Today CCXIX

Birthdays:

• Mary Anne Galton Schimmelpenninck, writer in the anti-slavery movement, great name!, November 25, 1778 - August 29, 1856


• Julius Robert von Mayer, physician and physicist, who described the chemical process now referred to as oxidation as the primary source of energy for living creatures, November 25, 1814 – March 20, 1878


• Andrew Carnegie, businessman and philanthropist, November 25, 1835 – August 11, 1919


• Ernst Schröder, mathematician, known for his work on algebraic logic, November 25, 1841 – June 16, 1902


• Henry Ware Eliot, industrialist and philantropist, the father of T. S. Eliot, November 25, 1843 – January 7, 1919


• Carrie Amelia Moore Nation, famous member of the temperance movement in pre-Prohibition America, November 25, 1846 – June 9, 1911


• Ethelbert Woodbridge Nevin, pianist and composer, November 25, 1862 - February 17, 1901


• Winthrop Ames, theatrical director and producer, playwright, screenwriter, and theatre owner/operator, November 25, 1870 - November 3, 1937


• Merrill C. Meigs, publisher of the Chicago Herald and Examiner in the 1920's; he became a pilot, and a booster of Chicago as a world center of aviation; he gave flying lessons to president Harry S. Truman, November 25, 1883 - January 26, 1968


• Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov, botanist and geneticist, known for having identified the centres of origin of cultivated plants, who organized a series of botanical-agronomic expeditions all over the world in the development of his theory about centers of origin, November 25, 1887 — January 26, 1943


• Wilhelm Kempff, pianist and composer, November 25, 1895 – May 23, 1991


• Virgil Thomson, composer and music critic for the New York Herald-Tribune from 1940 through 1954, studied with Nadia Boulanger; in the 1930s, he worked as a theatre and film composer; he won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1949 with his film score for Louisiana Story, November 25, 1896 - September 30, 1989


• Antonio TONI Ortelli, alpinist, conductor, and composer, November 25, 1904 - March 3, 2000,


• Lewis Thomas, physician, poet, etymologist, essayist, administrator, educator, policy advisor, and researcher, November 25, 1913 - December 3, 1993


• Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, Jr., aka Joseph Paul JOE DiMaggio, MLB centre fielder, who played his entire MLB career, 1936 to 1951, for the New York Yankees; he had the longest hitting streak in MLB history, 56 games from May 15 to July 17, 1941; he was a three-time MVP winner, in 1939, 1941, and 1947, and 13-time All-Star; he led the league in batting average in 1939, with .381, and 1940, with .352; in his career, he amassed 361 home runs, averaged 118 RBI's annually, compiled a .325 lifetime batting average, and struck out only 369 times; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955, November 25, 1914 – March 8, 1999


• Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán Merino, aka Ricardo Montalbán, television, theatre, and film actor, known for his roles as Mr. Roarke on the series Fantasy Island, and Khan Noonien Singh in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, 1920


• Noel Neill, actress, known for roles in the Superman franchise; she played Lois Lane in the 1948 and 1950 Saturday movie serials with Kirk Alyn playing Clark Kent/Superman, and on TV's Adventures of Superman, from the second season on, with George Reeves; she had a cameo in Superman: The Movie as Lois Lane's mother, with Kirk Alyn as Lois' father in the same; she had a cameo on Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman with Jack Larson (Jimmy Olsen) as an office worker at the Daily Planet; she plays the role of Gertrude Vanderworth, a dying widow, in Superman Returns, 1920


• Henry Herman McKinnies, Jr, aka Jeffrey Hunter, film and television actor, who played Captain Christopher Pike in the pilot episode of Star Trek, November 25, 1926 - May 27, 1969


• Poul William Anderson, science fiction author, sixth President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors Gandalf Grand Master in 1978, the Hugo Award seven times, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 2000, the Nebula Award three times, the Prometheus Award four times, including Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2001, and the SFWA Grand Master Award in 1997, November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001


• Olive Kathryn Grandstaff, aka Kathryn Grant, aka Kathryn Crosby, actress and singer, 1933


• Reinhard Alfred Furrer, physicist, pilot, and astronaut; during his time as a student in Berlin, he was involved in the building of the 145 metre long Tunnel 57 below the Berlin Wall, which was the escape route of 57 people from East Berlin to the West, November 25, 1940 – September 9, 1995


• Percy Sledge, R&B and soul singer; his When a Man Loves a Woman was an international hit, reaching #1 in the U. S., and was the first gold record released by Atlantic Records; in 2005, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1941


• Robert Neale BOB Lind, folk music singer/songwriter in the 1960s, who had a hit single in 1966 with Elusive Butterfly, 1942


• Benjamin Jeremy BEN Stein, lawyer, economist, law professor, actor, comedian, voice actor, and former White House speechwriter, known for his TV show, Win Ben Stein's Money, 1944


• John Bernard Larroquette, film and television actor, who played a Klingon in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock; known for his role as Assistant DA Reinhold Daniel Fielding, Dan Fielding, on Night Court, a role for which he won Emmy Awards in 1985, 1986, 1987, and 1988; he starred as John Hemmingway on The John Larroquette Show, 1947


• Russell Earl O'Dey, aka BUCKY Dent, former MLB shortstop and manager, the World Series MVP in 1978, 1951


• Bill Morrissey, folk singer/songwriter, 1951


• John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr., lawyer, journalist, socialite, and publisher, the president John F. Kennedy, November 25, 1960 – July 16, 1999


• Stephen Scott, aka Dougray Scott, television and film actor, who played the role of Tom Jericho in Enigma, 1965


• Jillian Noel JILL Hennessy, actress, known for her television roles on Law & Order and Crossing Jordan, 1968


• Jacqueline Hennessy, journalist, television host, and occasional actress, 1968


• Christina Applegate, actress, known for playing Kelly Bundy on Married... with Children; she has since appeared in several films, and recently starred on Broadway in a revival of Sweet Charity, 1971


• Thea Gilmore , singer-songwriter, 1979


• Brooke Haven, stripper and actress, 1979


• Amber Hagerman, kidnapping and murder victim; the Dallas Amber Plan, later the national Amber Alert programme, was started in July, 1997, to help safely recover missing children that police believe have been abducted, November 25, 1986 – January 17, 1996

R.I.P.:

• Johann Georg Pisendel, Baroque musician, violinist, and composer who led the Court Orchestra in Dresden for many years , December 26, 1687 - November 25, 1755


• Theobald Boehm, virtuoso flautist, Court Musician, composer for the flute, and inventor, who perfected the modern flute and its improved fingering system, April 9, 1794 - November 25, 1881


• Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe, chemist, September 27, 1818 – November 25, 1884


• Gaston Chevrolet, champion racecar driver and automobile manufacturer, October 26, 1892 – November 25, 1920


• Kenesaw Mountain Landis, federal judge and the first commissioner of Major League Baseball, November 20, 1866 – November 25, 1944


• Johannes Vilhelm Jensen, author, awarded the 1944 Nobel Prize in Literature, January 20, 1873 – November 25, 1950


• Dame Julia MYRA Hess DBE, pianist, February 25, 1890 – November 25, 1965


• Upton Beall Sinclair, author, who wrote over 90 books in many genres, often advocating socialist views; he gained particular fame for his novel, The Jungle, which dealt with conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, causing a public uproar that led to the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906; he ran for governor of California in 1934 - Robert A. Heinlein was deeply involved in Sinclair's campaign - losing to Frank F. Merriam, after which he returned to writing, September 20, 1878 – November 25, 1968


• Kimitake Hiraoka, aka Yukio Mishima, author and playwright, famous for his nihilistic post-war writing, and for the circumstances of his suicide, January 14, 1925 — November 25, 1970


• Henri Marie Coanda, inventor, aerodynamics pioneer, and the "father" of the modern jet aircraft; in 1910, he designed, built, and piloted the first thermojet powered aircraft, June 7, 1886 – November 25, 1972


• Zvi Mosheh (Hirsh) Skikne, aka Laurence Harvey, actor, whose first major role was in Room at the Top in 1959; he also appeared in Butterfield 8, The Alamo, A Walk on the Wild Side, Darling, The Running Man, and the original version of The Manchurian Candidate; he was the father of bounty hunter Domino Harvey, October 1, 1928 – November 25, 1973


• Maha Thray Sithu U Thant, diplomat, the third Secretary-General of the United Nations, from 1961 to 1971, January 22, 1909 – November 25, 1974


• Jonathan JACK Albertson, actor, comedian, dancer, singer, and musician, performing on stage, radio, movies, and television; he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1968 for The Subject Was Roses, June 16, 1907 - November 25, 1981