March 5

Birthdays:

1959 ~ Mike Byster, American mathematician.

1955 ~ Penn Jillette, American magician and comedian, best known for his work with Raymond Joseph Teller, in their routine known as Penn and Teller.

1948 ~ Jan van Beveren (d. 2011), Dutch-born soccer star who became a devoted coach in Texas.

1936 ~ Dean Stockwell, American actor.

1934 ~ Daniel Kahneman, Israeli economist and recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics.  He is the author of Thinking Fast and Slow.

1934 ~ James Sikking, American actor.

1918 ~ James Tobin (d. 2002), American economist and recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Economics.

1915 ~ Laurent Schwartz (d. 2002), French mathematician.

1908 ~ Sir Rex Harrison (d. 1990), English actor best known for his role of Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady.

1901 ~ Louis Kahn (d. 1974), American architect.

1898 ~ Zhou Enlai (d. 1976), 1^st Premier of the People’s Republic of China.

1871 ~ Rosa Luxemburg (d. 1919), Socialist revolutionary.

1817 ~ Angelo Genocchi (d. 1889), Italian mathematician.

1815 ~ John Wentworth (d. 1888), 19^th Mayor of Chicago.

1794 ~ Robert Cooper Grier (d. 1870), Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.

1779 ~ Benjamin Gompertz (d. 1865), British mathematician and actuary.

1658 ~ Antoine Laumet de la Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (d. 1730), French explorer.  His explorations took him from eastern Canada to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico.

1575 ~ William Oughtred (d. 1660), English mathematician.

1512 ~ Gerardus Mercantor (d. 1594), Flemish mapmaker and mathematician.  He developed the Mercantor projection, a way of showing the earth on a flat sheet.

1326 ~ King Louis I of Hungary (d. 1382).

1324 ~ King David II of Scotland (d. 1371).

1133 ~ King Henry II of England (d. 1189).

Events that Changed the World:

2004 ~ Martha Stewart was found guilty of obstructing justice.

2003 ~ A Hamas suicide bomber set off a bomb on a bus in Haifa, Israel, killing 17 Israelis.

1960 ~ Cuban photographer, Alberto Korda (1928 ~ 2001), took his iconic photograph of Che Guevara.

1946 ~ Sir Winston Churchill coined the term “Iron Curtain”, which came to mean events in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

1933 ~ During the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared a “bank holiday” and closed all US banks and froze all financial transactions.

1872 ~ George Westinghouse received a patent for the air break.

1836 ~ Samuel Colt 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.

1496 ~ King Henry VII of England issued letters of patent to John Cabot authorizing him to explore unknown lands in the “New World.”

Good-Byes:

2015 ~ Albert Maysles (b. 1928), American filmmaker.  Albert, along with his brother David (1931 ~ 1987), transformed the documentary.  They are best known for the film, Grey Gardens.  He was 88 years old at the time of his death.

2013 ~ Hugo Rafael Frías Chávez (b. 1954), President of Venezuela from 1999 to 2013.

1982 ~ John Belushi (b. 1949), American actor and comedian.

1980 ~ Jay Silverheels (b. 1912), Canadian Mohawk actor, best known as Tonto, companion of the Lone Ranger on the television show of the same name.

1963 ~ Patsy Cline (b. 1932), American singer.  She was killed in a private plane crash.

1953 ~ Sergei Prokofiev (b. 1891), Russian composer.

1953 ~ Joseph Stalin (b. 1879), 3^rd leader and dictator of the Soviet Union.

1950 ~ Edgar Lee Masters (b. 1868), American poet, best known for his Spoon River Anthology.

1929 ~ David Dunbar Buick (b. 1854), Scottish-born American automotive executive and founder of the Buick company.

1927 ~ Franz Mertens (b. 1840), German mathematician.

1925 ~ Johan Jensen (d. 1859), Danish mathematician.

1827 ~ Pierre-Simon Laplace (b. 1749), French mathematician and astronomer.

1827 ~ Alessandro Volta (b. 1745), Italian physicist.

1534 ~ Antonio de Correggio (b. 1489), Italian painter.

254 ~ Pope Lucius I (b. 200).