cardiopulmonary arrest due to pneumonia.  She was born in New York, New York.  She died 27 days after her 80thbirthday in Greenwich, Connecticut.

 

1933 ~ Joel M. Reed (d. Apr. 13, 2020), American cult film director.  He is best known for his film Blood Sucking Freaks, a gruesome low-budget horror comedy that was picketed by outraged protesters when it was released in 1974.  He was born and died in New York, New York.  He died at age 86 of Covid-19.

 

1923 ~ Sam Sheppard (né Samuel Holmes Sheppard; d. Apr. 6, 1970), American neurosurgeon who, in 1954, was convicted of the brutal murder of his pregnant wife.  He was convicted and served nearly 10 years in prison.  His case was retried, and he was acquitted in 1964.  The television series The Fugitive was loosely based on his story.  He was born in Cleveland, Ohio.  He died at age 46 from liver failure in Columbus, Ohio.

 

1923 ~ Dina Merrill (née Nedenia Majorie Hutton; d. May 22, 2017), American actress, heiress, socialite, and philanthropist.  She defied her rich parents to become an actress and starred in many mid-20th century movies, including Butterfield 8.  She was the only child of heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post and Edward Francis Hutton.  She was born in New York, New York.  She died at age 93 in East Hampton, New York.

 

1923 ~ Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, French mathematician and physicist.  She is one of the pioneers in the study of General relativity and her work has led to the detection of gravitational waves.  She was born in Lille, France.

 

1917 ~ Tom Bradley (né Thomas J. Bradley; d. Sept. 29, 1998), African-American politician and 38th Mayor of Los Angeles.  He served as Mayor from July 1973 until July 1993.  He was born in Calvert, Texas.  He died at age 80 in Los Angeles, California.

 

1911 ~ Klaus Fuchs (né Emil Julius Klaus Fuchs; d. Jan. 28, 1988), German theoretical physicist.  In 1950, he was convicted of supplying information from the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union.  He spent 9 years in prison in Great Britain.  After his prison term, he returned to East Germany and continued his career as a physicist.  He died a month after his 76th birthday.

 

1910 ~ Ronald Coase (né Ronald Harry Coase; d. Sept. 2, 2013), British economist and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science.  He was the Nobel winner who reshaped economics.  He was born in London, England.  He died in Chicago, Illinois at age 102.

 

1876 ~ Pablo Casals (né Pau Casals i Defilló; b. Oct. 22, 1973), Spanish cellist and conductor.  He died at age 96.

 

1875 ~Mileva Marić (d. Aug. 4, 1948), Serbian mathematician and physicist.  She was a student of Albert Einstein.  She was also his first wife.  They married in 1903; but divorced 16 years later.  She was born in Titel, Serbia.  She died at age 72 in Zürich, Switzerland.

 

1859 ~ Venustiano Carranza (né Venustian Carranza Garza; May 21, 1920), 37th President of Mexico.  He was President from May 1917 until his assassination at age 60 in May 1920.

 

1856 ~ Thomas Joannes Stieltjes (d. Dec. 31, 1894), Dutch mathematician.  He was born in Zwolle, Netherlands.  He died 2 days after his 38th birthday in Toulouse, France.

 

1843 ~ Princess Elisabeth of Wied (d. Mar. 2, 1916), Queen consort of Romania and wife of Carol I, King of Romania.  They married in 1869.  She was of the House of Weid-Neuwied.  She was the daughter of Hermann, Prince of Wied and Princess Marie of Nassau.  She died at age 71.

 

1829 ~ Bailey Gatzert (d. Apr. 19, 1893), American politician and first Jewish mayor of Seattle, Washington.  He served as Mayor from 1875 until 1876.  He was born in Germany.  He emigrated to Natchez, Mississippi before heading further west.  He died in Seattle, Washington at age 63.

 

1809 ~ William Gladstone (né William Ewart Gladstone; d. May 19, 1898), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He was one of Britain’s most beloved and respected Prime Ministers.  He served several terms as Prime Minister, both during the reign of Queen Victoria.  He died at age 88.

 

1808 ~ Andrew Johnson (d. July 31, 1875), 17th President of the United States.  Had served as the 16th Vice President during President Abraham Lincoln’s second term.  He took Office following the assassination of Lincoln.  He was the first president to be impeached, which was the result of a bitter disagreement between him and Congress over how to treat the South following the Civil War.  Following his presidency, he went on to become a United States Senator from Tennessee.  He was born in Elizabethton, Tennessee.  He died at age 66 of complications of a stroke in Greeneville, Tennessee.

 

1800 ~ Charles Goodyear (d. July 1, 1869), American chemist and manufacturing engineer.  He was a self-taught chemist.  He developed a method for vulcanized rubber.  He was born in New Haven, Connecticut.  He died at age 59 in New York, New York.

 

1766 ~ Charles Macintosh (d. July 25, 1843), Scottish chemist and inventor of waterproof fabric, hence the reason raincoats are sometimes referred to as Macintoshes.  He was born and died in Glasgow, Scotland.  He died at age 76.

 

1721 ~ Madame de Pompadour (née Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, d. Apr. 15, 1764), official chief mistress of King Louis XV of France.  She was born and died in Paris, France.  She died of tuberculosis at age 42.

 

1709 ~ Elizabeth Petrovna (b. Jan. 5, 1762), Empress of Russia.  She was reigned from December 1741 until her death 21 years later.  She was very harsh towards the Jews and enforced the laws banning Jews from the Russian Empire.  She was succeeded by Peter III.  She was of the House of Romanov.  She was the daughter of Peter I, Tsar of Russia and Catherine I, Empress of Russia.  She died of complications of a stroke 1 week after her 52nd birthday.

 

Events that Changed the World:

 

2020 ~ A 6.4 magnitude earthquake struck in Petrinja, Croatia.  Seven people were killed.

 

2001 ~ A fire at the Mesa Redonda shopping center in Lima, Peru killed nearly 300 people.

 

1997 ~ Health officials in Hong Kong began to kill the city’s 1.25 million chickens to stop the spread of a potentially deadly strain of influenza virus.

 

1989 ~ Václav Havel (1936 ~ 2011), the Czech writer, philosopher and dissident, was elected as the first post-communist of the Czechoslovakia.  He served in that office from December 1989 until July 1992.

 

1975 ~ A bomb exploded at LaGuardia Airport in New York City, killing 11 people, and injuring over 70 others.  The perpetrators have never been identified.

 

1972 ~ An Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 crashed on its approach to Miami International Airport killing 101 passengers and crew.  Seventy-five crew and passengers survived.

 

1940 ~Germany began dropping incendiary bombs on London during World War II.  Over 200 civilians were killed in the bombing and subsequent fires.

 

1916 ~ James Joyce’s first novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, was first published as a book.  It had previously been serialized in a magazine.

 

1911 ~ Sun Yat-sen (1866 ~ 1925) became the provisional President of the Republic of China.  He formally took office on January 1, 1912.

 

1911 ~ Mongolia gained its independence from the Qing dynasty.

 

1890 ~ 400 Sioux and Lakota Native Americans were massacred by United States Army troops at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

 

1851 ~ The first YMCA opened in Boston, Massachusetts.

 

1845 ~ Texas became the 28th State of the Union.

 

1835 ~ The Treaty of New Echota was signed, ceding all lands belonging of Cherokee east of the Mississippi River to the United States.

 

1778 ~ During the American Revolutionary War, British soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell (1739 ~ 1791), captured Savannah, Georgia.

 

1170 ~ Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury (1119 ~ 1170) was assassinated inside the Canterbury Cathedral by supporters of Henry II, King of England (1133 ~ 1189).

 

875 ~ Charles the Bald (823 ~ 877), King of the Franks was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor Charles II.

 

Good-Byes:

 

2022 ~ Vivienne Westwood (née Vivienne Isabel Swire; b. Apr. 8, 1941), English fashion designed.  She died at age 81 in London, England.

 

2022 ~ Pelé (né Edison Arantes do Nascimento; b. Oct. 23, 1940), Brazilian soccer player.  He died at age 82 in São Paulo, Brazil.

 

2020 ~ Luke Letlow (né Luke Joshua Letlow; b. Dec. 6, 1979), American Republican politician from Louisiana.  He had been elected to the United House of Representatives to represent the Louisiana 5th Congressional District.  He died just days before he was due to take his seat in Congress.  He was born in Monroe, Louisiana.  He died in Shreveport, Louisiana just 23 days after his 41st birthday of complications of Covid-19.

 

2020 ~ Pierre Cardin (né Pietro Cardin; b. July 2, 1922), Italian-born French bold fashion designer who remade the fashion trade.  He was born in San Biaglio di Callalta, Italy.  He died at age 98 in Nueilly-sur-Seine, France.

 

2018 ~ Brian Garfield (né Brian Francis Wynne Garfield; b. Jan. 26, 1939), American novelist who fantasized about a vigilante’s Death Wish.  He was born in New York, New York.  He died in Pasadena, California 28 days before his 80thbirthday.

 

2009 ~ David Levine (b. Dec. 20, 1926), American caricaturist who skewered his subjects.  He was born and died in New York, New York.  He died 9 days after his 83rd birthday.

 

2004 ~ Julius Axelrod (b. May 30, 1912), American biochemist and recipient of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He was born in New York, New York.  He died at age 92 in Bethesda, Maryland.

 

2003 ~ Bob Monkhouse (né Robert Alan Monkhouse; b. June 1, 1928), British comedian and game show host.  He died at age 75.

 

1986 ~ Andrei Tarkovsky (b. Apr. 4, 1932), Russian filmmaker.  He died in Paris, France at age 54.  This is some speculation that he may have been poisoned.

 

1986 ~ Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton (né Maurice Harold Macmillan, b. Feb. 10, 1894), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He served as Prime Minister from January 1957 until October 1963 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.  He died at age 92.

 

1980 ~ Nadezhda Mandelstam (née Nadezhda Yakovlevna Khazina; b. Oct. 30, 1899), Russian writer and educator.  She was born in Saratov, southern Russia.  She died in Moscow, Russia at age 81.

 

1971 ~ John Marshall Harlan, II (b. May 20, 1899), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was nominated to the High Court by President Dwight David Eisenhower.  He served on the Court from March 1955 until September 1971.  His grandfather, John Marshall Harlan, also served as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from 1877 until 1911.  He replaced Robert Jackson on the Court.  He was succeeded by William Rehnquist.  He was born in Chicago, Illinois.  John Harlan II died of spinal cancer at age 72, just 3 months after retiring from the Court.  He died in Washington, D.C.

 

1960 ~ Eden Phillpotts (né Eden Henry Phillpotts; b. Nov. 4, 1862), English author, poet and dramatist.  He was born in Mount Abu, India.  He died at age 98 in Devon, England.

 

1941 ~ Tullio Levi-Civita (b. Mar. 29, 1873), Italian mathematician.  He is best known for his work on absolute differential calculus.  He was born in Padua, Italy.  He died at age 68 in Rome, Italy.

 

1937 ~ Donald Marquis (né Donald Robert Perry Marquis; b. July 29, 1878), American humorist, journalist and author.  He died of a stroke at age 59.

 

1926 ~ Rainer Maria Rilke (né René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Marie Rilke; b. Dec. 4, 1875), Austrian author.  He was born in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary.  He died of leukemia 25 days after his 51st birthday in Switzerland.

 

1924 ~ Carl Spitteler (né Carl Friedrich George Spitteler; b. Apr. 24, 1924), Swiss poet and recipient of the 1919 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 79 in Lucerne, Switzerland.

 

1919 ~ Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet (b. July 12, 1849), Canadian physician and one of the founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital.  He was the first physician to bring medical students out of the lecture hall and into the wards for bedside clinical training.  He died at age 70.

 

1894 ~ Christina Rossetti (née Christina Georgina Rossetti; b. Dec. 5, 1830), English poet.  She was born and died in London, England.  She died 24 days after her 64th birthday.

 

1891 ~ Leopold Kronecker (b. Dec. 7, 1823), Polish-German mathematician.  He died 22 days after his 68th birthday in Berlin, German Empire.

 

1877 ~ Sarah Van Buren (née Sarah Angelica Singleton; b. Feb. 13, 1818), daughter-in-law of President Martin Van Buren.  She was married to Abraham Van Buren.  She served as First Lady during Martin Van Buren’s Presidency.  She was born in Wedgefield, South Carolina.  She died at age 59 in New York, New York.

 

1846 ~ Alexander Barrow (b. Mar. 27, 1801), American lawyer and United States Senator from Louisiana.  He served in the Senate from March 1841 through December 1846.  He lived in Feliciana Parish, Louisiana where he initially practiced law.  He abandoned his legal practice to become a planter before entering politics.  He was also a slave owner.  He was born in Nashville, Tennessee.  He died at age 45 in Baltimore, Maryland.

 

1825 ~ Jacques-Louis David (b. Aug. 30, 1748), French painter.  He was born in Paris, France.  He died at age 77 in Brussels, United Netherlands.

 

1737 ~ Joseph Saurin (b. Sept. 1, 1659), French mathematician and Protestant minister.  He died at age 78.

 

1731 ~ Brook Taylor (b. Aug. 18, 1685), English mathematician.  He died at age 46 in London, England.

 

1720 ~ Maria Margaretha Kirch (née Maria Margaretha Winkelmann; b. Feb. 25, 1670), German astronomer.  She was one of the first famous astronomers of her time due to her writings on the conjunction of the sun with Saturn, Venus and Jupiter.  She died at age 50.

 

1543 ~ Maria Salviati (d. July 17, 1499), Italian noblewoman.  She was married to Giovanni delle Bande Nere.  She was the mother of Cosimo I de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.  She was of the House of Salviati.  She was the daughter of Jacopo Salviati and Lucrezia di Lorenzo de’Medici.  She died at age 44.

 

1380 ~ Elizabeth of Poland (b. 1305), Queen consort of Hungary and fourth wife of Charles I, King of Hungary.  She was of the House of Piast.  She was the daughter of Władysław I, King of Hungary and Jadwiga of Greater Poland.  The exact date of her birth is not known, but she is believed to have been about 74 or 75 at the time of her death.

 

1208 ~ Emperor Zhangzong of Jin (b. Aug. 31, 1168), Chinese Emperor.  He was emperor from January 1189 until his death in December 1208.  He died at age 40.

 

1170 ~ Saint Thomas Becket of Canterbury (b. Dec. 21, 1119), Lord Chancellor of England and Archbishop of Canterbury and Christian martyr.  Although Becket was appointed archbishop by Henry II, King of England in 1162, conflicts erupted between the two and the King’s knights murdered Becket in the Canterbury Cathedral.  He is now an English saint.  The exact date of his birth is not known, December 21 is generally considered to be his birthday.  He was about 51 at the time of his death.


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