February 20

Birthdays:

1984 ~ Trevor Noah, South African comedian and television host.

1967 ~ Kurt Cobain (d. Apr. 5, 1994), American musician and front-man for Nirvana.  He committed suicide at age 27.

1966 ~ Cindy Crawford (née Cynthia Ann Crawford), American model.

1964 ~ French Stewart (né Milton French Stewart), American actor.

1963 ~ Charles Wade Barkley, American basketball player.

1954 ~ Patty Hearst (née Patricia Campbell Hearst), American socialite and kidnapping victim.

1951 ~ Gordon Brown (né James Gordon Brown), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

1950 ~ Walter Carl Becker (d. Sept. 3, 2017), American sly songwriter who co-founded Steely Dan.  He died at age 67 following a long illness.

1949 ~ Ivana Trump, Czech born socialite and first wife of Donald Trump.

1946 ~ J. Geils (né John Warren Geils, d. Apr. 11, 2017), American blues guitarist who became an ‘80s hitmaker.  He founded the J. Geils Band.  He died at age 71.

1946 ~ Sandy Duncan (née Sandra Kay Duncan), American actress and singer.  She was born in Texas.

1942 ~ Phil Esposito (né Philip Anthony Esposito), Canadian ice hockey player.

1942 ~ Mitch McConnell (né Addison Mitch McConnell, Jr.), American politician from Kentucky

1941 ~ Buffy Sainte-Marie (née Beverly Sainte-Marie), Canadian singer.

1937 ~ Robert Huber, German chemist and recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

1935 ~ Ellen Gilchrist, American author.  She was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1931 ~ John Willard Milnor, American mathematician.

1929 ~ Amanda Blake (d. Aug. 16, 1989), American actress best known for her role as Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke.  She died at age 60 of cancer.

1928 ~ Jean Ann Kennedy Smith, member of the Kennedy clan.  She had also served as the 25^th United States Ambassador to Ireland from June 1993 until September 1998 during the Clinton administration.

1927 ~ Roy Marcus Cohn (d. Aug. 2, 1986), American politician and attorney.  He died at age 59.

1927 ~ Sir Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor.

1925 ~ Robert Altman (d. Nov. 20, 2006), American film director.  He died at age 81.

1924 ~ Gloria Laura Vanderbilt, American socialite, clothing designer and mother of television personality, Anderson Cooper.

1918 ~ Leonore Cohn Annenberg (d. Mar. 12, 2009), American society hostess who was the Chief of Protocol of the United States during the Reagan administration.  She died 20 days after her 91^st birthday.

1910 ~ Esther Klein Szekeres (d. Aug. 28, 2005), Hungarian mathematician and wife of George Szekeres (1911 ~ 2005).  She and her husband died within hours of each other.  She was 95 years old.

1902 ~ Ansel Adams (d. Apr. 22, 1984), American photographer.  He died at age 82.

1901 ~ Muhammad Naguib (d. Aug. 28, 1984), Egyptian general and 1^st President of Egypt.  He died at age 83.

1899 ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (d. Dec. 13, 1992), American businessman and philanthropist.  He died at age 93.

1867 ~ Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife (d. Jan. 4, 1931).  She was the eldest daughter of King Edward VII.  She died at age 63.

1819 ~ Alfred Escher (d. Dec. 6, 1882), Swiss businessman and founder of Credit Suisse.  He died at age 63.

1803 ~ Henry Stanbery (d. June 26, 1881), 28^th US Attorney General.  He served in that office under the Andrew Johnson administration from July 1866 until July 1868.  He died at age 78.

1759 ~ Johann Christian Reil (d. Nov. 22, 1813), German physician.  He coined the term “psychiatry”.  He died at age 54.

1726 ~ William Prescott (d. Oct. 13, 1795), American Revolutionary War colonel who was instrumental in the Battle of Bunker Hill.  He is credited with saying: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”  He died at age 69.

1358 ~ Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Castile (d. Aug. 13, 1382).  She was the Queen of John I of Castile.  She died in childbirth at age 24.

Events that Changed the World:

2003 ~ A pyrotechnic display by the band Great White in a night club in West Warwick, Rhode Island, set a fire which destroyed the building and killed over 100 attendees and injured numerous others.

1998 ~ At age 14, American figure skater Tara Lipinski (b. 1982), became the youngest gold-medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics, which were held in Japan.

1986 ~ The Soviet Union launched its Mir space station.  It remained in orbit for 15 years.

1962 ~ Astronaut John Glenn (1921 ~ 2016) became the first American to orbit the earth.  He was in the spaceship, Friendship 7.

1935 ~ Danish Caroline Mikkelsen (1906 ~ 1998) became the first recorded woman to set foot in Antarctica.

1877 ~ Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake, premièred at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

1873 ~ The University of California opened its first medical school in San Francisco, California.

1872 ~ The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City opened.

1835 ~ Concepción, Chile was destroyed by an earthquake.

1816 ~ The Barber of Seville, the opera by Gioachino Rossini (1792 ~ 1868), made it premier in Rome.

1792 ~ The Postal Service Act, which established the United States Post Office Department, was signed by President George Washington (1732 ~ 1799).

1685 ~ René-Robert Cavelier (1643 ~ 1687) established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, a large Gulf of Mexico estuary on what is now the Texas coast, thereby, establishing the basis for France’s claim to the land that is now Texas.

1547 ~ Edward VI of England (1537 ~ 1553) was crowned King of England.

Good-byes:

2017 ~ Mildred Dresselhaus (b. Nov. 11, 1930), American nanoscience pioneer who broke barriers.  She was the first female Institute Professor at MIT.  She was known as the Queen of Carbon Science.  She died at age 86.

2014 ~ Garrick Utley (né Clifton Garrick, b. Nov. 19, 1939), American news journalist and television news anchor. He died of prostate cancer age 74.

2014 ~ Tennent H. Bagely (b. Nov. 11, 1925), the American CIA agent who handled, Yuri Nosenko, a dubious Russian defector.  He died at age 88.

2014 ~ Rafael Addiego Bruno (d. Feb. 23, 1923), President of Uruguay.  He died 3 days before his 91^st birthday.

2010 ~ Alexander Haig (d. Dec. 2, 1924), American brash general who became the 59^th Secretary of State.  He served as Secretary of Stat under President Ronald Reagan from January 1981 until July 1982.  He previously served as the 5^th White House Chief of Staff from May 1973 until September 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.  He died at age 85.

2006 ~ Curt Gowdy (né Curtis Edward Gowdy, b. July 31, 1919), American sportscaster.  He died of leukemia at age 86.

2005 ~ Hunter S. Thompson (b. July 18, 1937), American journalist.  He committed suicide at age 67.

2003 ~ Orville Freeman (b. May 9, 1918), 16^th United States Secretary of Agriculture.  He served under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson from January 1961 until January 1969.  He died at age 84.

1999 ~ Gene Siskel (né Eugene Kal Siskel, b. Jan. 26, 1946), American film critic, who with Roger Ebert, had a long-running television show critiquing movies.  He died of a brain tumor 25 days after his 53^rd birthday.

1996 ~ Solomon Eliot Asch (b. Sept. 14, 1907), Polish-born American psychologist.  He died at age 88.

1993 ~ Ferruccio Lamborghini (b. Apr. 28, 1916), Italian businessman and creator of the Lamborghini, a high-end sports vehicle.  He died at age 76.

1992 ~ Dick York (né Richard Allen York, b. Sept. 4, 1928), American actor.  He is best known as being cast as the first Darren on Bewitched.  He died of emphysema at age 63.

1980 ~ Alice Lee Roosevelt Longworth (b. Feb. 12, 1884), eldest daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.  She died 8 days after her 96^th birthday.

1976 ~ René Samuel Cassin (b. Oct. 5, 1887), French judge and jurist.  He was the recipient of the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.  He died at age 89.

1972 ~ Maria Goeppert-Mayer (b. June 28, 1906), German-born American theoretical physicist and recipient of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus.  She was the second woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, the first being Marie Curie.  She died of a heart attack at age 65.

1972 ~ Walter Winchell (b. Apr. 7, 1897), American journalist, gossip commentator and broadcaster.  He died at age 74 of prostate cancer.

1966 ~ Chester William Nimitz, Sr. (b. Feb. 24, 1885), American admiral.  He was a leading authority on submarines.  He died 4 days before his 81^st birthday.

1920 ~ Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary, Sr. (b. May 6, 1856), American Arctic explorer.  He claimed to be the first person to reach the North Pole.  He died at age 63.

1916 ~ Klas Pontus Arnoldson (d. Oct. 27, 1844), Swedish writer and pacifist.  He was the recipient of the 1908 Nobel Peace Prize.  He died at age 71.

1907 ~ Ferdinand Frederick Henri Moissan (b. Sept. 28, 1852), French chemist and recipient of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds.  He died at age 54 from an acute case of appendicitis.

1895 ~ Frederick Douglass (b. Feb. 1818), American abolitionist.  The actual date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been born in February 1818.  He died at age 77.

1893 ~ P.G.T. Beauregard (né Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, b. May 28, 1818), Louisiana-born military officer and Confederate General during the American Civil War.  He died at age 74 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1790 ~ Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. Mar. 13, 1741).  He died 3 weeks before his 49^th birthday.

1778 ~ Laura Bassi (b. Oct. 31, 1711), Italian physician and scholar.  She is believed to have been the first female university professor in Europe.  The exact date of her birth is not known, but she is believed to have been born sometime between October 20 and 31 in 1711.  She died at age 66.

1762 ~ Tobias Mayer (b. Feb. 17, 1723), German astronomer.  He is best known for his study of the Moon.  He died just 3 days after his 39^th birthday.

1653 ~ Luigi Rossi (b. 1597), Italian composer.  The exact date of is birth is not known.

1618 ~ Philip William, Prince of Orange (b. Dec. 19, 1554).  He died at age 63.

1513 ~ King John of Denmark (b. Feb. 2, 1455).  He died 18 days after his 58^th birthday.

1431 ~ Pope Martin V (né Odo Colonna, b. 1368).  The exact date of his birth is not known.

922 ~ Theodora, Byzantine empress.  The date of her birth is not known.