March 23

Birthdays:

1990 ~ Princess Eugenie Victoria Helena, youngest daughter of Prince Andrew, Duke of York and Sarah, Duchess of York.

1974 ~ Randall Park, American actor best known for his role on Fresh Off the Boat.

1955 ~ Moses Eugene Malone (d. Sept. 13, 2015) American basketball player.  He was the NBA star who mastered the rebound. He died of heart disease at age 60.

1954 ~ Kenneth Cole, American fashion designer.

1952 ~ Rex Wayne Tillerson, 69^th United States Secretary of State.  He served under President Donald Trump.  He began is service on February 1, 2017.

1949 ~ Ric Ocasek (né Richard Theodore Ocasek), American musician and frontman for The Cars.

1934 ~ Ludvig Faddeev (d. Feb. 26, 2017), Russian mathematician.  He died less than a month before his 83^rd birthday.

1929 ~ Sir Roger Gilbert Bannister (d. Mar. 3, 2018), English student athlete who was the first to run a mile in under 4 minutes.  He went on to become a neurologist.  He died 20 days before his 89^th birthday.

1924 ~ Bette Nesmith Graham (d. May 12, 1980), American inventor of Liquid Paper.  She died at age 56.  Her son, Michael Nesmith, was in the band The Monkees.

1918 ~ Stanley Armour Dunham (d. Feb. 8, 1992), maternal grandfather of President Barack Obama.  He died at age 73.

1915 ~ Jack Rollins (né Jacob Rabinowitz, d. June 18, 2015), American talent spotter who discovered comic greats.  His first major success came in the 1950s when he helped to create and promote the comedy of Nichols and Elaine May.  He was 100 years old.

1912 ~ Wernher von Braum (d. June 16, 1977), German-born physicist, rocket-scientist and engineer.  He was a former member of the Nazi party and decorated Nazi war hero before immigrating to the United States where he was allowed to work on nuclear rockets.  He died of pancreatic cancer at age 65.

1910 ~ Akira Kurasawa (d. Sept. 6, 1998), Japanese film director.  He is best known for his film, Seven Samurai.  He died of a stroke at age 88.

1907 ~ Daniel Bovet (d. Apr. 8, 1992), Swiss-born pharmacologist and recipient of the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discovery that certain drugs can block the action of specific neurotransmitters.  He died 16 days after his 85^th birthday.

1904 ~ Joan Crawford (née Lucille Faye LeSueur, d. May 10, 1977), American actress.  The year of her birth is disputed, but is generally accepted as being in 1904, making her 73 at the time of her death.

1900 ~ Erich Seligmann Fromm (d. Mar. 18, 1980), German-born psychoanalyst and philosopher.  He died 5 days before his 80^th birthday.

1887 ~ Juan Gris (né José Victoriano González-Pérez, d. May 11, 1927), Spanish painter and sculptor.  He died of renal failure at age 40.

1887 ~ Josef Čapek (d. Apr. 1945), Czech writer.  He invented the word Robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, the writer Karel Čapek.  He died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp during the Holocaust.  The exact date of his death is not known.

1882 ~ Amalie Emmy Noether (d. Apr. 14, 1935), German mathematician.  She was one of the leading mathematicians of her time.  Because she was Jewish, when Hitler came into power, she lost her university position.  She fled to the United States where she took a university position at Bryn Mawr.  She developed theories in ring theory.  She died of uterine cancer 3 weeks after her 53^rd birthday.

1881 ~ Roger Martin du Gard (d. Aug. 22, 1958), French writer and recipient of the 1937 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He was 77 years old.

1881 ~ Hermann Staudinger (d. Sept. 8, 1965), German chemist and recipient of the 1953 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for showing the existence of macromolecules, which are known as polymers.  He was 84 years old.

1858 ~ Ludwig Quidde (b. Mar. 4, 1941), German pacifist and recipient of the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize.  He died 19 days before his 83^rd birthday.

1842 ~ Susan Jane Cunningham (d. Jan. 24, 1921), American mathematician.  She was instrumental in founding Swarthmore College.  She died of heart failure at age 78.

1823 ~ Schuyler Colfax, Jr. (d. Jan. 13, 1885), 17^th Vice President of the United States.  He served under President Ulysses S. Grant from March 1869 until March 1873.  He had previously served as the 25^th Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.  He died of a heart attack at age 61.

1754 ~ Jurij Vega (d. Sept. 26, 1802), Slovenian mathematician and physicist.  The crater on the moon, Vega, is named in his honor.  He was 48 years old.

1749 ~ Pierre-Simon, marquis de Laplace (d. Mar. 5, 1827), French mathematician and astronomer.  He died 18 days before his 78^th birthday.

1514 ~ Lorenzine de’Medici (d. Feb. 26, 1548), Italian writer and politician.  He is best known for assassinating his cousin, Alessandro de’Medici.  He was subsequently murdered about a month before his 34^th birthday.

1430 ~ Margaret of Anjou (d. Aug. 25, 1482), Queen consort of Henry VI of England.  She died at age 52.

Events that Changed the World:

2011 ~ A bus bomb at a bus station in Jerusalem killed 2 people and injured many more.  This was the first serious bombing in Israel after a 3-year lull.

2005 ~ During a test on a distillation tower at the Texas City Refinery, liquid waste built up and flowed out of a blowout tower.  Waste fumes ignited and exploded, killing 15 workers.

1977 ~ David Frost (1939 ~ 2013) began the first of the Nixon Interview of former President Richard Nixon (1913 ~ 1994) about the Watergate scandal.

1965 ~ Gemini 3 was launched, carrying astronauts Gus Grissom (1926 ~ 1967) and John Young (1930 ~ 2018).

1956 ~ Pakistan became the first Islamic republic in the world.

1933 ~ The Reichstag passed the Enabling Act of 1933, making Adolf Hitler the dictator of Germany.

1919 ~ Benito Mussolini (1883 ~ 1945) founded his Fascist political movement in Milan, Italy.

1903 ~ The Wright brothers applied for a patent for their design of the airplane.  The patent was issued on May 22, 1906.

1868 ~ The University of California was founded in Oakland, California.

1857 ~ Elisha Otis’ first passenger safety elevator was installed in New York City.  Otis (1811 ~ 1861) had invented a safety device which would prevent the elevator cab from falling in the event a cable broke.

1775 ~ American Revolutionary and statesman Patrick Henry (1736 ~ 1799) gave his “Give me Liberty, or give me Death!” speech in Richmond, Virginia.

Good-Byes:

2016 ~ Ken Howard (né Kenneth Joseph Howard, Jr., b. Mar. 28, 1944), American actor.  He died 5 days before his 72^nd birthday.

2016 ~ Joe Garagiola, Sr. (né Joseph Henry Garagiola, Sr., b. Feb. 12, 1926), American baseball player and sportscaster.  He died at age 90.

2015 ~ Gary Ross Dahl (b. Dec. 18, 1936), American ad man and copywriter who, in 1975, invented the Pet Rock.  He died of pulmonary disease at age 78.

2015 ~ Lee Kuan Yee (né Harry Lee Kuan Yew, b. Sept. 16, 1923), the uncompromising statesman who built modern Singapore.  He is considered to be the founding father of Singapore and was the country’s first Prime Minister.  He died at age 91.

2013 ~ Boris Berezovsky (b. Jan. 23, 1946), Russian mathematician.  He was 67 years old.

2011 ~ Dame Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor (b. Feb. 27, 1932), English-American actress.  She died of congestive heart failure about a month after her 79^th birthday.

2011 ~ Jean Bartik (née Betty Jean Jennings, b. Dec. 27, 1924), First Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) Computer programmer.  She was 86 years old.

2007 ~ Paul Joseph Cohen (b. Apr. 2, 1934), American mathematician.  He was the recipient of the 1966 Fields Medal.  He died 10 days before his 73^rd birthday.

1992 ~ Friedrich Hayek (b. May 8, 1899), Austrian economist and recipient of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences.  He was 92 years old.

1983 ~ Barney Clark (b. 1921), American dentist and the first artificial heart recipient.  On December 2, 1982, the Javik-7 artificial heart was implanted into his body.  Although he survived only 112 following his heart surgery, the operation proved that the technology was nearing heart replacement.  He was 62 years old.

1964 ~ Peter Lorre (né László Löwenstein, b. June 26, 1904), Hungarian-born actor.  His film career began in Germany, but he left that country in 1933 with the rise of Nazism.  He died of a stroke at age 59.

1963 ~ Thoralf Albert Skolem (b. May 23, 1887), Norwegian mathematician.  He died at age 75.

1960 ~ Franklin Pierce Adams (b. Nov. 15, 1881), American journalist.  He died at age 78.

1888 ~ Morrison Remick Waite (b. Nov. 29, 1816), 7^th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was nominated to the High Court by President Ulysses S. Grant.  He served in office from March 1874 until his death on this date 14 years later.  He died at age 71.

1842 ~ Stendhal (né Marie-Henri Beyle, b. Jan. 23, 1783), French writer, best known for his novel Le Rouge et le Noir.  He was 59 years old.

1801 ~ Tsar Paul I of Russia (b. Oct. 1, 1754).  His mother was Catherine the Great.  He was murdered in his bedroom at St. Michael’s Castle.  He was first hit with a sword, then strangled and finally trampled to death.  He was 46 years old.  [Note: under the Julian calendar, his death is recorded as March 11, 1801.]

1555 ~ Pope Julius III (né Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte, b. Sept. 10, 1487).  He served as Pope from February 1550 until his death on this date 5 years later.  He died at age 67.

1022 ~ Zhen Zong (b. Dec. 23, 968), Chinese emperor of the Song Dynasty.  He died at age 53.