December 23

Birthdays:

1967 ~ Carla Bruni, Italian-French model and singer and first lady of France by virtue of her marriage to then President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2008.

1963 ~ Donna Tartt, American author.

1962 ~ Stefan Hell, Romania-born German physicist and chemist and recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the development of the super-resolved fluorescence microscope.

1952 ~ William Kristol, American journalist and political commentator.

1946 ~ Susan Lucci, American soap opera actress.

1944 ~ Wesley Clark (né Wesley Kanne), American army general.  His Jewish father, Benjamin Kanne, died when Wesley was two years old.  His mother, who was not Jewish, re-married and his stepfather later adopted him.  He was not raised Jewish.

1943 ~ Mikhail Leonidovich Gromov, Russian-born French mathematician.

1943 ~ Queen Silvia of Sweden.

1943 ~ Harry Shearer, American actor.

1941 ~ John Peterman, American businessman and founder of the J. Peterman Company.

1923 ~ James Stockdale (d. July 5, 2005), American admiral, recipient of the Medal of Honor, and Vice Presidential running mate of Ross Perot in the 1982 campaign.  He was a prisoner of war for over 7 years during the Vietnam War.  He died at age 81.

1923 ~ Leonard B. Stern (d. June 7, 2011), American TV writer who laughed all the way to the bank.  He was known for writing and creating such shows as The Honeymooners and Get Smart.  He died at age 87.

1918 ~ José Greco (né Costanzo Greco Bucci, d. Dec. 31, 2000), Italian-born flamenco dancer.  He died 8 days after his 82^nd birthday.

1918 ~ Helmut Schmidt (d. Nov. 10, 2015), 5^th Chancellor of Germany.  He died at age 96.

1911 ~ Niels Kaj Jerne (d. Oct. 7, 1994), English-born Dutch immunologist and recipient of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died at age 82.

1907 ~ Avraham Stern (d. Feb. 12, 1942), Polish Zionist leader.  He founded the militant Zionist group that became known as the Stern Gang.  He was murdered in Tel Aviv at age 34.

1881 ~ Juan Ramón Jiménez (d. May 29, 1958), Spanish writer and recipient of the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 76.

1867 ~ Madam C. J. Walker (née Sarah Breedlove, d. May 25, 1919), African-American entrepreneur and philanthropist.  She was the first female self-made millionaire in America.  She made her fortune by developing and marking a line of hair products for black women.  She was born in Delta, Louisiana.  She died of kidney failure at age 51.

1853 ~ William Moody (d. July 2, 1917), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Theodore Roosevelt.  He served on the Court from December 1906 until November 1910.  He also served in President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration as the 45^th US Attorney General and the 35^th Secretary of the Navy.  He was from Massachusetts.  He died in Haverhill, Massachusetts at age 63.

1805 ~ Joseph Smith (d. June 27, 1844), founder of the Mormons.  He and his brother, Hyrum Smith (Feb. 9, 1800 – June 27, 1844.), were murdered by a mob in an Illinois jail.  Joseph died at age 38 and his brother was 44.

1790 ~ Jean-François Champollion (d. Mar. 4, 1832), French historian and linguist who is best known for deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone.  He died of a stroke at age 41.

1777 ~ Tsar Alexander I of Russia (d. Dec. 1, 1825).  He was Tsar from March 1801 until his death 24 years later.  He died of typhus 22 days before his 48^th birthday.

1745 ~ John Jay (d. May 17, 1829), American statesman and 1^st Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President George Washington.  He served on the Court from September 1789 until June 1795.  He had previously served as the Acting Secretary of State in the Washington administration, from September 1789 until March 1790.  He died at age 83.

1605 ~ Tianqi Emperor (d. Sept. 30, 1627), 15^th Emperor of the Ming Dynasty.  He died at age 21.

968 ~ Zhen Zong (d. Mar. 23, 1022), Chinese emperor of the Song Dynasty.  He died at age 53.

Events that Changed the World:

1990 ~ By referendum, 88% of Slovenia’s electorate voted for independence from Yugoslavia.

1982 ~ The United States Environmental Protection Agency reported dangerous levels of dioxin in the soil at Times Beach, Missouri.

1972 ~ Sixteen survivors of the Andes flight disaster were rescued after 73 days.  The Charter flight had initially been carrying 45 people, including the Uruguayan Old Christians Club rugby union team, who were scheduled to play a match in Santiago, Chile.  The survivors resorted to cannibalism and ate their dead fellow passengers in order to stay alive.  Piers Paul Read wrote about this event in his book, Alive: The Story of the Andes Survivors.

1972 ~ A 6.5 magnitude earthquake struck in Managua, Nicaragua and killed over 10,000 people.

1970 ~ The North Tower of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York City was completed.  It was the tallest building in the world at the time, coming in at 1,368 feet.  On September 11, 2001, terrorists piloted two planes into the Towers.

1968 ~ 82 sailors from the USS Pueblo were released after 11 months of internment in North Korea.

1954 ~ Doctors J. Hartwell Harrison (1909 ~ 1984) and Joseph Murray (1919 ~ 2012) performed the first successful kidney transplant.  The procedure was performed on identical twins at the Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts.

1947 ~ The transistor was first demonstrated at the Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.

1938 ~ The first modern coelacanth was discovered in South Africa.

1913 ~ The Federal Reserve System was created after President Woodrow Wilson (1856 ~ 1924) signed into law the Federal Reserve Act.

1893 ~ Engelbert Humperdinck’s opera, Hänsel und Gretel, was first performed.

1823 ~ A Visit from St. Nick, also known as The Night Before Christmas, by Clement Clark Moore, was first published anonymously.

1815 ~ Jane Austen’s novel, Emma, was first published.

1783 ~ George Washington (1732 ~ 1799) resigned as commander-in-chief of the Army and retired to Mount Vernon.

1688 ~ King James II of England (1633 ~ 1701) fled to Paris after being deposed in favor of his nephew, William of Orange (1650 ~ 1702) and his daughter Mary (1662 ~ 1694) during the Glorious Revolution.

562 ~ The Hagia Sophia, an Eastern Orthodox cathedral in Constantinople, reopened after a series of earthquakes damaged the original dome, causing a collapse.  It had originally been constructed in 537.  It was converted into a mosque in 1453 and remained so until 1931.  The Hagia Sophia still stands.  It is currently a museum; however, there is a movement in Turkey to have it converted back into a mosque.

Good-Byes:

2015 ~ Alfred Gilman (b. July 1, 1941), American pharmacologist and recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died at age 74.

2013 ~ Mikhail Kalashnikov (b. Nov. 10, 1919), Russian general and weapons designer.  He designed the AK-47.  He died at age 94.

2012 ~ Jean Harris (b. Apr. 27, 1923), American educator who murdered her lover.  She died at age 89.

2000 ~ Victor Borge (né Børge Rosenbaum, b. Jan. 3, 1909), Danish-born comedian and pianist.  He died at age 91, just 11 days before his 92^nd birthday.

1982 ~ Jack Webb (né John Randolph Webb, b. Apr. 2, 1920), American actor.  He is best known for his role as Sergeant Joe Friday from the television series Dragnet.  He died of a heart attack at age 62.

1979 ~ Peggy Guggenheim (née Marguerite Guggenheim, b. Aug. 26, 1898), American art collector.  She died at age 81.

1973 ~ Abraham Joshua Heschel (b. Jan. 11, 1907), Polish-born American rabbi, theologian and philosopher.  Heschel was a leader in the American Civil Rights movement in the US.  He died 19 days before his 66^th birthday.

1962 ~ James P. McGranery (b. July 8, 1895), 61^st US Attorney General.  He served under President Harry S Truman from April 1952 until January 1953.  He died at age 67.

1944 ~ Charles Dana Gibson (b. Sept. 14, 1867), American illustrator.  He is best known for the creation of the Gibson Girls.  He died at age 77.

1873 ~ Sarah Moore Grimké (b. Nov. 26, 1792), American author and abolitionist.  She died less than a month after her 81^st birthday.

1722 ~ Pierre Varignon (b. 1654), French mathematician.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been 68 at the time of his death.

1652 ~ John Cotton (b. Dec. 4, 1585), English-American minister who served in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.  He died 19 days after his 67^th birthday.

1230 ~ Berengaria of Navarre (b. 1165), Queen of England and wife of King Richard I.  The exact date of her birth is not known.