Don Shula is 82.
Dyan Cannon is 75.
Doris Kearns Goodwin is 69. Goodwin won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The American Homefront During World War II.
Patty Loveless is 55. Andy Borowitz is 54. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. is 52.
Julia Ormond is 47.
Issac Newton was born on this date in 1643. The NOVA website devoted to Einstein talks also of the genius of Newton.
There is a parlor game physics students play: Who was the greater genius? Galileo or Kepler? (Galileo) Maxwell or Bohr? (Maxwell, but it’s closer than you might think). Hawking or Heisenberg? (A no-brainer, whatever the best-seller lists might say. It’s Heisenberg). But there are two figures who are simply off the charts. Isaac Newton is one. The other is Albert Einstein. If pressed, physicists give Newton pride of place, but it is a photo finish — and no one else is in the race.
Newton’s claim is obvious. He created modern physics. His system described the behavior of the entire cosmos — and while others before him had invented grand schemes, Newton’s was different. His theories were mathematical, making specific predictions to be confirmed by experiments in the real world. Little wonder that those after Newton called him lucky — “for there is only one universe to discover, and he discovered it. “
The physician, political leader and signer of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush was born on this date in 1746 — or on December 24, 1745, depending. When he was six, Britain and its colonies converted to the Gregorian calendar, skipping forward 11 days. Rush urged the removal of General Washington early in the War for Independence (he later regretted that action), helped prepare Meriwether Lewis for his expedition with William Clark, and brought about the reconciliation between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson in 1812. Rush was an prominent early abolitionist but owned a slave.
Jacob Grimm was born on January 4, 1785. He was a philologist and mythologist, who with his brother Wilhelm collected and published Grimms’ Fairy Tales. It was titled Children’s and Household Tales; the first volume was published 200 years ago.
Louis Braille was born on this date in 1809. He died at age 43, but managed to create the alphabet named for him in his short life. Braille was blind from a childhood accident.
Charles Sherwood Stratton was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, on January 4, 1838. As an adult Stratton was 2 feet, 11 inches tall and went by the name General Tom Thumb. He was 3 feet, 4 inches at death — from a stroke at age 45.
Sterling Holloway was born on January 4, 1905. He was an actor with bushy red hair and a high voice, perhaps best known as the voice of Winnie the Pooh, though he has 176 credits at IMDb.
Thomas Edison electrocuted Topsy, an elephant, on this date in 1903 to proved alternating current was dangerous. It certainly was dangerous for Topsy.