In 1790 the first US Census was conducted. While in 1923 VP Calvin Coolidge became President on the death of Warren Harding. In 1939 Albert Einstein and fellow scientist Leo Szilard wrote a letter to Pres FDR urging the beginning of the Manhattan Project, starting the race with Germany for the atomic bomb. In 1943 future president JFK’s PT-109 was hit by a Japanese destroyer and split in two. JFK then a lieutenant commanding the boat was able to save all but two of his men.
Two French designers were born on this date – Pierre Charles L’Enfant (1754) who designed Washington DC – and Frederic August Bartholdi (1834), who designed the Statue of Liberty. This was also the birthdate for producer Jack Warner (1892)who co-founded Warner Bros studios, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perez (1923), American novelist and critic James Baldwin (1924), American Football League co-founder Lamar Hunt (1932), and British-Irish actor and producer Peter O’Toole (1932).
Passing away on this date we had British painter Thomas Gainsborough (1788), notorious American sheriff Wild Bill Hickok (1876), Italian tenor and actor Enrico Caruso (1921), American inventor Alexander Graham Bell (1922), and Field Marshall and 2nd President of Germany Paul von Hindenberg (1934).
Also leaving the world’s stage was Austrian-American film director Fritz Lang (1976) who brought us the great silent film Metropolis, and the unmistakable voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of the best in the history of baseball, Vin Scully (2012). He helped get me through my teenage years.
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