today.nukz.net: Almanac

Jimmy Dorsey 1904-1957

Events

1504 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Native Americans to provide him with supplies.
1704 – Queen Anne's War: French forces and Native Americans stage a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts, killing 56 villagers and taking more than 100 captive.
1712 – February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Old style.
1720 – Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband, who becomes King Frederick I.
1796 – The Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.
1864 – American Civil War: Kilpatrick-Dahlgren Raid fails – plans to free 15,000 Union soldiers being held near Richmond, Virginia are thwarted.
1892 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.
1916 – Child labor: In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from twelve to fourteen years old.
1932 – Time magazine features eccentric American politician William "Alfalfa" Murray on its cover after Murray stated his intention to run for President of the United States.
1936 – Baby Snooks, played by Fanny Brice, debuts on the radio program The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air.
1940 – For her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.
1940 – Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations
1940 – In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, because of the war, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden's Consul General in San Francisco.
1944 – World War II: The Admiralty Islands are invaded in Operation Brewer led by American General Douglas MacArthur.
1952 – The island of Heligoland is restored to German authority.
1956 – U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces to the nation that he is running for a second term.
1960 – An earthquake in Morocco kills over 3,000 people and nearly destroys Agadir in the southern part of the country.
1960 – Family Circus makes its debut.
1964 – In Sydney, Australian swimmer Dawn Fraser sets a new world record in the 100-meter freestyle swimming competition (58.9 seconds).
1972 – Vietnam War: Vietnamization – South Korea withdraws 11,000 of its 48,000 troops from Vietnam.
1972 – Hank Aaron becomes the first player in the history of Major League Baseball to sign a $200,000 contract.
1980 – Gordie Howe of the then Hartford Whalers makes NHL history as he scores his 800th goal.
1984 – Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau announces he will retire as soon as the Liberals can elect another leader.
1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town
1988 – Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the Canadian House of Commons to come out as gay.
1996 – Faucett Flight 251 crashes in the Andes, killing 123 people.
2004 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide is removed as President of Haiti following a coup.

Births

A person who is born on February 29 may be called a "leapling" or a "leap year baby". In non-leap years, some leaplings celebrate their birthday on either February 28 or March 1, while others only observe birthdays on the authentic intercalary dates.

For legal purposes, their legal birthdays depend on how different laws count time intervals. In England and Wales, the legal birthday of a leapling is March 1 in common years. The same applies in Hong Kong as well (see Leap Years, above). In Taiwan (Republic of China) and in New Zealand, the legal birthday of a leapling is February 28 in common years. So in England and Wales or in Hong Kong, a person born on February 29, 1996 will have legally reached 18 years old on March 1, 2014; in Taiwan and in New Zealand he or she legally becomes 18 on February 28, 2014.

"If a period fixed by weeks, months, and years does not commence from the beginning of a week, month, or year, it ends with the ending of the day which proceeds the day of the last week, month, or year which corresponds to that on which it began to commence. But if there is no corresponding day in the last month, the period ends with the ending of the last day of the last month.^[5]"

There are many instances in children's literature where a person's claim to be only a quarter of their actual age turns out to be based on counting their leap-year birthdays. A similar device is used in the plot of Gilbert and Sullivan's 1879 comic opera The Pirates of Penzance: As a child, Frederic was apprenticed to a band of pirates until the age of 21. Now, having passed his 21st year, he leaves the pirate band and falls in love. However, it turns out that the pirate indenture says that his apprenticeship does not end until his 21st birthday, and since he was born on February 29, that day will not arrive until he is in his eighties. As such, he must leave his fiancée and return to the pirates. It may be worked out from the opera's dialogue^[6] that Frederic's birthday is February 29, 1852 thus making the opera set in 1873. (This assumes that Frederic is aware that 1900 will not be a leap year. If not, the dates would be later by four years.)

The only notable person known to have both been born and died on February 29 was Sir James Wilson (1812–1880), Premier of Tasmania.

Other notable persons born on February 29:

1468 – Pope Paul III (d. 1549)
1568 – Juan Bautista Comes, Spanish composer (d. 1643)
1692 – John Byrom, English poet (d. 1763)
1724 – Eva Marie Veigel, ballet dancer and wife of actor David Garrick (d. 1822)
1736 – Ann Lee, American founder of Shakers (d. 1784)
1792 – Gioachino Rossini, Italian composer (d. 1868)
1812 – Sir James Wilson, Premier of Tasmania (d. 1880)
1836 – Dickey Pearce, American baseball player and manager (d. 1908)
1840 – John Philip Holland, Irish inventor (d. 1914)
1852 – Frank Gavan Duffy, Australian judge (d. 1936)
1852 – George Maximilianovich, 6th Duke of Leuchtenberg, Russian nobleman (d. 1912)
1860 – Herman Hollerith, American statistician (d. 1929)
1892 – Ed Appleton, American baseball player (d. 1932)
1896 – Morarji Desai, Prime Minister of India (d. 1995)
1896 – Roy Parker, baseball player (d. 1954)
1896 – William A. Wellman, American film director (d. 1975)
1904 – Jimmy Dorsey, American bandleader (d. 1957)
1904 – Pepper Martin, baseball player (d. 1965)
1904 – Rukmini Devi Arundale, Indian dancer and founder of Kalakshetra (d. 1986)
1904 – Wolfe+585, Senior (alleged date), German-born American typesetter who has the longest personal name ever used (death year unknown)
1908 – Balthus, French-Polish painter (d. 2001)
1908 – Dee Brown, American writer (d. 2002)
1908 – Alf Gover, English cricketer (d. 2001)
1916 – Dinah Shore, American singer and actress (d. 1994)
1920 – Arthur Franz, American actor (d. 2006)
1920 – James Mitchell, American actor (d. 2010)
1920 – Michèle Morgan, French actress
1920 – Howard Nemerov, American poet (d. 1991)
1920 – Ivan Ivanovich Petrov, Russian operatic bass (d. 2003)
1920 – Rolland W. Redlin, American politician (d. 2011)
1924 – Al Rosen, American baseball player
1924 – David Beattie, New Zealand Governor-General (d. 2001)
1924 – Carlos Humberto Romero, President of El Salvador
1928 – Joss Ackland, English actor
1928 – Vance Haynes, American archaeologist
1928 – Terry Lewis, Australian police commissioner
1928 – Tempest Storm, American burlesque performer
1932 – Paul Giel, American baseball player (d. 2002)
1932 – Gene Golub, American mathematician (d. 2007)
1932 – Masten Gregory, American F1 Driver (d. 1985)
1932 – Reri Grist, African-American coloratura soprano
1932 – Jaguar, Brazilian cartoonist
1936 – Jack Lousma, American astronaut
1936 – Henri Richard, Canadian ice hockey player
1936 – Alex Rocco, American actor
1940 – Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople
1940 – William H. Turner, Jr. American horse trainer
1944 – Ene Ergma, Estonian politician
1944 – Dennis Farina, American actor
1944 – Phyllis Frelich, American actress
1944 – Steve Mingori, American baseball player (d. 2008)
1944 – Paolo Eleuteri Serpieri, Italian illustrator
1948 – Jiro Akagawa, Japanese novelist
1948 – Gérard Darmon, French movie actor and singer
1948 – Ken Foree, American actor
1952 – Al Autry, American baseball player
1952 – Sharon Dahlonega Raiford Bush, American television personality
1952 – Tim Powers, American writer
1952 – Raisa Smetanina, Russian cross-country skier
1952 – Bart Stupak, American congressman
1956 – Jonathan Coleman, Anglo-Australian entertainer
1956 – Jerry Fry, American baseball player
1956 – Bob Speller, Canadian politician
1956 – J. Randy Taraborrelli, American celebrity journalist
1956 – Aileen Wuornos, American serial killer (d. 2002)
1960 – Khaled, Algerian raï musician
1960 – Bill Long, American baseball player
1960 – Richard Ramirez, American serial killer
1960 – Tony Robbins, American motivational speaker
1964 – Lyndon Byers, Canadian hockey player and Boston radio personality
1964 – Mervyn Warren, American film & TV composer and musician
1968 – Suanne Braun, South African actress
1968 – Chucky Brown, American basketball player
1968 – Pete Fenson, American curler
1968 – Naoko Iijima, Japanese actress
1968 – Gonzalo Lira, Chilean-American novelist
1968 – Bryce Paup, American football player
1968 – Wendi Peters, British actress
1968 – Eugene Volokh, American law professor
1968 – Frank Woodley, Australian comedian
1972 – Antonio Sabàto, Jr., Italian-born actor
1972 – Dave Williams, American singer (Drowning Pool) (d. 2002)
1972 – Saul Williams, American rapper, poet, and actor
1972 – Mike Pollitt, English footballer
1972 – Pedro Zamora, Cuban-born American Real World housemate and AIDS activist (d. 1994)
1972 – Iván García, Cuban athlete
1976 – Katalin Kovács, Hungarian sprint canoer
1976 – Ja Rule, American rapper and actor
1976 – Terrence Long, American baseball player
1976 – Zoë Baker, New Zealand swimmer
1980 – Simon Gagné, Canadian ice hockey player
1980 – Taylor Twellman, American soccer player
1980 – Clinton Toopi, New Zealand rugby league footballer
1980 – Chris Conley, American musician
1980 – Ruben Plaza, Spanish cyclist
1980 – Michail Mouroutsos, Greek Olympic taekwondo gold medalist
1984 – Darren Ambrose, English footballer
1984 – Cullen Jones, American swimmer
1984 – Nuria Martinez, Spanish basketball player WNBA
1984 – Adam Sinclair, Indian field hockey player
1984 – Dennis Walger, German rugby player
1984 – Cam Ward, Canadian ice hockey player
1984 – Mark Foster, American musician
1988 – Scott Golbourne, English footballer
1988 – Benedikt Höwedes, German footballer
1988 – Bobby Sanguinetti, American ice hockey player
1992 – Perry Kitchen, American soccer player
1992 – Sean Abbott, Australian cricketer

Deaths

1528 – Patrick Hamilton, Scottish religious reformer (b. 1504)
1592 – Alessandro Striggio, Italian composer (b. 1540)
1600 – Caspar Hennenberger, German Lutheran pastor, historian and cartographer (b. 1529)
1604 – John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury (b. 1530)
1740 – Pietro Ottoboni, Italian cardinal (b. 1667)
1744 – John Theophilus Desaguliers, French philosopher (b. 1683)
1820 – Johann Joachim Eschenburg, German literary critic (b. 1743)
1848 – Louis-François, Baron Lejeune, French general and painter (b. 1775)
1868 – Ludwig I of Bavaria (b. 1786)
1880 – Sir James Wilson, Premier of Tasmania (b. 1812, also on 29 February)
1908 – Pat Garrett, U.S. gunslinger (b. 1850)
1908 – John Hope, 1st Marquess of Linlithgow, first Governor-General of Australia (b. 1860)
1920 – Ernie Courtney, American baseball player (b. 1875)
1928 – Ina Coolbrith, first poet laureate of California (b. 1841)
1940 – Edward Frederic Benson, English writer (b. 1867)
1944 – Pehr Evind Svinhufvud, President of Finland (b. 1861)
1948 – Rebel Oakes, American baseball player and manager (b. 1883)
1956 – Elpidio Quirino, President of the Philippines (b. 1890)
1964 – Frank Albertson, American actor (b. 1909)
1968 – Lena Blackburne, American baseball player and manager (b. 1886)
1968 – Tore Ørjasæter, Norwegian poet (b. 1886)
1972 – Tom Davies, American footballer (b. 1896)
1976 – Florence Dwyer, American politician (b. 1902)
1980 – Gil Elvgren, American artist (b. 1914)
1984 – Ludwik Starski, Polish lyricist (b. 1903)
1988 – Sidney Harmon, American film producer (b. 1907)
1992 – Ruth Pitter, English poet (b. 1897)
1992 – Earl Scheib, American car repainter (b. 1908)
1996 – Wes Farrell, American songwriter and musician (b. 1939)
1996 – Shams Pahlavi, Persian princess (b. 1917)
1996 – Ralph Rowe, American baseball player and manager (b. 1924)
2000 – Dennis Danell, American guitarist (Social Distortion) (b. 1961)
2004 – Jerome Lawrence, American playwright (b. 1915)
2004 – Kagamisato Kiyoji, Japanese sumo wrestler, the 42nd Yokozuna (b. 1923)
2008 – Janet Kagan, American author (b. 1946)
2008 – Erik Ortvad, Danish artist (b. 1917)