Friday, June 30, 2006

Today LXXII

Birthdays:

  • Jan Václav Stamic, aka Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, composer and violinist, June 19, 1717 – March 27, 1757

  • Frank Simmons Leavitt, aka Man Mountain Dean, professional wrestler, June 30, 1891 – May 29, 1953

  • Harry Shields, jazz clarinetist, June 30, 1899 – January 19, 1971

  • Czesław Miłosz, poet and essayist, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature, June 30, 1911 – August 14, 2004

  • Ludwig Bölkow, aeronautical pioneer, lead engineer at the Messerschmitt AG, building the first jet plane, the Me 262, June 30, 1912 - July 25, 2003

  • Edythe Marrenner, aka Susan Hayward, Academy Award-winning actress, June 30, 1917 – March 14, 1975

  • Lena Mary Calhoun Horne, popular singer, 1917

  • Paul Berg, biochemist, shared half of the 1980 Nobel Prize for Chemistry with Walter Gilbert and Frederick Sanger for their contributions to basic research in nucleic acids, 1926

  • Harry Blackstone, Jr., stage musician, author, and television performer, June 30, 1934 – May 14, 1997

  • Nancy Dussault, singer and actress, 1936

  • Florence Glenda Ballard Chapman, singer, best known as the founder and original lead singer of The Supremes, June 30, 1943 – February 22, 1976

  • Stanley Clarke, musician, known for his work on double bass and bass guitar, the first influential bassist to use piccolo bass prominently, 1951

  • David Garrison, stage and TV actor, 1952

  • Hal Lindes, guitarist and composer, once part of Dire Straits, 1953

  • David Alan Grier, comedian, 1955

  • Esa-Pekka Salonen, conductor and composer, 1958

  • Vincent Phillip D'Onofrio, actor and producer, 1959

  • Octavio Antonio TONY Fernández Castro, former MLB shortstop, awarded four Gold Glove Awards from 1986 to 1989, five-time All-Star, 1962

  • Lars Johann Yngve Lannerbäck, aka Yngwie Johann Malmsteen, guitarist, 1963

  • Monica Louise Brokaw Potter, actress, 1971

  • Chan Ho Park, MLB pitcher, currently with the San Diego Padres, had 3 saves playing for Korea in the World Baseball Classic, 1973

  • Matthew Paul Miller, aka Matisyahu, Hasidic Jewish reggae singer, 1979


RIP:

  • William Oughtred, mathematician, credited as the inventor of the slide rule in 1622, introduced the "x" symbol for multiplication as well as the abbreviations "sin" and "cos" for the sine and cosine functions, March 5, 1575 – June 30, 1660

  • Samuel Parkman Tuckerman, composer, February 11, 1819 – June 30, 1890

  • John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, physicist, received the 1904 Nobel Prize for Physics for the discovery of argon, November 12, 1842 – June 30, 1919

  • Lee De Forest, inventor with over 300 patents to his credit, invented the Audion, a vacuum tube that amplifies weak electrical signals, August 26, 1873 – June 30, 1961

  • Herbert J. Biberman, screenwriter and film director, March 4, 1900 - June 30, 1971

  • Frederick FIRPO Marberry, MLB starting and relief pitcher from 1923 to 1936, November 30, 1898 - June 30, 1976

  • Lillian Florence Hellman, playwright, June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984

  • George Robert Phillips SPANKY McFarland, actor, most famous for his childhood role as Spanky in the movie series Our Gang, aka The Little Rascals, October 2, 1928 - June 30, 1993

  • Charles T. Aldrich, Jr., aka Gale Gordon, radio and TV character actor, Lucille Ball's longtime television foil in several sitcoms, February 20, 1906 – June 30, 1995

  • Chester Burton CHET Atkins, guitar legend and record producer, June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001

  • Leonard Hacker, aka Buddy Hackett, comedian and actor; in 1978, he gave a dramatic performance as Lou Costello in the TV movie Bud And Lou, with Harvey Korman as Bud Abbott, August 31, 1924 – June 30, 2003

  • Robert McCloskey, author and illustrator of children's books, September 14, 1914 – June 30, 2003

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Today LXXI

Birthdays:

  • William James Mayo, physician and co-founder of the Mayo Clinic, June 29, 1861 – July 28, 1939

  • George Ellery Hale, solar astronomer, inventor of the spectroheliograph, with which he made his discoveries of the solar vortices and magnetic fields of sun spots, June 29, 1868 – February 21, 1938

  • Nelson Ackerman Eddy, singer and film actor, June 29, 1901 - March 6, 1967

  • Leroy Anderson, composer of short, light concert music pieces, June 29, 1908 – May 18, 1975

  • Frank Henry Loesser, composer and lyricist, June 29, 1910 - July 26, 1969

  • Bernard Herrmann, composer, known for his film scores, June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975

  • Rafael Jeroným Kubelík, conductor and composer, lifelong champion of composers Antonin Dvorak and Bedrich Smetana, June 29, 1914 - August 11, 1996

  • Louis Bert Lindley, Jr., aka Slim Pickens, cowboy and actor, inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame in 1982, June 29, 1919 – December 8, 1983

  • Ray Harryhausen, producer and creator of special effects creator, awarded a Gordon E. Sawyer Lifetime Achievement Award in 1992 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, an inspiration to so many of us who have made or tried to make animated films, 1920

  • Ezra Laderman, classical composer, 1924

  • Bernice Kamiat, aka Cara Williams, film and television actress, 1925

  • Robert John BOB Shaw, former Major League Baseball pitcher, 1933

  • Harmon Clayton Killebrew, former Major League Baseball player, hit 40 homers in a season eight times, led the league in home runs six times, in RBI three times, and was named to eleven All Star teams, the 1969 American League Most Valuable Player, elected in 1984 to the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1936

  • Stokely Carmichael, aka Kwame Ture, civil rights activist, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and member of the Black Panther Party, June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998

  • Eva Narcissus Boyd, aka Little Eva, singer, June 29, 1943 – April 10, 2003

  • William GARY Busey, Academy Award-nominated film and stage actor, 1944

  • Richard Philip Lewis, comedian and actor, 1947

  • Ian Anderson Paice, drummer for Deep Purple, 1948

  • Joe Johnson, professional snooker player, 1986 World Snooker Champion, 1952

  • Colin James Hay, musician, guitarist and singer for Men at Work, 1953

  • Evelyn "Champagne" King, R&B and disco singer, 1960

  • Anne-Sophie Mutter, classical violinist, 1963

  • Kaitlyn Ashley, actress, 1971

  • Matthew Frederick Robert Good, rock musician, 1971

  • Anthony Hamilton, professional snooker player, 1971

  • Katherine Jenkins, mezzo-soprano, 1980


RIP:

  • Elizabeth Barrett Browning, poet, March 6, 1806 – June 29, 1861

  • Thomas Henry Huxley, FRS, biologist, known for his defence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and a populariser of science; coined the term agnosticism to describe his take on religious belief, May 4, 1825 – June 29, 1895

  • Roscoe Conkling FATTY Arbuckle, silent film comedian, whose career was destroyed by an attempted blackmail scheme, spun by newspapers that "crucified" him in false and vicious articles and editorials, March 24, 1887 – June 29, 1933

  • Paul Klee, painter, variously associated with expressionism, cubism and surrealism, and teacher at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture, December 18, 1879 - June 29, 1940

  • Ignacy Jan Paderewski, pianist, composer, diplomat, and politician, the third Prime Minister of Poland, November 6, 1860 – June 29, 1941

  • Vera Jayne Palmer, aka Jayne Mansfield, actress and sex symbol, April 19, 1933 - June 29, 1967

  • Primo Carnera, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, October 26, 1906 – June 29, 1967

  • Frederick Earl SHORTY Long, soul singer, songwriter, and record producer for Motown's Soul Records label, May 20, 1940 - June 29, 1969

  • Robert Edward BOB Crane, disc jockey and actor, July 13, 1928 – June 29, 1978

  • Lowell George, singer and guitarist, with Little Feat, April 13, 1945 - June 29, 1979

  • Irving Wallace, author and screenwriter, March 19, 1916 - June 29, 1990

  • Kurt Peter Eichhorn, conductor and teacher of conducting, August 4, 1908 – June 29, 1994

  • Julia Jean LANA Turner, actress, February 8, 1921 – June 29, 1995

  • Allan Solomon, aka Allan Carr, Tony Award-winning producer, and manager, May 27, 1937 - June 29, 1999

  • Vittorio Gassman, theatre and film actor and director, September 1, 1922 – June 29, 2000

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

  • Katharine Houghton Hepburn, film, television, and stage actress, holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar nominations, with 12, and wins, with 4; won an Emmy Award in 1975, May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Blue Jays Pitcher

In his first win as a Blue Jay, A.J Burnett was excellent! In his complete game 6-0 win last night, he needed only 92 pitches to defeat the Washington Nationals, striking out seven batters and walking none, allowing only six hits, all of them singles.

Today LXX

Birthdays:

  • Pieter Pauwel (Peter Paul) Rubens, painter, proponent of an exuberant Baroque style, June 28, 1577 – May 30, 1640

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher, whose political ideas influenced the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory, and the growth of nationalism; he wrote, "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains," June 28, 1712 – July 2, 1778

  • Napoléon Coste, guitarist and composer, June 27, 1805 – February 17, 1883

  • Joseph Joachim, violinist, conductor, composer, and teacher, June 28, 1831 – August 15, 1907

  • Luigi Pirandello, dramatist, novelist, and short story writer, awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature, June 28, 1867 – December 10, 1936

  • Richard Charles Rodgers, composers of musical theater, known for his song writing partnerships with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II; wrote more than 900 published songs, and forty Broadway musicals, June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979

  • Maria Göppert-Mayer, physicist, developed a model for the nuclear shell structure, work for which she received the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics, together with Eugene Paul Wigner and J. Hans D. Jensen, June 28, 1906 - February 20, 1972

  • Sergiu Celibidache, conductor, June 28, 1912 - August 14, 1996

  • Melvin Kaminsky, aka Mel Brooks, comedic genius, actor, writer /director, and producer, 1926

  • Franklin Sherwood Rowland chemist, and professor of chemistry, best known for his discovery that chlorofluorocarbons contribute to ozone depletion; received the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Mario Molina and Paul Crutzen< 1927

  • Noriyuki PAT Morita, actor, best known for the roles of Arnold on Happy Days and Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies, June 28, 1932 – November 24, 2005

  • John Inman, actor, known as Mr. Humphries in Are You Being Served?, 1935

  • Alphonso Erwin AL Downing, former MLB pitcher, played for 17 seasons from 1961-1977, currently a radio broadcaster for the LA Dodgers, 1941

  • Klaus von Klitzing, physicist, awarded the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the Integer Quantum Hall Effect, 1943

  • David Knights, original bass guitarist for Procol Harum, 1945

  • Gilda Radner, comedian and actress; she wrote a memoir about her life and struggle with cancer, called It's Always Something, as a tribute to cancer sufferers everywhere, and she used humor to overcome tragedy and pain; in tribute to Radner, Gilda's Club was founded - it is a place where cancer patients and their families can go to be around other people in the same situation to share support, coping and wellness strategies, and has grown to multiple locations across the country, June 28, 1946 – May 20, 1989

  • Alice Maud Krige, actress, known for her role as the Borg Queen, in the movie Star Trek: First Contact, 1954

  • Thomas Hampson, operatic baritone, 1955

  • Mark Eugene Grace, former NL first baseman, played for 16 seasons, All-Star in 1993, 1995, and 1997; 1992, 1993, 1995, and 1996 Gold Glove winner, 1964

  • John Paul Cusack, film actor and writer, 1966

  • Mary Stuart Masterson, actress, 1966

  • Danielle Brisebois, actress, recording artist, producer, and songwriter, 1969


RIP:

  • Gordon Stanley MICKEY Cochrane, MLB catcher and manager, 1928 and 1934 AL MVP, April 6, 1903 – June 28, 1962

  • Ernest Loring RED Nichols, jazz cornettist, May 8, 1905 – June 28, 1965

  • Frank Sutton, actor, known for his role as drill sergeant Vince Carter on Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., October 23, 1923 - June 28, 1974

  • Rodman ROD Edward Serling, screenwriter, famous for The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, wrote movie screenplays, including Seven Days in May, Planet of the Apes, and The Man, December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975

  • Sir William STANLEY Baker, actor and film producer, February 8, 1927 - June 28, 1976

  • Jose Iturbi, conductor and pianist, November 28, 1895 - June 28, 1980

  • Terrance Stanley TERRY Fox, CC, humanitarian, athlete, and cancer treatment activist, famous for his Marathon of Hope, July 28, 1958 – June 28, 1981

  • Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal, chess player, defeated Mikhail Botvinnik to become the eighth World Chess Champion, November 9, 1936 - June 28, 1992

  • Mortimer Jerome Adler, philosopher and author, December 28, 1902 – June 28, 2001

  • Irene JOAN Marian Sims, actress, a key cast member of the Carry On films, Madge Hardcastle on As Time Goes By, and Katryca in the Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord: The Mysterious Planet, May 9, 1930 – June 28, 2001

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Today LXIX

Birthdays:

  • Paul von Mauser, weapon designer, June 27, 1838 - May 29, 1914

  • Emma Goldman, anarcho-communist, known for her anarchist writings and speeches, June 27, 1869 – May 14, 1940

  • Hans Spemann, embryologist, awarded the 1935 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of embryonic induction, June 27, 1869 – September 12, 1941

  • Helen Adams Keller, deafblind author, activist, and lecturer, June 27, 1880 – June 1, 1968

  • Antoinette Perry, actress, director, and co-founder of the American Theatre Wing; the Antoinette Perry Awards, aka the Tony Awards, are named after her, June 27, 1888 - June 28, 1946

  • William Joseph WILLIE Mosconi, billiards player, winner of the United States Pool Championship eighteen times, June 27, 1913 – September 12, 1993

  • Jerome Solon Felder, aka Doc Pomus, blues singer and songwriter, January 27, 1925 - March 14, 1991

  • Robert James BOB Keeshan, actor, the original Clarabell on the Howdy Doody show, and Captain Kangaroo from 1955 to 1984, June 27, 1927 – January 23, 2004

  • Henry ROSS Perot, politican, 1930

  • Martinus J.G. TINI Veltman, physicist, winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Physics for elucidating the quantum structure of electroweak interactions, 1931

  • Anna Moffo, operatic soprano, June 27, 1932 - March 9, 2006

  • Benjamin Baldwin, aka Bruce Johnston, member of The Beach Boys and a Grammy Award-winning songwriter, 1942

  • Americo Peter RICO Petrocelli, former MLB shortstop and third baseman, spent his entire career [1963 - 1976] with the Boston Red Sox, 1967 and 1969 All-Star, 1943

  • Isabelle Yasmine Adjani, actress, 1955

  • Magnus Lindberg, composer, 1958

  • Dan Jurgens, comic book writer and artist, 1959

  • James Patrick JIM Edmonds, MLB center fielder, plays for the St. Louis Cardinals, 1970

  • Tobias Vincent TOBY Maguire< actor, 1975

  • Daryle Ward, MLB outfielder/first baseman, plays for the Washington Nationals, 1975

  • Stefán Arason, composer, 1978

  • Madylin Anne Michele Sweeten, actress, known as Ally Barone on Everybody Loves Raymond, 1991


RIP:

  • James Smithson, FRS, MA, mineralogist and chemist, left a bequest in his will which was used to fund the Smithsonian Institution, 1765 – June 27, 1829

  • Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier, lyricist, wrote the French version of O Canada, May 8, 1839 – June 27, 1920

  • Albert Romolo CUBBY Broccoli, film producer, best known for the James Bond film franchise, April 5, 1909 – June 27, 1996

  • John Uhler JACK Lemmon III, award-winning actor of his generation, February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001

  • John Alec Entwistle, aka "The Ox", multi-instrumental musician, songwriter, and artist, bass guitar player for The Who, October 9, 1944 – June 27, 2002

Monday, June 26, 2006

Today LXVIII

Birthdays:

  • Georg Brandt, chemist and mineralogist, discovered Cobalt in 1737, June 26, 1694 - April 29, 1768

  • Abner Doubleday, Union general in the American Civil War, who fired the first shot in defense of Fort Sumter; credited by many with the invention of baseball, June 26, 1819 – January 26, 1893

  • William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, GCVO, OM, PC, PRS, mathematical physicist and engineer, working in the mathematical analysis of electricity and thermodynamics; enjoyed a second career as a telegraph engineer and inventor; created the absolute temperature scale, the units of which are known as degrees Kelvin, June 26, 1824 – December 17, 1907

  • Pearl Comfort Sydenstricker, aka Pearl S. Buck, writer, winner of the 1932 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel, and the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature, June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973

  • Wilhelm Emil WILLY Messerschmitt, aircraft designer and manufacturer, June 26, 1898 – September 15, 1978

  • Frank Scott Hogg, Ph.D., astronomer, pioneered the spectrophotometry of stars, and the study of spectra of comets; developed a two-star sextant for air navigation; head of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Toronto and director of the David Dunlap Observatory from 1946 until his death, June 26, 1904 – January 1, 1951

  • Ladislav (László) Löwenstein, aka Peter Lorre, stage and screen actor, often imitated, June 26, 1904 – March 23, 1964

  • Andreas Cornelius van Kuijk, aka "Colonel" Tom Parker, manager of Elvis Presley, June 26, 1909 – January 21, 1997

  • Mildred Ella BABE Didrikson Zaharias, Olympic athlete and golfer, June 26, 1911 – September 27, 1956

  • Harold J. Smith, aka Jay Silverheels, actor, Tonto on The Lone Ranger, June 26, 1912 – March 5, 1980

  • Eleanor Parker, film and television actress, 1922

  • Claudio Abbado, orchestral and opera conductor, 1933

  • David Grusin, jazz pianist, composer, and arranger; in 1982, co-founded GRP Records with Larry Rosen in 1982, 1934

  • Robert Coleman Richardson, Ph.D., physicist, shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Physics with David Morris Lee and Douglas Osheroff for their discovery of superfluidity in helium-3, 1937

  • Gilberto Passos GIL Moreira, singer, guitarist, songwriter, and currently Brazil's Minister of Culture, 1942

  • Clive Powell, aka Georgie Fame, rhythm and blues and jazz singer and keyboard player, 1943

  • Michael Geoffrey MICK Jones, guitarist and singer, known for his work with The Clash, 1955

  • Christopher Joseph CHRIS Isaak, rock, pop, and rock and roll singer, songwriter, and actor, 1956

  • Mark Douglas Brown McKinney, comedian and actor, known for his work with The Kids in the Hall and Saturday Night Live, 1959

  • Sean Patrick Hayes, Emmy award-winning actor, Jack McFarland on Will & Grace [Am I the only one who's glad that the series is over?], 1970

  • Gretchen Renée Wilson, Grammy Award-winning country music singer, 1973

  • Derek Sanderson Jeter, six-time All-Star shortstop and current captain with the New York Yankees, 1974

  • Jason Daniel Kendall, MLB catcher with the Oakland Athletics, 1974


RIP:

  • Joseph Michel Montgolfier, inventor, invented the montgolfière, or hot air balloon, the first aircraft to carry humans into the sky, with his brother, Jacques Étienne, August 26, 1740 – June 26, 1810

  • Karl Landsteiner, biologist and physician, noted for his development in 1901 of the modern system of classification of blood groups; awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, June 14, 1868 – June 26, 1943

  • Clifford Brown, jazz trumpeter, October 30, 1930 – June 26, 1956

  • Françoise Dorléac, actress, March 21, 1942 - June 26, 1967

  • William Harrison Riker, Ph.D., political scientist who applied game theory and mathematics to policial science, September 22, 1920 – June 26, 1993

  • Roy Campanella, catcher in the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball, played in the All-Star Game every year from 1949 to 1956, NL MVP in 1951, 1953, and 1955; in 1969, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, the second black player, after Jackie Robinson, in the Hall; paralyzed from the chest down after an automobile accident in January 1958, November 19, 1921 - June 26, 1993

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Today LXVII

Birthdays:

  • Gustave Charpentier, composer, June 25, 1860 - February 18, 1956

  • Walther Hermann Nernst, chemist, helped establish the field of physical chemistry, contributing to electrochemistry, thermodynamics, solid state chemistry, and photochemistry, recipient of the 1920 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in thermochemistry, June 25, 1864 – November 18, 1941

  • Hermann Julius Oberth, physicist, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, June 25, 1894 - December 28, 1989

  • Eric Arthur Blair, aka George Orwell, author, journalist, and political and cultural commentator, known for his Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, June 25, 1903 – January 21, 1950

  • Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen, physicist, shared half of the 1963 Nobel Prize for Physics with Maria Goeppert-Mayer for their proposal of the shell nuclear model, June 25, 1907 – February 11, 1973

  • Willard Van Orman Quine, Ph.D., philosopher and logician, whose doctoral thesis and early publications were on formal logic and set theory; later, he emerged as a major philosopher, by virtue of papers on ontology, epistemology, and language; known for five texts: Elementary Logic, Methods of Logic, Philosophy of Logic, Mathematical Logic, and Set Theory and Its Logic, June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000

  • William Howard Stein, biochemist, winner of the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Christian Boehmer Anfinsen and Stanford Moore, for their work on ribonuclease, June 25, 1911 – February 2, 1980

  • Cyril Fletcher, comedian, June 25, 1913 – January 2, 2005

  • Celia Franca, dancer and founder of The National Ballet of Canada, 1921

  • Nicholas Mosley, 3rd Baron Ravensdale, novelist, 1923

  • Sidney Lumet, actor and film director; in 2005, won an Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement, 1924

  • June Lockhart, television and film actress, known for her roles on Lassie and Lost in Space, 1925

  • Mary Beth Peil, opera singer and actress, 1930

  • Sir Peter Thomas Blake, pop artist, known for his design of the album cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1932

  • James Howard Meredith, civil rights activist, 1933

  • Eddie Floyd, soul/R&B singer and songwriter, 1935

  • Harold Melvin, singer, lead singer for Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes, June 25, 1939 - March 24, 1997

  • Philip Nicholson, aka A. J. Quinnell, mystery and thriller writer, June 25, 1940 - July 10, 2005

  • Georges-Henri Denys Arcand, C.C. , C.Q., Academy Award winning film director, screenwriter, and producer, 1941

  • Carly Elisabeth Simon, musician and singer-songwriter boom, 1945

  • Lieutenant-General Roméo Alain Dallaire, OC, CMM, GOQ, MSC, CD, B.Sc, LL.D (h.c.), senator, humanitarian, author, and retired general, 1946

  • Ian McDonald, musician, member and producer of King Crimson, also a member/founder of Gibraltar and Foreigner, for whom he played guitar, woodwinds, and keyboards, 1946

  • David Frank Paich, session musician, and keyboard player, vocalist, and main composer for Toto, 1954

  • Carlos Juan Delgado Hernández, first baseman for the New York Mets, holds many team records with the Toronto Blue Jays, 1972

  • Linda Edna Cardellini, television and film actress, 1975

  • Vladimir Kramnik, chess player, the current Classical World Chess Champion, 1975

  • Tatiana Felixovna Lysenko, gymnast, 1975


RIP:

  • Georg Philipp Telemann, Baroque music composer, the most prolific composer of his era, March 14, 1681 – June 25, 1767

  • Ernst Theodor Wilhelm [E.T.A.] Hoffmann, author of fantasy and horror, jurist, composer, music critic, draftsman, and caricaturist, January 24, 1776 - June 25, 1822

  • Carlo Matteucci, physicist and neurophysiologist, pioneer in the study of bioelectricity, June 21, 1811 - June 25, 1868

  • Colin Clive, stage and screen actor, famous for portraying Dr. Frankenstein in the films Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, January 20, 1900 – June 25, 1937

  • Thomas William 'Tommy' Corcoran, MLB shortstop, played from 1890 to 1907, January 4, 1869 - June 25, 1960

  • Sir John Boyd Orr, 1st Baron Boyd-Orr, doctor, biologist, and politician, received the 1949 Nobel Peace Prize for his scientific research into nutrition, September 23, 1880 – June 25, 1971

  • Kornél Löwy, aka Cornelius Lanczos, Ph.D., mathematician and physicist, whose 1921 doctoral thesis was on relativity theory; in 1924, he discovered an exact solution of the Einstein field equation, one of the simplest known exact solutions in general relativity, regarded as important, in part, because it exhibits closed timelike curves; assistant to Albert Einstein from 1928 to 1929, February 2, 1893–June 25, 1974

  • John Herndon 'Johnny' Mercer, singer and songwriter, winner of five Acadaemy Awards, November 18, 1909 – June 25, 1976

  • Igor Sergeyevich Gouzenko, cipher clerk for the Soviet Embassy to Canada in Ottawa, who defected on September 5, 1945 with documents on Soviet espionage activities in the West, January 13, 1919 - June 25, 1982

  • Alberto Evaristo Ginastera, classical composer and teacher, April 11, 1916 – June 25, 1983

  • Hillel Slovak, musician, the original guitarist for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, April 13, 1962 – June 25, 1988

  • Warren Earl Burger, Chief Justice of the United States from 1969 to 1986, under whose leadership, the Supreme Court delivered major decisions on abortion, capital punishment, and school desegregation, September 17, 1907 – June 25, 1995

  • Ernest Thomas Sinton Walton physicist, the winner, along with Sir John Douglas Cockcroft, of the 1951 Nobel Prize for Physics, for work on the transmutation of atomic nuclei by artificially accelerated atomic particles, aka 'splitting the atom,' October 6, 1903 – June 25, 1995

  • Jacques-Yves Cousteau, naval officer, explorer, ecologist, filmmaker, photographer, and researcher, who studied the sea and all forms of life in water, co-developed the aqualung, and pioneered marine conservation, June 11, 1910 – June 25, 1997

  • John Fiedler, voice actor and character actor in stage, film, television and radio, known for voicing Piglet in Disney productions of Winnie the Pooh, as Mr. Peterson, the nervous patient on The Bob Newhart Show, and as an official possessed by Jack the Ripper in the Star Trek episode "Wolf in the Fold", February 3, 1925 – June 25, 2005

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Today LXVI

Birthdays:

  • Ernst Heinrich Weber, physician, a founder of experimental psychology, June 24, 1795 – January 26, 1878

  • George James Webb, composer and organist, June 24, 1803 - October 7, 1887

  • Victor Francis Hess, physicist, shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl David Anderson for the discovery of cosmic rays, June 24, 1883 – December 17, 1964

  • William Harrison "Jack" Dempsey, World Heavyweight Championship boxer, June 24, 1895 - May 31, 1983

  • Harry Partch, composer and musician, one of the first twentieth-century composers to work extensively with microtonal scales, June 24, 1901 – September 3, 1974

  • Phil Harris, singer, songwriter, jazz musician, bandleader, and comedian, June 24, 1904 - August 11, 1995

  • Pierre Fournier, cellist, June 24, 1906 – January 8, 1986

  • Hugo Distler, composer and organist, known for his church choral music, June 24, 1908 – November 1, 1942

  • Sir Fred Hoyle, astronomer and science fiction writer, June 24, 1915 – August 20, 2001

  • Martin Lewis Perl, Ph.D., physicist, won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of the tau lepton, 1927

  • Michael John Kells 'Mick' Fleetwood, drummer for Fleetwood Mac, 1942

  • Michelle Lee Dusick, aka Michele Lee, singer, dancer, actress, producer, and director, 1942

  • Arthur Wilton, aka The Rev. Arthur Brown, rock and roll singer, 1942

  • Geoffery Arnold 'Jeff' Beck, rock guitarist!!, 1944

  • Richard John Whitney, aka John "Charlie" Whitney, rock guitarist, 1944

  • Chris Wood, musician, a founding member of Traffic, June 24, 1944 – July 12, 1983

  • Colin Blunstone, pop singer/songwriter, a member of The Zombies, 1945

  • Peter Weller, film actor and lecturer, 1947

  • Patrick Moraz, keyboard player with Yes and the Moody Blues, 1948

  • John Illsley, bass player for Dire Straits, 1949

  • Mercedes Lackey, author of fantasy novels, 1950

  • Nancy Allen, film actress, 1950

  • Joe Penny, actor, 1956

  • Michael 'Mike' Wieringo, comic book artist, 1963


RIP:

  • Anthony John 'Tony' Hancock, television and radio comedian, May 12, 1924 – June 24, 1968

  • Herbert John "Jackie" Gleason, comedian, actor, bandleader, and pool player, "The Great One", February 26, 1916 — June 24, 1987

  • Robert Keith Richey, Jr., aka Brian Keith, stage, film and television actor, November 14, 1921 – June 24, 1997

  • David Cecil MacAlister Tomlinson, film actor, May 7, 1917 – June 24, 2000

  • Paul Wilchin, aka Paul Winchell, ventriloquist and voice actor, December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005

Friday, June 23, 2006

Today LXV

Birthdays:

  • André Tacquet, mathematician, whose work prepared ground for the eventual discovery of the calculus; he helped articulate some of the preliminary concepts necessary for Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz to recognize the inverse nature of the quadrature and the tangent; he was one of the precursors of the infinitesimal calculus, June 23, 1612 – December 22, 1660

  • Carl Heinrich Carsten Reinecke, musician and composer, began to compose by the age of seven, and his first public appearance as a pianist was at the age of twelve; best known for his flute sonata Undine, June 23, 1824 - March 10, 1910

  • Dr. Alfred Charles Kinsey, biologist and professor of entomology and zoology, who in 1947 founded what would become the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956

  • 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

  • Jean Anouilh, dramatist, June 23, 1910 – October 3, 1987

  • Milton John MILT Hinton, jazz double bass player, often referred to as "the dean of jazz bass players;" an accomplished photographer, he was one of Louis Armstrong's best friends, June 23, 1910 - December 19, 2000

  • Alan Mathison Turing, mathematician, logician, and cryptographer, often considered to be the father of modern computer science; with the Turing test, he made a significant and characteristically provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence: whether it will ever be possible to say that a machine is conscious and can think; he provided an influential formalisation of the concept of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine; during World War II, he worked at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre, where he devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers, including the method of the bombe, an electromechanical machine which could find settings for the Enigma machine; after the war, he worked at the National Physical Laboratory, creating one of the first designs for a stored-program computer, although it was never actually built; in 1947, he moved to the University of Manchester to work, largely on software, on the Manchester Mark I, then emerging as one of the world's earliest true computers, June 23, 1912 – June 7, 1954

  • Robert Louis BOB Fosse, musical theater dancer, choreographer, and director, winner of the 1972 Academy Award for Best Director for Cabaret, June 23, 1927 – September 23, 1987

  • June Carter Cash, singer, songwriter, and actress, a member of the first family of country music, the Carter Family, and the wife of Johnny Cash; she played the guitar, banjo, and autoharp, June 23, 1929 – May 15, 2003

  • Terence TERRY Nelhams-Wright, aka Adam Faith, singer, actor, and financial journalist and advisor, June 23, 1940 — March 8, 2003

  • Wilma Glodean Rudolph, athlete and three-time Olympic champion, June 23, 1940 – November 12, 1994

  • Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe, artist, was a bass-playing member of The Beatles for two years, and is often credited for naming the band after Buddy Holly's band The Crickets, June 23, 1940 – April 10, 1962

  • Robert Burns, aka Robert C. Hunter, lyricist, singer songwriter, and poet, best known for his association with Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, 1941

  • James Levine, orchestral conductor and pianist, 1943

  • Bryan Brown, actor, 1947

  • Joss Hill Whedon, writer, director, executive producer, and creator of several television series, most famously Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, and its spinoff movie, Serenity; has also written several film scripts and several comic book series, 1964

  • Selma Blair Beitner, aka Selma Blair, actress, 1972


RIP:

  • Reinhold Moritzovich Glière, composer, January 11, 1875 – June 23, 1956

  • Jonas Edward Salk, M.D., physician and researcher, best known as the inventor of the first polio vaccine, the Salk vaccine, devoting much of his later life to developing an AIDS vaccine, October 28, 1914 – June 23, 1995

  • Maureen Paula O'Sullivan, actress, May 17, 1911 – June 23, 1998

  • Yvonne Dionne, one of the Dionne Quintuplets, May 28, 1934 - June 23, 2001

Thursday, June 22, 2006

Today LXIV

Birthdays:

  • Francesco Onofrio Manfredini, Baroque composer, violinist, and church musician, June 22, 1684 – October 6, 1762

  • George Vancouver, Royal Navy officer and explorer, best known for his exploration of the Pacific coast of North America; several locations called Vancouver are named after him, June 22, 1757 – May 12, 1798

  • Paul Charles Morphy, chess player, child chess prodigy, an unofficial world chess champion, June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884

  • Sir Henry RIDER Haggard, Victorian writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, June 22, 1856 – May 14, 1925

  • Hermann Minkowski, mathematician, developed the geometrical theory of numbers, who used geometrical methods to solve difficult problems in number theory, mathematical physics, and the theory of relativity, June 22, 1864 – January 12, 1909

  • William McDougall, psychologist, wrote a number of highly influential textbooks, and was important in the development of the theory of instinct and of social psychology, an opponent of behaviourism, June 22, 1871 - November 28, 1938

  • Milan Vidmar, electrical engineer, chess player and theorist, philosopher, and writer, a specialist in power transformers and transmission of electric current, June 22, 1885 – October 9, 1962

  • Sir Julian Sorell Huxley, FRS, biologist, author, Humanist, and internationalist, known for his popularisations of science in books and lectures, the first director of UNESCO, June 22, 1887 – February 14, 1975

  • Erich Paul Remark, aka Erich Maria Remarque, author, most famous for All Quiet on the Western Front, June 22, 1898 – September 25, 1970

  • Carl Owen Hubbell, MLB left-handed screwball pitcher, played with the New York Giants from 1928 to 1943, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1947, June 22, 1903 - November 21, 1988

  • Anne Spencer Morrow Lindbergh, pioneering aviator, author, and wife of Charles Lindbergh, June 22, 1906 – February 7, 2001

  • Samuel Wilder, aka Billy Wilder, screenwriter, film director, and producer, whose career spanned more than 60 films, June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002

  • Avrom Hirsch Goldbogen, aka Michael Todd, film producer; his production of 1956's Around the World in Eighty Days, won an Academy Award for Best Picture, June 22, 1907 or 1909 - March 22, 1958

  • Sir Peter Neville Luard Pears, tenor, and life-long partner of composer Benjamin Britten, June 22, 1910 – April 3, 1986

  • Gower Champion, Tony Award-winning theatre director, choreographer, and dancer, June 22, 1919 - August 25, 1980

  • Solomon Hersh Frees, aka Paul Frees, voice actor, June 22, 1920 - November 2, 1986

  • Joseph Papp, theatrical producer and director, June 22, 1921 - October 31, 1991

  • Kris Kristofferson, country music songwriter, singer and actor, recipient of a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford University, 1936

  • Ed Bradley, journalist, 1967, 1941

  • Klaus Georg Steng, aka Klaus Maria Brandauer, actor and director, 1944

  • Peter Asher, guitarist, singer and record producer, one-half of Peter & Gordon, brother of Jane Asher, 1944

  • Elíades Ochoa, guitarist/tres player and singer, involved with the Buena Vista Social Club album and film, 1946

  • Octavia Estelle Butler, science fiction writer, one of very few black women in the field, winner of both Hugo and Nebula awards, and, in 1995, the first science fiction writer ever to be a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant, June 22, 1947 — February 24, 2006

  • David Landau, aka David Lander, actor, comedian, composer, musician, and baseball scout, first for the Anaheim Angels, and now for the Seattle Mariners, known for his portrayal of Squiggy on Laverne and Shirley, 1947

  • Howard Kaylan, rock and roll musician, a founding member of The Turtles, 1947

  • Todd Rundgren, musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, 1948

  • Mary Louise MERYL Streep, two-time Academy Award-winning actress, 1949

  • Lindsay Jean Ball, aka Lindsay Wagner, actress, 1949

  • Graham Greene, actor, an Oneida Indian, born in Ohsweken on the Six Nations Reserve in Ontario, 1952

  • Bruce Campbell, actor, 1958

  • Jimmy Somerville, pop singer, former member of Bronski Beat, 1961

  • Dan Brown, author of thriller fiction, 1964

  • Richard Michael DICKY Barrett, member of The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, 1964

  • Steven Jay STEVE Page, lead singer and a primary songwriter for Barenaked Ladies, 1970

  • Bradley Bonte BRAD Hawpe, MLB outfielder with the Colorado Rockies since the 2004 season, 1979


RIP:

  • Howard Staunton, chess master, newspaper chess columnist, chess book author, and minor Shakespearean scholar, whose name is remembered for the style of chess figures he endorsed, the Staunton pattern of chess pieces, April 1810 - June 22, 1874

  • Maria Tănase, singer of Romanian traditional and popular music, September 25, 1913 - June 22, 1963

  • David Oliver Selznick, Hollywood producer, best known for producing Gone with the Wind in 1939, which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture; the film also won seven additional Oscars and two special awards; he won the Irving G. Thalberg award that same year, and made film history by winning the Best Picture Oscar a second year in a row for 1940's Rebecca, May 10, 1902–June 22, 1965

  • Frances Ethel Gumm, aka Judy Garland, actress and singer, June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969

  • Darius Milhaud, French composer and teacher, a member of Les Six, and one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century, whose compositions were influenced by jazz and known for their use of polytonality, September 4, 1892 – June 22, 1974

  • Frederick Austerlitz, aka Fred Astaire, film and Broadway stage dancer, choreographer, singer, and actor, May 10, 1899 – June 22, 1987

  • Owen Patrick Eugene McNulty, aka Dennis Day, singer and radio and television personality, May 21, 1916 - June 22, 1988

  • Darryl Andrew Kile, MLB right-handed pitcher, last played with the St. Louis Cardinals, December 2, 1968 – June 22, 2002

  • Esther EPPIE Pauline Friedman Lederer, aka Ann Landers, syndicated advice columnist, July 4, 1918 – June 22, 2002

  • Robert William BOB Bemer, computer scientist, who served on the committee with Grace Hopper that produced the specifications for COBOL, and on the committee which defined the ASCII character codeset in 1960; other contributions to computing include the first publication of the time-sharing concept and the first attempts to prepare for the Year 2000 problem in publications as early as 1971, February 8, 1920 – June 22, 2004

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Today LXIII - Jim's Birthday

Birthday's:

  • Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach, ninth son of Johann Sebastian Bach, harpsichordist and composer of keyboard sonatas, symphonies, oratorios, liturgical choir pieces and motets, operas, and songs, June 21, 1732 – January 26, 1795

  • Carlo Matteucci, physicist and neurophysiologist, pioneer in the study of bioelectricity, June 21, 1811 - June 25, 1868

  • Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius NAX Wolf, astronomer, pioneer of astrophotography, June 21, 1863 – October 3, 1932

  • Hermann Scherchen, conductor and arranger, June 21, 1891 – June 12, 1966

  • Alois Hába, composer, known for his microtonal compositions, especially using the quarter tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones and twelfth-tones, June 21, 1893 – November 18, 1973

  • Howarth William HOWIE Morenz, NHL hockey player, three-time winner of the Hart Memorial Trophy, June 21, 1902 - March 8, 1937

  • Albert AL Hirschfeld, caricaturist, known for his simple black and white satirical portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars, June 21, 1903 – January 20, 2003

  • Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre, existentialist philosopher, dramatist, novelist, and critic, awarded the 1964 Nobel Prize for Literature, which he declined, June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980

  • Mary Therese McCarthy, author, critic, and political activist, June 21, 1912 – October 25, 1989

  • Judith Tuvim, aka Judy Holliday, Academy Award-winning actress, June 21, 1921 – June 7, 1965

  • Ernestine JANE Geraldine Russell, actress, recipient of the 1989 Women's International Center Living Legacy Award, 1921

  • Lois MAUREEN Stapleton, film, theater, and television actress, winner of Academy Award, an Emmy Award, and two Tony Awards, June 21, 1925 – March 13, 2006

  • Conrad L. Hall , cinematographer, winner of three Academy Awards, June 21, 1926 - January 4, 2003

  • Alexandre Lagoya, classical guitarist, June 21, 1929 - August 24, 1999

  • Boris Claudio LALO Schifrin, pianist and composer, famous for composing the theme from Mission: Impossible, has written more than 100 scores for films, television and video games, and has won four Grammy Awards (with twenty-one nominations), and received six Oscar nominations, 1932

  • Ronald Pierce, aka Ron Ely, actor, 1938

  • Mary Loretta MARIETTE Hartley, actress and author, 1940

  • Maria Rosa Marco, aka Salomé, singer, 1943

  • Raymond Douglas RAY Davies, CBE, rock musician, lead singer-songwriter for The Kinks, with whom he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005; has acted, directed and produced shows for theatre and television, 1944

  • Brenda Holloway, singer and songwriter, recorded for the Motown label during the 1960's, 1946

  • Meredith Baxter, actress, same birthday as former co-star Michael Gross, 1947

  • Michael Gross, actor, same birthday as former co-star Meredith Baxter, 1947

  • Joseph Michael JOEY Kramer, drummer and percussionist for Aerosmith, 1950

  • Nils Lofgren, rock music singer, songwriter, guitarist, pianist, and accordion player, 1951

  • Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, 1953

  • Robert Pastorelli, TV, film, and stage actor, known as Eldin Bernecky on Murphy Brown, June 21, 1954 – March 8, 2004

  • Guy BERKELEY Breathed, cartoonist, children's book author/illustrator, director, and screenwriter, known for the Bloom County comic strip, 1957

  • Kathleen Alice KATHY Mattea, country music and bluegrass performer, 1959

  • Viktor Robertovich Tsoi, rock artist and leader of the Russian rock group Kino, June 21, 1962 - August 15, 1990

  • Laurence LARRY Wachowski, film director, 1965

  • Rudabeh RUDI Bakhtiar, journalist, 1966

  • Brenda Grislaw, aka Sindee Coxx, actress and exotic dancer, 1970

  • Alon Hilu, novelist, 1972


RIP:

  • Niccolò di Bernando dei Machiavelli, political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright, a key figure in realist political theory, May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527

  • Anders Jonas Ångström, physicist, one of the founders of the science of spectroscopy, whose combination of the spectroscope with photography resulted in proof that the sun's atmosphere contains hydrogen, among other elements; the ångström units for the measurement of the wavelength of light is named for him, August 13, 1814 – June 21, 1874

  • Amasa LELAND Stanford, founder of Stanford University, March 9, 1824 – June 21, 1893

  • Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov, composer of beautiful and teacher of harmony and orchestration, particularly known for his excellent orchestration, March 18, 1844 – June 21, 1908

  • Bertha Sophie Felicitas Freifrau von Suttner, novelist, and radical pacifist, the first woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize [1905], June 9, 1843 - June 21, 1914

  • Thorne Smith, writer of humorous fantasy fiction, creator of Topper, , March 27, 1892–June 21, 1934


  • James Earl Chaney, civil rights worker, murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan, May 30, 1943 – June 21, 1964

  • Andrew Goodman, November 23, civil rights worker, murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan, 1943 – June 21, 1964

  • Michael MICKEY Schwerner, civil rights worker, murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan November 6, 1939 – June 21, 1964


  • Angus MacLise, percussionist, composer, mystic, shaman, poet, occultist, and calligrapher, the first drummer for the Velvet Underground, March 4, 1938 - June 21, 1979

  • Bert Kaempfert, orchestra leader and songwriter, October 16, 1923 - June 21, 1980

  • Alan Vaness Chakmakjian, aka Alan Hovhaness, composer, whose big breakthrough came in 1955, when his Symphony No. 2, Mysterious Mountain, was premiered by Leopold Stokowski in his debut with the Houston Symphony, March 8, 1911 – June 21, 2000

  • John Lee Hooker, blues singer, guitarist, and songwriter, August 22, 1917 – June 21, 2001

  • John CARROLL O'Connor, actor, famous for his role as Archie Bunker in All in the Family and Archie Bunker's Place and as Police Chief Bill Gillespie in In the Heat of the Night, August 2, 1924 – June 21, 2001

  • Leon Uris, novelist, author of Battle Cry, Exodus, Mila 18, Topaz, QB VII, Trinity, and The Haj, among others, and writer of the screenplays for Battle Cry and Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, August 3, 1924 - June 21, 2003

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Today LXII

Birthdays:

  • Joseph Martin Kraus, composer, sometimes referred to as "the Swedish Mozart," June 20, 1756 - December 15, 1792

  • Jacques Offenbach, composer and cellist, one of the originators of the operetta form, June 20, 1819 – October 5, 1880

  • Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins, biochemist, awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Christiaan Eijkman for the discovery of vitamins, June 20, 1861 – May 16, 1947

  • Wilfrid Pelletier, conductor; from 1935 - 1940, Music Director, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, June 20, 1896 – April 9, 1982

  • Jean Moulin, member of the French Resistance during World War II, June 20, 1899 – July 8, 1943

  • Lillian Florence Hellman, playwright, June 20, 1905 – June 30, 1984

  • Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn, film actor, famous for his romantic swashbuckler roles and flamboyant lifestyle, June 20, 1909 – October 14, 1959

  • Stewart Terence Herbert Young, film director, known for directing three James Bond films: Dr. No, From Russia with Love, and Thunderball, June 20, 1915 – September 7, 1994

  • Chester Burton 'Chet' Atkins, guitar legend and record producer, June 20, 1924 – June 30, 2001

  • Audie Leon Murphy, soldier and actor; in WWII, he became the most decorated soldier in the history of the U.S. Army, June 20, 1924 - May 28, 1971

  • Magdalena Abakanowicz, abstract sculptor, notable for her use of textiles as a sculptural medium, 1930

  • Olympia Dukakis, Academy Award-winning actress, cousin of Michael Dukakis, the former governor of Massachusetts, and 1988 Democratic candidate for U.S. president, 1931

  • Martin Landau, Academy Award-winning film and television actor, known for his roles in the television series Mission: Impossible and Space: 1999, 1931

  • Daniel Louis Aiello, Jr., actor and jazz musician, 1933

  • Rossana Podesta, actress , 1934

  • John Mahoney, actor, known for playing Martin Crane on Frasier, 1940

  • Brian Douglas Wilson, musician, founding member of and bassist, producer, composer, and arranger for The Beach Boys, 1942

  • Dolores "LaLa" Brooks, vocalist, member of the girl group The Crystals, 1947

  • Candace June 'Candy' Clark, film and television actress, 1947

  • Lionel Brockman Richie, Jr., R&B singer, songwriter, and composer, 1949

  • Tress MacNeille, voice actor, best known for providing various voices on The Simpsons and Futurama, 1951

  • John Stephen Goodman, actor, 1952

  • Nicole Mary Kidman, actress, 1967

  • Robert Anthony Rodríguez, film director, 1968


RIP:

  • Karl Friedrich Abel, Classical composer, played the viola da gamba for which he composed, December 22, 1723 – June 20, 1787

  • Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, mathematician who made important contributions to analysis and differential geometry, September 17, 1826 - July 20, 1866

  • Josef Breuer, physician whose works lay the foundation of psychoanalysis, January 15, 1842 – June 20, 1925

  • Bruno Frank, author, poet, dramatist, and humanist, June 13, 1878 - June 20, 1945

  • Benjamin Hymen Siegelbaum, aka "Bugsy" Siegel< gangster, February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947

  • Kurt Alder, Ph.D., chemist, won the 1950 Nobel Prize in Chemistry jointly with Otto Paul Hermann Diels, July 10, 1902 – June 20, 1958

  • Howard Deering Johnson, founder of Howard Johnson's, February 2, 1897 – June 20, 1972

  • Mark Robson, film editor, film director, and producer, December 4, 1913 – June 20, 1978

  • Lawrence Albert Payton, singer, songwriter, and record producer for The Four Tops, March 2, 1938 - June 20, 1997

  • Hans Conrad Schumann, border guard, the first, and one of the most famous, escapees from East Germany, March 28, 1942 – June 20, 1998

  • Clifton Fadiman, intellectual, author, and radio and television personality, May 15, 1904–June 20, 1999

  • Jack St. Clair Kilby, electrical engineer, co-won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics; invented the integrated circuit in 1958 while working at Texas Instruments, about six months before Robert Noyce created the same invention at Fairchild Semiconductor, November 8, 1923 – June 20, 2005

Monday, June 19, 2006

Today LXI

Birthdays:

  • Blaise Pascal, mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher, whose earliest work was in the natural and applied sciences, where he made important contributions to the construction of mechanical calculators and the study of fluids, and clarified the concepts of pressure and vacuum; also writing in defense of the scientific method, June 19, 1623 – August 19, 1662

  • Jan Václav Stamic, aka Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz, composer and violinist, father of composers Carl and Anton Stamitz, June 19, 1717 – March 27, 1757

  • Cornelius Krieghoff, painter, most famous for his paintings of Canadian landscapes and Canadian life outdoors, particularly in the winter, June 19, 1815 – March 8, 1872

  • Mary Louise Whitty, aka Dame May Whitty DBE, Oscar-nominated theatre and cinema actress, June 19, 1865 – May 29, 1948

  • Charles Douville Coburn, Academy Award-winning film and theater actor, grandfather of James Coburn; in the 1940's, served as vice-president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideas, a right-wing group opposed to the presence of Communists in Hollywood; his virulent leadership of the blacklist of anyone with any connection to Fascism led to many talented actors, writers and directors driven from Hollywood and deprived of their livelihood, June 19, 1877 – August 30, 1961

  • Harry Moses Horwitz, aka Moe Howard, comedian, actor, and leader of The Three Stooges, June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975

  • Gaetano Alberto GUY Lombardo, bandleader and violinist; with his three brothers and other musicians from his hometown of London, Ontario, he formed the big band The Royal Canadians in 1924, June 19, 1902 – November 5, 1977

  • Henry Louis LOU Gehrig, MLB first baseman who played his entire career for the New York Yankees; between 1925 and 1939, he played in 2,130 consecutive games; he was known as the "Iron Horse" for his durability, June 19, 1903 — June 2, 1941

  • Sir Ernst Boris Chain, biochemist, co-recipient of the 1945 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on penicillin, June 19, 1906 – August 12, 1979

  • Julius JULIE Schwartz, comic book and pulp magazine editor, science fiction agent, and fan, June 19, 1915 – February 8, 2004

  • Pauline Kael, film critic, June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001

  • Louis Gendre, aka Louis Jourdan, actor, 1919

  • Nancy Marchand, actress, June 19, 1928 – June 18, 2000

  • Tommy DeVito, musician and singer, best-known as the lead guitarist of The Four Seasons, 1928

  • Virginia Cathryn GENA Rowlands, actress, 1930

  • Anna Maria Pierangeli, aka Pier Angeli, actress, June 19, 1932 – September 10, 1971

  • Marisa Pierangeli, aka Marisa Pavan, actress, twin sister of Pier Angeli,
    1932

  • Aung San Suu Kyi, nonviolent pro-democracy activist and leader of the National League for Democracy in Myanmar (Burma); won the Rafto Prize and the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 1990 and the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize for her peaceful and non-violent struggle under a repressive military dictatorship, 1945

  • Ahmed SALMAN Rushdie, essayist and author of fiction, most of which is set on the Indian subcontinent; after death threats and a fatwa by Ruhollah Khomeini, calling for his assassination, he spent years underground, appearing in public only sporadically, 1947

  • Phylicia Ayers-Allen Rashad, actress and activist, known for her role as Claire Huxtable on The Cosby Show, 1948

  • Ann Dustin Wilson, lead singer and flute player for Heart, 1950

  • Mary KATHLEEN Turner, actress, 1954


RIP:

  • Sir James Matthew 'J. M.' Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM, novelist and dramatist, creator of Peter Pan, May 9, 1860 – June 19, 1937

  • Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg, September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953, and Julius Rosenberg, May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953, American citizens and Communist Party members who were tried, convicted, and executed for spying for the Soviet Union; the couple was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage and of passing nuclear weapons secrets to Russian agents; the accuracy of these charges remains controversial

  • Thomas John Watson, Sr., founder of IBM, February 17, 1874 – June 19, 1956

  • Isaiah Edwin Leopold, aka Ed Wynn, comedian and entertainer, also wrote, directed, and produced many shows, November 9, 1886 - June 19, 1966

  • Sir William Gerald Golding, novelist, poet, and winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize for Literature, best known for his Lord of the Flies, September 19, 1911 – June 19, 1993

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Today LX - Happy Birthday, Paul - Now You're 64

Birthdays:

  • Ignaz Pleyel, composer of the Classical music era, pupil of Joseph Haydn; in 1807, became a manufacturer of pianos June 18, 1757 – November 14, 1831

  • Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, physician, discovered that the cause of malaria is a protozoan, the first time that protozoa were shown to be a cause of disease, awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine, June 18, 1845 – May 18, 1922

  • Sarah Blanche Sweet, silent film actress, June 18, 1895 - September 6, 1986

  • Jeanette MacDonald, singer and actress, best known for her film duets with Nelson Eddy, June 18, 1903 – January 14, 1965

  • Keye Luke, actor; among many roles, played Charlie Chan's eldest son in films, was the voice of Mr. Han in Enter the Dragon, and played Master Po in the television series, Kung Fu, June 18, 1904 – January 12, 1991

  • Manuel Rosenthal, composer and conductor, the last of Maurice Ravel's few students, June 18, 1904 - June 5, 2003

  • Clayton J. Heermance, Jr., aka Bud Collyer, radio actor/announcer who hosted the television game shows Beat the Clock and To Tell The Truth, June 18, 1908 – September 8, 1969

  • Everett Evander Grunz, aka E. G. Marshall, actor, June 18, 1914 - August 24, 1998

  • Ray McKinley, jazz drummer, singer, and bandleader, June 18, 1910 – May 7, 1995

  • Samuel Cohen, aka Sammy Cahn, songwriter and musician, played the piano and violin, June 18, 1913 – January 15, 1993

  • Paul Neal RED Adair, oil field firefighter, June 18, 1915 – August 7, 2004

  • Richard Allen Boone, film and TV actor, known for his roles in westerns, star of Have Gun, Will Travel, June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981

  • Ian Carmichael OBE, film, stage, television, and radio actor, 1920

  • Claude Helffer, oianist, June 18, 1922 – October 27, 2004

  • Paul Eddington, CBE, actor, known for his starring roles in Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, June 18, 1927 – November 4, 1995

  • John Spencer, retired professional snooker player, 1969, 1971, and 1977 World Champion, 1935

  • Lou Brock, former MLB player, inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985; the National League honors each stolen base leader with the Lou Brock Award, 1939

  • Roger Joseph Ebert, film critic, 1942

  • Sir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Beatle, 1942

  • Hans Vonk, conductor, June 18, 1942 - August 29, 2004

  • Carl Dean Radle, musician, bassist in Derek and the Dominos, June 18, 1942 - May 30, 1980

  • Chris Van Allsburg, author and illustrator of children's books, known for Jumanji and The Polar Express, 1949

  • Isabella Fiorella Elettra Giovanna Rossellini, model and actress, daughter of Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini, 1952

  • Carolyn Laurie CAROL Kane, actress, winner of two Emmy Awards for her work in the TV series Taxi as Simka, 1952

  • Andrés José Padovani Galarraga, MLB first baseman, known as The Big Cat [El Gato Grande], 1961


RIP:

  • Michel Richard Delalande, composer and organist, 1657 – June 18, 1726

  • Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn, astronomer, discoverer of evidence for galactic rotation, January 19, 1851 – June 18, 1922

  • Roald Engelbregt Gravning Amundsen, explorer, leader of the Antarctic expedition of 1910–1912, which was the first to reach the South Pole, July 16, 1872 – June 18, 1928

  • Aleksei Maksimovich Peshkov, aka Maxim Gorky, author, a founder of the socialist realism literary method and a political activist, March 28, 1868 – June 18, 1936

  • Ethel Barrymore, Academy Award-winning American actress, August 15, 1879 – June 18, 1959

  • Paul Karrer, organic chemist, best known for his work on vitamins; he and Walter Haworth won the 1937 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, April 21, 1889 – June 18, 1971

  • ROGER Caesar Marius Bernard de DELGADO Torres Castillo Roberto, actor, best known for his role as The [first] Master in Doctor Who, March 1, 1918 – June 18, 1973

  • John Cheever, novelist and short story writer, winner of the 1979 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, May 27, 1912 – June 18, 1982

  • Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens, stage and film actor, usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens, December 13, 1915 - June 18, 1982

  • Alan Berg, liberal talk radio host, who broadcast his opinions on gun control, homosexuality, religion, and other controversial topics; murdered by three members of The Order, a white supremacist group, - June 18, 1984

  • Mordecai Ardon, painters, famous for the Ardon Windows in Jerusalem, 1896 - June 18, 1992

  • Lev Kopelev, author and dissident, April 9, 1912 - June 18, 1997

  • Nancy Marchand, actress, Mrs. Pynchon on Lou Grant and Livia Soprano on The Sopranos, June 19, 1928 – June 18, 2000

  • John Francis JACK Buck, sportscaster, best known for his work announcing the St. Louis Cardinals' games, August 21, 1924 – June 18, 2002

  • Lawrence Eugene LARRY Doby, professional baseball player in the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball, third American to play in the Japanese Baseball League, December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Today LIX

Birthdays:

  • Charles-François Gounod, composer, best known for his operas Faust and Roméo et Juliette, June 17, 1818 – October 18, 1893

  • John Robert Gregg, inventor of the Gregg Shorthand system, June 17, 1866 – February 23, 1948

  • Noah Brusso, aka Tommy Burns, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, June 17, 1881 – May 10, 1955

  • Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky, composer of modern classical music, pianist, and conductor, June 17, 1882 – April 6, 1971

  • Maurits Cornelis [M.C.] Escher, graphic artist known for his often mathematically inspired woodcuts, lithographs and mezzotints, which feature impossible constructions, explorations of infinity, and tessellations - a personal inspiration, June 17, 1898 – March 27, 1972

  • Samuel Feinberg, aka Sammy Fain, composer of popular music, June 17, 1902 - December 6, 1989

  • Ralph Rexford Bellamy, Academy Award nominated actor, June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991

  • Clyde Julian RED Foley, country music singer, guitarist, and harmonica player, June 17, 1910 – September 19, 1968

  • David STRINGBEAN Akeman, country music banjo player, comedy musician, and actor, best known for his role on Hee Haw, June 17, 1915 – November 11, 1973

  • Atle Selberg, mathematician, known for his work in analytic number theory, and in the theory of automorphic forms, 1917

  • Martin Böttcher, composer and conductor, 1927

  • Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian, former World Chess Champion, June 17, 1929 – August 13, 1984

  • Frank Ashmore, actor, Martin in the mini series V and its sequel V: The Final Battle, 1945

  • Beth Torbert, aka Bif Naked, punk rock singer, 1971

  • Melinda Dee CHLOE Jones, model and actress, June 17, 1975 – June 4, 2005


RIP:

  • Arthur Harden, biochemist, shared the 1929 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Hans Karl August Simon von Euler-Chelpin for their investigations into the fermentation of sugar and fermentative enzymes, October 12, 1865 – June 17, 1940

  • Dorothy Miller Richardson, first writer to publish a novel using what was to become known as the stream-of-consciousness technique, May 17, 1873 - June 17, 1957

  • Ira Grossel, aka Jeff Chandler, film actor, December 15, 1918 - June 17, 1961

  • George Edward DUFFY Lewis, former MLB left fielder, April 18, 1888 - June 17, 1979

  • Kathryn Elizabeth KATE Smith, singer, May 1, 1907 – June 17, 1986

  • Richard Dalton DICK Howser, MLB shortstop and manager, May 14, 1936 - June 17, 1987

Friday, June 16, 2006

Today LVIII

Birthdays:

  • Giovanni Boccaccio, author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, and author of a number of notable works including On Famous Women and The Decameron, June 16, 1313 – December 21, 1375

  • Julius Plücker, mathematician and physicist, made fundamental contributions to the field of analytical geometry and was a pioneer in the investigations of cathode rays that led eventually to the discovery of the electron, June 16, 1801 – May 22, 1868

  • Edward Davy, English physician, scientist, and inventor who played a prominent role in the development of telegraphy, June 16, 1806 – January 26, 1885

  • Geronimo (Chiricahua Goyaaté), Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache, who long warred against the encroachment of the white man on tribal lands, June 16, 1829–February 17, 1909

  • Alexander Alexandrovich Friedman, cosmologist and mathematician, discovered the expanding-universe solution to general relativity field equations in 1922, which was proven by Edwin Hubble's 1929 observations, June 16, 1888 – September 16, 1925

  • Arthur Stanley Jefferson, aka Stan Laurel, comedian, actor, comedy legend, and member of the comedy team Laurel and Hardy, June 16, 1890 – February 23, 1965

  • William Fitzgerald Jenkins, aka Murray Leinster, science fiction and alternate history writer, June 16, 1896 - June 8, 1975

  • Helen Traubel, operatic soprano, best known for Wagnerian, roles, especially that of Brünnhilde, June 16, 1899-July 28, 1972

  • Jonathan 'Jack' Albertson, Academy Award-winning actor, comedian, dancer, singer, and musician, performing on stage, radio, movies, and television, June 16, 1907 - November 25, 1981

  • Vilmos Zsigmond, cinematographer, 1930

  • Joan Van Ark, actress, 1936

  • Erich Wolf Segal, author, screenwriter, and educator, 1937

  • Joyce Carol Oates, author, 1938

  • Lamont Dozier, songwriter and record producer, best known as a member of Holland-Dozier-Holland, 1941

  • Lauren Ophelia 'Laurie" Metcalf, Emmy Award winning actress and comedienne, 1955

  • Kerry Lee Wood, MLB right-handed pitcher, plays for the Chicago Cubs, pitched a 20-strikeout shutout in only his fifth career start, 1977


RIP:

  • Emmett Louis Hardy, jazz cornet player, June 12, 1903 – June 16, 1925

  • William Henry "Chick" Webb, jazz and swing music drummer and band leader, February 10, 1905 - June 16, 1939

  • DuBose Heyward, author of the 1924 novel Porgy, August 31, 1885 – June 16, 1940

  • George Keefer Brewer, aka George Bessolo Reeves, actor, best known for playing Superman on television, January 5, 1914 – June 16, 1959

  • Dr. Wernher Magnus Maximilian Freiherr von Braun, rocket scientist, March 23, 1912 – June 16, 1977

  • Raymond Nicholas Kienzle, aka Nicholas Ray, film director, August 7, 1911 – June 16, 1979

  • James Honeyman-Scott, rock guitarist, songwriter, and founding member The Pretenders, November 4, 1956 - June 16, 1982

  • Melvin Allen Israel, aka Mel Allen, sportscaster, the first host of This Week in Baseball, and the New York Yankees' principal play-by-play announcer, February 14, 1913 – June 16, 1996

  • Curt Swan, comic book artist, known for his work on the Superman comics, February 17, 1920 - June 16, 1996




Thursday, June 15, 2006

Today LVII

Birthdays:

  • Edvard Hagerup Grieg, composer and pianist, best known for his Piano Concerto in A minor and his incidental music to Peer Gynt, June 15, 1843 – September 4, 1907

  • Harry L. Langdon, silent film comedian, June 15, 1884 – December 22, 1944

  • Erik Homburger Erikson, developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings, and for coining the phrase identity crisis, June 15, 1902 – May 12, 1994

  • David Rose, songwriter, composer, arranger, and orchestra leader, musical director for the Red Skelton Show for 21 years, recipient of four Emmy awards; he was married to Martha Raye and to Judy Garland, June 15, 1910 – August 23, 1990

  • The Reverend Wilbert Vere Awdry, OBE, clergyman, railway enthusiast, and children's author, creator of Thomas the Tank Engine, June 15, 1911 – March 21, 1997

  • Alfred "Lash" LaRue, actor in Western movies, June 14, 1917 – May 21, 1996

  • Erroll Louis Garner, jazz pianist and composer, June 15, 1921 – January 2, 1977

  • Waylon Arnold Jennings, country music singer and guitarist, June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002

  • Billy Leo Williams, former MLB outfielder, 1961 NL Rookie of the Year, elected in 1987 to the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1938

  • James Brian Jacques, fantasy author, best known for his Redwall books, 1939

  • Harry Edward Nilsson III, singer, songwriter, pianist, usually credited simply as Nilsson, June 15, 1941 – January 15, 1994

  • Vera de Vries, aka Xaviera Hollander, former call girl/madam, author of The Happy Hooker, 1943

  • Mervyn "Muff" Winwood, bassist [Spencer Davis Group], songwriter, producer, and music industry executive, brother of Steve Winwood, 1943

  • Johnnie "Dusty" Baker, Jr., former MLB outfielder and current manager of the Chicago Cubs, 1949

  • James Albert 'Jim' Varney, Jr., actor, best known for his character Ernest P. Worrel, June 15, 1949 – February 10, 2000

  • Paul Rusesabagina, assistant manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines, in Kigali, Rwanda; during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, used his influence and connections as temporary manager of the Mille Collines to shelter over 1,260 Tutsis and moderate Hutus from being slaughtered, 1954

  • Wade Anthony Boggs, former MLB third baseman, primarily with the Boston Red Sox, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2005; his 12 straight All-Star appearances are second only to Brooks Robinson in number of consecutive appearances by a third baseman, 1958

  • Helen Elizabeth Hunt, Emmy and Academy Award-winning actress, 1963

  • Courteney Bass Cox Arquette, actress, 1964

  • Eric Stefani, musician and animator, co-founder of No Doubt, brother of Gwen Stefani, 1967

  • Andrew Eugene 'Andy' Pettitte, MLB left-handed pitcher, currently with the Houston Astros, 1972

  • Neil Patrick Harris, actor, 1973

  • Mary Ellen Cook, aka Mary Carey, actress, 1980

  • Julia Fischer, violinist, 1983


RIP:

  • Louis-Claude Daquin, composer in the Baroque and Galant styles, virtuoso organist and harpsichordist, July 4, 1694 – June 15, 1772

  • Samuel Earl 'Sam' Crawford, MLB right fielder, nicknamed "Wahoo Sam", played mostly for the Detroit Tigers, holds the major league record for the most inside-the-park home runs in a season with 12 in 1901, and the most in a career with 51, and major league career record for triples with 309, April 18, 1880 – June 15, 1968

  • John Leslie "Wes" Montgomery, jazz guitarist, part of a musical family including his brothers, Monk (bass player) and Buddy (vibes and piano); known for his use of octaves, and as an accomplished single-line player, March 6, 1925 - June 15, 1968

  • James Joseph 'Jimmy' Dykes, MLB third and second baseman, manager and coach, played from 1918 to 1939 for the Philadelphia Athletics and Chicago White Sox, November 10, 1896 - June 15, 1976

  • Robert Meredith Willson, composer and playwright, best known as the writer of The Music Man, May 18, 1902 – June 15, 1984

  • Victor French, actor, costarred on Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, December 4, 1934 - June 15, 1989

  • Ella Jane Fitzgerald, jazz vocalist, also known as the First Lady of Song, gifted with a three-octave vocal range, and known for her purity of tone, near faultless phrasing and intonation, and improvisational ability, particularly in her scat singing; winner of thirteen Grammy Awards, and recipient of the National Medal of Art and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, April 25, 1917 – June 15, 1996

  • Hume Blake Cronyn, OC , LL.D, stage and film actor, husband of the late actress Jessica Tandy, July 18, 1911 – June 15, 2003

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Today LVI

Birthdays:

  • Charles Augustin Coulomb, physicist, discovered an inverse relationship of the force between charges and the square of its distance, later named Coulomb's Law; the unit of charge, the coulomb, is named after him, June 14, 1736 – August 23, 1806

  • Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe, abolitionist and writer, her most famous book being Uncle Tom's Cabin, June 14, 1811 – July 1, 1896

  • Nicolaus August Otto, inventor of the internal-combustion engine, June 14, 1832 - January 28, 1891

  • Aloysius ALOIS Alzheimer, psychiatrist and neuropathologist, first identified the characteristic neuropathology of what is now known as Alzheimer's Disease, June 14, 1864 - December 19, 1915

  • Karl Landsteiner, biologist and physician, noted for his development in 1901 of the modern system of classification of blood groups; awarded the 1930 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, June 14, 1868 – June 26, 1943

  • Jeanne-Marie Berthier, aka Jane Bathori, opera singer, June 14, 1877 - January 25, 1970

  • Yasunari Kawabata, novelist, awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize for Literature, June 14, 1899 – April 16, 1972

  • Alonzo Church, Ph.D., mathematician and logician, responsible for some of the foundations of theoretical computer science, known for Church's theorem, Church's thesis, and the discovery of the lambda calculus, which influenced the design of LISP, June 14, 1903 – August 11, 1995

  • Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives, folk singer, author, and actor, June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995

  • Rudolf Kempe, conductor, June 14, 1910 – May 12, 1976

  • Dorothy Hackett McGuire, actress, June 14, 1916 – September 13, 2001

  • Atle Selberg, mathematician, known for his work in analytic number theory, and in the theory of automorphic forms, 1917

  • Samuel Watenmaker, aka Samuel SAM Wanamaker, actor and director, June 14, 1919 – December 18, 1993

  • Eugene Klass, aka Gene Barry, actor, known for roles in the film The War of the Worlds, and on television in Our Miss Brooks, Bat Masterson, and Burke's Law, 1919

  • Donald DON Newcombe, former MLB right-handed starting pitcher from 1949 - 1960, the only baseball player to have won the Rookie of the Year, Most Valuable Player, and [first-ever] Cy Young awards, second American to play professional baseball in Japan, 1926

  • Ernesto CHE Guevara de la Serna physician, Marxist revolutionary, politician, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas, June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967

  • Seymour Kaufman, aka Cy Coleman, composer, songwriter, and jazz pianist, a child prodigy who gave piano recitals at Steinway Hall, Town Hall, and Carnegie Hall between the ages of six and nine, June 14, 1929 - November 18, 2004

  • Autry DeWalt Mixon, Jr., aka Junior Walker, saxophone player and singer, June 14, 1931 – November 23, 1995

  • Marla Gibbs, actress, owns a jazz club in LA, 1931

  • Jerzy Kosiński, novelist, best known for his novels The Painted Bird (1965) and Being There (1971), June 18, 1933 – May 3, 1991

  • Renaldo OBIE Benson, soul and R&B singer and songwriter, best known as the bass voice of The Four Tops, June 14, 1936 - July 1, 2005

  • Rodney Terence ROD Argent, piano and keyboard player and songwriter, founding member of The Zombies and Argent, 1945

  • Barry "The Fish" Melton, musician, co-founder original lead guitarist of Country Joe and The Fish, 1947

  • Harry Norman Turtledove, Ph.D., historian and Hugo and Nebula Award- winning author of historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction, best known in the sub-genre of alternate history, 1949

  • Alan White, rock and roll drummer, piano player, and songwriter, best known for his 34 years with Yes, having appeared on over fifty albums with artists such as John Lennon, George Harrison, Joe Cocker, Ginger Baker and The Ventures, 1949

  • George Alan O'Dowd, aka Boy George, singer-songwriter, 1961

  • Traylor Elizabeth Howard, actress, best known as Natalie Teeger on Monk, 1966

  • Yasmine Amanda Bleeth, TV and film actress, 1968

  • Lang Lang, classical pianist, 1982


RIP:

  • Edward Purcell, aka Edward Marlborough FitzGerald, writer, best known as the poet of the first and most famous English translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, March 31, 1809 – June 14, 1883

  • Maximilian MAX Weber, political economist and sociologist, considered one of the founders of the modern study of sociology and public administration, April 21, 1864 – June 14, 1920

  • Emmeline Gouldine Pankhurst, one of the founders of the British suffragette movement, associated with the struggle for the enfranchisement of women in the period immediately preceding World War I, July 14, 1858 – June 14, 1928

  • Gilbert Keith [G.K.] Chesterton, writer, May 29, 1874 – June 14, 1936

  • John Logie Baird, engineer and television pioneer, inventor of the first working electromechanical television system; he demonstrated the first colour television and true stereoscopic television [1928]; he was the first to demonstrate ultra-short wave transmission [1932]; he demonstrated a 600 line HDTV colour system [1941], August 13, 1888 – June 14, 1946

  • Salvatore Quasimodo, author, awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize for Literature, August 20, 1901 - June 14, 1968

  • Samuel G. Messer, aka Robert Middleton film and television actor, May 13, 1911 – June 14, 1977

  • Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo, writer, poet, and critic, August 24, 1899 - June 14, 1986

  • Alan Jay Lerner, Broadway lyricist and librettist, and author, famous for his collaboration with composer Frederic Loewe, August 31, 1918 – June 14, 1986

  • Dame Edith Margaret PEGGY Emily Ashcroft, Academy
    Award-winning
    actress, December 22, 1907 – June 14, 1991

  • Enrico Nicola HENRY Mancini, composer and arranger, remembered as a composer of film and television scores, and winner of a record number of Grammy awards, including a Lifetime Achievement award in 1995, April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994

  • Roger Joseph Zelazny, writer of fantasy and science fiction short stories and novels, my favourite author, May 13, 1937 - June 14, 1995

  • Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor, May 9, 1914 – June 14, 2005

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Today LV

Birhtdays:

  • James Clerk Maxwell, mathematical physicist, developed a set of equations expressing the basic laws of electricity and magnetism, demonstrated that electric and magnetic forces are two complementary aspects of electromagnetism, and that electric and magnetic fields travel through space at a constant velocity, June 13, 1831 – November 5, 1879

  • William Butler Yeats, poet, dramatist, mystic, and Irish Senator, awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize for Literature, June 13, 1865 – January 28, 1939

  • Jules Jean Baptiste Vincent Bordet, immunologist and microbiologist, awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries relating to immunity, June 13, 1870 – April 6, 1961

  • Philip St. John Basil Rathbone, actor, appeared in Shakespearean roles on the British stage, and in silent movies, famous for playing suave villains in many swashbucklers of the 1930's, starred in fourteen Sherlock Holmes movies, June 13, 1892 – July 21, 1967

  • Carlos Antonio de Padua Chávez y Ramírez, composer, conductor, teacher, journalist, and the founder and director of the Mexico Symphony Orchestra, June 13, 1899 – August 2, 1978

  • Paul Edward Lynde, comedian and character actor, June 13, 1927 – January 10, 1982

  • John Forbes Nash, Jr., mathematician who works in game theory and differential geometry; shared the 1994 Nobel prize in Economics with two other game theorists, best known in popular culture as the subject of the movie, A Beautiful Mind, about his mathematical genius and his struggles with mental illness, 1928

  • Alan Civil, [French] horn player, principal with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia, and BBC Symphony Orchestra, played the horn solo on the Beatles song "For No One" on the Revolver album, June 13, 1929 – March 19, 1989

  • Malcolm John Taylor, aka Malcolm McDowell, actor, best known for his portrayal of Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange, started playing movie villains in the late 1970's, also known as the man who killed Captain Kirk in the film Star Trek: Generations, 1943

  • Richard Earl Thomas, actor, played John-Boy in The Waltons, 1951

  • Alexandra Elizabeth 'Ally' Sheedy, screen and stage actress, 1962

  • Grigori 'Grisha' Yakovlevich Perelman, mathematician, expert on Ricci flow, thought to have proven the Poincaré conjecture, a major open problem in mathematics, 1966

  • Mary-Kate Olsen and Ashley Fuller Olsen, actresses and entrepreneurs, fraternal twins, 1986


RIP:

  • Martin Buber, philosopher, translator, and educator, February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965

  • Clyde McPhatter, R&B singer, founder of The Drifters, inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987, November 15, 1932 – June 13, 1972

  • Darla Jean Hood, child actress, played Darla in Our Gang, November 8, 1931 – June 13, 1979

  • Benő Guttman, aka Benny Goodman, jazz clarinet player and bandleader, May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986

  • Geraldine Sue Page, Academy Award-winning actress, November 22, 1924 - June 13, 1987

  • Donald Kent "Deke" Slayton, one of the original Mercury Seven NASA astronauts, grounded due to a heart condition, March 1, 1924 – June 13, 1993

  • Walter Lane Smith, character actor, April 29, 1936 - June 13, 2005

Monday, June 12, 2006

World Cup

Hurray, hurray! It's Soccer World Cup time! Another one-trick sport dominates the airwaves.

And, the Stanley Cup lasts well into June, and Canadian football starts soon. Oh ... let's not forget poker; an FSN ad referred to a tournament with all the "Poker Royalty" in attendance!

Poker players, billionaires, celebrities, supermodels, chefs, soccer players, home renovators, bounty hunters ... the people of North America are so lucky that we will never run out of asses to kiss!

Today LIV

Birthdays:

  • Johanna Louise Heusser, aka Johanna Spyri author of children's stories, best known for Heidi, June 12, 1827 - July 7, 1901

  • Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, KG, MC, PC, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1950's, remembered mainly for his role in the politically disastrous Suez Crisis [1956], June 12, 1897– January 14, 1977

  • Emmett Louis Hardy, jazz cornet player, June 12, 1903 – June 16, 1925

  • Marina Timofeyevna Semyonova, the first Soviet-trained prima ballerina, 1908

  • J. Alphonse Ouimet, Canadian television pioneer and president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) from 1958 to 1967, who helped design, build, and demonstrate the first Canadian television set, June 12, 1908 – December 20, 1988

  • William John Francis 'Bill' Naughton, playwright and author, best known for his play Alfie, June 12, 1910 - January 9, 1992

  • Irwin Allen, television and film producer nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre, also known for creating a number of popular television series, June 12, 1916 – November 2, 1991

  • Samuel Zachary Arkoff, producer of B movies, co-founder of American International Pictures, June 12, 1918 – September 16, 2001

  • Uta Thyra Hagen, actress and acting teacher, June 12, 1919 - January 14, 2004

  • Dave Berg, cartoonist, June 12, 1920 – May 17, 2002

  • James Archibald Houston, OC , D.Litt. , FRSA , LL.D, artist, designer, children's author, and filmmaker, played an important role in the recognition of Inuit art and introduced printmaking to the Inuit, June 12, 1921 – April 17, 2005

  • Vito Rocco Farinola, aka Vic Damone, singer, 1928

  • Annelies Marie 'Anne' Frank, diarist and Holocaust victim, June 12, 1929 – March, 1945

  • James Thurston 'Jim' Nabors, actor, singer, and comedian, best known as Gomer Pyle on The Andy Griffith Show, and its spinoff, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., 1930

  • Rona Jaffe, novelist, June 12, 1932 — December 30, 2005

  • Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea, jazz pianist/keyboardist and composer, 1941

  • Bradley E. 'Brad, Delp, lead vocalist for Boston, 1951

  • Brad Carlson, aka Bun E. Carlos, drummer for Cheap Trick, 1951

  • Pete Farndon, bassist and founding member of The Pretenders, June 12, 1952 - April 14, 1983

  • Hideki Matsui, MLB left fielder for the New York Yankees, who had a huge career with the Yomiuri Giants of the Japanese Central League, in which he was a three-time [league] MVP; nicknamed "Godzilla," 1974

  • Jason Mewes, television and film actor, with roles in several low-budget independent films, best known as drug dealer Jay in films written and directed by Kevin Smith, 1974


RIP:

  • Maria Teresa Carreño, pianist, singer, and conductor, December 22, 1853 - June 12, 1917

  • James 'Jimmy' Dorsey, jazz clarinetist, saxophonist, and big band leader, February 29, 1904 – June 12, 1957

  • Medgar Wiley Evers, black civil rights activist, murdered because of his activism, July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963

  • Hermann Scherchen, conductor and arranger, June 21, 1891 – June 12, 1966

  • Milburn Stone, television actor, best known "Doc" (Doctor Galen Adams) on Gunsmoke, July 5, 1904 - June 12, 1980

  • Edith Norma Shearer, Academy Award-winning actress, August 10, 1902 - June 12, 1983

  • Ronald Lyle Goldman, aspiring actor and part-time model, murdered along with his friend, Nicole Brown Simpson, at the age of 25, July 2, 1968 – June 12, 1994

  • Nicole Brown Simpson, ex-wife of O. J. Simpson, murdered along with her friend, Ronald Goldman, May 19, 1959 – June 12, 1994

  • Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, classical pianist, January 5, 1920 – June 12, 1995

  • Eldred Gregory Peck, Oscar-winning film actor [for To Kill a Mockingbird] and, later, television actor, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor five times, four of which came in his first five years of film acting, April 5, 1916 – June 12, 2003

  • Kenneth Roy Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, businessman and art collector, September 1, 1923 – June 12, 2006