Today CXXI

Birthdays:

• John Dryden, poet, literary critic, August 19, 1631 – May 12, 1700


• Bernard Mannes Baruch, financier, stock market speculator, statesman, and presidential advisor; after his success in business, he devoted his time to advising presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt on economic matters, August 19, 1870 – June 20, 1965


• Orville Wright, aircraft pioneer; he and his brother Wilbur are generally credited with making the first controlled, powered, heavier-than-air flight, on December 17, 1903; in the two years afterward, they developed their flying machine into the world's first practical fixed-wing aircraft, August 19, 1871 - January 30, 1948


• George Enescu, composer, violinist, pianist, conductor, and teacher, August 19, 1881 – May 4, 1955


• Alfred Lunt, actor, winner of two Tony Awards and an Emmy Award; with his wife Lynn Fontanne, was half of the pre-eminent Broadway acting couple in American history, August 12, 1892 – August 3, 1977


• Frederic OGDEN Nash, poet and lecturer, has written humorous poems for each movement of the Camille Saint-Saëns' The Carnival of the Animals, which are often recited when the work is performed, August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971


• Philo Taylor Farnsworth, inventor, the first to demonstrate and patent a working electronic television system, August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971


• Ringgold W. RING Lardner, Jr., journalist and screenwriter, blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studios the era of McCarthyism; worked as a publicist and "script doctor" before writing his own material; won an Academy Award for Original Screenplay in 1942 for Woman of the Year and an Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay in 1970 for M*A*S*H, August 19, 1915 – October 31, 2000


• Malcolm Stevenson Forbes, publisher of Forbes magazine, August 19, 1919 – February 24, 1990


• Eugene Wesley GENE Roddenberry, scriptwriter and producer, creator of Star Trek, pilot, awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal in World War II; one of the first people to be buried in space; after his death, his estate allowed the creation of television series based upon some of his previously unfilmed story ideas and concepts - Earth: Final Conflict and Andromeda were produced under the guidance of Majel Barrett-Roddenberry August 19, 1921 – October 24, 1991


• William Lee WILLIE Shoemaker, jockey, won 11 Triple Crown races, but never the Crown itself, August 19, 1931 - October 12, 2003


• Robert Clinton BOBBY Richardson, former MLB second baseman, played for the New York Yankees from 1955 through 1966; won five Gold Gloves at second base from 1961 to 1965; was a seven-time AL All-Star - 1957, 1959, and 1962 to 1966; was named World Series MVP in 1960; won the Lou Gehrig Memorial Award in 1963; struck out only 243 times in his entire 12-year career, 1935


• Diana Muldaur, television and film actress and voice actor, appeared in two episodes of the original Star Trek; played Dr. Katherine Pulaski in the second season of Star Trek: The Next Generation; was the voice of Dr. Leslie Thompkins in Batman: The Animated Series; served as a board member of the Screen Actors Guild and as the president of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 1938


• Peter Edward GINGER Baker, drummer, played with Cream, Blind Faith, and Ginger Baker's Air Force, as well as many contemporary bands, 1939


• John Lester JOHNNY Nash, Jr., pop singer, best known for his hits Hold Me Tight, I Can See Clearly Now, and Bob Marley's Stir It Up, 1940


• Jill Arlyn Oppenheim, aka Jill St. John, film and television actress, 1940


• Ian Gillan, rock music vocalist, lead singer for Deep Purple, 1945


• William Jefferson Blythe III, later William Jefferson BILL Clinton, 42nd president of the United States,, 1946


• Beat Martin Raaflaub, singer, conductor, and teacher, 1946


• Gerard Schwarz, conductor, currently the Music Director of the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and Music Advisor to the Eastern Music Festival, 1947


• Gerald McRaney, television and movie actor, best known for his title roles on Simon & Simon and Major Dad, 1948


• John Richard Deacon, musician and songwriter, bassist - and occasional guitarist and keyboard player - for Queen, 1951


• Jonathan Frakes, actor, voice actor, and director, best known as Commander William Riker on Star Trek: The Next Generation; directed Star Trek: First Contact, 1952


• Adam Arkin, television, film, and stage actor, appeared in Northern Exposure, Chicago Hope, and The West Wing, among other series, and in the Broadway play Brooklyn Boy; son of Alan Arkin, 1956


• Gary Joseph Gaetti, former MLB third baseman, from 1981 to 2000; 1987 ALCS MVP; won four Gold Glove Awards from 1986 to 1989; 1987 and 1989 All-Star, 1958


• Kyra Sedgwick, actress, 1965


• Lee Ann Womack, country music artist, 1966

RIP:

• 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


• James Watt, inventor and engineer, whose improvements to the steam engine were fundamental to the Industrial Revolution, January 19, 1736 – 19 August 19, 1819


• Vilfredo Federico Damaso Pareto, sociologist, economist and philosopher, helped develop the field of microeconomics, July 15, 1848 - August 19, 1923


• Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev, art critic, patron, ballet impresario, and founder of the Ballets Russes, March 19, 1872 – August 19, 1929


• Giovanni Giorgi, electrical engineer, who invented the Giorgi system of measurement, the precursor to the International System, November 27, 1871 - August 19, 1950


• Hugo Gernsback, inventor, magazine publisher, and science fiction writer, whose publications included the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, founded in 1926; the Science Fiction Achievement Award, given each year by vote of the members of the World Science Fiction Society, is named the Hugo after him; was one of 1996's inaugural inductees into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, August 16, 1884 – August 19, 1967


• Georgiy Antonovich Gamov, aka George Gamow, physicist and cosmologist, worked on subjects including the atomic nucleus, star formation, stellar nucleosynthesis, Big Bang nucleosynthesis, nucleocosmogenesis, and genetics, March 4, 1904 – August 19, 1968


• Christopher Theophelus, "The Golden Greek" Jim Londos, professional wrestler, January 2, 1897 - August 19, 1975


• Alastair Sim CBE, character actor, appeared in many British films; portrayed Captain Hook in six different productions of Peter Pan between 1941 and 1968; best remembered as the title character in Scrooge, the 1951 adaptation of A Christmas Carol; voiced the Scrooge role in an Academy Award-winning animated version, October 9, 1900 – August 19, 1976


• Julius Henry GROUCHO Marx, comedian, working with his siblings as one of the Marx Brothers, and on his own; acted in vaudeville, on radio, in films, and on television - his You Bet Your Life lasted 11 years on TV; wrote several books, including an autobiography; in the 1970s, did a live one-man show, including one recorded at Carnegie Hall and released as a double album, An Evening with Groucho, October 2, 1890 – August 19, 1977


• Linus Carl Pauling, Ph.D., quantum chemist and biochemist, a pioneer in the application of quantum mechanics to chemistry; awarded the 1954 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work describing the nature of chemical bonds; received the 1962 Nobel Peace Prize for his campaign against above-ground nuclear testing, becoming the only person in history to individually receive two Nobel Prizes; later in life, became an advocate for regular consumption of massive doses of Vitamin C, February 28, 1901 – August 19, 1994


• Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer, composer and educator, the inventor of musique concrète, and the first composer to make music using magnetic tape, August 14, 1910 – August 19, 1995