March 22

Birthdays:

1987 ~ Constance Wu, Taiwanese-American actress best known for her role as Jessica Huang on the television comedy Fresh Off the Boat.

1976 ~ Reese Witherspoon (née Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon), American actress.  She was born in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1959 ~ Matthew Avery Modine, American actor

1955 ~ Lena Olin (née Lena Marie Jonna Olin), Swedish actress.

1948 ~ Wolf Isaac Blitzer, American journalist and television news anchor on CNN.

1948 ~ Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber, English director and composer.

1946 ~ Rudy Rucker (né Rudolf von Bitter Rucker), American mathematician.

1934 ~ Orrin Grant Hatch, American lawyer and politician.  He is a United States Senator from Utah and served as the President pro tempore of the United States Senate beginning in January 2015.

1931 ~ Burton Richter, American physicist and recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1931 ~ William Shatner, American actor best known for his role as Captain James T. Kirk on Star Trek.

1930 ~ Stephen Joshua Sondheim, American composer and songwriter.

1924 ~ Paul Fussell, Jr. (d. May 23, 2012), American cultural and literary historian who saw irony in war.  He died at age 88.

1924 ~ Al Neuharth (né Allen Harold Neuharth, d. Apr. 19, 2013), American publisher who revolutionized newspapers.  He was the founder of USA Today.  He died 27 days after his 89^th birthday.

1923 ~ Marcel Marceau (né Marcel Mengel, d. Sept. 22, 2007), French mime artist.  He was 84 years old.

1920 ~ Werner Klemperer (d. Dec. 6, 2000), German-born actor best known for his role as Colonel Klink on Hogan’s Heroes.  He died of cancer at age 80 years old.

1917 ~ Irving Kaplansky (d. June 25, 2006), Canadian-born mathematician.  He died at age 89.

1915 ~ John McConnell (d. Oct. 20, 2012), American activist and creator of Earth Day.  He died at age 97.

1912 ~ Karl Malden (né Mladen George Sekulovich, d. July 1, 2009), American not-quite leading man who made average Joes shine.  He was primarily a character actor and won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role in A Streetcar Named Desire.  He was also known for his role in the television crime drama The Streets of San Francisco.  He died at age 97.

1908 ~ Louis Dearborn L’Amour (d. June 10, 1988), American writer of western novels.  He died of lung cancer at age 80.

1887 ~ Chico Marx (né Leonard Marx, d. Oct. 11, 1961), American comedian and actor.  He was the eldest of the five Marx brothers.  He died at age 74.

1885 ~ Aryeh Levin (d. Mar. 28, 1969), Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi.  He died 6 days after his 84^th birthday.

1868 ~ Robert Millikan (d. Dec. 19, 1953), American physicist and recipient of the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the photoelectric effect.  He died at age 85.

1857 ~ Paul Doumer (né Joseph Athanase Gaston Paul Doumer, d. May 7, 1932), President of France.  He was president from 1931 until his assassination a year later.  Prior to entering politics, Doumer was a professor of mathematics.  He was 75 years old at the time of his death.

1817 ~ Braxton Bragg (d. Sept. 27, 1876), Confederate General during the American Civil War.  He died suddenly and unexpectedly at age 59.  Fort Bragg in North Carolina is named in his honor.

1599 ~ Sir Anthony van Dyck (né Antoon van Dyck, d. Dec. 9, 1641), Flemish painter.  He died in London at age 42 following a long illness.

1459 ~ Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor (d. Jan 12, 1519).  He ruled as the Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death in 1519.  He died at age 59.

1394 ~ Ulugh Beg (né Mīrza Muhammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrukh, d. Oct. 27, 1449), Persian mathematician and astronomer.  He was also a ruler and sultan.  He is best known for his work in trigonometry and geometry.  His academic legacy was the creation of the Ulugh Beg Observatory.  He died at age 55.

Events that Changed the World:

2017 ~ Terror attack in London.  A suspected terrorist plowed his vehicle in to a crowd of people near Parliament, killing 4 people and injuring numerous people.  He then stabbed a police officer to death.

1997 ~ The Hale-Bopp Comet made its closest recorded approach to Earth.

1972 ~ The United States Supreme Court, in Eisenstadt v. Baird, ruled that unmarried couples have the right to access contraceptives.

1972 ~ The United States Congress sent the Equal Rights Amendment to the States for ratification.  It has yet to be ratified.

1963 ~ The Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me, was released in the United Kingdom.

1960 ~ The first patent for a laser was issued.  Theodore Maiman (1927 ~ 2007) is credited with inventing the first working laser, based upon the theoretical work of Arthur Schawlow (1921 ~ 1999) and Charles Townes (1915 ~ 2015).  Both Schawlow and Townes were later awarded a Nobel Prize in Physics for their work in the development of lasers, in 1981 and 1964, respectively.

1945 ~ The Arab League was founded in Cairo, Egypt.  The Arab League is a regional organization of Arab countries.  The original six country members were Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

1916 ~ Yuan Shikai (1859 ~ 1916), the last Emperor of China, abdicated the throne and the Republic of China was restored.  He would died 3 months later from an illness.

1894 ~ The Montreal Hockey Club beat the Ottawa Hockey Club 3-1 in the first Stanley Cup Final game.  The first Stanley Cup playoff games had begun 5 days earlier, on March 17, 1894.

1872 ~ Illinois became the first State in the United States to require sexual equality in employment.

1765 ~ The British Parliament passed the Stamp Act, which levied a tax directly on the American colonies.

1638 ~ Anne Hutchinson (1591 ~ 1643), a Puritan spiritual leader, was expelled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for religious dissent.

1622 ~ This is the date ascribed to when a group Algonquian Indians killed 347 English settlers in the Jamestown, Virginia colony.

1621 ~ The Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony signed a peace treaty with the Massasoit (d. 1661) the leader of the Wampanoag Indians.

Good-Byes:

2017 ~ Francine Hughes Wilson (b. Aug. 17, 1947), American domestic violence victim who inspired The Burning Bed.  In March 1977, after suffering years of abuse, she set fire to her husband while he was sleeping.  She immediately recognized the horror of her actions and turned herself in to police.  Although she was charged with first-degree murder, she was acquitted by the jury.  She died of pneumonia at age 69.

2017 ~ Dallas Green (né George Dallas Green, b. Aug. 4, 1934), American outspoken baseball coach who took the Philadelphia Phillies to the World Series in 1980.  He died of kidney disease at age 82.

2013 ~ Bebo Valdés (né Dionisio Ramón Emilio Valdés Amaro, b. Oct. 9, 1918), Cuban pianist and bandleader.  He was 94 years old.

2010 ~ Sir James Whyte Black (b. June 14, 1924), Scottish physician and recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  He was 85 years old.

2005 ~ Kenzō Tange (b. Sept. 4, 1913), Japanese architect.  He was 91 years old.

2001 ~ William Denby Hanna (b. July 14, 1910), American cartoon animator and co-founder of Hanna-Barbera.  He died of throat cancer at age 90.

1994 ~ Walter Benjamin Lantz (b. Apr. 27, 1899), American animator, screenwriter and actor.  He is best known for creating such cartoon characters as Woody Woodpecker.  He died of heart failure a month before his 95^th birthday.

1978 ~ Karl Wallenda (b. Jan. 21, 1905), German-born acrobat and member of the Flying Wallendas.  He fell from an attempted high-wire walk between two towers of a ten-story building in San Juan, Puerto Rico.  He was 73 years old.

1958 ~ Mike Todd (né Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen, b. June 22, 1909), American film producer and third husband of Elizabeth Taylor.  He was the only husband that Taylor did not divorce, however, he was killed in a plane crash a year after their marriage.  He was 48 at the time of his death.

1945 ~ John Hessin Clarke (b. Sept. 18, 1857), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was nominated to the High Court by President Woodrow Wilson.  He served as an Associate Justice from July 1916 until September 1922.  He died at age 87.

1924 ~ Sir William Macewen (b. June 22, 1948), Scottish surgeon and neuroscientist.  He is best known for his pioneering work in brain surgery and bone grafts.  He died at age 75.

1912 ~ John Willock Noble (b. Oct. 26, 1831), 18^th United States Secretary of the Interior.  He served under President Benjamin Harrison from March 1889 until March 1893.  He died at age 80.

1889 ~ Thomas Stanley Matthews (b. July 21, 1824), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President James Garfield.  He served on the Court from May 1881 until his death 8 years later.  He died at age 64.

1851 ~ Mordecai Manuel Noah (b. July 14, 1785), Jewish-American writer, playwright, and journalist.  He died at age 65.

1845 ~ Cassandra Elizabeth Austen (b. Jan. 9, 1773), English watercolorist and older sister of writer Jane Austen.  She died of a stroke at age 72.

1840 ~ Étienne Bobillier (b. Apr. 17, 1798), French mathematician.  He died of an illness less than a month before his 42^nd birthday.

1832 ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (b. Aug. 28, 1749), German writer and politician.  He died at age 82.

1820 ~ Stephen Decatur, Jr. (b. Jan. 5, 1779), American naval officer during the American Revolutionary War.  He is known for his heroism during the Barbary Wars and in the War of 1812.  He was killed in a duel at age 41.

1758 ~ Jonathan Edwards (b. Oct. 5, 1703), American Congregationalist theologian on colonial America.  He died at age 54.

1544 ~ Johannes Magnus (b. Mar. 19, 1488), Swedish archbishop and theologian.  He was the last functioning Catholic bishop in Sweden.  He died 3 days after his 56^th birthday.