February 8

Birthdays:

1974 ~ Seth Green, American actor.

1964 ~ Arlie Oswald Petters, Belizean mathematician.

1955 ~ John Grisham, American writer.

1943 ~ Creed Bratton (nè William Charles Schneider), American actor best known for his role a Creed in the television sit-com The Office.

1942 ~ Robert Klein, American comedian and actor.

1941 ~ Nick Nolte (né Nickolas King Nolte), American actor.

1940 ~ Ted Koppel, (né Edward James Martin Koppel) American journalist.

1932 ~ John Towner Williams, American composer and conductor.

1931 ~ James Dean (d. Sept. 30, 1955), American actor, best known for his role in Rebel Without a Cause.  He was killed in an automobile accident.  He died at age 24.

1928 ~ Jack Larson (d. Sept. 20, 2015), American actor and playwright who couldn’t escape his role as Jimmy Olsen from Superman.  He was 87 years old.

1926 ~ Audrey Meadows (d. Feb. 3, 1996), American actress.  She is best known for her role as Alice Kramden on The Honeymooners.  She died of lung cancer 5 days before her 70^th birthday.

1925 ~ Jack Lemmon (né John Uhler Lemmon, III, d. June 27, 2001), American actor.  He died at age 76.

1923 ~ Robert Rietti (né Lucio Rietti, d. Apr. 3, 2015), British voice actor who played Bond villains again and again.  He was 92 years old.

1921 ~ Lana Turner (née Julia Jean Turner, d. June 29, 1995), American actress.  She died of esophageal cancer at age 74.

1914 ~ Bill Finger (né Milton Finger, d. Jan. 18, 1974), American author and co-creator, along with Bob Kane, of Batman.  He died 21 days before his 60^th birthday.

1906 ~ Chester Floyd Carlson (b. Sept. 19, 1968), American physicist and inventor of Xerography.  He died of a heart attack at age 62.

1894 ~ King Wallis Vidor (d. Nov. 1, 1982), American film director.  He died at age 88.

1882 ~ Thomas Selfridge (d. Sept. 17, 1908), American lieutenant and first known airplane crash fatality.  He was a passenger in a plane piloted by Orville Wright.  He was 26 years old.

1878 ~ Martin Buber (d. June 13, 1965), Austrian-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and theologian.  He died at age 87.

1850 ~ Kate Chopin (née Katherine O’Flaherty, d. Aug. 22, 1904), American author who set many of her stories in Louisiana.  She died at age 54.

1828 ~ Jules Gabriel Verne (d. Mar. 24, 1905), French science fiction writer.  He is best known for such novels as Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea.  He died of diabetes at age 77.

1822 ~ Maxime Du Camp (d. Feb. 9, 1894), French photographer and journalist.  He died 1 day after his 72^nd birthday.

1820 ~ William Tecumseh Sherman (d. Feb. 14, 1891), American Union general in the American Civil War.  Prior to serving in the Army, he served as the president of the Louisiana State University.  He died 6 days after his 71^st birthday.

1819 ~ John Ruskin (d. Jan. 20, 1900), English author.  He died 19 days before his 81^st birthday.

1700 ~ Daniel Bernoulli (d. Mar. 17, 1782), Dutch-Swiss mathematician and physicist.  He died at age 82.

412 ~ Proclus Lycaeus (d. Apr. 17, 485), Greek mathematician and philosopher.  He died at age 73.

120 ~ Vettius Valens (d. 175), Greek astronomer and mathematician.  He is believed to have been born on February 8, 120, but the date of his death is not known.

Events that Changed the World:

1978 ~ The proceedings of the United States Senate were broadcast for the first time on radio.

1971 ~ The NASDAQ stock market index opened for the first time.

1965 ~ Eastern Airlines Flight 663, heading from Boston to Atlanta, Georgia with a stop-over in New York, crashed into the Atlantic Ocean.  All passengers and crew were killed.

1963 ~ Brigadier General Abdul-Karim Qassem (1914 ~ 1963), the Prime Minister of Iraq, was overthrown by the Ba’ath Party.  He was executed the following day, on February 9, 1963

1963 ~ Travel, financial and commercial transactions by citizens of the United States to Cuba became illegal by act of the Kennedy administration.

1960 ~ The first brass star plaques were installed in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.  The first stars to be honored included: Joanne Woodward, Olive Borden, Ronald Colman, Louise Fazenza, Preston Foster, Burt Lancaster, Edward Sedgwick and Ernest Torrence.

1960 ~ Queen Elizabeth II (b. 1926) of the United Kingdom issued an Order-in-Council stating that she and her family would henceforth be known as the House of Windsor and that her descendants will take the name “Mountbatten-Windsor.”

1952 ~ Elizabeth II (b. 1926) was formally proclaimed as Queen of the United Kingdom.

1950 ~ The Stasi, the secret police of East Germany, came into being.

1946 ~ The first portion of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible was published.  This Bible became the first serious competition to the Authorized King James Version of the Bible.  Both Bibles were translations into English.

1924 ~ Nevada became the first state in the United States to use the gas chamber to execute convicted criminals.

1922 ~ President Warren G. Harding first used a radio in the White House.

1915 ~ D.W. Griffith’s controversial film, The Birth of a Nation, premiered in Los Angeles.

1910 ~ The Boy Scouts of America became incorporated.

1887 ~ The Dawes Act authorized the United States President to survey Native American tribal lands and divide it into individual allotments.

1865 ~ The state of Delaware rejected the 13^th Amendment to the United States Constitution and instead voted to continue the practice of slavery.  It was not until February 12, 1901 before Delaware finally ratified the 13^th Amendment.

1837 ~ Richard Johnson (1780 ~ 1850) became the first and only United States Vice President chosen by the United States Senate.  He served as the 9^th Vice President under President Martin Van Buren (1782 ~ 1862).

1693 ~ The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia was granted a royal charter by King William III (1650 ~ 1701) and Queen Mary II (1662 ~ 1694).

1676 ~ Feodor III (1661 ~ 1682) became Tsar of Russia.

1601 ~ Robert Devereux, 2^nd Earl of Essex (1565 ~ 1601) rebelled against Queen Elizabeth I (1533 ~ 1603); however, the revolt was quickly crushed.  Devereux would be beheaded 17 days later.

421 ~ Constantius III became the co-Emperor of the Western Roman Empire with his brother-in-law, Honorius.  He died in September 421 after just seven months as Emperor.

Good-Byes:

2017 ~ Sir Peter Mansfield (b. Oct. 9, 1933), British scientist who helped develop the MRI scanner.  He was the recipient of the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He died at age 83.

2015 ~ Kenji Ekuan (b. Sept. 11, 1929), former Buddhist monk who became an industrial designer and helped shape modern Japan.  He designed such items as the bullet train and the red-capped Kikkoman soy sauce dispenser.  He was 85 years old.

2013 ~ James DePreist (b. Nov. 21, 1936), African-American conductor who was unfazed by polio.  He was the nephew of singer Marion Anderson.  He died at age 76.

2012 ~ Gunther Plaut (né Wolf Gunther Plaut, b. Nov. 1, 1912), German-born Canadian rabbi and writer.  He died at age 99.

2010 ~ John Murtha (b. June 17, 1932), American Senator from Pennsylvania.  He was considered a hawk but he renounced the war in Iraq.  He died at age 77.

2008 ~ Robert Jastrow (b. Sept. 7, 1925), American astronomer who brought outer space down to earth.  He died at age 82.

2008 ~ Phyllis Ayame Whitney (b. Sept. 9, 1903), American author of gothic mystery novels.  She died at age 104.

2007 ~ Anna Nicole Smith (née Vickie Lynn Hogan, b. Nov. 28, 1967), American model and entertainer.  She died of a drug overdose at age 39.

2002 ~ Vesta Roy (née Vesta M. Coward, b. Mar. 26, 1925), Governor of New Hampshire.  She served as Governor for only a few days, December 29, 1982 until January 6, 1983, after the sitting governor, Hugh Gallen, died in office.  She died at age 76.

1999 ~ Dame Iris Murdoch (née Jean Iris Murdoch, b. July 15, 1919), Irish writer.  She died at age 79.

1998 ~ Halldór Laxness (b. Apr. 23, 1902), Icelandic writer and recipient of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He died at age 95.

1992 ~ Stanley Armour Dunham (b. Mar. 23, 1918), maternal grandfather of President Barack Obama.  He died at age 73.

1985 ~ Sir William Lyons (b. Sept. 4, 1901), English industrialist and businessman.  He was a co-founder of the Swallow Sidecar Company, which became Jaguar cars.  He died at age 83.

1978 ~ Oscar Littleton Chapman (b. Oct. 22, 1898), 34^th United States Secretary of the Interior.  He served under President Harry S. Truman from December 1949 until January 1953.  He died at age 81.

1975 ~ Sir Robert Robinson (b. Sept. 13, 1886), English chemist and recipient of the 1947 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 75.

1960 ~ Sir Giles Gilbert Scott (b. Nov. 9, 1880), British architect and designer of the iconic red telephone box.  He died at age 79.

1959 ~ William Joseph Donovan (b. Jan. 1, 1883), Head of the Office of Strategic Services, precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency.  He is known as the Father of American Intelligence.  He was the subject of the 2015 movie, Bridge of Spies.  He died just over a month after his 76^th birthday.

1957 ~ John von Neumann (b. Dec. 28, 1903), Hungarian-born American mathematician.  He died of cancer at age 53.

1957 ~ Walther Bothe (b. Jan. 8, 1891), German physicist and recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died a month after his 66^th birthday.

1956 ~ Connie Mack, (né Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy (b. Dec. 22, 1862), American baseball manager and executive who helped organize Baseball’s American League.  He died at age 93.

1941 ~ Willis Van Devanter (b. Apr. 17, 1859), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President William Taft.  He served on the Court from December 1910 until June 1937.  He died at age 81.

1936 ~ Charles Curtis (b. Jan. 25, 1860), 31^st United States Vice President.  He served under President Herbert Hoover.  He was also the first Native American to be elected a United States Senator when he was elected to the Office in 1907.  He died 15 days after his 76^th birthday.

1935 ~ Max Liebermann (b. July 20, 1847), German painter.  He died at age 87.

1918 ~ Louis Renault (b. May 21, 1843), French jurist and recipient of the 1907 Nobel Peace Prize.  He died at age 74.

1873 ~ John White Geary (b. Dec. 30, 1819), 16^th Governor of Pennsylvania and 1^st Mayor of San Francisco, California.  He was also a Union General during the American Civil War.  He served as Pennsylvania’s governor from January 1867 until January 1873.  He served as Mayor of San Francisco from May 1850 until May 1851.  He was born and died in Pennsylvania.  He was 53 at the time of his death.

1772 ~ Augusta of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (b. Nov. 30, 1719), Princess of Wales.  She was married to Frederick, Prince of Wales.  He died before becoming King, so she was never the Queen Consort.  She died at age 52.

1725 ~ Tsar Peter I, also known as Peter the Great of Russia (b. June 9, 1672).  He died at age 52.

1696 ~ Tsar Ivan V of Russia (b. Sept. 6, 1666).  He ruled Russia jointly with his younger half-brother, Peter I.  He was Czar from May 1682 until his death in February 1969.  He was 29 years old at the time of his death.

1676 ~ Tsar Alexis I of Russia (b. Mar. 29 1629).  He died at age 46.  These are the dates of his birth and death using the Gregorian calendar.

1587 ~ Mary, Queen of Scots (b. Dec. 8, 1542), Queen of Scots from December 1542 until July 1567.  She was executed on suspicion of having been involved in a plot to kill her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I.  She was 44 at the time of her execution.