November 11

Veteran’s Day

Birthdays:

1974~ Leonardo DiCaprio (né Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio), American actor.

1962~ Demi Moore (née Demi Gene Guynes), American actress.

1960~ Stanley Tucci, American actor and director.

1948~ Vincent Schiavelli (né Vincent Andrew Schiavelli; d. Dec. 26, 2005), American actor.  He died of lung cancer at age 57.

1947~ Elizabeth Glaser (née Elizabeth Meyer; d. Dec. 3, 1994), American AIDS activist.  She died 22 days after her 47^th birthday.

1930~ Hugh Everett, III (d. July 19, 1982), American mathematician. He died at age 51 of a heart attack.

1930~ David H. Hackworth (né David Haskell Hackworth; d. May 4, 2005), American war hero who became a critic of the United States military.  He died at age 74.

1930~ Mildred Dresselhaus (née Mildred Spiewak; d. Feb. 20, 2017), American nanoscience pioneer who broke barriers. She was the first female Institute Professor at MIT.  She was known as the Queen of Carbon Science.  She died at age 86 in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

1928~ Carlos Fuentes (né Carlos Fuentes Macías, d. May 15, 2012), Mexican author.  He died at age 83.

1925~ Jonathan Winters (né Jonathan Harshman Winters, III, d. Apr. 11, 2013), American comic and actor who thrived on improvisation.  He died at age 87.

1925~ Tennent H. Bagely (d. Feb. 20, 2014), the American CIA agent who handled, Yuri Nosenko, a dubious Russian defector.  He died of cancer at age 88.

1922~ Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (d. Apr. 11, 2007), American novelist, best known for his novels Slaughter-House Five and Cat’s Cradle.  He died at age 84.

1921~ Terrel Bell (né Terrel Howard Bell, d. June 22, 1996), 2^ndUnited States Secretary of Education.  He served under President Ronald Reagan from January 1981 until January 1985.  He died at age 74.

1915~ William Proxmire (né Edward William Proxmire, d. Dec. 15, 2005), American politician.  He was a senator from Wisconsin from August 1957 until January 1989.  He died about a month after his 90^th birthday.

1915~ Anna Schwartz (née Anna Jacobson; d. June 21, 2012), American economist who rewrote the history of the Depression.  She is best known for her 1963 classic A Monetary History of the United States.  She died at age 96.

1914~ Howard Fast (né Howard Melvin Fast; d. Mar. 12, 2003), American author.  He died at age 88.

1904~ J.H.C. Whitehead (né John Henry Constantine Whitehead, d. May 8, 1960), British mathematician.  He died of a heart attack at age 55.

1904~ Alger Hiss (d. Nov. 15, 1996), American government official who was accused of being a Soviet spy.  He died 4 days after his 92^ndbirthday.

1895~ Wealthy Babcock (née Wealthy Consuelo Babcock; d. Apr. 10, 1990), American mathematician.  She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Kansas and had a long teaching career at that university.  She died at age 94.

1885~ George S. Patton, Jr. (né George Smith Patton, Jr.; d. Dec. 21, 1945), American general.  He died at age 60 of injuries suffered in a car accident.

1882~ King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden (d. Sept. 15, 1973).  He reigned as King from October 1950 until his death in September 1973.  He died at age 90.

1872~ David L. Walsh (né David Ignatius Walsh, d. June 11, 1947), 46^th Governor of Massachusetts.  He served as Governor from January 1914 until January 1916.  He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 74 in Boston, Massachusetts.

1864~ Alfred Hermann Fried (d. May 5, 1921), Austrian writer and pacifist.  He was the recipient of the 1911 Nobel Peace Prize.  He died at age 56.

1821~ Fyodor Dostoyevesky (d. Feb. 9, 1881), Russian novelist, best known for his novel, Crime and Punishment.  He died at age 59 of a pulmonary hemorrhage.

1792~ Mary Anne Disraeli, 1^stViscountess Beaconsfield (née Mary Anne Evans; d. Dec. 15, 1872), Welsh wife of Benjamin Disraeli.  She died about month after her 80^th birthday.

1050~ Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor (d. Aug. 7, 1106).  He reigned from October 1056 through March 1084.  He had the distinction of being excommunicated five times by three different Popes.  He died at age 55.

Events that Changed the World:

2012~ A 6.8 magnitude earthquake struck in northern Burma, killing nearly 30 people.

2004~ Mahmoud Abbas (b. 1935) became the president of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

1993~ A sculpture honoring the women who served in the Vietnam War was dedicated at the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in Washington, D.C.

1992~ The General Synod of the Church of England voted to allow woman to become Anglican priest.

1981~ Antigua and Barbuda joined the United Nations.  In 2017, Hurricane Irma would destroy over 90% of the island of Barbuda.

1954~ Veterans Day was first celebrated in the United States to honor the men and women who have served in the United States armed services.  In 1919, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed November 11 as Armistice Day to remind Americans of those lost in World War I.  It was made a Federal Holiday in 1938.  In 1954, the name was changed to Veterans Day to commemorate American Veterans of all wars, not just World War II.

1942~ The minimum draft age was lowered from 21 to 18.

1942~ Nazi Germany completed its invasion of France.

1926~ U.S. Route 66 came into being with the establishment of the United States Numbered Highway System.

1921~ The Tomb of the Unknown soldiers was dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery.

1918~ World War I ended when Germany signed an armistice agreement.  Fighting officially ended at 11:00 a.m.  The war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty Versailles, which occurred on June 28, 1919.

1889~ Washington became the 42^nd State of the Union.

1864~ During the American Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman (1820 ~ 1891), who had formerly been the president of LSU, began burning Atlanta, Georgia on his march south.

1839~ The Virginia Military Institute was founded in Lexington, Virginia.

1675~ Gottfried Leibniz (1646 ~ 1716) demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the of the graph y = ƒ(x).

1620~ The Mayflower Compact was signed aboard the Mayflower as it was stationed off the coast of what is now known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This was the first governing document of Plymouth Colony.

1500~ King Louis XII (1462 ~ 1515) of France and King Ferdinand II (1452 ~ 1516) of Aragon agreed to divide the Kingdom of Naples between they with the signing of the Treaty of Granada.

1215~ The Fourth Lateran Council met and defined the doctrine of transubstantiation, by which the bread and wine of communion are said to be transformed into the body and blood of Jesus.

1100~ King Henry I (1068 ~ 1135) of England married Matilda of Scotland (1080 ~ 1118).  Matilda was the daughter of Malcolm III of Scotland (1031 ~ 1093).

Good-Byes:

2016~ Robert Vaughn (né Robert Francis Vaughn; b. Nov. 22, 1932), American actor best known for his role as Napoleon Solo in the television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E.  He died 11 days before his 84^th birthday.

2014~ John Doar (né John Andrew Doar; b. Dec. 3, 1921), American civil rights lawyer who fought segregation and drafted the articles of impeachment against President Richard Nixon.  He died 3 weeks before his 93^rd birthday.

2012~ Sir Rex Hunter (né Rex Masterman Hunt, b. June 29, 1926), British governor who defied Argentina during the Falkland Islands War in 1982.  He was 86 years old.

2005~ Peter Drucker (né Peter Ferdinand Drucker; b. Nov. 19, 1909), American management theorist.  He is best known for the development of the Peter Principle, in which ineptitude rises to the top.  He died 8 days before his 96^th birthday.

2004~ Yasser Arafat (b. Aug. 24, 1929), Leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.  He was also the recipient of the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize.  He died at age 75.

1994~ John A. Volpe (né John Anthony Volpe; b. Dec. 8, 1908), 2^nd United States Secretary of Transportation.  He served in the Richard Nixon administration from January 1969 until February 1973.  He previously served two terms as Governor of Massachusetts; first from January 1961 until January 1963 and second from January 1965 until January 1969.  He died less than a month before his 86^th birthday.

1985~ Arthur Rothstein (b. July 17, 1915), American photojournalist. He died at age 70.

1976~ Alexander Calder (b. July 22, 1898), American sculptor and inventor. He is best known for his mobiles.  He died at age 78.

1973~ Artturi Ilmari Virtanen (b. Jan. 15, 1895), Finnish chemist and recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 78.

1945~ Jerome Kern (né Jerome David Kern; b. Jan. 27, 1885), American composer.  He died of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 60.

1938~ Typhoid Mary Mallon (b. Sept. 23, 1869), Irish-American asymptomatic carrier of Typhoid fever.  She died at age 69.

1917~ Queen Lili’uokalani (b. Sept. 2, 1838) of Hawaii.  She was the last reigning monarch of the Hawaiian Islands.  She died at age 79.

1892~ Thomas Adolphus Trollope (b. Apr. 29, 1810), British author and journalist.  He died at age 82.

1880~ Ned Kelly (né Edward Kelly, b. Dec. 1855), Australian criminal.  He was hanged at age 31.  The exact day of his birth is not known.

1880~ Lucretia Mott (née Lucretia Coffin; b. Jan. 3, 1793), leader of the abolitionist and women’s rights movements in the United States. She was from Nantucket, Massachusetts. She died at age 87 in Pennsylvania.

1862~ James Madison Porter (b. Jan. 6, 1793), 18^th United States Secretary of War.  He served under President John Tyler from March 1843 until January 1844.  He died at age 69.

1861~ King Pedro V of Portugal (b. Sept. 16, 1837).  He reigned as King from November 1853 until his death 8 years later.  He died of typhus fever at age 24.

1855~ Søren Kierkegaard (né Søren Aabye Kierkegaard; b. May 5, 1813), Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author.  He died at age 42.

1831~ Nat Turner (b. Oct. 2, 1800), American slave rebel who was hanged after inciting a slave uprising.  He was executed at age 31 for his role in leading the revolt.

1623~ Philippe de Mornay (b. Nov. 5, 1549), French author.  He died 6 days after his 74^th birthday.

1028~ Constantine VIII, Byzantine Emperor (b. 960).  The exact date of his birth is not known.