November 4

Birthdays:

1971 ~ William Perry Moore (d. Feb. 11, 2011), American novelist who gave gay teens a hero.  He died of a drug overdose at age 39.

1969 ~ Matthew McConaughey, American actor.

1953 ~ Carlos Gutierrez, 35^th United States Secretary of Commerce.  He served under President George W. Bush from February 2005 until January 2009.

1951 ~ Traian Băsescu, President of Romania.  He served in office from December 2004 until December 2014.

1950 ~ Markie Post (née Marjorie Armstrong Post), American actress.

1946 ~ Robert Mapplethorpe (d. Mar. 9, 1989), American photographer and artist.  He died of AIDS at age 42 in Boston, Massachusetts.

1946 ~ Laura Welch Bush, First Lady of the United States and wife of George W. Bush.

1937 ~ Loretta Swit, American actress best known for her role as Hot Lips in the movie M*A*S*H.

1933 ~ Sir Charles Kuen Kao, Chinese-American and British physicist and recipient of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1929 ~ Shakuntala Devi (d. Apr. 21, 2013), Indian mathematician.  She died at age 83.

1928 ~ Shaike Ophir (né Yeshayahu Goldstein-Ophir, d. Aug. 17, 1987), Israeli actor, comedian and mime.  He died of lung cancer at age 57.

1925 ~ Doris Roberts (d. Apr. 17, 2016), American actress.  She died at age 90.

1921 ~ Mary Sherman Morgan (d. Aug. 4, 2004), American rocket fuel scientist.  She died at age 82.

1919 ~ Martin Balsam (d. Feb. 13, 1996), American actor.  He died of a stroke at age 76.

1918 ~ Art Carney (d. Nov. 9, 2003), American actor.  He died 5 days after his 85^th birthday.

1916 ~ Ruth Handler (d. Apr. 27, 2002), American toymaker and creator of the Barbie doll.  She was president of the Mattel toy company.  She died of colon cancer at age 85.

1916 ~ Walter Cronkite (d. July 17, 2009), American broadcast avuncular journalist who was America’s favorite anchorman.  He was 92 years old.

1908 ~ Sir Józef Rotblat (d. Aug. 31, 2005), Polish-English physicist and recipient of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize.  He was born in Warsaw, Poland, but left for England before the Holocaust.  He had been recruited to work on the Manhattan Project, but left on grounds of conscience.  In 1995, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in nuclear disarmament.  He died at age 96.

1884 ~ Henry George Ferguson (d. Oct. 25, 1960), Irish engineer best known for his development of the modern agricultural tractor.  He died 10 days before his 76^th birthday.

1879 ~ Will Rogers (né William Penn Adair Rogers, d. Aug. 15, 1935), American humorist.  He, along with Wiley Post, was killed after the plane they were in developed engine problems during take-off in Barrow, Alaska.  He died at age 55.

1853 ~ Anna Bayerová (d. Jan. 24, 1924), Czech physician.  She died at age 70.

1816 ~ Stephen Johnson Field (d. Apr. 9, 1899), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Abraham Lincoln.  He served on the Court from March 1863 until December 1897.  He died at age 82.

1809 ~ Benjamin Robbins Curtis (d. Sept. 15, 1874), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. He was appointed to the High Court by President Millard Fillmore.  He served on the Court from September 1851 until September 1857.  He was the first Supreme Court Justice to hold a law degree.  He is best known for being one of the two dissenters in the Dred Scott decision.  The acrimony over the Dred Scott decision ultimately lead to his resigning from the Court after serving for only 6 years.  He was born in Watertown, Massachusetts and died in Newport, Rhode Island.  He died at age 64.

1765 ~ Pierre-Simon Girard (d. Nov. 30, 1836), French mathematician.  He is known for his work in fluid dynamics.  He died 26 days after his 71^st birthday.

1650 ~ King William III of England (d. Mar. 8, 1702).  He reigned with his wife, Mary II, as William and Mary.  He died of pneumonia at age 51.

Events that Changed the World:

2014 ~ Election Day in the United States.

2008 ~ Barack Obama (b. 1961) became the first African-American elected to the office of President of the United States.

1995 ~ Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (1922 ~ 1995) was assassinated in Tel Aviv by an extremist Israeli.

1980 ~ Ronald Reagan (1911 ~ 2004) was elected as the 40^th President of the United States.

1979 ~ Shortly after President Jimmy Carter (b. 1924) allowed the deposed Shah of Iran into the United States, Iranian revolutionaries and students stormed the US embassy in Tehran.  Ninety hostages were taken, of which 53 were Americans.  The hostages would not be released until January 1981.

1970 ~ Salvador Allende (1908 ~ 1973) took office as the President of Chile.  He would be ousted in a military coup three years later and would die under mysterious circumstances.

1966 ~ The Arno River flooded Florence, Italy leaving thousands homeless and destroying millions of rare art masterpieces and rare books.

1960 ~ Dame Jane Goodall (b. 1934) observed chimpanzees creating tools, the first recorded observation of such activity in non-humans.

1956 ~ Soviet troops entered Hungary in an attempt to stop the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union, which had begun on October 23.  Thousands of Hungarians were killed and nearly a quarter million Hungarians fled the country.

1952 ~ Dwight David Eisenhower was elected as the 34^th President of the United States.

1952 ~ The United States government established the National Security Agency.

1924 ~ Nellie Tayloe Ross (1876 ~ 1977) was elected the first female governor when she was elected to serve in that office in Wyoming.  She served in this office, as the State’s Governor from January 1825 until January 1927.

1922 ~ Howard Carter (1874 ~ 1939), a British archeologist, found the entrance to King Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt.

1861 ~ The University of Washington opened in Seattle, Washington.  It was initially known as the Territorial University.

1847 ~ Sir James Young Simpson (1811 ~ 1870), a British physician, discovered the anesthetic properties of chloroform for surgery.

1783 ~ Mozart’s Symphony No. 36, also known as the Linz Symphony, was performed for the first time.

1780 ~ José Gabriel Condorcanqui (1738 ~ 1781), also known as Túpac Amaru II, the leader of the Peruvian indigenous people, began his rebellion on Peru against Spain.

1677 ~ William, Prince of Orange (1650 ~ 1702) married the future Mary II of England (1662 ~ 1694).  They would later reign together as William and Mary.

1429 ~ Joan of Arc (1412 ~ 1431) liberated Saint-Pierre-le-Moûtier.

Good-Byes:

2014 ~ S. Donald Stookey (né Stanley Donald Stookey, b. May 23, 1915). American inventor and chemist who invented CorningWare, the supertough glass.  He held over 60 patents, mostly relating to glass and ceramics.  He died at age 99.

2011 ~ Andy Rooney (né Andrew Aitken Rooney, b. Jan. 14, 1919), American World War II reported turned beloved TV philosopher.  He was a radio and television personality.  He began his career as a World War II reporter before becoming a TV philosopher on his long-time segment on 60 Minutes.  He died at age 92.

2011 ~ Norman Foster Ramsey, Jr. (b. Aug. 27, 1915), American physicist and recipient of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 96.

2010 ~ Sparky Anderson (né George Lee Anderson, b. Feb. 22, 1934), American baseball player and manager.  He died at age 76.

2008 ~ Michael Crichton (b. Oct. 23, 1942), American physician and author of “technothrillers”.  He died 12 days after his 66^th birthday.

2006 ~ Ernestine Gilbreth Carey (b. Apr. 5, 1908), American author.  She is best known as being one of 12 children of Lillian and Frank Gilbreth, whose life was chronicled in the 1948 memoir Cheaper by the Dozen.  She died at age 98.

1995 ~ Yitzhak Rabin (b. Mar. 1, 1922), Prime Minister of Israel.  He was also the recipient of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.  He was assassinated by an extremist Orthodox Israeli in Tel Aviv.  He was 73 years old at the time of his assassination.

1986 ~ Kurt Hirsch (b. Jan. 12, 1906), German-born mathematician.  He left Germany for England to escape Nazi persecution.  He died at age 80.

1982 ~ Dominique Dunne (b. Nov. 23, 1959), American actress.  She was murdered in by her boyfriend in a domestic violence dispute 19 days before her 23^rd birthday.

1980 ~ Elsie MacGill (née Elizabeth Muriel Gregory MacGill, b. Mar. 27, 1905), Canadian engineer.  She was known as the Queen of the Hurricanes and was the first female aircraft designer.  She died at age 75.

1959 ~ Friedrich Waismann (b. Mar. 21, 1896), Austrian mathematician.  He died at age 63.

1957 ~ Shoghi Effendi (b. Mar. 1, 1897), Israeli religious leader of the Bahá’í Faith.  He died of the Asian Flu at age 59.

1955 ~ Cy Young (né Denton True Young, b. Mar. 29, 1867), baseball pitcher.  He died at age 88.

1918 ~ Andrew Dickson White (b. Nov. 7, 1832), American educator and co-founder of Cornell University.  He was the University’s first president.  He died 3 days before his 86^th birthday.

1847 ~ Felix Mendelssohn (né Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, b. Feb. 3, 1809), German composer.  He died following a series of strokes at age 38.

1698 ~ Rasmus Bartholin (b. Aug. 13, 1625), Danish mathematician.  He died at age 73.

1652 ~ Jean-Charles de la Faille (b. Mar. 1, 1597), Flemish mathematician.  He died at age 55.

1428 ~ Sophia of Bavaria (b. 1376), Queen of Bohemia.  The exact date of her birth is not known, but she is believed to have been 52 at the time of her death.