Thursday, February 20, 2020

February 20

Birthdays:

1984 ~ Trevor Noah, South African comedian and television host.  He was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

1967 ~ Kurt Cobain (né Kurt Donald Cobain; d. Apr. 5, 1994), American musician and front-man for Nirvana.  He died by suicide at age 27.

1966 ~ Cindy Crawford (née Cynthia Ann Crawford), American model.  She was born in DeKalb, Illinois.

1964 ~ French Stewart (né Milton French Stewart), American actor.  He was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

1963 ~ Charles Barkley (né Charles Wade Barkley), American basketball player.  He was born in Leeds, Alabama.

1954 ~ Patty Hearst (née Patricia Campbell Hearst), American socialite and kidnapping victim.  She was born in San Francisco, California.

1951 ~ Gordon Brown (né James Gordon Brown), Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from June 2007 until May 2010.  He was born in Giffnock, Scotland.

1950 ~ Walter Becker (né Walter Carl Becker, d. Sept. 3, 2017), American sly songwriter who co-founded Steely Dan.  He died at age 67 following a long illness.

1949 ~ Ivana Trump (née Ivana Marie Zelníčková), Czech-born socialite and first wife of Donald Trump.  She was born in what is now known as Zlin, Czech Republic.

1947 ~ John C. Maxwell (né John Calvin Maxwell), American author, professional speaker, and pastor.  His books primarily focus on leadership.  He was born in Garden City, Michigan.

1947 ~ Peter Strauss (né Peter Lawrence Strauss), American television and film actor.  He was born on Croton-on-Hudson, New York.

1946 ~ J. Geils (né John Warren Geils, Jr.; d. Apr. 11, 2017), American blues guitarist who became an ‘80s hitmaker.  He founded the J. Geils Band.  He died in Groton, Massachusetts at age 71.

1946 ~ Sandy Duncan (née Sandra Kay Duncan), American actress and singer.  She was born in Henderson, Texas.

1943 ~ Linda Brown (née Linda Carol Brown; d. Mar. 25, 2018), American civil rights icon who helped desegregate schools.  She was the plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court case Brown vs. the Topeka School Board of Education.  She died at age 75.

1942 ~ Phil Esposito (né Philip Anthony Esposito), Canadian ice hockey player.  He was born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada.

1942 ~ Mitch McConnell (né Addison Mitch McConnell, Jr.), American politician from Kentucky.  He served as the Senate Majority Leader in the United States Congress.  He was born in Sheffield, Alabama.

1941 ~ Buffy Sainte-Marie (née Beverly Sainte-Marie), Indigenous-Canadian singer-songwriter.

1937 ~ Robert Huber, German chemist and recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He was born in Munich, Germany.

1935 ~ Ellen Gilchrist, American author.  She was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

1931 ~ John Milnor (né John Willard Milnor), American mathematician.  He was born in Orange, New Jersey.

1929 ~ Amanda Blake (née Beverly Louise Neill, d. Aug. 16, 1989), American actress best known for her role as Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke.  She died at age 60 of cancer.

1928 ~ Jean Kennedy Smith (née Jean Ann Kennedy), member of the Kennedy clan.  She had also served as the 25thUnited States Ambassador to Ireland from June 1993 until September 1998 during the Clinton administration.  She was born in Boston, Massachusetts.

1927 ~ Roy Cohn (né Roy Marcus Cohn; d. Aug. 2, 1986), American politician and attorney.  He served as Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the Red Scare in the 1950s.  He died at age 59.

1927 ~ Count Hubert de Givenchy (né Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy; d. Mar. 10, 2018), French fashion designer and couturier who made Audrey Hepburn an icon.  He is best known for creating the little black dress.  He died 16 days after his 91st birthday.

1927 ~ Sir Sidney Poitier, Bahamian-American actor.  He was born in Miami, Florida.

1925 ~ Robert Altman (né Robert Bernard Altman; d. Nov. 20, 2006), American film director.  He died at age 81.

1924 ~ Gloria Vanderbilt (née Gloria Laura Venderbilt; d. June 17, 2019), American “poor little rich girl” who built a fashion empire.  She was a socialite, clothing designer and mother of television personality, Anderson Cooper.  She died at age 95.

1920 ~ Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington (née Kathleen Agnes Kennedy; d. May 13, 1948), American socialite and daughter of Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. and Rose Kennedy.  She married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington in 1944.  He was killed 4 months after their wedding.  She was later killed in a plane crash while flying to the French Riviera for a vacation.  She was 28 years old.

1918 ~ Leonore Annenberg (née Leonore Cohn; d. Mar. 12, 2009), American society hostess who was the Chief of Protocol of the United States during the Reagan administration, from March 1981 until January 1982.  She died 20 days after her 91st birthday.

1910 ~ Esther Szekeres (née Esther Klein, d. Aug. 28, 2005), Hungarian mathematician and wife of George Szekeres (1911 ~ 2005).  She and her husband died within hours of each other.  She was 95 years old.

1902 ~ Ansel Adams (né Ansel Easton Adams; d. Apr. 22, 1984), American photographer.  He died of cardiovascular disease at age 82.

1901 ~ Muhammad Naguib (d. Aug. 28, 1984), Egyptian general and 1st President of Egypt.  He served as President from June 1953 until November 1954.  He died at age 83.

1899 ~ Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (d. Dec. 13, 1992), American businessman and philanthropist.  He died at age 93.

1887 ~ Hesketh Pearson (né Edward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson; d. Apr. 9, 1964), British theater actor and writer, best known for his biographies.  He died at age 77.

1867 ~ Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Fife (d. Jan. 4, 1931).  She was the eldest daughter of King Edward VII (1841 ~ 1910).  She was married to Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife (1849 ~ 1912).  She died at age 63.

1819 ~ Alfred Escher (né Johann Heinrich Alfred Escher vom Glas; d. Dec. 6, 1882), Swiss businessman and founder of Credit Suisse.  He died at age 63.

1803 ~ Henry Stanbery (d. June 26, 1881), 28th United States Attorney General.  He served in that office under the Andrew Johnson administration from July 1866 until July 1868.  He died at age 78.

1784 ~ Judith, Lady Montefiore (née Judith Barent Cohen; d. Sept. 24, 1862), British linguist, travel writer and philanthropist.  She was of an Ashkenazi family; she married Moses Montefiorte, a Sephadic Jew at a time when such mixed marriages were not generally approved by the Portuguese Synagogue.  She died at age 78.

1759 ~ Johann Christian Reil (d. Nov. 22, 1813), German physician.  He coined the term “psychiatry”.  He died of typhus at age 54.

1726 ~ William Prescott (d. Oct. 13, 1795), American Revolutionary War colonel who was instrumental in the Battle of Bunker Hill.  He is credited with saying: “Don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.”  He was born and died in Massachusetts.  He died at age 69.

1358 ~ Eleanor of Aragon (d. Aug. 13, 1382), Queen consort of Castile and wife of John I of Castile.  She was of the House of Barcelona.  She died in childbirth at age 24.

Events that Changed the World:

2003 ~ A pyrotechnic display by the band Great White in a night club in West Warwick, Rhode Island, set a fire which destroyed the building and killed over 100 attendees and injured numerous others.

1998 ~ At age 14, American figure skater Tara Lipinski (b. 1982), became the youngest gold-medalist at the 1998 Winter Olympics, which were held in Japan.

1986 ~ The Soviet Union launched its Mir space station.  It remained in orbit for 15 years.

1962 ~ Astronaut John Glenn (1921 ~ 2016) became the first American to orbit the earth.  He was in the spaceship, Friendship 7.

1935 ~ Danish explorer Caroline Mikkelsen (1906 ~ 1998) became the first recorded woman to set foot in Antarctica.

1877 ~ Tchaikovsky’s ballet, Swan Lake, premièred at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow.

1873 ~ The Toland Medical Collage in San Francisco, became incorporated into the University of California.  It is the oldest medical school in the western United States.

1872 ~ The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City opened.

1835 ~ The city of Concepción, Chile was destroyed by an earthquake.

1816 ~ The Barber of Seville, the opera by Gioachino Rossini (1792 ~ 1868), made it premier in Rome.

1792 ~ The Postal Service Act, which established the United States Post Office Department, was signed by President George Washington (1732 ~ 1799).

1685 ~ René-Robert Cavelier (1643 ~ 1687) established Fort St. Louis at Matagorda Bay, a large Gulf of Mexico estuary on what is now the Texas coast, thereby, establishing the basis for France’s claim to the land that is now Texas.

1547 ~ Edward VI of England (1537 ~ 1553) was crowned King of England.  He was the half-brother of Queen Elizabeth I.

Good-byes:

2017 ~ Mildred Dresselhaus (née Mildred Spiewak; b. Nov. 11, 1930), 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.

2014 ~ Garrick Utley (né Clifton Garrick Utley; b. Nov. 19, 1939), American news journalist and television news anchor.  He died of prostate cancer age 74.

2014 ~ Tennent H. Bagley (né Tennent Harrington Bagley; b. Nov. 11, 1925), the American CIA agent who handled, Yuri Nosenko, a dubious Russian defector.  He died of cancer at age 88.

2014 ~ Rafael Addiego Bruno (d. Feb. 23, 1923), President of Uruguay.  He died 3 days before his 91st birthday.

2010 ~ Alexander Haig (né Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr.; d. Dec. 2, 1924), American brash general who became the 59th United States Secretary of State.  He served as Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan from January 1981 until July 1982.  He previously served as the 5th White House Chief of Staff from May 1973 until September 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.  He died at age 85.

2006 ~ Curt Gowdy (né Curtis Edward Gowdy; b. July 31, 1919), American sportscaster.  He died of leukemia at age 86.

2005 ~ Hunter S. Thompson (né Hunter Stockton Thompson; b. July 18, 1937), American journalist.  He committed suicide at age 67.

2003 ~ Orville Freeman (né Orville Lothrop Freeman; b. May 9, 1918), 16th United States Secretary of Agriculture.  He served under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson from January 1961 until January 1969.  He died at age 84.

1999 ~ Gene Siskel (né Eugene Kal Siskel; b. Jan. 26, 1946), American film critic, who with Roger Ebert, had a long-running television show critiquing movies.  He died of a brain tumor 25 days after his 53rd birthday.

1996 ~ Solomon Asch (né Solomon Eliot Asch; b. Sept. 14, 1907), Polish-born American psychologist.  He died at age 88.

1993 ~ Ferruccio Lamborghini (b. Apr. 28, 1916), Italian businessman and creator of the Lamborghini, a high-end sports vehicle.  He died at age 76 of a heart attack.

1992 ~ Dick York (né Richard Allen York; b. Sept. 4, 1928), American actor.  He is best known as being cast as the first Darren on Bewitched.  He died of emphysema at age 63.

1980 ~ Alice Roosevelt Longworth (née Alice Lee Roosevelt; b. Feb. 12, 1884), eldest daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt.  She died 8 days after her 96th birthday.

1976 ~ René Cassin (né René Samuel Cassin; b. Oct. 5, 1887), French judge and jurist.  He was the recipient of the 1968 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.  He died at age 88.

1972 ~ Maria Goeppert-Mayer (née Maria Göppert; b. June 28, 1906), German-born American theoretical physicist and recipient of the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics for proposing the nuclear shell model of the atomic nucleus.  She was the second woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, the first being Marie Curie.  She died of a heart attack at age 65.

1972 ~ Walter Winchell (b. Apr. 7, 1897), American journalist, gossip commentator and broadcaster.  He died at age 74 of prostate cancer.

1966 ~ Chester W. Nimitz, Sr. (né Chester William Nimitz; b. Feb. 24, 1885), American admiral.  He was a leading authority on submarines.  He died 4 days before his 81st birthday.

1920 ~ Rear Admiral Robert E. Peary, Sr. (né Robert Edwin Peary; b. May 6, 1856), American Arctic explorer.  He claimed to be the first person to reach the North Pole.  He died at age 63.

1916 ~ Klas Pontus Arnoldson (d. Oct. 27, 1844), Swedish writer and pacifist.  He was the recipient of the 1908 Nobel Peace Prize.  He died at age 71.

1907 ~ Henri Moissan (né Ferdinand Frederick Henri Moissan; b. Sept. 28, 1852), French chemist and recipient of the 1906 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in isolating fluorine from its compounds.  He died at age 54 from an acute case of appendicitis.

1895 ~ Frederick Douglass (b. Feb. 1818), American abolitionist.  The actual date of his birth is not known, but he is believed to have been born in February 1818.  He died at age 77.

1893 ~ P.G.T. Beauregard (né Pierre-Gustave Toutant Beauregard, b. May 28, 1818), Louisiana-born military officer and Confederate General during the American Civil War.  He died at age 74 in New Orleans, Louisiana.

1790 ~ Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (b. Mar. 13, 1741).  He ruled from August 18, 1765 until his death 25 years later.  He died 3 weeks before his 49th birthday.

1778 ~ Laura Bassi (née Laura Maria Catrina Bassi; b. Oct. 31, 1711), Italian physician and scholar.  She is believed to have been the first female university professor in Europe.  The exact date of her birth is not known, but she is believed to have been born sometime between October 20 and 31 in 1711.  She died at age 66.

1762 ~ Tobias Mayer (b. Feb. 17, 1723), German astronomer.  He is best known for his study of the Moon.  The lunar crater T Mayer is named in his honor.  He died just 3 days after his 39th birthday.

1653 ~ Luigi Rossi (b. 1597), Italian Baroque composer.  The exact date of is birth is not known.

1618 ~ Philip William, Prince of Orange (b. Dec. 19, 1554).  He died at age 63.

1513 ~ King John of Denmark (b. Feb. 2, 1455).  He ruled form May 21, 1481 until his death in February 1513.  He was married to Christina of Saxony.  He died 18 days after his 58th birthday.

1431 ~ Pope Martin V (né Odo Colonna; b. 1368).  He was Pope from November 1417 until his death 13 years later.  The exact date of his birth is not known.

922 ~ Theodora, Byzantine consort empress and wife of Romanos I.  The date of her birth is not known.

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