July 15

Birthdays:

1977 ~ Lana Parrilla (née Lana Maria Parrilla), American actress.  She is best known for her role as the Evil Queen on the television drama, Once Upon a Time.  She was born in New York, New York.

1972 ~ Scott Foley (né Scott Kellerman Foley), American actor.  He was born in Kansas City, Kansas.

1971 ~ Jim Rash (né James Rash), American actor best known for his role as Dean Craig Pelton on the television sit-com Community.  He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina.

1966 ~ Kristoff St. John (d. Feb. 3, 2019), African-American actor.  He portrayed Neil Winters on The Young and the Restless.  He died of heart failure at age 52.  He was born in New York, New York and died in Los Angeles.

1961 ~ Lolita Davidovich, Canadian actress.  She is best known for her role as Blaze Starr in the 1989 movie Blaze.  She was born in London, Ontaria, Canada.

1961 ~ Forest Whitaker (né Forest Steven Whitaker, III), American actor.  He was born in Longview, Texas.

1956 ~ Marky Ramone (né Mark Steven Bell), American drummer and member of the Ramones.  He was born in Brooklyn, New York.

1950 ~ Arianna Huffington (née Ariadnē-Anna Stasinopoúlo), Greek-born American journalist and founder of The Huffington Post.  She was born in Athens, Greece.

1946 ~ Linda Ronstadt (née Linda Marie Ronstadt), American musician.  She was born in Tuscon, Arizona.

1945 ~ Jan-Michael Vincent (d. Feb. 10, 2019), American hard-living actor and star of Airwolf who crashed and burned.  He died at age 73.

1936 ~ Larry Cohen (né Lawrence George Cohen; d. Mar. 23, 2019), American B-movie director who made schlock with a purpose.  He was known for his horror and sci-fi films.  He was born in New York, New York.  He died at age 82 in Los Angeles, California.

1935 ~ Alex Karras (né Alexander George Karras; d. Oct. 10, 2012), American football player and actor.  He died at age 77.

1935 ~ Ken Kercheval (d. Apr. 21, 2019), American actor best known for his role as Cliff Barnes on the television drama Dallas.  He died of lung cancer at age 83.

1931 ~ Clive Cussler (né Clive Eric Cussler; d. Feb. 24, 2020), American scuba-writing adventure author who launched a paperback empire.  He is best known for his 1976 novel Raise the Titanic!  He was born in Aurora, Illinois.  He died at age 88 in Scottsdale, Arizona.

1930 ~ Jacques Derrida (d. Oct. 9, 2004), Algerian-born French philosopher.  He died at age 74.

1930 ~ Stephen Smale, American mathematician.  He is best known for his work in topology and mathematical economics.  He was born in Flint, Michigan.

1926 ~ Leopoldo Galtieri (d. Jan. 12, 2003), 44^th President of Argentina.  He was president from December 1981 until June 1982, during the last military dictatorship.  He was removed following the British invasion of the Falkland Islands.  He died at age 76.

1925 ~ Creed Black (né Creed Carter Black, d. Aug. 16, 2011), American newsman who made a mantra of fearless reporting.  He was born in Harlan, Kentucky.  He died of complications from a stroke a month after his 86^thbirthday in Miami, Florida.

1925 ~ D.A. Pennebaker (né Donn Alan Pennebaker; d. Aug. 1, 2019), American documentarian who showed life up close.  He died 17 days after his 94^th birthday.

1924 ~ Brian Sutton-Smith (d. Mar. 7, 2015), New Zealander scholar who made a life’s work of play.  He is best known for his work, The Ambiguity of Play.  He died at age 90 in White River Junction, Vermont.

1924 ~ Jeremiah Denton, Jr. (né Jeremiah Andrew Denton, Jr., d. Mar. 28, 2014), the American Admiral POW who defied his captors.  He later became a United States Senator from Alabama from 1981 to 1987.  He died at age 89.

1922 ~ Leon Lederman (né Leon Max Lederman; d. Oct. 3, 2018), American physicist and mathematician.  He was the recipient of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He is known for his 1993 book The God Particle, which established the importance of the Higgs boson.  He died at age 96.

1921 ~ Robert Bruce Merrifield (d. May 14, 2006), American chemist and recipient of the 1984 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 84.

1919 ~ Dame Iris Murdoch (née Jean Iris Murdoch, d. Feb. 8, 1999), Irish writer.  She died at age 79.

1919 ~ Vernon Mountcastle (né Vernon Benjamin Mountcastle; d. Jan. 11, 2015), American scientist who revealed the brain’s secrets.  He discovered and characterized the columnar organization of the cerebral cortex.  He was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky.  He died of complications of the flu in Baltimore, Maryland at age 96.

1918 ~ Bertram Brockhouse (né Bertram Neville Brockhouse, d. Oct. 13, 2003), Canadian physicist and recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics.  He died at age 85.

1917 ~ Robert Conquest (né George Robert Acworth Conquest; d. Aug. 3, 2015), British-American historian who documented Stalin’s Crimes.  He is most well-known for his influential works on Soviet history, including The Great Terror: Stalin’s Purges of the 1930s.  He died 19 days after his 98^th birthday.

1915 ~ Arthur Rothstein (d. Nov. 11, 1985), American photojournalist.  He died at age 70.  He was born in New York, New York.  He died in New Rochelle, New York.

1892 ~ Walter Benjamin (né Walter Bendix Schönflies Benjamin; d. Sept. 26, 1940), German philosopher.  He was born in Berlin, Germany.  He left Germany in 1932 to escape from Nazi Germany.  He died by suicide at age 48 in Portbou, Spain.

1865 ~ Wilhelm Wirtinger (d. Jan. 15, 1945), Austrian mathematician.  He died at age 79.

1858 ~ Emmeline Pankhurst (née Emmeline Goulden, d. June 14, 1928), English suffragist and activist.  She died a month before her 70^th birthday.

1796 ~ Thomas Bulfinch (d. May 27, 1867), American banker and writer.  He is best known for the book Bulfinch’s Mythology.  He was from Massachusetts.  He died at age 70.

1779 ~ Clement Clarke Moore (d. July 10, 1863), American author and educator.  He is best known for his book that became known as The Night Before Christmas.  He died 5 days before his 84^th birthday.

1638 ~ Giovanni Viviani (né Giovanni Buonaventura Viviani, d. 1693), Italian composer and violinist.  The exact date of his death is not known.

1606 ~ Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (d. Oct. 4, 1669), Dutch painter.  He is generally known simply by his first name, Rembrandt.  He died at age 63.

1573 ~ Inigo Jones (d. June 21, 1652), English architect.  He died 24 days before his 79^th birthday.

Events that Changed the World:

2020 ~ United States Federal taxes were due.  The due date for filing 2019 taxes was delayed from April 15 to July 15 due the chaos the Covid-19 pandemic caused.

2016 ~ Factions of the Turkish Armed Forces attempted a coup.  It failed.

2006 ~ Twitter, a social media platform, was launched.

1916 ~ William Boeing (1881 ~ 1956) and George Conrad Westervelt (1879 ~ 1956) incorporated Pacifico Aero Products.  The company was later renamed as the Boeing Company.

1910 ~ In his book, Clinical Psychiatry, Emil Kraepelin (1856 ~ 1926) gave the name to a condition we call Alzheimer’s Disease, which he named in honor of his colleague, Alois Alzheimer (1864 ~ 1915).

1903 ~ The Ford Motor Company took its first order.  Ernest Pfenning, a dentist from Chicago, ordered a Model A at a cost of $850.  The new car was delivered to him about a week later.

1888 ~ The volcanic Mount Bandai in Japan erupted killing over 500 people.

1870 ~ Georgia became the last former Confederate state to be readmitted into the Union during the Post-Civil War Reconstruction period.

1838 ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 ~ 1882) delivered the Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School, in which he discussed the Biblical miracles and declared Jesus to be a great man, but not G~d.  His audience was not amused.

1834 ~ The Spanish Inquisition was officially abolished.  It had remained in existence for over 350 years.

1823 ~ A fire destroyed the ancient Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls in Rome, Italy.

1815 ~ Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 ~ 1821) surrendered aboard the HMS Bellerophon during the Napoleonic Wars.

1806 ~ Lieutenant Zebulon Pike (1779 ~ 1813) began an expedition from Missouri to explore the American West.  Pike’s Peak in Colorado is named after him.

1799 ~ The Rosetta Stone was found by French Captain Pierre-François Bouchard (1772 ~ 1832) in the Egyptian village of Rosetta during Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign.

1207 ~ King John of England (1166 ~ 1216) expelled the Canterbury monks for supporting Archbishop Stephen Langton (1150 ~ 1228).

1149 ~ The reconstructed Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem was consecrated.

1099 ~ During the First Crusade, Christian soldiers took control of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

70 ~ The traditional date ascribed to Titus (39 ~ 81) leading his army to breach the walls of Jerusalem.  This date was the 17^th day of Tammuz in the Hebrew calendar.

Good-Byes:

2019 ~ Mortimer Caplin (né Mortimer Maxwell Caplin; b. July 11, 1916), American tax attorney and Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from February 1961 until July 1964.  He was born in New York, New York.  He died in Chevy Chase, Maryland 4 days after his 103^rd birthday.

2017 ~ Martin Landau (né Martin James Landau; b. June 20, 1928), American versatile actor who fought against typecasting.  He died of an abdominal hemorrhage 25 days after his 89^th birthday.

2012 ~ Celeste Holm (b. Apr. 29, 1917), American actress who was a city girl who first starred as a rube.  She died at age 95.

1997 ~ Gianni Versace (né Giovanni Maria Versace, b. Dec. 2, 1946), Italian fashion designer who founded the House of Versace.  He was murdered outside his home in Miami, Florida by Andrew Cunanan.  He was 50 years old.

1991 ~ Bert Convy (né Bernard Whalen Convy, b. July 23, 1933), American game show host.  He was born in St. Louis, Missouri.  He died of a brain tumor 8 days before his 58^th birthday in Los Angeles, California.

1979 ~ Gustavo Díaz Ordaz (b. Mar. 12, 1911), President of Mexico.  He served as President from December 1964 through November 1970.  He died of cancer at age 68.

1976 ~ Paul Gallico (né Paul William Gallico, b. July 26, 1897), American author.  He wrote The Silent Miaow.  He died 11 days before his 79^th birthday.

1961 ~ Nina Bari (née Nina Karlova Bari; b. Nov. 19, 1901), Russian mathematician.  She was killed at age 59 when she fell in front of a metro train in Moscow.

1948 ~ John J. Pershing (né John Joseph Pershing; b. Sept. 13, 1860), American army general.  He died at age 87.

1940 ~ Robert Wadlow (né Robert Pershing Wadlow; b. Feb. 22, 1918), the world’s tallest-ever recorded human.  He was 8 ft., 11 in. tall.  He died at age 22.

1931 ~ Ladislaus Bortkeiwiez (b. Aug. 7, 1868), Russian mathematician.  He died 23 days before his 63^rd birthday.

1919~ Emil Fischer (né Hermann Emil Louis Fischer; d. Oct. 9, 1852), German chemist and recipient of the 1902 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  He died at age 66.

1916 ~ Élie Metchnikoff (also known as Ilya Ilyich Mechnikov; b. May 15, 1845), Russian microbiologist and recipient of the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work in immunology.  He is also credited with discovering macrophages.  He died at age 71 in Paris, France.

1904 ~ Anton Chekhov (né Anton Paviovich Chekhov, b. Jan. 29, 1860), Russian playwright.  He died at age 44 of tuberculosis.

1883 ~ General Tom Thumb (né Charles Sherwood Stratton, b. Jan. 4, 1838), American circus performer.  He was a dwarf who achieved fame as a performer in the P.T. Barnum circus.  He was born and died in Bridgeport, Connecticut.  He died at age 45.

1542 ~ Lisa del Giocondo (b. June 15, 1479), Italian woman believed to be the subject of diVinci’s Mona Lisa.  She the exact date of her death is unknown.  She is believed to have been 63 at the time of her death.

1521 ~ Juan Ponce de León (b. 1474), Spanish explorer.  This is the date generally ascribed to his death.  He is believed to have been about 47 years old at the time of his death.  He died in what is now Havana, Cuba.

1291 ~ Rudolph I of Germany (b. May 1, 1218), King of Germany.  He ruled from September 1273 until his death in July 1291.  He died at age 73.

998 ~ Abū al-Wafā Būzjānī (b. June 10, 940), Persian mathematician and astronomer.  The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown.  He is believed to have been about 58 at the time of his death.