April 20
Birthdays:
1973 ~ Julie Powell (née Julia Anne Foster; d. Oct. 26, 2022), American food blogger who mastered Julia Child. In 2002, she began a food blog based on her experience cooking every recipe in Julia Child’s cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. This became the basis of her memoir Julie and Julia, which later became a 2009 movie of the same name. She was born in Austin, Texas. She died of cardiac arrest at age 49 in Olivebridge, New York.
1949 ~ Jessica Lange (née Jessica Phyllis Lange), American actress. She was born in Cloquet, Minnesota.
1943 ~ Edie Sedgwick (née Edith Minturn Sedgwick; d. Nov. 16, 1971), American socialite and heiress. She was born and died in Santa Barbara, California. She died of a drug overdose at age 28.
1941 ~ Ryan O’Neal (né Charles Patrick Ryan O’Neal), American actor. He is best known for his role in Love Story. He was born in Los Angeles, California.
1939 ~ Marcia Angell, American physician and author. She was the first woman to serve as the editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine. She was born in Knoxville, Tennessee.
1938 ~ Betty Cuthbert (née Elizabeth Alyse Cuthbert; d. Aug. 6, 2017), Australian sprinter who won it all. She competed in the 1956 and 1964 Olympics in Melbourne and Tokyo, respectively, where she won gold medals. She died at age 79.
1937 ~ George Takei (né George Hosato Takei), American actor. He is best known for his role as Sulu on Star Trek. He was born in Los Angeles, California.
1927 ~ K. Alex Müller (né Karl Alexander Müller; d. Jan. 9, 2023), Swiss physicist and recipient of the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in superconductivity in ceramic materials. He was born in Basel, Switzerland. He died at age 95 in Zurich, Switzerland.
1924 ~ Nina Foch (née Nina Consuelo Maud Fock; d. Dec. 5, 2008), Dutch-American actress. She died at age 84 in Los Angeles, California.
1924 ~ Ruth Sullivan (née Ruth Christ; d. Sept. 16, 2021), American nurse who became an autism advocate. She became an advocate after her son, Joseph, was diagnosed with autism and she was told he would always be “odd” and nothing more could be done. She trained as a nurse at Charity Hospital in New Orleans. She was born in Mowata, Acadia Parish, Louisiana. She died in Huntington, West Virginia at age 97.
1923 ~ Tito Puente (né Ernesto Antonio Puente; d. May 31, 2000), American jazz musician. He was born and died in New York, New York. He died of a massive heart attack at age 77.
1923 ~ Mother Angelica (née Rita Antoinette Rizzo; d. Mar. 27, 2016), American Poor Clare nun and television personality. She was the founder of the cable broadcasting empire, the Eternal Word Television Network. She was born in Canton, Ohio. She died in Hanceville, Alabama about a month before her 93rd birthday.
1920 ~ John Paul Stevens (d. July 16, 2019), Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court who became a liberal icon. He was nominated to the High Court by President Gerald Ford. He replaced William O. Douglas on the Court. He was succeeded by Elena Kagan. He served on the Court from December 1975 until June 2010. He was born in Chicago, Illinois. He died at age 99 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
1918 ~ Kai Siegbahn (d. July 20, 2007), Swedish physicist and recipient of the 1981 Nobel Prize in Physics. He was born in Lund, Sweden. He died at age 89.
1908 ~ Lionel Hampton (né Lionel Leo Hampton, d. Aug. 31, 2002), African-American jazz musician and bandleader. He was born in Louisville, Kentucky. He died at age 94 in New York, New York.
1905 ~ Stanley Marcus (né Harold Stanley Marcus; d. Jan. 22, 2002), American businessman and son of the co-founder of the Neiman Marcus department store. He was born and died in Dallas, Texas. He died at age 96.
1893 ~ Harold Lloyd, Sr. (né Harold Clayton Lloyd; d. Mar. 8, 1971), American silent screen actor. He was born in Burchard, Nebraska. He died of prostate cancer at age 77 in Beverly Hills, California.
1893 ~ Joan Miró (d. Dec. 25, 1983), Spanish painter. He was born in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. He died at age 90 in Palma, Mallorca, Spain.
1889 ~ Adolf Hitler (d. Apr. 30, 1945) dictator of Nazi Germany. He committed suicide along with Eva Braun (née Eva Anna Paula Braun; b. Feb. 6, 1912), his wife of one day, 10 days after his 57th birthday.
1889 ~ Albert Jean Amateau (d. Feb. 9, 1996), Turkish rabbi. He died at age 106.
1884 ~ Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (d. July 13, 1966), member of the British royal family. In 1909, she married Infante Alfonso, Duke of Galliera (1886 ~ 1975). She was of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She was the daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Duke of Edinburg and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. She was the granddaughter of Victoria, Queen of Great Britain. She died at age 82.
1871 ~ Slavoljub Penkala (né Slavoljub Eduard Penkala; d. Feb. 5, 1922), Croatian engineer and inventor. He invented the mechanical pencil. He died of pneumonia at age 50.
1850 ~ Daniel French (né Daniel Chester French; d. Oct. 7, 1931), American sculptor and designer of the Lincoln statue in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. He was born in Exeter, New Hampshire. He died in Stockbridge, Massachusetts at age 81.
1839 ~ Carol I, King of Romania (d. Oct. 10, 1914). He ruled from March 1881 until his death 33 years later in October 1914. In 1869, he married Princess Elisabeth of Wied (1843 ~ 1916). He was of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. He was the son of Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern and Princess Josephine of Baden. He was Roman Catholic. He died at age 75.
1808 ~ Napoleon III (né Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; d. Jan. 9, 1873), 1st President of the French Republic. He died at age 64.
1745 ~ Nathanael Emmons (d. Sept. 23, 1840), American Congregational minister and theologian. He was born in East Haddam, Connecticut and died in Franklin, Massachusetts. He died at age 95.
1586 ~ St. Rose of Lima (née Isabel Flores de Oliva; d. Aug. 24, 1617), Peruvian Catholic saint. She was born and died in Lima, Peru. She died at age 31.
1544 ~ Renata of Lorraine (d. May 22, 1602), Duchess consort of Bavaria and wife of William V, Duke of Bavaria (1548 ~ 1626). They married in 1568. She was of the House of Lorraine. She was the daughter of Francis I, Duke of Lorraine and Princess Christina of Denmark. She was the granddaughter of Christian II, King of Denmark. She was Roman Catholic. She died about a month after her 58th birthday.
1492 ~ Pietro Aretino (d. Oct. 21, 1556), Italian author, satirist, and playwright. He died at age 64 in Venice, Repiublic of Venice.
Events that Changed the World:
2021 ~ The jury found former police officer Derek Chauvin (b. 1976) guilty of the murder of George Floyd (1973 ~ 2020). Floyd was an African-American man who had been arrested for ostensibly passing a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin had been accused of kneeling on Floyd’s neck for over 9 minutes.
2014 ~ Easter Sunday.
2013 ~ A 6.6 magnitude earthquake struck in China’s Sichuan province killing over 150 people and injuring thousands more.
2010 ~ The Deepwater Horizon oil well exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 12 workers, and beginning an oil spill that would take over 6 months before being capped. The damage to the sea life would be felt for years. The ensuing lawsuit with British Petroleum was finally settled in April 2016. A Federal Judge approved a $20 Billion settlement, which included environmental damages as well as economic damages caused by the oil spill.
2008 ~ Danica Patrick (b. 1982) won the Indy Japan 300 to become the first female driver in history to win an Indy car race.
1999 ~ Two students went on a killing rampage at their school and killed 12 classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School, before committing suicide. Numerous others were injured in the rampage.
1972 ~ Apollo 16, commanded by astronaut John Young (1930 ~ 2018), landed on the moon.
1951 ~ Romanian surgeon Dan Gavriliu (1915 ~ 2012) performed the first total surgical replacement of a human organ when he replaced an esophagus, using sections of the patient’s stomach to bypass the damaged tissue.
1946 ~ The League of Nations officially dissolved. Most of its power and authority was transferred to the United Nations.
1939 ~ Billie Holiday (1915 ~ 1959) recorded Strange Fruit, which is regarded as the first civil rights song.
1912 ~ The Boston Red Sox baseball team began playing for the first time in Fenway Park. Mayor John F. Fitzgerald (1863 ~ 1950) threw out the first pitch. The Boston Red Sox beat the New York Highlanders in a score of 7-6 in a game that lasted 11 innings.
1902 ~ Pierre (1859 ~ 1906) and Marie Curie (1867 ~ 1934) successfully isolated and refined radium chloride.
1862 ~ Louis Pasteur (1822 ~ 1985) and Claude Bernard (1813 ~ 1878) completed their first pasteurization tests. This disproved the theory of spontaneous generation.
1861 ~ Robert E. Lee (1807 ~ 1870) resigned his commission in the United States Army to command the Confederate forces for the state of Virginia.
1841 ~ Edgar Allan Poe’s short story Murder in the Rue Morgue was first published. It is considered to be the first modern detective story.
1775 ~ The Siege of Boston began, following the battles at Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, during the American Revolutionary War.
1657 ~ Freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam.
1653 ~ Oliver Cromwell (1699 ~ 1658) dissolved the Rump Parliament.
1534 ~ Jacques Cartier (1491 ~ 1557) began his first voyage to what is now known as Newfoundland and Canada.
Good-Byes:
2022 ~ Robert Morse (né Robert Alan Morse; b. May 18, 1931), American actor best known for his role as J. Pierrepont Finch in the musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and as Bertram Cooper on television’s Mad Men. He was born in Newton, Massachusetts. He died in Los Angeles, California about a month before his 91st birthday.
2021 ~ Tempest Storm (née Annie Blanche Banks; b. Feb. 29, 1928), American queen of burlesque who dazzled for eight decades. She was known as the Queen of Exotic Dancers. She was one of the best-known burlesque performers in the 1950s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. She was born in Eastman, Georgia. She died at age 93 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
2015 ~ Aharon Lichtenstein (b. May 23, 1933), French-American Orthodox rabbiHe was born in Paris, France. He died in Alon Shvut, Israel about a month before his 82nd birthday.
2014 ~ Rubin “Hurricane” Carter (b. May 6, 1937), American boxer convicted of murder. He spent nearly 20 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. His story inspired Bob Dylan to write a song about him called Hurricane. He died of prostate cancer 16 days before his 77th birthday.
2003 ~ Bernard Katz (d. Mar. 26, 1911), German-born biophysicist and recipient of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his work on nerve physiology. He fled to England in 1935 to escape the Nazi rule. He was born in Leipzig, German Empire. He died less than a month after his 92nd birthday in London, England.
2000 ~ Philip Keenan (né Philip Childs Keenan; b. Mar. 31, 1908), American astronomer. He is best known for creating an atlas of stellar spectra that is considered the bible of star classification. He was born in Bellevue, Pennsylvania. He died at age 92 in Columbus, Ohio.
1999 ~ Señor Wences (né Wenceslao Moreno; b. Apr. 17, 1896), Spanish-American ventriloquist. He died 3 days after his 103rd birthday in New York, New York.
1996 ~ Christopher Robin Milne (b. Aug. 21, 1920), son of writer A.A. Milne and inspiration for the character of Christopher in Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books. He was born in London, England. He died at age 75 in Totnes, England.
1992 ~ Benny Hill (né Alfred Hawthorne Hill; b. Jan. 21, 1924), British comedian. He died of heart failure at age 68.
1982 ~ Archibald MacLeish (b. May 7, 1892), American poet and writer. He served as the 9th Librarian of Congress from 1939 to 1944. He was born in Glencoe, Illinois. He died in Boston, Massachusetts 17 days before his 90th birthday.
1968 ~ Soraya Tarzi (b. Nov. 24, 1899), Queen consort of Afghanistan and wife of Amanullah Khan. She was a progressive royal and was known for breaking tradition. She was one of the most powerful figures in the Middle East in the 1920s. She and her husband campaigned against polygamy and the veil. She was well educated and opened the country’s first school for girls. In 1929, the King abdicated, and the family went into exile. She was born in Damascus, Syria. She died in Rome, Italy at age 68.
1947 ~ Christian X, King of Denmark (b. Sept. 26, 1870). He ruled over Denmark from May 1912 until his death in April 1947. In 1898, he married Alexandrine of Mecklemnburg-Schwerin (1879 ~ 1952). They were the parents of Frederick IX, King of Denmark. He was of the House of Glücksburg. He was the son of Frederick VIII of Denmark and Princess Louise of Sweden. He was Lutheran. He died at age 76.
1932 ~ Guiseppe Peano (b. Aug. 27, 1858), Italian mathematician. He died at age 73 in Turin, Italy.
1918 ~ Karl Ferdinand Braun (b. June 6, 1850), German physicist and recipient of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics. He died at age 67 in Brooklyn, New York.
1912 ~ Bram Stoker (né Abraham Stoker; b. Nov. 8, 1847), Irish novelist who was best known for his Gothic novel, Dracula. He was born in Dublin, Ireland. He died at age 64 in London, England.
1812 ~ George Clinton (b. July 26, 1739), 4th Vice President of the United States. He served as Vice President under two presidents: Presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. He served in that Office from March 1805 until his death at age 72 in 1812. He was the first Vice President to die in Office. He was born in Little Britain, Province of New York, British America. He died in Washington, D.C.
1521 ~ Zhengde (b. Oct. 26, 1491), 11th Chinese Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. He died at age 29.
1517 ~ Prince Bogdan III, the One-Eyed (b. 1479), Romanian son of Stephen III of Moldavia. The exact date of his birth is unknown. He is believed to have been about 37 or 38 at the time of his death.
1314 ~ Pope Clement V (né Raymond Bertrand de Got; b. 1264). He was Pope from June 1305 until his death. He is best known for suppressing the Knights Templar. He also moved the Papacy from Rome to Avignon, France. The exact date of his birth is unknown. He is believed to have been about 49 or 50 at the time of his death.
1164 ~ Antipope Victor IV (né Octavian; b. 1095). The exact date of his birth is not known. He was Pope from September 1159 until his death 5 years later.
888 ~ Xi Zong (b. June 8, 862), Chinese Emperor of the Tang Dynasty. He died at age 25.
689 ~ Cædwalla, King of Wessex (b. 659). He ruled over Wessex from 685 until he abdicated in 688. He was married to Cynethryth. Little is known of her. He was baptized by Pope Sergius I in April 689, just before Easter. He died a few days later. He was of the House of Wessex. He was the son of Coenberht and an unnamed mother. He is believed to have died at about age 29 or 30.
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