January 23

Birthdays:

1964 ~ Mariska Hargitay, American actress.

1967 ~ Naim Süleymanoğlu (b. Nov. 18, 2017), Bulgarian-born Turkish weightlifting defector who became an Olympic icon.  While on a World Cup Final in Australia in 1988, he defected and found his way to Turkey.  He died in Istanbul, Turkey following complications of surgery.  He was 50 years old.

1957 ~ Princess Caroline of Monaco.  She is officially known as the Princess of Hanover.

1951 ~ Chesley Sullenberger, American pilot and captain of US Airways Flight 1549 that landed in the Hudson River on January 15, 2009.  His actions when the plane went down saved the lives of all passengers.  He was the subject of the 2016 film Sully.

1950 ~ Daniel Paul Federici (d. Apr. 17, 2008), American musician who played for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.  He died of melanoma at age 58.

1946 ~ Boris Berezovsky (d. Mar. 23, 2013), Russian mathematician.  He was 67 years old.

1930 ~ William Reid Pogue (d. Mar. 3, 2014), American astronaut who staged a strike in space.  In November 1973, he and two other astronauts docked on Skylab, where they lived for 84 days.  They were required to work all the time and so staged a strike.  Ground control eased up their workload.  He died at age 84.

1930 ~ Sir Derek Walcott (d. Mar. 17, 2017), West Indies writer and recipient of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 87.

1929 ~ John Charles Polanyi, Canadian chemist and recipient of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in chemical kinetics.

1928 ~ Jeanne Moreau (d. July 31, 2017), French actress.  She died at age 89.

1924 ~ Frank Raleigh Lautenberg (d. June 3, 2013), American politician and senator from New Jersey who retired only to return again.  He served New Jersey as senator for nearly 30 years.  He died in office at age 89.

1923 ~ Horace Ashenfelter, III (d. Jan. 6, 2018), American FBI agent who beat the Soviets to win Olympic Gold in the 3,000 steeplechase at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.  He died 17 days before his 95^th birthday.

1922 ~ Tuviah Friedman (d. Jan. 13, 2011), Polish-born Israeli Nazi hunter who sought revenge.  He died 10 days before his 89^th birthday.

1921 ~ Chester Nez (d. June 4, 2014), the Navajo warrior who baffled the Japanese.  He was the last of the original World War II Navajo code-talkers.  He died of kidney failure at age 93.

1919 ~ Ernie Kovacs (né Ernest Edward Kovacs, d. Jan. 13, 1962), American actor and comedian.  He was killed in a car accident 10 days before his 43^rd birthday.

1918 ~ Gertrude Elion (d. Feb. 21, 1999), American biochemist and recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  She died a month after her 81^st birthday.

1915 ~ Potter Stewart (d. Dec. 7, 1985), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Dwight Eisenhower.  He served on the Court from October 1958 until his retirement in July 1981.  He died following a stroke in Hanover, New Hampshire at age 70.

1915 ~ Sir William Arthur Lewis (d. June 15, 1991), San Lucian economist and recipient of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.  He died at age 76.

1907 ~ Hideki Yukawa (d. Sept. 8, 1981), Japanese physicist and recipient of the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 71.

1876 ~ Otto Diels (d. Mar. 7, 1954), German chemist and recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 78.

1862 ~ David Hilbert (d. Feb. 14, 1943), German mathematician.  He died 22 days after his 81^st birthday.

1846 ~ Nikolay Umov (d. Jan. 15, 1915), Russian physicist and mathematician.  He died 8 days before his 69^th birthday.

1832 ~ Édouard Manet (d. Apr. 30, 1883), French painter.  He died of gangrene following an operation to amputate his foot.  He was 51 years old.

1786 ~ August de Montferrand (d. July 10, 1858), French-born Russian architect.  He designed St. Isaac’s Cathedral and Alexander Column in St. Petersburg.  He died at age 72.

1783 ~ Stendhal (né Marie-Henri Beyle, d. Mar. 23, 1842), French writer, best known for his novel Le Rouge et le Noir.  He was 59 years old.

1765 ~ Thomas Todd (d. Feb. 7, 1826), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Thomas Jefferson.  He served on the Court from March 1807 until his death in February 1826.  He died 15 days before his 62^nd birthday.

1737 ~ John Hancock (d. Oct. 8, 1793), early American statesman and signer of the Declaration of Independence.  He was the Governor of Massachusetts from May 1787 until his death in October 1793.  He died at age 56.  [Note: Under the Julian calendar his birthday is noted as January 12.]

1719 ~ John Landen (d. Jan. 15, 1790), English mathematician.  He died 8 days before his 71^st birthday.

1688 ~ Ulrika Eleonora (d. Nov. 24, 1741), Queen of Sweden.  She died at age 53.

Events that Changed the World:

2018 ~ A strong 6 magnitude earthquake struck in Java.

2002 ~ Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (1963-2002) was kidnapped by radical Islamists.  He was beheaded 7 days later.

2001 ~ Five people attempted to set themselves on fire in Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

1997 ~ Madeleine Albright (b. 1937) became the first woman to serve as United States Secretary of State.  She served under President Bill Clinton.

1986 ~ Little Richard (b. 1932), Chuck Berry (1926 ~ 2017), James Brown (1933 ~ 2006), Ray Charles (1930 ~ 2004), Sam Cooke (1931 ~ 1964), Fats Domino (1928 ~ 2017), the Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly (1936 ~ 1959), Jerry Lee Lewis (b. 1935) and Elvis Presley (1935 ~ 1977) were inducted into the first class of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

1973 ~ U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that a peace accord had been reached with regard to the war in Vietnam.

1968 ~ The North Korean government seized the USS Pueblo, alleging the ship had been on a spying mission in Korean territorial waters.

1964 ~ The 24^th Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified.  The Amendment prohibited the use of poll taxes in national elections.

1957 ~ American inventor Walter F. Morrison (1920 ~ 2010) sold the rights to his flying disc to the Wham-O toy company.  Wham-O renamed the toy the Frisbee.

1950 ~ The Israeli Knesset passed a resolution stating that the capital of Israel is Jerusalem.  Many countries, including the United States, do not recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.  In 2017, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would be moving its embassy to Jerusalem.

1943 ~ Duke Ellington played at Carnegie Hall for the first time.

1870 ~ U.S. cavalrymen killed 173 Native Americans, mostly women and children, during the Marais Massacre in Montana.

1855 ~ The first bridge over the Mississippi River opened in what is now Minneapolis, Minnesota.

1849 ~ Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), became the first female doctor in the United States.  She earned her M.D. at the Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York.

1789 ~ Georgetown College, the first Catholic University in the United States, was founded in what is now a part of Washington, D.C.

1719 ~ The Principality of Liechtenstein was created within the Holy Roman Empire.

1571 ~ The Royal Exchange opened in London.

1570 ~ James Steward (b. 1531), the 1^st Earl of Moray and regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland became the first recorded victim of an assassination by a firearm.

1556 ~ A deadly earthquake in the Shaanxi Province of China is estimated to have killed over 830,000 people.

1368 ~ Zhu Yuanzhang (1328 ~ 1398) ascended to the throne of China to become the first emperor of the Ming dynasty.

Good-Byes:

2015 ~ Ernie Banks (b. Jan. 31, 1931), African-American baseball player.  He was the optimistic shortstop who played for the Chicago Cubs and was known as “Mr. Cub.”  He died 8 days before his 84^th birthday.

2011 ~ Poppa Neutrino (né William David Pearlman, b. Oct. 15, 1933), American free spirit who rafted across the Atlantic Ocean.  He died in New Orleans, Louisiana at age 77.

2011 ~ Jack LaLanne (né François Henri LaLanne, b. Sept. 26, 1914), American fitness and nutritional expert.  He was an affable salesman who made fitness popular.  He died at age 96.

2005 ~ Johnny Carson (né John William Carson, b. Oct. 23, 1925), American television host of The Late Show.  He died at age 79.

2004 ~ Robert “Bob” Keeshan (b. June 27, 1927), American actor who played Captain Kangaroo on TV.  He died in Windsor, Vermont at age 76.

2004 ~ Helmut Newton (né Helmut Neustädter, b. Oct. 31, 1920), German photographer.  He was killed in a car accident at age 83.

1993 ~ Thomas Dorsey (b. July 1, 1899), African-American composer and pianist.  He died at age 93.

1989 ~ Salvador Dalí (b. May 11, 1904), Spanish surrealist painter.  He died at age 84.

1977 ~ Toots Shor (né Bernard Shor, b. May 6, 1903), American businessman who founded Toots Shor’s Restaurant in Manhattan.  He died at age 73.

1976 ~ Paul Leroy Robeson (b. Apr. 9, 1898), African-American actor, singer and civil rights activist.  He died at age 77.

1944 ~ Edvard Munch (b. Dec. 12, 1863), Norwegian painter, best known for his painting, The Scream.  He died at age 80.

1931 ~ Anna Pavlova (b. Feb. 12, 1881), Russian ballerina.  She died of pleurisy 3 weeks before her 50^th birthday.

1923 ~ Max Nordau (b. July 29, 1849), Hungarian physician and co-founder, along with Theodor Herzl, of the World Zionist Organization.  He died at age 73.

1893 ~ Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar, II (b. Sept. 17, 1825), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Grover Cleveland.  He served in that Office from January 1888 until his death at age 67 in January 1893.  He had previously served as the 16^th United States Secretary of the Interior also during the Grover Cleveland administration.

1806 ~ William Pitt the Younger (b. May 28, 1759), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He died at age 46.

1803 ~ Arthur Guinness (b. Sept. 28, 1725), Irish founder of the Guinness brewery.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he believed to have been 77 or 78 at the time of his death.

1800 ~ Edward Rutledge (b. Nov. 23, 1749), American lawyer and statesman, and the South Carolina signer of the Declaration of Independence.  He was the Governor of South Carolina.  He died in Office at age 50.

1785 ~ Matthew Stewart (b. June 28, 1717) Scottish mathematician.  He died at age 68.

1622 ~ William Baffin (b. 1584), British navigator and explorer.  Baffin Bay in Canada is named in his honor.  The exact date of his birth is not known.

1570 ~ James Steward, 1^st Earl of Moray (b. 1531) regent for the infant King James VI of Scotland.  The exact date of his birth is not known.  He was assassinated and is the first recorded victim of an assassination by a firearm.  He is believed to have been about 38 or 39.

1567 ~ Jiajing (b. Sept. 16, 1507), Emperor of China.  He was the 11^th Emperor of the Ming dynasty.  He died at age 59.

1516 ~ King Ferdinand V of Castille, and Ferdinand II of Aragon (b. Mar. 10, 1452), the Spanish king who supported the travels of Christopher Columbus.  He was also the architect behind the Spanish Inquisition.  He died at age 63.

1002 ~ Otto III (b. 980), Holy Roman Emperor.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been 21 at the time of his death.