February 21

Birthdays:

1962 ~ David Foster Wallace (d. Sept. 12, 2008), American author.  He committed suicide at age 46.

1956 ~ Sally Jewell (née Sarah Margaret Roffey), 51^st United States Secretary of the Interior.  She served under President Barack Obama from April 2013 until January 2017.

1955 ~ Kelsey Grammer (né Allen Kelsey Grammer), American actor.

1953 ~ Christine Ebersole, American actress.

1947 ~ Olympia Jean Snowe, American politician from Maine.  She served as a United States Senator from January 1995 until January 2013.

1946 ~ Alan Rickman (d. Jan. 14, 2016), British actor who was the voice of villainy.  He was adored for his villainous turns in Die Hard and Harry Potter.  He died of pancreatic cancer just over a month before his 70^th birthday.

1946 ~ Tyne Daly (née Ellen Tyne Daly), American actress.

1937 ~ King Harald V of Norway.

1936 ~ Barbara Charline Jordan (d. Jan. 17, 1996), African-American politician from Texas.  She served as the United States House of Representatives from January 1973 until January 1979.  She died of pneumonia at age 59.

1933 ~ Nina Simone (née Eunice Kathleen Waymon, d. Apr. 21, 2003), American singer and activist.  She died at age 70.

1927 ~ Erma Bombeck (d. Apr. 22, 1996), American humorist.  She died of complications from a kidney transplant at age 69.

1927 ~ Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy, French fashion designer.

1925 ~ Sam Peckinpah (né David Samuel Peckinpah, d. Dec. 28, 1984), American movie director.  He died at age 59 of heart failure.

1924 ~ Robert Gabriel Mugabe, 2^nd President of Zimbabwe.  He served as President from December 1987 until he was ousted in November 2017.

1919 ~ Kehat Shorr (d. Sept. 6, 1972), Romanian-born Israeli shooting coach.  He was murdered by Palestinian terrorists during the 1972 Olympics in Munich.  He died at age 53.

1917 ~ Manson Whitlock (d. Aug. 28, 2013), American repairman who cherished typewriters.  He died at age 96.

1907 ~ W.H. Auden (né Wystan Hugh Auden, d. Sept. 29, 1973), Anglo-American poet.  He died at age 66.

1904 ~ Alexei Kosygin (d. Dec. 18, 1980), 8^th Premier of the Soviet Union.  He died at age 76.

1903 ~ Anaïs Nin (né Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, d. Jan. 14, 1977), French writer and diarist.  She is best known for her erotic literature.  She was born in France to Cuban parents.  She died at age 73.

1895 ~ Henrick Dam (né Carl Peter Henrick Dam, d. Apr. 17, 1976), Danish biochemist and recipient of the 1943 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died at age 81.

1866 ~ August Paul von Wassermann (d. Mar. 16, 1925), German microbiologist.  He developed the Wassermann Test that allowed for the early detection of syphilis.  He died 23 days after his 59^th birthday.

1821 ~ Charles Scribner I (d. Aug. 26, 1871), American publisher and founder of Charles Scribner’s and Sons.  He died of typhoid at age 50.

1794 ~ Antonia López de Santa Anna (d. June 21, 1876), President of Mexico and Mexican general.  He died at age 82.

1728 ~ Tsar Peter III of Russia (d. July 17, 1762).  He was the husband of Catherine the Great.  He died under mysterious circumstances at age 34 and is believed to have been murdered.

1621 ~ Rebecca Towne Nurse (d. July 19, 1692), English colonist who was executed as a witch during the Salem witch trials.  She was 71.

Events that Changed the World:

2012 ~ Mardi Gras.

1995 ~ Steve Fossett (1944 ~ 2007) became the first person to make a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean in a balloon.

1975 ~ Former US Attorney General John Mitchell (1913 ~ 1988) and former Nixon aides H.R. Haldeman (1926 ~ 1993) and John Ehrlichman (1925 ~ 1999) were sentenced to prison for their roles in the Watergate scandal.

1974 ~ The last Israeli soldiers left the west bank of the Suez Canal pursuant to a truce with Egypt.

1972 ~ President Richard Nixon (1913 ~ 1994) visited the People’s Republic of China, becoming the first US President to visit the country.

1958 ~ The Peace symbol, which was commissioned by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in protest against the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment, was designed by Gerald Holtom (1914 ~ 1985).

1948 ~ The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) became incorporated.

1947 ~ Edwin Land (1909 ~ 1991) demonstrated the first “instant camera”, the Polaroid Land Camera, at a meeting of the Optical Society of America.

1925 ~ The New Yorker began publishing.

1921 ~ Rezā Shāh (1878 ~ 1944) took control of Tehran following a successful coup.

1918 ~ The last of the Carolina Parakeets died in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo in Cincinnati, Ohio.

1885 ~ The Washington Monument was dedicated in Washington, D.C.

1878 ~ The first telephone book was issued in New Haven, Connecticut.

1848 ~ Karl Marx (1818 ~ 1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820 ~ 1895) published The Communist Manifesto.

1842 ~ John Greenough was granted the first US patent for a sewing machine.

1808 ~ Russian troops crossed the border into Sweden and started the Finnish War.  Ultimately, Sweden lost the eastern half of its country (now Finland) to Russia.

1613 ~ Mikhail I (1596 ~ 1645) was elected Tsar by a national assembly, thus beginning the Romanov dynasty of Imperial Russia.

Good-Byes:

2017 ~ Kenneth Arrow (b. Aug. 23, 1921), American economist and recipient of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.  He died at age 95.

2015 ~ Clark Terry, Jr. (b. Dec. 14, 1920), African-American trumpet and flugelhorn virtuoso who taught the art of Jazz.  He died at age 94.

2012 ~ Gladys O’Connor (b. Nov. 28, 1903), Canadian actress.  She died at age 108.

2008 ~ Benjamin “Ben” Chapman (b. Oct. 29, 1928), American minor actor who was a major movie monster.  He was best known for playing Gill-man in the 1954 horror film classic, Creature From the Black Lagoon.  He died at age 79.

2008 ~ Robin Moore (né Robert Lowell Moore, b. Oct. 31, 1925), American popular author who wrote The French Connection.  He also wrote The Green Berets.  He was born in Boston, Massachusetts.  He died at age 82.

2008 ~ Evan Mecham (b. May 12, 1924) American loose-lipped governor from Arizona who was impeached.  He was 83 years old.

2008 ~ Sunny Lowry (née Ethel Lowry, b. Jan. 2, 1911), first British woman to swim the English Channel.  In August 1933, she swam the English Channel in 15 hours, 41 minutes.  She died at age 97.

1999 ~ Gertrude Elion (b. Jan. 23, 1918), American biochemist and recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  She died a month after her 81^st birthday.

1993 ~ Inge Lehmann (b. May 13, 1888), Danish seismologist and geophysicist who discovered the Earth’s inner core.  She died at age 104.

1991 ~ Dame Margot Fonteyn (née Margaret Evelyn Hookham, b. May 18, 1919), British ballerina.  She died of cancer at age 71.

1986 ~ Helen Hooven Santmyer (b. Nov. 25, 1895), American novelist, best known for her novel, … And the Ladies of the Club.  She was 88 years old when this novel was published.  She died at age 90.

1984 ~ Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov (b. May 24, 1905), Russian writer and recipient of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 78.

1982 ~ Gershom Scholem (b. Dec. 5, 1897), German-born Israeli philosopher and historian.  He died at age 84.

1968 ~ Howard Florey, Baron Florey (b. Sept. 24, 1898), Australian pharmacologist and recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his role in the development of penicillin.  He died at age 69.

1965 ~ Malcolm X (né Malcolm Little, b. May 19, 1925), Black American Muslim leader who was assassinated by other members of the Nation of Islam.  He was assassinated at age 39.

1950 ~ Gerhard Kowalewski (b. Mar. 27, 1876), German mathematician and member of the Nazi party.  He is best known for the introduction of the matrices notation.  He is also known as being a strong advocate for female mathematicians.  He died at age 73.

1941 ~ Sir Frederick Gant Banting (b. Nov. 14, 1891), Canadian physician who was the principal discoverer of how insulin functions in the human body.  He, along with his co-worker John Macleod, received the 1923 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology for this discovery.  He was killed from injuries sustained in a plane crash at age 49.

1938 ~ George Ellery Hale (b. June 29, 1868), American astronomer.  He died at age 69.

1935 ~ Giuseppe Moretti (b. Feb. 3, 1857), Italian sculptor and designer of the Vulcan statue in Birmingham, Alabama.  The statute, which is made from iron from the Birmingham area, was created as the city’s entry into the 1904 World’s Fair, which was held in St. Louis, Missouri.  He died 18 days after his 78^th birthday.

1926 ~ Heike Kamerlingh Onnes (b. Sept. 21, 1853), Dutch physicist and recipient of the 1913 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 72.

1919 ~ Mary Edwards Walker (b. Nov. 26, 1832), American physician.  She served during the American Civil War and as of 2016, she was still the only woman to be awarded the Medal of Honor.  She died at age 86.

1910 ~ Boutros Ghali (b. 1846), Prime Minister of Egypt.  He served as Prime Minister from November 1908 until his assassination on this date.  The exact date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been about 64 or 65 years of age.

1730 ~ Pope Benedict XIII (né Pietro Francesco Orsini, b. Feb. 2, 1649).  He ruled as Pope from May 29, 1724 until his death on February 21, 1730.  He died three weeks after his 81^st birthday.

1715 ~ Charles Calvert, 3^rd Baron Baltimore (b. Aug. 27, 1637), governor of the province of Maryland.

1677 ~ Baruch Spinoza (b. Nov. 24, 1632), Dutch-Jewish philosopher.  He was born in Amsterdam of Portuguese-Jewish parents.  Because he was a free-thinker, he was the most famous individual to be excommunicated by the Amsterdam Jewish community.  He died at age 44.

1513 ~ Pope Julius II (né Guiliano della Rovere, b. Dec. 5, 1443).  He was known as the Warrior Pope and ruled from November 1503 until his death 10 years later.  He died at age 69.

1437 ~ James I of Scotland (b. July 25, 1394).  The exact date of his birth is not known, but it is often considered to have been July 25, 1394.  He died assassinated at age 42.