August 4

Birthdays:

1965 ~ Dennis Lehane, American author.  He was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts.

1965 ~ Fredrik Reinfeldt, 42^nd Prime Minister of Sweden.

1962 ~ Roger Clemens, American baseball player.

1961 ~ Barack Obama, the first African American to be elected to the Office of United States President.  He is the 44^th President of the United States and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.  He assumed the Office of President in January 2009 and served until January 2017.

1955 ~ Alberto Gonzales, 80^th United States Attorney General.  He served under President George W. Bush from February 2005 until September 2007.

1955 ~ Billy Bob Thornton, American actor.

1944 ~ Richard Belzer, American actor and comedian.

1934 ~ Dallas Green (d. Mar. 22, 2017), American outspoken baseball coach who took the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in 1980.  He died of kidney disease at age 82.

1928 ~ Gerard Damiano (d. Oct. 25, 2008), American hard-core film director who made Deep Throat.  He died at age 80.

1920 ~ Helen Thomas (d. July 20, 2013), American journalist.  She was a White House correspondent for many years.  Her career took a downspin after she made anti-Semitic remarks when she was 89 years old.  She died only 2 weeks before her 93^rd birthday.

1915 ~ Warren Avis (d. Apr. 24, 2007), American businessman and founder of Avis Rent-a-Car.  He died at age 91.

1912 ~ Raoul Wallenberg (d. 1947), Swedish diplomat.  He is known for saving thousand of Jews during the Holocaust.  He was detained by the Soviets during the Siege of Budapest and disappeared.  He was declared to be presumed dead on July 17, 1947.  He would have been 34 years old.

1912 ~ Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov (d. July 27, 1999), Russian mathematician.  He died a week before his 87^th birthday.

1909 ~ Saunders Mac Lane (d. Apr. 14, 2005), American mathematician.  He died at age 95.

1901 ~ Louis Armstrong (d. July 6, 1971), American jazz trumpeter and singer.  He was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.  He died a month before his 70^th birthday

1900 ~ Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (d. Mar. 30, 2002), Scottish Queen Consort of King George VI, and mother of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.  She was known as the Queen Mother.  She died at age 101.

1859 ~ Knut Hamsun (d. Feb. 19, 1952), Norwegian writer and recipient of the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 92.

1834 ~ John Venn (d. Apr. 4, 1923), English mathematician.  He is best known for introducing the Venn diagram into the field of mathematics.  He died at age 88.

1821 ~ Louis Vuitton (d. Feb. 27, 1892), French designer of leather goods, especially trunks and bags.  He is the founder of the House of Louis Vuitton.  He died at age 70.

1805 ~ Sir William Hamilton (d. Sept. 2, 1865), Irish mathematician.  He died of a severe gout attack about a month after his 60^th birthday.

1792 ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley (d. July 8, 1822), English poet.  He drowned a month before his 30^th birthday.

1521 ~ Pope Urban VII (né Giovanni Battista Castagna, d. Sept. 27, 1590).  He was Pope for only 12 days, from September 15 through September 27, 1590.  His papacy was the shortest in history.  He died at age 69.

1470 ~ Lucrezia de’Medici (d. Nov. 15, 1553), Italian noblewoman.  The exact date of her death is not known, but it is believed she died sometime between November 10 and 15, 1553.  She was 83 years old.

1463 ~ Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’Medici (d. May 20, 1503), Italian banker and politician.  He died at age 39.

Events that Changed the World:

1977 ~ President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) signed legislation creating the United States Department of Energy.  James Schlesinger (1929 ~ 2014) was the first Secretary of Energy.  He served from August 6, 1977 through August 23, 1979.

1964 ~ The bodies of Civil Rights workers, Michael Schwerner (b. 1939), Andrew Goodman (b. 1943), and James Chaney (b. 1943), were found in Mississippi.  They had been missing since June 21.

1958 ~ The Billboard Hot 100 list was first published.

1946 ~ An 8.0 magnitude earthquake hit Dominican Republic killing 100 people and leaving 20,000 people homeless.

1944 ~ Anne Frank and her family were discovered hiding by the Gestapo.

1914 ~ Germany invaded Belgium causing Belgium and the United Kingdom to declare war on Germany during World War I.  The United States, at this point in time, remained neutral.

1892 ~ The father and stepmother of Lizzie Borden (1860 ~ 1927) were discovered murdered in their Fall River, Massachusetts home.

1821 ~ The Saturday Evening Post was began publication as a weekly newspaper.

1783 ~ The volcanic Mount Asama in Japan erupted killing about 1,400 people.  The eruption ultimate caused a famine resulting in the deaths of nearly 20,000 people.

1693 ~ The traditional date ascribed to Dom Perignon’s discovery of the process of making champagne.

70 ~ The traditional date ascribed to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem by the Romans.

Good-Byes:

2014 ~ James Brady (b. Aug. 29, 1940), 14^th White House Press Secretary.  He served under President Ronald Reagan.  He was seriously injured when he was shot in the head during an assassination attempt on President Reagan in 1981 and spent the last 33 years in a wheelchair.  Following his injury, he became a gun control advocate.  He died at age 73, less than 4 weeks before his 74^th birthday.

2013 ~ Art “The Bulldog” Donovan (né Arthur James Donovan, Jr., b. June 5, 1924), Hall of Fame tackle for the Baltimore Colts.  He died at age 89.

2003 ~ Frederick Chapman Robbins (b. Aug 25, 1916), American virologist and recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work with the polio virus.  He died 3 weeks before his 87^thbirthday.

1977 ~ Edgar Adrian, 1^st Baron Adrian (b. Nov. 30, 1889), British electrophysiologist and recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physiology or medicine for his work on the function of neurons.  He died at age 87.

1940 ~ Ze’ev Jabotinsky (né Vladimir Yevgingevich Zhabotinsky, b. Oct. 18, 1880), Jewish political activist and general.  He died of a heart attack at age 59.

1886 ~ Samuel J. Tilden (b. Feb. 9, 1814), 25^th Governor of New York State.  He was Governor from January 1875 until December 1876.  He died at age 72.

1875 ~ Hans Christian Andersen (b. Apr. 2, 1805), Danish writer of children’s stories and fairy tales.  He died at age 70.

1792 ~ General John Burgoyne (b. Feb. 24, 1723), British General who fought in the American Revolutionary War.  He died at age 70.

1306 ~ King Wenceslaus III of Bohemia, Hungary and Poland (b. Oct. 6, 1289).  He was assassinated at age 16.  His murder remains a mystery.

1060 ~ King Henry I of France (b. May 4, 1008).  He died at age 52.