Today we celebrate the birthday
. . . of Jane Withers, 84. Withers earned her first fame as an 8-year-old playing the spoiled, doll-ripping, tricycle-riding brat who terrorized sweet, wonderful little Shirley Temple in Bright Eyes.
. . . of Herbie Hancock. He’s 70 today.
. . . of Clarence ‘Lumpy’ Rutherford. Actor Frank Bank of Leave It to Beaver is 68.
. . . of Ed O’Neill. He’s 64. O’Neill was nominated for two Golden Globes for playing shoe salesman Al Bundy on Married … with Children.
. . . of David Letterman. He’s 63, but a part of him seemingly never left the 8th grade.
. . . of Tom Clancy. He’s 63.
He was an insurance salesman, and he was doing well for himself, but he’d always wanted to be a writer. He had spent all his spare time reading magazines about military technology, such as Combat Fleets of the World and A Guide to the Soviet Navy, and one day he began to wonder what would happen if a Soviet submarine tried to defect to the United States. That became the basis for his first novel, The Hunt for Red October (1984).
Instead of focusing on the interactions between his characters, Clancy focused more on the technology. He described the soviet submarine in intricate detail, the way it moved and maneuvered, and all its weaponry and hardware. Since he didn’t think the novel would appeal to a mass audience, he published it with a small military publishing house called the Naval Institute Press. But the book got passed around among officers and generals, and eventually made its way to Ronald Reagan, who said he loved it. That endorsement from the president helped turn The Hunt for Red October into a huge best-seller.
. . . of Scott Turow. He’s 61. He wanted to be a writer but went to law school so he’d have a day job. His first novel was Presumed Innocent, published in 1987.
. . . of David Cassidy. Once a teen heart throb, he’s now 60.
. . . of Andy Garcia. He’s 54. Garcia was nominated for an Oscar for his supporting role in The Godfather: Part III.
. . . of Vince Gill. He’s 53.
. . . of Shannen Doherty, 39.
The photographer Imogen Cunningham was born on this date in 1883.
It was on April 12 in 1633 that Galileo Galilei went on trial. The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor has the story. An excerpt:
At some point Galileo did become interested in the theory of the universe expressed by Copernicus, and then he discovered something that he thought would prove the theory beyond question: the telescope. A Dutch eyeglass maker is credited with inventing it in 1608, and as soon as he heard about it, Galileo set one up himself, and became the first person to use it to observe the sky. He deduced that the moon was illuminated by a reflection of the sun on the Earth, he saw that Jupiter was orbited by moons, and he studied Venus and realized that the only explanation for its changing phases was that it orbited the sun. He thought that, finally, no one could disagree that the planets orbited the sun, so he started talking openly about his ideas. He wrote and lectured for the educated public, figuring that they were a more receptive audience than scholars.
But of course people did disagree: The Church claimed it was at odds with the Bible, particularly a verse in the Book of Joshua that describes God stopping the sun in the sky, and one in Psalms that says Earth was put on its foundations and would not move. Galileo responded publicly by explaining that the truth of the Bible was not always literal, that it used metaphorical imagery. He wrote: “I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.”
Ignorance knows no age.