Category: Birthdays

Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835), Dick Clark (1929) and Sandra Oh (1970) were all born on November 30th.

And it’s not a national holiday! Something is seriously amiss.

Today is the birthday of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee (with Ike) Tina Turner; she’s 69.

The Ike and Tina Turner Revue was one of the highest energy ensembles on the soul circuit in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Ike Turner had begun as a bandleader and talent scout in the ‘40s for blues and R&B performers. He recorded “Rocket 88,” considered by many the first rock ‘n’ roll recording, under the name of his baritone sax player, Jackie Brenston, in 1951.

Turner and his band, the Kings of Rhythm, found a young singer named Annie Mae Bullock in 1956. Eventually, the singer was renamed Tina Turner and the two married.

Their first hit, “A Fool in Love,” was recorded in 1961 when another singer failed to show up for a session. After several early ‘60s hit R&B singles, including “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine” in 1961, they became major stars in England.

A 1971 cover version of John Fogerty’s “Proud Mary” reached No. 4 on the pop chart. Ike and Tina divorced in 1976.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

A Fool in Love

John McVie is 63 today. McVie is the Mac in Fleetwood Mac.

Despite all the changes, two members have remained constant over the years: drummer Mick Fleetwood and bassist John McVie, whose surnames provided the group name Fleetwood Mac. Though most rock fans are familiar with the lineup that includes Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks—by far the longest-running edition of the band, responsible for the classic albums Fleetwood Mac and Rumours—the group possesses a rich and storied history that predates those epics.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Gold Dust Woman

Art Shell is 62 today. Shell is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player and he was the first African-American head coach in modern NFL history.

Hall of Fame pitcher Vernon Louis “Lefty” Gomez was born on this date in 1908. He died in 1989.

“No one hit home runs the way Babe (Ruth) did. They were something special. They were like homing pigeons. The ball would leave the bat, pause briefly, suddenly gain its bearings, then take off for the stands.” Lefty Gomez

“When Neil Armstrong first set foot on the moon, he and all the space scientists were puzzled by an unidentifiable white object. I knew immediately what it was. That was a home run ball hit off me in 1933 by Jimmie Foxx.” Lefty Gomez

“I talked to the ball a lot of times in my career. I yelled, ‘Go foul. Go foul.'” Lefty Gomez

Charles M. Schulz was born on this date in 1922. He died in February 2000, the night before his last Sunday strip appeared. A year ago John Updike wrote a fascinating review of Schulz and Peanuts, a biography by David Michaelis — Sparky from St. Paul.

Today is the birthday

… of Oscar Robertson, 70.

Whenever basketball discussions turn to naming the greatest player in history, Oscar Robertson’s name is always prominently mentioned. Red Auerbach, who coached a slew of Hall of Famers with the Boston Celtics, rates Robertson as the best, most versatile player he has ever seen. Most other basketball experts would agree: the “Big O” could do it all. He was an unstoppable offensive player; one who could score from every spot on the court and in any manner he saw fit. Robertson’s offensive prowess changed the point guard stereotype from simply a passer and “floor general” to a scorer and offensive weapon. Robertson truly had a presence on the court.

A three-time All-State selection at Indianapolis’ Crispus Attucks High School, the “Big O” was heavily recruited and opted to remain close to home at the University of Cincinnati. Robertson’s collegiate career (1957-60) was historic: he established 19 school and 14 NCAA records and led the Bearcats to a 79-9 record and two straight NCAA tournament third place finishes in 1959 and 1960. A three-time College Player of the Year and national scoring leader at Cincinnati, Robertson scored 2,973 points (33.8 ppg), placing him seventh all-time in NCAA history. (Basketball Hall of Fame)

… of Pete Best, 67. Best was the orginal drummer in The Beatles, fired in 1962 to be replaced by Ringo Starr.

… of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Donald ”Duck” Dunn, 67.

The group came together in the early Sixties at Stax Records, a studio and record store on East McLemore Avenue in Memphis. By 1962, guitarist Steve Cropper, organist Booker T. Jones and bassist Lewis Steinberg were established session musicians at Stax. They were joined on a recording date … by drummer Al Jackson, with whom Steinberg had played in the house band at Memphis’ Plantation Inn. It was during some down time at the Riley session that this lineup recorded the classic Sixties soul instrumental “Green Onions.” The definitive version of Booker T. and the MGs (which stood for “Memphis Group”) was completed in 1963, when bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn – a former schoolmate and bandmate of Cropper’s who’d been touring with the Mar-Keys, another Stax backup group – replaced Steinberg. This lineup lent instrumental fire and uncluttered rhythmic support to countless soul classics. Particularly fruitful was their relationship with Stax’s biggest star, Otis Redding. In addition to playing on virtually all of his records, the band backed him at his legendary performance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 (along with the Mar-Kays) …. (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum)

… of Stanley Livingston, 58. He was Chip, the original third son on My Three Sons. Later Stanley’s brother Barry Livingston played an even younger son (when oldest brother Mike played by Tim Considine left the show).

… of Katherine Heigl, 30. That’s Dr. Isobel “Izzie” Stevens to you. NewMexiKen hopes I never get sick, but if I do I want to go to the hottie doctor hospital.

Also born on November 24th —

Junipero Serra (1713-1784)

“A priest in the Franciscan order of the Catholic Church, Junipero Serra was a driving force in the Spanish conquest and colonization of what is now the state of California.” (PBS – THE WEST)

Zachary Taylor (1784-1850)

Northerners and Southerners disputed sharply whether the territories wrested from Mexico should be opened to slavery, and some Southerners even threatened secession. Standing firm, Zachary Taylor was prepared to hold the Union together by armed force rather than by compromise.

Born in Virginia in 1784, he was taken as an infant to Kentucky and raised on a plantation. He was a career officer in the Army, but his talk was most often of cotton raising. His home was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and he owned a plantation in Mississippi.

But Taylor did not defend slavery or southern sectionalism; 40 years in the Army made him a strong nationalist.
(The White House)

Taylor’s early death probably delayed New Mexico’s entry into the Union by 62 years. It’s also interesting to compare this Virginian career Army officer’s thinking about the Union to another’s, that is, Robert E. Lee.

Cass Gilbert (1859-1934)

Gilbert designed the U.S. Supreme Court Building.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901)

Rosa La Rouge – À Montrouge (1886-87). Click to view larger version.

Scott Joplin (1868-1917)

The great Ragtime composer left no sound recordings, but he did make several piano rolls. It’s interesting to hear his tempo.

Dale Carnegie (1888-1955)

“Many people think that if they were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don’t put off being happy until some future date.”

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.”

Carlo Lorenzini (1826-1890)

As C. Collodi, he wrote a timeless story about a wooden boy named Pinocchio, whose nose grew with every lie and whose most ardent wish was to become “a real boy.”

Today is the birthday

… of Billie Jean King. She’s 65.

… of Steve Van Zandt. Little Steven, E Street Band member and Sopranos actor, is 58.

… of Jamie Lee Curtis. She’s 50.

… of Mariel Hemingway. She’s 47.

… of Boris Becker. He’s 41.

… of Scarlett Johansson. She’s 24.

Abigail Adams, America’s second first lady and the mother of the sixth president, was born on this date in 1744.

Songwriter Hoagy Carmichael was born on this date in 1899: “Stardust,” “Georgia on My Mind,” “Up The Lazy River,” “Heart and Soul.”

“I like to say I only got drunk once — for thirty years.”

Joe Walsh, quoted in Rolling Stone : The Return of Joe Walsh, One of Rock’s Unsung Guitar Gods.

Walsh goes on to say “Coke really allowed me to focus, and alcohol took the edge off the cocaine.”

And that he always wanted to do an American Express commercial “in a completely trashed hotel room, with smoking embers and things sparking. And I’d go, ‘Hi, do you know who I am? I don’t have a clue.'”

Walsh joined The Eagles in 1976. The first album with Walsh in the band was Hotel California, which says all you ever need to know about both The Eagles and Joe Walsh.

Today is the birthday

… of U.S. Senator Robert Byrd. The West Virginian is 91.

… of Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer, “who through her magnificent epic writing has — in the words of Alfred Nobel — been of very great benefit to humanity.” She’s 85. The Writer’s Almanac has brief essays on Gordimer and Don DeLillo last year. He’s 72 today.

…of best supporting actress Oscar-winner Estelle Parsons. She won the award for “Bonnie and Clyde” and was nominated again the following year for “Rachel, Rachel.” She’s 81.

… of actor and “Family Feud” host Richard Dawson. He’s 76.

… of comedian Dick Smothers. The straight man of the duo is 70.

… of Vice President-elect Joe Biden. He’s 66.

… of Veronica Hamel of Hill Street Blues. She’s 65.

… of journalist Judy Woodruff. She’s 62.

… of Joe Walsh of The Eagles. He’s 61. Life’s been good to him so far.

I have a mansion forget the price
Ain’t never been there they tell me it’s nice
I live in hotels tear out the walls
I have accountants pay for it all

They say I’m crazy but I have a good time
I’m just looking for clues at the scene of the crime
Life’s been good to me so far

My Maserati does 185
I lost my license now I don’t drive
I have a limo ride in the back
I lock the doors in case I’m attacked

… of Richard Masur. He was the neighbor/boyfriend on On Day At a Time. He’s 60 today.

… of Bo Derek. She’s now five 10s and a 2.

… of Sean Young. Ms. Young won the Razzie for worst actress AND worst supporting actress for “A Kiss Before Dying” (she played twins). She’s been nominated for the award five other times. She’s 49.

… of hottie Nadine Velazquez of “My Name Is Earl.” She’s 30.

Robert F. Kennedy might have been 83 today. He was assassinated at age 42.

Astronomer Edwin Hubble was born on this date in 1889.

During the past 100 years, astronomers have discovered quasars, pulsars, black holes and planets orbiting distant suns. But all these pale next to the discoveries Edwin Hubble made in a few remarkable years in the 1920s. At the time, most of his colleagues believed the Milky Way galaxy, a swirling collection of stars a few hundred thousand light-years across, made up the entire cosmos. But peering deep into space from the chilly summit of Mount Wilson, in Southern California, Hubble realized that the Milky Way is just one of millions of galaxies that dot an incomparably larger setting.

Hubble went on to trump even that achievement by showing that this galaxy-studded cosmos is expanding — inflating majestically like an unimaginably gigantic balloon — a finding that prompted Albert Einstein to acknowledge and retract what he called “the greatest blunder of my life.” Hubble did nothing less, in short, than invent the idea of the universe and then provide the first evidence for the Big Bang theory, which describes the birth and evolution of the universe. He discovered the cosmos, and in doing so founded the science of cosmology.

Source: TIME 100: Edwin Hubble

Today is the birthday

… of Larry King. He’s 75. Before CNN, King was one of the first stars of national talk radio. He left his keys on the table of a fast food restaurant in Crystal City, Virginia, near where I was staying during a business trip in 1983. I noticed the keys and called after him. Only when he thanked me did I hear his voice and know who he was.

… of Dick Cavett. He’s 72.

… of Ted Turner. He’s 70. Turner is America’s largest individual private landowner. Turner owns about 1.8 million acres in 10 states, more than one million of it in New Mexico (though he is not New Mexico’s largest private individual landowner).

… of Calvin Klein. He’s 66.

… of Ahmad Rashad. He was born Bobby Moore 59 years ago. Rashad proposed to Cosby TV mom Phylicia Ayers-Allen on national TV during halftime of a Detroit Lions Thanksgiving Day game. O.J. Simpson was his best man. Rashad and Allen were divorced in 2001.

… of Ann Curry. She’s 52. Daughter of an American father and Japanese mother, Curry was born on Guam and raised in Oregon.

… of Allison Janney. She’s 48. Six Emmy nominations for “West Wing,” four wins.

… of Meg Ryan. She’s 47. Ryan has been nominated for best acting Golden Globes, but no Oscars.

… of Jodie Foster. She’s 46. Nominated for the best actress Oscar three times and best supporting actress once, Foster won for “The Accused” and “Silence of the Lambs.”

Hall of Fame catcher Roy Campanella was born on November 19, 1921.

A star with both the bat and glove, Roy Campanella was agile behind the plate, had a rifle arm and was an expert at handling pitchers. He was named National League MVP three times, including a 1953 selection when he set single-season records for catchers with 41 homers and a National League best 142 RBI. Before signing with the Dodgers, the broad-shouldered receiver starred with the Negro National Leagues’ Baltimore Elite Giants for seven seasons. His career was cut short by a tragic auto accident prior to the 1958 season.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Bandleader and trombonist Tommy Dorsey was born on November 19, 1905.

Though he might have been ranked second at any given moment to Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, or Harry James, Tommy Dorsey was overall the most popular bandleader of the swing era that lasted from 1935 to 1945. His remarkably melodic trombone playing was the signature sound of his orchestra, but he successfully straddled the hot and sweet styles of swing with a mix of ballads and novelty songs. He provided showcases to vocalists like Frank Sinatra, Dick Haymes, and Jo Stafford, and he employed inventive arrangers such as Sy Oliver and Bill Finegan. [Dorsey] was the biggest-selling artist in the history of RCA Victor Records, one of the major labels, until the arrival of Elvis Presley, who was first given national exposure on the 1950s television show [Tommy Dorsey] hosted with his brother Jimmy.

VH1.com

Evangelist Billy Sunday was born on November 19, 1862. Sunday played professional baseball for the Chicago White Stockings, Pittsburgh Alleghenies and Philadelphia Phillies 1883-1890. Following a conversion in 1886, Sunday became the most influential preacher of the era.

In the early 1900s, Billy Sunday sold what was then a unique brand of muscular, testosterone-laden Christianity.

Today, ministers in some of the country’s largest churches preach in shirtsleeves and talk about God in terms of football or golf. Billy Sunday was one of the first to do this. He was a professional baseball player turned tent preacher who became the richest and most influential preacher of his time.
. . .

Sunday, says Martin, was “one of the most acrobatic evangelists of the age.” One newspaper columnist at the time estimated that Sunday traveled about a mile during each sermon.

NPR : Billy Sunday, Man of God

“I’m against sin. I’ll kick it as long as I’ve got a foot, and I’ll fight it as long as I’ve got a fist. I’ll butt it as long as I’ve got a head. I’ll bite it as long as I’ve got a tooth. And when I’m old and fist less and footless and toothless, I’ll gum it till I go home to Glory and it goes home to perdition!”

… of Senator James Inhofe (R-OK). Inhofe is the senator who has said, “man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” He’s 74, his age having finally matched his IQ.

… of Gordon Lightfoot. The singer is 70.

I can see her lyin’ back in her satin dress
In a room where you do what you don’t confess
Sundown, you better take care
If I find you bin creepin’ round my back stairs
Sundown, you better take care
If I find you bin creepin’ round my back stairs

… of Martin Scorsese. The Oscar-winning director is 66.

… of Danny DeVito. The actor/director/producer is 64. Very early in his career DeVito played Martini in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

… of Lorne Michaels. The producer of Saturday Night Live is 64.

So he moved back to Canada, where he formed a comedy duo with Hart Pomerantz, and they had a television variety show on Canadian television, The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour. They contracted their talents to comedic acts in the United States, writing for Phyllis Diller, Lily Tomlin, Joan Rivers, and Woody Allen. They also wrote for the NBC show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and then NBC asked Michaels to come up with a comedy show to replace the Johnny Carson reruns that aired Saturday nights at 11 p.m.

Michaels recruited talent from all sorts of places. Dan Aykroyd was a fellow Canadian, and Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner had worked on the National Lampoon show. Muppet creator Jim Henson created sketches for the show, and recent Harvard grad Al Franken was signed on as a writer. And so Michaels put together the first season, 1975–1976, and won an Emmy for it.

The Writer’s Almanac

… of Tom Seaver. Tom Terrific, the baseball hall-of-famer is 64.

… of Elvin Hayes. The basketball hall-of-famer is 63.

… of Howard Dean. The physician politician is 60.

… of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The actress is 50. Mastrantonio was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for “The Color of Money.”

… of Daisy Fuentes, 42. Sophie Marceau is 42, too.

Rock Hudson was born on this date in 1925; he died in 1985. Hudson got a best actor Oscar nomination for “Giant.”

Soichiro Honda was born on this date in 1906; he died in 1991. Honda started as an auto mechanic at age 15.

It was on this day in 1558 that Queen Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne. She reigned for 45 years. She took over after the death of her sister, Queen Mary, and so Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare are known as Elizabethan authors, and not Maryan authors.

The Writer’s Almanac

W. C. Handy was born on this date in 1873, the son of former slaves.

I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
I hate to see that evenin’ sun go down,
‘Cause my baby has left this town.

If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, just like I feel today,
If I’m feelin’ tomorrow, like I feel today,
I’ll pack my trunk and make my get-away.

St. Louis woman, with all her diamond rings,
Stole that man of mine, by her apron strings;
If it wasn’t for powder, and her store-bought hair,
That man I love wouldn’t’ve gone nowhere!
Nowhere!

W.C. Handy is widely recognized by his self-proclaimed moniker, “Father of the Blues” due to his steadfast and pioneering efforts to document, write and publish blues music and his life-long support of the genre. Although much of his musical taste leaned toward a more sophisticated and polished sound, Handy was among the first to recognize the value of the blues, and Southern black music in general, as an important American legacy. Handy was an accomplished bandleader and songwriter who performed throughout the South before continuing his career in New York. He came across the Delta blues in the late 1890s, and his composition “Memphis Blues,” published in 1912, was the first to include “blues” in the title. Some historians don’t consider “Memphis Blues” to be an actual blues song, however it did influence the creation of other blues tunes, including the historic “Crazy Blues,” which is commonly known as the first blues song to ever be recorded (by Mamie Smith in 1920). A Memphis park was named after Handy in recognition of his contribution to blues and the Blues Foundation recognizes the genre’s achievements annually with the prestigious W.C. Handy award.

The Blues | PBS

NPR told the Handy and St. Louis Blues stories as part of the NPR 100. Click to hear the NPR report, which includes Handy’s own reminiscences and the complete recording of the song by Bessie Smith accompanied by Louis Armstrong, possibly the most influential recording in American music history. (RealPlayer file.)

It’s also the birthday of Maggie Gyllenhaal (31), Lisa Bonet (41), and Diana Krall (44).

Nobel Prize-winning author Jose Saramago is 86.

Burgess Meredith was born 101 years ago today. Meredith was twice nominated for the best supporting actor Oscar — at the age of 68 and 69 — The Day of the Locust and Rocky.

Judge Wapner is 89 today. Raymond Babbitt sends his greetings.

Ed Asner, who will always be Lou Grant to me, is 79.

Petula Clark will be headed downtown to celebrate her 76th birthday.

When you’re alone
And life is making you lonely
You can always go
Downtown

Sam Waterston is 68.

Our guv, Bill Richardson, is 61 today.

Kevin Eubanks, The Tonight Show bandleader, is 51.

Justice Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), artist Georgia O’Keefe (1887-1986), Field Marshal Edwin Rommel (1891-1944), Governor (of New York) Averell Harriman (1891-1986), and U.S. Air Force General (and George Wallace running-mate) Curtis LeMay (1906-1990) were all born on this date.

The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is in Santa Fe. American Masters has a brief biography.

Today is the birthday

… of Buckwheat Zydeco. He’s 61.

Contemporary zydeco’s most popular performer, accordionist Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural was the natural successor to the throne vacated by the death of his mentor Clifton Chenier; infusing his propulsive party music with strains of rock and R&B, his urbanized sound — complete with touches of synthesizer and trumpet — married traditional and contemporary zydeco with uncommon flair, in the process reaching a wider mainstream audience than any artist before him. (allmusic)

… of Prince Charles. He’s 60. I thought it was “ladies-in-waiting,” not princes-in-waiting.

… of Condoleezza Rice. She’s 54.

… of Yanni (Yawn-ee). He’s 54.

… of Laura San Giacomo. She’s 47.

Today is the birthday of Astrid Lindgren, born Astrid Ericsson in Sweden in 1907.

She’s the creator of Pippi Longstocking, a nine-year-old girl with no parents who lives in a red house at the edge of a Swedish village with her horse and her pet monkey, Mr. Nilsson. She has red pigtails, and she wears one black stocking and one brown, with black shoes twice as long as her feet. She eats whole chocolate cakes and sleeps with her feet on the pillow, and she’s the strongest girl in the world.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2006)

Composer Aaron Copland was born on November 14, 1900, in Brooklyn to Russian-Jewish immigrants.

In 1942, Copland began working with Martha Graham on Appalachian Spring, a ballet that eventually won the 1944 Pulitzer Prize in music. The Library of Congress’s Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation commissioned the work from Graham and Copland. Between July 1942 and July 1943, Graham sent three scripts to Copland. On receiving the third script, Copland wrote the music we know as Appalachian Spring.

Hearing the music, Graham revised the action yet again:

I have been working on your music. It is so beautiful and so wonderfully made. I have become obsessed by it. But I have also been doing a little cursing, too, as you probably did earlier over that not-so-good script. But what you did from that has made me change in many places. Naturally that will not do anything to the music, it is simply that the music made me change. It is so knit and of a completeness that it takes you into very strong hands and leads you into its own world. And there I am.

In the end, no script accompanied what Copland called “Ballet for Martha” and Graham retitled, Appalachian Spring. A splendid collaboration between American masters of music and dance, the ballet premiered at the Library of Congress’s Coolidge Auditorium in 1944.

Library of Congress

First Lady Mamie Eisenhower was born on this date in 1896. She died in 1979.

Joseph McCarthy was born on this date in 1908. Fortunately he died in 1957.

Claude Monet was born on this date in 1840. He died in 1926.

The term “impressionist” is derived from Monet’s painting Impression, soleil levant.

Click to view larger version.

On the 13th of November

… in 1789, Benjamin Franklin wrote, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” Franklin died the following year.

… in 1940, the Disney film Fantasia premiered.

… in 1977, the comic strip “Li’l Abner” ended.

… in 1982, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington was dedicated.

Joe Mantegna is 61 today, Chris Noth is 54, Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg is 53 (birth name Caryn Elaine Johnson), Vinny Testaverde is 45, and Jimmy Kimmel is 41.

One of America’s oldest high school kids, Taylor McKessie is 28 today. That’s actress Monique Coleman of High School Musical.

Louis Brandeis was born on November 13, 1856. He served on the Supreme Court from 1916-1939.

For Brandeis, law was a device to shape social, economic, and political affairs. Law had to operate on the basis of two key assumptions: that the individual was the basic force in society and that the individual had limited capabilities. Brandeis did not seek to coddle the individual; rather, he sought to stretch individual potential to its limit.

Oyez

Elizabeth Cady Stanton was born on this date in 1815.

Today is also the birthday

… of Wallace Shawn. The actor-playwright is 65. Inconceivable!

He’s the son of the former New Yorker editor William Shawn, and he’s become well known as a character actor in Hollywood movies such as The Princess Bride (1987) and Clueless (1995). Most people don’t know that he’s also an avant-garde playwright. When he got out of college, a lot of his friends took jobs writing for his father’s magazine, but Shawn supported his playwriting by working as a photocopy clerk. He then got the idea of selling stock in himself, and managed to raise $2,500 from investors, which helped him write his first plays. To this day, he sends all those early investors a small annual check. His early plays were not successes. During his first play, the audience actually shouted for the actors to shut up. But he finally had a breakthrough when he wrote and starred in the movie My Dinner with Andre (1981), which consists entirely of Shawn and the theater director Andre Gregory talking over dinner, but it became a cult classic.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2007)

… of Brian Hyland. The Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini singer is 65.

… of Booker T. Jones. The organist is 64. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Between 1963 and 1968, Booker T. and the MGs appeared on more than 600 Stax/Volt recordings, including classics by such artists as Otis Redding, Eddie Floyd, Rufus Thomas, Carla Thomas, Johnnie Taylor and William Bell. As a result of Stax’s affiliation with Atlantic Records, the group also worked with Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, and Albert King. Moreover, Booker T. and the MGs were a successful recording group in their own right, cutting ten albums and fourteen instrumental hits, including “Green Onions,” “Hang ‘Em High,” “Time Is Tight” and “Soul-Limbo.”

… of Neil Young. He’s 63. Again, according to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

Neil Young is one of rock and roll’s greatest songwriters and performers. In a career that extends back to his mid-Sixties roots as a coffeehouse folkie in his native Canada, this principled and unpredictable maverick has pursued an often winding course across the rock and roll landscape. He’s been a cult hero, a chart-topping rock star, and all things in-between, remaining true to his restless muse all the while. At various times, Young has delved into folk, country, garage-rock and grunge. His biggest album, Harvest (1972) , apotheosized the laid-back singer/songwriter genre he helped invent. By contrast, Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Young’s second-best seller, was a loud, brawling masterpiece whose title track, an homage to Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, contained the oft-quoted line “Better to burn out than it is to rust.”

… of journalist and author Tracy Kidder, also 63. Kidder won the Pulitzer Prize for The Soul of a New Machine (1981).

… of Megan Mullally. She’s 50.

… of Nadia Comaneci. The perfect 10 is 47.

… of Anne Hathaway, all of 26.

Oscar winner Grace Kelly was born 79 years ago today. Her oscar was for best performance by an actress in The Country Girl (1954).

Three-time Oscar nominee Leonardo DiCaprio is 34 today.

Calista Flockhart is 44.

Demi Moore is 46.

Stanley Tucci is 48.

Jonathan Winters is 83.

The late Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on November 11, 1922.

He was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge and was forced to work in a Dresden factory producing vitamin-enriched malt syrup for pregnant women. He slept in a meat locker three stories underground, and that was the only reason he survived the firebombing on the night of February 13, 1945, when British and American bombers ignited a firestorm that killed almost all the city’s inhabitants in two hours. When they walked outside, Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners were just about the only living people in the city. They were then forced by the Germans to help clean up the bodies.

Vonnegut spent the next two decades writing science fiction, but he knew he wanted to write about his experiences in Dresden, and finally did in his novel Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), about a man named Billy Pilgrim who believes that he experiences the events of his life out of order, including his service during World War II, the firebombing of Dresden, and his kidnapping by aliens. He decides there is no such thing as time, and everything has already happened, so there’s really nothing to worry about.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2007)

George Patton was born on November 11, 1885. From his New York Times obituary in 1945:

Gen. George Smith Patton Jr. was one of the most brilliant soldiers in American history. Audacious, unorthodox and inspiring, he led his troops to great victories in North Africa, Sicily and on the Western Front. Nazi generals admitted that of all American field commanders he was the one they most feared. To Americans he was a worthy successor of such hardbitten cavalrymen as Philip Sheridan, J. E. B. Stuart and Nathan Bedford Forrest.

His great soldierly qualities were matched by one of the most colorful personalities of his period. About him countless legends clustered–some true, some untrue, but all testifying to the firm hold he had upon the imaginations of his men. He went into action with two pearl-handled revolvers in holsters on his hips. He was the master of an unprintable brand of eloquence, yet at times he coined phrases that will live in the American Army’s traditions.

“We shall attack and attack until we are exhausted, and then we shall attack again,” he told his troops before the initial landings in North Africa, thereby summarizing the military creed that won victory after victory along the long road that led from Casablanca to the heart of Germany.

Russell Johnson is 84. You know, The Professor on Gilligan’s Island. Johnson has another 148 cast credits at IMDb.

It’s the birthday of Ellen Pompeo. Dr. Grey’s anatomy is 39 today.

The Mama and Papa’s little girl is 49; that’s Mackenzie Phillips. Known, of course, as the older Cooper sister in “One Day At a Time,” the young Phillips, I thought, was best as Carol in “American Graffiti.”

Tracy Morgan is 40.

Roy Scheider was born on this date in 1932. He was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for “The French Connection,” and the best actor Oscar for “All That Jazz,” but we may know him best as Sheriff Martin Brody in Jaws.

Richard Burton was born on this date in 1925. Burton was nominated for the best actor Oscar six times and best supporting actor Oscar once. He never won. Burton died at age 58.

Martin Luther was born on this date in 1483.

Cardinals hall-of-fame pitcher Bob Gibson is 73.

Over 17 seasons with the Cardinals, Bob Gibson won 20 games five times and established himself as the very definition of intimidation, competitiveness, and dignity. One of the best athletes to ever play the game, the ex-Harlem Globetrotter posted a 1.12 ERA in 1968, the lowest figure since 1914, and was named the National League Cy Young Award winner and Most Valuable Player. Known as a premier big-game pitcher, Gibson posted World Series records of seven consecutive wins and 17 strikeouts in a game, and was named World Series MVP in 1964 and 1967.

National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum

Mary Travers, Mary of Peter, Paul & Mary, is 72.

The Incredible Hulk, Lou Ferrigno, is 56.

Carl Sagan was born on this date in 1934. He died in 1996.

Gail Borden, the inventor of condensed milk, was born on this date in 1801. His timing was perfect. He patented the milk just before the civil war when it’s use as part of the field ration made it a success. Borden was also instrumental in requiring dairy farmers to maintain clean facilities if they wanted to sell their milk to his company — Eagle Brand.

The first of seven African-Americans to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, Dorothy Dandridge was born on this date in 1922. She was nominated for Carmen Jones in 1955.

And 70 years ago the Holocaust began:

Today is the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 when Hitler ordered a series of supposedly spontaneous attacks on Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues. The idea was to make the attacks look random, and then accuse the Jews of inciting the violence. In all, more than 1,000 synagogues were burned or destroyed. Rioters looted about 7,500 Jewish businesses and vandalized Jewish hospitals, homes, schools, and cemeteries. The event was used to justify barring Jews from schools and most public places, and forcing them to adhere to new curfews. In the days following, thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps. The event was called Kristallnacht, which means, “Night of Broken Glass.” It’s generally considered the official beginning of the Holocaust. Before that night, the Nazis had killed people secretly and individually. After Kristallnacht, the Nazis felt free to persecute the Jews openly, because they knew no one would stop them.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

Mike Nichols is 77 today. Nichols has been nominated for four best director Oscars, winning for “The Graduate.”

Sally Field is 62. Field has won two best actress Oscars (because the Academy really likes her); one for “Norma Rae” and the other for “Places in the Heart.”

Glenn Frey of The Eagles is 60.

Blues singer Rory Block is 59. So is jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval.

California’s first lady, Maria Shriver, is 53.

Ethan Hawke is 38. Hawke has been nominated for two Oscars, one for supporting actor, “Training Day,” and one for co-writing, “Before Sunset.”

Thandie Newton is 36. Miss Newton’s mother is Zimbawbean, her father English.

New Yorker founder Harold Ross was born in Aspen, Colorado, on November 6, 1892.

Walter “Big Train” Johnson was born 121 years ago today. Johnson was one of the first five players elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame — along with Cobb, Ruth, Mathewson and Wagner.

There were no sophisticated measuring devices in the early 1900s, but Walter Johnson’s fastball was considered to be in a class by itself. Using a sweeping sidearm delivery, the Big Train fanned 3,508 over a brilliant 21-year career with the Washington Senators, and his 110 shutouts are more than any pitcher. Despite hurling for losing teams most of his career, he won 417 games – second only to Cy Young on the all-time list – and enjoyed 10 successive seasons of 20 or more victories.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

James Naismith was born on this date in 1861. He’s the guy that created basketball and for whom the basketball hall-of-fame is named — and basketball’s most prestigious trophies. Dr. James Naismith’s 13 Original Rules of Basketball.

John Philip Sousa was born on November 6, 1854.

Sousa said a march ‘should make a man with a wooden leg step out’, and his surely did. However, he was no mere maker of marches, but an exceptionally inventive composer of over two hundred works, including symphonic poems, suites, songs and operettas created for both orchestra and for band. John Philip Sousa personified the innocent energy of turn-of-the-century America and he represented America across the globe. His American tours first brought classical music to hundreds of towns.

Naxos.com

Abraham Lincoln was elected president on this date in 1860.

Today is the birthday

… of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Art Garfunkel, 67. Bridge Over Troubled Water

… of Sam Shepard. He’s 65. An inductee as a playwright into the Theatre Hall of Fame, Shepard was also nominated for the best actor Oscar for playing Chuck Yeager in The Right Stuff.

… of Peter Noone (Herman of Herman’s Hermits). He’s 61. No, Peter isn’t in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter

… of Bill Walton, 56. He’s in the Basketball Hall of Fame.

… of football hall-of-famer Kellen Winslow. He’s 51.

… of Bryan Adams, 49.

… of Oscar-winner Tilda Swinton, 48.

… of Tatum O’Neal, 45. Miss O’Neal won the best supporting actress Oscar at age 10 for Paper Moon.

Vivien Leigh (who died at age 53) was born on this date in 1913. Miss Leigh was voted best actress twice — for Katie Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind (opposite Clark Gable) and for Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire (opposite Marlon Brando).

Leonard Franklin Slye was born in Cincinnati on this date in 1911. As Roy Rogers he’s an inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame, the only person to be elected twice — as the King of the Cowboys and as a founder of the Sons of the Pioneers (“Tumbling Tumbleweeds,” “Cool Water“). Rogers died in 1998.

The journalist Ida Tarbell was born on this date in 1857.

By the early 1900s, John D. Rockefeller Sr. had finished building his oil empire. For over 30 years, he had applied his uncanny shrewdness, thorough intelligence, and patient vision to the creation of an industrial organization without parallel in the world. The new century found him facing his most formidable rival ever–not another businessman, but a 45-year-old woman determined to prove that Standard Oil had never played fair. The result, Ida Tarbell’s magazine series “The History of the Standard Oil Company,” would not only change the history of journalism, but also the fate of Rockefeller’s empire, shaken by the powerful pen of its most implacable observer.

. . .

“The History of the Standard Oil Company” would be hailed as a landmark in the history of investigative journalism, as well as the most comprehensive study of the building of Rockefeller’s oil empire. In 1999 it was listed number five among the top 100 works of twentieth-century American journalism. …

American Experience

Eugene V. Debs was born on November 5th in 1855.

Labor leader, radical, Socialist, presidential candidate, Eugene Victor Debs was a homegrown American original. He formed the American Railway Union, led the Pullman strike of the 1890’s in which he was jailed, and emerged a dedicated Socialist. An idealistic, impassioned fighter for economic and social justice, he was brilliant, eloquent and eminently human. As a “radical” he fought for women’s suffrage, workmen’s compensation, pensions and social security — all commonplace today. Five times the Socialist candidate for president, his last campaign was run from federal prison where he garnered almost a million votes.

Labor Hall of Fame

Today is the birthday of a bunch of characters. Character-actors, that is.

Doris Roberts is 78. She was Raymond’s mom.

Loretta Swit is 71. She was Major Houlihan.

Art Carney was born on this date in 1918. He’s most famous for playing Ed Norton opposite Jackie Gleason’s Ralph Kramden but he won the Oscar for best actor for Harry and Tonto. Carney died in 2003.

Martin Balsam was born on this date in 1914. Balsam was also a character actor. NewMexiKen’s favorite Balsam roles: Juror #1 in 12 Angry Men, Henry Mendez in Hombre, Mr. Green in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, and his Oscar-winning Arnold Burns (best supporting actor) in A Thousand Clowns. Balsam died in 1996.

It’s also the birthday of Walter Cronkite; he’s 92. What I wouldn’t give for a newsman of Cronkite’s integrity to be on the air these days.

The man who taught John Lennon how to play harmonica, Delbert McClinton, is 68.

The First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, is 62 today.

The novelist Charles Frazier is 58.

Kathy Griffin is 48.

The Karate Kid, Ralph Macchio, is 47.

And Matthew McConaughey is 39, as is Diddy.

Will Rogers was born in Oologah, Oklahoma, on this date in 1879.

H.L. Mencken called him “the most dangerous writer alive.” Damon Runyan dubbed him “America’s most complete document.” And Franklin D. Roosevelt credited him with bringing his fellow Americans “back to a sense of proportion.” He was a ranch hand, rodeo rider, vaudeville performer, film star, columnist and author, radio personality, pioneer of aviation, tireless master of ceremonies, friend to presidents, and unofficial ambassador of good will under three administrations. He was Will Rogers, and during his lifetime he was the single most popular and beloved man in America.

American Masters

A little of Rogers’ “cowboy philosophy” —

• A fool and his money are soon elected.
• I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him “father.”
• There is no credit to being a comedian, when you have the whole government working for you. All you have to do is report the facts. I don’t even have to exaggerate.
• Everything is changing. People are taking the comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke. [Take note Jon Stewart.]
• Don’t gamble; take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.
• I never met a man I didn’t like.

Abraham Lincoln and Mary Todd were married on November 4, 1842.

Rapid Robert is 90 today.

Combining an overpowering fastball with a devastating curve, both of which appeared out of a deceptively high leg kick, Bob Feller dominated the American League in the 1940s. Rapid Robert led the league in wins six times and in strikeouts seven over his 18-year career. He pitched three no-hitters and still holds the major league record, along with Nolan Ryan, of 12 one-hitters.

The winningest pitcher in Cleveland Indians history, his career totals — a 266-162 record and 2,581 strikeouts — would have been considerably higher but for the almost four seasons he spent in the Navy during World War II.

As a teenager appearing in his first exhibition game against major leaguers he was so impressive that Dizzy Dean, when asked to take a photograph with the youngster, responded. “Why ask me? Ask that kid if he’ll pose with me.”

Feller’s fastball was so potent and his curve so unbalancing that he became the featured player in 1940s newsreels demonstrating that a thrown baseball could travel faster than a motorcycle and could be made to curve

ESPN Classic

Michael Dukakis is 75.

Remember the movie “To Sir, With Love”? Lulu, the red-headed singer is 60 today.

Roseanne Barr is 56 today.

Her family was Jewish, but her parents supported the family by selling crucifixes door to door. When she was three, she hit her head on the dining room table, and her face became paralyzed. Her mom called a rabbi, but Roseanne wasn’t healed. So her mom called the Mormon missionaries, and Roseanne got better. Her Jewish mom took it as a sign that Roseanne should be raised Mormon. Her dad was an atheist, and he was fine with that. Her dad loved comedy shows on television. Whenever a comedian appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, her dad would jump up and yell, “Comedian!” and everyone in the family would rush to the TV. When she was 15, Roseanne ran out into the street and purposefully let herself get hit by a car. She was knocked unconscious, and when she came to, she was placed in a psychiatric ward. She spent eight months there, and she said that it was a very good and valuable experience.

She met a man who drove a garbage truck, and they got married and moved into a trailer. She raised three kids, and on the side she wrote comedy routines. After auditioning for six minutes, she got hired at the Comedy Store in Los Angeles. Her jokes were about being a mom and a housewife and about the incompetence of the male species. About husbands who couldn’t find their own socks, she said, “They think the uterus is a tracking device.”

And, “As a housewife, I feel that if the kids are still alive when my husband gets home from work, then hey, I’ve done my job.”

And, “The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his chest.”

And, “Women complain about PMS, but I think of it as the only time of the month when I can be myself.”

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Kate Capshaw is 55. So is Dennis Miller, who will probably change back to liberal after tomorrow.

Photographer Walker Evans was born on November 3rd in 1903.

[B]orn in St. Louis, Missouri (1903), [Evans] wanted to be a writer but suffered from terrible writer’s block. He said, “I wanted so much to write that I couldn’t write a word.” He felt like a failure until one day he picked up a camera and realized that with a camera he didn’t have to create things, he could just capture them. The popular photography of the day was highly stylized, so Evans decided to go in the opposite direction, to take pictures of ordinary, unpretentious things. He said, “If the thing is there, why there it is.”

Evans photographed storefronts and signs with marquee lights, blurred views from speeding trains, old office furniture, and common tools. He took pictures of people in the New York City subways with a camera hidden in his winter coat. He especially loved photographing bedrooms: farmers’ bedrooms, bohemian bedrooms, middle-class bedrooms. He’d photograph what people had on their dressers and in their dresser drawers. In 1933, Evans was given the first one-man photographic exhibition by the new Museum of Modern Art.

In the summer of 1936, he collaborated with the journalist James Agee on a book about tenant farmers Greensboro, Alabama, called Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941), which included Evans’s photographs of the Burroughs family, the Fields family, and the Tingle family at work on their farms and in their homes. Those photos are among the most famous images of the Great Depression.

Walker Evans said, “Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2007)

Sputnik 2 was launched 51 years ago today. On board was the first animal in space, the dog Laika.

And 62 years ago today Franklin Roosevelt beat Alfred Landon. Landon carried two states, Maine and Vermont.

It’s Halloween and the birthday

… of Astronaut Michael Collins. Collins was the guy on board the Apollo while Armstrong and Aldrin played on the moon.

… of Dan Rather. His frequency is 77.

… of David Ogden Stiers. Major Winchester is 66.

… of Jane Pauley. She’s 58.

It’s also the birthday of Michael (Bonanza/Little House on the Prairie) Landon, who was born in 1936 and died in 1991, and John Candy, born in 1950. Candy died in 1994.

The great jazz and blues singer and film actress Ethel Waters was born on this date in 1896.

Later, in the 1930s, Waters found the mainstream of popular music, including jazz and congenial, and brought to it a combination of tragedy (in Harold Arlen’s Stormy Weather, 1933) and comedy (in H. I. Marshall’s You Can’t Stop Me From Loving You, 1931) which, in its range, was unsurpassed by any other popular singer. …

Waters was the first black entertainer to move successfully from the vaudeville and nightclub circuits to what blacks called “the white time” (the West Indian Bert Williams had done this earlier in the Ziegfield Follies — but in blackface). Her vocal resources were adequate though unexceptional, but this shortcoming was mitigated by an innate theatrical flair that enabled her to project the character and situation of every song she performed. (PBS – JAZZ A Film By Ken Burns)

Ms. Waters was nominated for the best supporting actress Oscar in 1949 for her part in “Pinky.” Such was the segregation in film and television at that time that Waters next played the title role in “Beulah” an early fifties situation comedy. Beulah was a domestic for a white family. Waters was succeeded in the role by Oscar-winner Hattie McDaniel, then Louise Beavers, and finally Amanda Randolph.

Ethel Waters died in 1977.

Ehrich Weiss, better known to us as Harry Houdini, died on this date — Halloween — in 1926.

But during a stay in Montreal in October, Houdini was assaulted by a young man in his dressing room. The stomach blows — which he had invited as a test of his legendary strength — aggravated a case of appendicitis, and he soon became seriously ill. In a final display of stamina and willpower, Houdini performed the next day and again in Detroit. His appendix was removed on October 25th, but the delay had allowed an infection to set in, and he died in Detroit on Halloween.

Source: The American Experience, which has a brief biography.

Nevada became the 36th state on this date in 1864, just in time to cast two electoral votes for Abraham Lincoln.

Nevada was admitted to the Union as the 36th state on this date in 1864.

In Spanish “nevada” means snow-capped.
The Nevada state bird: Mountain Bluebird
State animal: Desert Bighorn Sheep
State reptile: Desert Tortoise
Nevada is the seventh largest state: 110,540 square miles. It has 17 counties.

Today is the birthday

… of Robert Caro, born on this date in 1936. The Writer’s Almanac (2005) tells us about Caro, including this:

Since 1974, Caro has been working on a four-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. He says he picked Johnson to write about because he wanted to write about political power, and he believes Lyndon Johnson was the most masterful getter and user of political power in the 20th century. For his research on Johnson, Caro has gone through 34 million documents at the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, and he has conducted more than 1,000 interviews. He lived in Johnson’s hometown for three years so that he could get to know the people there well enough that they would open up to him. He also tracked down every living member of Johnson’s grammar school class.

Caro eventually uncovered the fact that Johnson had committed an unprecedented series of lies, manipulations, and vote tampering on his way to becoming a United States Senator. But what fascinated Caro was the fact that a politician who would commit such crimes in order to get power could still use that power for good. He points out that, when Johnson got into office, he became the greatest advocate for civil rights of any politician since Abraham Lincoln.

Caro’s third volume Master of the Senate won the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.

… of Rudolfo Anaya, 71.

[B]orn in Pastura, New Mexico, in 1937. He grew up in the village of Santa Rosa, and he grew up speaking only Spanish, listening to folktales while he helped his family harvest. He went to college, then he taught middle school and high school. And in the evenings, he started to write a book, a fictionalized account of life in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. He couldn’t get it published, but finally, in 1972, he found a small press in California, and it became a classic: Bless Me, Última.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

… of Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane, 69 today.

… of Otis Williams of the Temptations, 67 today.

… of Henry Winkler. The Fonz, is 63.

… of Timothy B. Schmit, of the Eagles is 61. Before the Eagles, he was in Poco.

… of Terry “The Toad.” Charles Martin Smith is 55 today.

Ezra Pound was born in Halley, Idaho, on this date in 1885.

Ezra Pound is generally considered the poet most responsible for defining and promoting a modernist aesthetic in poetry. . . . His own significant contributions to poetry begin with his promulgation of Imagism, a movement in poetry which derived its technique from classical Chinese and Japanese poetry–stressing clarity, precision, and economy of language, and foregoing traditional rhyme and meter in order to, in Pound’s words, “compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in the sequence of the metronome.” His later work, for nearly fifty years, focused on the encyclopedic epic poem he entitled The Cantos.

Poets.org

José Manuel Gallegos was born in Abiquiú, Nuevo México, on this date in 1815.

His people were Hispanos, descendants of early Spanish settlers, and Gallegos went on to become New Mexico’s first delegate to the U.S. Congress.

Raised during the Mexican revolution, Gallegos was surrounded by republican ideals during his formative years of education with the Franciscan missionaries in Taos and Durango. Ordained a Catholic priest at age 25, Gallegos readily added political tasks to his clerical responsibilities. He became pastor of San Felipe de Neri church in La Villa de Albuquerque, as well as one of the nineteen “electors,” men who chose Nuevo México’s deputy to the Mexican Congress.

In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the Southwest, from Texas to California, to the United States. Nuevo México became the U.S. territory of New Mexico, and Gallegos was elected to its first Territorial Council. He won the election for delegate to the U.S. Congress in 1853, the second Hispanic Congressional Representative in U.S. history. Thirty-one years had elapsed since Joseph Marion Hernández, from the territory of Florida, had become the first Hispanic in Congress in 1822.

Suspended from the priesthood for refusing to accept the authority of French religious superior, Bishop Jean Baptiste Lamy (who became the subject of Willa Cather’s novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop), Gallegos put increasing energy into his political life. Subsequently, he was elected to the New Mexico Territorial House of Representatives, served as treasurer of the territory, and was superintendent of New Mexico Indian affairs. Gallegos returned to the U.S. House of Representatives for a second term in 1871.

— Library of Congress

Today is the birthday of Charlie Daniels. The devil in Georgia is 72.

Actress Jane Alexander is 69 today. Ms. Alexander has four Oscar nominations in her career; two for best actress and two for best supporting actress.

Det. Andy Sipowicz is 64. That’s Dennis Franz.

Bill Gates, the former resident of Albuquerque, is 53 today.

When he was in 8th grade, the [Seattle] Lakeside Mothers Club had a rummage sale and used the money to buy computer equipment for the school. Gates and his friend Paul Allen got completely swept up in the excitement of this new technology. They rummaged through dumpsters at the nearby Computer Center Corporation to find notes written by programmers, and with that information, they wrote a 300-page manual. He and Paul Allen moved to Albuquerque and started Microsoft in 1975.

The Writer’s Almanac

Oscar winner Julia Roberts (Erin Brockovich) is 41. Ms. Roberts was also nominated for best actress for Pretty Woman and best supporting actress for Steel Magnolias.

Joaquin Phoenix, who has already been nominated for a best supporting actor (“Gladiator”) and a leading actor (“Walk the Line”) Oscar, is 34.

Costume designer Edith Head was born on October 24th in 1897. Ms. Head was nominated for 35 Oscars, winning eight.

The developer of the first polio vaccine, Dr. Jonas Salk was born on this date in 1914.

He created the vaccine at the height of a polio epidemic in the mid-1950s, when parents were so worried about their children that they kept them home from swimming pools in the summer. Salk’s discovery was that a vaccine could be developed from a dead virus, and he tested the vaccine on himself, his family, and the staff of his laboratory to prove it was safe. The vaccine was finally released to the public in 1955, and the number of people infected by polio went down from more than 10,000 a year to fewer than 100. Salk was declared a national hero.

The Writer’s Almanac (2007)

Harvard College was founded on this date in 1636.

… of Ruby Dee. The actress and Kennedy Center Honor recipient is 84.

… of John Cleese. He’s 69, which means he doesn’t have too many more years to undermine his reputation from the Monty Python days with a continuing string of asinine TV commercials.

Theodore Roosevelt was born on this date in 1858. Roosevelt is still the youngest President ever. He was 42 when he succeeded McKinley in 1901.

The Welsh poet Dylan Thomas was born on this date in 1914. (He died in 1953.)

My birthday began with the water –
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days

The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Sylvia Plath was born on this date in 1932. She died, from suicide, at age 30 in early 1963.