June 27

Birthdays:

1975~ Tobey Maguire (né Tobias Vincent Maguire), American actor.

1951~ Anita Diamant, American author.

1949~ Vera Wang (née Vera Ellen Wang), American fashion designer.

1943~ Rico Petrocelli (néAmerico Peter Petrocelli), American baseball player.

1938~ Bruce Babbit (né Bruce Edward Babbit), 47^th United States Secretary of the Interior.  He served under President Bill Clinton from January 1993 through January 2001. He had previously served as the 16^th Governor of Arizona.

1936~ General John Shalikashvili (né John Malchase David Shalikashvili, d. July 23, 2011), Polish-born foreign head of the Pentagon.  He died of a stroke less than a month after his 75^thbirthday.

1933~ Horst Brandstätter (d. June 3, 2015), German toymaker who encouraged imaginative play.  His company began the production of the Playmobil toys that had been created by Hans Beck.  He died 24 days before his 82^nd birthday.

1931~ Martinus Veltman (né Martinus Justinus Godfriedus Veltman), Dutch physicist and recipient of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics.

1930~ H. Ross Perot (né Henry Ross Perot), American businessman and politician.

1929~ Peter Maas (d. Aug. 23, 2001), American journalist and author.  He died at age 72.

1928~ David I. Shapiro (né David Israel Shapiro, d. Oct. 1, 2009), American First Amendment attorney who defended free speech. He died of cardiac arrest at age 81.

1927~ Bob Keeshan (né Robert James Keeshan, d. Jan. 23, 2004), American actor who played Captain Kangarooon TV. He died in Windsor, Vermont at age 76.

1920~ Joseph P. Vaghi, Jr. (d. Aug. 25, 2012), American Navy officer who helped guide the D-Day landings.  At age 23, he was the youngest beachmaster on D-Day.  He was on of the first to land on Omaha Beach, and directed the arrival of new troops and the evacuation of the dead and wounded.  He died at age 91.

1906~ Dame Catherine Cookson (née Catherine Ann McMullen, d. June 11, 1998), British novelist. She died 16 days before her 92^nd birthday.

1899~ Juan Trippe (né Juan Terry Trippe, d. Apr. 3, 1981), American aviation pioneer and founder of Pan American World Airways.  He died of a stroke at age 81.

1880~ Helen Keller (née Helen Adams Keller, d. June 1, 1868), American author and activist.  In her early childhood, she was stricken with scarlet fever, which left her deaf and blind.  She died 26 days before her 88^th birthday.

1869~ Hans Spemann (d. Sept. 9, 1941), German embryologist and recipient of the 1935 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He died of heart failure at age 72.

1869~ Emma Goldman (d. May 14, 1940), Lithuanian-born anarchist.  She died of complications of a stroke at age 70.

1850~ Jørgen Pedersen Gram (d. Apr. 29, 1916), Danish actuary and mathematician and acutary.  He died at age 65 after being hit by a bicycle.

1846~ Charles Stewart Parnell (d. Oct. 6, 1891), Irish politician.  He died of pneumonia at age 45.

1806~ Augustus De Morgan (d. Mar. 18, 1871), English mathematician.  He died at age 64.

1550~ King Charles IX of France (d. May 30, 1574).  He was King from December 1560 until his death at age 23 on this date in 1574. He died 28 days before his 24^thbirthday, most likely of tuberculosis.  He was succeeded by his brother, Henry III.

1462~ King Louis XII of France (d. Jan. 1, 1515).  He was King of France from April 1498 until his death 17 years later.  He died at age 52.  Because he had no sons, he was succeeded to the throne by his cousin, Francis I.

1040~ Ladislaus I of Hungary (d. 1095).  He is also known as Saint Ladislaus.  He was about 54 or 55 at the time of his death.

Events that Changed the World:

2007~ Tony Blair (b. 1953) resigned as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He had been Prime Minister since 1997.

1985~ The infamous highway, Route 66, was decertified as a federal roadway.

1977~ Djibouti was granted its independence from France.

1976~ Air France Flight 139 was hijacked en route to Paris from Tel Aviv, by the PLO and was redirected to Entebbe, Uganda.  A counter-terrorist hostage rescue mission was carried out by the Israeli Defense Forces on July 4, 1976.

1974~ United States President Richard Nixon (1913 ~ 1994) visited the Soviet Union.

1967~ The world’s first ATM was installed at a Barclay’s bank at its Enfield branch in London, England.

1957~ Hurricane Audrey made landfall on the Texas-Louisiana border.  Cameron Parish in Louisiana was the hardest hit and over 400 people were killed by the storm.

1954~ The Soviet Union’s first nuclear power plant was opened in Obninsk, near Moscow, Russia.

1950~ The United States decided to send in troops to fight in the Korean War.

1941~ One of the most violent pogroms in Jewish history occurred when Romanian governmental forces attacked and killed at least 13,260 Jews in the city of Iaşa, Romania.

1905~ Sailors aboard the Battleship Potemkin began a mutiny, denouncing the crimes of the autocracy and demanding liberty and an end to war.

1895~ The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad’s Royal Blue train became the first United States passenger train to use electric locomotives.  The maiden run was from Washington, D.C. to New York City.

1759~ British Major General James Wolfe (1727 ~ 1759) began the siege of Quebec.

1743~ During the Battle of Dettingen in the War of the Austrian Succession, King George II (1683 ~ 1760) of Great Britain personally lead troops into battle.  To date, this was the last time a British monarch commanded troops in the field.

1709~ Peter the Great (1672 ~ 1725) of Russia defeated King Charles XII (1682 ~ 1718) of Sweden at the Battle of Poltava during the Great Northern War.

Good-Byes:

2017~ Michael Bond (né Thomas Michael Bond, b. Jan. 13, 1926), British soldier and author.  He created Paddington Bear.  He died at age 91.

2016~ Alvin Toffler (b. Oct. 4, 1928), American writer and futurist.  He is best known for his book Future Shock.  He died at age 87.

2014~ Bobby Womack (né Robert Dwayne Womack, b. Mar. 4, 1944), American soul music veteran who influenced the Rolling Stones.  He died at age 70.

2010~ Dolph Briscoe, Jr. (b. Apr. 23, 1923), 41^st Governor of Texas.  He was Governor from January 1973 until January 1979.  He died at age 87.

2005~ Shelby Foote (né Shelby Dade Foote, Jr., b. Nov. 17, 1917), American author and historian.  He died at age 88.

2004~ General George Patton, IV (né George Smith Patton, IV, b. Dec. 24, 1923), American general.  He served in Korea and Vietnam.  He was the son of World War II General George S. Patton, Jr. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts and died in South Hamilton, Massachusetts.  He died at age 80.

2001~ Jack Lemmon (né John Uhler Lemmon, III, b. Feb. 8, 1925), American actor.  He was born in Newton, Massachusetts.  He died at age 76.

1975~ Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor (b. Mar. 7, 1886), British mathematician.  He died at age 89.

1952~ Max Dehn (né Max Wilhem Dehn, b. Nov. 13, 1878), German mathematician.  He died at age 73.

1945~ Emil Hácha (b. July 12, 1872), 3^rd President of Czechoslovakia.  He served as President from November 1938 until March 1939, when the country came under German control.  He died three weeks before his 73^rd birthday under mysterious circumstances.

1944~ Milan Hodža (b. Feb. 1, 1878), Czech journalist and politician.  He served as the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia from November 1935 until September 1938.  He died in Clear Water, Florida at age 66.  His remains were returned to his native Slovakia.

1907~ Elizabeth Cabot Agassiz (b. Dec. 5, 1822), American educator and co-founder of Radcliffe College.  She also served as the first president of Radcliff College.  She was married to Louis Agassiz, the Swiss-born geologist and biologist.  She died at age 84.

1880~ Carl Wilhelm Borchardt (b. Feb. 22, 1817), German mathematician.  He died at age 63.

1844~ Joseph Smith, Jr. (b. Dec. 23, 1805), founder of the Mormons.  He and his brother, Hyrum Smith (b. Feb. 9, 1800), were murdered by a mob in an Illinois jail. Joseph died at age 38 and his brother was 44.

1831~ Marie-Sophie Germain (b. Apr. 1, 1776), French mathematician.  She is best known for elasticity theory.  She died of breast cancer at age 55.

1829~ James Smithson (b. 1764), English scientist and philanthropist.  He left his fortune to the United States, even though he had never set foot in the country, for an “establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”  His money provided the seed money for the Smithsonian museums.  The exact date of his birth is unknown.  He died at age 64.

1729~ Élizabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (b. Mar. 17, 1665), French musician and composer.  She died at age 64.

1655~ Eleanore Gonzaga (b. Sept. 23, 1598), Italian wife of Ferdinand II, the Holy Roman Emperor.  She died at age 56.