Today CXCI

Birthdays:

• Eliphalet Remington, blacksmith, and designer of the Remington rifle; he founded the firm of E. Remington and Sons, now known as the Remington Arms Co., Inc., October 28, 1793 – August 12, 1861


• Pierre François Verhulst, mathematician, who published the logistic demographic model, October 28, 1804 - February 15, 1849


• Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, novelist, short story writer, and playwright, wrote Fathers and Sons; Asteroid 3323 Turgenev is named after him, November 9, 1818 – September 3, 1883


• Georges Auguste Escoffier, chef, restaurateur, and culinary writer, who popularized and updated traditional French cooking methods; he was one of the leaders in the development of modern French cuisine, October 28, 1846 – February 12, 1935


• Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, geographer, the editor of the National Geographic Magazine from 1903 to 1954, and the president of the National Geographic Society from 1920 to 1954, October 28, 1875 – February 4, 1966


• Joseph Edward JOE Adams, MLB pitcher, appeared in one game for the St. Louis Cardinals, October 28, 1877 – October 8, 1952


• Oliver DINK Johnson, jazz pianist, clarinetist, drummer, and songwriter, who made his first recordings in 1922 on clarinet with Kid Ory's Band, October 28, 1892 – November 29, 1954


• Howard Harold Hanson, composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music, October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981


• Elizabeth Sullivan, aka Elsa Lanchester, character actress, remembered for the title role in Bride of Frankenstein, October 28, 1902 - December 26, 1986


• Arthur EVELYN St. John Waugh, writer, October 28, 1903 – April 10, 1966


• Edith Claire Posener, aka Edith Head, costume designer, who had a long career in Hollywood, and won more Academy Awards than any other woman in history, October 28, 1897 – October 24, 1981


• Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll CH OBE FRS, epidemiologist, physiologist, and a pioneer in the research linking smoking to health problems; with Ernst Wynder, Bradford Hill, and Evarts Graham, he was the first in the modern world to prove that smoking caused lung cancer and increased the risk of heart disease, October 28, 1912 – July 24, 2005


• 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


• Richard Laurence Millington Synge, biochemist, awarded the 1952 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of partition chromatography, October 28, 1914 - August 18, 1994


• Paul Jarrico, screenwriter and film producer, blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism, January 12, 1915 – October 28, 1997


• Gershon Kingsley, contemporary composer, famous for composing the early electronic pop instrumental song Popcorn; he led the First Moog Quartet, the first group to ever play electronic music in Carnegie Hall, and was the first person to use the Moog synthesizer in live performance, later pioneering the use of the earliest Fairlight and Synclavier digital synthesizers, 1922


• Bowie Kent Kuhn, Commissioner of Major League Baseball from February, 1969, to September, 1984, prior to which, he had served as legal counsel for MLB owners for almost 20 years, 1926


• Clementina Dinah Campbell, aka Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth DBE, jazz singer and actress, noted for her scat singing, 1927


• Joan Ann Olivier, The Lady Olivier, DBE, aka Dame Joan Plowright, actress, 1929


• Cecilia Ann Renee SUZY Parker, model and actress, October 28, 1932 - May 3, 2003


• Charles Edward CHARLIE Daniels, country music, Southern rock, and jazz singer, fiddler, guitarist, and songwriter, 1936


• Curtis Lee, singer, 1936


• Susan Spivak Harris, television comedy writer and producer, married to television producer Paul Junger Witt; formed Witt/Thomas/Harris with her husband and [Danny Thomas' son] Tony Thomas, 1940


• John Hallam, actor, who has appeared in many film and television roles, including the part of Light in the Doctor Who serial Ghost Light, 1941


• Dennis Franz Schlachta, aka Dennis Franz, actor, known for his role as Andy Sipowicz on NYPD Blue, 1944


• Glyn Geoffrey Ellis, aka Wayne Fontana, singer, the original lead vocalist for Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, which became The Mindbenders after he left the band, 1945


• Telma Hopkins, singer and television actress, who started her career as one of the members of Tony Orlando and Dawn; she appeared on Bosom Buddies, Gimme a Break!, and Family Matters, 1948


• Annie Potts, television and film actress, known for her role as Janine Melnitz in the Ghostbusters films, and as Mary Jo Shively on Designing Women, 1952


• William Henry BILL Gates III, co-founder, chairman, former chief software architect, and former CEO of Microsoft, 1955


• Daphne Eurydice Zuniga, actress, 1962


• Lauren Michael Holly, actress, 1963


• Jami Gertz, actress, 1965


• Joaquín Rafael Phoenix, actor, 1974

RIP:

• Stefano Landi, composer and teacher of the early Baroque Roman School, an early composer of opera, baptized February 26, 1587 – October 28, 1639


• John Wallis, mathematician, who is given partial credit for the development of modern calculus; between 1643 and 1689, he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal court; he is credited with introducing the symbol ∞ for infinity, November 23, 1616 - October 28, 1703


• John Locke, philosopher, contributor to liberal theory, often classified as a British Empiricist, and a social contract theorist; developed an alternative to the Hobbesian state of nature and argued a government could only be legitimate if it received the consent of the governed through a social contract and protected the natural rights of life, liberty, and estate, August 29, 1632 – October 28, 1704


• Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, baroque composer of instrumental music, cantatas, opera ballets, and vocal music, one of the first composers to have no patrons and earn a living by writing music, December 23, 1689 - October 28, 1755


• Michel Blavet, multi-instrumentalist, specializing in flute- and bassoon-playing, March 13, 1700 – October 28, 1768


• Paul Heinrich Gerhard Möhring, aka Paul Mohr, physician, botanist, and zoologist, July 21, 1710 - October 28, 1792


• John Smeaton, civil engineer, responsible for the design of bridges, canals, harbours, and lighthouses; he was also a mechanical engineer and physicist, June 8, 1724 – October 28, 1792


• Johan August Arfwedson, chemist, the discoverer of lithium; the rare mineral arfvedsonite was named after him, January 12, 1792 – October 28, 1841


• Ottmar Mergenthaler, inventor, who invented a machine that could easily and quickly set movable type, which revolutionized the art of printing, May 10, 1854 – October 28, 1899


• Earl Bostic, jazz and rhythm and blues alto saxophonist, April 25, 1913 – October 28, 1965


• Sergio Tòfano, actor, director, playwright, scene designer, and illustrator, August 20, 1883 – October 28, 1973


• Georges Carpentier, boxer, who fought mainly as a light heavyweight and heavyweight in a career lasting from 1908 to 1826, January 12, 1894 – October 28, 1975


• Carlos Guastavino, composer and pianist, who produced over 200 works, most of them songs for piano and voice, April 5, 1912 - October 28, 2000


• Gerard Hengeveld, classical pianist, music composer, and educator, especially known for his compositions of study material for piano; other compositions include two piano concertos, a violin sonata, and a sonata for cello, 1910 - October 28, 2001


• Margaret Booth, film editor and producer, who started her Hollywood career editing films by D. W. Griffith, around 1915; she edited several films starring Greta Garbo; among films that she edited were Mutiny on the Bounty, The Way We Were, and The Goodbye Girl; she has also produced several films; she received an Honorary Academy Award in 1978 for her work in film editing, January 16, 1898 – October 28, 2002


• Robert William Patrick BOB Broeg, sportswriter; he coined the nickname Stan the Man for Stan Musial, championed the Hall of Fame causes of Red Schoendienst, Enos Slaughter, and Chick Hafey, and helped to devise and successfully push for the first pension plan for veteran MLB players; he was named to the Board of Directors of the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, a position he held for 28 years, and was a long time member of the Committee on Baseball Veterans, March 18, 1918 – October 28, 2005


• Richard Errett Smalley Ph.D., professor of Chemistry, and professor of Physics and Astronomy, who shared the 1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery of a new form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene ("buckyballs") with Robert Curl and Harold Kroto, June 6, 1943 – October 28, 2005