Birthdays:
1977 ~ Daniel Alarcón, Peruvian-American writer. He was born in Lima, Peru.
1974 ~ Eva Mendes (née Eva de La Carida Méendez), American actress. She was born in Miami, Florida.
1959 ~ Mike Byster (né Michael Byster), American mathematician and educator. He was born in Skokie, Illinois.
1956 ~ Teena Marie (née Mary Christine Brockert; d. Dec. 26, 2010), American singer-songwriter. She was born in Santa Monica, California. She died at age 54 in Pasadena, California.
1955 ~ Penn Jillette (né Penn Fraser Jillette), American magician and comedian, best known for his work with Raymond Joseph Teller, in their routine known as Penn and Teller. He was born in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
1950 ~ Eugene Fodor (né Eugene Nicholas Fodor, Jr.; d. Feb. 26, 2011), American violin virtuoso haunted by addiction. He was born in Denver, Colorado. He died of liver disease 7 days before his 61st birthday in Arlington, Virginia.
1948 ~ Jan van Beveren (d. June 26, 2011), Dutch-born soccer star who became a devoted coach in Texas. He was born in Amsterdam, Netherlands. He died in Beaumont, Texas at age 63.
1938 ~ Lynn Margulis (née Lynn Petra Alexander; d. Nov. 22, 2011), American biologist and evolutionary theorist. Carl Sagan was her first husband. She was born in Chicago, Illinois. She died at age 73 following a hemorrhagic stroke in Amherst, Massachusetts.
1936 ~ Dean Stockwell (né Robert Dean Stockwell; d. Nov. 7, 2021), reluctant American actor who became an offbeat character who shone in cult films, including Paris, Texas. He also played a menacing drug dealer in Blue Velvet. He also played the wise-cracking Admiral Al Calavicci in the television sci-fi series Quantum Leap. He was born in Los Angeles, California. He died at age 85 in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico.
1934 ~ Daniel Kahneman, Israeli economist, and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He is the author of Thinking Fast and Slow. He was born in Tel Aviv, Israel.
1934 ~ James Sikking (né James Barrie Sikking), American actor. He is best known for his role as Lt. Howard Hunter on the television drama Hill Street Blues. He was born in Los Angeles, California.
1931 ~ Jerrie Cobb (née Geraldyn M. Cobb; d. Mar. 18, 2019), American space pioneer who was grounded by sexism. She was a member of the Mercury 13, a group of women selected to undergo the same psychological screening testing as the original Mercury Seven male astronauts. She was born in Norman, Oklahoma. She died 13 days after her 88thbirthday.
1925 ~ Jacques Vergès (d. Aug. 15, 2013), Thai-French attorney who defended the indefensible. He defended such criminals and war criminals as Carlos the Jackal, Klaus Barbie, and Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy. He was born in Thailand. He died in Paris, France died at age 88.
1919 ~ Peter Florjančič (d. Nov. 14, 2020), Slovene inventor who lived large and spent big. He also participated as a ski-jumper in the 1936 Olympic games. Among his inventions are the perfume atomizer, a skiing treadmill and plastic photographic slide frames. He died at age 101.
1918 ~ James Tobin (d. Mar. 11, 2002), American economist and recipient of the 1981 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. He was born in Champaign, Illinois. He died 6 days after his 84th birthday in New Haven, Connecticut.
1915 ~ Laurent-Moïse Schwartz (d. July 4, 2002), French mathematician. He was awarded the Fields Medal in 1950 for his work in theory distributions. He was born and died in Paris, France. He died at age 87.
1908 ~ Sir Rex Harrison (né Reginald Carey Harrison; d. June 2, 1990), English actor best known for his role of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady. He died of pancreatic cancer at age 82 in New York, New York.
1901 ~ Louis Kahn (né Itze-Leib Schmuilowsky; b. Mar. 17, 1974), 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.
1900 ~ Lilli Jahn (née Lilli Schlüchterer; d. June 18, 1944), German-Jewish physician. She perished in the Breitenau concentration camp during World War II. She became known following the posthumous publication of her letters to her children in which she described the conditions of her imprisonment in the concentration camp. She was murdered at age 44.
1898 ~ Zhou Enlai (d. Jan. 8, 1976), 1st Premier of the People’s Republic of China. He died at age 77 in Beijing, China.
1883 ~ Pauline Sperry (d. Sept. 24, 1967), American mathematician. She was born in Peabody, Massachusetts. She died at age 82.
1880 ~ Sergei Natanovich Bernstein (d. Oct. 26, 1968), Russian mathematician. He was born in Odessa. He died at age 88 in Moscow, Soviet Union.
1878 ~ Peter D. Ouspensky (d. Oct. 2, 1947), Russian-born (current day Ukraine) mathematician. He died at age 69 in Surrey, England.
1876 ~ Elisabeth Moore (née Elisabeth Holmes Moore; d. Jan. 22, 1959), American tennis player. She was a 4-time winner of the American Championship. She was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1971. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. She died of congestive heart failure at age 82 in Starke, Florida.
1871 ~ Rosa Luxemburg (née Rozalia Luksenburg; d. Jan. 15, 1919), Polish socialist revolutionary, Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist, and political activist. She was murdered by the Freikorps, a group was right-wing paramilitary group in Germany. She 47 at the time of her murder.
1870 ~ Frank Norris (né Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr.; d. Oct. 25, 1902), American journalist and novelist. He is best known for his novels McTeague and The Octopus. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. He died at age 32 of peritonitis following a ruptured appendix in San Francisco, California.
1824 ~ James M. Ives (né James Merritt Ives; d. Jan. 3, 1895), American lithographer and businessman. He was a cofounder, along with Nathaniel Currier (1813 ~ 1888), of Currier and Ives. He was born in New York, New York. He died at age 70 in Rye, New York.
1817 ~ Angelo Genocchi (d. Mar. 7, 1889), Italian mathematician. He is known for his work in number theory. He was born in Piacenza, Italy. He died in Turin, Italy just 2 days after his 72nd birthday.
1815 ~ John Wentworth (d. Oct. 16, 1888), Mayor of Chicago. He served two non-consecutive terms as Mayor of Chicago. He also served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from Illinois. He was born in Sandwich, New Hampshire. He died at age 73 in Chicago, Illinois.
1794 ~ Robert Cooper Grier (d. Sept. 25, 1870), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was nominated to the High Court by President James Polk. He replaced Henry Baldwin on the High Court. He was succeeded by William Strong. He served on the Court from August 1846 through January 1870. He was born in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. He died at age 76, just nine months following his retirement from the Court in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
1794 ~ Jacques Babinet (d. Oct. 21, 1872), French physicist and mathematician. He is best known for his contributions to optics. He died at age 78 in Paris, France.
1779 ~ Benjamin Gompertz (d. July 14, 1865), British mathematician and actuary. He was a self-educated mathematician. He is best known for his Gompertz law of mortality. He was born in London, England. He died at age 86.
1723 ~ Princess Mary of Great Britain (d. Jan. 14, 1772), Landgravine consort of Hesse-Kassel and first wife of Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel (1720 ~ 1785). He was abusive to her, so they separated after 14 years of marriage. She was of the House of Hanover. She was the daughter of George II, King of Great Britain and Caroline of Ansbach. She died at age 48.
1685 ~ George Friedrich Handel (d. Apr. 14, 1759), German composer. [Note: the date of his birth is sometimes shown as Feb. 23, because of the calendar in use at the time of his birth.] He died at age 74 in London, England.
1658 ~ Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (né Antoine Laumet; d. Oct. 16, 1730), French explorer and founder of Detroit, Michigan. His explorations took him from eastern Canada to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. He was the third French Governor of Louisiana. Cadillac Mountain in Maine is named in his honor. He died at age 72.
1575 ~ William Oughtred (d. June 30, 1660), English mathematician and Anglican priest. He is credited with inventing the slide rule. He died at age 86.
1563 ~ Sir John Coke (d. Sept. 8, 1644), English politician. He died at age 81.
1512 ~ Gerardus Mercator (né Geert de Kremer; d. Dec. 2. 1594), Flemish mapmaker and mathematician. He developed the Mercator projection, a way of showing the earth on a flat sheet. He died at age 82.
1326 ~ Louis I, King of Hungary (d. Sept. 10, 1382). He was known as Louis the Great. He was King of Hungary and Croatia from 1342 until his death 40 years later. He was married twice. His first wife was Margaret of Bohemia (1335 ~ 1349). They married in 1342 when she was just 7 years old. His second wife was Elizabeth of Bosnia (1339 ~ 1387). He was of the House of Anjou. He was the son of Charles I, King of Hungary and Elizabeth of Poland. He was Roman Catholic. He died at age 56.
1324 ~ David II, King of Scotland (d. Feb. 22, 1371). He was King from June 1329 until his death 42 years later. He was married twice. His first wife was Princess Joan of England (1321 ~ 1362). She was also known as Joan of the Tower. They married in 1328. After her death, he married his second wife, Margaret Drummond (b. 1340). They married in 1364 and divorced in 1370. David was her second husband. There were no children of either marriage. He was the last male heir of the House of Bruce. He was the son of Robert I, King of Scotland and Elizabeth de Burgh. He died 11 days before his 47th birthday.
1224 ~ Saint Kinga of Poland (d. July 24, 1292), Polish princess and Saint in the Catholic Church. She was married to Bolesław V, High Duke of Poland (1226 ~ 1279). Upon their marriage, they both took vows of chastity. There were no children of the marriage. She was of the Árpád dynasty. She was the daughter of Béla IV, King of Hungary and Maria Laskarina. She died at age 68.
1133 ~ Henry II, King of England (d. July 6, 1189). He was King from December 1154 until his death 35 years later. He was also known as Henry Curtmantle or Henry Plantagenet. He was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122 ~ 1204). They married in 1152. He was of the House of Plantagenet. He was the son of Empress Matilda and Geoffrey V, Count of Anjou. He died at age 56.
905 ~ Pope Agapetus II (d. Nov. 8, 955). He was Pope from May 10, 946 until his death 8 and a half years later. He was 50 years old at the time of his death. The exact date of his birth is not known, but is sometimes ascribed to March 5, 905.
Events that Changed the World:
2021 ~ Pope Francis (b. 1936) began a 3-day visit to Iraq. It was the first visit by a Pope to the country.
2019 ~ Mardi Gras.
2004 ~ Martha Stewart (b. 1941) was found guilty of obstructing justice.
2003 ~ A Hamas suicide bomber set off a bomb on a bus in Haifa, Israel, killing 17 Israelis.
1963 ~ Arthur Melin (1924 ~ 2002) patented the Hula Hoop.
1960 ~ Cuban photographer, Alberto Korda (1928 ~ 2001), took his iconic photograph of Che Guevara (1928 ~ 1967).
1946 ~ Sir Winston Churchill (1874 ~ 1965) coined the term “Iron Curtain”, which came to mean events in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
1872 ~ George Westinghouse, Jr. (1846 ~ 1914) received a patent for the air brake.
1868 ~ The impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson (1808 ~ 1875) began. He was the first president to be impeached. He was impeached for having violated the Tenure of Office Act, which had been enacted by Congress over his veto. The Act was meant to restrict the president from removing certain officials who had been approved by Congress.
1836 ~ Samuel Colt (1814 ~ 1862) made the first production-model of the .34 caliber revolver.
1770 ~ British soldiers opened fire on rioters and killed five people in the “Boston Massacre.” This incident was the spark that ultimately led to the American Revolutionary War.
1766 ~ Antonio de Ulloa (1716 ~ 1795), the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, arrived in New Orleans.
1616 ~ Nicolaus Copernicus’s book, De Revolutionbus Orbium Coelestium (On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres) was banned by the Catholic Church. This book was the first to state that the earth and all the planets rotated around the sun. The book had been first published in 1543, seventy-three years earlier.
1496 ~ Henry VII, King of England (1457 ~ 1509) issued letters of patent to John Cabot (1450 ~ 1500) authorizing him to explore unknown lands in the “New World.”
Good-Byes:
2015 ~ Albert Maysles (b. Nov. 26, 1926), American filmmaker. Albert, along with his brother David (1931 ~ 1987), transformed the documentary. They are best known for the film, Grey Gardens. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts. He died in New York, New York. He was 88 years old at the time of his death.
2013 ~ Hugo Chávez (né Hugo Rafael Frías Chávez; b. July 28, 1954), President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013. He was born in Sabaneta, Venezuela. He died of cancer at age 58 in Caracas, Venezuela.
2008 ~ Robert Haldane (b. 1924), American army officer who fought an underground enemy in Operation Crimp during the Vietnam War. He led the operation that discovered the Cu Chi Tunnels, which were the headquarters of the Viet Cong. He died of cancer at age 83.
1982 ~ John Belushi (né John Adam Belushi; b. Jan. 24, 1949), American actor and comedian. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. He died of a drug overdose at age 33 in Los Angeles, California.
1980 ~ Jay Silverheels (né Harold John Smith; b. May 26, 1912), First Nation Mohawk actor, best known as Tonto, companion of the Lone Ranger on the television show of the same name. He died of a stroke at age 67 in Calabasas, California.
1963 ~ Patsy Cline (née Virginia Patterson Hensley; b. Sept. 8, 1932), American singer. She was born in Winchester, Virginia. She was killed in a private plane crash in Camden, Tennessee. She was 30 years old.
1953 ~ Sergei Prokofiev (b. Apr. 27, 1891), Russian composer. He is best known for composing Peter and the Wolf. He died at age 61.
1953 ~ Joseph Stalin (b. Dec. 18, 1878), leader and dictator of the Soviet Union. He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 74 in Moscow, Soviet Union.
1950 ~ Edgar Lee Masters (b. Aug. 23, 1868), American attorney and author. He is best known for his book of poetry, Spoon River Anthology. He was born in Garnett, Kansas. He died at age 81 in Melrose Park, Pennsylvania.
1945 ~ János Garay (b. Feb. 23, 1889), Hungarian fencer. He was a gold medalist in the 1928 Summer Olympics in fencing. He was one of over 437,000 Jews deported from Hungary after the 1944 occupation of Germany. He was murdered in the Mauthausen-Guesen concentration camp during the Holocaust. He was killed 10 days after his 56thbirthday. He was born in Budapest, Hungary.
1929 ~ David Dunbar Buick (b. Sept. 17, 1854), Scottish-born American automotive executive and founder of the Buick company. He was born in Scotland, He died at age 74 in Detroit, Michigan.
1927 ~ Franz Mertens (b. Mar. 20, 1840), Polish mathematician. He died 15 days before his 87th birthday in Vienna, Austria.
1925 ~ Johan Jensen (d. May 8, 1859), Danish mathematician. He died at age 65 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
1896 ~ Frederic T. Greenhalge (Frederick Thomas Greenhalgh; b. July 19, 1842), 38th Governor of Massachusetts. He was elected for three consecutive terms as Governor but died early into his third term. He was governor from January 1894 until March 1896. He was born in the United Kingdom. He died of kidney disease in Lowell, Massachusetts at age 53.
1889 ~ Mary Louise Booth (b. Apr. 19, 1831), American writer and editor. She was the first editor-in-chief of the women’s fashion magazine Harper’s Bazaar. She was born in Millville, New York. She died at age 57 in New York, New York.
1849 ~ Mary Lyon (née Mary Mason Lyon; b. Feb. 28, 1797), American pioneer in women’s education. She founded the Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts and was its first president. She was born in Buckland, Massachusetts and died in South Hadley, Massachusetts. She died of an acute skin infection at just a week after her 52ndbirthday.
1827 ~ Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (b. Mar. 23, 1749), French mathematician and astronomer. He died 18 days before his 78th birthday in Paris, France.
1827 ~ Alessandro Volta (b. Feb. 18, 1745), Italian physicist and pioneer in electricity. He is credited with inventing the battery. He is also credited with being the discoverer of methane. He died about 2 weeks after his 82nd birthday.
1797 ~ Empress Xiaoshurui (b. Oct. 2, 1760), Chinese empress consort of the Qing dynasty. She was the wife of Jiaquig Emperor. She died at age 36.
1778 ~ Thomas Arne (né Thomas Augustine Arne; b. Mar. 12, 1710), British composer. He is best known for writing England’s national anthem, God Save the King. He was born and died in London, England. He died 7 days before his 68th birthday.
1694 ~ Vittoria della Rovere (b. Feb. 7, 1622), Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany and wife of Ferdinand II de Medici. She was of the House of della Rovere. She was the daughter of Federico Ubaldo della Rove and Claudia de’Medici. She died about a month after her 72nd birthday.
1534 ~ Antonio de Correggio (b. August 1489), Italian painter. The exact date of his birth is unknown.
254 ~ Pope Saint Lucius I (b. 200). He was Pope from June 253 until his death on this date 10 months later. The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been about 54 at the time of his death.
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