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Don Shula is 81.

Dyan Cannon is 74.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is 68. The Writer’s Almanac has a good profile of Mrs. Goodwin today.

Patty Loveless is 54. Michael Stipe of R.E.M. is 51.

Julia Ormond is 46. Ormond played then 39-year-old Cate Blanchett’s daughter in a small part in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

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.

Today is the birthday

… of George Martin. The man who produced The Beatles’ records is 85.

… of Dabney Coleman. Franklin M. Hart Jr. is 79 (that’s the boss in Nine To Five).

… of Bobby Hull. The hockey hall-of-famer is 72.

… of Stephen Stills. The rock and roll hall-of-famer is 66.

… of John Paul Jones. No, not the Navy guy. The Led Zeppelin guy. He’s 65.

… of Victoria Principal. Pamela Barnes Ewing (Dallas) is 61.

… of Mel Gibson. He is 55.

… of Danica McKellar, 36. You know, Winnie from The Wonder Years.

… of Eli Manning, 30. Enjoying his birthday with no playoff games to worry about.

J(ohn) R(onald) R(euel) Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, South Africa, on this date in 1892. Tolkien is best known for his fantasy novels The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954-1955).

Joseph de Veuster was born on this date in 1840. Known as Father Damien, the Belgian priest spent the last 16 years of his life ministering to the leper colony on Molokai.

“This is my work in the world. Sooner or later I shall become a leper, but may it not be until I have exhausted my capabilities for good.”

With King Kamehameha, Damien’s statue is one of the two chosen by Hawaii to be displayed in Statuary Hall in the nation’s Capitol.

Source: Hawaii State Government: Father Damien

Lucretia Mott was born on January 3rd in 1793.

Inspired by a father who encouraged his daughters to be useful and a mother who was active in business affairs, Lucretia Mott worked as a tireless advocate for the oppressed while also raising six children. Over the course of her lifetime, Mott actively participated in many of the reform movements of the day including abolition, temperance, and pacifism. She also played a vital role in organizing the 1848 Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, which launched the woman suffrage movement in America.

Today in History: Library of Congress

This is Ms. Mott’s complete New York Times obituary from 1880:

Lucretia Mott died last evening at her residence, near Philadelphia, in her eighty-eighth year. Mrs. Mott, whose name was probably as widely known as that of any other public woman in this or the preceding generation, was born in the old whaling town of Nantucket on the 3d of January, 1793. Her maiden name was Coffin. When 11 years old, her parents removed to Boston, where she went to school, finishing her education at a young ladies’ boarding school in Dutchess County, N.Y., in which, when only 15 years old, she became a teacher. In 1809 she rejoined her parents, who had removed to Philadelphia, and in 1811, two years later, was married to James Mott. She was then in her nineteenth year. Her husband went into partnership with her father, Mr. Coffin, and Mrs. Mott again turned her attention to educational matters. In 1817 she took charge of a school in Philadelphia, and in 1818 began to preach. She made extended pilgrimages through New-England, Pennsylvania, Maryland and parts of Virginia advocating Quaker principles and waging at the same time a vigorous warfare against the evils of intemperance and slavery. In the division of the Society of Friends in 1827 she adhered to the Hicksites. Mrs. Mott took a prominent part in organizing the American Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia in 1833, and was a delegate to the famous World’s Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, where, in company with other female delegates, she was refused admission on account of her sex. She was also prominent in the original Woman’s Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1848, over which her husband, James Mott, presided. During the last 30 years she has been conspicuous in such gatherings and in annual meetings of the Society of Friends. Among her published works are “Sermons to Medical Students” and “A Discourse on Women.”

The last day of the year is the birthday

… of Anthony Hopkins. The Oscar winner is 73. Hopkins has been nominated for Best Actor three times, winning for The Silence of the Lambs. He was also nominated as Best Supporting Actor for Amistad.

… of Tim Considine. Spin of “Spin and Marty” is 70. Considine was also the oldest of “My Three Sons” and played the soldier slapped by General Patton in the film Patton.

… of Sarah Miles. The Oscar nominee (best actress for Ryan’s Daughter) is 69.

… of Ben Kingsley. The Oscar winner is 67. He won Best Actor for his portrayal of Gandhi. He was also nominated for Best Actor for House of Sand and Fog and twice for Best Supporting Actor.

… of Diane Von Furstenberg. The fashion designer is 64.

… of Tim Matheson. Animal House’s “Otter,” better known recently as Vice President John Hoynes on “West Wing,” is 63.

… of Donna Summer. The Bad Girl is 62.

… of Bebe Neuwirth. Lilith is 52. Ms. Neuwirth won the Emmy twice for this role on Cheers.

… of Val Kilmer. He’s 51.

… of Gong Li. The actress is 45. So is author Nicholas Sparks.

Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. was born in Roswell, New Mexico, on this date in 1943. His grandmother gave him a guitar while he lived in Tucson and eventually he became John Denver. Denver died in 1997 when his experimental plane crashed into Monterey Bay.

George C. Marshall was born on this date in 1880.

Few Americans in the twentieth century have left a greater legacy to world peace than George C. Marshall (1880-1959). As chief of staff of the United States Army during World War II, it fell to Marshall to raise, train, and equip an army of several million men. It was Marshall who selected the officer corps and it was Marshall who played a leading role in planning military operations on a global scale. In the end, it was Marshall whom British Prime Minister Winston Churchill hailed as “the true organizer of victory.”

Yet history will associate Marshall foremost as the author of the Marshall Plan. The idea of extending billions of American dollars for European economic recovery was not his alone. He was only one of many Western leaders who realized the tragic consequences of doing nothing for those war-shattered countries in which basic living conditions were deplorable and still deteriorating two years after the end of the fighting. But Marshall, more than anyone else, led the way. In an address at Harvard University on June 5, 1947, Marshall, in his capacity as secretary of state, articulated the general principles of the Marshall Plan.

National Portrait Gallery

Marshall won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1953.

Henri Matisse was born on this date in 1869. With Picasso, Matisse is considered the pinnacle of 20th century painting.

The WebMuseum has details of the life and works of Matisse including several examples.

Matisse died in 1954.

. . . is the birthday

… of Russ Tamblyn. Riff, “a Jet to his dying day,” is 76.

… of Sandy Koufax. The most dominant pitcher in the game in the early 1960s, the man who threw four no-hitters including a perfect game is 75.

… of Noel Paul Stookey. Paul of Peter, Paul & Mary is 73.

… of James Burrows. The director of “Taxi,” “Cheers” and “Will and Grace” is 70.

… of Fred Ward. The actor (Gus Grissom in The Right Stuff and Earl Bassett in the greatest movie ever, Tremors) is 68.

… of Monkees Michael Nesmith (68) and Davy Jones (65).

… of Patti Smith. Punk rock’s poet laureate is 64. An excerpt from a longer profile at The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor:

She worked at Scribner’s bookstore in Manhattan, a job that she adored. They were required to read the New York Times Book Review, and she loved that people there “took book clerks seriously”. At the store she read a lot of French poetry and biographies of poets and painters. Outside the store, she spent time at the St Mark’s Poetry Project, and also wrote articles for Rolling Stone magazine.

She had some friends who’d moved to New York City before her, and she was supposed to stay with them for a while. She showed up at their apartment looking for them. But it turns out that they didn’t live there any more, and instead of finding them she stumbled across a sleeping art student, Robert Mapplethorpe, a man who would go on to become a famous photographer. But at the time, Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe were each just 20 years old, and they became lovers and roommates — inseparable young cash-strapped companions living out bohemian dreams in New York City. They rented the smallest room at the Hotel Chelsea, so they could reside in a place famous for housing writers and artists like Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, and Simone de Beauvoir.

… of Meredith Viera and of Matt Lauer. The Today show hosts are 57 and 53.

… of Tracey Ullman. She’s 51.

… of Eldrick Woods. Tiger is 35.

… of LeBron James. He’s 26 today.

The Genius Among Geniuses, Alfred Einstein, was born on December 30, 1880.

And a genius of another kind, Bo Diddley was born on this date in 1928. (He died in 2008.)

Music historian Robert Palmer has described Bo Diddley as “one of the most original and fertile rhythmic intelligences of our time.” He will forever be known as the creator of the “Bo Diddley beat,” one of the cornerstone rhythms of rock and roll. He employed it in his namesake song, “Bo Diddley,” as well as other primal rockers like “Mona.” This distinctive African-based rhythm pattern (which goes bomp bomp bomp bomp-bomp) was picked up from Diddley by other artists and has been a distinctive and recurring element in rock and roll through the decades.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame