Today LXXXIV

Birthdays:

• Josiah Wedgwood, potter, credited with the industrialization of pottery-making, grandfather of Charles Darwin, July 12, 1730 – January 3, 1795


• Henry David Thoreau, author, development critic, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, tax resister, abolitionist, and philosopher, July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862


• Eugène Boudin, artist, one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors, July 12, 1824 – August 8, 1898


• George Eastman, inventor and philanthropist, founded the Eastman Kodak Co. and invented roll film; endowed the Eastman School of Music of the University of Rochester, July 12, 1854 – March 14, 1932


• Charles Albert Browning, Jr., Tod Browning, film actor and director whose career spanned the silent and talkie eras, known as the director of the 1931 Dracula with Bela Lugosi, July 12, 1880 - October 5, 1962


• Amedeo Clemente Modigliani, painter and sculptor, July 12, 1884 – January 24, 1920


• Jean Hersholt, actor and translator, July 12, 1886 - June 2, 1956


• Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad, dramatic soprano, July 12, 1895 – December 7, 1962


• Richard Buckminster 'Bucky' Fuller, visionary, designer, architect, and inventor, July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983


• Oscar Hammerstein II, writer/lyricist, producer, and director of musicals, teamed with Richard Rodgers in 1943, a partnership which produced Broadway musicals such as Carousel, South Pacific, The King and I, Me & Juliet, Pipe Dream, Flower Drum Song, and The Sound of Music; he also produced the book and lyrics for Carmen Jones, an adaptation of the opera Carmen with an all-black cast, July 12, 1895 – August 23, 1960


• Ricardo Eliecer Neftalí Reyes Basoalto, aka Pablo Neruda, poet and writer , received the 1971 Nobel Prize for Literature, July 12, 1904 – September 23, 1973


• Milton Berlinger, aka Milton Berle, aka "Uncle Miltie", comedian and actor, started as a child actor in silent films, worked in radio, television, and movies, July 12, 1908 - March 27, 2002


• Joseph Wardell, aka Joe "Curly-Joe" DeRita, comedian, best known as the sixth and last of the Three Stooges, July 12, 1909 - July 3, 1993


• Willis Eugene Lamb, Jr., Ph.D., physicist, awarded who the 1955 Nobel Prize in Physics, for his findings on the structure of the hydrogen spectrum, 1913


• Andrew Newell Wyeth, realist painter, 1917


• Pierre Francis Berton, CC, O.Ont, BA, D.Litt, author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, television personality, journalist, and storyteller; in October, 2004, the Pierre Berton Resource Library, named in his honour, was opened in Vaughan, Ontario, July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004


• Beulah Richardson, aka Beah Richards, stage, screen and television actress, poet, playwright, and author, July 12, 1920 – September 14, 2000


• Elias James Corey, Ph.D., organic chemist, awarded the 1990 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of retrosynthetic analysis, and the 2004 Priestley Medal, 1928


• Gordon Edward Pinsent C.C., LL.D., television, theatre and film actor, 1930


• Harvey Lavan 'Van' Cliburn, Jr., pianist, in 1958, won the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, 1934


• William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed.D, actor, comedian, television producer, and activist, 1937


• Christine Anne Perfect, aka Christine McVie, singer, keyboardist, and songwriter, member of Fleetwood Mac, 1943


• John Thomas Terrell, aka Jay Thomas, actor and disc jockey, 1948


• John Wetton, singer, bassist, and guitarist, memnber of Family, King Crimson, Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry band, Uriah Heep, UK, and Asia, 1949


• Cheryl Jean Stoppelmoor, aka Cheryl Ladd, actress, singer, and author, 1951


• John Petrucci, guitarist, founding member of Dream Theater, 1967


• Lisa Nicole Carson, actress, 1969


• Kristi Tsuya Yamaguchi, figure skater, member of the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame, 1971


• Christopher "Topher" Grace, actor, known for the role of Eric Forman on That '70s Show, 1978

RIP:

• Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, humanist and theologian, October 27, 1466(?) – July 12, 1536


• Evaristo Felice Dall' Abaco, composer and violinist, July 12, 1675 - July 12, 1742


• Johann Joachim Quantz, flutist, flute maker, and composer, January 30, 1697 – July 12, 1773


• The Hon. Charles Stewart Rolls, inventor and aviator, co-founder of the Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm, with Frederick Henry Royce; the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident, August 27, 1877 - July 12, 1910


• Lars Olof Jonathan 'Nathan' Söderblom, clergyman, Archbishop of the Lutheran Church of Sweden, and recipient of the 1930 Nobel Peace Prize, January 15, 1866 – 12 July 12, 1931


• Alfred Dreyfus, military officer, falsely arrested for treason on October 15, 1894, stripped of his rank and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island in 1895, exonerated in July, 1906, , October 9, 1859 – July 12, 1935


• Roger Wolfe Kahn, jazz and popular musician, composer, and bandleader, October 19, 1907 – July 12, 1962


• John Chancellor, journalist and news correspondent, July 14, 1927 — July 12, 1996


• Bennett Lester 'Benny' Carter, jazz alto saxophonist, trumpeter, composer, arranger, and bandleader, August 8, 1907 – July 12, 2003


• Nancy Elizabeth 'Betty' Oliphant, CC, O,Ont, LL.D, dancer, co-founder of the National Ballet School of Canada, August 5, 1918 – July 12, 2004