Doctor Why

Today CCLVII - Wrestling Day ;o)

2007-01-02T01:56:00.000-05:00

Today CCLVI - Happy New Year 2007

2007-01-01T05:08:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Paul Revere, silversmith, who helped organize an intelligence and alarm system to keep watch on the British military, January 1, 1735 – May 10, 1818

Betsy Ross, seamstress, who is said to have sewn the first American flag, January 1, 1752 - January 30, 1836

Edward Neumann, aka Snitz Edwards, character actor of the early silent film era, January 1, 1868 - May 1, 1937

Harriet Brooks, the first Canadian woman nuclear physicist, January 1, 1876 - January 1, 1933

Agner Krarup Erlang mathematician, statistician, and engineer, who invented the fields of traffic engineering and queueing theory, January 1, 1878 – February 3, 1929

Artur Rodzinski, conductor, Musical Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1929 to 1933, the Cleveland Orchestra from 1933 to 1943, the New York Philharmonic from 1943–1947, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1947 to 1948, January 1, 1892 - November 27, 1958

Satyendra Nath Bose, physicist, specializing in mathematical physics, known for his work on quantum mechanics in the early 1920's, providing the foundation for Bose-Einstein statistics and the theory of the Bose-Einstein condensate, January 1, 1894 – February 4, 1974

Francisco de Asis Javier Cugat Mingall de Bru y Deulofeo, aka Xavier Cugat, bandleader, influential in the infusion of Latin music into United States popular music, who had trained as a classical violinist and played with the Orchestra of the Teatro Nacional in Havana, January 1, 1900 - October 27, 1990

Ethan Nathan Allen, MLB centre fielder from 1926 to 1938; he invented the board game All Star Baseball, which entered production in the early 1940's and remains available, with few changes, today, January 1, 1904 - September 15, 1993

Giovanni D'Anzi, songwriter, January 1, 1906 - April 15, 1974

Dana Andrews, actor, January 1, 1909 - December 17, 1992

Barry Morris Goldwater, politician, January 1, 1909 – May 29, 1998

Henry Benjamin HANK Greenberg, MLB first baseman and outfielder, AL Most Valuable Player, 1935 and 1940; AL All-Star team, 1937 to 1940, and 1945; elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1956; in 1948, became the Cleveland Indians' farm system director and, two years later, their general manager and part-owner along with Bill Veeck; followed Veeck to the Chicago White Sox as part-owner, selling his share of the White Sox in 1961, January 1, 1911 – September 4, 1986

Albert Mol, author, actor, and TV personality, who appeared in movies and TV shows in a career spanning nearly 60 years, January 1, 1917 – March 9, 2004

Antonio Virgilio Savona, singer, one of the members of the vocal group, the Quartetto Cetra, 1920

Thomas Rocco Barbella, aka Rocky Graziano, World Middleweight Boxing Champion and, after retirement, television comedian, January 1, 1922 – May 22, 1990

Milton MILT "Bags" Jackson, jazz vibraphonist, an important figure in the hard bop style, member of the Modern Jazz Quartet, January 1, 1923 – October 9, 1999

Matthew Beard, Jr., child actor, famous for portraying Stymie in the Our Gang short films from 1930 to 1935, January 1, 1925 – January 8, 1981

Raymond Pellegrin, actor, 1925

Richard Verreau, tenor, January 1, 1926 - July 7, 2005

Vernon Lomax Smith Ph.D., professor of economics and law, who shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Economics with Daniel Kahneman, 1927

Maurice Béjart, choreographer, who runs the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland, 1927

Robert Jankel, designer of limousines, armoured cars, and other specialty vehicles, January 1, 1938 – May 25, 2005

Jocelyne Yvonne Renée Mercier, aka Michèle Mercier, actress, 1939

Frank Langella, stage, film, and television actor, 1940

Joseph COUNTRY JOE McDonald, musician, the leader and lead singer of Country Joe and the Fish, 1942

Gennadi Vasiliyevich Sarafanov, cosmonaut, January 1, 1942 - September 29, 2005

Don Novello, writer, film director, producer, actor, known for his portrayal of the fictional Father Guido Sarducci, 1943

Greg Carmichael, guitarist, member of smooth jazz group Acoustic Alchemy, 1953

Dorothy DEDEE Pfeiffer, actress, known for her role on Cybill as Cybill's daughter Rachel, 1964

Verne J. Troyer, actor and stunt man, who played Mini-Me in the Austin Powers series of movie, 1969

R.I.P.:

Johann Christian Bach, composer of the Classical era, the eleventh and youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, served as copyist to his father, opon whose death in 1750, he became the pupil of his half-brother CPE Bach; studied counterpoint under Giovanni Battista Martini, and from 1760 to 1762 held the post of organist at Milan Cathedral, for which he wrote two Masses, a Requiem, a Te Deum, and other works; in 1762, moved to London in 1762, where he spent the rest of his life, for which he is often referred to as the "London Bach;" met a very young Mozart in London and many scholars claim that he was one of the most important influences on Mozart, who learned from him how to produce a brilliant and attractive surface texture in his music; 99 symphonies are ascribed to Bach, but only 48 are considered authentic, September 5, 1735 – January 1, 1782

Alexandre-Théophile Vandermonde, musician [violinist] and chemist, who worked with Bezout and Lavoisier; he is now principally associated with determinant theory in mathematics, February 28, 1735 – January 1, 1796

Martin Heinrich Klaproth, chemist, who did much to improve and systematize the processes of analytical chemistry and mineralogy; he was the first to discover uranium, zirconium, and titanium, December 1, 1743 – January 1, 1817

Mikhail Vasilievich Ostrogradsky, mathematician, mechanician, and physicist, September 24, 1801 - January 1, 1862

Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, physicist and mechanician for whom the hertz unit of frequency is named; in 1888, he was the first to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic radiation by building an apparatus to produce UHF radio waves, February 22, 1857 - January 1, 1894

Pyotr Nikolaevich Lebedev, physicist, noted for his contribution to experimental studies of waves; he was the first to measure the pressure of light on a solid body; the lunar crater Lebedev is named after him, February 24, 1866 - January 1, 1912

Martinus Willem Beijerinck, microbiologist and botanist, famous as the founder of virology, March 16, 1851 - January 1, 1931

Harriet Brooks, the first Canadian woman nuclear physicist, January 1, 1876 - January 1, 1933

Hiram HANK Williams, singer, guitarist, and songwriter, an icon of country music, a leading exponent of the Honky Tonk style, he had numerous hit records; his songbook is one of the backbones of country music, and several are pop standards, September 17, 1923 – January 1, 1953

Margaret Brooke Sullavan, actress, May 16, 1909 – January 1, 1960

Maurice Chevalier, actor, singer, and popular entertainer, whose signature songs included Louise, Mimi, and Valentine; he made his name as a star of musical comedy, appearing in public as a singer and dancer at an early age, September 12, 1888 – January 1, 1972

Victor Charles Buono, actor and comedian, February 3, 1938 - January 1, 1982

Alexis Andrew Nicholas Koerner, aka Alexis Korner, blues musician, guitarist, and vocalist; often referred to as "the Father of British Blues," he was instrumental in bringing together various English blues musicians, April 19, 1928 - January 1, 1984

Samuel BUCK Ram, songwriter and businessman, who signed The Platters to a management contract in 1953, November 21, 1907 - January 1, 1991

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, naval officer and computer scientist; she was the first programmer of the Mark I Calculator, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language, December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992

Cesar Julio Romero, Jr., actor, who played "Latin lovers" in films from the 1930's until the 1950's, usually in supporting roles; he starred as the Cisco Kid in six westerns made between 1939 and 1941; in 1966, he played The Joker on the Batman television series, and in the Batman movie spinoff, February 15, 1907 – January 1, 1994

Eugene Paul [E. P.] Wigner, physicist and mathematician, who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physics with Maria Goeppert-Mayer and Johannes Hans Daniel Jensen,
November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995

Townes Van Zandt, folk music singer-songwriter, performer, and poet, March 7, 1944 – January 1, 1997

Hugh HAGOOD Hardy, CM , BA, composer, pianist, and vibraphonist, February 26, 1937 – January 1, 1997

Herman RAY Walston, stage, television and feature film character actor, whose first major role was Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees!; he played the title character on My Favorite Martian, and Judge Henry Bone on Picket Fences, December 2, 1914 – January 1, 2001

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, politician, educator, and author; she was a U.S. Congresswoman, representing New York's 11th District for seven terms from 1968,when she became the first black American woman elected to Congress, to 1983; on January 23, 1972, she became the first black American woman to make a bid to be President of the United States, November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005

Today CCLV

2006-12-31T18:10:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Florence Nightingale Graham, aka Elizabeth Arden, businesswoman, founder of the Elzabeth Arden cosmetics empire, December 31, 1878 - October 18, 1966

General George Catlett Marshall, GCB, US Army, military leader, Secretary of State, and Secretary of Defense, remembered for his leadership in the Allied victory in World War II and for his work establishing the post-war reconstruction effort for Europe - the Marshall Plan; he was awarded the 1953 Nobel Peace Prize, December 31, 1880 – October 16, 1959

Frederick Leonard Beebe, MLB pitcher, who played from 1906 to 1916; in his rookie year, he led the major league's with 171 strikeouts; his career record was 62-83, December 31, 1880 - October 30, 1957

Robert Matthew Byrne, MLB third baseman, from 1907 through 1917; in an 11-season career, he was a .254 hitter with 10 home runs, 329 RBI, 176 stolen bases, and a walk-to-strikeout ratio of 2.07, in 1283 games, December 31, 1884 - December 31, 1964

Barbara Apolonia Chalupiec , aka Pola Negri, silent actress between the 1910's and 1930's, December 31, 1894 - August 1, 1987

Silvestre Revueltas, composer of classical music, violinist, and conductor, December 31, 1899 - October 5, 1940

Lionel Daunais, baritone singer, and composer, December 31, 1902 – July 18, 1982

Nathan Mironovich Milstein, violinist, December 31, 1903 — December 21, 1992

Jule Styne, songwriter; Mike Todd commissioned him to write a song for a musical act which he was creating, the first of over 1,500 published songs Styne would compose in his career; he began a collaboration with lyricist Sammy Cahn, with whom he wrote many songs for the movies, including It's Been a Long, Long Time, Five Minutes More, and the Oscar-winning Three Coins in the Fountain; in 1947, he wrote his first score for a Broadway musical, High Button Shoes, with Cahn, and over the next several decades wrote the scores for many Broadway shows; his collaborators included Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Stephen Sondheim, and Bob Merrill; he was elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1981; in 1990, he was a recipient of the Kennedy Centre Honours, December 31, 1905 – September 20, 1994

Szymon SIMON Wiesenthal, KBE, architectural engineer who became a Nazi hunter after surviving the Holocaust; following four and a half years in the concentration camps of Janowska, Plaszow, and Mauthausen during World War II, he dedicated most of his life to tracking down, hunting, and gathering information on fugitive Nazis, so that they could be brought to justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity; the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Los Angeles is named in his honour, December 31, 1908 – Vienna, September 20, 2005

Robert Elliott JONAH Jones, jazz trumpeter, December 31, 1909 - April 29, 2000

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 - September 2, 1973

Thomas Joseph TOMMY Byrne, former MLB starting pitcher, who made his debut in April, 1943, and played his final game on September 21, 1957, 1919

Rex Elvie Allen, actor, singer, and songwriter, December 31, 1920 – December 17, 1999

Maurice Sinet, aka Siné, cartonnist, 1928

Odetta, singer and guitarist, whose repertoire consists largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals; she was an important figure in the American folk music revival of the 1950's and 1960's, 1930

Edward Bunker, author of crime fiction, screenwriter, and actor, who wrote numerous books, some of which have been adapted into films, December 31, 1933 – July 19, 2005

Herskó Ferenc, aka Avram Hershko M.D. Ph.D., biologist, who shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Aaron Ciechanove and Irwin A. Rose, 1937

Sir Philip ANTHONY Hopkins, CBE, film, stage, and television actor, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1991 for The Silence of the Lambs; he won Emmy Awards for his roles in The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case and The Bunker, 1937

Rosalind Cash, actress, whose career endured on stage, screen, and television, despite her staunch refusal to portray stereotyped "black" roles, December 31, 1938 – October 31, 1995

Sarah Miles, theatre and film actress, 1941

Andrew James ANDY Summers, musician, composer, writer, and photographer, known for his work on guitar with The Police, 1942

Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr., aka John Denver, folk singer-songwriter and folk rock musician, December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997

Krishna Bhanji, aka Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE, actor, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1982 for Gandhi, 1943

Peter Alexander Greenlaw PETE Quaife, musician, a founding member of and the original bass guitarist for The Kinks from 1963 until 1969, 1943

Taylor Hackford, film director, 1944

Burton Cummings, OM, D.Mus, musician and songwriter, the pianist and lead singer for The Guess Who, from 1965 to 1975, and a solo artist, 1947

Timothy Lewis Matthieson, aka Tim Matheson, actor and voice actor, 1947

LaDonna Adrian Gaines, aka Donna Summer, singer, songwriter, and occasional actress, known for a string of disco/dance hits in the 1970's; she has won six Grammy Awards, 1948

George Thorogood, blues-rock and rock singer and guitarist, 1951

Thomas William TOM Hamilton, musician, the bassist for Aerosmith, 1951

Jane Badler, actress, who played Diana on V, V: The Final Battle, and V: The Series, and agent Shannon Reed in the 1980s revival of the Mission: Impossible series, 1953

Bebe Neuwirth, theatre, television, and film actress, and dancer; she made her Broadway debut in the role of Sheila in A Chorus Line in 1980; she appeared as Dr. Lilith Sternin on Cheers, Wings, and Frasier; she won the Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical in 1997 for Chicago, 1958

Val Edward Kilmer, actor, 1959

Paul Westerberg, musician, known as the former lead singer and songwriter for The Replacements, 1959

Richard Warren RICK Aguilera, former MLB relief pitcher, from 1985 to 2000; he was an All-Star in 1991, 1992, and 1993; he finished his career with 318 saves, 1030 strikeouts, and a 3.57 ERA, 1961

Gong Li, film actress, 1965

Esteban Antonio Loaiza Veyna, MLB starting pitcher, who plays for the Oakland Athletics, 1971

R.I.P.:

Ludolph van Ceulen, mathematician; during the Catholic Inquisitions, he emigrated to the Netherlands to teach fencing and mathematics; he spent a major part of his life calculating the numerical value of Π, using essentially the same methods as those employed by Archimedes some two thousand years earlier, January 28, 1540 – December 31, 1610

Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, mathematician, who was a pioneer in the field of moment problems, and contributed to the study of continued fractions, December 29, 1856 - December 31, 1894

Robert Matthew Byrne, MLB third baseman, from 1907 through 1917; in an 11-season career, he was a .254 hitter with 10 home runs, 329 RBI, 176 stolen bases, and a walk-to-strikeout ratio of 2.07, in 1283 games, December 31, 1884 - December 31, 1964

George Louis Francois Zenon, aka George Lewis, jazz clarinetist, July 13, 1900 – December 31, 1969

Peter Ellstrom Deuel, aka Pete Duel, actor, known for his role on Alias Smith and Jones, where he played Hannibal Heyes/Joshua Smith, February 24, 1940 – December 31, 1971

Marin Sais, motion picture actress, August 2, 1890 - December 31, 1971

Roberto Clemente Walker, MLB right fielder, played 18 seasons in the majors from 1955 to 1972, all with the Pittsburgh Pirates; won the National League MVP Award in 1966; four-time NL Batting champion, 1961, 1944 1965, and 1967; won 12 Gold Glove Awards; was the World Series MVP in 1971; he won the Babe Ruth Award in 1971; he finished his career with exactly 3,000 hits, and a .300+ lifetime batting average; he was lected to the Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously in 1973; a hero in his native Puerto Rico, he spent much of his time during the off-season involved in charity work; he died in a plane crash off the coast of Isla Verde, Puerto Rico on December 31, 1972 while en route to deliver aid to earthquake victims in Nicaragua, August 18, 1934 – December 31, 1972

Herbert MARSHALL McLuhan CC, educator, philosopher, and scholar, professor of English literature, literary critic, and communications theorist, one of the founders of the study of media ecology, July 21, 1911 – December 31, 1980

Raoul Walsh, film director, actor, and founding member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, March 11, 1887 – December 31, 1980

Eric Hilliard RICKY [or RICK] Nelson, singer, musician, and actor, one of the first American teen idols, May 8, 1940 – December 31, 1985

Vasili Grigoryevich Lazarev Ph.D., cosmonaut, February 23, 1928 – December 31, 1990

Floyd Cramer, pianist, who was one of the architects of the Nashville Sound; in 2003, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, October 27, 1933 – December 31, 1997

Costanzo Greco, aka José Greco, flamenco dancer and choreographer, December 23, 1918 – December 31, 2000

Anna Eileen Heckart, stage, screen, and television actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1972 for Butterflies Are Free, March 29, 1919 – December 31, 2001

Arthur Robert von Hippel, materials researcher, physicist, and pioneer in the study of dielectrics, ferromagnetic and ferroelectric materials, and semiconductors; he was one of the codevelopers of radar during the World War II, November 19, 1898 – December 31, 2003

Gerard Debreu, economist and mathematician, winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Economics, July 4, 1921 – December 31, 2004

Today CCLIV

2006-12-30T20:14:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

William Croft, composer and organist, baptized December 30, 1678 - August 14, 1727

André Charles Prosper Messager, organist and composer, who composed 45 works for the stage, of which eight were ballets, a symphony, and numerous songs and instrumental works, December 30, 1853 - February 24, 1929

Joseph RUDYARD Kipling, author and poet, known for his children's books, including The Jungle Book, his novel, Kim (1901), his poems, and his short stories, including The Man Who Would Be King; he was awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize for Literature; among other honours, he was offered the British Poet Laureateship and a knighthood, both of which he refused, December 30, 1865 – January 18, 1936

Stephen Butler Leacock, Ph.D , FRSC, writer and economist, who wrote Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town in 1912; in 1947, the Stephen Leacock Award was created to recognize the best in Canadian literary humour, December 30, 1869 – March 28, 1944

Dmitri Borisovich Kabalevsky, composer, December 30, 1904 - February 14, 1987

Sir Carol Reed, director, who won the Academy Award for Best Director in 1968 for his film version of the musical Oliver!, December 30, 1906 – April 25, 1976

Paul Frederic Bowles, composer and author, December 30, 1910 - November 18, 1999

Jeanette Nolan, actress, December 30, 1911 - June 5, 1998

Lucio Agostini, cellist, composer, and conductor, December 30, 1913 - February 15, 1996

Bert Jacobson, aka Bert Parks, actor, singer, and radio and television announcer and host, the host of the Miss America Pageant telecast from 1955 to 1980, December 30, 1914 – February 2, 1992

Jo Van Fleet, theatre and film actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1955 for East of Eden, December 30, 1914 – June 10, 1996

John Joseph Patrick Ryan, aka Jack Lord, television, film, and Broadway actor, known for his starring role as Steve McGarrett on Hawaii Five-O, and as Felix Leiter in Doctor No, December 30, 1920 – January 21, 1998

Ellas B. McDaniel, aka Bo Diddley, rock and roll singer, songwriter, and guitarist, 1928

Barbara Nickeraeur, aka Barbara Nichols, actress, December 30, 1929 - October 5, 1976

Mary Frances SKEETER Davis, country music singer, a member of the Grand Ole Opry radio show for more than 40 years, best known for her song The End of the World, December 30, 1931 – September 19, 2004

Joseph Bologna, actor, whose breakthrough film was Lovers and Other Strangers, written with his wife Renee Taylor, 1934

John Norris Bahcall, Ph.D., astrophysicist, known for his contributions to the solar neutrino problem and the development of the Hubble Space Telescope, December 30, 1934 – August 17, 2005

Charles Weedon Westover, aka Del Shannon, rock and roll singer and songwriter, known for such hit songs as Runaway, Hats Off to Larry, and Little Town Flirt, December 30, 1934 – February 8, 1990

Russell RUSS Tamblyn, actor and former dancer, who played Gideon in the film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Riff, the leader of the Jets, in West Side Story, 1934

Sanford Braun, aka Sanford Koufax, former MLB left-handed pitcher, who played his entire career for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers from 1955 to 1966; he is second in career no-hitters with 4; he is one of 17 pitchers to throw a perfect game; he has an 0.95 ERA in 4 World Series; he made 6 All-Star appearances; he was the NL MVP in 1963; he won 3 Cy Young Awards, unanimously selected each time; he was the World Series MVP in 1963 and 1965; in 1972, he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1935

Jack Riley, comedic actor and voice actor, who played Elliot Carlin on The Bob Newhart Show, 1935

John Cowan Hartford, country and bluegrass composer and musician, who played fiddle and banjo, December 30, 1937 – June 4, 2001

Noel PAUL Stookey, singer-songwriter, Paul in the trio Peter, Paul and Mary, 1937

James Edward Burrows, television director, who has been working in television since the 1970's; he has directed many shows, including The Mary Tyler Moore Show and The Bob Newhart Show, 1940

Robert Michael Nesmith, musician, songwriter, actor, producer, novelist, businessman, and philanthropist; his mother was Bette Nesmith Graham, the inventor of Liquid Paper; from 1965 to early 1970, he was a member of The Monkees, 1942

Frederick FRED Ward, actor, whose first major role was in Escape from Alcatraz; he has appeared in such films as Southern Comfort, The Right Stuff, and Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, in which he had the title role, 1942

David Thomas DAVY Jones, actor and singer, a member of The Monkees, 1945

Patricia Lee PATTI Smith, musician, singer, and poet, 1946

Jeff Lynne, rock songwriter, singer, guitarist, and record producer, known for his work Electric Light Orchestra and the Traveling Wilburys, 1947

June Anderson, coloratura soprano, 1952

Meredith Vieira, television personality and journalist, 1953

Suzy Bogguss, country music singer, 1956

Tracey Ullman, comedian, actress, singer, dancer, screenwriter, and author, 1959

Jason Nathaniel Behr, film and television actor, who played Max Evans on Roswell, 1973

Eldrick TIGER Woods, professional golfer, 1975

Meredith Leigh Monroe, actress, 1976

Anthony John [A. J.] Pierzynski, MLB catcher, who has played for the Chicago White Sox since 2005, 1976

Eliza Patricia Dushku, actress, known for her recurring appearances on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel as Faith, and as the main character on Tru Calling; in 1994, she played the teenage daughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis in True Lies, 1980

Haley Paige, actress, 1981

Kristin Laura Kreuk, actress, known for her roles as Lana Lang on Smallville, and as Tenar on the miniseries Legend of Earthsea, 1982

R.I.P.:

Jan Baptist [Johannes Baptista] van Helmont, chemist, physiologist, and physician, January 12, 1577 – December 30, 1644

Robert Boyle, natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, known for his work in physics and chemistry, and regarded today as the first modern chemist, he first stated the principle known as Boyle's Law, January 25, 1627 – December 30, 1691

Romain Rolland, writer, whose first book was published in 1902; he was awarded the 1915 Nobel Prize for Literature, January 29, 1866 – December 30, 1944

Charles Vincent Massey, CH, CC, PC, the eighteenth Governor General of Canada, and the first who was born in Canada, February 20, 1887 – December 30, 1967

Trygve Halvdan Lie, politician, the first Secretary-General of the United Nations [1946 to 1952], July 16, 1896 – December 30, 1968

Charles SONNY Liston, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, May 8, 1932 – December 30, 1970

Richard Charles Rodgers, composer of musical theater, known for his song writing partnerships with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II; he wrote more than 900 published songs, and forty Broadway musicals, June 28, 1902 – December 30, 1979

Giuseppe BEPPO Occhialini, physicist, who contributed to the discovery of the pion or pi-meson decay in 1947, December 5, 1907 - December 30, 1993

Mack David, lyricist and songwriter, known for his work in film and television in the 1960's, particularly his work on the Disney films Cinderella and Alice in Wonderland; he was the elder brother of Hal David, July 5, 1912 - December 30, 1993

Maureen Cox Starkey, the wife of Richard Starkey [Ringo Starr] from 1965 to 1975, August 4, 1946 – December 30, 1994

Doris DOSSY Grau, actress, script supervisor, and voice actress, October 12, 1924 - December 30, 1995

Lewis Frederick Ayre III, aka Lew Ayres, actor, December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996

Johnny Moore, rhythm and blues vocalist, who sang with The Drifters, December 14, 1934 - December 30, 1998

Arthur Arshawsky, aka Artie Shaw, jazz clarinetist, composer, bandleader, and writer, May 23, 1910 – December 30, 2004

Today CCLIII

2006-12-29T16:58:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Charles Goodyear, inventor of vulcanized rubber, December 29, 1800 - July 1, 1860

Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig, physician and physiologist, December 29, 1816 - April 23, 1895

Thomas Joannes Stieltjes, mathematician, who was a pioneer in the field of moment problems, and contributed to the study of continued fractions, December 29, 1856 - December 31, 1894

Pau Carles Salvador Casals i Defilló, aka Pablo Casals, virtuoso cellist, conductor, and composer, who made many recordings of solo, chamber, and orchestral music, and as a conductor, but is best remembered for his recording of Bach's Cello Suites, December 29, 1876 – October 22, 1973

Jess Willard, boxer, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion from 1915 to 1919, December 29, 1881 - December 15, 1968

Ronald Harry Coase, economist, awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Economics, 1910

Dorothy Lucille Tipton, aka Billy Lee Tipton, jazz pianist and saxophonist, who presented herself as a male; she played with the bands of Jack Teagarden and Ross Carlyle, among others; after her playing career, she became an entertainment agent; she was married five times, and never revealed to her wives that she was a woman, December 29, 1914 - January 21, 1989

Elsa VIVECA Torstensdotter Lindfors, stage and film actress, December 29, 1920 - October 25, 1995

Bernard Cribbins, character actor and musical comedian, who appeared in the Peter Cushing film Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., and three Carry On films, 1928

Inga Swenson, actress, known for her role as Gretchen Kraus on the sitcom Benson, and of Corinne Tate's birth mother on Soap, 1932

Ed Flanders, actor, known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Doctor Donald Westphall on St. Elsewhere, December 29, 1934 – February 22, 1995

Mary Tyler Moore, actress and comedian, known for her role as Laura Petrie, on The Dick Van Dyke Show and as Mary Richards on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; she has appeared in various films over the years, including her performance came in Ordinary People, 1936

Barbara Steele, actress, the scream queen of gothic horror movies of the 1960's, including Black Sunday, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, The Ghost, and The Pit and the Pendulum, 1937

Jonathan Vincent JON Voight, actor, a four-time Oscar nominee, who came to prominence at the end of the sixties in 1969's Midnight Cowboy, for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination; he starred in Deliverance, and received the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1978 for Coming Home, 1938

Ray Thomas, musician, the flutist for and a composer in The Moody Blues, 1941

Richard Clare RICK Danko, musician and singer, bass player and vocalist for The Band, December 29, 1942 – December 10, 1999

Marian Evelyn MARIANNE Faithfull, singer and actress, whose career spans over four decades, 1946

Edward Bridge TED Danson III, actor, 1947

Colin Flooks, aka Cozy Powell, rock drummer, December 29, 1947 - April 5, 1998

Yvonne Marianne Elliman, singer and actress., 1951

Gelsey Kirkland, ballet dancer, 1952

Avigail GAIL Atari, actress and singer, 1953

Nancy Jane Sherlock Currie, Ph.D., Colonel, USA, astronaut, the Manager of the Safety and Mission Assurance Office for the Space Shuttle Program at Johnson Space Center, 1958

Paula Poundstone, comedian and voice actor, 1959

Devon Markes White, former MLB centre fielder, who won two World Series and five Gold Gloves with the Toronto Blue Jays, 1962

Francisco Bustamante, billiards player, winner of many tournaments, including the 2005 Masters 9-Ball and the 2006 World Cup of Pool, 1963

David Tench McKean, illustrator, photographer, comic book artist, graphic designer, filmmaker, and musician, whose work incorporates drawing, painting, photography, collage, found objects, digital art, and sculpture; he has collaborated with Neil Gaiman on several projects; MirrorMask, his first feature film as director, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2005 - the screenplay was written by Neil Gaiman, from a story by Gaiman and McKean; he is also an accomplished jazz pianist, and founded the record label Feral Records, 1963

Andrew ANDY Wachowski, film director and writer, 1967

Jennifer Ehle, stage and screen actress, 1969

David JUDE Heyworth Law, actor, 1972

Theo N. Epstein, Executive Vice President/General Manager of the Boston Red Sox, 1973

Richmond Lockwood RICHIE Sexson, MLB first baseman, currently playing for the Seattle Mariners, 1974

James Richard JIMMY Journell, pitcher, who plays for the Bridgeport Bluefish of the Atlantic League; he has MLB experience with the St. Louis Cardinals, 1977

Alexis Amore, actress, exotic dancer, and model, 1978

Angela Jolene Trullinger Villarreal, aka Angela Vía, singer/songwriter, 1981

Jessica Danielle Andrews, country music singer, 1983

R.I.P.:

Thomas Becket, aka Thomas à Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 to 1170, assassinated by followers of Henry II in Canterbury Cathedral, c. 1118 – December 29, 1170

Joseph Saurin, mathematician, who was the first to show how the tangents at the multiple points of curves could be determined by mathematical analysis, 1659 – December 29, 1737

Leopold Kronecker, mathematician and logician, December 7, 1823 – December 29, 1891

Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin, mystic, who held an influence in the later days of Russia's Romanov dynasty, January 22, 1869 – December 29, 1916

Carl Friedrich Georg Spitteler, poet and author, awarded the 1919 Nobel Prize for Literature, April 24, 1845 – December 29, 1924

Wilhelm Maybach, engine designer and industrialist; together with Gottlieb Daimler, he developed light high-speed internal combustion engines, February 9, 1846 – December 29, 1929

Paul Whiteman, orchestral leader, who started out as a classical violinist and violist, then became the leader of a jazz-influenced dance band , March 28, 1890 – December 29, 1967

Tim Hardin, folk musician and composer, December 23, 1941 – December 29, 1980

Jean-Claude Forest, writer and illustrator of comics, the creator of Barbarella, September 11, 1930 - December 29, 1998

Earl John Hindman, actor, best known as Wilson W. Wilson, Jr. on the sitcom Home Improvement, October 20, 1942 – December 29, 2003

Dinsdale Landen, actor, known mainly for his television appearances; in 1989, he appeared on Doctor Who as Dr. Judson in the serial The Curse of Fenric, September 4, 1932 - December 29, 2003

Julius Axelrod, biochemist, who shared the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Bernard Katz and Ulf von Euler, May 30, 1912 – December 29, 2004

Kenneth William Burkhardt, aka KEN Burkhart, MLB right-handed pitcher and umpire, who played from 1945 through 1949, and served as a National League umpire from 1957 to 1973, November 18, 1915 - December 29, 2004

Today CCLII

2006-12-28T00:16:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

John Molson, brewer and entrepreneur, who founded the Molson Brewing Company, December 28, 1763 – January 11, 1836

Calixte Paquet, aka Calixa Lavallée, musician, who composed the music for O Canada, December 28, 1842 – January 21, 1891

Thomas WOODROW Wilson, the 28th president of the United States, awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize, December 28, 1856 – February 3, 1924

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, OM, astrophysicist; the Eddington Limit is named after him; in 1919, he wrote an article, Report on the Relativity Theory of Gravitation, which announced Einstein's theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world, December 28, 1882 – November 22, 1944

Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe, aka Friedrich Wilhelm [F. W.] Murnau, film director of the silent film era; he was one of a number of German film directors to take part in the expressionist movement; his most famous film is Nosferatu, December 28, 1888 – March 11, 1931

Earl Kenneth FATHA Hines, jazz pianist, December 28, 1903 – April 22, 1983

John [János] von Neumann, mathematician and polymath, who made contributions to quantum physics, functional analysis, set theory, topology, economics, computer science, numerical analysis, statistics, and many other mathematical fields; he was a pioneer of the modern digital computer and the application of operator theory to quantum mechanics, and the creator of game theory and the concept of cellular automata, December 28, 1903 - February 8, 1957

Clifford Arquette, actor and comedian, famous for his role as Charley Weaver, December 28, 1905 – September 23, 1974

Lewis Frederick Ayre III, aka Lew Ayres, actor, December 28, 1908 – December 30, 1996

Lou Jacobi, character actor, 1913

Roebuck "Pops" Staples, gospel and R&B musician, songwriter, guitarist, and singer, the patriarch and member of the singing group The Staple Singers, which included his son and daughters, December 28, 1915 – December 19, 2000

Stanley Martin Lieber aka Stan Lee, writer, editor, and Chairman Emeritus of Marvel Comics, 1922

Hildegard Frieda Albertine Knef, actress, singer, and writer, December 28, 1925 - February 1, 2002

Morris MOE Koffman, jazz musician and composer, who played the flute, alto and tenor saxophone, and clarinet, December 28, 1928 - March 28, 2001

Terrance Gordon TERRY Sawchuk, NHL goaltender, December 28, 1929 – May 31, 1970

Dorsey Burnette, early rockabilly singer; with his younger brother, Johnny Burnette, and friend Paul Burlison, he was one of the founding members of The Rock and Roll Trio, December 28, 1932 - August 19, 1979

Grace NICHELLE Nichols, singer and actress, who sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting; her most famous role is that of communications officer Uhura on the Star Trek television series, and in the Star Trek films, 1933

Dame Margaret Natalie MAGGIE Smith, DBE, film, stage, and television actress; she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1969 for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1978 for California Suite, 1934

David Robert Peterson, PC , LL.B , BA, politician, the twentieth Premier of Ontario, 1943

Kary Banks Mullis, biochemist, who developed the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), a central technique in molecular biology which allows the amplification of specified DNA sequences; he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Michael Smith, 1944

Edgar Winter, musician; he is a keyboard player, vocalist, saxophonist, and percussionist, who plays jazz, blues, and rock, 1946

Pierre Falardeau, film and documentary director, 1946

Aurelio Rodríguez Ituarte, Jr., MLB third baseman; he was a .237 hitter with 124 home runs and 648 RBI in 2017 games, December 28, 1947 – September 23, 2000

William Alexander ALEX Chilton, songwriter, guitarist, singer, and producer, known for his work with the Box Tops and Big Star, 1950

Philippe Pagès, aka Richard Clayderman, pianist, 1953

Denzel Jermaine Washington, Jr., actor, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1989 for Glory, and the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2001 for Training Day, 1954

Nigel Kennedy, violinist and violist, 1956

Rachel Carmel Nicolazzo, aka Rachel Z, jazz pianist, 1962

Michel Petrucciani, jazz pianist, December 28, 1962 – January 6, 1999

Franklin Christenson CHRIS Ware, comic book artist and cartoonist, 1967

Linus Benedict Torvalds, software engineer, best known for initiating the development of the Linux kernel, 1969

Benny Agbayani, former MLB outfielder, currently with the Chiba Lotte Marines of the Japanese Pacific League, 1971

John Stephens, aka John Legend, R&B singer, songwriter, and pianist, 1978

Sienna Rose Miller, actress and model, 1981

Mackenzie Ryann Rosman, child actress, known for her role as Ruthie Camden on 7th Heaven, 1989

R.I.P.:

Hermann Finck, organist and composer, March 21, 1527 - December 28, 1558

Francesco Maria Grimaldi, mathematician and physicist, April 2, 1618 - December 28, 1663

Robert Roy MacGregor aka Rob Roy, folk hero and outlaw, March 7, 1671 - December 28, 1734

Antonio Caldara, Baroque composer, 1670 or 1671 - December 26, 1736

Eduard [Edi] Strauss, composer; he and his brothers, Johann Strauss II and Josef Strauss, formed the Strauss musical dynasty, March 15, 1835 – December 28, 1916

Johannes Robert JANNE Rydberg, physicist, mainly known for devising the Rydberg formula, in 1888, which is used to predict the wavelengths of photons of light and other electromagnetic radiation emitted by changes in the energy level of an electron in an atom; the physical constant known as the Rydberg constant is named after him, as is the Rydberg unit; excited atoms with very high values of the principal quantum number, represented by n in the Rydberg formula, are called Rydberg atoms; a crater on the moon is named Rydberg in his honour, November 8, 1854 - December 28, 1919

Joseph-Maurice Ravel, composer, pianist, and orchestrator, whose piano, chamber-music, and orchestral works have become staples of the classical repertoire, March 7, 1875 - December 28, 1937

Florence Annie Bridgwood, aka Florence Lawrence, inventor and silent film actress, January 2, 1886 - December 28, 1938

Louis Richard STEVE Evans, MLB right fielder; in an eight-season career, he posted a .287 batting average with 32 home runs, 466 RBI, 478 runs, 963 hits, 175 doubles, 67 triples, and 86 stolen bases in 978 games played, February 17, 1885 in Cleveland, Ohio - d. December 28, 1943

Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr., pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music, December 18, 1897 – December 28, 1952

Paul Hindemith, composer, violist, teacher, theorist, and conductor, November 16, 1895 – December 28, 1963

Katharine Dexter McCormick, biologist, suffragette, and philanthropist, remembered today for funding most of the research necessary to develop the birth control pill, August 27, 1875 – December 28, 1967

Maximilian Raoul Walter MAX Steiner, composer of music for films, May 10, 1888 -December 28, 1971

Frederick Christian, aka Freddie King, blues guitarist and singer, best known for his recordings Hide Away, Have You Ever Loved A Woman, and Going Down; played with a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick, September 3, 1934 – December 28, 1976

William Demarest, film and TV character actor, who worked in over 140 films, from 1926 to the 1970's; his most famous TV role was on My Three Sons, playing Uncle Charley, February 27, 1892 – December 28, 1983

Dennis Carl Wilson, rock and roll musician, drummer for and a founding member of The Beach Boys, the only real surfer in the band, December 4, 1944 – December 28, 1983

David Samuel SAM Peckinpah, film director, known for his innovative and explicit depiction of action and violence, as well as his revisionist approach to the Western genre, February 21, 1925 – December 28, 1984

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky, film director, opera director, writer, and actor, April 4, 1932 - December 29, 1986

Hermann Julius Oberth, physicist, one of the founding fathers of rocketry and astronautics, June 25, 1894 - December 28, 1989

Sandra Colleen Waites, aka Cassandra Harris, actress, the wife of Pierce Brosnan, December 15, 1948 – December 28, 1991

Salvatore Anthony SAL Maglie, MLB pitcher, from 1945 to 1958; he won 119 games and lost 62, with an earned run average of 3.15, April 26, 1917 - December 28, 1992

Jack Carlton CLAYTON Moore, actor, best known for playing The Lone Ranger; he was a circus acrobat as a boy, and later a model; in 1949, he was cast as the lead in the Lone Ranger TV series; in 1959, he embarked on forty years of personal appearances, TV guest spots, and commercials as the Lone Ranger, September 14, 1914 – December 28, 1999

Jerome Bernard JERRY Orbach, actor, known for his starring role as Detective Lennie Briscoe on Law & Order, and for his musical theatre roles, October 20, 1935 – December 28, 2004

Today CCLI

2006-12-27T18:54:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

James [Jacob I] Bernoulli, mathematician, who collaborated with his brother Johann on various applications, publishing papers on transcendental curves and isoperimetry; in 1690, he became the first person to develop the technique for solving separable differential equations; in 1682, he founded a school for mathematics and the sciences, December 27, 1654 - August 16, 1705

Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet, scientist, inventor, and politician, who pioneered the study of aerodynamics over a century before the development of powered flight, December 27, 1773 – December 15, 1857

Louis Pasteur, microbiologist and chemist, best known for demonstrating how to prevent milk and wine from going sour, a process now called pasteurization; his experiments confirmed the germ theory of disease, and he created the first vaccine for rabies; he became one of the founders of bacteriology, December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895

Sydney Hughes Greenstreet, actor, who began working for Warner Bros. in 1941; his debut film role was also his most famous: Kasper Gutman (aka "The Fat Man") in The Maltese Falcon, co-starring Peter Lorre; the duo appeared in eight films together, including Casablanca, in which he played Signor Ferrari, December 27, 1879 – January 18, 1954

Cyrus Stephen Eaton, financier, industrialist, and philanthropist, whose 1950's efforts at rapprochement with the Soviet Union won him the 1960 Lenin Peace Prize, December 27, 1883 – May 9, 1979

Thea Gabriele von Harbou, actress and author, December 27, 1888 – July 1, 1954

Marie Magdalene MARLENE Dietrich, actress, entertainer, and singer, December 27, 1901 – May 6, 1992

Oscar Levant, pianist, composer, author, comedian, and actor, December 27, 1906 - August 14, 1972

William Howell Masters, gynecologist, the senior member of the Masters and Johnson sexuality research team; with Virginia E. Johnson, he pioneered research into the nature of human sexual response, and the diagnosis and treatment of sexual disorders and dysfunctions from 1957 until the 1990's; they co-wrote Human Sexual Response and Human Sexual Inadequacy, December 27, 1915 - February 16, 2001

Mary Kornman, child actress, who was the leading female star of the Our Gang series during the Pathé silent era, December 27, 1915 - June 1, 1973

Michel Piccoli, actor, 1925

Jerome Courtland, actor, director, and producer, 1926

Winfield Scott SCOTTY Moore III, guitarist, known for his backing of Elvis Presley in the first part of his career, between 1954 and the beginning of Elvis' Hollywood years; he is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1931

John Amos, Jr, former professional football player, and movie and television actor, known for playing: Gordy Howard, the weatherman on The Mary Tyler Moore Show; James Evans, Sr. on Good Times; and the adult Kunta Kinte on the miniseries Roots, 1939

Michael Thomas MIKE Pinder, musician, known for his work with the Moody Blues, and as a solo artist, 1941

Byron Ellis Browne, former MLB outfielder, 1942

Charmian Farnon, aka Charmian Carr, actress, known for role as Liesl, the eldest Von Trapp daughter in The Sound Of Music, 1942

Peter Sinfield, lyricist and record producer, known as the lyricist for early incarnations of King Crimson, contributing to In the Court of the Crimson King, In the Wake of Poseidon, and Lizard and Islands, which he produced; he produced Roxy Music's self-titled first album, 1943

Joan Manuel Serrat i Teresa, singer-songwriter, 1943

Michael Leslie MICK Jones, guitarist, songwriter, and record producer, known as a member of Foreigner, 1944

Tracy Nelson, blues singer-songwriter, 1947

Gérard Xavier Marcel Depardieu, CQ, actor, 1948

David Knopfler, guitarist, singer, songwriter, and poet; he was a founding member of Dire Straits, playing rhythm guitar with his brother Mark Knopfler as frontman; he is currently a solo artist, 1952

Maryam d'Abo, actress, whose first feature role was as Kara Milovy in the 1987 film The Living Daylights, 1960

Sarah Jane Vowell, author, journalist, voice actor, and regular contributor to This American Life on Public Radio International, I have read and enjoyed her books The Partly Cloudy Patriot and Assassination Vacation, 1969

Joan Marie JOANIE Laurer, actress, and retired professional wrestler [as CHYNA] and bodybuilder, 1969

Masayori MASI Oka, actor and digital effects artist, who has performed in many films and TV shows, and is currently appearing in the role of Hiro Nakamura on Heroes, 1974

Heather Michele O'Rourke, child actress, known for her leading role in the Poltergeist, December 27, 1975 – February 1, 1988

Emilie de Ravin, actress, known for her roles as Curupira on BeastMaster, as Tess Harding on Roswell, and as Claire Littleton on Lost, 1981

R.I.P.:

Alexandre Pierre François Boëly, composer, organist, and pianist, April 19, 1785 - Paris, December 27, 1858

Charles Martin Hall, inventor and engineer, known for his discovery in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminum, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron, December 6, 1863 – December 27, 1914

Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, engineer, architect, and specialist in metallic structures, famous for designing the Eiffel Tower, December 15, 1832 – December 27, 1923

Calvin Blackman Bridges Ph.D., scientist, known for his contributions to the field of genetics, January 11, 1889 - December 27, 1938

Lester Bowles MIKE Pearson, PC, CC, OM, OBE, MA, LL.D., Canadian prime minister from 1963 to 1968; during his time as Prime Minister, his minority governments introduced universal health care, student loans, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada's flag; he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his role in defusing the Suez Crisis through the United Nations, April 23, 1897 – December 27, 1972

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

Robert Glynn BOB Luman, country and rockabilly singer, April 15, 1937 - December 27, 1978

Hoagland Howard HOAGY Carmichael, composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader, known for writing Stardust, which may be the most-recorded American song ever written, November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981

John Leonard JACK Swigert, Jr.,, astronaut, August 30, 1931 – December 27, 1982

William HAL Ashby, film director, became an assistant film editor to begin his movie career; in 1967, he 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

Shura Cherkassky, classical pianist, October 7, 1911 - December 27, 1995

George Roy Hill, film director, who won the Academy Award for Best Director in
1973 for The Sting, December 20, 1921 – December 27, 2002

Sir Alan Arthur Bates CBE, actor, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for 1968's The Fixer, and was the winner of two Tony Awards for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, February 17, 1934 – December 27, 2003

Ivan Calderón Pérez, MLB right fielder, who played from 1984 to 1993, and was named an All-Star in 1991; he was a career .272 hitter with 104 home runs and 444 RBI in 924 games; he was murdered in a bar in Loiza, Puerto Rico, March 19, 1962 – December 27, 2003

Walter HANK Garland, Nashville studio musician, who began playing the guitar at the age of six, and had a million-selling hit at 19 with Sugar Foot Rag; he is known for his work on early Elvis Presley recordings, November 11, 1930 – December 27, 2004

C. William Doody, politician, a member of the Canadian Senate representing Newfoundland and Labrador, February 26, 1931 - December 27, 2005

Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., 40th vice-president and 38th President of the United States; he was the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the terms of the 25th Amendment and, upon succession to the presidency, became the only person to hold that office without having been elected either president or vice president, July 14, 1913 – December 26, 2006

Today CCL - Boxing Day

2006-12-26T23:48:00.000-05:00

Today CCXLIX - RIP James Brown

2006-12-25T00:15:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Orlando Gibbons, composer and organist of the late Tudor and early Jacobean periods, baptised December 25, 1583 – June 5, 1625

Jean-Joseph de Mondonville, aka Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville, violinist and composer, December 25, 1711 - October 8, 1772

Claude Chappe, inventor, who demonstrated a practical semaphore system in 1792 that eventually spanned all of France; this was the first practical telecommunications system, December 25, 1763 – January 23, 1805

Clarissa Harlowe CLARA Barton, teacher, nurse, and humanitarian, the founder of the American Red Cross, December 25, 1821 –April 12, 1912

Charles Pathé, pioneer of the film and recording industries; in 1894, he formed Pathé Records with his brother, Émile; two years later, they created the Société Pathé Frères, a motion picture production and distribution company, December 25, 1863 – December 26, 1957

Adolf Otto Reinhold Windaus, chemist, awarded the 1929 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, December 25, 1876 – June 9, 1959

Louis-Joseph Chevrolet, racing driver and founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, December 25, 1878 - June 6, 1941

Evelyn Nesbit, artists' model and chorus girl, December 25, 1884 – January 17, 1967

Edward KID Ory, jazz trombonist and bandleader, who had one of the best-known bands in New Orleans in the 1910's, including among its members Joe "King" Oliver, Johnny Dodds, and Louis Armstrong, December 25, 1886 – January 23, 1973

Conrad Nicholson Hilton, hotelier and founder of the Hilton Hotel chain, December 25, 1887 – January 3, 1979

Robert LeRoy Ripley, entrepreneur, anthropologist, and cartoonist, who created the Ripley's Believe It or Not! series, December 25, 1890 - May 27, 1949

Humphrey DeForest Bogart, actor, who started his career as a Broadway stage player and B-movie actor during the 1920's and 1930's; his later accomplishments have made him an acting icon; he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1951 for The African Queen, December 25, 1899 – January 14, 1957

Gerhard Herzberg, PC, CC, D.Sc, LL.D, FRSC, FRS, physicist and physical chemist, awarded the 1971 Nobel Prize for Chemistry, December 25, 1904 – March 3, 1999

Louis Winogradsky, aka Lew Grade, Baron Grade, showbusiness impresario and television company executive in the United Kingdom, whose interests included Pye Records and ATV, December 25, 1906 – December 13, 1998

Ernst August Friedrich Ruska, physicist, who posited that microscopes using electrons, with waves 100,000 shorter than those of light, could provide a more detailed picture of an object than a microscope utilizing light, in which magnification is limited by the size of the wavelengths; in 1931, he built an electron lens, and used several of these in a series to build the first electron microscope in 1933; he shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physics with Gerd Binnig and Heinrich Rohrer, December 25, 1906 – May 25, 1988

Cabell CAB Calloway III, jazz singer and bandleader, a masterful scat singer, who led one of the most popular American big bands from the start of the 1930's through the late 1940's, December 25, 1907 – November 18, 1994

Mihailo Mazurski, aka Mike Mazurki, actor and professional wrestler, who appeared in over 100 movies, December 25, 1907 - December 9, 1990

Joseph Gregg JOJO Moore, Sr., MLB left fielder, who played his entire career with the New York Giants from 1930 through 1941; in a 12-season career, he was a .298 hitter with 79 home runs and 513 RBI in 1335 games, December 25, 1908 - April 1, 2001

Alvin Morris, aka Tony Martin, actor and pop singer, 1912

Natale Codognotto, aka Natalino Otto, singer; he started the swing genre in Italy, December 25, 1912 - October 4, 1969

Pete Rugolo, jazz composer and arranger, 1915

Field Marshal Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat, soldier and politician, the third President of Egypt from September 28, 1970, until his assassination on October 6, 1981; he shared the 1978 Nobel Peace Prize with Menachem Begin, December 25, 1918 – October 6, 1981

Paul David, CC, GOQ, MD, cardiologist, founder of the Montreal Heart Institute, and Canadian senator, December 25, 1919 – April 5, 1999

Rodman ROD Edward Serling, screenwriter, famous for The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, wrote movie screenplays, including Seven Days in May, Planet of the Apes, and The Man, December 25, 1924 – June 28, 1975

Jacob Nelson NELLIE Fox, MLB second baseman, the AL MVP in 1959; he was a 12-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove Award winner; he had only 216 strikeouts in over 9,200 at-bats; the Veterans Committee elected him to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1997, December 25, 1927 – December 1, 1975

Richard DICK Miller, character actor, 1928

Chris Kenner, R&B singer and songwriter, known for I Like It Like That and Land of 1,000 Dances, among other songs, December 25, 1929 - January 25, 1976

Donnie Mabel Elizabeth Washington, aka Mabel King, actress, known for playing the Wicked Witch of the West in the Broadway and movie versions of The Wiz, December 25, 1932 - November 9, 1999

Alvin Neill AL Jackson, former MLB left-handed pitcher, who played from 1959 to 1969, 1935

Ismail Merchant, film producer, best known for the results of his long collaboration with Merchant Ivory Productions, which included director James Ivory and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala; their films won six Academy Awards, December 25, 1936 – May 25, 2005

O'Kelly Isley, Jr., singer-songwriter, one of the founding members of The Isley Brothers; he co-wrote many of the Isleys' hits, December 25, 1937 – March 31, 1986

Pete Brown, performance poet, lyricist, and musical producer, best known for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, 1940

Hanna Schygulla, actress and chanson singer, 1943

Maurice Cole, aka Kenny Everett, radio DJ and television entertainer, December 25, 1944 - April 4, 1995

Noel Redding, musician; who played violin at school, mandolin at about age 12, and guitar at 14 years old; he was a rock & roll guitarist, best known as the bassist for The Jimi Hendrix Experience, December 25, 1945 – May 11, 2003

Gary Sandy, actor, known for his role as program director Andy Travis on WKRP in Cincinnati, 1945

James William JIMMY Buffett, singer, songwriter, and film producer, 1946

Gene William Lamont, former MLB catcher and manager, who managed the Chicago White Sox from 1992 to 1995, and the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1997 to 2000; he is currently the third base coach for the Detroit Tigers, 1946

Barbara Ann Mandrell, country music singer and steel guitar player, 1948

Mary Elizabeth SISSY Spacek, actress and singer, who has been nominated for six Oscars, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1980 for Coal Miner's Daughter, 1949

Joe Louis Walker, blues guitarist, singer, and producer, 1949

Jesús Manuel Marcano MANNY Trillo, former MLB second baseman, who played from 1973 to 1989; he was a four-time All-Star, won three Gold Gloves, and was the MVP of the 1980 NLCS; he batted .263 in his career, with 61 home runs, 571 RBI, 598 runs scored, 1562 hits, 239 doubles, 33 triples, 56 stolen bases, and 452 walks, for a .316 on base percentage, 1950

Carol Christine Hilaria [CCH] Pounder, film, television, and voice actress, who made her film debut in 1979 in All That Jazz, 1952

Claudie Fritsch-Mentrop, aka Desireless, singer, 1952

Annie Lennox, rock musician and vocalist, both as a solo artist and as the lead singer of The Eurythmics; in 2004, she won the Academy Award for Best Song for Into the West from the film The Return of the King, 1954

Alannah Myles, musician, 1955

Shane Patrick Lysaght MacGowan, musician, known as the original singer and songwriter for The Pogues, 1957

Rickey Henley Henderson, former MLB outfielder, baseball's major-league all-time leader in stolen bases; at the time of his retirement, he was also the career leader in walks; he holds the record for most games led off with a home run, 81; he was the 1989 ALCS MVP and the 1990 AL MVP; he is a ten-time All-Star, three-time Silver Slugger winner, and 1981 Gold Glove winner, 1948

Michael Phillip Anderson, USAF Lieutenant Colonel, NASA astronaut, and the Space Shuttle payload commander of STS-107 [Columbia], who was killed when the craft disintegrated after reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, December 25, 1959 – February 1, 2003

DIDO Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong , singer and songwriter, 1971

Justin Trudeau, media guy, 1971

Noel Anthony Hogan, guitarist and co-songwriter of The Cranberries, and solo artist, 1971

Alexandre SACHA Trudeau, journalist, 1973

Tuomas Lauri Johannes Holopainen, the keyboardist and main songwriter for Nightwish, 1976

Willy Taveras, MLB centre fielder for the Colorado Rockies; in December, 2006, he was traded from the Houston Astros to the Colorado Rockies, 1981

Georgia Elizabeth Moffett, actress, the daughter of actors Peter Davison and Sandra Dickinson; she acted with her father in Red Dawn, a Doctor Who audio drama, 1984

R.I.P.:

Samuel de Champlain, geographer, draftsman, explorer, and founder of Quebec City, c. 1567 – 25 December 1635

Linus Yale, Jr., mechanical engineer, inventor, and manufacturer, known for his inventions of locks, especially the cylinder lock, April 4, 1821 - December 25, 1868

Karl Abraham, psychoanalyst and a correspondent of Sigmund Freud, May 3, 1877 - December 25, 1925

Karel Capek, writers, who introduced and made popular the word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1921, January 9, 1890 – December 25, 1938

Agnes Hinkle , aka Agnes Ayres, 1920's silent film star, April 4, 1898 – December 25, 1940

William Claude Dukenfield, aka W. C. Fields, comedian, actor, and juggler, who left home at age 18 and entered vaudeville; by age 21, he was traveling as a comedy juggling act, becoming a headliner in both North America and Europe; in 1906, he made his Broadway debut in the musical comedy The Ham Tree, signing with Florenz Ziegfeld, he worked in silent films and one-reelers, first achieving theatrical fame in 1923 in the Broadway musical Poppy, where he perfected his persona as an oily, failed confidence man; as he was often also a writer on his films, the writing credits often include quite unusual names substituting for his own, such as Otis Criblecoblis, which contains an embedded homophone for "scribble," or Mahatma Kane Jeeves, a pun on a phrase of an aristocrat walking out: "My hat, my cane, Jeeves;" See as many of his films as you can!, January 29, 1880 – December 25, 1946

Patrick Joseph PATSY Donovan, MLB right fielder and manager, who played for several teams from 1890 to 1907, March 16, 1865 - December 25, 1953

Otto Loewi, pharmacologist, who discovered acetylcholine, and shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Sir Henry Dale, June 3, 1873 – December 25, 1961

Sir Charles Spencer CHARLIE Chaplin, Jr. KBE, comedy actor, one of the most famous performers in the early to mid Hollywood cinema era, and director, considered to be one of the finest mimes and clowns caught on film , April 16, 1889 – December 25, 1977

Rose JOAN Blondell, actress, appeared in more than 100 movies and television productions, August 30, 1906 – December 25, 1979

Alfred Manuel BILLY Martin, former MLB player and manager, May 16, 1928 - December 25, 1989

Monica Enid Dickens, writer, the great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, May 10, 1915 - December 25, 1992

Pierre Victor Auger, physicist, who worked in the fields of atomic physics, nuclear physics, and cosmic ray physics, May 14, 1899 – December 25, 1993,

Dino Paul Crocetti, aka Dean Martin, singer and film actor, half of the comedy team of Martin and [Jerry] Lewis, June 7, 1917 – December 25, 1995

Denver Dell Pyle, actor; after World War II, he began his film career, and starred in several motion pictures throughout the 1950's and 1960's; he made several appearances as Briscoe Darling on The Andy Griffith Show, and appeared in a number of John Ford Westerns, including The Horse Soldiers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; one of his early roles was as a villain in an Adventures of Superman episode called Beware the Wrecker; his best known television role was that of Uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard, May 11, 1920 - December 25, 1997

John Pulman, professional snooker player, seven-time World Champion, December 12, 1923 - December 25, 1998

Peter Jeffrey, TV and film actor, who appeared on Doctor Who as the Colony Pilot in The Macra Terror and as Count Grendel in The Androids of Tara, April 8, 1929 - December 25, 1999

Willard Van Orman Quine, Ph.D., philosopher and logician, whose doctoral thesis and early publications were on formal logic and set theory; later, he emerged as a major philosopher, by virtue of papers on ontology, epistemology, and language; known for five texts: Elementary Logic, Methods of Logic, Philosophy of Logic, Mathematical Logic, and Set Theory and Its Logic, June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000

Birgit Nilsson, soprano, May 17, 1918 – December 25, 2005

James Joseph Brown, Jr., singer, songwriter, bandleader, and record producer, a seminal force in the evolution of gospel and rhythm and blues into soul and funk, May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006

Today CCXLVIII

2006-12-24T17:50:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Jean-Louis Pons, astronomer, who discovered thirty-seven comets between 1801 and 1827, December 24, 1761 – October 14, 1831

Christopher Houston KIT Carson, frontiersman, trapper, and scout, December 24, 1809 – May 23, 1868

James Prescott Joule, FRS, physicist, who studied the nature of heat, and discovered its relationship to mechanical work, leading to the theory of conservation of energy, and the development of the first law of thermodynamics; the SI unit of work, the joule, is named after him; he discovered the relationship between the flow of current through a resistance and the heat dissipated, now called Joule's law, December 24, 1818 – October 11, 1889

Emanuel Lasker, chess player and mathematician; in 1894, he became the second World Chess Champion by defeating Wilhelm Steinitz; he held this title for 27 years, the longest tenure of any officially recognized world champion of chess, December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941

John Barton JOHNNY Gruelle, artist, political cartoonist, and writer of children's books, the creator of Raggedy Ann; he provided colour illustrations for a 1914 edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales, December 24, 1880 - January 8, 1938

Juan Ramón Jiménez, poet, and author of several dozen books, awarded the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature, December 24, 1881 – May 29, 1958

Michael Curtiz, film director, who directed at least 50 films in Europe, and a further hundred in the U. S., including Casablanca, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and White Christmas, December 24, 1886 - April 10, 1962

Louis Jouvet, actor and producer, December 24, 1887 - August 16, 1951

Salvatore Anthony Guaragna, aka Harry Warren, composer and lyricist, composed music with Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Billy Rose, and Al Dubin, December 24, 1893 – September 22, 1981

Warren BABY Dodds, jazz drummer, born in New Orleans; one of the most important early jazz drummers; he recorded with Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Art Hodes, and his brother, clarinetist Johnny Dodds, December 24, 1898 – February 14, 1959

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr., pioneering aviator, engineer, industrialist, and film producer; he built the Hughes H-1 Racer and H-4 Hercules airplanes, produced the movies Hell's Angels and The Outlaw, and owned and expanded TWA, December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976

Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr., writer of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, chess player, and champion fencer, whose science fiction novels The Big Time and The Wanderer, and the short stories Gonna Roll the Bones and Ship of Shadows all won Hugo awards - Bones also won a Nebula; many of his most-acclaimed works are short stories, especially in the horror genre, and he is widely regarded as one of the forerunners of the modern urban horror story; created Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; Our Lady of Darkness, serialised in 1977, won the World Fantasy Award; the short parallel worlds story Catch That Zeppelin added another Nebula and Hugo award to his collection - the story shows a plausible alternate reality that is much better than our own, as opposed to the usual dystopian alternate universe; Belsen Express won him another World Fantasy Award; fans awarded him the Gandalf (Grand Master) award at the World Science Fiction Convention; in 1981, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America voted him the recipient of their Grand Master award; he was also a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA), a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s', December 24, 1910 – September 5, 1992

Ava Lavinia Gardner, actress and Hollywood film star, December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990

Irving LEE Dorsey, pop/R&B singer; much of his best work was produced by Allen Toussaint, with instrumental backing by The Meters; from 1965 to 1969, Dorsey put seven songs in the Hot 100, the most successful of which was 1966's Working In The Coal Mine, December 24, 1924 — December 1, 1986

Paul Buissonneau, theatre director, 1926

Mauricio Kagel, composer, famous for his interest in developing the theatrical side of musical performance, 1931

Raphael Homer RAY Bryant, jazz pianist and composer, the uncle of musicians Kevin Eubanks and Robin Eubanks, 1931

John Anthony Woods, aka John Levene, actor, whose most famous role was that of Sergeant Benton of UNIT on Doctor Who, 1941

Ian Fraiser LEMMY Kilmister, lead vocalist and bass guitarist, the founding member and leader of Motörhead, 1945

Nicholas Meyer, film writer, producer, director, and novelist, known for his involvement in the Star Trek films; he wrote three Sherlock Holmes novels; The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was his most famous Holmes novel, and the project for which he was best known prior to his Star Trek involvement - it was adapted into a 1976 film, for which he wrote the screenplay, 1945

John D'Acquisto, former MLB pitcher, who played from 1973 to 1982; in 266 games, he won 34 and lost 51, with 15 saves, 600 strikeouts, and a 4.56 ERA, 1951

Clarence Darnell Gilyard, Jr., film and TV actor, known for his role as private investigator Conrad McMasters on Matlock, 1989 to 1993, and as Texas Ranger James Trivette on Walker, Texas Ranger, 1955

Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan, since December 7, 2004, 1957

Doyle Bramhall II, musician, the guitarist and vocalist for Smokestack and guitarist in Eric Clapton's band, 1968

Mark Millar, comic book writer, 1969

Will Oldham, singer, songwriter, and actor, 1970

Enrique Martín Morales, aka Ricky Martin, pop singer, 1971

R.I.P.:

John Dunstaple, composer of polyphonic music of the late medieval era and early Renaissance, c. 1390 – December 24, 1453

Vasco da Gama, explorer, the first person to sail directly from Europe to India, c. 1469 – December 24, 1524

Alban Maria Johannes Berg, composer, a member of the Second Viennese School, producing works that combined Mahlerian romanticism with a highly personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, February 9, 1885 – December 24, 1935

Siegfried Alkan, composer, May 30, 1858 – December 24, 1941

Norma Talmadge, actress and model, May 26, 1893 – December 24, 1957

Bernard Herrmann, composer, known for his film scores, June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975

Siggie Nordstrom, model, actress, entertainer, socialite, and lead singer of The Nordstrom Sisters, with her sister, Dagmar, June 14, 1893 – December 24, 1980

Peter Sydney Lawford, film and TV actor, and member of Frank Sinatra's "Rat Pack;" appeared in many movies and TV shows; he starred in the TV series Dear Phoebe in the mid-50's; married Patricia Kennedy, who eventually divorced him in 1966 due to his alcoholism and infidelity, September 7, 1923 – December 24, 1984

Gardner Francis Fox, writer, best known for creating numerous comic book characters for DC Comics; he co-created numerous DC characters including The Sandman, Starman, Doctor Fate, The Flash, and Hawkman, and the first superhero team, the Justice Society of America, May 20, 1911 – December 24, 1986

Pierre Culliford, aka Peyo, comics artist, known for the creation of The Smurfs comic strip, June 25, 1928 – December 24, 1992

Bobby LaKind, conga player and vocalist, who sessioned with the Doobie Brothers from 1976; in the early 1980's, he was invited to join the band, just before they broke up; when the band reformed in 1988, he rejoined, and played on the album Cycles, 1945 - December 24, 1992

Rossano Brazzi, singer and actor, with an extensive filmography, much of it in Italian and French films; his most famous role was as Emile de Becque in South Pacific, September 18, 1916 – December 24, 1994

Toshiro Mifune, actor, who appeared in almost 170 feature films, including Rashomon, Seven Samurai, Throne of Blood, The Hidden Fortress, Yojimbo, Chushingura, Hell in the Pacific, and Red Sun, April 1, 1920 – December 24, 1997

Nicholas Macioci, aka Nick Massi, the bass singer for The Four Seasons from 1961 to 1965, September 19, 1935 - December 24, 2000

Johnny Lane Oates, MLB catcher and manager; he was the manager of the Baltimore Orioles from 1991 to 1994, and the manager of the Texas Rangers from 1995 to 2001; he was selected the American League Manager of the Year in 1996, January 21, 1946 – December 24, 2004

Today CCXLVII

2006-12-23T01:08:00.001-05:00

Today CCXLVI

2006-12-22T00:30:00.000-05:00

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

Today CCXLV

2006-12-21T00:05:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Zdenek Fibich, composer of classical music, including chamber works, symphonic poems, three symphonies, at least seven operas, melodramas, liturgical music including a mass, and a large cycle, almost 400 pieces, of piano works, among other works, December 21, 1850 – October 15, 1900

Monsignor Lorenzo Perosi, composer of sacred music, December 21, 1872 - October 12, 1956

Blagoje Bersa, composer and music pedagogue, December 21, 1873 - January 1, 1934

Jan Lukasiewicz, mathematician, whose major mathematical work centred on mathematical logic; he worked on multi-valued logics, including his own three-valued propositional calculus, December 21, 1878 - February 13, 1956

Hermann Joseph [H. J.] Muller, geneticist and educator, best known for his work on the physiological and genetic effects of radiation; he was awarded the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discovery that mutations can be induced by x-rays, December 21, 1890 – April 5, 1967

Leroy Robertson, composer and music educator, December 21, 1896 – July 25, 1971

Joshua Gibson, catcher in the Negro Leagues; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1972, December 21, 1911 - January 20, 1947

Heinrich Theodor Böll, writer, awarded the 1972 Nobel Prize for Literature, December 21, 1917 – July 16, 1985

Jean Gascon CC, opera director, actor, and administrator, the artistic director of the Stratford Festival of Canada from 1968 to 1974, December 21, 1920 – April 13, 1988

Maila Syrjäniemi, aka Maila Nurmi, actress, who portrayed Vampira in films and as a television horror host, 1921

Alicia Ernestina de la Caridad del Cobre Martinez Hoya, aka Alicia Alonso, prima ballerina assoluta and choreographer, 1920

Pinkus Wilchinski, aka Paul Wilchin, aka Paul Winchell, ventriloquist and voice actor, December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005

John Guilbert Avildsen, film director, whose movies include Joe and The Karate Kid, 1935

Phillip John PHIL Donahue, talk show host, married to Marlo Thomas, 1935

Jane Fonda, actress, writer, political activist, former model, and fitness guru, 1937

Frank Vincent Zappa, composer, guitarist, singer, film director, and satirist, December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993

Ray Hildebrand, singer, Paul in the pop singing duo, Paul & Paula, 1940

Reinhard Friedrich Michael Mey, singer-songwriter, ["Liedermacher"], 1942

Carla Thomas, singer, "the Queen of Memphis Soul," 1942

Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, pianist, and composer, 1944

Carl Dean Wilson, musician, the youngest of the three brothers who made up the core of The Beach Boys; he was the lead guitarist, December 21, 1946 – February 6, 1998

Paco de Lucía, flamenco guitarist, a leading proponent of the New Flamenco style, 1947

Samuel Leroy Jackson, actor, 1948

David Arthur DAVE Kingman, former MLB outfielder; he was a three-time All-Star, and twice led the NL in home runs, with 48 in 1979, and 37 in 1982, 1948

Jeffrey Katzenberg, film producer and CEO of DreamWorks Animation SKG, 1950

Joaquín Andújar, former MLB right-handed starting pitcher, who was a four-time All-Star and a 1984 Gold Glove Award winner, 1952

Betty Wright, soul and R&B singer, 1953

Jane Kaczmarek, actress, Lois on Malcolm in the Middle, 1955

Thomas Anthony TOM Henke, known as The Terminator, former MLB pitcher, one of the most dominant closers during the late 1980's and early 1990's, who struck out 9.8 batters per 9 innings pitched over his career, 1957

Raymond RAY Romano, actor, comedian, and voice actor, 1957

Delorez Florence Griffith, aka Florence FLO-JO Griffith-Joyner, athlete, still holder of the World Records in the 100-metre and 200-metre race, as of 2006, December 21, 1959 – September 21, 1998

Andrew James Van ANDY Slyke, former MLB outfielder, and the current first base coach for the Detroit Tigers, 1960

Andrew Thomlinson, aka Andy Dick, actor and comedian, known for his roles on NewsRadio and Less Than Perfect, 1965

Kiefer William Frederick Dempsey George Rufus Sutherland, television and film actor, known for his role as Jack Bauer on 24, 1966

Karri Turner, television actress, who played Lieutenant Harriet Sims Roberts on JAG, 1966

Julie Delpy, actress and screenwriter, 1969

LaTroy Hawkins, MLB relief pitcher for the Colorado Rockies, 1972

Dustin Michael Hermanson, MLB right-handed relief pitcher for the Chicago White Sox, 1972

Paloma Herrera, principal ballet dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, 1975

R.I.P.:

Giovanni Boccaccio, author and poet, a friend and correspondent of Petrarch, and author of a number of notable works including On Famous Women and The Decameron, June 16, 1313 – December 21, 1375

Knud Johan Victor Rasmussen, polar explorer and anthropologist, June 7, 1879 – December 21, 1933

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

Francis Scott Key [F. Scott] Fitzgerald, novelist and short story writer, who finished four novels, left a fifth unfinished, and wrote dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth, despair, and age, September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940

George Smith Patton, Jr., soldier, a leading U.S. Army general in World War II; in his 36-year Army career, he was an advocate of armored warfare and commanded major units of North Africa, Sicily, and the European Theater of Operations, November 11, 1885 – December 21, 1945

Eric Coates, composer and violist, August 27, 1886 – December 21, 1957

Stuart STU Erwin, actor, February 14, 1903 – December 21, 1967

Richard Long, actor, known for his leading roles on The Big Valley and Nanny and the Professor, and for several appearances as Gentleman Jack Darby on Maverick; he played private detective Rex Randolph as a series lead on both Bourbon Street Beat and 77 Sunset Strip, December 17, 1927 - December 21, 1974

Joseph Aloysius ALLAN Dwan, motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter, April 3, 1885 – December 21, 1981

Nikolaas NIKO Tinbergen, ethologist and ornithologist, who shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Karl von Frisch and Konrad Lorenz, April 15, 1907 – December 21, 1988

Albert King, blues musician, April 25, 1923 – December 21, 1992

Nathan Mironovich Milstein, violinist, December 31, 1903 — December 21, 1992

Elrod Jerome Hendricks, MLB catcher and coach, in a 12-year career; in 711 games played, he was a .220 hitter with 62 home runs and 230 RBI; in 602 games as a catcher, he collected 2783 outs, 228 assists, 31 double plays, and committed only 29 errors for a .990 fielding percentage, December 22, 1940 – December 21, 2005

Today CCXLIV

2006-12-20T00:41:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Oronce Finé, aka Orontius Finnaeus, mathematician and cartographer, December 20, 1494 - August 8, 1555

Pietro Raimondi, composer, transitional between the Classical and Romantic eras, famous as a composer of operas and sacred music, an innovator in contrapuntal technique, December 20, 1786 – October 30, 1853

Ferdinand Édouard Buisson, academic, educational bureaucrat, Protestant pastor, pacifist, and Socialist politician, who presided over the Human Rights League (LDH) from 1914 to 1926; he helped create France's system of universal, secular primary education in the 1880's; he shared the 1927 Nobel Peace Prize with Ludwig Quidde, December 20, 1841 – February 16, 1932

Harvey Samuel Firestone, founder of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company, December 20, 1868 - February 7, 1938

Wesley BRANCH Rickey, MLB executive known for breaking baseball's colour barrier by signing Jackie Robinson, and drafting the first Hispanic superstar, Roberto Clemente; he created the framework for the modern minor league farm system, December 20, 1881 - December 9, 1965

Yvonne Arnaud, pianist, singer, and actress, December 20, 1892 - September 20, 1958

Jaroslav Heyrovský, chemist and inventor, the father of electroanalytical chemistry, who invented the polarographic method; he was awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, December 20, 1890 – March 27, 1967

Irene Marie Dunn, aka Irene Dunne, film actress, one of the most famous screwball comediennes of her time, remembered for performance in The Awful Truth, and as Martha Hanson in I Remember Mama; introduced the song Smoke Gets in Your Eyes in the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film Roberta; other roles included Anna Owens in Anna and the King of Siam and Vinnie in Life with Father; received five Oscar nominations for Best Actress, December 20, 1898 - September 4, 1990

Robert Jemison van de Graaff, physicist and instrument maker, and professor of physics at Princeton University; he designed the Van de Graaff generator, a device which produces high voltages, December 20, 1901 – January 16, 1967

Virgil Lawrence SPUD Davis, MLB catcher and manager, December 20, 1904 - August 14, 1984

Paul Francis Webster, lyricist, December 20, 1907 - March 18, 1984

David Joseph Bohm, quantum physicist, who made significant contributions in the fields of theoretical physics, philosophy, and neuropsychology, and to the Manhattan Project, December 20, 1917 - October 27, 1992

Audrey Totter, actress, 1918

George Roy Hill, film director, who won the Academy Award for Best Director in
1973 for The Sting, December 20, 1921 – December 27, 2002

John Harris Harbison, composer, known for his operas and large choral works, 1938

Robert BOBBY Colomby, founding member and drummer for Blood, Sweat & Tears, 1944

Peter George John Criscuola, aka Peter Criss, musician, co-founder and drummer for KISS, 1945

John Speshock , aka John Spencer, actor, known for the role of Leo McGarry on The West Wing, December 20, 1946 – December 16, 2005

Gigliola Cinquetti, singer, 1947

Cecil Celester Cooper, former MLB first baseman from 1971 through 1987; in a 17-season career, he posted a .298 batting average with 241 home runs and 1125 RBI in 1896 games, 1949

Jennifer Ann JENNY Agutter, actress, who appeared in Logan's Run, 1952

Stephen William BILLY Bragg, musician, 1957

Michael David MIKE Watt, bass guitarist, singer, and songwriter, 1957

Christopher Michael CHRIS Robinson, singer for The Black Crowes, 1966

Nicole de Boer, actress, who played Ezri Dax on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and currently appears on The Dead Zone, 1970

Aubrey Lewis Huff, MLB player, who has played third base, first base, left field, right field, and designated hitter; he is currently with the Houston Astros, 1976

David Allen Wright, MLB third baseman for the New York Mets, 1982

Lucy Katherine Pinder, glamour model, 1983

R.I.P.:

Johannes Lupi, composer of the Renaissance, a minor but skilled composer of polyphony, c. 1506 – December 20, 1539

Antonio Francisco Javier José Soler Ramos, aka Padre Antonio Soler, composer whose works span the late Baroque and early Classical music eras; he is best known for his keyboard sonatas, baptized December 3, 1729 - December 20, 1783

Sacagawea, a Shoshone woman who accompanied the Corps of Discovery with Meriwether Lewis and William Clark in their exploration of the Western United States, c. 1787 – December 20, 1812

Moss Hart, playwright and director of plays and musical theatre; he recalled his youth, early career, and rise to fame in his autobiography Act One, adapted to film in 1963; he was married to Kitty Carlisle, October 24, 1904 – December 20, 1961

John Ernst Steinbeck, writer, awarded the 1962 Nobel Prize for Literature; he is best known for his novella Of Mice and Men and his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968

Walden Robert Cassotto, aka Bobby Darin, rock and roll singer, May 14, 1936 – December 20, 1973

André Jolivet, composer, August 8, 1905 – December 20, 1974

Arthur Rubinstein, pianist, considered as one of the greatest piano virtuosos of the 20th Century; he received international acclaim for his performances of Chopin and Brahms, and for his championing of Spanish music, January 28, 1887 – December 20, 1982

Gonzalo Enrique Márquez Moya, aka Gonzalo Márquez, MLB first baseman; in four seasons in the majors, he batted .235 (27-for-115) with one home run, 10 runs batted in, nine runs, three doubles, and one stolen base in 76 games, March 31, 1946 - December 20, 1984

Joseph JOE DeSa, MLB first baseman, who made his major league debut with the St. Louis Cardinals on September 6, 1980, and appeared in his final game on October 3, 1985, July 27, 1959 – December 20, 1986

J. Alphonse Ouimet, Canadian television pioneer and president of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) from 1958 to 1967, who helped design, build, and demonstrate the first Canadian television set, June 12, 1908 – December 20, 1988

Kurt Böhme, bass, known for his interpretations of Wagnerian roles, May 5, 1908 – December 20, 1989

Carl Edward Sagan, astronomer, astrobiologist, and science popularizer, who pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI); he wrote popular science books, and co-wrote and presented the 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage; he wrote the novel Contact, the basis for the 1997 film of the same name; he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books; in his works, he advocated scientific skepticism, humanism, and the scientific method, November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996

Irene Hervey, actress, who was married to Allan Jones; their son is Jack Jones, July 11, 1910 - December 20, 1998

Sir Alan Lloyd Hodgkin, OM, KBE, FRS, physiologist and biophysicist, who shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Andrew Fielding Huxley and John Carew Eccles, February 5, 1914 – December 20, 1998

Clarence Eugene HANK Snow, Hall of Fame country music singer and songwriter, May 9, 1914 – December 20, 1999

Riccardo Freda, film director, best known for horror and thriller movies, February 24, 1909 - December 20, 1999

Foster Brooks, actor and comedian, May 1, 1912 - December 20, 2001

Today CCXLIII

2006-12-19T00:48:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Thomas Andrews, chemist and physicist, who did important work on phase transitions between gases and liquids, December 19, 1813 – November 26, 1885

Albert Abraham Michelson, physicist, known for his work on the measurement of the speed of light, and especially for the Michelson-Morley experiment; awarded the 1907 Nobel Prize in Physics, December 19, 1852 - May 9, 1931

Marie Augusta Davey, aka Minnie Maddern Fiske, aka Mrs. Fiske, actress, December 19, 1865 – February 15, 1932

Joe "King" Oliver, bandleader and jazz musician, who played cornet in the New Orleans brass bands and dance bands; the band that he co-led with trombonist Kid Ory was considered New Orleans' hottest and best in the 1910's, December 19, 1885 – April 8, 1938

Frederick Martin FRITZ Reiner, conductor of opera and symphonic music; Chief Conductor of the Dresden Staatskapelle from 1914 to 1921; Music Director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra from 1922 to 1931, the Pittsburgh Symphony from 1938 to 1948, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1953 to 1963, December 19, 1888 - November 15, 1963

Ford Christopher Frick, sportswriter and executive, who served as president of the National League from 1934 to 1951 and as Baseball Commissioner from 1951 to 1965, December 19, 1894 - April 8, 1978

Rudolf Hell, electrical engineer and inventor; in 1925, he invented an apparatus called the Hellschreiber, an early forerunner to the fax, December 19, 1901 – March 11, 2002

Sir Ralph David Richardsontor, December 19, 1902 – October 10, 1983

George Davis Snell, mouse geneticist and basic transplant immunologist, who shared the 1980 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Baruj Benacerraf and Jean Dausset, December 19, 1903 – June 6, 1996

Édith Piaf, singer and actress, December 19, 1915 – October 11, 1963

Henry Roeland Byrd, aka Professor Longhair, New Orleans blues musician, known for his unique piano style, December 19, 1918 - January 30, 1980

David Susskind, pioneering TV talk show host, December 19, 1920 – February 22, 1987

Gordon Cameron Jackson OBE, actor; in 1969, he appeared in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, December 19, 1923 – January 15, 1990

Edmund Anthony Cutlar Purdom, actor and voice actor, 1924

Douglas Paul Harvey, NHL defenseman, December 19, 1924 - December 26, 1989

Robert B. Sherman, songwriter and painter, who writes film scores with his brother, Richard M. Sherman, 1925

David Geeves, aka James Booth, film, stage, and television actor and screenwriter, December 19, 1927 - August 11, 2005

Robert Brookmeyer, jazz valve trombonist, pianist, and arranger, 1929

Howard Sackler, screenwriter and playwright, who wrote The Great White Hope, December 19, 1929 – October 12, 1982

Cicely Tyson, actress, who won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie in 1994 for Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All, 1933

Albert William AL Kaline, former MLB outfielder, active from 1953 to 1974, spending his entire career with the Detroit Tigers; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1980, 1934

Barbara Bostock, retired actress, 1935

Robert Henry BOBBY Timmons, jazz pianist and composer, best known as sideman in Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1958 to 1959, December 19, 1935 - March 1, 1974

Philip David PHIL Ochs, protest ["topical"] singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist, who wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and released eight albums, December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976

Maurice White, soul, funk, and R&B singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, and bandleader, known for founding and fronting Earth, Wind & Fire 1941

Mitchell Jay Feigenbaum Ph.D., mathematical physicist, whose pioneering studies in chaos theory led to the discovery of the Feigenbaum constant, 1944

Graham Barnes, aka Alvin Lee, rock guitarist and singer, frontman for Ten Years After, 1944

Zalman ZAL Yanovsky, musician, co-founder, guitarist, and singer for The Lovin' Spoonful, December 19, 1944 – December 13, 2002

Elaine Joyce, actress, 1945

Robert Urich, actor, known for playing private investigators on the television series Spenser: For Hire and Vega$, December 19, 1946 – April 16, 2002

Thomas James TOM Lawless, former MLB outfielder, who played from 1982 to 1990, 1956

John Thompson Gulager, actor, cinematographer, and film director, the son of Clu Gulager, 1957

Cyril Collard, author, filmmaker, composer, and actor, December 19, 1957 - March 5, 1993

Christopher Hamill, aka Limahl, lead singer for the 1980s pop band Kajagoogoo, and solo artist, 1958

Mike Lookinland, actor, known for his role as Bobby Brady on The Brady Bunch, 1960

Eric Allin Cornell, physicist, who shared the 2001 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl E. Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle, 1961

Matthew Waterhouse, actor, best known for his role as Adric on Doctor Who; after leaving the series, he began a stage career, 1961

Jennifer Beals, actress and former teen model, known for her role as Alexandra "Alex" Owens in Flashdance, 1963

Reyenaldo Ignacio CHITO Martínez, former MLB player, who played from 1991 to 1993, 1965

Renee Kristen KRISTY Swanson, actress, who starred in the movie version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 1969

Tiffany Amarziano, aka Tiffany Towers, actress and model, 1971

Amy Locane, actress, 1971

Alyssa Jayne Milano, actress, known for her roles on Who's the Boss? and on Charmed, 1972

Jacob Benjamin JAKE Gyllenhaal, actor, 1980

Marla Lynne Sokoloff, actress, 1980

R.I.P.:

Francesco Antonio Bonporti, priest and amateur composer, June 11, 1672 - December 19, 1749

Aloysius ALOIS Alzheimer, psychiatrist and neuropathologist, first identified the characteristic neuropathology of what is now known as Alzheimer's Disease, June 14, 1864 - December 19, 1915

Paul Langevin, physicist who developed Langevin dynamics and the Langevin equation, January 23, 1872 – December 19, 1946

Robert Andrews Millikan, experimental physicist, awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Physics for his measurement of the charge on the electron, and for his work on the photoelectric effect; he later studied cosmic rays, March 22, 1868 – December 19, 1953

Joe Cole, roadie for Black Flag and Rollins Band, April 4, 1961 - December 19, 1991

Michael James Dick, aka Michael Clarke, musician, best known as the drummer for The Byrds, June 3, 1946 – December 19, 1993

Marcello Vincenzo Domenico Mastroianni, film actor, September 28, 1924 – December 19, 1996

Masaru Ibuka, electronics industrialist, who co-founded Sony, April 11, 1908 - December 19, 1997

James A. Lane, aka Jimmy Rogers, blues guitarist, best known as a member of Muddy Waters' 1950's band, June 3, 1924 - December 19, 1997

Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn, actor, famous for playing Q in the James Bond films, September 12, 1914 – December 19, 1999

Milton John MILT Hilton, jazz double bass player, often referred to as "the dean of jazz bass players;" an accomplished photographer, he was one of Louis Armstrong's best friends, June 23, 1910 - December 19, 2000

Roebuck "Pops" Staples, gospel and R&B musician, songwriter, guitarist, and singer, the patriarch and member of the singing group The Staple Singers, which included his son and daughters, December 28, 1915 – December 19, 2000

Marcel Mule, classical saxophonist, June 24, 1901 - December 19, 2001

Hope Elise Ross Lange, stage, film, and television actress, November 28, 1931 – December 19, 2003

Herbert Brovarnik, aka Herbert Charles Brown, chemist who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Georg Wittig, May 22, 1912 – December 19, 2004

Renata Ersilia Clotilde Tebaldi, lyric soprano, February 1, 1922 – December 19, 2004

Today CCXLII

2006-12-18T17:02:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Augusta Mary Anne Holmès, aka Hermann Zenta, pianist and composer, who wrote the lyrics to almost all her songs, oratorios, choral symphonies, and the opera La Montagne Noire, December 18, 1847 - January 28, 1903

Sir Joseph John [J. J.] Thomson, OM, FRS, physicist, the discoverer of the electron and of isotopes, and the inventor of the mass spectrometer, awarded the 1906 Nobel Prize in Physics, December 18, 1856 – 30 August 30, 1940

Edward Alexander MacDowell, pianist and composer, known for his second piano concerto, and his piano suites Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces, and New England Idyls, December 18, 1860 - January 23, 1908

Paul Klee, painter, variously associated with expressionism, cubism and surrealism, and teacher at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture, December 18, 1879 - June 29, 1940

Tyrus Raymond TY Cobb, MLB centre fielder; when he retired in 1928, he was the holder of ninety major league records; he was AL Batting Champion in 1907 to 1909, 1911 to 1915, and 1917 to 1919, AL Triple Crown winner in 1909, and AL MVP in 1911; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, December 18, 1886 – July 17, 1961

Dame Gladys Constance Cooper DBE, actress, December 18, 1888 – November 17, 1971

Edwin Howard Armstrong, electrical engineer and inventor, who invented the FM radio, December 18, 1890 – January 31, 1954

Fletcher Hamilton Henderson, Jr., pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer, important in the development of big band jazz and swing music, December 18, 1897 – December 28, 1952

George Stevens, motion picture director, producer, writer, who started in the movie business as a cameraman, working on Laurel and Hardy shorts, December 18, 1904 - March 8, 1975

Julius JULES Dassin, film director, 1911

Alfred Bester, science fiction author, the winner of the first Hugo Award in 1953 for his novel The Demolished Man; he is the author of The Stars My Destination, one of my favourite novels; he was awarded the 1987 SFWA Grand Master Award, and posthumously inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2001, December 18, 1913 - September 30, 1987

Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm, aka Willy Brandt, politician, Chancellor of West Germany from 1969 to 1974, received the 1971 Nobel Peace Prize, December 18, 1913 - October 8, 1992

Ruth Elizabeth BETTY Grable, actress, singer, dancer, and pin-up girl, December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973

Raiford Chatman OSSIE Davis, film actor, director, playwright, and social activist,
who delivered the eulogy for Martin Luther King, Jr., he and his wife Ruby Dee were recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004, and were named to the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame in 1989, December 18, 1917 – February 4, 2005

Gino Nicholas Cimoli, former MLB outfielder, 1929

William Joseph MOOSE Skowron, Jr, former MLB player, who played in a total of 1478 games, all but 15 as a first baseman, 1930

Boris Valentinovich Volynov, cosmonaut who flew in two missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 5 and Soyuz 21, 1934

Roger Earl Mosley, actor, known for his role as Theodore "T.C." Calvin on Magnum, P.I., 1938

Joel Hirschhorn, songwriter, who won the Academy Award for Best Song twice, and wrote songs for a number of prominent musicians, including Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison, December 18, 1938 – September 18, 2005

Bryan CHAS Chandler, musician, record producer, and manager, played bass guitar for The Animals, managed Jimi Hendrix, and recruited musicians to form the Jimi Hendrix Experience, whose first two albums he produced, December 18, 1938 – July 17, 1996

Michael John Moorcock, science fiction and fantasy writer, who has also published a number of literary novels; his most popular works have been the Elric novels, 1939

Harold Elliot Varmus, scientist, who shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with J. Michael Bishop for the discovery of the cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes, 1939

Bramwell BRAM Morrison, entertainer, member of the children's musical trio Sharon, Lois & Bram, 1940

Keith Richards, guitarist, songwriter, singer, and founding member of The Rolling Stones, 1943

Steven Allan Spielberg, film director and producer, 1946

Stephen Bantu Biko, nonviolent anti-apartheid activist in South Africa; on August 18, 1977, he was arrested at a police roadblock, and died shortly after his arrival in the Pretoria prison; police claimed his death was the result of an extended hunger strike, but he was found to have massive injuries to the head which many saw as strong evidence that he had been heavily and brutally clubbed; on February 2, 1978, the Attorney-General of the Eastern Cape stated that he would not prosecute any police involved in the arrest and detention of Biko; on October 7, 2003, the South African Justice Ministry officials announced that the five policemen who were accused of killing Biko would not be prosecuted because of insufficient evidence, December 18, 1946 – September 12, 1977

William BILL Nelson, guitarist, songwriter, painter, and experimental musician, 1948

Lucien LAURENT Voulzy, singer and composer, 1948

Gillian Armstrong, film director, 1950

Leonard Maltin, film critic and film historian, 1950

Randolph Frank RANDY Castillo, drummer, who palyed with Ozzy Osbourne in the 1980's and early 1990's, December 18, 1950 – March 26, 2002

Elliot Steinberg, aka Elliot Easton, musician, who played lead guitar and sang background vocals for The Cars, 1953

Raymond Julian Vicimarli, aka Ray Liotta, actor, 1954

Ron White, stand-up comedian, 1956

Casper Van Dien, actor, 1968

Patricia Anne Stratigias, aka Trish Stratus, fitness model and former professional wrestler, 1975

José Omar Acevedo, MLB right-handed pitcher, currently playing for the Baltimore Orioles, 1977

Kate Noelle KATIE Holmes, actress, 1978

Christina Maria Aguilera, pop singer and songwriter, 1980

R.I.P.:

Antonio Stradivari, luthier, the most prominent member of that profession; the Latin form of his surname, Stradivarius - sometimes shortened to Strad - is often used to refer to his instruments, 644 – December 18, 1737

Jean-Étienne Montucla, mathematician, wrote the first comprehensive history of mathematics, September 5, 1725 – December 18, 1799

Bernard Placidus Johann Nepomuk Bolzano, mathematician, theologian, philosopher, and logician, October 5, 1781 – December 18, 1848

Louis Moreau Gottschalk, composer and pianist, May 8, 1829 – December 18, 1869

Michel Chasles, mathematician, November 15, 1793 – December 18, 1880

Dolores Loehr, aka Diana Lynn, actress and pianist, October 7, 1926 – December 18, 1971

Harry Bartholomew Hooper, MLB right fielder, played from 1909 to 1925; a career .281 hitter with 75 home runs, 817 RBI, 1429 runs, 2466 hits, 389 doubles, 160 triples, and 375 stolen bases in 2309 games; on May 30, 1913, became the first player to hit a home run to leadoff both games of a doubleheader, a mark only matched by Rickey Henderson 80 years later; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, August 24, 1887 – December 18, 1974

Alexey Nikolayevich Kosygin, politician and administrator, who served as Premier of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1980, February 20, 1904 - December 18, 1980

Paul Tortelier, cellist and composer, March 21, 1914 - December 18, 1990

Anne Revere, film actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1945 for National Velvet, June 25, 1903 – December 18, 1990

Mark Goodson, television producer, specializing in game shows, January 14, 1915 – December 18, 1992

Samuel Watenmaker, aka Samuel SAM Wanamaker, actor and director, June 14, 1919 – December 18, 1993

Roger Apéry, mathematician, remembered for Apéry's theorem, November 14, 1916 – December 18, 1994

Konrad Zuse, engineer and computer pioneer, who developed the first functional tape-stored-program-controlled computer, the Z3, in 1941; in 1998 the Z3 was proven to be Turing-complete, June 22, 1910 – December 18, 1995

Yulii Borisovich Khariton, physicist working in the field of atomic energy, who studied under Ernest Rutherford; he was the chief designer of the Soviet atomic bomb, and stayed with the Soviet nuclear program for many years, February 27, 1904 - December 18, 1996

Christopher Crosby CHRIS Farley, actor and comedian, February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997

Lev Stepanovich Dyomin, cosmonaut, who flew on the Soyuz 15 mission, January 11, 1926 - December 18, 1998

Robert Bresson, film director, September 25, 1901 – December 18, 1999

Kirsty Anna MacColl, singer-songwriter, October 10, 1959 – December 18, 2000

Ramon John RAY Hnatyshyn, PC, CC, CMM, CD, BA, LL.B, QC FRHSC (hon), Canada's twenty-fourth governor general, serving from 1990 to 1995, March 16, 1934 – December 18, 2002

Today CCXLI

2006-12-17T01:03:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Émilie du Châtelet, mathematician, physicist, and author, researched the science of fire - publishing in 1737 a paper which foresaw what is today known as infra-red radiation - and the nature of light, December 17, 1706 – September 10, 1749

Domenico Cimarosa, opera composer, December 17, 1749 – January 11, 1801

Ludwig van Beethoven, composer and virtuoso pianist, one of the greatest composers in the history of music, and the predominant figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music; Listen to his music!, December 17, 1770 – March 26, 1827

Sir Humphry Davy, 1st Baronet, FRS, chemist and physicist; he used Volta's electric battery to separate salts by what is now known as electrolysis; he also studied the energies involved in separating these salts, which is now the field of electrochemistry, December 17, 1778 – May 29, 1829

Pierre Paul Emile Roux, physician, bacteriologist and immunologist, who was one of the closest collaborators of Louis Pasteur, a co-founder of the Pasteur Institute, and discoverer of the anti-diphtheria serum, December 17, 1853 - November 3, 1933

Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator, theatrical director and producer, December 17, 1893 – March 30, 1966

Arthur Fiedler, conductor, conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1930 to 1979, December 17, 1894 – July 10, 1979

Dame Mary Cartwright DBE, mathematician, December 17, 1900 - April 3, 1998

Ray Noble, bandleader, composer, arranger, and actor, who became leader of the HMV Records studio band, known as the New Mayfair Dance Orchestra, in 1929, December 17, 1903 - April 3, 1978

Fernando Lopes-Graça, GOSE, GCIH, composer and musicologist, December 17, 1906 - November 27, 1994

Willard Frank Libby Ph.D., chemist and educator, famous for his role in the development of radiocarbon dating, a process which revolutionized archaeology; awarde the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for leading the team that developed Carbon-14 dating, December 17, 1908 – September 8, 1980

Melvin SY Oliver, jazz trumpeter, composer, and bandleader, December 17, 1910 — May 28, 1988

André Claveau, singer, December 17, 1915 - July 4, 2003

Kenneth Eugene Iverson Ph.D., computer scientist, who developed the APL programming language in 1957; he received the Turing Award in 1979 for his contributions to mathematical notation and programming language theory, December 17, 1920 - October 19, 2004

Raymond Leo RAY Jablonski, MLB third baseman, who played from 1953 to 1960; he was an NL All-Star in 1954, December 17, 1926 - November 25, 1985

Richard Long, actor, known for his leading roles on The Big Valley and Nanny and the Professor, and for several appearances as Gentleman Jack Darby on Maverick; he played private detective Rex Randolph as a series lead on both Bourbon Street Beat and 77 Sunset Strip, December 17, 1927 - December 21, 1974

Jacqueline Hill, actress best known for her role as Barbara Wright, on Doctor Who, one of the first of The Doctor's companions, 1963 to 1965; she appeared as the priestess Lexa in the 1980 story Meglos, December 17, 1929 – February 18, 1993

William L. Safire, author, semi-retired columnist, and former journalist and presidential speechwriter; in 1978, he won a Pulitzer Prize, 1929

Robert Charles Joseph Edward Sabatini BOB Guccione, founder and former publisher of Penthouse, 1930

Robert Bruce BOB Mathias, decathlete, two-time Olympic gold medalist, and U.S> congressman, November 17, 1930 - September 2, 2006

Armin Mueller-Stahl, film actor, 1930

Thomas Hicks, aka Tommy Steele OBE, musician, singer and actor, Britain's first pop idol, 1936

Carl O'Neil CARLO Little, rock and roll drummer, the first drummer with the Rolling Stones, who taught Keith Moon how to play, December 17, 1938 - August 6, 2005

Edward James EDDIE Kendricks, singer and songwriter, one of the lead singers of The Temptations during the 1960's and early 1970's, December 17, 1939 – October 5, 1992

Paul Butterfield, blues harmonica player and singer, and one of the earliest white exponents of the Chicago electric blues style, December 17, 1942 – May 4, 1987

Ron Geesin, musician and composer, known as the co-author of Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother suite, 1943

Jack Laurence Chalker, science fiction author, known for his Well World series of novels; he wrote many other novels - most, but not all, part of series - and at least nine short stories; many of his works involve some physical transformation of the main characters; some of his remains are interred in his family plot, with the remainder distributed off several ferryboats and on H.P. Lovecraft's grave; Chalker was one of my favourite authors, December 17, 1944 - February 11, 2005

Ernie Hudson, actor, who played Winston Zeddemore in the 1984 film Ghostbusters, 1945

Eugene Levy, actor, television director, producer, and writer, an alumnus of both Second City Toronto and SCTV; he played Jim's dad in the American Pie movie series, 1946

Paul Rodgers, singer/songwriter, known as a member of the bands Free and Bad Company, and as a successful solo artist, 1949

William BILL Pullman, actor, 1953

Michael Edward MIKE Mills, multi-instrumentalist, the bass player for R.E.M., 1958

Antonino GIOVANNI Ribisi, actor, 1974

Milla (Militza) Jovovich, model, actress, musician, singer, and fashion designer, 1975

Sarah Paulson, actress, 1975

Zsanett "Sandy" Égerházi, actress, nude model, and talent agent, 1976

Chase Cameron Utley, MLB second baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, 1978

Craig Kielburger, child rights advocate, leadership specialist, award-winning author, and speaker, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize three times; he founded Free The Children, the world's largest network of children helping children through education and, at age 12, co-founded Leaders Today, a youth leadership training organization, 1982

R.I.P.:

Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar y Ponte Palacios y Blanco, aka Simon Bolivar, known as "El Libertador," South American independentist leader, credited with leading the fight for independence in what are now the countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama and Bolivia; President of Bolivia from 1825 to 1826, July 24, 1783 - December 17, 1830

William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, GCVO, OM, PC, PRS, mathematical physicist and engineer, working in the mathematical analysis of electricity and thermodynamics; enjoyed a second career as a telegraph engineer and inventor; created the absolute temperature scale, the units of which are known as degrees Kelvin, June 26, 1824 – December 17, 1907

Frank Alvin Gotch, professional wrestler, the World Heavyweight Wrestling Champion from 1908 to 1913, April 27, 1878 – December 17, 1917

Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama, February 12, 1876 - December 17, 1933

Alicia Boole Stott, mathematician, the third daughter of George Boole, known for coining the term polytope to refer to a convex solid in four dimensions, and having an impressive grasp of four-dimensional geometry from a very early age; she found that there are exactly six regular polytopes on four dimensions, June 8, 1860 - December 17, 1940

Thomas Mitchell, motion picture character actor, who won Oscar, Emmy, and Tony Awards, July 11, 1892 – December 17, 1962

Linda Wong, actress, September 13, 1951 - December 17, 1987

Victor Francis Hess, physicist, shared the 1936 Nobel Prize in Physics with Carl David Anderson for the discovery of cosmic rays, June 24, 1883 – December 17, 1964

Don Ellis, jazz trumpeter, drummer, composer, and leader of big bands, who consistently explored the area of unusual time signatures; he also worked as a film composer, creating a brilliant score to 1971's The French Connection, among other works, July 25, 1934 - December 17, 1978

Dana Andrews, actor, January 1, 1909 - December 17, 1992

Grover Washington, Jr., jazz-funk saxophonist, one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre, December 12, 1943 – December 17, 1999

Rex Elvie Allen, actor, singer, and songwriter, December 31, 1920 – December 17, 1999

Today CCXL - December 16th

2006-12-16T00:43:00.000-05:00

Today CCXXXIX - December 15th

2006-12-16T00:42:00.000-05:00

Today CCXXXVIII

2006-12-14T01:31:00.000-05:00

Today CCXXXVII

2006-12-13T00:34:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Francesco Bianchini, philosopher and scientist, who worked for the curia of many popes, including being secretary of the commission for the reform of the calendar, December 13, 1662 – March 2, 1729

Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus, natural philosopher, December 13, 1724 – August 10, 1802

Ernst WERNER von Siemens, inventor and industrialist, December 13, 1816 – December 6, 1892

Mary Ann Todd Lincoln, First Lady of the United States when her husband, Abraham Lincoln, served as president, from 1861 until 1865, December 13, 1818 – July 16, 1882

Thomas Augustus Watson, assistant to Alexander Graham Bell, January 8, 1854 - December 13, 1934

Emily Carr, artist and writer, December 13, 1871 – March 2, 1945

Josef Lhévinne, pianist and piano teacher, December 13, 1874 – December 2, 1944

George Pollák, aka George Pólya, mathematician, December 13, 1887 – September 7, 1985

Sgt. Alvin Cullum York, soldier, famous for his heroism in World War I, awarded the Medal of Honor for leading an attack on a German machine-gun nest, December 13, 1887 – September 2, 1964

Carlos Montoya, Flamenco guitarist, December 13, 1903 – March 3, 1993

Emmett Evan VAN Heflin, Jr., film and theatre actor, won the 1942 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, December 13, 1910 – July 23, 1971

Trygve Magnus Haavelmo, economist, awarded the 1989 Nobel Prize in Economics, December 13, 1911 – July 28, 1999

Archibald Wright, aka Archie Moore, boxer, the World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion, December 13, 1913 or 1916 – December 9, 1998

Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens, aka Curt Jurgens, stage and motion-picture actor, December 13, 1915 - June 18, 1982

John Hart, motion picture and television actor; in his early career, he appeared mostly in Westerns; he is known for replacing Clayton Moore in 1952 for two seasons of The Lone Ranger, when Moore demanded a higher salary, 1917

Philip Warren Anderson, theoretical physicist, who has made contributions to the theories of localization, antiferromagnetism, and high-temperature superconductivity; he shared the 1977 Nobel Prize in Physics with co-researchers Sir Nevill Francis Mott and John van Vleck, 1923

Lawrence Eugene LARRY Doby, professional baseball player in the Negro Leagues and Major League Baseball, the third American to play in the Japanese Baseball League, December 13, 1923 – June 18, 2003

Richard Wayne Van DICK Dyke, television and movie actor, known for his starring roles in the films Mary Poppins and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and on The Dick Van Dyke Show and Diagnosis: Murder, 1925

Arthur CHRISTOPHER Orme Plummer, CC, award-winning theatre, film, and television actor, 1929

Richard Darryl Zanuck, film producer, the son of Darryl Zanuck, 1934

Lyndall Dale LINDY McDaniel, former MLB right-handed relief pitcher, who played for 21 years, from 1955 to 1975, 1935

Eric Flynn, actor and singer, who appeared in the Doctor Who story The Wheel in Space in 1969 as Leo Ryan, December 13, 1939 - March 4, 2002

John Davidson, actor and game show host, 1941

Ferguson Arthur FERGIE Jenkins CM, former MLB right-handed pitcher; a three-time All-Star, he won the NL Cy Young Award in 1971, the first Chicago Cubs pitcher and the first Canadian ever to do so; in 1991, he became the first Canadian ever elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, 1943

Hwang Jang Lee, martial artist and film actor, 1944

Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, rock guitarist, who has played with Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers, and as a session musician, 1948

Wendie Malick, actress, voice actor, and former fashion model; her first lead role on a TV series was on Dream On, where she appeared from 1990 until 1996; she appeared as Nina Van Horn on Just Shoot Me!, 1950

Steven Vincent STEVE Buscemi, film and stage character actor, and film director, 1957

Harry Gregson-Williams, film score composer, 1961

Joshua Smith JOSH Fogg, MLB pitcher, who plays for the Colorado Rockies, 1976

Amy Lynn Lee, singer-songwriter and pianist, a founding member and lead singer of Evanescence, 1981

Carlos Enrique RICKY Nolasco, MLB right-handed pitcher, who plays for the Florida Marlins, 1982

R.I.P.:

Moshe ben Maimon, aka Maimonides, rabbi, physician, and philosopher, March 30, 1135 or 1138 – December 13, 1204

Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, aka Donatello, artist and sculptor of the early Renaissance, 1386 – December 13, 1466,

Johann Heidenberg, aka Johannes Trithemius,abbot and cryptographer; his most famous work is Steganographia, which appears to be about black magic, but is actually concerned with cryptography and steganography; the work has lent its name to the modern field of steganography, February 1, 1462 - December 13, 1516

Niccolò Fontana Tartaglia, mathematician, engineer, surveyor, and bookkeeper, who published many books, including the first Italian translations of Archimedes and Euclid, and a compilation of mathematics, 1499 – December 13, 1557

Alexander Selcraig, aka Alexander Selkirk, sailor, who spent four years as a castaway on an uninhabited island; it is thought that his story provided the inspiration for Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, 1676 – December 13, 1721

Pehr Wilhelm Wargentin, astronomer, September 22, 1717 – December 13, 1783

Anyos Jedlik, inventor, engineer, physicist, and priest, the possible inventor of the dynamo, January 11, 1800 – December 13, 1895

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

Samuel Gompers, labour and political leader, who founded the American Federation of Labor, January 26, 1850 - December 13, 1924

Friderik FRITZ Pregl, chemist, awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for making important contributions to quantitative organic microanalysis, September 3, 1869 – December 13, 1930

François Auguste Victor Grignard, chemist, who shared the 1912 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Paul Sabatier, May 6, 1871 - December 13, 1935

Jacques-Arsène d'Arsonval, biophysicist, inventor of the thermocouple ammeter and moving-coil galvanometer, June 8, 1851 - December 13, 1940

Wassily Kandinsky, painter and art theorist, credited with painting the first modern abstract works, December 16, 1866 – December 13, 1944

António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz, psychiatrist and neurosurgeon, who shared the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Walter Rudolf Hess, November 29, 1874 - December 13, 1955

Tim Moore, vaudevillian and comic actor, who starred as George "Kingfish" Stevens on TV's Amos 'n' Andy, December 9, 1887 - December 13, 1958

Anna Mary Robertson, aka Grandma Moses, folk artist and painter, September 7, 1860 – December 13, 1961

Spencer Williams, Jr., actor, film director, producer, and writer, who starred as Andy Brown on TV's Amos 'n' Andy, July 14, 1893 — December 13, 1969

Charles Hall Locher, aka Jon Hall, film actor, February 23, 1915 – December 13, 1979

Dewey "Pigmeat" Markham, comedian, singer, dancer, and actor, April 18, 1904 - December 13, 1981

Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, businessman, film producer, writer, government official, and owner of thoroughbred racehorses, February 20, 1899 - December 13, 1992

Kenneth Colin [K. C.] Irving, OC, ONB, entrepreneur and industrialist, March 14, 1899 - December 13, 1992

Zalman ZAL Yanovsky, musician, co-founder, guitarist, and singer for The Lovin' Spoonful, December 19, 1944 – December 13, 2002

Kenneth ANDRE Ian Rodgers, MLB shortstop, who played from 1957 to 1967; in an 11-year career, he compiled a .249 batting average, with 45 home runs and 245 RBI in 854 games, December 2, 1934 - December 13, 2004

David John Wheeler, computer scientist; along with Maurice Wilkes and Stanley Gill, he is credited with the invention of the subroutine; in cryptography, he was the designer of the stram cipher WAKE, and the co-designer, with Roger Needham, of the block ciphers TEA and XTEA encryption algorithms, February 9, 1927 – December 13, 2004

Today CCXXXVI - RIP Peter Boyle

2006-12-12T17:30:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Alfred Werner, chemist, who was awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and discovered hexol, a cobalt compound, December 12, 1866 - November 15, 1919

Kurt Magnus Atterberg, composer, known for his symphonies, operas, and ballets, December 12, 1887 – February 15, 1974

Emanuel Goldenberg, aka Edward Goldenberg [Edward G.] Robinson, stage and film actor; in 1923, he made his debut as Edward G. Robinson in The Bright Shawl; he appeared in over 90 films in a career spanning 50 years; his last scene was a suicide sequence in Soylent Green; in 1973, he was awarded an honorary Oscar, December 12, 1893 – January 26, 1973

Sammy Davis, Sr., dancer, musician, and entertainer, December 12, 1900 - May 21, 1988

Dagmar Nordstrom, composer, pianist, and singer, who performed with her sister Siggie as The Nordstrom Sisters, December 12, 1903 – April 9, 1976

Yasujiro Ozu, film director, December 12, 1903 - December 12, 1963

Roy Douglas, pianist, composer, orchestrator, and arranger, who started to play the piano when he was five, and at ten he was composing little piano pieces; he was Ralph Vaughan Williams' musical assistant from 1944 until the composer's death in 1958, helping him to prepare works for performance and publication, 1907

Mildred Linton, aka Karen Morley, film actress, who came to prominence in Hollywood films in the early 1930's, in such films as Mata Hari, Scarface, The Phantom of Crestwood, Arsene Lupin, Dinner at Eight, and Pride and Prejudice; her career came to an end in 1947, when she testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, and refused to answer questions about her alleged American Communist Party membership, December 12, 1909 - March 8, 2003

Francis Albert Sinatra, singer, December 12, 1915 – May 14, 1998

Joseph Goreed, aka Joe Williams, jazz singer, who achieved fame in 1954 as the singer for Count Basie's Orchestra, remaining with Basie for several years; he appeared in the recurring of Bill Cosby's father-in-law on The Cosby Show, December 12, 1918 – March 29, 1999

Robert William BOB Barker, game show host, who has won seventeen Emmy Awards, 1923

Edward Irving Koch, politician, the Mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989, 1924

Honor Blackman, actress, known for her roles as Dr. Cathy Gale in The Avengers and as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, 1927

Robert Noyce, Ph.D., co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957, and Intel in 1968, December 12, 1927 – June 3, 1990

Toshiko Akiyoshi, jazz pianist and composer/arranger, who was among the first successful female instrumentalists in jazz; she has received 14 Grammy nominations, and she was the first woman to win the Best Arranger and Composer awards in Down Beat magazine's Readers Poll, 1929

Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, aka Connie Francis, pop singer, known for such songs as Who's Sorry Now? and Where The Boys Are, 1938

Marie DIONNE Warrick, singer, best known for her work with Hal David and Burt Bacharach, 1940

Forrest Richard DICKEY Betts, guitarist, singer, and songwriter, known for his work as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band, 1943

Grover Washington, Jr., jazz-funk saxophonist, one of the founders of the smooth jazz genre, December 12, 1943 – December 17, 1999

Cathleen Roxanne CATHY Rigby, gymnast, actress, and speaker, 1952

Bruce Kulick, musician, lead guitarist for KISS from September, 1984, to February, 1996, 1953

Sheila Escovedo, aka Sheila E., drummer and percussionist, who also plays violin and guitar; she is the daughter of percussionist Pete Escovedo, and niece of Alejandro Escovedo and Coke Escovedo; the late Tito Puente was her godfather, 1957

Jennifer Lynn Connelly, film actress and former child model, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2001 for A Beautiful Mind, 1970

Mädchen Amick, actress, whose first break came when David Lynch chose her to play Shelly Johnson on Twin Peaks, 1970

Regina Hall, film and television actress, known for her roles in the Scary Movie films, 1970

Shelton Hank Williams, musician, the grandson of Hank Williams, Sr. and the son of Hank Williams Jr, 1972

Teena Renae Brandon, aka Brandon Teena, transgendered [female-to-male] man, who was raped and murdered, in a hate crime of the 1990's; he is the subject of the Academy Award-winning 1999 film Boys Don't Cry, based on the documentary film The Brandon Teena Story, December 12, 1972 - December 31, 1993

Mayim Hoya Bialik, actress, known for her role in Beaches, and for her lead role as Blossom Russo on the sitcom Blossom; as of 2006, she is completing work on her Ph.D. thesis, 1975

Orlando Thill Hudson, MLB second baseman for the Arizona Diamondbacks, renowned for his fielding prowess; he won Gold Glove Awards in 2005 and 2006, 1977

Evren Yigit Genis, classical music composer, who started to compose in 1995, and wrote his first symphony at the age of 17; he has composed over 300 pieces, including five symphonies, violin and piano concertos, and some chamber music, sonatas and suites, 1978

Garrett Bernard Atkins, MLB third baseman for the Colorado Rockies since 2003, 1975

Katrina Elam, country music singer, 1983

R.I.P.:

John Pell, mathematician, March 1, 1611 – December 12, 1685

Victor Yakovlevich Bunyakovsky, mathematician, who worked in theoretical mechanics and number theory, December 16, 1804 – December 12, 1889

Julius Ullman, aka Douglas Fairbanks, actor, screenwriter, director, and producer, who became noted for his swashbuckling roles in silent movies, May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939

Yasujiro Ozu, film director, December 12, 1903 - December 12, 1963

Tallulah Brockman Bankhead, actress, talk-show host, and bonne vivant, January 31, 1902 - December 12, 1968

Vinko Žganec, ethnomusicologist, January 22, 1890 - December 12, 1976

Clementine Ogilvy Spencer-Churchill, Baroness Spencer-Churchill, GBE, CStJ, the wife of Sir Winston Churchill, April 1, 1885 – December 12, 1977

Anne Baxter, actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1946 for The Razor's Edge, May 7, 1923 – December 12, 1985

Ian AR Stewart, rock musician, who played piano in the original line-up of The Rolling Stones, predating both Bill Wyman and Charlie Watts as members of the band; he was inducted posthumously into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1989 with the band, July 18, 1938 – December 12, 1985

Stuart Allen Roosa, NASA astronaut, who was the command module pilot for the Apollo 14 mission, August 16, 1933 – December 12, 1994

Yevgeniy Mikhailovich [E. M.] Landis, mathematician, who worked mainly on partial differential equations, October 6, 1921 – December 12, 1997

George Montgomery Letz, aka George Montgomery, actor, painter, sculptor, furniture craftsman, and stuntman, best known as an actor in Westerns, August 29, 1916 - December 12, 2000

Veljko Šošo, aka Barry Mitchell, aka Brad Dexter, actor, known for his role as Harry Luck in The Magnificent Seven; his relationship with Frank Sinatra began in 1964 when he saved Sinatra from drowning - the two later had a falling out; Dexter died on what would have been Sinatra's 87th birthday, April 9, 1917 – December 12, 2002

Peter Boyle, comedic and dramatic actor, known for his role as Frank Barone on the sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, and his film roles in Young Frankenstein and Taxi Driver; his first starring role was as the title character in the 1970 movie Joe; he won an Emmy Award in 1996 as Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his appearance on The X-Files, October 18, 1935 – December 12, 2006

Today CCXXXV

2006-12-11T02:29:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Manuel Cardoso, composer and organist, baptized December 11, 1566 – November 24, 1650

Emanuele d'Astorga, composer, December 11, 1681 - August 21, 1736

Gian Domenico Romagnosi, philosopher, economist, and jurist, believed to be the first person to publish an account suggesting a relationship between electricity and magnetism, about two decades before Hans Christian Ørsted's 1820 discovery of the same relationship, December 11, 1761 – June 8, 1835

Sir David Brewster, scientist, inventor, and writer, December 11, 1781 – February 10, 1868

Hector Louis Berlioz, Romantic composer, known for the Symphonie fantastique, the Grande Messe des Morts (Requiem), and about 50 songs for voice and piano, December 11, 1803 – March 8, 1869

John Labatt, businessman and brewer, the son of John Kinder Labatt, the founder of the Labatt Brewing Company, December 11, 1838 – April 27, 1915

Heinrich Hermann ROBERT Koch, physician, one of the founders of bacteriology; he became famous for the discovery of the anthrax bacillus, the tuberculosis bacillus, and the cholera vibrio; he was awarded the 1905 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his tuberculosis findings, December 11, 1843 – May 27, 1910

Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko, theatre director, writer, pedagogue, and playwright, who co-founded the Moscow Art Theatre with Konstantin Stanislavsky in 1898, December 11, 1858 - April 25, 1943

Annie Jump Cannon, astronomer, whose cataloguing work was instrumental in the development of contemporary stellar classification, December 11, 1863 – April 13, 1941

Josip Plemelj, mathematician, December 11, 1873 - May 22, 1967

Max Born, mathematician and physicist, who shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics with Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe, December 11, 1882 – January 5, 1970

Fiorello Enrico [Henry] LaGuardia, mayor of New York from 1934 to 1945l; LaGuardia Airport was named after him; the Laguardia Commission was the first in-depth study into the effects of smoking marijuana - it systematically debunked claims made by the U.S. Treasury Department that smoking marijuana would result in insanity - the report was prepared by the New York Academy of Medicine, on behalf of a commission appointed in 1939 by Mayor LaGuardia, December 11, 1882 – September 20, 1947

Victor McLaglen, boxer, wrestler, and actor; in films, he became a popular character actor, with a particular knack for playing drunks; he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1935 for his role in The Informer; near the end of his career, he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Quiet Man; he was especially popular with director John Ford, who frequently included McLaglen in his films; toward the end of his career, he made several guest appearances on television, particularly in Western series such as Have Gun, Will Travel and Rawhide, December 10, 1886 - November 7, 1959

Walter Marvin Knott, farmer, who created the Knott's Berry Farm amusement park, December 11, 1889 – December 3, 1981

Carlos Gardel, baritone tango singer, composer, and actor, December 11, 1887 – June 24, 1935

Luis Antonio Damaso de Alonso, aka Gilbert Roland, actor, December 11, 1905 – May 15, 1994

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr., composer of classical music, 1908

Naguib Mahfouz, novelist, awarded the 1988 Nobel Prize for Literature, December 11, 1911 – August 30, 2006

Valmond Maurice Grossmann, aka Val Guest, film director, best known for his science-fiction films for Hammer Film Productions in the 1950's, part of his long and varied career in the film industry from the early 1930's until the early 1980's, December 11, 1911 – May 10, 2006

Carlo Ponti, film producer, the husband of Sophia Loren, 1912

Jean-Alfred Villain-Marais , aka Jean Marais, actor, December 11, 1913 – November 8, 1998

Dámaso Pérez Prado, bandleader and composer, studied classical piano in his early childhood, and later played organ and piano in local clubs, specialiing in mambos, an upbeat adaptation of the Cuban danzón; also appeared in films in the United States and Europe as well as in Mexican cinema; today, the mambo, reinvigorated under the name salsa, is still the signature dance of Latin popular music, and Pérez Prado, Jr., continues to direct the Pérez Prado Orchestra in Mexico City, December 11, 1916 - September 14, 1989

Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn, novelist, dramatist, and historian, awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature, 1918

Emily Bertelson, aka Marie Windsor, actress, sometimes called Queen of the B's because she appeared in so many films noirs and b-movies, such as Cat-Women of the Moon; after her acting career, she became a painter and sculptor, December 11, 1919 - December 10, 2000

Elizabeth Winifred Boger, aka Betsy Blair, character actress; she played Marty's girlfriend in Marty, for which she received prizes from Cannes and an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actres; her Hollywood career was damaged during the McCarthy era, and she found work in New York, 1923

Paul Greengard, neuroscientist, known for his work on the molecular and cellular function of neurons, whose research has focused on events inside the neuron caused by neurotransmitters; he shared the 2000 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Arvid Carlsson and Eric Kandel, 1925

Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, blues singer, whose introduction to music started in the Baptist church, where she and her six siblings began to sing at a very early age; while still a child, she taught herself to play the drums and harmonica and, by the age of 14, she had run away from home to make her career in secular music, December 11, 1926 – July 25, 1984

Jean-Louis Trintignant, actor, 1930

Rosita Dolores Alverío, aka Rita Moreno, actress, one of only nine people to have won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award; in 1961, she appeared as Anita in the Broadway musical West Side Story, for which she gained fame and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, 1931

Alfred McCoy Tyner, jazz pianist, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet, 1938

David Gates, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead singer of Bread, 1939

Donna Jean Miller, aka Donna Mills, actress, 1942

John Forbes Kerry, politician, Democratic presidential nominee in the 2004 U. S. presidential election, 1943

Teri Garr, actress and comedian, who appeared in the Star Trek episode Assignment: Earth in 1968 with Robert Lansing; one of her most famous roles was in Tootsie, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress, 1944 or 1947

Brenda Mae Tarpley, aka Brenda Lee, pop singer, known for the hit song Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, 1944

Bess Armstrong, film and television actress, 1953

Guðlaugur Kristinn Óttarsson, guitar player, mathematician, inventor, practising polytechnic engineer, lecturer, and the author of several scientific papers, 1954

Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna, Jr., aka Nikki Sixx, bassist and songwriter for Mötley Crüe, 1958

Ben Browder, film and television actor, known for his roles on Farscape and Stargate SG-1, 1962

Cosy Sheridan, folk singer/songwriter, 1964

Viswanathan Anand, chess Grandmaster and former FIDE World Champion, 1969

Murugan [Thirumurugan] Thiruchelvam, chess player, England's youngest player ever to gain an international rating - 2020 at the age of nine, 1988

R.I.P.:

Oliver Fisher Winchester, businessman and politician; he manufactured and marketed the Winchester repeating rifle, which was a much re-designed descendant of the [Smith & Wesson] Volcanic rifle of some years earlier, November 30, 1810 - December 11, 1880

Christian Lous Lange, shared the 1921 Nobel Peace Prize with Hjalmar Branting, September 17, 1869 – December 11, 1938

Charles Émile Picard, mathematician, who was concerned with the training of mathematics, physics, and engineering students; he wrote a classic textbook on analysis, which is still considered a standard reference, and one of the first textbooks on the theory of relativity, July 24, 1856 - December 11, 1941

Leslie John Comrie, astronomer and a pioneer in mechanical computation, August 15, 1893 – December 11, 1950

Jeanne Roques, aka Musidora, silent film actress, author, screenwriter, and film director, remembered for her vamp persona in the roles of Irma Vep and Diana Monti in the early motion picture crime serials Les Vampires and Judex, February 23, 1889 - December 11, 1957

James Leroy JIM Bottomley, MLB first baseman and player-manager, who had over 100 RBIs in each season from 1924 to 1929; his best season was in 1928, when he hit .325 with 31 home runs and 136 RBIs, and won the NL Most Valuable Player Award; he set the MLB record for RBIs in a single game, with 12, on September 16, 1924; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame posthumously in 1974, April 23, 1900 - December 11, 1959

Sam Cooke, gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur, January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964

Percy Kilbride, character actor, July 16, 1888 - December 11, 1964

Vincent du Vigneaud, biochemist, awarded the 1955 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, May 18, 1901 – December 11, 1978

André Lichnerowicz, mathematical physicist and educator, January 21, 1915 - December 11, 1998

Today CCXXXIV

2006-12-10T00:34:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Johannes Stöffler [or Stöfler], mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, priest, maker of astronomical instruments; the lunar crater Stöfler is named after him, December 10, 1452 – February 16, 1531

Isaac Beeckman, philosopher and scientist, December 10, 1588 - May 19, 1637

Josef Škoda, physician, medical professor, and dermatologist, a co-founder of the Modern Medical School of Vienna, December 10, 1805 - June 13, 1881

Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine; she translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's memoir on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine, appending a set of notes which specified in complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, recognized by historians as the world's first computer program; on December 10, 1980, her birthday, the U.S. Defense Department approved the reference manual for its new computer programming language, called Ada, December 10, 1815 – November 27, 1852

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck, composer, organist, and music teacher, December 10, 1822 – November 8, 1890

Monsignor Lorenzo Perosi, composer of sacred music, December 21, 1872 - October 12, 1956

Nelly Sachs, poet and dramatist, who shared the 1966 Nobel Prize for Literature with Shmuel Yosef Agnon, December 10, 1891, Berlin – May 12, 1970,

Una Merkel, actress, who entered films in 1920 as Lillian Gish's double in the film Way Down East; she appeared in several films during the silent era but spent most of her time in New York working on Broadway; she returned to Hollywood, and achieved her greatest success with the advent of "talkies," December 10, 1903 – January 2, 1986

Olivier Messiaen, composer, organist, and ornithologist, December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992

Hermes Pangiotopolous, aka Hermes Pan, dancer and choreographer, known as Fred Astaire's choreographic collaborator on the 1930's movie musicals starring Astaire and Ginger Rogers, December 10, 1909 – September 19, 1990

Chester Robert CHET Huntley, television newscaster; in 1956, NBC news executives decided to replace news anchor John Cameron Swayze, and the leading contenders were Chet Huntley and David Brinkley; the eventual decision was to have both men share the assignment; their on-air chemistry was apparent from the start, and the team replaced Swayze on the network's nightly news program; the Huntley-Brinkley Report began in October, 1956 and was soon a ratings success, lasting until Julty, 1971, December 10, 1911 - March 20, 1975

Morton Gould, pianist, composer, conductor, and arranger, December 10, 1913 – February 21, 1996

Mary Leta Dorothy Slaton, aka Dorothy Lamour, singer and motion picture actress, December 10, 1914 – September 22, 1996

Anne Gwynne, film actress and model, known as one of the first scream queens because of her numerous appearance in horror films; she was one of the most popular pin-ups of World War II, December 10, 1918 - March 31, 2003

Alexander Courage, composer of music, primarily for television and motion pictures, known for writing the theme music to the original Star Trek TV series, 1919

Dan Blocker, actor, known for his role as Eric 'Hoss' Cartwright on Bonanza, December 10, 1928 – May 13, 1972

Makoto MAKO Iwamatsu, actor and voice actor, nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Sand Pebbles, and for a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for the musical Pacific Overtures; he played the Wizard Akiro in the two Conan, and Admiral Yamamoto in Pearl Harbor; he was the voice of Iroh on Avatar: The Last Airbender, December 10, 1933 - July 21, 2006

Howard Martin Temin, geneticist, who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Renato Dulbecco and David Baltimore for the discovery of reverse transcriptase, December 10, 1934 – February 9, 1994

Yuri Khatuevich Temirkanov, conductor, 1938

David Stuart Chadwick, aka Chad Stuart, half of the folk rock duo Chad and Jeremy with Jeremy Clyde, 1941

Fionnula Flanagan, actress, who has appeared on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Enterprise, 1941

Tommy Rettig, child actor, computer [database] software engineer, and author, known for starring as Jeff Miller in the first four seasons of the Lassie television series, December 10, 1941 – February 15, 1996

Steven Renko, Jr., former MLB pitcher; in 15 seasons, he had a 134-146 Win-Loss record, 451 Games, 365 Games Started, 57 Complete Games, 9 Shutouts, 36 Games Finished, 6 Saves, 2,494 Innings Pitched, 2,438 Hits Allowed, 1,233 Runs Allowed, 1,107 Earned Runs Allowed, 248 Home Runs Allowed, 1,010 Walks Allowed, 1,455 Strikeouts, 22 Hit Batsmen, 73 Wild Pitches, 10,704 Batters Faced, 86 Intentional Walks, 4 Balks and a 3.99 ERA, 1944

Douglas C. Kenney, writer and co-founder of National Lampoon magazine, who edited the magazine and wrote much of its early material, December 10, 1947 – August 27, 1980

Susan Hallock Dey, actress, known for her roles on The Partridge Family and L.A. Law, 1952

Michael Clarke Duncan, actor, whose breakout role was in The Green Mile, a role which netted him an Academy Award nomination, 1957

Kenneth Charles Branagh, actor and film director, 1960

Melquiades MEL Rojas Medrano, former MLB pitcher from 1990 to 1999, 1966

Megan Martha MEG White, musician,drummer for The White Stripes, 1974

Sarah Chang, violinist, 1980

Raven-Symoné Christina Pearman, actress, R&B and pop singer, songwriter, dancer, and television producer, known for her roles as Olivia Kendall on The Cosby Show, and as Raven Baxter on That's So Raven, 1985

Rachel Piña Trachtenburg, musician and singer, the drummer and vocalist for the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, along with her parents; she also plays the harmonica and the bass guitar, 1993

R.I.P.:

Giulio Caccini, composer, teacher, singer, instrumentalist, and writer of the very late Renaissance and early Baroque eras, one of the founders of the genre of opera, October 8, 1551 – December 10, 1618

Edmund Gunter, mathematician, and inventor, 1581 - December 10, 1626

Tarquinio Merula, composer, organist, and violinist of the early Baroque era; stylistically, he was a member of the Venetian school; he applied newly developed techniques to sacred music, 1594 or 1595 – December 10, 1665

Thomas Johann Seebeck, physicist, who discovered the thermoelectric effect, in which a junction of dissimilar metals produces an electric current when exposed to a temperature gradient; this is the basis of thermocouples and thermopiles, April 9, 1770 – December 10, 1831

Alfred Bernhard Nobel, chemist, engineer, innovator, armaments manufacturer, and the inventor of dynamite; in his last will, he used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes; the synthetic element Nobelium was named after him, October 21, 1833 – December 10, 1896

Luigi Pirandello, dramatist, novelist, and short story writer, awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize in Literature, June 28, 1867 – December 10, 1936

Walter Perry Johnson, MLB right-handed pitcher, the premier power pitcher of his era, believed to have thrown as high as 99 miles per hour from a sidearm angle; in a 21-year career, he had twelve 20-win seasons, including ten in a row; twice he topped thirty wins - 33 in 1912 and 36 in 1913; his record includes 110 shutouts, the most in baseball history; he won the triple crown for pitchers in 1913, 1918, and 1924; he was the AL Most Valuable Player in 1913 and 1924; his 3,508 career strikeout record stood for 56 years, until Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, and Gaylord Perry (in that order) broke it in 1983; his ERA of 1.14 in 1913 is one of the lowest of all; he compiled a career batting average of .235, including a record .433 average in 1925; his career record is 417 wins and 279 losses (.599), in 802 games played, 666 started, with 531 complete games, and a career ERA of 2.17; he was one of the first five electees to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936, November 6, 1887 - December 10, 1946

Damon Runyon, newspaperman and writer, October 4, 1884 – December 10, 1946

Otis Ray Redding, Jr., soul singer, best known for his posthumous hit single, (Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay; wrote many of his own songs, often with Steve Cropper; played at the Monterey Pop Festival; recorded many successful albums and songs; died in a plane crash, September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967

Edward Davis ED Wood, Jr., motion picture director, screenwriter, actor, and producer, October 10, 1924 – December 10, 1978

Anna McKim , aka Ann Dvorak, film actress, August 2, 1912 - December 10, 1979

Freeman Fisher GIZZIE Gosden, radio comedian; from 1928 to 1960, he voiced the characters Amos, The Kingfish, Lightning, Brother Crawford, and some dozen other characters on the Amos & Andy show, May 5, 1899 - December 10, 1982

Harriet Shapiro, aka Susan Cabot, actress, July 9, 1927 - December 10, 1986

Jascha Heifetz, virtuoso violinist, February 2, 1901 – December 10, 1987

Armand Hammer, industrialist and art collector, May 21, 1898 – December 10, 1990

Faron Young, country music singer, mainly in the honky tonk genre, February 25, 1932 -December 10, 1996

Richard Clare RICK Danko, musician and singer, bass player and vocalist for The Band, December 29, 1942 – December 10, 1999

Joseph Heller, novelist, May 1, 1923 – December 12, 1999

Emily Bertelson, aka Marie Windsor, actress, sometimes called Queen of the B's because she appeared in so many films noirs and b-movies, such as Cat-Women of the Moon; after her acting career, she became a painter and sculptor, December 11, 1919 - December 10, 2000

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III, comedian, actor, and writer; he won an Emmy Award in 1973, and five Grammy Awards, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1982; in 1974 he won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award, December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005

Today CCXXXIII

2006-12-09T00:44:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Gemma Frisius, aka Reiner Gemma, mathematician, cartographer, and instrument maker, who created globes, improved the mathematical instruments of his day, and applied mathematics in new ways to surveying and navigation, December 9, 1508 - May 25, 1555

Adriaan Adriaanszoon, aka Metius, geometer and astronomer, December 9, 1571 - September 6, 1635

John Milton, poet, known for such works as his epic poem Paradise Lost, December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674

Baldassare Ferri, castrato singer, December 9, 1610 - September 10, 1680

Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, aka August Bachmann, physician and botanist, December 9, 1652 – December 20, 1723

William Whiston, theologian, historian, translator, and mathematician, December 9, 1667 - August 22, 1752

Claude Louis Berthollet, chemist; along with Antoine Lavoisier and others, he devised a chemical nomenclature, which serves as the basis of the modern system of naming chemical compounds; he also carried out research into dyes and bleaches, introducing the use of chlorine as a bleach, and determined the composition of ammonia, December 9, 1748 – November 6, 1822

Émile Waldteufel, composer of popular music, waltzes, and polkas, December 9, 1837 – February 12, 1915

Emma Abbott, soprano singer, and guitar player, December 9, 1850 – January 5, 1891

Fritz Haber, chemist, awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his development of synthetic ammonia, important for fertilizers and explosives, December 9, 1868 – January 29, 1934

Joseph James JOE Kelley, MLB left fielder and manager, in 1894, batted .393 with 111 RBI, 165 runs, and 107 walks, for a .502 on base percentage; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1971, December 9, 1871 – August 14, 1943

Berton Churchill, actor, December 9, 1876 – October 10, 1940

Joaquín Turina, composer of classical music, December 9, 1882 - January 14, 1949

Nikolai Nikolaevich Luzin, mathematician, noted for his work in descriptive set theory and aspects of mathematical analysis with strong connections to point-set topology, December 9, 1883 – January 28, 1950

Clarence Birdseye, fur trader and inventor, considered the founder of the modern frozen food industry, December 9, 1886 - October 7, 1956

María de la Concepción Supervía Pascual, aka Conchita Supervía, mezzo-soprano singer, December 9, 1895 – March 30, 1936

Hermione Ferdinanda Gingold, actress, who appeared on stage, on radio, in films, on television, and in recordings, December 9, 1897 - May 24, 1987

Emmett Kelly, circus performer, who began his career as a trapeze artist, and created the clown Weary Willie, based on the hobos of the Depression era, December 9, 1898 – March 28, 1979

Carol Dempster, film actress of the silent film era, December 9, 1901 - February 1, 1991

Margaret Hamilton, actress, who played the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, December 9, 1902 – May 16, 1985

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, naval officer and computer scientist; she was the first programmer of the Mark I Calculator, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language, December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992

Douglas Elton Fairbanks, Jr., KBE, DSC, actor, December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000

William BRODERICK Crawford, actor, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1949 for All the King's Men, December 9, 1911 - April 26, 1986

Thomas Phillip TIP O'Neill, Jr. politician, an outspoken liberal Democrat and member of the U.S. Congress, serving in the House of Representatives for 34 years; he was the Speaker of the House from 1977 until his retirement in 1987, December 9, 1912 – January 5, 1994

Dame Olga Maria ELISABETH Frederike Schwarzkopf DBE, soprano opera singer, known for her performances of Mozart, Strauss, and Hugo Wolf, December 9, 1915 – August 3, 2006

Issur Danielovitch Demsky, aka Kirk Douglas, actor and film producer, 1916

Leo James Rainwater Ph.D., physicist, who shared the 1975 Nobel Prize for Physics with Aage N. Bohr and Ben R. Mottelson, December 9, 1917 – May 31, 1986

William Nunn Lipscomb, Jr., inorganic chemist, working in experimental and theoretical chemistry and biochemistry, awarded the 1976 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1919

John Elroy Sanford, aka Redd Foxx, comedian best known for his starring role on Sanford and Son, December 9, 1922 - October 11, 1991

Nedenia Marjorie Hutton, aka Dina Merrill, actress, 1925

Henry Way Kendall, physicist, mountaineer, and photographer, who shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics with Jerome Isaac Friedman and Richard E. Taylor, December 9, 1926 – February 15, 1999

Pierre Henry, composer, a pioneer of the musique concrète genre of electronic music, 1927

Dick Van Patten, actor, 1928

John Nicholas Cassavetes, actor, screenwriter, and director, December 9, 1929 – February 3, 1989

Buck Henry Zuckerman, aka Buck Henry, actor, writer, and director, known for his work in television, film, comedy, and satire, 1930

Dame Judith Olivia JUDI Dench, CH, DBE, actress, who co-starred as Jean Pargetter on the series As Time Goes By from 1992 to 2002, with her close friend Geoffrey Palmer; she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1998 for Shakespeare in Love; she has won several Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Actress; in 1995, she took over the role of M in the James Bond film series, 1934

Amos Blakemore, aka Junior Wells, blues vocalist and harmonica player, December 9, 1934 – January 15, 1998

Lloyd Vernet BEAU Bridges III, actor, who plays guitar, and active in handgun control and environmental protection; in January 2005, he was cast as Major General Hank Landry, the new commander of Stargate Command on Stargate SG-1, replacing Richard Dean Anderson's character, also playing the character in four episodes of Stargate Atlantis, 1941

Dan Hicks, musician, known for his work with Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks, 1941

Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, singer, songwriter, and guitarist, 1950

Michael Dorn, actor and director, known for his role as the Klingon Worf in several Star Trek series and movies, 1952

John Gavin Malkovich, actor, producer, and director, 1953

Donald Clark DONNY Osmond, singer, musician, actor, talk show and game show host, record producer, race car driver, and author, 1957

Nicholas More NICK Seymour, bass guitar player, painter, and record producer, known for being the bassist for Crowded House, 1958

Juan Milton Samuel, former MLB second baseman, and coach; in October, 2006, he was named the third base coach for the Baltimore Orioles, before which he was a coach with the Detroit Tigers; in a 16-season playing career, he was a .259 hitter, with 161 home runs and 703 RBI in 1720 games, 1960

Felicity Huffman, film and television actress, known for her role as Lynette Scavo on Desperate Housewives and her starring role in the 2005 film Transamerica, 1962

Toby Huss actor and voice actor, who has appeared in over thirty-five movies and television series; he is the voice of Cotton Hill and Kahn Souphanousinphone on King of the Hill, 1966

Joshua Bell, violinist, who studied as a boy first under Mimi Zweig, and then with Josef Gingold; he made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1985 with the St Louis Symphony Orchestra, 1967

Dave Harold, professional snooker player, the winner of the 1993 Asian Open, 1966

Brian Bell, rhythm guitarist for Weezer, 1968

Jakob Luke Dylan, lead singer and songwriter for The Wallflowers; he is the son of Bob Dylan , 1969

Reiko Aylesworth, actress, known for her work on 24, 1972

Christopher Scott CHRIS Booker, MLB pitcher, 1976

Imogen Jennifer Jane Heap, singer-songwriter, 1977

R.I.P.:

Sir Anthony [Anton] van Dyck, artist and etcher, who became the leading court painter in England, famous for his portraits of royalty, March 22, 1599 – December 9, 1641

Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev, mathematician, known for his work in the field of probability, statistics and number theory, May 16, 1821 – December 8, 1894

Andrew RUBE Foster, pitcher, manager, and executive in the Negro Leagues; he founded and managed the Chicago American Giants, one of the most successful black baseball teams of the pre-integration era; he organized the Negro National League, the first lasting professional league for black ballplayers; in 1981, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, September 17, 1879 - December 9, 1930

Nils Gustaf Dalén, inventor and industrialist, awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on automatic gas regulator controlled buoys, November 30, 1869 – December 9, 1937

Wesley BRANCH Rickey, MLB executive known for breaking baseball's colour barrier by signing Jackie Robinson, and drafting the first Hispanic superstar, Roberto Clemente; he created the framework for the modern minor league farm system, December 20, 1881 - December 9, 1965

Ralph Johnson Bunche, political scientist and diplomat, received the 1950 Nobel Peace Prize for his mediation in Palestine in the late 1940's that led to an armistice agreement between the Jews and Arabs in the region, August 7, 1904 – December 9, 1971

Louella Rose Oettinger Parsons, gossip columnist, August 6, 1881 – December 9, 1972

William Augustus Wellman, movie director, February 29, 1896 – December 9, 1975

Leon Jaworski, lawyer, the Special Prosecutor during the Watergate Scandal, September 19, 1905 - December 9, 1982

Mihailo Mazurski, aka Mike Mazurki, actor and professional wrestler, who appeared in over 100 movies, December 25, 1907 - December 9, 1990

Vincenzo Scognamiglio, aka Vincent Gardenia, stage, film, and television actor; in 1972, he won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play for his performance in The Prisoner of Second Avenue; he is known for his role as Frank Lorenzo, Archie's neighbour on All in the Family, January 7, 1922 – December 9, 1992

Archibald Wright, aka Archie Moore, boxer, the World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion, December 13, 1913 or 1916 – December 9, 1998

Andrea Absolonová, aka Lea De Mae, model and actress, December 26, 1976 – December 9, 2004

Robert Sheckley, author and editor; first published in the science fiction magazines of the 1950's, his numerous stories and novels were unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical; he received the Author Emeritus award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in 2001, July 16, 1928 – December 9, 2005

Today CCXXXII - John Lennon Murdered, 1980

2006-12-08T00:43:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Elias ELI Whitney, inventor and manufacturer, credited with the first patent on a cotton gin, a mechanical device which removes the seeds from cotton, in 1793, December 8, 1765 – January 8, 1825

Bjørnstjerne Martinus Bjørnson, writer, awarded the 1903 Nobel Prize in Literature, December 8, 1832 – April 26, 1910

William Crapo BILLY Durant, pioneer of the U.S. automobile industry, the founder of General Motors, who created the system of multi-brand holding companies with different lines of cars, December 8, 1861 – March 18, 1947

Jean Sibelius, composer of classical music, December 8, 1865 – September 20, 1957

Jacques Solomon Hadamard, mathematician, known for his proof of the prime number theorem in 1896, December 8, 1865 – October 17, 1963

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, aka Diego Rivera, painter and muralist, the husband of Frida Kahlo, December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957

Bohuslav Martinu, composer, December 8, 1890 — August 28, 1959

Elzie Crisler [E. C.] Segar, drummer and cartoonist, the creator of Popeye, a character who first appeared in his newspaper comic strip Thimble Theater in 1929, December 8, 1894 – October 13, 1938

Leo Jacoby, aka Lee J. Cobb, actor, December 8, 1911 – February 11, 1976

Ernest Lehman, screenwriter, who received 6 Academy Award nominations; in 2001, he received an honorary Oscar for his work, December 8, 1915 - July 2, 2005

Richard O. Fleischer, film director, who won an Academy Award as producer of the 1947 documentary Design for Death, co-written by Theodor Geisel; the son and biographer of animator Max Fleischer, he was chairman of Fleischer Studios, which today handles the licensing of Betty Boop and Koko the Clown, December 8, 1916 – March 25, 2006

Marcel Tisserand, aka Gérard Souzay, baritone singer and educator, December 8, 1918 – August 17, 2004

Rudolph Pariser Ph.D., physical chemist and polymer chemist, known for his work with Robert G. Parr on the method of molecular orbital computation, 1923

Sammy Davis, Sr., dancer, musician, and entertainer, December 12, 1900 - May 21, 1988

James Oscar JIMMY Smith, jazz musician, influenced by gospel and blues, whose Hammond B-3 electric organ performances helped to popularize this instrument, December 8, 1925 – February 8, 2005

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Shatalov, cosmonaut, who flew three space missions of the Soyuz programme: Soyuz 4, Soyuz 8, and Soyuz 10., 1927

Maximilian Schell, actor, writer, producer, and director, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1961 for the role of the defense attorney in Judgment at Nuremberg, 1930

Clerow FLIP Wilson, comedian and actor, December 8, 1933 – November 25, 1998

John Arthur DAVID Carradine, actor, known for such roles as Kwai Chang Caine on Kung Fu and its sequel, Woody Guthrie in Bound for Glory, and Bill in Kill Bill Vol. I and Vol. II, 1936

James Gordon MacArthur, actor, known for the role of Dan (Danno) Williams on Hawaii Five-O, 1937

Sir James Galway, virtuoso flautist, principal flute of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra from 1969 to 1975; after Jean-Pierre Rampal, he is one of the first flautists to establish an international career as a soloist, 1939

Jerry Butler, Jr., soul singer, 1939

Garrabrant Ryerson BRANT Alyea, former MLB outfielder, who played from 1965 to 1972, 1940

Edwin Albert ED Brinkman, former MLB shortstop, who played for fifteen years, winning a Gold Glove Award in 1972; he was an All-Star in 1973; he had a career batting average of .224, 1941

James Douglas JIM Morrison, singer, songwriter, writer, and poet, lead singer and lyricist of The Doors, December 8, 1943 – July 3, 1971

John Rubinstein, film, Broadway, and television actor, composer of film and theatre music, and theatre and television director, 1946

Gregory Lenoir GREGG Allman, rock and blues singer, keyboardist, guitarist, and songwriter, best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band, with his late brother, Duane Allman, and other musicians; he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1995 with The Allman Brothers Band, 1947

Thomas Robert Cech Ph.D., chemist; his main research area is that of the process of transcription in the nucleus of cells, studying how the genetic code of DNA is transcribed into RNA; his second area of research is that of the structure and function of telomeres, the natural ends of linear chromosomes; he shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Sidney Altman, 1947

Richard A. RICK Baker, Hollywood special makeup effects artist, known for his realistic creature effects, 1950

Timothy John TIM Foli, former MLB shortstop, who played from 1970 to 1985, 1950

Kimila Ann KIM Basinger, film actress and former model, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1997 for L.A. Confidential, 1953

Warren Bruce Cuccurullo, rock and pop guitarist, 1956

Sandy Burnett, record producer, 1964

Teri Lynn Hatcher, actress and author, known for her roles as Lois Lane on Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman and as Susan Mayer on Desperate Housewives, 1964

Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor, singer and songwriter, 1966

Michael Cole MIKE Mussina, MLB starting pitcher, currently with the New York Yankees; he is a six-time Gold Glove Award winner, and a seven-time nominee for the Cy Young Award, 1968

Reed Cameron Johnson, MLB outfielder, currently playing for the Toronto Blue Jays, 1976

Vernon Wells III, MLB centre fielder, currently playing for the Toronto Blue Jays; at the end of the 2006 season, he was awarded his third straight Gold Glove Award for his outfield defense, 1978

Jeremy Accardo, MLB pitcher, currently playing for the Toronto Blue Jays, 1981

R.I.P.:

George Boole, mathematician and philosopher; as the inventor of Boolean algebra, the basis of all modern computer arithmetic, Boole is regarded in hindsight as one of the founders of the field of computer science, although computers did not exist in his day, November 2, 1815 – December 8, 1864

Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev, mathematician, known for his work in the field of probability, statistics and number theory, May 16, 1821 – December 8, 1894

Hermann Weyl, mathematician, closely identified with the University of Göttingen tradition of mathematics; he published technical and some general works on space, time, matter, philosophy, logic, symmetry, and the history of mathematics; he was one of the first to conceive of combining general relativity with the laws of electromagnetism, November 9, 1885 – December 8, 1955

Tristram E. TRIS Speaker, MLB centre fielder; he batted over .380 five times, and holds the record for the most career doubles, with 793; he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1937, the second year of voting, April 4, 1888 - December 8, 1958

Gary Thain, rock bassist, best known for his work with Uriah Heep, May 15, 1948 – December 8, 1975

Golda Mabovitz, aka Golda Meir, politician, one of the founders of the State of Israel, who served as the Minister of Labor, Foreign Minister, and as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from March 17, 1969 to April 11, 1974; she was the "Iron Lady" of Israeli politics, years before the epithet was coined for Margaret Thatcher; David Ben-Gurion once described her as "the only man in the Cabinet," May 3, 1898 – December 8, 1978

John Winston Ono Lennon, MBE, Beatle!, October 9, 1940 – December 8, 1980

Martin David Robinson, aka Marty Robbins, country & western singer, songwriter, and guitarist, September 26, 1925, Glendale, Arizona - December 8, 1982

Louis Bert Lindley, Jr., aka Slim Pickens, cowboy and actor, inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame in 1982, June 29, 1919 – December 8, 1983

Lutha Adler, aka Luther Adler, actor and director; best known for his work in theater, he also worked in film and television, and directed plays on Broadway; his siblings also worked in theater, his sister Stella Adler achieving fame as an actress and drama teacher, May 4, 1903 – December 8, 1984

Wilbur Dorsey BUCK Clayton, jazz trumpet player, remembered for being a leading member of Count Basie’s orchestra; his principal influence was Louis Armstrong, November 12, 1911 - December 8, 1991

William Shawn, magazine editor, edited The New Yorker from 1952 until 1987, August 31, 1907 – December 8, 1992

Antonio Carlos Brasileiro de Almeida TOM Jobim, composer, arranger, singer, pianist/guitarist, and one of the primary forces behind the creation of bossa nova, January 25, 1927 – December 8, 1994

Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr., actor, appeared in the movie Ragtime, and as Virgil Tibbs on In the Heat of the Night, October 17, 1950 – December 8, 1996

Rubén González, pianist; in 1943, he released his first recording, together with Arsenio Rodríguez; he retired in the late 1980's, but started a second career in 1996 when his solo album Introducing ... Rubén González was released; the next year, Ry Cooder produced Buena Vista Social Club, featuring González, Compay Segundo, Ibrahim Ferrer, Omara Portuondo, Elíades Ochoa, and other Cuban musicians; Wim Wenders produced a movie under the same name, and González and his colleagues became famous all over the world, May 26, 1919 in Santa Clara, Cuba – December 8, 2003

Hans Hotter, operatic bass-baritone singer, January 19, 1909 – December 6, 2003

Georgiy Stepanovich Zhzhonov, actor and writer, March 22, 1915 - December 8, 2005

Today CCXXXI

2006-12-07T01:24:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Bernardo Pasquini, composer of opera and church music, December 7, 1637 - November 22, 1710

Theodor Schwann, physiologist, histologist, and cytologist, among whose accomplishments in biology were the development of cell theory, the discovery of Schwann cells in the peripheral nervous system, the discovery and study of pepsin, the discovery of the organic nature of yeast, and the invention of the term metabolism, December 7, 1810 - January 11, 1882

Josef Hyrtl, anatomist, December 7, 1810 – July 17, 1894

Leopold Kronecker, mathematician and logician, December 7, 1823 – December 29, 1891

Pietro Mascagni, opera composer, December 7, 1863 – August 2, 1945

Richard Warren Sears, manager, businessman, and the founder of Sears, Roebuck and Company with his partner Alvah C. Roebuck, December 7, 1863 – September 28, 1914

Rudolf Friml, pianist and composer of operettas, musicals, and songs, December 7, 1879 - November 12, 1972

Ernst Toch, composer of classical music and film scores, December 7, 1887 - October 1, 1964

Danilo Blanuša, mathematician, physicist, engineer, and professor at the University of Zagreb, who became famous for discovering the second and third known snarks in 1946, triggering a new area of graph theory, December 7, 1903 - August 8, 1987

Gerrit Pieter Kuiper, aka Gerard Peter Kuiper, astronomer, Dec 7, 1905 – Dec 23, 1973

Louis Prima, entertainer, singer, actor, trumpeter, and voice actor, started with a seven-piece New Orleans style jazz band in the 1920s, then led a Swing combo in the 1930s, a Big Band in the 1940s, a hot Vegas lounge act in the 1950s, and a pop-Rock go-go band in the 1960s; his hoarse voice and scat singing showed many of the same influences as his fellow New Orleans musician, Louis Armstrong; appeared in several Hollywood movies; his act with his fourth wife, Keely Smith, was possibly the model for Sonny and Cher; in 1967, was the voice of the orangutan King Louie in the Disney film The Jungle Book, and made two albums with Phil Harris: The Jungle Book and More Jungle Book, December 7, 1910 – August 24, 1978

Daniel Jones OBE, composer of classical music, December 7, 1912 – April 23, 1993

Eli Herschel Wallach, film, TV, and stage actor, who made his Broadway debut in 1945, and won a Tony Award in 1951 for his performance in The Rose Tattoo; he appeared in such films as The Misfits, The Magnificent Seven, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, 1915

Jean Carignan, fiddler, December 7, 1916 – February 16, 1988

Bent Fabricius-Bjerre, aka Bent Fabric, jazz and pop pianist and composer, 1924

Helen Watts CBE, contralto opera singer, 1927

Harold Wayne HAL Smith, former MLB utility player, from 1955 to 1964, 1930

Edna Rae Gillooly , aka Ellen Burstyn , actress, who debuted on Broadway in 1957 and, in 1975, won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play for her performance in Same Time, Next Year; in 1990, she won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre; she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1974 for her performance in the movie Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, 1932

Harry Chapin, singer, songwriter, and humanitarian, who originally intended to be a documentary film-maker, and directed Legendary Champions in 1968, which was nominated for a documentary Academy Award; in 1971, he decided to focus on music, December 7, 1942 – July 16, 1981

Alexander ALEX Johnson, former MLB outfielder and designated hitter over parts of 13 seasons, 1964 to 1976; he won the 1970 American League Batting Championship, 1942

Daniel Walter Chorzempa, organist, and composer of electronic music, 1944

Marion Rung, pop singer, 1945

John Lee Bench, former MLB catcher, elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1989, 1947

Charles Anthony TONY Thomas , TV and film producer, who produced such TV series as Nurses, Blossom, Empty Nest, Benson, Beauty and the Beast, and The Golden Girls, as well as Dead Poets Society; he is the son of Danny Thomas, and the younger brother of Marlo Thomas, 1947

Mads Vinding, jazz bassist, 1948

Thomas Alan Waits, singer-songwriter, composer, and actor, 1949

Priscilla Barnes, actress, who replaced Suzanne Somers on Three's Company, 1955

Christopher Thomas [C. Thomas] Howell, actor, 1966

Constantino TINO Martinez, retired MLB first baseman, 1967

Vladimir Akopian, chess Grandmaster, who won the World Under-16 Championship at the age of 14, and the World Under-18 Championship at 16, 1971

Tiffany Anne Jones, aka Chasey Lain, actress, 1971

Shiri Freda Appleby, actress, known for her role as Liz Parker on Roswell, 1978

R.I.P.:

Adrian Willaert, composer of the Renaissance, and founder of the Venetian School, c. 1490 – December 7, 1562

Vice-Admiral William Bligh, FRS, RN, officer of the British Royal Navy and colonial administrator, best known for the famous mutiny that occurred against his command, September 9, 1754 – December 7, 1817

Élie Ducommun, journalist and peace activist, who shared the 1902 Nobel Peace Prize with Charles Albert Gobat, February 19, 1833 – December 7, 1906

Nicholas Murray Butler, philosopher, diplomat, and educator, who shared the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize with Jane Addams, April 2, 1862 – December 7, 1947

Clara Haskil, classical pianist, January 7, 1895 - December 7, 1960

Francis Joseph LEFTY O'Doul, MLB player a successful manager in the minor leagues, and a major figure in the establishment of professional baseball in Japan; eginning his career as a left-handed pitcher before converting to a left fielder, he won the National League Batting Championship in 1929 and 1932, March 4, 1897 - December 7, 1969

Reuben Garret L. RUBE Goldberg, cartoonist, cofounder and president of the American National Cartoonists Society, July 4, 1883 - December 7, 1970

Thornton Wilder, playwright and novelist; in 1927, The Bridge of San Luis Rey brought him commercial success, and his first Pulitzer Prize in 1928; in 1938 and 1943, he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975

Peter Carl Goldmark, engineer who, during his time with Columbia Records, was instrumental in developing the 33-1/3 rpm LP vinyl record, December 2, 1906 – December 7, 1977

William Dee "Haystack" [or "Haystacks"] Calhoun, professional wrestler, August 3, 1934 – December 7, 1989

Joan Geraldine Bennett, film actress, who achieved further success later in life as a television actress, February 27, 1910 – December 7, 1990

Jean-Claude [J.C.] Tremblay, NHL defenceman, January 22, 1939 - December 7, 1994

Frederick Fennell, conductor, a leading figure in promoting the wind ensemble as a performing group, July 2, 1914 – December 7, 2004

Jerry Scoggins, country singer and guitarist, who performed in radio, movies, and television from the 1930's onward; he was known for singing The Ballad of Jed Clampett, the theme song of The Beverly Hillbillies sitcom; Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs played guitar and banjo, and he sang the lyrics, 1913 - December 7, 2004

Today CCXXX

2006-12-06T01:52:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Orazio Vecchi, composer of the late Renaissance, famous for his madrigal comedies, baptized December 6, 1550 – February 19, 1605

Johann Christoph Bach, composer of the Baroque period, the son of Heinrich Bach, Johann Sebastian Bach's great uncle; he had a reputation as a composer that was only equalled by that of Johann Sebastian within the Bach family during his lifetime; he was organist at Eisenach, and later a member of the court chamber orchestra there, December 6, 1642 – March 31, 1703

Joseph Louis Gay-Lussac, chemist and physicist, known mostly for his contributions to the physical chemistry of gases, December 6, 1778 – May 10, 1850

Adolf Reubke, organ builder, December 6, 1805 - March 3, 1875

Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, magician, watchmaker, and maker of mechanical toys and machines, considered to be the pioneer in the modern performance art of illusion; from an early age, he was interested in juggling and sleight of hand and, in 1845, he began to exhibit his skill, December 6, 1805 - 1871

Charles Martin Hall, inventor and engineer, known for his discovery in 1886 of an inexpensive method for producing aluminum, which became the first metal to attain widespread use since the prehistoric discovery of iron, December 6, 1863 – December 27, 1914

William Surrey Hart, stage and silent film actor, screenwriter, director, and producer; a successful Shakespearian actor on Broadway, he became one of the first great stars of the motion picture western, after making his film debut in 1914, December 6, 1864 – June 23, 1946

Yoshio Nishina, physicist, a friend of Niels Bohr, and a close associate of Albert Einstein, whose research was concerned with cosmic rays and particle accelerator development; he co-authored the Klein-Nishina Formula; the Nishina crater on the moon is named after him, December 6, 1890–January 10, 1951

Israel Gershowitz, aka Ira Gershwin, lyricist, collaborated with his brother, composer George Gershwin, December 6, 1896 – August 17, 1983

Alfred Eisenstaedt, photographer and photojournalist, remembered for his photograph of a sailor and a woman kissing, capturing the celebration of V-J Day, December 6, 1898 - August 24, 1995

Gunnar Myrdal, economist and politician, who shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Economics with Friedrich August von Hayek; his wife, Alva Myrdal, whom he married in 1924, won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize, December 6, 1898 – May 17, 1987

Agnes Robertson Moorehead, actress, December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974

Anthony Michael TONY Lazzeri, MLB second baseman, a member of the original [1933] American League All-Star team; holds the American League record for most RBI in a game with 11, set May 24, 1936, the same day on which he became the first major league player to hit two grand slams in one game; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1991, December 6, 1903 - August 6, 1946

Hugo Peretti, songwriter and record producer, December 6, 1916 - May 1, 1986

David Warren DAVE Brubeck, jazz pianist and composer, who has written a number of jazz standards; much of his music employs unusual time signatures; he studyied compositiom with Darius Milhaud, 1920

George Porter, Baron Porter of Luddenham, OM, FRS, chemist, shared the 1967 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Manfred Eigen and Ronald George Wreyford Norrish; President of the Royal Society from 1985 to 1990; Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain from 1966 to 1986; Chancellor of the University of Leicester from 1984 to 1995, December 6, 1920 – August 31, 2002

Piero Piccioni, pianist, organist, conductor, composer, and author of more than 300 film soundtracks, December 6, 1921 - July 23, 2004

Wallace Maynard WALLY Cox, television and motion picture actor; his boyhood friend, Marlon Brando, encouraged him to study acting with Stella Adler; he is known for the title role in the early 1950's live TV sitcom Mr. Peepers, December 6, 1924 - February 15, 1973

Robert Jack Stein, aka Bobby Van, musician, singer, and actor, who began his career as a musician, playing trumpet, December 6, 1928 – July 31, 1980

Alain Tanner, film director, 1929

Johann Nicolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d'Harnoncourt-Unverzagt, aka Nikolaus Harnoncourt, conductor, 1929

Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, composer of classical music, 1933

Jean Lapointe, actor, comedian, singer, and Canadian Senator, 1935

David Ossman, comedian, founding member of The Firesign Theatre, 1936

Lawrence Robert LARRY Bowa, former MLB shortstop and manager, currently the third-base coach for the New York Yankees; he had a career batting average of .260, with 2191 hits and 318 stolen bases; he won Gold Glove Awards in 1972 and 1978, and led the National League in fielding percentage six times; he was an NL All-Star in 1974 to 1976, and 1978 to 1979; he was NL Manager of the Year in 2001, 1945

Margaret Jobeth Williams, aka JoBeth Williams, actress, who made her film debut in 1979 in , 1948

Mamoru Fujisawa, aka Joe Hisaishi, composer and director, responsible for over 100 soundtracks and albums, 1950

Thomas Edward TOM Hulce, actor; in 1984, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance as Mozart in Amadeus, 1953

Gary Lamell Ward, former MLB outfielder, 1953

Steven Wright, stand-up comedian, actor, and writer, 1955

Paul Richard RICK Buckler, musician, the drummer and a founding member of The Jam, 1955

Peter Lawrence Buck, musician, guitarist and co-founder of R.E.M., 1956

Randall William RANDY Rhoads, guitarist, December 6, 1956 – March 19, 1982

Nicholas Wulstan NICK Park, CBE, filmmaker and animator, known as the creator of Wallace and Gromit, 1958

Ryan White, AIDS activist, December 6, 1971 – April 8, 1990

Noel Anthony Clark, actor and writer; in 2003, he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Most Promising Newcomer; he played Mickey Smith on Doctor Who in 2005 and 2006, 1975

Kevin Forrest Cash, MLB catcher, who played for the Toronto Blue Jays from 2002 to 2004, and joined the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in 2005, 1977

R.I.P.:

Huddie William Ledbetter, aka Leadbelly, folk and blues musician, notable for his clear and forceful singing, his virtuosity on the twelve string guitar, and the rich songbook of folk standards he introduced; although his most commonly-played instrument was the twelve string, he could also play the piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin, concertina, and accordion, January 23, 1888 - December 6, 1949

Harold Wallace Ross, journalist and founder of The New Yorker magazine, which he edited from the magazine's inception in 1925 until his death, November 6, 1892 - December 6, 1951

Johannes Peter HONUS Wagner, MLB baseball player; in a career that spanned 21 seasons, 1897 to 1917), he led the National League in batting average eight times, and in RBI and stolen bases five times each; in 1936, he was among the first five individuals inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame, February 24, 1874 - December 6, 1955

Franklin BURR Tillstrom, puppeteer, the creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie, October 13, 1917 - December 6, 1985

Burleigh Arland Grimes, MLB pitcher over a 19-year career, the last pitcher officially permitted to throw the spitball; managed the Dodgers in 1937 and 1938; remained in baseball for many years as a minor league manager and a scout; inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1964, August 18, 1893 - December 6, 1985

Roy Kelton Orbison, musician, April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988

Frances Bavier, character actress, best remembered for her role as Aunt Bee on The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry R.F.D., December 14, 1902 – December 6, 1989

Samuel Feinberg, aka Sammy Fain, composer of popular music, June 17, 1902 - December 6, 1989

John Payne, movie actor and singer, remembered as a singer in 20th Century Fox film musicals, May 23, 1912 - December 6, 1989

Sir John Richard Nicholas Stone, economist, received the 1984 Nobel Prize in Economics for developing an accounting model that could be used to track economic activities on a national and, later, an international scale, August 30, 1913 – December 6, 1991

Mary Elizbeth MIMI Smith, aunt and guardian of John Lennon, 1903 - 6 December 1992

Dominic Felix DON Ameche, actor, May 31, 1908 – December 6, 1993

Werner Klemperer, comedic actor, known for his role as Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes, March 22, 1920 – December 6, 2000

Today CCXXIX

2006-12-05T01:27:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Henry Lawes, musician and composer, December 5, 1595 - October 21, 1662

Francesco Geminiani, violinist, composer, and music theorist, December 5, 1687 – September 17, 1762

Paul Painlevé, mathematician and politician, who twice as Prime Minister of the [French] Third Republic; in 1921, he introduced a coordinate system for the Schwarzschild solution, the first coordinate chart which clearly reveals that the Schwarzschild radius is a mere coordinate singularity - it represents the event horizon of a black hole, December 5, 1863 – October 29, 1933

Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld, theoretical physicist, who pioneered developments in atomic and quantum physics, as well as educated a large number of students for the new era of theoretical physics; he introduced the fine-structure constant into quantum mechanics, December 5 – April 26, 1951

Vítezslav Novák, composer and teacher, December 5, 1870 – July 18, 1949

Harry Nelson Pillsbury, chess player, U. S. Chess Champion from 1897 until his death, December 5, 1872 - June 17, 1906

Clyde Vernon Cessna, pilot, and the founder of the Cessna Aircraft Company, December 5, 1879 - November 20, 1954

Friedrich Anton Christian FRITZ Lang, film director, screenwriter, and occasional film producer, whose famous films are Metropolis and M, December 5, 1890 – August 2, 1976

Elbert Frank Cox Ph.D., mathematician, who became the first black person in the world to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics, December 5, 1895–November 28, 1969

Carl Ferdinand Cori, biochemist, who shared the 1947 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with his wife Gerty Cori and physiologist Bernardo Houssay, for their discovery of how glycogen is broken down and resynthesized in the body, December 5, 1896 – October 20, 1984

Nunnally Johnson, filmmaker, who wrote, produced, and directed films, December 5, 1897 - March 25, 1977

Mary Willie GRACE Moore, operatic soprano and actress in musical theatre and film,
December 5, 1898 - January 26, 1947

Walter Elias WALT Disney, film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, and philanthropist, an innovator in animation and theme park design; he was nominated for 48 Academy Awards and 7 Emmys, December 5, 1901 – December 15, 1966

Milton Hyland Erickson, MD, psychiatrist, specializing in medical hypnosis and family therapy, December 5, 1901 - March 25, 1980

Werner Karl Heisenberg, physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, known for discovering one of the central principles of modern physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle; he invented matrix mechanics, the first formalization of quantum mechanics in 1925, and received the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics, December 5, 1901 – February 1, 1976

Cecil Frank Powell, physicist, awarded the 1950 Nobel Prize for Physics for his development of the photographic method of studying nuclear processes and for the resulting discovery of the pion (pi-meson), December 5, 1903 - August 9, 1969

August Rodney GUS Mancuso, MLB catcher; in a 17-season career, he was a .265 hitter with 53 home runs and 543 RBI in 1460 games; he was an All-Star in 1935 and 1937, December 5, 1905 - October 26, 1984

Otto Ludwig Preminger, director, December 5, 1906 – April 23, 1986

Giuseppe BEPPO Occhialini, physicist, contributed to the discovery of the pion or pi-meson decay in 1947, December 5, 1907 - December 30, 1993

Abraham Lincoln Polonsky, screenwriter and former Communist, blacklisted by Hollywood movie studios in the 1950s, December 5, 1910 - October 26, 1999

Wladyslaw Szpilman, aka Vladislav Spelman, pianist, composer, and memoirist, known as the protagonist of the Roman Polanski film The Pianist, based on Szpilman's autobiographical book, December 5, 1911–July 6, 2000

Professor Sheldon Lee Glashow, physicist, a professor at Boston University's department of physics; he shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics with Steven Weinberg and Abdus Salam for the development of the electroweak theory, 1932

Richard Wayne LITTLE RICHARD Penniman, singer, songwriter, and pianist, an early pioneer of rock 'n' roll, who injected funk into the rock and roll beat in the mid-1950's, 1932

J.J. Cale, songwriter and musician, known for songs such as After Midnight and Cocaine; he is one of many artists that play the Tulsa Sound, which draws from country, blues, and jazz, 1938

José Carreras Coll, operatic tenor, 1946

Andre Youakim, aka Andy Kim, pop singer/songwriter, 1946

James JIM Messina, musician, a member of Buffalo Springfield, Poco, and Loggins and Messina, 1947

José Monje Cruz, aka El Camarón de la Isla, flamenco singer, December 5, 1950 - July 2, 1992

Osvaldo Golijov, composer of classical music, 1960

Suzanne Cupito, aka Morgan Brittany, actress, 1951

Krystian Zimerman, classical pianist, best known for his interpretations of Romantic music, 1956

José Cura, operatic tenor, 1962

Margaret Cho, comedian, fashion designer, and actress; she won the American Comedy Award for Best Female Comedian in 1994, the same year in which she the first female Asian American to have a television series based around her - All American Girl, 1968

Mike Mahoney, former MLB catcher with the St. Louis Cardinals, 1972

Cornelius Clifford CLIFF Floyd, MLB left fielder; entering the 2007 season, the 15th year of his career, he has batted .279 with 213 home runs, 781 RBI, and 147 stolen bases in 1423 games, 1972

Luboš Motl Ph.D., theoretical physicist, who works on string theory and conceptual problems of quantum gravity, 1973

Ronnie O'Sullivan, professional snooker player, who won the UK Championship in 1993, 1997, and 2001, and the World Championship in 2001 and 2004, 1975

Amy Louise Acker, actress; she studied ballet, modern dance, and jazz dance for 13 years - knee surgery in high school ended her ballet career, and she began to study acting; she appeared as Winifred "Fred" Burkle on the second through fourth seasons of Angel and as Fred/Illyria on the fifth and final season; she won the 2003 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress on Television for this role, 1976

R.I.P.:

Severo Bonini, composer, organist, and writer on music, December 23, 1582 - December 5, 1663

Johann Friedrich Fasch, composer, April 15, 1688 – December 5, 1758

James Stirling, mathematician, after whom the Stirling numbers and Stirling's formula are named, April 22, 1692–December 5, 1770

Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, aka Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composer of Classical music; his output of more than six hundred compositions includes works that are widely acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music; he is among the most enduringly popular of European composers, and many of his works are part of the standard concert repertoire, January 27, 1756 – December 5, 1791

Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie, aka Alexandre Dumas, père, writer, best known for his numerous historical novels, such as The Count of Monte Cristo; he also wrote plays and magazine articles, and was a prolific correspondent, July 24, 1802 – December 5, 1870

Stanislaw Wladyslaw Rejment, aka Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont, author, awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize for Literature, May 7, 1867 – December 5, 1925

Claude Monet, Impressionist painter; the term Impressionism is derived from the title of his painting Impression, Sunrise, November 14, 1840 – December 5, 1926

Jan Kubelík, violinist and composer, July 5, 1880 – December 5, 1940

Joseph Jefferson "Shoeless Joe" Jackson, MLB left fielder; one of the greatest hitters of his era, he was one of eight players banished for life from professional baseball for his alleged participation in the Black Sox scandal, July 16, 1888 – December 5, 1951

Karl Amadeus Hartmann, composer/symphonist, August 2, 1905 – December 5, 1963

Joseph Erlanger, physiologist, who shared the 1944 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Herbert Spencer Gasser, January 5, 1874 – December 5, 1965

Frederick Leonard FRED Clark, character actor, March 19, 1914 - December 5, 1968

Sir John Michael Pritchard CBE, conductor, the Principal Conductor, of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra from 1957 to 1963, and of the London Philharmonic Orchestra from 1962 to 1966, and Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra from 1982 to 1989, February 5, 1921 – December 5, 1989

Franco Dino Rasetti, physicist; with Enrico Fermi, he discovered key processes leading to nuclear fission; he refused to work on the Manhattan Project on moral grounds, August 10, 1901 – December 5, 2001

Today CCXXVIII

2006-12-04T00:10:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

André Campra, composer and conductor, December 4, 1660 – June 29, 1744

Orest Danilovich Khvolson, physicist, who authored a number of works on electricity, magnetism, photometry, and actinometry; he proposed the designs of actinometer and pyrheliometer, which would be used by the Russian weather stations for a long time, December 4, 1852, Petersburg - May 11, 1934

Helen Louise Leonard, aka Lillian Russell, actress and singer, December 4, 1860 - June 6, 1922

Jesse Cail Burkett, MLB outfielder, who played from 1890 to 1905; he had 200 hits in a season six times, and batted over .400 three times; he was the National League Batting Champion in 1895, 1896, and 1901; he was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946, December 4, 1868 - May 27, 1953

Joseph Aloysius JOE Corbett, MLB starting pitcher, who broke into the majors in 1895; best season came in 1897, when he posted career highs in wins - 24, strikeouts - 149, ERA - 3.11, starts - 37, complete games - 34, and innings - 313; he was the younger brother of World Heavyweight Boxing Champion James J. Corbett, December 4, 1875 - May 2, 1945

Alfred Day Hershey Ph.D., bacteriologist and geneticist, who shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Salvador Luria and Max Delbrück, December 4, 1908 – May 22, 1997

Alex North, composer, responsible for the first jazz based film score, A Streetcar Named Desire, and the first truly modernist film score, Viva Zapata!; other film scores include Spartacus, Cleopatra, Dragonslayer, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and The Devil's Brigade; his classical works include a Rhapsody for Piano, Trumpet obbligato and Orchestra, December 4, 1910 - September 8, 1991

Mark Robson, film editor, film director, and producer, December 4, 1913 – June 20, 1978

Edward EDDIE Heywood, Jr., jazz pianist, December 4, 1915 - Januray 3, 1989

Ely Jacques [E. J.] Kahn, Jr., writer, who wrote for The New Yorker for five decades, December 4, 1916 – May 28, 1994

Edna Mae DEANNA Durbin, singer and actress in Hollywood films of the 1930's and 1940's, 1921

Gérard Philipe, actor, December 4, 1922 – November 22, 1959

Jim Hall, jazz guitarist, composer, and arranger, 1930

Ronald Balfour RONNIE Corbett, OBE, comedian and actor, best known as one of The Two Ronnies, 1930

Alexander Peter ALEX Delvecchio, former NHL hockey player, and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, 1931

Horst Werner Buchholz, actor, remembered for his role in The Magnificent Seven; he appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952 to 2002, December 4, 1933 – March 3, 2003

Victor French, actor, co-starred on Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven, December 4, 1934 - June 15, 1989

Winston Conrad WINK Martindale, disc jockey and television game show host, 1934

Maximilian Adalbert MAX Baer, Jr., actor, screen writer, producer, and director, known for the role of Jethro Bodine on The Beverly Hillbillies, 1937

Yvonne Fay Minton CBE, opera singer, 1938

Frederick Anthony Picariello, aka Freddy Cannon, rock and roll singer and guitarist, 1939

John Davies Cale, musician, songwriter, and record producer, known as a founding member of the Velvet Underground, 1942

Dennis Carl Wilson, rock and roll musician, drummer for and a founding member of The Beach Boys, the only real surfer in the band, December 4, 1944 – December 28, 1983

Anna McGarrigle, folk music singer/songwriter, who writes and performs as a duo with her sister Kate McGarrigle, 1944

Dr. Roberta Lynn Bondar, O.C., O.Ont, M.D., Ph.D, D.Sc, F.R.C.P.(C), Canada's first woman astronaut; she is currently the chancellor of Trent University, 1945

Jeffrey Leon JEFF Bridges, actor and cartoonist, the son of Lloyd Bridges; his first major role was in The Last Picture Show, for which he received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, 1949

Pamela Stephenson Ph.D., actress, psychologist, and former comedian, 1949

Tony Todd, actor and producer; he has appeared in more than 100 screen and television films, including Platoon and Candyman; he played Worf's brother Kurn on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and the Alpha Hirogen on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager and the adult Jake Sisko in the Deep Space Nine episode The Visitor, 1954

David Alejandro Green Casaya, former MLB outfielder and first baseman who played from September, 1981, to the end of the 1987 season, 1960

Alexander Valterovich Litvinenko, former member of the KGB and its successor, the FSB, and later a Russian dissident; he was poisoned with radioactive Polonium 210, December 4, 1962, or August 30, 1962 – November 23, 2006

Marisa Tomei, television, film, and stage actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1992 for My Cousin Vinny, 1964

Álex de la Iglesia, film director, 1965

Chris Shepherd, television/film writer and director, known for combining live action with animation, 1966

Nikki Tyler, actress, 1972

Tyra Lynne Banks, model, television personality, author, actress, executive producer, and talk show host, 1973

Tadahito Iguchi, MLB second baseman for the Chicago White Sox, who previously played for the Fukuoka Daiei Hawks in Japan, 1974

Kyle Matthew Lohse, MLB right-handed relief/starting pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, 1978

R.I.P.:

Omar Khayyám, poet, May 18, 1048 – December 4, 1131

Thomas Hobbes, philosopher, whose book Leviathan set the agenda for nearly all subsequent Western political philosophy; he also contributed to other fields, including history, geometry, ethics, general philosophy, and what now is called political science, April 5, 1588 – December 4, 1679

Thomas Bartholin, physician, mathematician, and theologian, best known for his discovery of the lymphatic system in humans, October 20, 1616 – December 4, 1680

Luigi Galvani, physician and physicist, discovered that muscle and nerve cells produce electricity, and is credited with the discovery of bioelectricity; he coined the term animal electricity to describe whatever it was that activated the muscles of his specimens; the Galvanic cell, the galvanometer and galvanization are named after him, as is Galvani crater, on the Moon, September 9, 1737 – December 4, 1798

Charles Henry Dow, journalist, who co-founded Dow Jones & Company with Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser; he also founded The Wall Street Journal, and invented the Dow Jones Industrial Average, November 6, 1851 – December 4, 1902

Johan Halvorsen, composer, conductor, and violinist, the Musical Director of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra from 1919 to 1920, March 15, 1864 – December 4, 1935

Charles Robert Richet, physiologist, awarded the 1913 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work on anaphylaxis, whose research helped to elucidate problems of hay fever, asthma, and other allergic reactions to foreign substances, August 26, 1850 – December 4, 1935

Roger Philip Bresnahan, MLB pitcher, catcher, and player/manager, who began his major league career as a pitcher, throwing a six-hit shutout on August 27, 1897; as a catcher, he experimented with head and thigh protection gear, which led to the widespread use of more protection for catchers in the early 20th century; in 1430 games, he had a batting average of .279 in 4480 at-bats; he managed the St. Louis Cardinals from 1909 to 1912, and the
Chicago Cubs in 1915; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1945, June 11, 1879 - December 4, 1944

Thomas Hunt Morgan, geneticist and embryologist, whose discoveries formed the basis of the modern science of genetics; he was awarded the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the first Nobel Prize given for genetics, for demonstrating hereditary transmission mechanisms in fruit flies, September 25, 1866 – December 4, 1945

Irving Lahrheim, aka Bert Lahr, burlesque, vaudeville, Broadway, and film comic actor, remembered today for his role as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz, the inspiration for the cartoon character Snagglepuss, August 13, 1895 – December 4, 1967

Tommy Bolin, musician, guitarist for Zephyr, 1969 to 1971, The James Gang, 1973 and 1974, and Deep Purple, 1975 and 1976, August 1, 1951 - December 4, 1976

Lord Edward BENJAMIN Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH, composer, conductor, and pianist, November 22, 1913 – December 4, 1976

Lionel Giroux, aka Little Beaver, midget professional wrestler, 1935 - December 4, 1995

Richard Vernon, actor, who appeared in many feature films and television programmes; known for his parts as a man on a train reluctantly sharing a seat with The Beatles in A Hard Day's Night, and Slartibartfast on the radio and TV series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, March 7, 1925 – December 4, 1997

Rosa María Coscolin, aka Gloria Lasso, singer, November 25, 1922 - December 4, 2005

Today CCXXVII

2006-12-03T14:38:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Niccolò Amati, violin maker, who improved the model adopted by the rest of the Amati family, and produced instruments capable of yielding greater power of tone; among his pupils were Antonio Stradivari and Andrea Guarneri, the first of the Guarneri family of violin makers, December 3, 1596 – April 12, 1684

Ellen Swallow Richards, industrial and environmental chemist, pioneering the field of home economics; she was the first woman admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and its first female instructor, and the first American woman to earn a degree in chemistry, December 3, 1842 — March 30, 1911

Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, aka Joseph Conrad, novelist, author of Heart of Darkness and Lord Jim, among other works, December 3, 1857 – August 3, 1924

Anton Webern, composer, a member of the so called Second Viennese School; as a student and follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known proponents of the twelve-tone technique; in addition, his innovations regarding schematic organization of pitch, rhythm, and dynamics were formative in the musical style later known as serialism, December 3, 1883 – September 15, 1945

Karl Manne Georg Siegbahn, physicist, awarded the 1924 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discoveries and research in the field of X-ray spectroscopy, December 3, 1886 - September 26, 1978

Anna Freud, psychoanalyst, the sixth and last child of Sigmund Freud, December 3, 1895 - October 9, 1982

Richard Kuhn, biochemist, awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, December 3, 1900 – August 1, 1967

Nino Rota, composer, best known for his work on film scores, notably The Godfather series, and the films of Federico Fellini, December 3, 1911 – April 10, 1979

Phyllis Smith Curtin, soprano, 1921

Robert Howard Daniel BOB Phillips C.M., B.A., LL.D., F.A.I.C., P.Ag., editor and publisher of The Western Producer, Second World War soldier, journalist, research economist, social historian, and writer, December 3, 1921 - May 6, 2006

Sven Vilhem Nykvist, cinematographer, who worked on over 120 films, and is known especially for his work with director Ingmar Bergman, winning Academy Awards for Best Cinematography for his work on two Bergman films - Cries and Whispers and Fanny and Alexander, December 3, 1922 – September 20, 2006

Ferlin Husky, country-pop singer, 1925

Howard Andrew ANDY Williams, pop singer, 1927

Jean-Luc Godard, filmmaker, a members of the Nouvelle Vague, or "French New Wave," 1930

Mary Margaret "Jaye P." Morgan, retired popular singer and game show panelist, 1931

Paul Jozef Crutzen, atmospheric chemist, who shared the 1995 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Dr. M. Molina and Dr. F. S. Rowland, 1933

Viktor Vassilyevich Gorbatko, cosmonaut, who flew on the Soyuz 7, Soyuz 24, and Soyuz 37 missions, 1934

John Michael OZZY Osbourne, lead singer for Black Sabbath, and solo artist, 1948

Mickey Thomas, singer with Jefferson Starship, after the departure of Marty Balin and Grace Slick, 1949

Steven Bradford Culp, actor, who had recurring roles as Clayton Webb on JAG and Major Hayes on Star Trek: Enterprise, 1955

Daryl Christine Hannah, film actress, who played Pris in Blade Runner, the mermaid in Splash, and Elle Driver in Kill Bill, among other roles, 1960

Julie Anne Smith, aka Julianne Moore, actress, 1960

Steve J. Harris, actor and voice actor, 1965

Katarina Witt, figure skater, 1965

Brendan James Fraser, actor, 1968

Tracy Armstrong, aka Keegan Connor Tracy, actress, who appeared on Jake 2.0, and Stargate SG-1, 1971

Holly Marie Combs, actress, who has worked in movies and television series; she played Kimberly Brock on Picket Fences, and Piper Halliwell on Charmed, 1973

Rainbow Sun Francks, actor and songwriter, who starred in seaon one of Stargate Atlantis as US Marine Lieutenant Aiden Ford - his role was reduced to that of a recurring character since Season 2, 1979

Anna Chlumsky, actress, who played Vada Sultenfuss in My Girl, and is involved in off-Broadway stage productions, 1980

R.I.P.:

Carl Zeiss, optician and lens maker, commonly known for the company he founded, September 11, 1816 – December 3, 1888

Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson, novelist, poet, and travel writer, and a leading representative of Neo-romanticism in English literature; among other works, he wrote Treasure Island, his first major success, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped, November 13, 1850 – December 3, 1894

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, artist, a leading figure in the development of the Impressionist style, February 25, 1841 – December 3, 1919

Christian August Sinding, composer, January 11, 1856 – December 3, 1941

Maria Ouspenskaya, actress, who achieved success as a stage actress as a young woman in Russia, and as an elderly woman in Hollywood films, July 29, 1876 – December 3, 1949

Carl Heinrich Franz MATHIAS Wieman, stage performer and silent and sound motion picture actor, 23 June 1902 - 3 December 1969

William Manuel BILL Johnson, jazz musician, considered the father of the "slap" style of upright bass playing, played in King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, August 10, 1872 – December 3, 1972

Emile Joseph Christian, early jazz trombonist and songwriter; he also played cornet and string bass, April 20, 1895 – December 3, 1973

Walter Marvin Knott, farmer, who created the Knott's Berry Farm amusement park, December 11, 1889 – December 3, 1981

Vladimir Abramovich Rokhlin, mathematician, working in the fields of topology, geometry, and ergodic theory, August 23, 1919 - December 3, 1984

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

Madeline Kahn, movie, television, and theatre actress, her last role was her recurring role on the sitcom Cosby, September 29, 1942 – December 3, 1999

John Paul Larkin, aka Scatman John, jazz musician, who invented a unique fusion of scat singing and disco; he received 14 gold records and 18 platinum records for his albums and singles, March 13, 1942 — December 3, 1999

Glenn Martin Christopher Francis Quinn, television and film actor; he had a recurring role as Mark Healy on the sitcom Roseanne, and as Allen Francis Doyle, a half-demon, on Angel, May 28, 1970 - December 3, 2002

David Hemmings, movie actor and director, who started his career as a boy soprano; his most famous role was the photographer in Michelangelo Antonioni's Blowup; he also appeared in Barbarella, November 18, 1941 – December 3, 2003

Shiing-Shen Chern, mathematician, a leading differential geometer, October 26, 1911 – December 3, 2004

Herbert HERB Moford, MLB right-handed pitcher, who played in four seasons, each with a different team; in 157 1/3 innings, he had a 5-13 record with 78 strikeouts, a 4.05 ERA, and three saves, August 6, 1928 - December 3, 2005

Today CCXXVI

2006-12-02T01:17:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Agostino Agazzari, composer and music theorist, December 2, 1578 - April 10, 1640

Georges-Pierre Seurat, painter, the founder of Neoimpressionism; one of his most famous paintings is Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, December 2, 1859 – March 29, 1891

Charles Ringling, one of the owners of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, December 2, 1863 – 1926

George Richards Minot, shared the 1934 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with William P. Murphy and George H. Whipple for their work in the study of anemia, December 2, 1885 – February 25, 1950

Harry Thacker Burleigh, baritone singer and classical composer, December 2, 1866 – December 12, 1949

Leo Ornstein, experimental composer and pianist, December 2, 1893 – February 24, 2002

Warren William Krech, aka Warren William, Broadway and Hollywood actor, December 2, 1894 - September 24, 1948

Harriet Cohen CBE, pianist; the last six pieces in the collection Mikrokosmos - known as Six Dances in Bulgarian Rhythms - by Béla Bartók are dedicated to her, December 2, 1895 – November 13, 1967

Sir John (Giovanni Battista) Barbirolli, conductor and cellist, December 2, 1899 - July 29, 1970

Howard Koch, screenwriter, who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses in the 1950's; he moved to the UK with other blacklisted writers, where he wrote under the pseudonym Peter Howard; his work includes the radio drama The War of the Worlds, collaboration on the screenplay of Casablanca, for which he received an Academy Award, and Letter from an Unknown Woman, December 2, 1902 - August 17, 1995

Peter Carl Goldmark, engineer who, during his time with Columbia Records, was instrumental in developing the 33-1/3 rpm LP vinyl record, December 2, 1906 – December 7, 1977

Adolph Green, lyricist and playwright, who wrote most of his songs, plays, and movies with Betty Comden, December 2, 1914 – October 23, 2002

Herman RAY Walston, stage, television and feature film character actor, whose first major role was Mr. Applegate in Damn Yankees!; he played the title character on My Favorite Martian, and Judge Henry Bone on Picket Fences, December 2, 1914 – January 1, 2001

Sylvia Blagman , aka Sylvia Syms, jazz singer, December 2, 1917 - May 10, 1992

Maria Callas, operatic soprano, who combined an impeccable bel canto technique with great dramatic gifts, making her the most famous opera singer of her era, December 3, 1923 – September 16, 1977

Julia Ann JULIE Harris, actress; she is a five-time Tony Award-winning, three-time Emmy Award-winning, and Academy Award nominated actress, and an American Theatre Hall of Fame member; she has received more Tony Award nominations (ten) and wins (five) than any other performer; in 1966, won the Sarah Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre, 1925

Gary Stanley Becker, economist and professor at the University of Chicago, awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in Economics, 1930

Kenneth ANDRE Ian Rodgers, MLB shortstop, who played from 1957 to 1967; in an 11-year career, he compiled a .249 batting average, with 45 home runs and 245 RBI in 854 games, December 2, 1934 - December 13, 2004

Yael Dayan, writer and political figure, the daughter of Moshe Dayan, 1939

Penelope Spheeris, director, producer, and screenwriter, 1945

Paul ADRIAN Devine, former MLB relief pitcher, who played from 1973 to 1980, 1951

Daniel E. DAN Butler, actor, known for his role as Bulldog Briscoe on Frasier, 1954

Stone Stockton Phillips, television journalist, 1954

Liú Yùlíng, aka Lucy Alexis Liu, actress, who starred on Ally McBeal, and appeared in Kill Bill and the Charlie's Angels films, 1968

Darryl Andrew Kile, MLB pitcher, who last played with the St. Louis Cardinals, December 2, 1968 – June 22, 2002

Sarah Kate Silverman, stand-up comedian, actress, and writer, 1970

Eddy Jorge Garabito, second basemen, currently playing for the Baltimore Orioles' minor league affiliate Ottawa Lynx, 1976

Nelly Kim Furtado, singer-songwriter, instrumentalist, and record producer, 1978

Yvonne Catterfeld, singer, actress, and TV host, 1979

Angela D'Amato, aka Isabella Soprano, actress and model, 1981

Britney Jean Spears, singer, 1981

Teairra Maria Thomas, aka Teairra Marí, R&B singer, 1987

Cassandra CASSIE Rae Steele, television actress and singer/songwriter, 1989

R.I.P.:

Hernándo Cortés, Marqués del Valle de Oaxaca, conquistador, who led the military expedition that initiated the Spanish conquest of Mexico, 1485 – December 2, 1547

Gerard de Cremere, aka Gerardus Mercator, cartographer and engraver of brass plates, March 5, 1512 – December 2, 1594

Johann Friedrich Agricola, aka Flavio Anicio Olibrio, composer, organist, singer, teacher, and writer on music, January 4, 1720 – December 2, 1774

Donatien Alphonse François, le Marquis de Sade, writer of philosophy-laden and often violent pornography, as well as some strictly philosophical works, whose reputation for sexual cruelty led to the term sadism being named after him, June 2, 1740 - December 2, 1814

John Brown, abolitionist, one of the first white abolitionists to advocate and to practise guerrilla warfare as a means to the abolition of slavery, May 9, 1800 – December 2, 1859

Alfred Bunn, theatrical manager, April 8, 1796 - December 20, 1860

Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand, French poet and dramatist, associated with neo-romanticism, best-known for his play Cyrano de Bergerac, April 1, 1868 - December 2, 1918

Paul Marie Théodore VINCENT d'Indy, pianist, composer, and teacher, a student of César Franck , March 27, 1851 – December 2, 1931

John Ringling, most well-known of the five Ringling brothers, who merged the Barnum & Bailey Circus with their own Ringling Brothers Circus to create a virtual monopoly of traveling circuses, May 31, 1866 - December 2, 1936

Dinu Lipatti, classical pianist and composer, March 19, 1917 – December 2, 1950

Sabu Dastagir, aka Sabu, actor, whose first role was that of an elephant driver in the 1937 film Elephant Boy, based on Toomai of the Elephants by Kipling; he was Abu in the film The Thief of Bagdad, and Mowgli in Jungle Book, January 27, 1924 – December 2, 1963

Daniel Edward DANNY Murtaugh, MLB second baseman and manager, October 8, 1917 - December 2, 1976

Martin Alan MARTY Feldman, trumpet player, writer, comedian, and film and television actor, famous for his bulging eyes, July 8, 1933 – December 2, 1982

Marie-Rose Angelina Yvonne Lussier, aka Fifi D'Orsay, actress, April 16, 1904 - December 2, 1983

Philip Arthur Larkin, poet, novelist and jazz critic, August 9, 1922 – December 2, 1985

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha, III, aka Desi Arnaz, musician, actor, comedian, and television producer, who began his career as a professional musician in 1936, playing guitar and percussion for a Latin orchestra; in Miami, he led his own combo, and introduced American audiences to the Conga Line, which soon became a national rage; he was a successful recording artist, beginning in 1937, and had a hit with the Babalu, his signature song, in 1946; he produced and starred in I Love Lucy, in which he played a fictitious version of himself, Ricky Ricrado, and starring his real wife, Lucille Ball, as Ricky's wife, Lucy; with her, he founded Desilu Productions in 1951; they were divorced in 1960, March 2, 1917 – December 2, 1986

Luis Federico Leloir, biochemist, awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, September 6, 1906 – December 2, 1987

Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich, physicist, who played an important role in the development of Soviet nuclear and thermonuclear weapons, and made important contributions to the fields of adsorption and catalysis, shock waves, nuclear physics, particle physics, astrophysics, physical cosmology, and general relativity, March 8, 1914 – December 2, 1987

Giovanni TATA Giacobetti, singer and lyricist, a member of the Quartetto Cetra vocal quartet, June 24, 1922 - December 2, 1988

Aaron Copland, composer of concert and film music, teacher, and lecturer, who also wrote books and articles, and served as a conductor, most frequently for his own works; he was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition; his music achieved a balance between modern music and American folk styles; he incorporated percussive orchestration, changing meter, polyrhythms, polychords, and tone rows in his compositions, November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990

Robert BOB Cummings, motion picture and television actor, noted for his fresh faced youthful look, which lasted long after he was young, June 10, 1908 – December 2, 1990

William ROBERTSON Davies, CC, FRSC, FRSL, novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor, one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters;" the founding Master of Massey College, a graduate college at the University of Toronto; participated in theatrical productions as a child, where he developed a lifelong interest in drama; during his tenure as editor of the Examiner, from 1942 to 1955, and when he was publisher from 1955 to 1965, published 18 books, produced several of his own plays, and wrote articles for various journals, August 28, 1913 - December 2, 1995

Lilian Alice Marks, aka Dame Alicia Markova, DBE, prima ballerina, December 1, 1910 – December 2, 2004>/li>

Today CCXXV

2006-12-01T01:06:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Tadeáš Hájek z Hájku, the personal physician of the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II and astronomer, December 1, 1525 - September 1, 1600

Martin Heinrich Klaproth, chemist, who did much to improve and systematize the processes of analytical chemistry and mineralogy; he was the first to discover uranium, zirconium, and titanium, December 1, 1743 – January 1, 1817

Marie Grosholtz, aka Marie Tussaud, known for her wax sculptures and for the wax museum that she established in London, December 1, 1761 - April 16, 1850

Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevsky, mathematician, who developed non-Euclidean geometry [independently of János Bolyai, who also developed it], December 1, 1792 - February 24, 1856

Rex Todhunter Stout, writer, best known as the creator of the fictional detective Nero Wolfe, December 1, 1886 - October 27, 1975

Ilona Feher, violinist and teacher, whose pupils include violinists such as Pinkas Zukerman and Shlomo Mintz, December 1, 1901 - January, 1988

Lilian Alice Marks, aka Dame Alicia Markova, DBE, prima ballerina, December 1, 1910 – December 2, 2004>/li>
Walter Emmons Alston, MLB player and manager; he was a first baseman with the St. Louis Cardinals in 1936, playing in his only major league game on September 27, striking out in his only major league at bat; he was named manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers for the 1954 season; he won seven National League pennants in his 23 years tenure as Dodgers manager and, in 1955, he led Brooklyn to the pennant and its only World Series championship; he was named Manager of the Year six times; he managed winning NL All-Star teams a record seven times; he retired after the 1976 season with 2,063 wins - 2,040 in the regular season and 23 in the postseason; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983, December 1, 1911 - October 1, 1984

Calvin Robertson Griffith, owner of the Washington Senators, moved and renamed the Minnesota Twins in 1961, from 1955 to 1984, December 1, 1911 - October 20, 1999

Mary Virginia Martin, actress, star of musicals, established the roles of Nellie Forbush in South Pacific, and Maria in The Sound of Music; she received the Donaldson Award and the New York Film Critics Circle Award in 1943 for One Touch of Venus; in 1955 and 1956, she received a Tony Award for Peter Pan and an Emmy in the same role on television; she also received Tony Awards for South Pacific and The Sound of Music; mother of Larry Hagman, December 1, 1913 – November 3, 1990

Martin Whiteford MARTY Marion, former MLB shortstop and manager, who was the 1944 NL Most Valuable Player, 1917

Maurice de Bevere, aka Morris, cartoonist, the creator of Lucky Luke, December 1, 1923 - July 16, 2001

Terence Parsons, aka Matt Monro, ballad singer, December 1, 1930 - February 7, 1985

Allan Stewart Konigsberg, aka Woody Allen, film director, writer, actor, musician, and comedian; at 19, he started writing scripts for The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, Caesar's Hour, and other television shows; in 1977, he won the Academy Award for Best Director and shared the Academy Award for Writing, Original Screenplay, both for Annie Hall; in 1986, he won the Academy Award for Writing, Original Screenplay for Hannah and Her Sisters; in 1996, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Directors Guild of America, 1935

Louis Allen Rawls, soul music, jazz, and blues singer, December 1, 19331 – January 6, 2006

Sander L. SANDY Nelson, drummer, whose song Teen Beat rose to #4 on the 1959 Billboard Hot 100 chart, 1938

Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor III, comedian, actor, and writer; he won an Emmy Award in 1973, and five Grammy Awards, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1981, and 1982; in 1974 he won two American Academy of Humor awards and the Writers Guild of America Award, December 1, 1940 – December 10, 2005

JOHN Paul Densmore, percussionist, drummer, and songwriter, the drummer for The Doors from 1965 to 1973, 1944

Bette Davis Midler, singer, actress, and comedian, known as The Divine Miss M; she has won four Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a Tony Award, 1945

Raymond Edward GILBERT O'Sullivan, singer-songwriter, 1946

George Arthur Foster, former MLB left fielder; he was a five-time All-Star, 1976 to 1979 and 1981; in 1977, he hit 52 home runs; he was the 1976 All-Star Game
MVP; in his career, he hit for a .274 batting average, with 348 HRs, 1239 RBI, 1925 hits and 986 runs scored in 1977 games played, 1948

Keith Thibodeaux, former child actor, and musician, best known for playing Little Ricky on I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour; in both cases, he was credited as Richard Keith, 1950

John Francis JACO Pastorius III, jazz bassist and innovator, and composer, known for his virtuoso technique and fretless bass playing style, in a solo and seesion career, and with Weather Report, December 1, 1951 – September 21, 1987

Joseph JOE Quesada, comic book writer and artist, the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics since 2000, 1962

Larry Kenneth Robert Walker, former MLB right fielde, who played from 1989 to 2005; he won the Lou Marsh Trophy in 1998, was an All-Star in 1992, 1997 to 1999, and 2001; he won or shared the Tip O'Neill Award, in 1987, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2001, and 2002; he won an NL Gold Glove Award in 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2001, and 2002, and a Silver Slugger Award in 1992, 1997, and 1999; he was the 1997 National League MVP, 1966

Kirk Wesley Rueter, former MLB left-handed pitcher from 1993 to 2005, 1970

Emily Mortimer, actress, 1971

Kate Rusby, folk singer and songwriter, who plays the guitar, the fiddle, and the piano, 1973

Matthew Wayne Shepard, student, murdered, possibly because of his sexual orientation;
shortly after the murder, president Bill Clinton urged Congress to add sexual orientation to the hate crimes law - the measure was defeated; the convicted murderers are currently serving two life sentences without the possibility of parole, December 1, 1976 – October 12, 1998

R.I.P.:

Jeremiah Clarke, composer and organist, remembered for the popular keyboard piece attributed to him, the Prince of Denmark's March, commonly called the Trumpet Voluntary, c. 1674 - December 1, 1707

Giacomo Filippo Maraldi, astronomer and mathematician; from 1700 until 1718, he worked on a catalog of fixed stars, and from 1672 until 1719 he studied Mars extensively; he recognized that the corona visible during a solar eclipse belongs to the Sun not to the Moon, August 21, 1665 – December 1, 1729

Maurice Greene, composer and organist, August 12, 1696 - December 1, 1755

Edward Alexander Crowley, aka Aleister Crowley, occultist, writer, mystic, hedonist, chess player, mountain climber, poet, painter, astrologer, drug experimenter, and social critic, best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of the Law, October 12, 1875 – December 1, 1947

Ernest John Moeran, composer, December 31, 1894 - December 1, 1950

Fred Rose, songwriter and music publishing executive, August 24, 1897 - December 1, 1954

David Arugete, aka Darío Moreno, singer, composer, lyricist, and guitarist, April 3, 1921 – December 1, 1968

Sam "Magic Sam" Maghett, blues guitarist and singer, February 14, 1937 – December 1, 1969

David Ben-Gurion, politician, the first [and third] Prime Minister of Israel, October 16, 1886 – December 1, 1973

Jacob Nelson NELLIE Fox, MLB second baseman, the AL MVP in 1959; he was a 12-time All-Star and three-time Gold Glove Award winner; he had only 216 strikeouts in over 9,200 at-bats; the Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1997, December 25, 1927 – December 1, 1975

Irving LEE Dorsey, pop/R&B singer; much of his best work was produced by Allen Toussaint, with instrumental backing by The Meters; from 1965 to 1969, Dorsey put seven songs in the Hot 100, the most successful of which was 1966's Working In The Coal Mine, December 24, 1924 — December 1, 1986

James Baldwin, novelist, short story writer, and essayist, best known for his novel Go Tell it on the Mountain, August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987

George PUNCH Imlach, NHL coach and general manager, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, March 15, 1918 - December 1, 1987

Alvin Ailey, Jr., modern dancer and choreographer, founder of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, January 5, 1931 – December 1, 1989

George Joseph Stigler, economist, awarded the 1982 Nobel Prize in Economics, January 17, 1911 – December 1, 1991

Audree Neva Korthof Wilson, the mother of Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, and Carl Wilson of The Beach Boys, September 28, 1917 - December 1, 1997

Stéphane Grappelli, jazz violinist, who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Reinhardt, January 26, 1908 – December 1, 1997

David Arthur DAVE McNally, MLB left-handed starting pitcher from 1962 until 1975; he is famous as the only pitcher to have hit a grand slam home run, and thereby win his own game in a world series; he is also known for his role in the historic 1975 Seitz decision which led to the downfall of major league baseball's reserve clause, and ushered in the current era of free agency; McNally and Andy Messersmith were the only two players in 1975 playing on the one year reserve clause in effect at the time - neither had signed a contract at the time, but both were held with their team under the rule; the two challenged the rule, and won their free agency, October 31, 1942 – December 1, 2002

Today CCXXIV - Happy Birthday, Simon

2006-11-30T01:21:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Jonathan Swift, priest, satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer, and poet, famous for works like Gulliver's Travels, November 30, 1667 – October 19, 1745

Ernest Florenz Friedrich Chladni, physicist, whose works include research on vibrating plates and the calculation of the speed of sound for different gases, November 30, 1756 – April 3, 1827

Jedrzej Sniadecki, writer, physician, chemist, and biologist, who created modern Polish terminology in the field of chemistry, and wrote the first Polish-language chemistry textbook, November 30, 1768 - May 12, 1838

Johann Carl Gottfried Löwe, composer, baritone singer; a number of his 400 or so songs are still occasionally performed, November 30, 1796 - April 20, 1869

Oliver Fisher Winchester, businessman and politician; he manufactured and marketed the Winchester repeating rifle, which was a much re-designed descendant of the [Smith & Wesson] Volcanic rifle of some years earlier, November 30, 1810 - December 11, 1880

Charles-Valentin Alkan, composer and virtuoso pianist, whose compositions for solo piano include some of the most difficult ever written, November 30, 1813 – March 29, 1888

Christian Matthias THEODOR Mommsen, classical scholar, jurist, and historian, whose work on Roman history is still important for contemporary research, awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Literature, November 30, 1817 – November 1, 1903

Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, author, November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910

Henry Birks, businessman, the founder of Henry Birks and Sons jewellery stores, November 30, 1840 – April 16, 1928

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, physicist, who pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, November 30, 1858 – November 23, 1937

Nils Gustaf Dalén, inventor and industrialist, awarded the 1912 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on automatic gas regulator controlled buoys, November 30, 1869 – December 9, 1937

Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill KG OM CH TD FRS PC PC (Can), statesman and author, orator, strategist, and politician, best known as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War; he was awarded the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature for his many books on English and world history, November 30, 1874 – January 24, 1965

Lucy Maud Montgomery, author, best known for the series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, November 30, 1874 – April 24, 1942

Edgar Douglas Adrian, 1st Baron Adrian OM PRS, electrophysiologist, shared the 1932 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with Sir Charles Sherrington for work on the function of neurons, November 30, 1889 – August 8, 1977

Frederick FIRPO Marberry, MLB starting and relief pitcher from 1923 to 1936, November 30, 1898 - June 30, 1976

Robert Lee McCollum, aka Robert Lee McCoy, aka Robert Nighthawk, bluesman, November 30, 1909 – November 5, 1967

Gordon Roger Alexander Buchannan Parks, photographer, musician, poet, novelist, journalist, activist, and film director, remembered for his photo essays for Life magazine, and as the director of the 1971 film Shaft, November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006

Walter BROWNIE McGhee, folk-blues singer and guitarist, best known for his collaborations with harmonica player Sonny Terry, November 30, 1915 - February 16, 1996

Professor Henry Taube, Ph.D , M.Sc , B.Sc , FRSC, chemist, awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work in the mechanisms of electron-transfer reactions, especially in metal complexes, also referred to as inner-sphere electron transfer, November 30, 1915 – November 16, 2005

Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., actor and voice actor, known for his roles on 77 Sunset Strip and The F.B.I., and for several appearances as Dandy Jim Buckley on Maverick; he had a recurring role on Remington Steele, and on Babylon 5 as William Edgars, 1918

Virginia Clara Jones, aka Virginia Mayo, film actress, November 30, 1920 – January 17, 2005

Shirley Anita St. Hill Chisholm, politician, educator, and author; she was a U.S. Congresswoman, representing New York's 11th District for seven terms from 1968,when she became the first black American woman elected to Congress, to 1983; on January 23, 1972, she became the first black American woman to make a bid to be President of the United States, November 30, 1924 – January 1, 2005

Allan Sherman, musician, parodist, satirist, and television producer, the creator and original producer of I've Got a Secret; he released an LP of song parodies, My Son, the Folk Singer, in 1962, and a follow-up, My Son, the Celebrity, November 30, 1924 – November 20, 1973

Richard Donald Crenna, actor, who got his acting start on radio, appearing in Boy Scout Jamboree, Date With Judy, the Great Gildersleeve, and Our Miss Brooks; he remained with the cast of the latter show when moved to television, after which he appeared on The Real McCoys; he had a long career in films, appearing in such movies as The Sand Pebbles and First Blood and its sequels; he a recurring role on Judging Amy until his death, November 30, 1926 – January 17, 2003

Robert P. Williams, aka Robert Guillaume, stage and television actor, 1927

Richard Wagstaff DICK Clark, television personality and businessman, 1929

Joan Ganz Cooney, businesswoman and television producer, one of the founders of the Children's Television Workshop, now known as Sesame Workshop, the organization famous for the creation of the TV show Sesame Street, 1929

Bob Loyce Moore, session musician, orchestra leader, and bassist, 1932

Abbott Howard ABBIE Hoffman, social and political activist, co-founder of the Youth International Party ("Yippies"), November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989

Dmitri Victorovich Anosov, mathematician, known for his contributions to dynamical systems theory, 1936

Sir Ridley Scott, film director and producer, known for films such as Alien and Blade Runner, 1937

Noel Paul Stookey, singer-songwriter, best known as "Paul" in the trio Peter, Paul and Mary, 1937

Frank Ifield, singer, who had hits with such songs as Wayward Wind and I Remember You, 1937

Terrence TERRYMalick, film director, 1943

Roger David Glover, musician, songwriter, and record producer, known as songwriter and bassist for Deep Purple, 1945

David Alan Mamet, playwright, screenwriter, director, poet, essayist, and novelist, awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross, 1947

June Chadwick , actress, who portrayed the Visitor Lydie on V: The Series, 1951

Keith Ian Giffen, comic book artist, writer, and penciller, 1952

Mandel Bruce MANDIY Patinkin, stage and screen actor, and tenor, who played the part of Che in Evita on Broadway in 1979, for which he won a Tony Award; on film, he played in movies such as Yentl and Ragtime, returning to Broadway in 1984 to star in Sunday in the Park with George; he played Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride; in 1994 and 1995, he he appeared as Dr. Jeffrey Geiger on Chicago Hope, winning an Emmy Award, 1952

June Antoinette Pointer Whitmore, vocalist, known for her work with The Pointer Sisters, November 30, 1953 — April 11, 2006

William Michael Albert Broad, aka Billy Idol, rock musician, 1955

Colin Andrew Mochrie, actor and improvisational comedian, 1957

Andrew Calhoun, folk singer/songwriter, 1957

Vincent Edward BO Jackson former multi-sport professional athlete who played football in the National Football League and baseball in the American League, the first athlete named an All-Star in both sports, 1962

Benjamin Edward BEN Stiller, comedian, actor, and film director, the son of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, 1965

Ivan Rodríguez "Pudge" Torres, MLB catcher, currently playing for the Detroit Tigers; he was the AL Most Valuable Player in 1999, and the NLCS MVP in 2003, 1971

Ray Durham, MLB second baseman, with the San Francisco Giants, a two-time All-Star, 1971

Malinda Gayle MINDY McCready, country music performer, 1975

James Richard RICH Harden, MLB pitcher for the Oakland Athletics, 1981

Elisha Ann Cuthbert, actress, 1982

Kaley Christine Cuoco, actress and voice actor, known for her role as Bridget Hennessy on 8 Simple Rules, 1985

Magnus Øen Carlsen, chess Grandmaster, the third youngest Grandmaster ever, 1990

R.I.P.:

Richard Farrant, composer of church music, choirmaster, playwright, and theatrical producer, known for creating the Blackfriars Theatre, ca. 1530 - November 30, 1580

Thomas Weelkes, composer and organist, whose works were chiefly vocal, and include madrigals and anthems, baptised October 25, 1576 – buried December 1, 1623

Nicolas de Grigny, organist and organ composer, whose only surviving work is a large volume of organ works, containing several mass settings and five hymns in several parts, baptized September 8, 1672 – November 30, 1703

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, playwright, novelist, poet, short story writer, and Freemason; known for his barbed and clever wit, he was one of the most successful playwrights of late Victorian London, and one of the greatest celebrities of his day, October 16, 1854 – November 30, 1900

Wilhelm Furtwängler, conductor and composer, January 25, 1886 – November 30, 1954

Josip Štolcer-Slavenski, composer, May 11, 1896 - November 30, 1955

Beniamino Gigli, operatic tenor singer, March 20, 1890 - November 30, 1957

Charles DAVID Houston, country music singer, December 9, 1938 - November 30, 1993

Herbert Buckingham Khaury, aka Tiny Tim, singer, ukulele player, and musical archivist, April 12, 1932 – November 30, 1996

Charles L. CHARLIE Byrd, jazz guitarist, the only jazz guitarist of his era whose primary instrument was the classical guitar, giving him his uniquely identifiable sound; studied with Andrés Segovia; well known as a collaborator with Stan Getz on the Jazz Samba album, which featured themes of samba and bossa nova, September 16, 1925 - November 30, 1999

Pierre Francis Berton, CC, O.Ont, BA, D.Litt, author of non-fiction, especially Canadiana and Canadian history, television personality, journalist, and storyteller; in October, 2004, the Pierre Berton Resource Library, named in his honour, was opened in Vaughan, Ontario, July 12, 1920 – November 30, 2004

Lois Mae Green, aka Jean Parker, movie actress, who appeared in 70 movies from 1932 through 1966, August 11, 1915 - November 30, 2005

Today CCXXIII

2006-11-29T13:52:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti, opera composer, a leading composer of bel canto opera, whose most famous work is Lucia di Lammermoor, November 29, 1797 – April 8, 1848

Johann Christian Andreas Doppler, mathematician and physicist, famous for the hypothesis of what is now known as the Doppler effect, November 29, 1803 – March 17, 1853

Louisa May Alcott, novelist, known for her novel Little Women, loosely based on her childhood experiences with her three sisters, November 29, 1832 – March 6, 1888

Sir John Ambrose Fleming, electrical engineer and physicist, who invented and patented the two-electrode vacuum-tube rectifier, aka the vacuum diode; the first vacuum tube, this invention is often considered to have been the beginning of electronics; he also contributed in the fields of photometry, electronics, wireless telegraphy, and electrical measurements, November 29, 1849 - April 18, 1945

António Caetano de Abreu Freire Egas Moniz, psychiatrist and neurosurgeon, who shared the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Walter Rudolf Hess, November 29, 1874 - December 13, 1955

Lucille Nelson Hegemin, singer and entertainer, a pioneer blues recording artist, November 29, 1894 - March 1, 1970

William Berkeley Enos, aka Busby Berkeley, Hollywood movie director and musical choreographer, November 29, 1895 – March 14, 1976

Enos Edward YAKIMA Canutt, actor and stuntman; as a young man, he gained fame as a successful rodeo rider; he met actor Tom Mix at a rodeo, and was persuaded to work as a cowboy in films; he staged some memorable action scenes in film, including the chariot race in the 1959 film Ben-Hur; in 1967, he was given an Honorary Academy Award for achievements as a stunt man, and for developing safety devices to protect stunt men, November 29, 1896 - May 24, 1986

Clive Staples [C. S.] Lewis, author and scholar, known for his work on medieval literature, Christian apologetics, literary criticism, and fiction; he is known today for his children’s series The Chronicles of Narnia, November 29, 1898 – November 22, 1963

Mildred Harris, silent film actress, November 29, 1901 - July 20, 1944

Rev Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., politician; he was elected to the US House of Representatives from Harlem in 1945, and became chair of the Labor and Education Committee in 1961, November 29, 1908 – April 4, 1972

William Thomas BILLY Strayhorn, composer and pianist, known for his long and successful collaboration with bandleader and composer Duke Ellington; he composed the Ellington Band's theme, Take The A Train, and a number of other pieces that became part of the band’s repertoire. November 29, 1915 – May 31, 1967

Fran Ryan, character actress, who appeared as Aggie Thompson on The Doris Day Show, Doris Ziffel on Green Acres, and Miss Hannah Cobb on Gunsmoke, November 29, 1916 – January 15, 2000

Merle Robert Travis, country and western singer, songwriter, and musician, known for his guitar playing; Travis picking, a style of guitar picking, is named after him; he was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970 and the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1977, November 29, 1917 – October 20, 1983

Virginia Ruth Egnor, aka Jennie Lewis, aka Dagmar, model and television personality, November 29, 1921 – October 9, 2001

Saturnino Orestes Armas MINNIE Miñoso Arrieta, former MLB left fielder, who had been a third baseman in the Negro Leagues, and played several seasons in Mexican baseball; he was an All-Star in 1951 to 1954, 1957, 1959, and 1960, and a Gold Glove Award winner in 1957, 1959, and 1960 (AL), 1922

Vincent Edward VIN Scully, sportscaster, known as the play-by-play voice of the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, 1927

John Mayall, OBE, blues singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, the founder of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers, and influential in the careers of many musicians, including Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Peter Green, John McVie, and Mick Fleetwood, 1933

Peter Bergman, comedian and playwright, a founding member of The Firesign Theatre, 1939

Chuck Mangione, flugelhorn player and composer, 1940

Dennis Gerrard Stephen DENNY Doherty,singer and songwriter, a member of The Mamas & the Papas, 1940

Philippe Huttenlocher, baritone singer, 1942

Rose Diane Lanier, aka Diane Ladd, television and film actress, and author, 1942

Felix Cavaliere, music producer and musician, who played keyboards for the Young Rascals during the 1960's, 1944

Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez, singer-songwriter and guitarist, 1946

Garry Shandling , comedian, actor, writer, producer, and director, who was the star of It's Garry Shandling's Show and The Larry Sanders Show, 1949

Barry Goudreau, musician, one of the original guitarists for Boston, 1951

Joel Coen, director, screenwriter, producer, and film editor, 1954

Howie Michael Mandel, comedian and actor, 1955

Cathy Moriarty, actress, 1960

Kim Delaney, actress, 1961

Thomas Edward TOM Sizemore, Jr., film and television actor, 1961

Andrew McCarthy, actor, 1962

Don Cheadle, actor, who first became well-known for playing the DA on Picket Fences; in 2005, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda, 1964

Mariano Rivera, MLB relief pitcher for the New York Yankees; he has the fourth most regular season career saves in MLB history, 1969

Gena Lee Nolin, actress and model, 1971

Anna Kay Faris, actress, 1976

Francis Beltrán, MLB relief pitcher, currently in the Washington Nationals farm system, 1979

Krystal Steal, actress, 1982

R.I.P.:

Claudio Monteverdi, composer, violinist, and singer, whose work marks the transition from Renaissance to Baroque music, May 15, 1567 – November 29, 1643

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

Samuel Alfred de Grasse, actor, who appeared in 107 films, including The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance, June 12, 1875 - November 29, 1953

Milt Gross, comic book writer, illustrator, and animator, who wrote his comics in a Yiddish-inflected English, as in his reworkings of well-known tales, such as Nize ferry-tail from Elledin witt de wanderful lemp, Jack witt de binn stuck, and De Night in De Front From Chreesmas, March 4, 1895 – November 29, 1953

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

Erich Wolfgang Korngold, neoromantic composer, who composed a number of film scores, and wrote concert music in a rich, chromatic late Romantic style, May 29, 1897 – November 29, 1957

Carl W. Stalling, composer and arranger of music for animated cartoons, closely associated with the Looney Tunes shorts produced by Warner Bros, November 10, 1891 – November 29, 1972

Herbert ZEPPO Marx, one of The Marx Brothers; he appeared in the first five Marx Brothers movies, as a straight man and romantic lead, before leaving the team, February 25, 1901 – November 29, 1979

Dr. Fredric Wertham, psychiatrist and crusading author, who protested the supposedly harmful effects of mass media — comic books in particular — on the development of children, March 20, 1895 – November 29, 1981

Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko, aka Natalie Wood, film actress, July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981

Archibald Alexander Leach, aka Cary Grant, actor, January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986

Ralph Rexford Bellamy, actor, June 17, 1904 – November 29, 1991

Jean-Alexandre-Eugène Dieudonné, mathematician, known for research in abstract algebra and functional analysis, July 1, 1906 - November 29, 1992

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

George Harrison, MBE, guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer, and film producer, the lead guitarist of The Beatles, February 25, 1943 – November 29, 2001

John Blyth Barrymore, Jr., aka John Drew Barrymore, actor, a member of the Barrymore family of actors, the father of Drew Barrymore, June 4, 1929 – November 29, 2004

Harry Danning, MLB catcher, played his entire career, from 1933 to 1942, with the New York Giants; All-Star from 1938 to 1941; hit for the cycle in 1940, September 6, 1911 - November 29, 2004

Wendie Jo Sperber, television and movie comedic actress, September 15, 1958 — November 29, 2005

Today CCXXII

2006-11-28T06:01:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Friedrich Engels, political philosopher, developed communist theory alongside Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto and editing several volumes of Das Kapital after Marx's death, November 28, 1820 – August 5, 1895

Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein, pianist, composer, and conductor, who wrote at least twenty operas, five piano concerti, six symphonies, and a large number of solo piano works, along with works for chamber ensemble, two concertos for cello and one for violin, free-standing orchestral works, and tone poems, November 28, 1829 – November 20, 1894

John Wesley Hyatt, inventor, known for simplifying the production of celluloid, while researching a substitute for ivory to produce billiard balls, November 28, 1837 – 1920

Jose Iturbi, conductor and pianist, November 28, 1895 - June 28, 1980

Claude Lévi-Strauss, anthropologist, who developed structuralism as a method of understanding human society and culture, 1908

Gloria Hallward, aka Gloria Grahame, film actress, who won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1952 for The Bad and the Beautiful, November 28, 1923 - October 5, 1981

Berry Gordy, Jr., record producer and founder of the Motown record label, 1929

Hope Elise Ross Lange, stage, film, and television actress, November 28, 1931 – December 19, 2003

Jean-Thomas TOMI Ungerer, illustrator, known for his erotic and political illustrations, and for children's books, 1931

Ray Perkins, vocalist, bass singer for the vocal quartet, The Crew-Cuts, 1932

Michael Ritchie, film director, November 28, 1938 - April 16, 2001

Bruce McMeans, aka Bruce Channel, singer, songwriter, and harmonica player, who had a hit with Hey! Baby, which he co-wrote with Margaret Cobb, 1940

Randall Stuart RANDY Newman, songwriter, arranger, singer, and pianist, 1943

Ronald Bertram Aloysius [R.B.] Greaves III, singer, whose 1969 song Take A Letter Maria, went to #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U. S., 1944

Joseph Domenick JOE Dante, film director and producer of films, generally with humorous and scifi content, 1946

Aleksandr Borisovich Godunov, ballet dancer and actor, whose defected from Russia to the United States; he played the terrorist, Karl, in Die Hard, November 28, 1949, Sakhalin, USSR — May 18, 1995

Paul Allen Wood Shaffer, musician, actor, voice actor, author, comedian, and composer, 1949

Edward Allen ED Harris, actor, director and producer, 1950

Russell Alan Hulse Ph.D., physicist, a specialist in pulsar studies and gravitational waves, who shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics with his thesis advisor Joseph Hooton Taylor. Jr. for the discovery of the first binary pulsar, 1950

S. Epatha Merkerson, award-winning actress, known for her role as Lieutenant Anita Van Buren on Law & Order, 1952

Sixto Joaquin Lezcano Curras, former MLB outfielder, who played from 1974 to 1985; his best season came in 1979 with the Milwaukee Brewers, when he hit a for .321 batting average, with 28 home runs and 101 RBI's; he won a Gold Glove in 1979, 1953

David Allan DAVE Righetti, former MLB left-handed pitcher, who was a starter and a reliever at different points in his 16-year career; he was the Al Rookie of the Year in 1981; he was an All-Star and the Rolaids Relief Man of the Year in 1986 and 1987; he led the American League in saves in 1986, with 46; on the July 4, 1983, he threw a 4-0 no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox; he finished his career with 252 saves, a 3.46 ERA, and a record of 82-79 in 718 games, 1958

Judd Asher Nelson, actor and writer, 1959

Martin Clunes, actor, known as Gary in the sitcom Men Behaving Badly; his first television appearance was on the Doctor Who serial Snakedance, 1961

Alfonso Cuarón Orozco, film director, screenwriter, and producer, 1961

Jane Sibbett, actress, 1962

Paul Dinello, actor, writer, and director, an alumnus of Chicago's Second City, known for his role on Strangers with Candy, with Stephen Colbert, 1962

Jonathan Stuart Leibowitz, aka Jon Stewart, comedian, satirist, actor, author, and producer, best known as the host of The Daily Show and for his political satire; he is a nine-time Emmy Award winner, 1962

Matthew D. MATT Cameron, musician, drummer and back-up vocalist for Soundgarden, 1986 to 1997, and Pearl Jam, 1998 to the present, 1962

Walter William WALT Weiss, former MLB shortstop from 1987 to 2000; he won the 1988 Rookie of the Year Award, and was an NL All-Star in 1998, 1963

Matthew Derrick MATT Williams, former MLB third baseman, who played from 1987 to 2003; he was an All-Star in 1990, 1994 to 1996, and 1999, and a Gold Glove Award winner in 1991, 1993, 1994, and 1997; he led NL in home runs in 1994 with 43; he holds the Arizona Diamondbacks' record for RBI with 142 in 1999; he is now a part owner in the Diamondbacks franchise, and occasionally serves as color commentator on Diamondbacks radio and television broadcasts, 1965

Vickie Lynn Hogan, aka Anna Nicole Smith, model, actress, and celebrity, who first gained fame as the 1993 Playmate of the Year, 1967

Stephnie Weir, actress and comedian, one of the recurring cast on MADtv, 1967

Robert Allan ROBB Nen, former MLB right-handed closer, who played from 1993 to 2002, after which he injured his pitching arm, and has not played since; he has 314 career saves, and is currently the all-time saves leader for the San Francisco Giants with 206; on February 20, 2005, he announced his retirement, 1969

born Clifton Todd Britt, aka Lexington Steele, actor and director, 1969

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, actress, 1984

Scarlett Noelle Pomers, actress and singer, who works in television, film, theatre, and music; she made her acting debut at the age of three in a music video; her best-known roles have been as Naomi Wildman on Star Trek: Voyager, and as Kyra Hart on Reba; as a singer, she founded the band Scarlett, 1988

R.I.P.:

Hernando Franco, composer of the Renaissance,

Giovanni Paolo Colonna, musician and composer, c. 1637 - November 28, 1695

Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau, Governor General of New France from 1672 to 1682, and from 1689 to 1698; he established a number of forts on the Great Lakes, and engaged in a series of battles against the English and the Iroquois; in his first term, he supported the expansion of the fur trade, establishing Fort Frontenac, now Kingston, Ontario; Quebec's most famous building and landmark, the Château Frontenac, is named after him, May 12, 1622 – November 28, 1698

Johann Peter Salomon, violinist, composer, conductor, and musical impresario, baptized February 20, 1745 - November 28, 1815

Washington Irving, author, best known for his short stories, such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, but a prolific writer of essays, biographies, and other forms as well, April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859

Erich Moritz von Hornbostel, ethnomusicologist and scholar of music, known for his pioneering work in ethnomusicology, and for the Sachs-Hornbostel system of musical instrument classification which he co-authored with Curt Sachs; he studied the piano, harmony, and counterpoint as a child, but his Ph.D. was in chemistry, February 25, 1877 - November 28, 1935

James Naismith, M.A., M.D., D.D., physical education teacher and coach, the inventor of basketball, and the first to introduce the use of a helmet in American football, November 6, 1861 – November 28, 1939

Dwight Filley Davis, tennis player and politician, known as the founder of the Davis Cup international tennis competition, July 5, 1879 – November 28, 1945

Enrico Fermi, physicist most noted for his work on beta decay, the development of the first nuclear reactor, and for the development of quantum theory; he was awarded the 1938 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on induced radioactivity - the existence of new radioactive elements produced by neutron irradiation, September 29, 1901–November 28, 1954

Enid Mary Blyton, children's author, whose most widely known character is Noddy, August 11, 1897 – November 28, 1968

William HAVERGAL Brian, composer, who acquired an almost legendary status at the time of his rediscovery in the 1950's and 1960's for the number of symphonies he had written - thirty-two, an unusually large number for any composer since Beethoven, January 29, 1876 – November 28, 1972

Ernestine JANE Geraldine Russell, actress, recipient of the 1989 Women's International Center Living Legacy Award, 1921

Trevor Bardette, actor, who made over 170 movies and seventy TV appearances in his career; he had a couple of roles on Adventures of Superman, in the 1951 episode The Human Bomb, and the 1954 episode Great Caesar's Ghost, November 19, 1902 – November 28, 1977

Christopher John George, actor, known for his role on The Rat Patrol, as the bounty hunter in the John Wayne movie Chisum, and as Ben Richards on The Immortal, February 25, 1929 - November 28, 1983

Jerry McCrohan, aka Jerry Edmonton, drummer for Steppenwolf, October 24, 1946 - November 28, 1993

Jerry Rubin, social activist, organizer of the VDC (Vietnam Day Committee), led some of the first protests against the war in Vietnam, a cofounder of the Yippies (Youth International Party) with Abbie Hoffman, one of the "Chicago Seven," July 14, 1938 – November 28, 1994

Kalman Cohen, aka Kal Mann, lyricist, who began his career in entertainment as a comedy writer, until songwriter Bernie Lowe encouraged him to try writing lyrics; he co-wrote songs with Lowe and Dave Appell, resulting in a number of rock and roll No.1 hits such as Elvis Presley's Teddy Bear, Bobby Rydell's Wild One, and Chubby Checker's Let's Twist Again, May 6, 1917 - November 28, 2001

Dave "Snaker" Ray, blues singer and guitarist, August 17, 1943 – November 28, 2002

Patricia Guilia Caulfield Kate Rubinstein, aka Antonia Forest, children's author, May 26, 1915 - November 28, 2003

Today CCXXI

2006-11-27T00:03:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Anders Celsius, astronomer, known for the Celsius temperature scale, first proposed in a paper to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1742; the Celsius crater on the Moon is named after him, November 27, 1701 – April 25, 1744

Sir Julius Benedict, composer and conductor, November 27, 1804 - June 5, 1885

Sir Charles Scott Sherrington OM GBE, scientist known for his contributions to physiology and neuroscience, who shared the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Edgar Douglas Adrian for for their discoveries regarding the functions of neurons, November 27, 1857 – March 4, 1952

Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin, composer, teacher, and writer on music, November 27, 1867 – December 31, 1950

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

Chaim Azriel Weizmann, chemist and statesman, the President of the World Zionist Organization, first President of Israel, and founder of a research institute in Israel which became the Weizmann Institute of Science, November 27, 1874 – November 9, 1952

Konosuke Matsushita, industrialist, the founder of Matsushita Electric, November 27, 1894 – April 27, 1989

Lars Onsager, physical and theoretical chemist, awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, November 27, 1903 – October 5, 1976

Lyon Sprague de Camp, science fiction and fantasy author; in a writing career spanning fifty years, he wrote over one hundred novels, as well as works of nonfiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors; he won the Nebula Award as a Grandmaster in 1978, and the Hugo Award in 1997 for his autobiography Time and Chance; in 1976, he received the World Science Fiction Society's Gandalf Grand Master award; in 1995, he won the first Sidewise Award for Alternate History Lifetime Achievement Award, November 27, 1907 – November 6, 2000

Anatoly Ivanovich Maltsev, mathematician noted, for his work on the decidability of various algebraic groups; Maltsev algebras are named after him, November 27, 1909 - June 7, 1967

David Lee Margulies, aka David Merrick, theatrical producer and director, associated with both musicals and dramas, November 27, 1911 – April 25, 2000

Francis Dayle CHICK Hearn, November 27, 1916 - August 5, 2002

Robert Schmidt, aka Buffalo Bob Smith, TV host, who got his start in radio as a singer and musician; he was the host of the children's show Howdy Doody, November 27, 1917 - July 30, 1998

Sir John Royden Maddox, chemist, physicist, and science writer, 1925

Ernest Wiseman, aka Ernie Wise OBE, comedian, one half of the comedy duo Morecambe and Wise, November 27, 1925 – March 21, 1999

Marshall Thompson, film and television actor, November 27, 1925 - May 18, 1992

Jacques Godbout, novelist, essayist, children's writer, journalist, filmmaker, and poet, 1933

Al Jackson, Jr., musician, producer, and songwriter, the drummer and co-founder of Booker T. & the MG's, November 27, 1935 – October 1, 1975

Dave Giusti, former MLB pitcher, who played from 1962 to 1977; he was an NL All-Star in 1973, and won The Sporting News Reliever of the Year Award in 1971, 1939

Bruce Jun Fan Lee, martial artist and actor, perhaps the most influential, well-known, and celebrated martial artist of the 20th century, November 27, 1940 - July 20, 1973

Eddie Rabbitt, country music singer, November 27, 1941 - May 7, 1998

James Marshall JIMI Hendrix, musician, singer, songwriter, guitarist, record producer, innovator, and cultural icon; a self-taught musician, the left-handed Hendrix played a right-handed Fender Stratocaster guitar turned upside down and re-strung; he exploited the sonic tools of feedback and distortion; he was inducted into the U.S. Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2005; in 2006, Are You Experienced was inducted into the United States National Recording Preservation Board's National Recording Registry; Listen to his music!, November 27, 1942 – September 18, 1970

James L. Avery, Sr., 6'5", classically-trained TV actor, scholar, and voice actor, known for his role as judge Philip Banks, aka Uncle Phil, on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, 1948

Jayne Harrison Kennedy, actress, model, and sportscaster, 1951

James Donald WEXBEE Wetherbee, former astronaut, a veteran of six space shuttle missions, 1952

Kathryn Bigelow, film director, working in genres like science fiction, action, and horror, 1952

Daryl Mark Stuermer, musician, who played guitar and bass for Genesis during live shows, and lead guitar for Phil Collins during most of his solo tours, 1952

Curtis Armstrong, actor and voice actor, who had a recurring role as Herbert Viola on Moonlighting; well known for his role in the movie Revenge of the Nerds, and its film and TV movie sequels, 1953

Patricia McPherson, actress and wildlife activist, known for her role as Bonnie Barstow on Knight Rider, 1954

William S. Nye, aka Bill Nye the Science Guy, television host, scientist, and mechanical engineer, 1955

William BILL Edward Fichtner, character actor, who starred on Invasion as Sheriff Tom Underlay, and now plays Agent Alexander Mahone on Prison Break, 1956

Caroline Bouvier Kennedy, journalist and author, the daughter and only surviving child of John F. Kennedy, currently the president of the Kennedy Library Foundation, and the chairperson of the American Ballet Theatre, 1957

Michael Lorri MIKE Scioscia, former MLB catcher, who spent his entire career, 1980-1992, with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and current Dodgers' manager' he was named the 2002 AL Manager of Year, 1958
Charles CHARLIE Burchill, guitarist, keyboard player, violinist, and composer, a co-founder of Simple Minds, 1959

Steve Oedekerk, film director, producer, writer, actor, and stand-up comedian, 1961

Robin Simone Givens, actress, who appeared on The Cosby Show and Diff'rent Strokes; she achieved fame with the role of Darlene Merriman on the sitcom Head of the Class; she performed in New York in the Off-Broadway production of The Vagina Monologues, 1964

Andy Merrill, voice actor, 1966

Jaleel Ahmad White, actor and voice actor, who played Steve Urkel on Family Matters, 1976

James Calvin JIMMY Rollins, MLB shortstop with the Philadelphia Phillies, an NL All-Star in 2001, 2002, and 2005, 1978

Hilary Hahn, Grammy Award–winning violinist, 1979

Alison Courtney Pill, film, television and theatre actress, 1985

R.I.P.:

Guillaume Dufay, composer and music theorist of the late Middle Ages/early Renaissance, August 5, 1397 – November 27, 1474

Abraham de Moivre, mathematician, developer of de Moivre's formula, which links complex numbers and trigonometry, and for his work on the normal distribution and probability theory, May 26, 1667 – November 27, 1754

Andrew Meikle, mechanical engineer credited with inventing the threshing machine; he also invented windmill spring sails, made from a series of shutters that could be operated by levers, allowing windmill sails to be quickly and safely controlled in the event of a storm, 1719 – November 27, 1811

Augusta Ada Byron King, Countess of Lovelace, known for having written a description of Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the analytical engine; she translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea's memoir on Babbage's newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine, appending a set of notes which specified in complete detail a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, recognized by historians as the world's first computer program; on December 10, 1980, her birthday, the U.S. Defense Department approved the reference manual for its new computer programming language, called Ada, December 10, 1815 – November 27, 1852

Alexandre Dumas, fils, author and playwright, July 27, 1824 – November 27, 1895

Clement Studebaker, carriage manufacturer; with his brothers, he founded Studebaker, which built wagons, carriages, and automobiles, March 12, 1831 – November 27, 1901

Amalia Putty, aka Lya De Putti, film actress of the silent era, noted for her portrayal of vamp characters, January 10, 1899 - November 27, 1931

Evelyn Jarvis, aka Eveleyn Preer, stage and screen actress, and blues singer, July 16, 1896 - November 27, 1932

Leonid Isaakovich Mandelstam, physicist, the main emphasis of whose work was broadly considered theory of oscillations, which included optics and quantum mechanics; he was a co-discoverer of inelastic scattering of light used in Raman spectroscopy, May 4, 1879 - November 27, 1944

Eugene Gladstone O'Neill, playwright, won several Pulitzer Prizes; awarded the 1936 Nobel Prize for Literature, October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953

Oscar-Arthur Honegger, aka Arthur Honegger, composer, March 10, 1892 – November 27, 1955

Artur Rodzinski, conductor, Musical Director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1929 to 1933, the Cleveland Orchestra from 1933 to 1943, the New York Philharmonic from 1943–1947, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1947 to 1948, January 1, 1892 - November 27, 1958

Frank Joseph Christian, early jazz trumpeter, started working with bandleader Papa Jack Laine about 1908; formed the Original New Orleans Jazz Band with whom he recorded on cornet in 1918 and 1919; he was originally the leader of the band, but later turned leadership over to the band's pianist, Jimmie Durante, September 3, 1887 - November 27, 1973

Alan ROSS McWhirter, co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, with his twin brother, Norris, August 12, 1925 – November 27, 1975

Harvey Bernard Milk, politician and gay rights activist, assassinated in 1978, May 22, 1930 – November 27, 1978

George Richard Moscone, mayor of San Francisco from January, 1976, until his assassination in November 1978, November 24, 1929 – November 27, 1978

Karoline Wilhelmine Blamauer, aka Lotte Lenya, singer and actress, best known for her performance as Jenny in Kurt Weill's and Bertolt Brecht's The Threepenny Opera, and for other Brecht-Weill plays; she played Rosa Klebb in the movie From Russia with Love, October 18, 1898 – November 27, 1981

Richmond Reed Carradine, aka Peter Richmond, aka John Carradine, actor, who appeared in ten John Ford productions, including The Grapes of Wrath, portrayed Aaron in The Ten Commandments, did considerable stage work, and appeared on Broadway; he appeared in more than 250 movies, and many television shows; he was the father of actors David Carradine, Robert Carradine, Keith Carradine, and Bruce Carradine, February 5, 1906 - November 27, 1988

David White, stage, film, and television actor; he playes the role of Larry Tate on Bewitched for the show's entire run, 1964 to 1972, April 4, 1916 - November 27, 1990

Fernando Lopes-Graça, GOSE, GCIH, composer and musicologist, December 17, 1906 - November 27, 1994

Barbara Acklin, soul singer, whose biggest hit was Love Makes a Woman, February 28, 1943 - November 27, 1998

Jocelyn Brando, character actress, who appeared in The Ugly American and The Chase with her brother, Marlon Brando, November 18, 1919 – November 27, 2005

Joe Jones, R&B singer, songwriter and arranger; as a singer, his greatest hit was You Talk Too Much; he composed many songs, including Iko Iko; he is credited with discovering The Dixie Cups, August 12, 1926 – November 27, 2005

Today CCXX

2006-11-26T19:37:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Sarah Moore Grimké, attorney and judge, abolitionist and feminist, who fought as hard for women's rights was as for the abolition of slavery; she taught her personal slave how to read, even though doing so was against the law, November 26, 1792 - December 23, 1873

Dr. Mary Edwards Walker, feminist, abolitionist, prohibitionist, spy, prisoner of war, surgeon, and the only woman to receive the Medal of Honor, November 26, 1832 – February 21, 1919

Karl RUDOLPH Koenig, physicist, chiefly concerned with acoustic phenomena, known for his tuning forks; acoustical research was his real interest, and to that he devoted all the time and money he could spare from his business, November 26, 1832 - October 2, 1901

Karl Friedrich Benz, engine designer and automobile engineer, considered to be the inventor of the gasoline-powered automobile; among other things, he invented the carburetor, the speed regulation system [accelerator], ignition using sparks from a battery, the spark plug, the clutch, the gear shift, and the water radiator, November 26, 1844 – April 4, 1929

Willis Haviland Carrier, engineer and inventor, the man who invented modern air conditioning, November 26, 1876 – October 9, 1950

Alfred Denis Cortot, pianist and conductor, September 26, 1877 – June 15, 1962

Albert Dieudonné, actor, screenwriter, film director, and novelist, November 26, 1889 - March 19, 1976

Norbert Wiener Ph.D., theoretical and applied mathematician, a pioneer in the study of stochastic and noise processes, contributing work relevant to electronic engineering, electronic communication, and control systems, best known as the founder of cybernetics, a field that formalizes the notion of feedback and has implications for engineering, systems control, computer science, biology, philosophy, and the organization of society, November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964

William Griffith BILL Wilson, co-founder, with Dr. Bob Smith, of Alcoholics Anonymous, November 26, 1895 – January 24, 1971

Karl Waldemar Ziegler, chemist, shared the 1963 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, for work on high polymers, with Giulio Natta, November 26, 1898 – August 12, 1973

Dr. Armand Frappier CC, physician, microbiologist, and expert, who was instrumental in the fight against tuberculosis in Canada, and as one of the first researchers to confirm the safety and usefulness of the Bacillus Calmette-Guérin vaccine, November 26, 1904 – December 17, 1991

Robert Lee BOB Johnson, MLB left fielder, who played from 1933 to 1945; he had nine consecutive seasons of 20 or more home runs, batting .300 five times, and had eight seasons with 100 runs batted in; he compiled a .296 career batting average with 2051 hits, 396 doubles, 95 triples, 96 stolen bases, 1283 RBI, 1239 runs, .506 slugging average, 3501 total bases, and 1075 walks, in 1863 games; he hit for the cycle on July 6, 1944, November 26, 1905 - July 6, 1982

Dr. Ruth Myrtle Patrick Ph.D., botanist and limnologist, specializing in diatoms and freshwater ecology, who developed ways to measure the health of freshwater ecosystems, 1907

Vernon Louis LEFTY Gómez, MLB left-handed pitcher, who played for the New York Yankees from 1930 and 1942; he had a 189 - 102 record with 1468 strikeouts and a 3.34 ERA in 2503 innings pitched; a 20-game winner four times, and an All-Star every year from 1933 to 1939, he led the league twice each in wins, winning percentage, and ERA, and three times each in shutouts and strikeouts; in 1934 and 1937, he won pitching's Triple Crown by leading the league in wins, ERA, and strikeouts, and led the AL both seasons in shutouts; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame by the Veterans Committee in 1972, November 26, 1908 - February 17, 1989

Eugen Ionescu, aka Eugène Ionesco, playwright, poet, essayist, novelist and story writer, and librettist, November 26, 1909 – March 29, 1994

Frances Marion Dee, actress, November 26, 1909 – March 6, 2004

Cyril Cusack, actor, November 26, 1910 – October 7, 1993

Eric Sevareid, news journalist and war correspondent, November 26, 1912 – July 9, 1992

Earl Wild, virtuoso pianist, 1951

Daniel M. Petrie, television and movie director; one of his most famous credits was 1961's Raisin in the Sun, November 26, 1920 - August 22, 2004

Charles Monroe Schulz, cartoonist, famous for his Peanuts comic strip, November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000

Eugene George Istomin, pianist, November 26, 1925 – October 10, 2003

Ernest ERNIE Coombs, CM, children's entertainer, best known as Mr. Dressup, November 26, 1927 – September 18, 2001

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, architect, sculptor, professor of architecture, and human rights activist, who led protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas; he was awarded the 1980 Nobel Peace Prize, 1931

Robert Gerard Goulet, singer and actor, who achieved fame in 1960 as Lancelot in Lerner and Loewe's Broadway musical Camelot; his career encompasses theatre, radio, television, and film, 1933

Boris Borisovich Yegorov, doctor and cosmonaut, earned a doctorate in medicine, with his specialisation being the sense of balance, November 26, 1937 – September 12, 1994

Professor Rodney Leonard Jory AM, physicist, 1938

Richard Caruthers RICH Little, comedian, best known for his celebrity impersonations, 1938

Anna Mae Bullock, aka Tina Turner, singer and actress, 1939

Bruce Paltrow, television and film producer, father of Gwyneth Paltrow, November 26, 1943 – October 3, 2002

Jean Terrell, R&B and jazz singer, best known for having replaced Diana Ross in The Supremes in 1970, 1944

Daniel Davis, actor, known for his role of Niles, the butler, on The Nanny, and as Professor Moriarty in two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, 1945

John Graham McVie, musician, the bass guitarist for Fleetwood Mac, with whom he has played from very soon after its formation in 1967 to the present day, 1945

Shlomo Artzi, singer and composer, 1948

Anna Ilona Staller, aka Cicciolina, porn star turned politician, the first hardcore performer to be elected to a democratic parliament, 1951

Harold Craig Reynolds, former MLB switch-hitting second baseman, who played from 1983 to 1994; he was an All-Star in 1987 and 1988, and led the American League in stolen bases with 60 in 1987, in triples with 11 in 1988, and in at-bats with 642 in 1990; he was a career .258 hitter with 21 home runs and 353 RBI in 1374 games; a superb fielder, he regularly led the league in double plays turned and won three Gold Glove Awards; he was a studio analyst on ESPN's Baseball Tonight from 1996 to 2006, and a commentator for ESPN's coverage of the College World Series and Little League World Series, 1960

Charles Edward CHUCK Finley, former MLB left-handed pitcher, who played from 1986 to 2002, compiling a 200-173 record with a 3.85 ERA and 2,610 strikeouts over 3197 1/3 innings; he is the only pitcher to strike out four players in one inning more than once, having done it three times, 1962

Adriana Molinari, aka Alex Taylor, actress, 1970

Brian Duncan Schneider, MLB catcher, currently the starting catcher for the Washington Nationals, 1976

Aurora Snow, actress and occasional director, 1981

R.I.P.:

Daniel Purcell, composer, the younger brother of Henry Purcell, 1664 - November 26, 1717

John Loudon McAdam, engineer and road-builder, who invented a new process, for building roads with a smooth hard surface that would be more durable and less muddy than soil-based tracks; this construction method became known as macadamization or macadam; the most significant later improvement was the introduction of tar to bind the road surface's stones together, producing tarmac (Tar Macadam), September 21, 1756 - November 26, 1836

Thomas Andrews, chemist and physicist, who did important work on phase transitions between gases and liquids, December 19, 1813 – November 26, 1885

Bill Doak, MLB pitcher, who played for 11 years; his lifetime record is 169-157, with an ERA of 2.98 and 1014 strikouts; in 1920, he suggested to Rawlings that a web should laced between the first finger and thumb, creating a natural pocket; the Bill Doak glove soon replaced all other baseball gloves, and is the standard to this day,January 28, 1891 - November 26, 1954

Thomas Francis TOMMY Dorsey, Jr., jazz trombonist and bandleader in the Big Band era, the younger brother of Jimmy Dorsey, with whom he formed the original Dorsey Brothers Orchestra, in 1934, November 19, 1905 – November 26, 1956

Albert William Ketèlbey, composer, conductor, and pianist, who wrote In a Monastery Garden and In a Persian Market among other works, August 9, 1875 - November 26, 1959

Amelita Galli-Curci, operatic coloratura soprano, November 18, 1882 – November 26, 1963

Machgielis MAX Euwe, chess player, the fifth player to become World Chess Champion (1935–1937), May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981

Michael Bentine

Goons

Phillipe Claude Alex de Broca de Ferrussac, film director, best known for his comedies with Jean-Paul Belmondo, March 15, 1933 - November 26, 2004

Stan Berenstain, writer and illustrator best known for creating the children's book series The Berenstain Bears, with his wife, Jan, September 29, 1923 - November 26, 2005

Today CCXIX

2006-11-25T19:29:00.000-05:00

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

Today CCXVIII

2006-11-24T23:57:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Benedictus de Spinoza, aka Baruch Spinoza, lens crafter and philosopher, considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy and one of the definitive ethicists; his writings reveal considerable mathematical training and facility, November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677

Carl Theodorus Pachelbel, aka Charles Theodore Pachelbel, composer, organist, and harpsichordist of the late Baroque era, the son of Johann Pachelbel, November 24, 1690 – September 15, 1750

Franz Xaver Gruber, primary school teacher and church organist; he composed the melody to the carol Silent Night, Holy Night, the lyrics for which were written by Josef Mohr, November 25, 1787 – June 7, 1863

W. B. BAT Masterson, buffalo hunter, U.S. Army scout, gambler, frontier lawman, U.S. Marshal, and sports editor and columnist for a New York newspaper, November 24, 1853 or 1856 – October 25, 1921

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, post-Impressionist painter, art nouveau illustrator, and lithographer, who recorded the bohemian lifestyle of Paris at the end of the 19th century; charaterized as an artist whose remarkable powers of observation were matched by a profound sympathy with humanity, November 24, 1864 – September 9, 1901

Alfred Ernest AL Christie, motion picture director, producer, and screenwriter, October 23, 1881 – April 14, 1951

Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, historian, Labor Zionist leader, and the second and longest serving president of Israel [1952 - 1963], November 24, 1884, Poltava, Ukraine - April 23, 1963

Dale Carnegie, writer and the developer of courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills, the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, November 24, 1888 - November 1, 1955

Fredrick Arthur [F. A.] Willius, research cardiologist, and the author of hundreds of essays, books, and textbooks in his field, November 24, 1888 - 1972

Irwin Allen, television and film producer nicknamed "The Master of Disaster" for his work in the disaster film genre, also known for creating a number of popular television series, June 12, 1916 – November 2, 1991

Joseph Michael DUCKY Medwick, MLB left fielder, who played for 17 years, finishing with a lifetime .324 batting average; a 10-time All-Star, he won the NL Triple Crown and the NL MVP award in 1937; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1968, by the Veterans Committee, November 24, 1911 – March 21, 1975

Kirby Grant Hoon, Jr., aka Kirby Grant, musician and actor; he was a child prodigy violinist, a singer, and dance band leader; a long-time B movie actor, he is remembered today for playing the title role in the television series Sky King, November 24, 1911 - October 30, 1985

Garson Kanin, writer and director of plays and films, November 24, 1912 – March 13, 1999

Theodore Shaw TEDDY Wilson, jazz pianist, November 24, 1912 - July 31, 1986

Geraldine Fitzgerald, actress, a member of the American Theatre Hall of Fame, November 24, 1913 – July 17, 2005

Forrest J Ackerman, science fiction fan, collector of science fiction-related memorabilia, editor-writer of the magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland, author, actor, producer, and literary agent, 1916

Howard Green Duff, radio and stage performer, film and TV actor, November 24, 1913 – July 8, 1990

William Frank Buckley, Jr., author, conservative journalist, and commentator, who founded the political magazine National Review in 1955, and hosted the television show Firing Line from 1966 until 1999; he is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist, whose work appears in more than 300 newspapers, and has also authored many books, both fiction and non-fiction, including books on writing, speaking, history, political thought and sailing, 1925

Simon van der Meer, accelerator physicist, who invented the concept of stochastic cooling in colliders, making possible the discovery of the W particle and the Z particle; as a result, he and Carlo Rubbia shared the 1984 Nobel Prize in Physics, 1925

Tsung-Dao Lee , physicist, well known for creating the Lee Model, the field of relativistic heavy ion physics, and that of nontopological solitons and soliton stars in quantum field theory, as well as the solution for the theta-tau puzzle in particle physics; he and C. N. Yang shared the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics, 1926

Robert Bartmess BOB Friend, former MLB right-handed starting pitcher from 1951 to 1966; he was a three-time All-Star, 1956, 1958, and 1960, tied for 1st in the league in wins in 1958, with 22, and led the league in ERA in 1955, at 2.83; he ended his career with a 197-230 record and a 3.58 ERA, with 1734 career strikeouts in 3611 innings pitched, with 36 shutouts in 163 complete games; in 602 career games, he gave up 1438 earned runs and hit 46 batters, 1930

Alfred Garyevich Schnittke, composer, November 24, 1934 – August 3, 1998

Randolph Peter PETE Best, the original drummer for The Beatles; he was first invited to join the band in 1959, later rejoining for their 1960–1961 residency in Hamburg; he stayed until shortly after their first audition for EMI in 1962, but was fired on August 16th of that year, replaced by Ringo Starr, 1941

Donald DUCK Dunn, bass guitarist, record producer, and songwriter, the bassist for Booker T. & the MG's, 1941

William BILLY Connolly, CBE, comedian, musician, and actor, 1942

William DWIGHT Schultz, stage, television, known for his roles as "Mad" Murdock on The A-Team, and Reginald Barclay on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager, and the film Star Trek: First Contact, 1947

Stephen Wayne STEVE Yeager, former MLB catcher, who played for 15 seasons, 1948

Clement CLEM Burke, percussionist, 1955

Denise Michelle Crosby, actress, known for her portrayal of Tasha Yar on the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, on which she later guest starred as Romulan Commander Sela; her father was Dennis Crosby, and her grandfather was Bing Crosby, 1957

Alain Chabat, actor and director, 1958

Amanda Wyss, actress, 1960

Edgar Meyer, bassist, whose styles include bluegrass, newgrass, jazz, and classical; he has worked as a session musician in Nashville, as part of various chamber groups, and as a composer and arranger; on his self-titled 2006 release, he performs accompanied only by himself on a wide variety of instruments, including his usual piano and double bass, and guitar, banjo, violin, mandolin, and dobro, 1960

Calvin John CAL Eldred, former MLB pitcher, who played for 14 seasons, retiring after the 2005 season, 1967

Colin Lewes Hanks, actor, who appeared on Roswell and Band of Brothers, 1977

Katherine Marie Heigl, actress, known for her roles on Roswell and Grey's Anatomy, 1978

R.I.P.:

Manuel Cardoso, composer and organist, baptized December 11, 1566 – November 24, 1650

Johann Adam Reincken, aka Jan Adams Reinken, organist, April 27, 1623 - November 24, 1722

Thayendanegea, aka Joseph Brant, Mohawk leader and British military officer during the American Revolutionary War, c. 1742 – November 24, 1807

Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, inventor of the Maxim Gun, the first portable, fully automatic machine gun, and the mousetrap, February 4, 1840 - November 24, 1916

Doris "Dorie" Miller, cook in the United States Navy, and a hero during the attack on Pearl Harbor; he was the first black man to be awarded the Navy Cross, the Navy's second highest honor, October 12, 1919 – November 24, 1943

Guido Cantelli, conductor, April 27, 1920 – November 24, 1956

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, aka Diego Rivera, painter and muralist, the husband of Frida Kahlo, December 8, 1886 – November 24, 1957

Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood CH, lawyer, politician, and diplomat, one of the architects of the League of Nations, and a defender of it, awarded the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize, September 14, 1864 – November 24, 1958

Lee Harvey Oswald, alleged assassin of John F. Kennedy, October 18, 1939 – November 24, 1963

George Ranft, aka George Raft, film actor, known for his portrayals of gangsters in crime dramas in the 1930's and 1940's, September 26, 1895 – November 24, 1980

Joseph Vernon BIG JOE Turner, Jr., blues singer, May 18, 1911 – November 24, 1985

Farrokh Bulsara, aka Freddie Mercury, rock musician and songwriter, best known as the frontman, pianist, and vocalist for Queen, and for his powerful vocal abilities and charisma as a live performer, September 5, 1946 – November 24, 1991

Paul Charles Caravello, aka Eric Carr, musician, the drummer for KISS from 1980 until his death, July 12, 1950 - November 24, 1991

Warren Edward Spahn, MLB left-handed pitcher, who played for 21 seasons; he won 20 games in 13 different seasons, and compiled a 23-7 record at age 42; he threw two no-hitters, won 3 ERA titles, appeared in 14 All-Star games, and holds the National League record for career home runs by a pitcher with 35; he led the National League in wins eight times; he won the 1957 Cy Young Award; he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1973, his first year of eligibility, April 23, 1921 – November 24, 2003

Arthur Hailey, novelist, author of such books as In High Places, Hotel, Airport, and Wheels, April 5, 1920 – November 24, 2004

Noriyuki PAT Morita, actor, best known for the roles of Arnold on Happy Days and Mr. Miyagi in the Karate Kid movies, June 28, 1932 – November 24, 2005

Today CCXVII

2006-11-23T02:37:00.000-05:00

Birthdays:

Prospero Alpini, physician and botanist, who seems to have deduced the doctrine of the sexual difference of plants, November 23, 1553 - February 6, 1617

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

Isaac Todhunter, mathematician, who wrote treatises on Differential Calculus, Analytical Statics, Integral Calculus, Algebra, and Plane Coordinate Geometry, among other subjects, November 23, 1820 – March 1, 1884

Johannes Diderik van der Waals, awarded the 1910 Nobel Prize in Physics, for his work on the equation of state for gases and liquids, November 23, 1837 – March 8, 1923

Karl Hjalmar Branting, statesman; the first Prime Minister of Sweden elected through universal suffrage, he served for three separate periods - 1920, 1922-1923, and 1924 to 1925; he shared the 1921 Nobel Peace Prize with Christian Lous Lange, November 23, 1860 – February 24, 1925

Valdemar Poulsen, engineer, who developed a magnetic wire recorder in 1899, November 23, 1869 – July 23, 1942

Manuel de Falla y Matheu, composer of classical music, November 23, 1876 – November 14, 1946

William Pratt, aka Boris Karloff, actor, known for his roles in horror films, especially that of the Monster in 1931's Frankenstein, November 23, 1887 – February 2, 1969)

Adolph Arthur HARPO Marx, actor and comedian, one of the Marx Brothers; in 1955, he made an appearance on I Love Lucy, in which he and Lucille Ball re-enacted the famous mirror scene from the movie Duck Soup, November 23, 1888 – September 28, 1964

Romain de Tirtoff, aka Erté, artist and designer, November 23, 1892 – April 21, 1990

Victor Jory, actor, remembered for his role as Jonas Wilkerson in Gone with the Wind, and as Lamont Cranston/The Shadow in the 1942 serial The Shadow, November 23, 1902 – February 12, 1982

Lars Leksell, physician and Professor of Neurosurgery at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, the inventor of radiosurgery, November 23, 1907 - 1986

Nelson Slade Bond, writer of science fiction and fantasy, and sports and crime fiction; his fiction is mainly short stories, most of which appeared in pulp magazines in the 1930's and 1940's, November 23, 1908 - November 4, 2006

Michael Gough, character actor, known for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in four Batman; he made his film debut in 1947, and has since appeared extensively on British television; he has guest-starred on Doctor Who, as the villain in the serial The Celestial Toymaker, and in Arc of Infinity as Councillor Hedin; he was once married to Anneke Wills, aka the Doctor's companion Polly, 1917

Ferdinando FRED Buscaglione, singer and actor, November 23, 1921 - February 3, 1960

Robert Lee [R. L.] Burnside, blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist, November 21 or November 23, 1926 - September 1, 2005

Johnny Mandel, composer and arranger of popular songs, film music, and jazz; among the musicians with whom he has worked are Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, and Shirley Horn, 1925

Gloria Alleyne, aka Gloria Lynne, rhythm and blues singer, 1931

Krzysztof Penderecki, composer and conductor of classical music, 1933

Robert Towne, actor, screenwriter, and director, the author of many film scripts, including Chinatown, for which he received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, its sequel, The Two Jakes, and Shampoo, 1934

Vladislav Nikolayevich Volkov, cosmonaut, who flew on the Soyuz 7 and Soyuz 11 missions, November 23, 1935 – June 30, 1971

Esko Nikkari, actor, 1938

Betty Everett, R&B singer and pianist, whose biggest hit single was The Shoop Shoop Song, November 23, 1939 - August 19, 2001

Francesco Sparanero, aka Franco Nero, actor, 1941

Andrew Goodman, civil rights worker, murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan, November 23, 1943 – June 21, 1964

Steve Landesberg, actor, comedian, and voice actor, known for the role of Arthur P. Dietrich on Barney Miller, 1945

Bruce Randall Hornsby, singer, pianist, accordion player, and songwriter, 1954

Glenn Edward Brummer, former MLB catcher, from 1981 to 1985, 1954

Steven Karl Zoltán Brust, fantasy and science fiction author, 1955

Ludovico Einaudi, composer and pianist, 1955

Dominique Dunne, actress, best known for her role as the oldest daughter, Dana, in 1982's Poltergeist; she was murdered - I mean, manslaughtered - by an abusive boyfriend - November 23, 1959 – November 4, 1982

David Alexander Britz Ph.D., scientist and engineer, who is best known for his contributions to the field of materials science and nanotechnology, 1980

Jonathan Robert Papelbon, MLB pitcher for the Boston Red Sox; he was the Red Sox closer during most of 2006, but is expected to be in the starting rotation in 2007, 1980

R.I.P.:

Thomas Tallis, composer and church musician, c. 1505 – November 23, 1585

Walter Reed, M.D., American Army surgeon who led the team which confirmed the theory that yellow fever is transmitted by mosquitoes rather than direct contact; on May 1, 1909, Walter Reed General Hospital in Washington, D.C., named in his honor, was opened, September 13, 1851 - November 23, 1902

Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose, physicist, who pioneered the investigation of radio and microwave optics, November 30, 1858 – November 23, 1937

Lewis Robert HACK Wilson, MLB centre fielder from 1923 to 1934, known for his major league record-setting 191-RBI season in 1930; he was an NL All-Star in 1933, 1934, and 1935; he led the NL in home runs in 1926, 1927, 1928, and 1930, when he hit 56, and in RBI's in 1929 and 1930 (191); he finished his 12-year career with a lifetime batting average of .307, with 244 home runs, and 1,063 RBI, in 1,348 games; he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1979, April 26, 1900 – November 23, 1948

Hayakawa Kintaro, aka Sessue Hayakawa, actor in Japanese and American films, starring in over 80 movies and achieving stardom on three continents, producer, author, martial artist, and ordained Zen monk; he portrayed Colonel Saito in the film The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, June 10, 1889 - November 23, 1973

Cornelius Ryan, journalist and author, best known for his writings on popular military history, especially of World War II; his best-known books are 1959's The Longest Day, and 1974's A Bridge Too Far, June 5, 1920 – November 23, 1974

Estelle Merle O'Brien Thompson, aka Merle Oberon, film actress, February 19, 1911 – November 23, 1979

Judee Sill, singer and songwriter, the first artist signed to the Asylum record label, October 7, 1944 - November 23, 1979

Roald Dahl, novelist and short story author, known as a writer for both children and adults; among his most popular books are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach, September 13, 1916 – November 23, 1990

Nikolaus Karl Günther Nakszynski, aka Klaus Kinski, actor, October 18, 1926 – November 23, 1991

Roy Claxton Acuff, country musician, became a regular on the Grand Ole Opry in 1938, September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992

Sidney Thomas TOMMY Boyce, songwriter, famous as part of Boyce and Hart songwriting team, September 29, 1939 - November 23, 1994

Louis Malle, film director, October 30, 1932 – November 23, 1995

Autry DeWalt Mixon, Jr., aka Junior Walker, saxophone player and singer, June 14, 1931 – November 23, 1995

Ocie Lee [O.C.] Smith, musician; after a career as a jazz vocalist, he recorded a cover of the Bobby Russell song Little Green Apples, which reached number 2 on the pop charts, and won him a 1969 Grammy Award for Best Song; in 1985, he became Dr O.C. Smith, pastor of the City of Angels Science of Mind Centre in Los Angeles, and continued to preach until his death, June 21, 1932 – November 23, 2001

Constance Halverstadt, aka Constance Cummings, CBE, screen and stage actress, who began as a stage actress, landing her first Broadway show by the age of eighteen; between 1931 and 1934, she appeared in 21 films, most notably the Harold Lloyd picture Movie Crazy, and Frank Capra's American Madness; in 1979, she won a Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance in the role of Emily Stilson in the play Wings, May 15, 1910 – November 23, 2005

Philippe Noiret, actor, October 1, 1930 - November 23, 2006