Today XXXV

Birthdays:

• Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, physicist and engineer, after whom the Fahrenheit scale of temperature is named; he developed precise thermometers; the Fahrenheit scale was widely used in Europe until the switch to the Celsius scale, and is still used for everyday temperature measurements by the general population in the United States and Jamaica; he filled his first thermometers with alcohol before using mercury, which gave better results; the coldest temperature attainable under laboratory conditions at that time, using a mixture of water, salt and ice, was defined by him as 0°F; the body temperature of a healthy horse was defined as 100°F, May 24, 1686 - September 16, 1736


• Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria), Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Queen of the UK from 20 June 1837, and the first Empress of India from 1 January, 1877, until her death in 1901; her reign lasted more than sixty-three years, longer than that of any other British monarch, May 24, 1819 – January 22, 1901


• Lionel Pretoria Conacher, "The Big Train", athlete, excelling in Canadian football, hockey, lacrosse, baseball, boxing, and wrestling, and later playing a significant role in Canadian politics; he played for the Toronto Argonauts, and was part of the 1921 Grey Cup winning team from 1921-1922; from 1925 to 1937, he played for the National Hockey League; he was a Liberal MPP from October 6, 1937 until June 30, 1943; he was elected in 1949 as a Liberal MP and re-elected in 1953, May 24, 1900 – May 26, 1954


• Siobhán Giollamhuire Nic Cionnaith, aka Siobhán McKenna, stage and screen actress, May 24, 1923 - November 16, 1986


• Thomas TOMMY Chong B. Kin, actor and musician, 1938


• Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan, singer-songwriter, musician and poet, 1941


• Gary Burghoff, actor, jazz drummer, and wildlife painter, 1943


• Patricia Louise Holt, aka Patti LaBelle, R&B/soul singer, 1944


• Alfred Molina, actor, 1953


• Rosanne Cash, singer and songwriter, 1955


• Gene Anthony Ray, actor and dancer, May 24, 1962 – November 14, 2003


• Bartolo Colón, MLB starting pitcher, winner of the 2005 American League Cy Young Award, 1973


• Cecilia Cheung, actress and singer, 1980

RIP:

• Nicolaus Copernicus, astronomer who provided the first modern formulation of a heliocentric theory of the solar system, February 19, 1473 – May 24, 1543


• Elmore Brooks, aka Elmore James, blues singer and guitarist, known as "The King of the Slide Guitar," January 27, 1918 – May 24, 1963


• Edward Kennedy DUKE Ellington, jazz composer, pianist, and bandleader, April 29, 1899 – May 24, 1974


• Harold Eugene GENE Clark, singer-songwriter, one of the founding members of The Byrds, November 17, 1944 - May 24, 1991


• James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, March 11, 1916 - May 24, 1995


• Edward Mulhare, actor, April 8, 1923 - May 24, 1997