February 1

Birthdays:

1987 ~ Heather Morris, American actress best known for her role in Glee.

1971 ~ Michael C. Hall, American actor best known his role as Dexter on the TV show of the same name.

1969 ~ Andrew Breitbart (d. Mar. 1, 2012), American conservative journalist and publisher.  He was a graduate of Tulane University.  He died a month after his 43^rd birthday of heart failure.

1968 ~ Lisa Marie Presley, American singer and daughter of Elvis and Priscilla Presley.

1965 ~ Princess Stéphanie of Monaco, youngest child of Princess Grace Kelly and Prince Rainier, III of Monaco.

1947 ~ Jessica Savitch (d. Oct. 23, 1983), American journalist.  She was killed in a car accident at age 36.

1938 ~ Sherman Hemsley (d. July 24, 2012), American actor who gave heart to George Jefferson on the sit-com, The Jeffersons.  He died at age 74.

1937 ~ Don Everly (né Isaac Donald Everly), American musician and member of The Everly Brothers.

1937 ~ Garrett Morris, American actor best known for his role in the ensemble of Saturday Night Live.

1936 ~ Azie Taylor Morton (d. Dec. 7, 2003), 36^th Treasurer of the United States.  She served under President Jimmy Carter.  She was the first African American to serve in this position.  She died of a stroke at age 67.

1933 ~ Reynolds Price (né Edward Reynolds Price, d. Jan. 20, 2011), American novelist who knew the South best.  His first novel, A Long and Happy Life, won the William Faulkner Award.  He died 12 days before his 78^th birthday.

1931 ~ Boris Yeltsin (d. Apr. 23, 2007), 1^st President of Russia.  He was in that Office from July 1991 until December 1999.  He died at age 76.

1928 ~ Tom Lantos (né Tamás Péter Lantos, d. Feb. 11, 2008), Hungarian-born Holocaust survivor who championed human rights.  He served in the United States Congress, representing California, for over 25 years.  He died 10 days after his 80^th birthday.

1921 ~ Winton Malcolm Blount, Jr. (d. Oct. 24, 2002), 59^th United States Postmaster General.  He served during the Nixon administration from January 1969 until January 1972.  He died at age 81.

1918 ~ Dame Muriel Sarah Spark (d. Apr. 13, 2006), Scottish author.  She is best known for her novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.  She died at age 88.

1905 ~ Emilio G. Segrè (d. Apr. 22, 1989), Italian physicist and recipient of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 84.

1904 ~ S.J. Perelman (né Sidney Joseph Perelman, d. Oct. 17, 1979), American author and humorist.  He died at age 75.

1902 ~ Langston Hughes (né James Mercer Langston Hughes, d. May 22, 1967), American poet.  He died at age 65.

1901 ~ Clark Gable (né William Clark Gable, d. Nov. 16, 1960), American actor best known for his role as Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind.  He died at age 59 of coronary thrombosis.

1901 ~ Frank Buckles (né Wood Buckles, d. Feb. 27, 2011), the last surviving American veteran of World War I.  He died 26 days after his 110^th birthday.

1894 ~ John Ford (d. Aug. 31, 1973), American film director.  He died of stomach cancer at age 79.

1698 ~ Colin Maclaurin (d. June 14, 1746), Scottish mathematician.  He died at age 48.

1561 ~ Henry Briggs (d. Jan. 26, 1630), British mathematician.  He is best known for his work in logarithms in base 10.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been born on February 1, 1561.  He is believed to have died 5 days before his 69^th birthday.

1552 ~ Edward Coke (d. Sept. 3, 1634), English judge and politician.  He died at age 82.

1352 ~ Edmund Mortimer, 3^rd Earl of March (d. Dec. 27, 1381), English politician.  He died at age 29.

Events that Changed the World:

2015 ~ The New England Patriots beat the Seattle Sea Hawks in the Super Bowl.

2004 ~ Janet Jackson experiences a “wardrobe malfunction” during the half-time show at the Super Bowl XXXVIII.  Broadcasters were forced to adopt stronger adherence to the Federal Communication Commission’s censorship guidelines.

2003 ~ The Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into the earth’s atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard.  The disintegration occurred over East Texas and north Louisiana.

2002 ~ Daniel Pearl (1963 ~ 2002), an American journalist for the Wall Street Journal, was beheaded by Islamic terrorists.  He had been kidnapped a week earlier.

1998 ~ Rear Admiral Lillian Fishburne (b. 1949) became the first female African American to be promoted to rear admiral.

1992 ~ The Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bhopal court declared Warren Anderson (1921 ~ 2014), the former CEO of Union Carbide, a fugitive under Indian law for failing to appear at the trial in the Bhopal Union Carbide chemical spill disaster case.  The United States, however, declined to extradite him, citing a lack of evidence.

1979 ~ The Ayatollah Khomeini (1902 ~ 1989) was welcomed back to Tehran, Iran after being in exile for almost 15 years.

1979 ~ Convicted bank robber and heiress, Patty Hearst (b. 1954), was released from prison and her sentence was commuted by President Jimmy Carter.

1978 ~ Film director Roman Polanski (b. 1933) skipped bail and fled to France after pleading guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl.

1968 ~ The execution of Viet Cong officer Nguyen Van Lem (1931 ~ 1968) by South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan was photographed and published by Eddie Adams.  This photograph increased American opposition to the war in Vietnam.

1964 ~ The Beatles, I Want to Hold Your Hand, became their first number one hit in the United States.

1960 ~ Four black students staged the first sit-in at the Greensboro, North Carolina lunch counter at the beginning of the Civil Right Movement.

1958 ~ Egypt and Syria merged to form the United Arab Republic.  It remained so until 1961.

1946 ~ The Parliament of Hungary abolished the monarchy after 900 years.  The country proclaimed itself to be the Hungarian Republic.

1946 ~ Trygve Lie (1896 ~ 1968) of Norway was selected to become the first Secretary-General of the United Nations.

1942 ~ The Voice of America, the official external radio and television service of the United States government, began broadcasting programs aimed at areas controlled by Axis powers.

1920 ~ The Royal Canadian Mounted Police began operating.

1918 ~ Russia adopted the Gregorian Calendar.

1884 ~ The first volume of the Oxford English Dictionary was published.  This volume defined words from A to Ant.

1865 ~ President Abraham Lincoln (1809 ~ 1865) signed the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

1861 ~ Texas seceded from the United States during the American Civil War.

1327 ~ The teenaged Edward III (1312 ~ 1377) was crowned King of England.  The country, however, was effectively ruled by his mother, Queen Isabella (1295 ~ 1358) and her lover, Roger Mortimer(1287 ~ 1330).

Good-Byes:

2014 ~ Maximilian Schell (b. Dec. 8, 1930), Austrian actor who explored World War II’s legacy.  He is best known for his role in Judgment at Nuremberg.  He died at age 83.

2013 ~ Ed Koch (né Edward Irving Koch, b. Dec. 12, 1924), American outspoken mayor who embodied New York City.  He was the 105^th Mayor of New York City.  He served three terms as Mayor from January 1978 through December 1989.  He died at age 88.

2012 ~ Wisława Szymborska (b. July 2, 1923), Polish poet and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.  She died at age 88.

2010 ~ David Brown (b. July 28, 1916), American movie producer who made Jaws and The Sting.  He was married to Helen Gurley Brown, the editor of Cosmopolitan.  He died of renal failure at age 93.

2003 ~ Crew of the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia:

• 2003 ~ Kalpana Chawla (b. Mar. 17, 1962), Indian-born astronaut.  She was aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia and was killed when the shuttle exploded upon returning to earth.  She died at age 40.
• 2003 ~ William Cameron McCool (b. Sept. 23, 1961), American astronaut.  He was the commander of the Space Shuttle Columbia.  He died at age 41 when the Columbia disintegrated upon re-entry to the Earth.
• 2003 ~ Laurel Blair Salton Clark (b. Mar. 10, 1961), American astronaut who was killed during the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.  She died at age 41.
• 2003 ~ Michael Phillip Anderson (b. Dec. 25, 1959), American astronaut who perished in the Columbia shuttle explosion.  He was 43 at the time of his death.
• 2003 ~ Richard Douglas Husband (b. July 12, 1957), American astronaut who was the Commander of the Space Shuttle Columbia when it disintegrated during reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere.  He was 45 years old.
• 2003 ~ David McDowell Brown (b. Apr. 16, 1956), American astronaut who was aboard the ill-fated Space Shuttle Columbia.  He died at age 46.
• 2003 ~ Ilan Ramon (né Ilan Wolferman, b. June 20, 1954), Israeli combat pilot and astronaut, who was killed, along with 6 other crew members, when the Columbia crashed upon re-entry.  He was 48 years old.

2002 ~ Daniel Pearl (b. Oct. 10, 1963), American journalist with the Wall Street Journal who was kidnapped on January 23, 2002, and subsequently beheaded by his captors while on assignment in Pakistan.  He was 38 years old.

1989 ~ Elaine de Kooning (b. Mar. 12, 1918), American artist.  She was also the wife of artist Willem de Kooning.  She died at age 68.

1988 ~ Heather O’Rourke (b. Dec. 27, 1975), American actress best known for her role in Poltergeist.  She died at age 12 of cardiac arrest caused by septic shock due to a misdiagnosed intestinal stenosis.

1986 ~ Alva Myrdal (b. Jan. 31, 1902), Swedish sociologist and politician and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize.  She died 1 day after her 84^th birthday.

1986 ~ Ida Rhodes (née Hadassah Itzkowitz, b. May 15, 1900), American mathematician.  She died at age 85.

1981 ~ Donald Wills Douglas, Sr. (b. Apr. 6, 1892), American aviation industrialist and founder of the Douglas Aircraft Company.  He died at age 88.

1976 ~ Werner Heisenberg (b. Dec. 5, 1901), German physicist and recipient of the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 74.

1976 ~ George Hoyt Whipple (b. Aug. 28, 1878), American pathologist and recipient of the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in liver therapy.  He was from New Hampshire.  He died at age 97.

1970 ~ Alfréd Rényi (d. Mar. 20, 1921), Hungarian mathematician.  He died at age 48.

1966 ~ Buster Keaton (né Joseph Frank Keaton, b. Oct. 4, 1895), American silent screen comedic actor.  He died of lung cancer at age 70.

1966 ~ Hedda Hopper (née Elda Furry, b. May 2, 1885), American gossip columnist.  She died of pneumonia at age 80.

1958 ~ Clinton Davisson (b. Oct. 22, 1881), American physicist and recipient of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 76.

1944 ~ Piet Mondriaan (b. Mar. 7, 1872), Dutch artist.  He died at age 71.

1903 ~ Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1^st Baronet (b. Aug. 13, 1819), Irish mathematician and physicist.  He died at age 83.

1893 ~ George Henry Sanderson (b. 1824), 22^nd Mayor of San Franciscio.  He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  The exact date of his birth is not known.

1851 ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (b. Aug. 30, 1797), English author best known for her gothic novel, Frankenstein.  She died at age 53.

1691 ~ Pope Alexander VIII (né Pietro Vito Ottoboni, b. Apr. 22, 1610).  He was Pope from October 1689 until his death less than 2 years later.  He died at age 80.

1328 ~ King Charles IV of France (b. June 18, 1294).  He was King from January 1322 until his death in February 1328.  He died at age 33.

772 ~ Pope Stephen III (né Stephanus, b. 720).  He was Pope from August 768 until his death.  The date of his birth is not known.