February 19

Birthdays:

1971 ~ Gil Shaham, Israeli-born American violinist.

1966 ~ Justine Bateman, American actress.

1967 ~ Benicio del Toro, Puerto Rican actor.

1960 ~ Prince Andrew, Duke of York.

1957 ~ Falco (né Johann Hölzel, d. Feb. 6, 1998), Austrian musician.  He was killed in an automobile accident 2 weeks before his 41^st birthday.

1956 ~ Roderick MacKinnon, American biologist.  He, along with Peter Agre, were the recipients of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on the structure and operation of ion channels.

1955 ~ Jeff Daniels (né Jeffrey Warren Daniels), American actor.

1953 ~ Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, President of Argentina.  She served as President from December 2007 until December 2015.

1952 ~ Amy Tan, American author.

1946 ~ Karen Silkwood (d. Nov. 13, 1974), American political and environmental activist.  She was the subject of the 1983 movie, Silkwood.  She was killed in a car accident under mysterious circumstances.  She was 28 years old.

1943 ~ Sir Tim Hunt (né Richard Timothy Hunt), British biochemist.  He, along with Paul Nurse and Leland Hartwell, were the recipients of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of protein molecules that control the duplication of cells.

1941 ~ David Jonathan Gross, American physicist and string theorist.  He, along with Frank Wilczek and David Politzer, were the recipients of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery of asymptotic freedom.

1940 ~ Smokey Robinson (né William Robinson, Jr.), American singer.

1924 ~ Lee Marvin (b. Aug. 29, 1987), American actor.  He is best known for his palimony lawsuit in which his live-in girlfriend sued him for financial support after their break-up.  He died of a heart attack at age 63.

1920 ~ C.Z. Guest (née Lucy Douglas Cochrane, d. Nov. 8, 2003), American actress and socialite.  She was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  She died at age 83.

1917 ~ Carson McCullers (née Lula Carson Smith, d. Sept. 29, 1967), American author, best known for her novel, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.  She died at age 50 of a brain hemorrhage.

1911 ~ Merle Oberon (née Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson, d. Nov. 23, 1979), British actress.  She died at age 68.

1911 ~ William Jay “Bill” Bowerman (d. Dec. 24, 1999), American sports coach and businessman.  He was a co-founder of Nike, Inc.  He died at age 88.

1901 ~ Florence Green (d. Feb. 4, 2012), British soldier who served in the Woman’s Royal Air Force during World War I.  She also has the distinction of being the last survivor of World War I from any country.  She died 15 days before her 111^th birthday.

1888 ~ Aurora Quezon (d. Apr. 28, 1949), First Lady of the Philippines.  She was assassinated on her way to open a hospital dedicated to her deceased husband, former president of the Philippines.  She was 61 years old.

1880 ~ Álvaro Obregón (d. July 7, 1928), 39^th President of Mexico.  He served as President from December 1920 through November 1924.  He was assassinated at age 48.

1859 ~ Svante Arrhenius (d. Oct. 2, 1927), Swedish chemist and recipient of the 1903 and the 1905 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 68.

1833 ~ Élie Ducommun (d. Dec. 7, 1906), Swiss journalist and recipient of the 1902 Nobel Peace Prize.  He help found the Ligue de la paix et de la liberté (League of Peace and Freedom), a non-governmental international peace organization.  He died at age 73.

1824 ~ Henri Germain (d. Feb. 2, 1905), French banker and founder of Le Crédit Lyonnais.  He died 17 days before his 81^st birthday.

1817 ~ King William III of the Netherlands (d. Nov. 23, 1890).  He died at age 73.

1660 ~ Friedrich Hoffmann (d. Nov. 12, 1742), German physician and chemist.  He died at age 82.

1473 ~ Nicolaus Copernicus (d. May 24, 1543), Polish mathematician and astronomer who published his proof that the planets revolve around the sun.  He died at age 70.

Events that Changed the World:

2008 ~ Fidel Castro (1926 ~ 2016) announced his resignation as President of Cuba.  He would formally resign on February 24, 2008.

1976 ~ Executive Order 9066, which President Franklin Roosevelt had signed leading to the relocation of Japanese-Americans to internment camps, was rescinded by President Gerald R. Ford’s Proclamation 4417.

1963 ~ The Feminine Mystique, by Betty Friedan (1921 ~ 2006), was published, which sparked the Feminist Movement in the United States.

1945 ~ About 30,000 US Marines landed on the island of Iwo Jima during World War II.

1942 ~ President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882 ~ 1945) signed Executive Order 9066, which allowed the US military to relocate Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II.  This order would be rescinded by President Gerald Ford (1913 ~ 2006) on this same day in 1976.

1921 ~ Rezā Shāh took control of Tehran during a coup.

1915 ~ The first naval attack on the Dardanelles began when an Anglo-French task force bombarded Ottoman artillery along the coast of Gallipoli during World War I.

1884 ~ More than 60 tornados tore through the Southern United States.  It was one of the largest tornado outbreaks in US history.

1878 ~ Thomas Edison (1847 ~ 1931) patented the phonograph.

1861 ~ Serfdom was abolished in Russia.

1859 ~ Daniel Sickles (1819 ~ 1914), a New York Congressman who was involved in many scandals, was acquitted of the murder of his wife’s lover on grounds of temporary insanity.  This was the first time this defense was successfully used in the United States.

1847 ~ The first group of rescuers reached the Donner Party.

1819 ~ British explorer William Smith (1790 ~ 1847) discovered the South Shetland Islands off the coast of Antarctica and claimed them in the name of King George III (1738 ~ 1820).

1807 ~ Former Vice President Aaron Burr (1756 ~ 1836) was arrested in Alabama for treason.  He was subsequently acquitted of such charges.

1600 ~ The stratovolcano Huaynaputina in Andes in southern Peru erupted causing the largest volcanic explosion in the recorded history of South America.  Eruptions continued into March 1600.

Good-Byes:

2017 ~ Igor Shafarevich (b. June 3, 1923), Russian mathematician.  He died at age 93.

2016 ~ Umberto Eco (b. Jan. 5, 1932), Italian philosopher and scholar who became a blockbuster novelist with his novel, The Name of the Rose.  He died at age 84.

2016 ~ Harper Lee (née Nelle Harper Lee, b. Apr. 28, 1926), American author, best known for her novel To Kill a Mockingbird.  In July 2015, a second book written by Lee, Go Set A Watchman, was published.  She was 89 years old at the time of her death.

2013 ~ Robert Coleman Richardson (b. June 26, 1937), American physicist and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 75.

2012 ~ Renato Dulbecco (b. Feb. 22, 1914), Italian virologist and recipient of the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died 3 days before his 98^th birthday.

1997 ~ Leo Calvin Rosten (b. Apr. 11, 1908), American Yiddish novelist and humorist.  He wrote The Joy of Yiddish.  He died at age 88.

1988 ~ André Frédéric Cournand (b. Sept. 24, 1895), French-born physician.  He, along with Werner Forssmann and Dickinson Richards, were the recipients of the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their research and development of cardiac cathererization.  He died at age 92.

1962 ~ Georgios Papanikolaou (b. May 13, 1883), Greek pathologist who developed the pap smear.  He died at age 78.

1952 ~ Knut Hamsun (b. Aug. 4, 1859), Norwegian writer and recipient of the 1920 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 92.

1951 ~ André Gide (b. Nov. 22, 1869), French writer and recipient of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 91.

1916 ~ Ernst Mach (né Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach, b. Feb. 18, 1838), Austrian physicist.  He is best known for his contributions to the study of shock waves.  He died 1 day after his 78^th birthday.

1897 ~ Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstraβ (b. Oct. 31, 1815), German mathematician.  He died at age 81.

1806 ~ Elizabeth Carter (d. Dec. 16, 1717), English poet.  She died at age 88.

1799 ~ Jean-Charles de Borda (b. May 4, 1733), French mathematician.  He died at age 65.

1553 ~ Erasmus Reinhold (b. Oct. 22, 1511), German astronomer and mathematician.  He died at age 41.