Today CXXXV

Birthdays:

• Georg Böhm, Baroque organist and composer, September 2, 1661 - May 18, 1733


• Lydia Kamaka'eha, aka Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii, the last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, September 2, 1838 – November 11, 1917


• Albert Goodwill Spalding, professional baseball player, and founder of the sporting goods manufacturer which bears his name; in 1871, joined the Boston Red Stockings of the National Association, winning 205 games and losing only 53 as a pitcher, and batting .323 as a hitter; after the NA folded, joined the Chicago White Stockings of the newly formed National League in 1876, winning 47 games; elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Old Timer's Committee in 1939, September 2, 1850 – September 9, 1915


• Woldemar Voigt, physicist, worked on crystal physics, thermodynamics, and electro-optics, September 2, 1850 - December 13, 1919


• Friedrich WILHELM Ostwald, chemist, awarded the 1909 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on catalysis, chemical equilibria, and reaction velocities, September 2, 1853 - April 4, 1932


• Franjo Krežma, aka Franz Krezma, violinist and composer; at 17, became concertmaster of the Royal orchestra in Berlin, what is today the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, September 2, 1862 - June 5, 1881


• Frederick Soddy, radiochemist; in 1903, with Sir William Ramsay, verified that the decay of radium produced helium; awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research in radioactive decay, and particularly for his formulation of the theory of isotopes, September 2, 1877 – September 22, 1956


• Laurindo Almeida, classical and jazz guitarist, won Grammy Awards in 1961, 1962, and 1965, September 2, 1917 – July 26, 1995


• René Thom, mathematician, made his reputation as a topologist, moving on to aspects of what became singularity theory; famous for his work as founder of catastrophe theory; received the Fields Medal in 1958, September 2, 1923 – October 25, 2002


• Horace Ward Martin Tavares Silver, jazz pianist and composer, known for his distinctive humorous and funky playing style, and for his pioneering contributions to hard bop, 1928


• William HAL Ashby, film director, became an assistant film editor to begin his movie career; in 1967, won the Academy Award for Film Editing for In the Heat of the Night; at the urging of its director, Norman Jewison, he directed his first film, The Landlord, in 1970, September 2, 1929 - December 27, 1988


• Sam Gooden, soul singer, best known as a member of The Impressions from its beginnings as The Roosters in the 1950's until its demise in 1983; inducted with the group in 1991 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1939


• Rosalind Ashford, soul and R&B singer, famous as a member of Martha and the Vandellas; in 1995, inducted as a member of the group into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 1943


• Joe Simon, Soul and R&B singer, songwriter, and producer, 1943


• Billy Preston, soul musician, played piano and organ; he and Nicky Hopkins were the only non-Beatle to receive a credit on a Beatles single, playing the electric piano on Get Back as part of the rooftop concert, one of several people sometimes credited as the "Fifth Beatle," September 9, 1946 – June 6, 2006


• Sharon Christa Corrigan McAuliffe, teacher and astronaut, selected from among more than 11,000 applicants to be the first teacher in space; died in the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, September 2, 1948 – January 28, 1986


• Mark Thomas Harmon, actor, currently the star of NCIS, 1951


• John Zorn, composer and saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist, 1953


• Mario Tremblay, former NHL hockey player and head coach, 1956


• Rex Allen Hudler, former MLB infielder-outfielder, played a total of thirteen seasons; currently the color commentator for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim broadcasting, 1960


• Keanu Charles Reeves, actor and bassist, 1964


• Salma Hayek Jiménez, actress, has appeared in more than thirty films; a feminist whose charitable work includes increasing awareness on violence against women and discrimination against immigrants, 1966

RIP:

• Francesco Landini, composer, organist, singer, poet, and instrument maker, c. 1325 – September 2, 1397


• The Reverend Nathaniel Bliss, astronomer, served as Astronomer Royal between 1762 and 1764, November 28, 1700 – September 2, 1764


• Thomas Telford, stonemason, architect, civil engineer, and road, bridge, and canal builder, August 9, 1757 - September 2, 1834


• Sir William Rowan Hamilton, mathematician, physicist, and astronomer who made important contributions to the development of optics, dynamics, and algebra, discoverer of quaternions, a non-commutative extension of complex numbers, August 4, 1805 – September 2, 1865


• Henri Rousseau, Post-Impressionist painter in the Naive or Primitive manner, painter of The Sleeping Gypsy (1897), May 21, 1844 – September 2, 1910


• Alcide Patrick Nunez, early jazz clarinetist, moved to New Orleans in his childhood;
  initially played guitar, then switched to clarinet about 1902, soon becoming one of the top clarinetists in the city; a regular in Papa Jack Laine's band, March 17, 1884 – September 2, 1934


• Ruggiero Eugenio di Rodolpho RUSS Colombo, singer, violinist, and actor, famous for his signature tune, You Call It Madness, But I Call It Love, January 14, 1908 – September 2, 1934


• Alvin Cullum SERGEANT York, soldier, famous for his heroism in World War I; awarded the Medal of Honor, December 13, 1887 – September 2, 1964


• Johannes Bobrowski, lyricist, narrative writer, adaptor, and essayist, April 9, 1917 - September 2, 1965


• Carl Ward Dudley, film director and producer, best known for 1958's South Seas Adventure; in the 1950's, produced thirty documentary shorts in the This World of Ours series, December 31, 1910 in Little Rock, Arkansas; died September 2, 1973


• John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE, author, poet, and writer of academic works, best known as the author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings; was a professor of Anglo-Saxon language from 1925 to 1945, and of English language and literature from 1945 to 1959, both at Oxford; the asteroid 2675 Tolkien is named after him, January 3, 1892 – September 2, 1973


• Alfonso García Robles, diplomat and politician, shared the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize with Alva Myrdal, as the driving force behind the Treaty of Tlatelolco, setting up a nuclear-free zone in Latin America and the Caribbean, March 20, 1911 – September 2, 1991


• Barbara McClintock Ph.D. [in botany], scientist and one of the world's most distinguished cytogeneticists, awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery of genetic transposition, June 16, 1902 – September 2, 1992


• Roy Castle OBE, dancer, singer, comedian, actor, television presenter, and musician, a talented jazz trumpet player, who attributed his [fatal] lung cancer to years of passive smoking in music clubs; in his final years, he established the Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation and raised money to fund a cancer centre in Liverpool; in the mid-1960's, starred in The Roy Castle Show on BBC; in 1965, he appeared in the film Dr. Who and the Daleks, playing the role of The Doctor's first male assistant, Ian Chesterton, quite differently from the way it had been played in the original TV series, August 31, 1932 - September 2, 1994


• Sir Rudolf Franz Joseph Bing, opera impresario, General Manager of the Metropolitan Opera in New York from 1950 to 1972, January 9, 1902 – September 2, 1997


• Viktor Emil Frankl, M.D., Ph.D., neurologist and psychiatrist, the founder of logotherapy and Existential Analysis, the "Third Viennese School" of psychotherapy; one of the key figures in existential therapy, March 26, 1905 - September 2, 1997


• Allen Stuart Drury, novelist, wrote Advise and Consent in 1959, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; also wrote A Shade of Difference, Capable of Honor, Preserve and Protect, Come Nineveh, Come Tyre, Mark Coffin U.S.S., The Hill of Summer, The Roads of Earth, Decision, and Pentagon, as well as several other fiction and non-fiction books, September 2, 1918 – September 2, 1998


• Elvera Sanchez, dancer, an adviser to the New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day; the mother of Sammy Davis, Jr., September 1, 1905 – New York City, September 2, 2000


• Christiaan Neethling Barnard, cardiac surgeon, performed the world's first heart transplant, November 8, 1922 – September 2, 2001


• Merle Johnson, Jr., aka Troy Donahue, actor, originally a teen idol; in 1974, he was cast as the fiancee of Connie Corleone in The Godfather Part II - his character was named Merle Johnson, January 27, 1936 – September 2, 2001


• Robert BOB Denver, comedic actor, best known Gilligan on Gilligan's Island; earlier, played Maynard G. Krebs on TV's The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, January 9, 1935 – September 2, 2005