December 6

Birthdays:

1971 ~ Ryan White (d. Apr. 8, 1990), American AIDS activist.  He had hemophilia and contracted AIDS from his numerous blood transfusions.  He died at age 18.

1967 ~ Judd Apatow, American movie director.

1955 ~ Steven Wright, American comedian.

1953 ~ Tom Hulce, American actor.

1949 ~ William Powell (d. July 11, 2016), American radical who wrote The Anarchist Cookbook when he was 19 years old.  The book was a comprehensive “how-to” guide for insurrectionists.  He later tried to atone for his actions in creating the book by co-founding a non-profit organization for handicapped and disabled children.  He died of a heart attack while on vacation with his family.  He was 66 years old.

1948 ~ JoBeth Williams, American actress.

1933 ~ Henryk Górecki (d. Nov. 12, 2010), Polish composer who shed dissonance and found success.  He died of complications from a lung infection 24 days before his 77^th birthday.

1924 ~ Wally Cox (né Wallace Maynard Cox, d. Feb. 15, 1973), American actor.  He died at age 48 of a heart attack.

1920 ~ George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham (d. Aug. 31, 2002), English chemist and recipient of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 81.

1920 ~ Dave Brubeck (d. Dec. 5, 2012), American jazz musician.  He died 1 day before his 92^nd birthday.

1917 ~ Irvine “Irv” Robbins (d. May 20, 2008), Canadian-born American businessman and co-founder of Baskin-Robbins.  He died at age 90.

1908 ~ Lester Joseph Gillis (aka Baby Face Nelson, d. Nov. 27, 1934), American gangster.  He was killed 9 days before his 26^th birthday in a shoot-out with the FBI during a bank robbery.

1906 ~ Carl Weiss (d. Sept. 8, 1935), American physician and alleged assassin of Louisiana Senator Huey Long.  Weiss was killed by Long’s bodyguards after he allegedly shot Long in the State Capitol building.  Huey Long died two days after being shot.  He was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  He was 28 years old at the time of his death.

1904 ~ Ėve Denise Curie Labouisse (d. Oct. 22, 2007), French journalist.  She was the youngest daughter of Marie and Pierre Curie.  She died at age 102.

1900 ~ Agnes Moorehead (d. Apr. 30, 1974), American actress.  She is best known for her role as Endora on the sit-com Bewitched.  She died of uterine cancer at age 73.

1898 ~ Karl Gunner Myrdal (d. May 17, 1987), Swedish economist and recipient of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.  He died at age 88.

1898 ~ Alfred Eisenstaedt (d. Aug. 23, 1995), German-born photographer.  He died at age 96.

1896 ~ Ira Gershwin (d. Aug. 17, 1983), American lyricist.  He died at age 86.

1887 ~ Lynn Fontanne (d. July 30, 1983), American actress.  She died at age 95.

1886 ~ Joyce Kilmer (d. July 30, 1918), American poet.  He is best known for his poem Trees.  He died at age 31 during the Second Battle of Marne during World War I.

1856 ~ Walther von Dyck (b. Nov. 5, 1933), German mathematician.  He died a month after his 77^th birthday.

1792 ~ King William II of the Netherlands (b. Mar. 17, 1849).  He died at age 56.

1752 ~ Gabriel Duvall (d. Mar. 6, 1844), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President James Madison.  He served on the Court from November 1811 until January 1835.  He died at age 91.

1642 ~ Johann Christoph Bach (d. Mar. 31, 1703), German composer.  He died at age 60.

1421 ~ King Henry VI of England (d. May 21, 1471).  He died at age 49 in the Tower of London.

1285 ~ King Ferdinand IV of Castile (d. Sept. 7, 1312).  He died at age 26.

Events that Changed the World:

2015 ~ Chanukah began at sunset.

1973 ~ The United States House of Representatives voted to confirm Gerald Ford (1913 ~ 2006) as Vice President of the United States.  The US Senate had voted for his confirmation on November 27, 1973.

1969 ~ Meredith Hunter (1951 ~ 1969) was killed by the Hells Angels during a Rolling Stone’s concert at the Altamont Speedway in California.

1967 ~ Adrian Kantrowitz (1918 ~ 2008) performed the first human heart transplant in the United States.  The surgery was performed at the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York.  This transplant occurred just three days following the first human heart transplant lead by Christiaan Bernard’s team in South Africa.

1953 ~ Vladimir Nabokov (1899 ~ 1977) completed Lolita.

1947 ~ The Everglades National Park in Florida was dedicated.

1933 ~ Federal Judge John Woolsey (1877 ~ 1945) ruled that James Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, was not obscene.

1917 ~ A munitions explosion in Halifax, Nova Scotia killed more than 1900 people and cause massive damage to the city.

1917 ~ Finland declared its independence from Russia.

1907 ~ A coal mine explosion in Monongah, West Virginia killed over 360 miners and other workers.

1897 ~ London became the world’s first city to host licensed taxicabs.

1884 ~ The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., was completed 36 years after construction had begun in 1848.

1877 ~ The Washington Post began publication.

1865 ~ The 13^th Amendment to the US Constitution, which banned slavery in the United States, was ratified.

1790 ~ The United States Congress moved its location from New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1768 ~ The first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica was published.

1534 ~ The City of Quito, Ecuador was founded by Sebastián de Belalcázar (d. 1551).

1060 ~ Béla I (d. 1063) was crowned King of Hungary.

Good-Byes:

2014 ~ Ralph Baer (né Rudolf Heinrich Baer, b. Mar. 8, 1922), German-born American engineer who became a video game pioneer.  He was known as the Father of Video Games.  His family left Germany to escape from the Holocaust.  He died in Manchester, New Hampshire at age 92.

2008 ~ Martha Sharp Crawford von Bülow (aka Sunny von Bülow, b. Sept. 1, 1932), American heiress and socialite who was in a coma for over 27 years.  She was 76 years old at the time of her death.  Her husband, Claus von Bülow (b. 1926) was accused of attempted murder, but his murder conviction was later overturned.

2002 ~ Father Philip Berrigan (b. Oct. 5, 1923), American priest and civil rights activist.  He died of cancer at age 79.

2000 ~ Werner Klemperer (b. Mar. 22, 1920), German actor best known for his role in Hogan’s Heroes.  He died of cancer at age 80.

1993 ~ Don Ameche (né Dominic Felix Amici, b. May 31, 1908), American actor.  He died of prostate cancer at age 85.

1991 ~ Sir John Richard Stone (b. Aug. 30, 1913), British economist and recipient of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.  He died at age 78.

1989 ~ Frances Bavier (b. Dec. 14, 1902), American actress best known for her role as Aunt Bea on The Andy Griffith Show.  She died 8 days before her 87^th birthday.

1988 ~ Roy Orbison (b. Apr. 23, 1936), American singer and songwriter.  He died of a heart attack at age 52.

1955 ~ Honus Wagner (né Johannas Peter Wagner, b. Feb. 24, 1874), American baseball player.  He played for the Pittsburg Pirates nearly his entire career.  He died at age 81.

1951 ~ Harold Ross (b. Nov. 6, 1892), American journalist and co-founder of The New Yorker magazine.  He died a during surgery month after his 59^th birthday.

1949 ~ Lead Belly (né Huddie William Ledbetter, b. Jan. 20, 1888), African-American folk and blues musician.  He was born in Mooringsport, Louisiana.  He died at age 61.

1889 ~ Jefferson Davis (b. June 3, 1889), President of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War.  He has previously served as the United States Secretary of War from March 1853 until March 1857 under Franklin Pierce. He died at age 81 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1882 ~ Alfred Escher (b. Feb. 20, 1819), Swiss businessman and founder of Credit Suisse.  He died at age 63.

1882 ~ Anthony Trollope (b. Apr. 24, 1815), British writer.  He died at age 67.

1879 ~ Erastus Brigham Bigelow (b. Apr. 2, 1814), American industrialist and inventor of weaving machines.  He was born in West Boylston, Massachusetts and died in Boston, Massachusetts.  He was 65 at the time of his death.

1562 ~ Garzia de’Medici (b. July 5, 1547), Tuscan prince.  He died of malaria at age 15.

1352 ~ Pope Clement VI (né Pierre Roger, b. 1291).  He was Pope from 1342 until his death 10 years later.  He reigned during the Black Death (1348 ~ 1350) and is known for granting remission of sins for all who died during the plague.  The exact date of his birth is not known.

343 ~ Saint Nicholas (b. Mar. 15, 270).  Greek bishop and saint.  He died at age 73.