This is the 29th day of May, 2012!

Today CCLVII - Wrestling Day ;o)

Today CCLVI - Happy New Year 2007

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

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

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

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

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

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

Today CCXLIX - RIP James Brown

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

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

Today CCXLVI

Birthdays:

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


• Lila DIANE Sawyer, television journalist, 1945


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


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


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


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


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


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


• Frank Gambale, jazz fusion guitarist, 1958


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


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


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


• Vanessa Chantal Paradis, singer and actress, 1972


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


• Crissy Moran, former erotic actress, 1975


• Devin Anderson, composer, 1980


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


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

R.I.P.:

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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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


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

Today CCXLV

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