December 9th is the birthday

… of Kirk Douglas. The three-time Oscar nominee is 93. NewMexiKen’s favorite Douglas performance is in Lonely Are the Brave. “Filmed on location in New Mexico, Lonely are the Brave was adapted by Dalton Trumbo from Edward Abbey’s novel Brave Cowboy.”

… of Judi Dench. The six-time Oscar nominee, one-time winner, is 75.

… of Beau Bridges. Jeff’s big brother is 68. No Oscars for Beau, but he has three wins from 10 Emmy nominations.

… of Dick Butkus, 67. The Butkus Award is given each year to the best college linebacker.

… of Tom Kite. He’s 60.

… of John Malkovich. The two-time Oscar nominee is 56.

… of Donny Osmond, 52. Fifty. Two.

… of Felicity Huffman. The Oscar nominee and Desperate Housewife is 47.

… of Jakob Dylan, son of Bob. Jakob is 40 today. He’s the youngest of his dad’s four children with first wife Sara Lownds, the Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.

Grace Hopper was born in New York City 103 years ago today.

She began tinkering around with machines when she was seven years old, dismantling several alarm clocks around the house to see how they worked. She studied math and physics in college, and eventually got a Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale.

Then World War II broke out, and Hopper wanted to serve her country. Her father had been an admiral in the Navy, so she applied to a division of the Navy called WAVES, which stood for Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service. They turned her down at first[;] they said she was too old at 35, and that she didn’t weigh enough, at 105 pounds. But she wouldn’t give up, and they eventually accepted her. With her math skills, she was assigned to work on a machine that might help calculate the trajectory of bombs and rockets.

Hopper learned how to program that early computing machine, and wrote the first instruction manual for its use. And she went on to help write an early computer language known as COBOL — “Common Business-Oriented Language.” She remained in the Navy, and eventually she became the first woman ever promoted to rear admiral.

The Writers Almanac from American Public Media (2006)