Today - XXXIV

Birthdays

• Franz Anton Mesmer, physician and hypnotist, discovered what he called animal magnetism and others often called mesmerism. The evolution of Mesmer's ideas and practices led James Braid to develop hypnosis in 1842, May 23, 1734 – March 5, 1815


• Julius Ullman, aka Douglas Fairbanks, actor, screenwriter, director, and producer, who became noted for his swashbuckling roles in silent movies, May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939


• John Bardeen, physicist. He is the only person to have won two Nobel Prizes in Physics; in 1956, for the transistor, along with William Bradford Shockley and Walter Brattain, and in 1972, for a fundamental theory of conventional superconductivity together with Leon Neil Cooper and John Robert Schrieffer, now called BCS theory, May 23, 1908 – January 30, 1991


• Benjamin Sherman "Scatman" Crothers, actor, singer, dancer, and musician, May 23, 1910 – November 22, 1986


• Arthur Arshawsky, aka Artie Shaw, jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and writer, May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004


• Edward Norton Lorenz, mathematician and meteorologist, and an early pioneer of chaos theory. He invented the strange attractor notion and coined the term butterfly effect, 1917


• Helen O'Connell, singer, actress, and dancer, May 23, 1920 – September 9, 1993


• James Benjamin Blish, author of fantasy and science fiction, who also wrote criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling. Jr., May 23, 1921 – July 30, 1975


• Humphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton, jazz musician, 1921


• Rosemary Clooney, singer and actress, May 23, 1928 – June 29, 2002


• Nigel Davenport, actor, 1928


• Barbara Ann Berman, aka Barbara Barrie, actress and author of children's books, 1931


• Robert Arthur Moog, Ph.D., pioneer of electronic music, best known as the inventor of the Moog synthesizer, May 23, 1934 – August 21, 2005


• Charles Kimbrough, character actor, 1936


• Anatoli Yevgenyevich Karpov, chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion, 1951


• William Nathaniel "Buck" Showalter, former minor league baseball player, and the current manager of the Texas Rangers, 1956

RIP:

• William "Captain" Kidd, pirate, January 22, 1645 – May 23, 1701


• Christopher Houston 'Kit Carson, frontiersman, trapper, and scout, December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868


• Henrik Johan Ibsen, playwright, March 20, 1828 – May 23, 1906


• Jackie "Moms" Mabley, comedienne, March 19, 1894 - May 23, 1975


• George Jessel, actor, singer, songwriter, and movie producer, April 3, 1898 – May 23, 1981


• David Lewis, CC, MA, labour lawyer and politician, National Secretary of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation [CCF] from 1936 to 1950, and, in 1961, one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party [NDP], June 23, 1909-May 23, 1981


• Sterling Walter Hayden, actor, March 26, 1916 – May 23, 1986


• Wilhelm Kempff, pianist and composer, November 25, 1895 – May 23, 1991


• Samuel Jackson 'Sam' Snead, professional golfer, winner of a record 82 PGA Tour events and about 70 others worldwide; he won seven majors: three Masters, three PGA Championships, and one British Open, May 27, 1912 – May 23, 2002