July 2

Birthdays:

1970~ Yancy Butler (née Yancy Victoria Butler), American actress.

1956~ Jerry Hall (née Geraldine Faye Hall), American actress and model.  She was a wife of the Rolling Stones, Mick Jaggar. She was born in Gonzales, Texas.

1947~ Larry David (né Lawrence Gene David), American actor and screenwriter.

1946~ Ron Silver (né Ronald Arthur Silver, d. Mar. 15, 2009), American veteran actor who was a maverick political activist.  He died of esophageal cancer at age 62.

1946~ Richard Axel, American neuroscientist and recipient of the 2004 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

1942~ Martin Zweig (néMartin Edward Zweig, d. Feb. 18, 2013), American stock advisor who forecast the Black Monday crash.  He died at age 70.

1942~ Vicente Fox, 35^th President of Mexico.  He was elected President on his 58^th birthday, and he took Office in December.  He served as President from December 2000 until November 2006.

1939~ John H. Sununu (né John Henry Sununu), 14^th White House Chief of Staff.  He served under President George H.W. Bush from January 1989 until December 1991.  He had previously served as the 75^th Governor of New Hampshire.

1937~ Polly Holliday (née Polly Dean Holliday), American actress best known for her role as Flo on the sit-com Alice.

1936~ Omar Suleiman (d. July 19, 2012), the wily Egyptian spy chief who served Mubarak’s regime.  He served as the Vice President of Egypt from January 2011 until February 2011.  He died 17 days after his 76^th birthday.

1932~ Dave Thomas (né Rex David Thomas, d. Jan. 8, 2002), American fast food entrepreneur and founder of Wendy’s Restaurant, He named his restaurant after his daughter, whose nickname was Wendy. He died at age 69.

1930~ Carlos Menem (né Carlos Saúl Menem), 50^th President of Argentina. He was President from July 1989 until December 1999.

1929~ Chuck Stobbs (né Charles Klein Stobbs, d. July 11, 2008), American baseball pitcher who gave up baseball’s longest home run.  On April 17, 1953, he pitched to Mickey Mantle, who blasted a 565-foot hit that is regarded as the longest home run ever.  He died of throat cancer 9 days after his 79^th birthday.

1929~ Abraham Avigdorov (d. Sept. 4, 2012), Israeli soldier.  He died at age 83.

1929~ Imelda Marcos, 10^th First Lady of the Philippines and wife of dictator Ferdinand Marcos.  She is best known for her huge collection of shoes.

1925~ Patrice Lumumba (né Élias Okit’Asomvo, d. Jan. 17, 1961), 1^st Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  He was executed by firing squad at age 35.

1925~ Medgar Evers (né Medgar Wiley Evers, d. June 12, 1963), American civil rights activist who was murdered.  He was killed 20 days before his 38^thbirthday.

1923~ Wisława Szymborska (d. Feb. 1, 2012), Polish poet and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.  She died at age 88.

1922~ Starke Taylor (né Austin Starke Taylor, Jr., d. Oct. 27, 2014), Mayor of Dallas, Texas.  He was Mayor from 1983 until 1987.  He died at age 92.

1922~ Pierre Cardin (né Pietro Cardin), Italian-born French fashion designer.

1908~ Thurgood Marshall (d. Jan. 24, 1993), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Lyndon Johnson.  He served on the Court from October 1967 until his retirement in 1991.  He died at age 84.

1906~ Hans Bethe (né Hans Albrecht Bethe, d. Mar. 6, 2005), German-born physicist who helped invent the atomic bomb.  He was the recipient of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He was the last surviving member of the Manhattan Project. He was a refugee from Nazi Germany.  He died at age 98.

1904~ René Lacoste (né Jean René Lacoste, d. Oct. 12, 1996), French tennis player and creator of the Polo shirt.  He died at age 92.

1903~ King Olav V of Norway (d. Jan. 17, 1991). He reigned as King from September 1957 until his death at age 87 in January 1991.

1903~ Alec Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel (né Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, d. Oct. 9, 1995), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He served as Prime Minister from October 1963 until October 1964 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.  He died at age 92.

1877~ Hermann Hesse (né Hermann Karl Hesse, d. Aug. 9, 1962), German-born writer and recipient of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Literature.  His is best known for his novels Steppenwolfand Siddhartha.  He died about a month after his 85^th birthday.

1876~ Harriet Brooks (d. Apr. 17, 1933), Canadian nuclear physicist.  She was Canada’s first nuclear physicist.  She died at age 56.

1862~ Sir William Henry Bragg (d. Mar. 12, 1942), English physicist and mathematician.  He was the recipient of the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He shared the Nobel Prize with his son, William Lawrence Bragg (1890 ~ 1971), who was 25 years old at the time.  He died at age 79.

1714~ Christoph Gluck (d. Nov. 15, 1787), German composer.  He died at age 73.

1492~ Elizabeth Tudor (d. Sept. 14, 1495), daughter of King Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.  Her brother became King Henry VII.  She died at age 3.

1489~ Thomas Cranmer (d. Mar. 21, 1556), Archbishop of Canterbury who was burned at the stake on grounds of treason against Henry VIII.  He died at age 66.

814~ Wuzong (d. Apr. 22, 846), Chinese emperor of the Tang Dynasty.  He died at age 31.

Events that Changed the World:

2013~ A 6.1 magnitude earthquake hit in Indonesia injuring over 400 people.

2000~ Vicente Fox Quesada (b. 1942) was elected President of Mexico on his 58^thbirthday.

1964~ President Lyndon B. Johnson (1908 ~ 1973) signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, thereby prohibiting segregation in public places.  It would take several years for its full effects to be felt.

1962~ The first Wal-Mart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas.

1937~ Aviator Amelia Earhart (1897 ~ 1937) and her navigator Fred Noonan (1893 ~ 1937) disappeared over the Pacific Ocean.  She would be formally be declared dead on January 5, 1939.

1934~ The Night of the Long Knives in Nazi Germany ended with the death of Nazi officer Ernest Röhm (1887 ~ 1934).

1900~ Finlandia by Jean Sibelius (1865 ~ 1957) was played for the first time in Helsinki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Society.

1897~ Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi (1874 ~ 1937) received a patent for the radio.

1890~ The Sherman Anti-trust Act was passed by the United States Congress.  The Act was designed to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies.

1881~ James Garfield (1831 ~ 1881), United States President, was shot in an assassination attempt.  He died contracted an infection and died September 19, 1881.

1777~ Vermont became the first American territory to abolish slavery.

1776~ The Continental Congress adopted a resolution severing ties with the Great Britain.  The formal Declaration of Independence would be approved 2 days later, on July 4, 1776.

1698~ Thomas Savery (1650 ~ 1715) patented the first steam engine.

Good-Byes:

2016~ Michel Rocard (d. Aug. 23, 1930), French politician and Prime Minister of France. He died at age 85.

2016~ Elie Wiesel (né Eliezer Wiesel, b. Sept. 30, 1928), Romanian-born Jewish-American writer and Holocaust survivor who refused to let the world forget.  His book Night, was based on his experience in the Auschwitz, Buna and Buchenwald concentration camps during the Holocaust.  He was the recipient of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize. He died at age 87.

2014~ Harold W. Kuhn (né Harold William Kuhn, b. July 29, 1925), American mathematician.  He died 27 days before his 89^th birthday.

2014~ Louis Zamperini (né Louis Silvie Zamberini, b. Jan. 26, 1917), American Olympian who survived Japan’s brutal POW camps during World War II.  He was a long distance racer in the 1936 Berlin Olympics.  He died at age 97.

2013~ Douglas Engelbart (né Douglas Carl Engelbart, b. Jan. 30, 1925), American computer scientist and inventor of the computer mouse.  He was also responsible for laying out the principles of computer networking.  He died at age 88.

2007~ Beverly Sills (née Belle Mariam Silverman, b. May 25, 1929), American soprano and opera singer.  She died of lung cancer at age 78.

1999~ Mario Puzo (b. Oct. 15, 1920), American author best known for his novel The Godfather.  He died at age 78.

1997~ Jimmy Stewart (né James Maitland Stewart, b. May 20, 1908), American actor.  He died of a pulmonary embolism at age 89.

1993~ Fred Gwynne (né Frederick Hubbard Gwynne. b. July 10, 1926), American actor.  He is best known for his role in The Munsters.  He died 8 days before his 67^th birthday of pancreatic cancer.

1991~ Lee Remick (née Lee Ann Remick, b. Dec. 14, 1935), American actress. She was born in Quincy, Massachusetts.  She died at age 55 of kidney cancer.

1989~ Andrei Gromyko (b. July 18, 1909), Soviet politician.  He died two weeks before his 80^th birthday.

1977~ Vladimir Nabokov (b. Apr. 22, 1899), Russian novelist, best known for Lolita.  He died at age 78.

1973~ Betty Grable (née Elizabeth Ruth Grable, b. Dec. 18, 1916), American actress and pin-up girl.  She died at age 56 of lung cancer.

1961~ Ernest Hemingway (néErnest Miller Hemingway, b. July 21, 1899), American novelist and recipient of the 1954 Nobel Prize in Literature.  He committed suicide three weeks before his 62^nd birthday.

1949~ Georgi Dimitrov (b. June 18, 1882), General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party.  He was the first Communist leader of Bulgaria.  He was in office from December 1946 until July 1949.  He died 14 days after his 67^th birthday.

1947~ Nikolai Chebotaryov (d. June 15, 1894), Ukrainian mathematician.  He died 17 days after his 53^rd birthday.

1919~ Anna Howard Shaw (b. Feb. 14, 1847), American suffragette.  She was also one of the first ordained Methodist ministers in the United States.  She died at age 72.

1917~ William Moody (néWilliam Henry Moody, b. Dec. 23, 1853), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  He was appointed to the High Court by President Theodore Roosevelt. He served on the Court from December 1906 until November 1910.  He also served in President Theodore Roosevelt’s administration as the 45^th United States Attorney General and the 35^th United States Secretary of the Navy.  He was from Massachusetts.  He died in Haverhill, Massachusetts at age 63.

1915~ José de la Cruz Porfiro Díaz Mori (b. Sept. 15, 1830), 29^th President of Mexico.  He was President from December 1884 until May 1911.  He died at age 84.

1850~ Sir Robert Peel, 2^nd Baronet (b. Feb. 5, 1788), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He served two terms as Prime Minister, the first from December 1834 to April 1835 during the reign of King William IV, and second from August 1841 until June 1846 during the reign of Queen Victoria.  He died at age 62.

1843~ Samuel Hahnemann (né Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann, b. Apr. 10, 1755), German physician best known for creating an alternative form of medicine now known as homeopathy.  He died at age 88.

1778~ Jean-Jacques Rousseau (b. June 28, 1712), French philosopher and writer during the Enlightenment period.  His philosophy helped shape events that led to the French Revolution.  He died 4 days after his 66^th birthday.

1743~ Spencer Compton, 1^st Earl of Wilmington (b. 1673), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.  He was Prime Minister during the reign of King George II from February 1742 until his death on this date in 1743.  The exact date of his birth is unknown.  He died at age 70.

1621~ Thomas Harriot (b. 1560), British astronomer and mathematician.  The exact date of his birth is unknown, but he is believed to have been about 60 or 61 at the time of his death.

1566~ Nostradamus (né Michel de Nostredame, b. Dec. 14, 1503), French astrologer andseer who published collections of prophecies.  The exact date of his birth is unknown; it is sometimes recorded as December 21, 1503.  He was 62 when he died.