December 17

Birthdays:

2007 ~ James Alexander Philip Theo Mountbatten-Windsor, Viscount Severn, second child and first son of Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Sophie, Countess of Wessex.

1953 ~ Bill Pullman (né William James Pullman), American actor.

1946 ~ Eugene Levy, Canadian actor.

1945 ~ Ernie Hudson (né Ernest Lee Hudson), American actor.

1937 ~ John Kennedy Toole (b. Mar. 26, 1969), American novelist from New Orleans.  His most well-known novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, was published after his suicide at age 31.

1936 ~ Pope Francis (né Jorge Mario Bergoglio).  He became Pope in March 2013.

1929 ~ William Safire (d. Sept. 27, 2009), American provocative political columnist who loved language.  He died at age 79.

1921 ~ Nadezhda Popova (d. July 8, 2013), Russian “Night Witch” who bombed the Nazis.  She was one of the first female Russian military pilots.  During World War II, she joined a night bombing regiment and bombed Germany to revenge the death of her brother.  She died at age 91.

1917 ~ Donald L. Hollowell (d. Dec. 27, 2004), African-American attorney and civil rights advocate.  He was instrumental in the movement to desegregate public institutions in Georgia.  He died of heart failure 10 days after his 87^th birthday.

1913 ~ Burt Baskin (d. Dec. 24, 1967), American entrepreneur and co-founder of the Basking and Robbins ice cream franchise.  He died of a heart attack 7 days after his 54^th birthday.

1908 ~ Willard Libby (d. Sept. 8, 1980), American chemist and recipient of the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in carbon dating.  He died at age 71.

1903 ~ Erskine Caldwell (d. Apr. 11, 1987), American author.  He is best known for his novel God’s Little Acre.  He died at age 83.

1900 ~ Dame Mary Cartwright (d. Apr. 3, 1998), English mathematician.  She was one of the first people to study chaos theory.  She died at age 97.

1894 ~ Arthur Fiedler (d. July 10, 1979), American conductor who lead the Boston Pops for many years.  He died at age 84.

1873 ~ Ford Madox Ford (né Ford Hermann Hueffer, b. June 26, 1939), English writer.  He died at age 65.

1853 ~ Pierre Paul Émile Roux (d. Nov. 3, 1933), French physician and immunologist.  He was a co-founder the Pasteur Institute.  He died at age 79.

1842 ~ Sophus Lie (d. Feb. 18, 1899), Norwegian mathematician.  He died of pernicious anemia at age 56.

1835 ~ Alexander Emanuel Agassiz (d. Mar. 27, 1910), Swiss-born ichthyologist, zoologist and engineer.  He died aboard the RMS Adriatic at age 74.

1807 ~ John Greenleaf Whittier (d. Sept. 7, 1892), American poet and abolistionist.  He was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts and died in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire.  He died at age 84.

1795 ~ Benjamin Franklin Butler (d. Nov. 8, 1858), 12^th United States Attorney General.  He served under President Martin Van Buren from November 1833 until July 1838.  He died at age 62.

1778 ~ Sir Humphry Davy, 1^st Baronet (d. May 29, 1829), English chemist.  He is known for inventing the Davy Lamp.  He died at age 50 from complications following a stroke.

1770 ~ Ludwig van Beethoven (d. Mar. 26, 1827), German composer.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he was baptized on December 17, 1770.  In his later years he became deaf, yet continued to compose music.  His famous Ninth Symphony was written when he was completely deaf.  He died at age 56.

1706 ~ Émilie du Châtelet (né Gabrielle Émilie Le Tonnelier de Breteuil, Marquise du Châtelet, d. Sept. 10, 1749), French mathematician, physicist, and author during the Age of Enlightenment.  She died at age 42 a week after having given birth to her third child.

Events that Changed the World:

2014 ~ The United States and Cuba re-established diplomatic relations after over 55 years.

2010 ~ Street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi (1984 ~ 2011) set himself on fire in Tunis, which sparked the Tunisian Revolution and the Arab Spring.

1996 ~ Peruvian guerillas raided a party at the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru and took hundreds of people hostage.

1989 ~ The first episode of the animated cartoon, The Simpson, aired on television.

1983 ~ The IRA bombed Harrod’s Department store in London, killing 6 people.

1973 ~ Palestinian terrorist made an attack at the Leonardo da Vinci Airport in Rome and killed 30 passengers.

1969 ~ The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks I (SALT I) began, where were bilateral talks and treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union on the issue of armament control.

1938 ~ Otto Hahn (1879 ~ 1968), a German chemist, discovered the nuclear fission of uranium, thus marking the beginning of the so-called Atomic Age.  He went on to win the 1944 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He is considered to be the Father of Nuclear Chemistry.

1935 ~ The Douglas DC-3 made its maiden flight.

1903 ~ Wilber (1867 ~ 1912) and Orville Wright (1871 ~ 1948) made the first successful airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

1892 ~ The fashion magazine Vogue began publication.

1862 ~ General Ulysses S. Grant (1822 ~ 1885) issued General Order No. 11 expelling the Jews from Tennessee, Mississippi and Kentucky.  Abraham Lincoln subsequently quashed this Order.  This marked the only time in US history that Jews were expelled.

1837 ~ A fire at the Winter Palace of St. Petersburg occurred.  Thirty guards were killed in the fire.

1835 ~ The Great Fire of New York leveled lower Manhattan.

1777 ~ France formally recognized the new country of the United States of America.

1600 ~ King Henry IV of France (1553 ~ 1610) married Marie de’Medici (1575 ~ 1642).

1577 ~ Francis Drake set sail from England on a mission for Queen Elizabeth I to explore the Pacific Coast.

1538 ~ Pope Paul III (1468 ~ 1549) excommunicated King Henry VIII of England (1491 ~1547).

Good-Byes:

2016 ~ Henry Judah Heimlich (b. Feb. 3, 1920), American thoracic surgeon who developed the Heimlich maneuver, a technique for removing an obstacle lodged in one’s throat to prevent a patient from choking.  He died at age 96.

2012 ~ Daniel Inouye (b. Sept. 7, 1924), American politician from Hawaii.  He died at age 88.

2012 ~ James Gower (b. Aug. 17, 1922), American priest and peace activist.  He was the co founder, along with Les Brewer, of the College of the Atlantic, a private liberal arts college in Mount Desert island, Maine.  He died at age 90.

2011 ~ Kim Jong-il (b. Feb. 16, 1941), dictator of North Korea.  He died at age 70.

2005 ~ Jack Anderson (b. Oct. 19, 1922), American journalist.  He died at age 83.

2002 ~ Hank Luisetti (b. June 16, 1916), American athlete who revolutionized basketball with his one-handed jump shots.  He died at age 86.

1967 ~ Harold Holt (b. Aug. 5, 1908), Prime Minister of Australia.  He disappeared while swimming and was presumed to have drowned.  He was 59 years old at the time of his disappearance.

1964 ~ Victor Francis Hess (b. June 24, 1883), Austrian-American physicist and recipient of the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 81.

1957 ~ Dorothy L. Sayers (b. June 13, 1893), English writer of crime novels.  She died of coronary thrombosis at age 64.

1940 ~ Alicia Boole Stott (b. June 8, 1960), British mathematician.  She died at age 80.

1933 ~ 13^th Dalai Lama (né Thubten Gyatso, b. Feb. 12, 1876).  He died at age 57.

1917 ~ Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (b. June 9, 1836), English physician and woman’s rights advocate.  She was the first woman in Britain to qualify as a physician and surgeon.  She died at age 81.

1907 ~ William Thomson, 1^st Baron Kelvin (b. June 26, 1824), Irish mathematical physicist who introduced the temperature scale that begins at absolute zero (-273.15^o C).  Absolute temperatures stated in units of kelvin are named in his honor.  He died at age 83.

1847 ~ Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria (b. Dec. 12, 1791), second wife of Napoleon.  She died 5 days after her 56^th birthday.

1830 ~ Simón Bolívar (b. July 24, 1783), Venezuelan military commander and 2^nd President of Venezuela.  He had also served as the President of Peru and President of Bolivia.  He died at age 47.

1273 ~ Rumi (b. Sept. 30, 1207), Turkish poet and Islamic Sufi mystic.  His poetry is some of the most widely read in the world today.  Rumi is also known as the founder of the sect of Whirling Dervishes.  He is buried in Konya, Turkey, which is a major pilgrimage site.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been about 65 or 66 at the time of his death.

1187 ~ Pope Gregory VIII (né Alberto di Morra, b. 1100).  He was Pope for only 2 months, from October 1187 until his death on this date the same year.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been born between 1100 and 1105.

942 ~ William I, Duke of Normandy (b. 893).  He was assassinated at age 49.  The exact date of his birth is not known.