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