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Ethel Kennedy is 82 today.

Joel Grey is 78.

Louise Lasser — remember Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (No? Neither do I.) Anyway, Louise is 71 today.

Columnist and author Ellen Goodman is 69.

She worked as a researcher for Newsweek magazine, when all of the writers there were men. But she got a job as a reporter in Detroit, then for The Boston Globe, where she started writing a column in 1974. It was syndicated in 1976, eventually picked up by more than 300 newspapers. She wrote about domestic life, personal relationships, gender issues, and cultural changes over the decades. She just wrote her last column at the beginning of this year.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

Mark Teixeira is 30.

And Joss Stone is 23, old enough to buy shoes.

President Truman relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his commands on this date in 1951.

The U.S. Navy acquired its first submarine 110 years ago today.

On April 11, 1900, the U.S. Navy acquired its first submarine, a 53-foot craft designed by Irish immigrant John P. Holland. Propelled by gasoline while on the surface and by electricity when submerged, the Holland served as a blueprint for modern submarine design. By the eve of World War I, Holland and Holland-inspired vessels were a part of large naval fleets throughout the world.

Designs for underwater boats date back to the 1500s. In the nineteenth century, the first truly practical submarines began to appear, with a period of intense development occurring at the end of the century as nations strived to establish their sea power. Seizing upon the latest military technology, the United States used subs in both the War of 1812 and the Civil War. It was not until World War I, however, that submarines emerged as major weapons.

Library of Congress

On this date in 1689, William III and Mary II were crowned joint sovereigns of Britain.

And it was on this date in 1945 that American troops entered Buchenwald, second only to Auschwitz in its horrors.

Many of the soldiers who entered Buchenwald on this day had been fighting in World War II since D-Day. They had participated some of the bloodiest battles in history. But nothing they’d seen prepared them for what they saw at Buchenwald. Several of the soldiers carried Kodak cameras, and so they took photographs of the surviving prisoners and the dead, so that people would believe what they had seen. Their photographs showed human beings so emaciated that they could barely walk, and victims’ bodies were stacked around the camp like piles of wood.

Sergeant Fred Friendly, who would go on to work as a CBS producer, wrote to his mother, “I want you to never forget or let our disbelieving friends forget, that your flesh and blood saw this.”

One of the reporters who covered the liberation of Buchenwald was Edward R. Murrow. He was so disturbed by what he saw that he couldn’t write about it for days, and let a subordinate break the story.

One of the children liberated at the camp that day was a teenager named Elie Wiesel, who would go on to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He had been forced to march from Auschwitz to Buchenwald a few weeks earlier, and his father had recently died in the camp. He saw American jeeps rolling into the camps, and he later wrote, “I will never forget the American soldiers and the horror that could be read in their faces. I will especially remember one black sergeant, a muscled giant, who wept tears of impotent rage and shame. … We tried to lift him onto our shoulders to show our gratitude, but we didn’t have the strength. We were too weak to even applaud him.”

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2008)

Bob Dylan’s New York City debut occurred at Gerdes’ Folk City 49 years ago tonight.

Today we celebrate the birthday

… of Harry Morgan. Colonel Sherman Potter is 95. IMDb lists 161 credits for Morgan. If you’d like to see him as a relatively young actor, check out the 1943 classic “The Ox-Bow Incident.” Morgan was Henry Fonda’s sidekick. Great, great film.

You may not know the name Verna Felton, but you know the voice. She was the character actress heard in many Disney animations — a matriarchical elephant in Dumbo, the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella, the Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, Aunt Sarah in Lady and the Tramp. She also appeared with Harry Morgan in an early fifties sitcom December Bride — and its 1960 spinoff Pete and Gladys. She died in 1966, but Morgan kept Felton’s photo on Sherman Potter’s desk on the M*A*S*H set to portray Mrs. Potter.

That’s Morgan in the photo, with Felton (right) and Spring Byington, who played the title role on the TV series, December Bride.

… of Max von Sydow, 81.

… of Omar Sharif. Dr. Zhivago is 78. Sharif was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar for Lawrence of Arabia.

… of John Madden. He’s 74. Madden was the Raiders head coach for 158 games, including post season. His team won 112 of them including Super Bowl XI.

… of Don Meredith. He’s 72. “Turn out the lights, the party’s over.”

… of Paul Theroux (rhymes with through). He’s 69.

It’s the birthday of novelist and travel writer Paul Theroux, born in Medford, Massachusetts (1941). After college he decided to join the Peace Corps in 1963. He later said, “I had thought of responsibilities I did not want—marriage seemed too permanent, grad school too hard, and the army too brutal.” He said the Peace Corps was a kind of “Howard Johnson’s on the main drag to maturity.”

The Peace Corps sent him to live in East Africa. He was expelled from Malawi after he became friends with a group that planned to assassinate the president of the country. He continued traveling around Africa, teaching English, and started submitting pieces to magazines back in the United States. While living in Africa, he became friends with the writer V.S. Naipaul, who became his mentor and who encouraged him to keep traveling.

He had published several novels when he decided to go on a four-month trip through Asia by train. He wrote every day on the journey, and he filled four thick notebooks with material that eventually became his first best-seller, The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (1975).

The Writer’s Almanac

… of Steven Seagal. He’s 59. No Oscar nominations for Seagal, but he has been nominated for several Razzies and won once.

… of Anne Lamott. She’s 56.

It’s the birthday of novelist and essayist Anne Lamott, born in San Francisco, California (1954). In the late 1970s, her father was diagnosed with brain cancer, and she began to write short pieces about the effect of the disease on him and other members of her family, and these pieces became chapters of her first novel, Hard Laughter (1980).

She wrote three more novels over the next decade, but she didn’t have any big literary successes. Then, in her mid-thirties, she accidentally got pregnant and her boyfriend left her when she decided to keep the baby. For her first year as a single mother, she found herself on the edge of financial and emotional disaster. She was too busy to write fiction, so she just kept a daily journal of experiences as a parent, and that became her memoir Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year (1993). It was her first best-seller.

The Writer’s Almanac (2006)

“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” Anne Lamott, quoted at The Writer’s Almanac narrative for her this year.

… of Mandy Moore, 26.

The Pulitizer Prize winning author David Halberstam should have been 76 today.

One of America’s most successful authors, David Halberstam began his career as a journalist in the 1950s, first as a reporter for The Daily Times Leader in West Point, Mississippi and later for the Nashville Tennessean. In 1960 he joined The New York Times and shortly thereafter was assigned to the paper’s bureau in Saigon. Halberstam was among a small group of reporters there who began to question the official optimism about the growing war in Vietnam. Halberstam’s work from Vietnam so rankled official Washington that President Kennedy once asked the publisher of The New York Times to transfer Halberstam to another bureau. In 1964, at age 30, Halberstam earned a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting from Vietnam. His best-selling book, The Best and The Brightest, chronicles America’s deepening involvement in Vietnam through the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Reporting America at War | PBS

Joseph Pulitzer himself was born in Budapest, Hungary, on this date in 1847.

He came to this country, moved to New York City and bought The New York World newspaper. He said, “There is room in this great and growing city for a journal that is not only cheap but bright, not only bright but large, not only large but truly democratic — dedicated to the cause of the people rather than that of purse potentates — devoted more to the news of the New than the Old World; that will expose all fraud and sham; fight all public evils and abuses; that will serve and battle for the people with earnest sincerity.” With his profits, he endowed the Columbia School of Journalism as well as the annual Pulitzer Prizes for journalism, literature, drama, music.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media (2008)

Frances Perkins, the first woman presidential cabinet member — FDR’s Secretary of Labor — was born on this date in 1880. Perkins and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes were the only cabinet members to serve Roosevelt’s entire 12+ years. The Department of Labor Building in Washington is named for Secretary Perkins.

When Frances Perkins married in 1913 she had to go to court to win the right to keep her own name.

Today we celebrate the birthdays

… of Hugh Hefner. Hef is 84. Be sure to read his website biography.

… of Michael Learned. Momma Walton is 71.

… of Jerry Lee Lewis, Gordon Cooper, Doc Holliday, Sam Houston and, lest we forget, New Orleans Det. Remy McSwain. Dennis Quaid is 56.

… of Cynthia Nixon. The Sex in the City star is 44. Nixon played the maid hired by Salieri to spy on Mozart in the film Amadeus.

… of Rudy Huxtable. Keshia Knight Pulliam is 31.

Paul Robeson was was born on this date in 1898.

Paul Robeson was the epitome of the 20th-century Renaissance man. He was an exceptional athlete, actor, singer, cultural scholar, author, and political activist. His talents made him a revered man of his time, yet his radical political beliefs all but erased him from popular history. Today, more than one hundred years after his birth, Robeson is just beginning to receive the credit he is due.

Read more from the profile of Robeson at the PBS site for American Masters. Listen to Robeson sing Ol’ Man River.

Today we celebrate the birthdays

. . . of Betty Ford, 92.

. . . of journalist Seymour Hersh, 73.

He worked as a reporter for various wire services, including the Associated Press, and eventually as a Pentagon correspondent. But he kept trying to push the limits of his job, reporting on things that the military was trying to cover up, and when he wrote an extensive piece on chemical and biological warfare that the AP cut to just a fraction of its original size, he quit to become a freelance investigative reporter. He got a tip from a lawyer that a lieutenant, William Calley was being court-martialed for killing innocent civilians in Vietnam. Hersh decided that he was going to get that story no matter what. He drove around from base to base, waking people up to ask them where Calley was, pulling all his Pentagon strings, and finally he found him and got Calley to tell him what had happened. Hersh couldn’t get the story published at first — big places like Life and Look refused it. But his neighbor ran a small syndicate and helped Hersh sell it. And when the story hit newspapers, it made a huge impact on the public perception of the Vietnam War. Hersh became famous, and in 1970, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting.

The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor

. . . of John Havlicek, 70.

Known for clutch performances in big games, Havlicek posted impressive numbers during his illustrious 16-year career. In 1,270 regular-season games he scored 26,395 points and averaged 20.8 points to rank as the Celtics’ all-time leading scorer and the sixth-highest scorer in NBA history. He also grabbed 8,007 rebounds, recorded 6,114 assists, and played on eight Boston championship teams. He appeared in 13 consecutive NBA All-Star Games, earned 11 selections to the All-NBA First or Second Team, and was named to the NBA All-Defensive First or Second Team eight times.

NBA.com

. . . of Mousketeer Darlene (Gillespie). She’s 69.

. . . of Peggy Lennon (69) and Julian Lennon (47). They are not related.

. . . of Gary Carter, 56.

A rugged receiver and enthusiastic on-field general, Gary Carter excelled at one of baseball’s most demanding positions, as both as offensive and defensive force. A three-time Gold Glove Award winner, Carter belted 324 home runs in his 19-season major league career. “Kid” showed a knack for the big-time, twice earning All-Star Game MVP awards in his 11 selections. His clutch 10th-inning single in Game Six of the 1986 World Series sparked a dramatic Mets’ comeback victory, ultimately leading to a World Series title.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

. . . of Barbara Kingsolver, 55.

She grew up in a house in an alfalfa field in rural Kentucky, where her dad was the county doctor. When she was seven, her father moved the family to the Congo for a year so he could work as a medical missionary, and she started keeping a diary. They came back to Kentucky, and she kept writing in her journal, eventually writing stories and poems. She was tall and thin and bookish, and she felt like an outsider at school — she said, “I wanted to read Anna Karenina and everybody else wanted to do stuff in the back of cars.”

She was a good writer. She was also a good pianist, and so she got a scholarship to DePauw University for piano. Even though she really wanted to be a writer, she didn’t think it was any more lucrative than music, so she switched her major from music to biology. She moved to Tucson and wrote a thesis on termite behavior for her master’s degree at the University of Arizona, but she decided academia wasn’t for her and she didn’t want to finish her Ph.D. She got a job doing technical writing for the Office of Arid Land Studies at the university, and she wrote stories on her own, but she didn’t show them to anyone. Finally she decided to enter a short-story contest sponsored by an alternative weekly paper in Phoenix. She never heard anything from them, and it was more than a year later that a friend mentioned reading her story, and she realized that she had won and the paper had forgotten to tell her.

The Writer’s Almanac from American Public Media

There’s more about Kingsolver at the link.

. . . of the Princess bride and Forrest’s Jenny. Robin Wright Penn is 44.

Gladys Marie Smith was born on this date in 1892. We know her as Mary Pickford. Miss Pickford won the Oscar for best actress for Coquette. The first big female movie star, Pickford was an industry leader as well, helping found United Artists and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Jim “Catfish” Hunter was born on this date in 1946.

The bigger the game, the better he pitched. Jim “Catfish” Hunter, with his pinpoint control, epitomized smart pitching at its finest. He pitched a perfect game in 1968, won 21 or more games five times in a row, and claimed the American League Cy Young Award in 1974. Arm trouble ended his career at age 33, but he still won 224 games and five World Series rings. The likable pitching ace died in 1999 at age 53 – a victim of ALS, the same disease that cut short the life of Lou Gehrig.

National Baseball Hall of Fame

Hunter died in 1999. He had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Perhaps it should be renamed Lou Gehrig’s and Catfish Hunter’s disease.

Edgar Y. (Yip) Harburg was born on this date in 1896. One of the great lyricists, Harburg would be loved by us all if only for —

Somewhere over the rainbow way up high
There’s a land that I’ve heard of once in a lullaby
Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemon drops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?
If happy little bluebirds fly beyond the rainbow
Why oh why can’t I?

The Harburg Foundation provides this biographical sketch:

Edgar Y. (Yip) Harburg (1896-1981) was born of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents of modest means on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. He attended the City University of New York. In high school (Townsand Harris) he met his lifelong friend, Ira Gershwin and discovered that they shared a mutual love for the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Yip and Ira were frequent contributors of poetry and light verse to their high school and college papers.

The years after college found Yip slipping further away from writing and eventually into the world of business. After the electric appliance business Yip had helped develop over seven long years was decimated by the stock market crash of 1929, Yip turned his attention back full time to the art of writing lyrics. His old friend Ira Gershwin became a mentor, co-writer and promoter of Yip’s.

Mr. Harburg’s Broadway achievements included Bloomer Girl, Finnian’s Rainbow, Flahooley and Jamaica.

His most noted work in film musicals was in The Wizard of OZ for which he wrote lyrics, was the final editor and contributed much to the script (including the scene at the end where the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion are rewarded for their efforts by the Wizard). He also wrote lyrics for the Warner Brothers movie, Gay Purr-ee.

Yip was “blacklisted” during the 50’s by film, radio and television for his liberal views.

In all, Yip wrote lyrics to 537 songs including; “Brother Can You Spare a Dime”, “April In Paris”, “It’s Only a Paper Moon”, “Hurry Sundown”, “Lydia the Tattooed Lady”, “How Are Things In Glocca Mora” and of course his most famous… “Over the Rainbow”.