Today CCXLVI

Birthdays:

• Karl Friedrich Abel, Classical composer, played the viola da gamba for which he composed, December 22, 1723 – June 20, 1787


• Johann Friedrich Pfaff, mathematician, who studied integral calculus, and is noted for his work on partial differential equations of the first order; he was Carl Friedrich Gauss's formal research supervisor, December 22, 1765 - April 21, 1825


• Franz Wilhelm Abt, composer, who composed over 500 pieces, the most popular of which were his songs, December 22, 1819 - March 31, 1885


• Pierre Ossian Bonnet, mathematician, who made important contributions to the differential geometry of surfaces, December 22, 1819 - June 22, 1892


• Maria Teresa Carreño, pianist, singer, and conductor, December 22, 1853 - June 12, 1917


• Yevgraf Stepanovich Fyodorov, or Evgraf Stepanovich Fedorov, mathematician, crystallographist, and mineralogist, December 22, 1853 – May 21, 1919


• Frank Billings Kellogg, politician and statesman, awarded the 1929 Nobel Peace Prize, December 22, 1856 – December 21, 1937


• Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini, composer, whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire, December 22, 1858 – November 29, 1924


• Austin Norman Palmer, teacher, innovated the field of penmanship with the development of the Palmer method of script, December 22, 1860 — November 16, 1927


• Cornelius Alexander McGillicuddy, aka Cornelius Alexander CONNIE Mack, MLB catcher, manager, and team owner, who managed the Philadelphia Athletics for 50 consecutive seasons; he holds records for wins, losses, and games managed; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, December 22, 1862 – February 8, 1956


• Dmitri Fyodorovich Egorov, mathematician, who studied potential surfaces and triply orthogonal systems, and made significant contributions to the broader areas of differential geometry and integral equations, December 22, 1869 – September 10, 1931


• Jean-Marie CAMILLE Guérin, veterinarian, bacteriologist, and immunologist who, together with Albert Calmette developed the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG), a vaccine for immunization against tuberculosis, December 22, 1872 - June 9, 1961


• Franz Schmidt, composer, cellist, and pianist, December 22, 1874 – February 11, 1939


• Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, composer, whose music features an emphasis on timbre and rhythm; he was the inventor of the term "organized sound," a phrase meaning that certain timbres and rhythms can be grouped together, sublimating into a whole new definition of sound; his use of new instruments and electronic resources led to his being known as the "Father of Electronic Music," December 22, 1883 – November 6, 1965


• Srinivasa Aiyangar Ramanujan, mathematician, who excelled in the heuristic aspects of number theory and insight into modular functions; he made significant contributions to the development of partition functions and summation formulas involving constants such as Π, December 22, 1887 – April 26, 1920


• Joseph Arthur Rank, 1st Baron Rank, industrialist and film producer, the founder of the Rank Organisation, December 22, 1888 – March 29, 1972


• Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock< physicist, who did foundational work on quantum mechanics, December 22, 1898 – December 27, 1974


• Gustaf Gründgens, actor and director, whose most famous role was that of Mephistopheles in Goethe's Faust, December 22, 1899 - October 7, 1963


• Andre Kostelanetz, orchestral music conductor and arranger, one of the pioneers of easy listening music, December 22, 1901 - January 13, 1980


• Haldan Keffer Hartline, physiologist, who shared the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with George Wald and Ragnar Granit, December 22, 1903 – March 17, 1983


• Pierre-Albert Espinasse, aka Pierre Brasseur, actor, December 22, 1905 – August 16, 1972


• Dame Edith Margaret PEGGY Emily Ashcroft, actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1984 for A Passage to India, December 22, 1907 – June 14, 1991


• Patricia Lawlor Hayes, OBE, comedy actress, December 22, 1909 – September 19, 1998


• Claudia Alta Taylor "Lady Bird" Johnson, the widow of Lyndon B. Johnson and was First Lady of the United States from 1963 to 1969, 1912


• Barbara Lillian Combes Billingsley, actress, known for her role as June Cleaver on the sitcom Leave It to Beaver, 1915


• Eugene Rubessa, aka Gene Rayburn, radio and television personality, and game show host, December 22, 1917 – November 29, 1999


• Harold Franklin HAWKSHAW Hawkins, country music singer and member of the Grand Ole Opry, December 22, 1921 – March 5, 1963


• Norma RUTH Roman, actress, obtained bit parts in several films before being cast in the title role in the 1945 thirteen-episode serial Jungle Queen; as a stage actress, she won the Sarah Siddons Award in 1959 for her work in Chicago theatre, December 22, 1922 – September 9, 1999


• Wojciech Frykowski, actor and writer, who was murdered in the home of Sharon Tate and Roman Polanski by members of the Charles Manson Family, December 22, 1936 - August 9, 1969


• Mateo Rojas MATTY Alou, former MLB centre fielder, who won the 1966 NL Batting Champion, 1938


• James Gurley, musician, the guitar player for Big Brother and the Holding Company, 1939


• Dick Parry, saxophonist, who has appeared as a session musician on various albums by modern bands and artists, famous for his solo parts on the Pink Floyd songs Money, Us and Them and Shine On You Crazy Diamond, 1942


• Steven Norman STEVE Carlton, former MLB left-handed pitcher, who played from 1965 to 1988; he is a 10-time All Star, won the Cy Young Award four times, and won a Gold Glove in 1981; his career record is 329-244; in 1994, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1944


• Lila DIANE Sawyer, television journalist, 1945


• Richard RICK Nielsen, lead guitarist and primary songwriter for Cheap Trick, 1948


• Steven Patrick STEVE Garvey, former MLB first baseman; in a 19-year career, he was a .294 hitter, with 272 home runs and 1308 RBI in 2332 games played; he was a 10-time All-Star, four-time Gold Glove Award winner, and the NL Most Valuable Player in 1974, 1948


• Maurice Ernest Gibb, CBE, musician and singer-songwriter, younger than his twin, Robin Gibb, by 35 minutes; he was one of the Bee Gees, December 22, 1949 – January 12, 2003


• Robin Hugh Gibb, CBE, singer and songwriter, the twin brother of Maurice Gibb; he is one of the Bee Gees, 1949


• Bern Nadette Stanis, actress, known for her role as Thelma Evans on the sitcom Good Times, 1953


• Lonnie Smith, former MLB outfielder, who played from September, 1978, to August, 1994; on September 4, 1982, he stole 5 bases in a game, 1955


• Frank Gambale, jazz fusion guitarist, 1958


• Mikael Nordfors, physician, with special interest in psychiatry and orthopedic medicine, co-author of Hypericum & Depression, and musical composer/performer, who has produced four CD's of symphonic synthesizer music, 1958


• Ralph Nathaniel Fiennes, actor, who played Voldemort in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 1962


• Myriam Bédard, former biathlete, the 1994 Lou Marsh Trophy winner, 1969


• Vanessa Chantal Paradis, singer and actress, 1972


• Heather Donahue, actress, known for her role in the movie The Blair Witch Project, 1974


• Crissy Moran, former erotic actress, 1975


• Devin Anderson, composer, 1980


• Lee Eun-ju, actress, who committed suicide, December 22, 1980 - February 22, 2005


• Aliana Lohan, actress, model, and singer, 1993

R.I.P.:

• André Tacquet, mathematician, whose work prepared ground for the eventual discovery of the calculus; he helped articulate some of the preliminary concepts necessary for Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz to recognize the inverse nature of the quadrature and the tangent; he was one of the precursors of the infinitesimal calculus, June 23, 1612 – December 22, 1660


• Jean-Victor Poncelet, mathematician and engineer, July 1, 1788 – December 22, 1867


• William Hyde Wollaston FRS, chemist and physicist, developed the first physico-chemical method for processing platinum ore in practical quantities, and in the process of testing the device, he discovered the elements palladium and rhodium; showed that niobium and titanium were elements; the mineral Wollastonite is named after him, August 6, 1766 – December 22, 1828


• Mary Anne Evans, aka George Eliot, novelist, one of the leading writers of the Victorian era; her novels were usually set in provincial England; among other works, she wrote Silas Marner and Middlemarch, November 22, 1819 – December 22, 1880


• Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing, psychiatrist, wrote Psychopathia Sexualis in 1886, a famous study of sexual perversity; well-known for coining the terms sadism and masochism, August 14, 1840 – December 22, 1902


• Gertrude Pridgett MA Rainey, one of the earliest known professional blues singers, and one of the first generation of such singers to record; she was billed as The Mother of the Blues, September, 1882 – December 22, 1939


• Helen BEATRIX Potter, children's book author and illustrator, whose most famous character is Peter Rabbit, July 28, 1866 – December 22, 1943


• Harry L. Langdon, silent film comedian, June 15, 1884 – December 22, 1944


• Marianna Winchalaska, aka Gilda Gray, actress and dancer, who became famous for popularizing a dance called the shimmy, October 24, 1901 - December 22, 1959


• Darryl Francis Zanuck, producer, writer, actor, and director, played a major part in the Hollywood studio system; worked for Mack Sennett and then Warner Brothers, where he wrote stories and scripts from 1924 to 1929, moving into management in 1929 and becoming head of production in 1931; in 1933 he left Warners to found Twentieth Century Pictures with Joseph Schenck and William Goetz, buying out Fox studios in 1935 to become Twentieth Century-Fox; won three Thalberg Awards of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, September 5, 1902 – December 22, 1979


• Dennes Dale [D.] Boon, guitarist and lead singer of The Minutemen, April 1, 1958 - December 22, 1985


• Samuel Barclay Beckett, dramatist, novelist, and poet, author of Waiting for Godot, who was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Literature, April 13, 1906 – December 22, 1989


• Donald John DON DeFore, actor, best known for his television work; in the 1950's, he had a recurring role as Thorny Thornberry on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet; in the 1960's, he appeared on Hazel as Mr. B, August 25, 1913 - December 22, 1993


• Thelma BUTTERFLY McQueen, film and television actress, who trained as a dancer, and took her stage name from the Butterfly Dance after performing it in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream; she made her first film in 1939, in what would become her most famous role, that of Prissy, the young maid in Gone with the Wind, January 7, 1911 – December 22, 1995


• James Edward Meade, economist, who shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Economics with Bertil Ohlin, June 23, 1907 – December 22, 1995


• Michelle Thomas, actress, known for her role as Myra Monkhouse on Family Matters, September 23, 1969 – December 23, 1998


• John Graham Mellor, aka Joe Strummer, co-founder, lyricist, rhythm guitarist, and lead singer of The Clash, August 21, 1952 – December 22, 2002


• David Darwin Pedriska, aka Dave Dudley, country music singer, May 3, 1928 - December 22, 2003


• Douglas Reagan DOUG Ault, MLB first baseman/designated hitter, who was the first Toronto Blue Jays player to hit a home run; with his 64 RBI in 1977, he set a club rookie record that endured for a quarter-century, until Eric Hinske drove in 84 runs in 2002; in a four-year career, he was a .236 hitter with 17 home runs and 86 RBI in 256 games; after retiring, he served as a manager in the Blue Jays organization for their Class-A teams, and managed the Triple-A Syracuse Chiefs, March 9, 1950 – December 22, 2004