today.nukz.net: Almanac December 9

Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 – January 1, 1992) was an American computer scientist and United States Navy officer. A pioneer in the field, she was one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer, and developed the first compiler for a computer programming language. She conceptualized the idea of machine-independent programming languages, which led to the development of COBOL, one of the first modern programming languages. She is credited with popularizing the term "debugging" for fixing computer glitches (motivated by an actual moth removed from the computer). The U.S. Navy destroyer USS Hopper (DDG-70) is named for her, as was the Cray XE6 "Hopper" supercomputer at NERSC.

Events

480 – Odoacer, first Germanic king of Italy, occupies Dalmatia and establishes his political power with the co-operation of the Roman Senate.
536 – Gothic War: The Byzantine general Belisarius enters Rome unopposed, the Gothic garrison flee the capital.
730 – Battle of Marj Ardabil: the Khazars annihilate an Umayyad army and kill its commander, al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah al-Hakami.
1425 – The Catholic University of Leuven is founded.
1531 – The Virgin of Guadalupe first appears to Juan Diego at Tepeyac, Mexico City.
1775 – American Revolutionary War: British troops lose the Battle of Great Bridge, and leave Virginia soon afterward.
1793 – New York City's first daily newspaper, the American Minerva, is established by Noah Webster.
1824 – Patriot forces led by General Antonio José de Sucre defeat a Royalist army in the Battle of Ayacucho, putting an end to the Peruvian War of Independence.
1835 – The Texian Army captures San Antonio, Texas.
1851 – The first YMCA in North America is established in Montreal, Quebec.
1856 – The Iranian city of Bushehr surrenders to occupying British forces.
1861 – American Civil War: The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War is established by the U.S. Congress.
1872 – In Louisiana, P. B. S. Pinchback becomes the first serving African-American governor of a U.S. state.
1875 – The Massachusetts Rifle Association, "America's Oldest Active Gun Club", is founded.
1888 – Statistician Herman Hollerith installs his computing device at the United States War Department.
1897 – Activist Marguerite Durand founds the feminist daily newspaper, La Fronde, in Paris.
1905 – In France, the law separating church and state is passed.
1911 – A mine explosion near Briceville, Tennessee, kills 84 miners despite rescue efforts led by the United States Bureau of Mines.
1917 – World War I: In Palestine, Field Marshal Edmund Allenby captures Jerusalem.
1922 – Gabriel Narutowicz is announced the first president of Poland.
1931 – The Constituent Cortes approves the constitution which establishes the Second Spanish Republic.
1935 – Walter Liggett, American newspaper editor and muckraker, is killed in gangland murder.
1937 – Second Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Nanjing – Japanese troops under the command of Lt. Gen. Asaka Yasuhiko launch an assault on the Chinese city of Nanjing.
1940 – World War II: Operation Compass – British and Indian troops under the command of Major-General Richard O'Connor attack Italian forces near Sidi Barrani in Egypt.
1941 – World War II: The Republic of China, Cuba, Guatemala, the Republic of Korea, and the Philippine Commonwealth, declare war on Germany and Japan.
1941 – World War II: The 19th Bombardment Group attacks Japanese ships off the coast of Vigan, Luzon.
1946 – The "Subsequent Nuremberg Trials" begin with the "Doctors' Trial", prosecuting doctors alleged to be involved in human experimentation.
1946 – The Constituent Assembly of India meets for the first time to write the Constitution of India.
1950 – Harry Gold is sentenced to 30 years in jail for helping Klaus Fuchs pass information about the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union. His testimony is later instrumental in the prosecution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
1953 – Red Scare: General Electric announces that all communist employees will be discharged from the company.
1956 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810, a Canadair North Star, crashes near Hope, British Columbia, Canada, killing all 62 people on board.
1958 – The John Birch Society is founded in the United States.
1960 – The first episode of the world's longest-running television soap opera Coronation Street is broadcast in the United Kingdom.
1961 – Tanganyika becomes independent from Britain.
1962 – The Petrified Forest National Park is established in Arizona.
1965 – The Kecksburg UFO incident: a fireball is seen from Michigan to Pennsylvania; witnesses report something crashing in the woods near Pittsburgh. In 2005 NASA admits that it examined the object.
1966 – Barbados joins the United Nations.
1968 – NLS (a system for which hypertext and the computer mouse were developed) is publicly demonstrated for the first time in San Francisco.
1969 – United States Secretary of State William P. Rogers proposes his plan for a ceasefire in the War of Attrition; Egypt and Jordan accept it over the objections of the PLO, which leads to civil war in Jordan in September 1970.
1971 – The United Arab Emirates join the United Nations.
1971 – Indo-Pakistani War: The Indian Air Force executes an airdrop of Indian Army units, bypassing Pakistani defences.
1973 – British and Irish authorities sign the Sunningdale Agreement in an attempt to establish a power-sharing Northern Ireland Executive and a cross-border Council of Ireland.
1979 – The eradication of the smallpox virus is certified, making smallpox the first and to date only human disease driven to extinction.
1981 – Philadelphia Police Department officer Daniel Faulkner is killed during a routine traffic stop; Mumia Abu-Jamal is later convicted for it and he goes on to become "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate" before his sentence is commuted to life without parole in December 2011.
1987 – Israeli-Palestinian conflict: The First Intifada begins in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.
1988 – The Michael Hughes Bridge in Sligo, Ireland is officially opened.
2000 – The Supreme Court of the United States stays the sixth Florida recount.
2003 – A blast in the center of Moscow kills six people and wounds several more.
2008 – The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, is arrested by federal officials for a number of crimes including attempting to sell the United States Senate seat being vacated by President-elect Barack Obama's election to the Presidency.

Births

1447 – Chenghua, Emperor of China (d. 1487)
1508 – Gemma Frisius, Dutch mathematician and cartographer (d. 1555)
1561 – Sir Edwin Sandys, English colonial settler (d. 1629)
1571 – Metius, Dutch mathematician and astronomer (d. 1635)
1579 – Martin de Porres, Peruvian saint (d. 1639)
1594 – Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden (d. 1632)
1608 – John Milton, English poet (d. 1674)
1610 – Baldassare Ferri, Italian castrato (d. 1680)
1652 – Augustus Quirinus Rivinus, German physician (d. 1723)
1667 – William Whiston, English mathematician (d. 1752)
1717 – Johann Joachim Winckelmann, German art historian (d. 1768)
1721 – Peter Pelham, English-born American musician and composer (d. 1805)
1728 – Pietro Alessandro Guglielmi, Italian composer (d. 1804)
1745 – Maddalena Laura Sirmen, Italian musician and composer (d. 1818)
1748 – Claude Louis Berthollet, French chemist (d. 1822)
1751 – Maria Luisa of Parma, Queen consort of Spain (d. 1819)
1787 – John Dobson, English architect (d. 1865)
1806 – Jean-Olivier Chénier, Canadian physician and patriote (d. 1838)
1813 – Thomas Andrews, Irish chemist (d. 1885)
1837 – Émile Waldteufel, French composer (d. 1915)
1842 – Peter Kropotkin, Russian anarchist (d. 1921)
1845 – Joel Chandler Harris, American writer (d. 1908)
1847 – George Grossmith, English actor and writer (d. 1912)
1850 – Emma Abbott, American singer (d. 1891)
1861 – Hélène Smith, French psychic (d. 1929)
1867 – Gregorios Xenopoulos, Greek writer (d. 1951)
1868 – Fritz Haber, German chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 1934)
1870 – Ida S. Scudder, Indian physician (d. 1960)
1871 – Joe Kelley, American baseball player (d. 1943)
1876 – Berton Churchill, American actor (d. 1940)
1876 – Pauline Whittier, American golfer (d. 1946)
1882 – Joaquín Turina, Spanish composer (d. 1949)
1883 – Nikolai Luzin, Russian mathematician (d. 1950)
1883 – Alexander Papagos, Prime Minister of Greece (d. 1955)
1886 – Clarence Birdseye, American businessman (d. 1956)
1887 – Tim Moore, American actor and comedian (d. 1958)
1889 – Hannes Kolehmainen, Finnish long-distance runner (d. 1966)
1891 – Maksim Bahdanovic, Belarusian poet (d. 1917)
1895 – Dolores Ibárruri, Spanish political leader (d. 1989)
1895 – Conchita Supervía, Spanish opera singer (d. 1936)
1897 – Hermione Gingold, English actress (d. 1987)
1898 – Emmett Kelly, American circus clown (d. 1979)
1899 – Jean de Brunhoff, French author (d. 1937)
1900 – Albert Weisbord, American labor organizer (d. 1977)
1901 – Carol Dempster, American actress (d. 1991)
1901 – Ödön von Horváth, Hungarian-born writer (d. 1938)
1901 – Jean Mermoz, French pilot (d. 1936)
1902 – Margaret Hamilton, American actress (d. 1985)
1904 – Robert Livingston, American actor (d. 1988)
1905 – Dalton Trumbo, American writer (d. 1976)
1906 – Grace Hopper, American computer scientist (d. 1992)
1909 – Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., American actor (d. 2000)
1911 – Broderick Crawford, American actor (d. 1986)
1911 – Lee J. Cobb, American actor (d. 1976)
1911 – Ryuzo Sejima, Japanese educator (d. 2007)
1912 – Tip O'Neill, American politician (d. 1994)
1914 – Max Manus, Norwegian resistance fighter (d. 1996)
1914 – Frances Reid, American actress (d. 2010)
1914 – Ljubica Sokic, Serbian painter (d. 2009)
1915 – Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, German-born soprano (d. 2006)
1916 – Kirk Douglas, American actor
1916 – Jerome Beatty Jr., American author (d. 2002)
1917 – James Angleton, American CIA official (d. 1987)
1917 – James Rainwater, American physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1986)
1918 – Joyce Redman, Irish actress (d. 2012)
1919 – William Lipscomb, American chemist, Nobel laureate (d. 2011)
1920 – Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, President of the Italian Republic
1922 – Redd Foxx, American comedian (d. 1991)
1925 – Dina Merrill, American actress
1926 – Henry Way Kendall, American physicist, Nobel laureate (d. 1999)
1926 – Jan Kresadlo, Czech writer (d. 1995)
1927 – Pierre Henry, French composer
1928 – André Milhoux, Belgian racing driver
1928 – Dick Van Patten, American actor
1929 – John Cassavetes, American actor and director (d. 1989)
1929 – Bob Hawke, Prime Minister of Australia
1930 – Buck Henry, American actor
1931 – William Reynolds, American actor
1931 – Ladislav Smoljak, Czech actor
1932 – Donald Byrd, American trumpeter
1932 – Edd Wheeler, American singer-songwriter
1933 – Ashleigh Brilliant, American writer
1933 – Morton Downey Jr., American singer, songwriter and later a television talk show host (d. 2001)
1933 – Monique Miller, Canadian actress
1933 – Orville Moody, American golfer (d. 2008)
1934 – Dame Judi Dench, English actress
1934 – Junior Wells, American musician (d. 1998)
1936 – Ben Pon, Jr., Dutch vintner and athlete
1937 – Darwin Joston, American actor (d. 1998)
1938 – David Houston, American singer (d. 1993)
1938 – Deacon Jones, American football player
1940 – Clancy Eccles, Jamaican musician (d. 2005)
1941 – Beau Bridges, American actor
1941 – Dan Hicks, American musician
1942 – Billy Bremner, Scottish footballer (d. 1997)
1942 – Dick Butkus, American football player
1943 – Pit Martin, Canadian ice hockey player (d. 2008)
1943 – Joanna Trollope, British writer
1944 – Neil Innes, English singer and songwriter (Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, The Rutles)
1944 – Tadashi Irie, Japanese crime boss
1944 – Ki Longfellow, American novelist
1944 – Bob O'Connor, American politician (d. 2006)
1945 – Matti Mäntylä, Finnish actor
1945 – Michael Nouri, American actor
1946 – Sonia Gandhi, Italian-born Indian politician
1946 – Shatrughan Sinha, Indian actor
1946 – Dennis Dunaway, American musician (Alice Cooper)
1947 – Tom Daschle, American politician
1947 – Jaak Jõerüüt, Soviet-born Estonian politician
1948 – Marleen Gorris, Dutch film director
1949 – Tom Kite, American golfer
1949 – Nando Parrado, Uruguayan plane crash survivor
1950 – Joan Armatrading, St. Kitts-born English singer-songwriter
1952 – Liaqat Baloch, Pakistani politician
1952 – Michael Dorn, American actor
1953 – World B. Free, American basketball player
1953 – John Malkovich, American actor
1953 – Cornelis de Bondt, Dutch composer
1954 – Henk ten Cate, Dutch football player and manager
1954 – Herman Finkers, Dutch comedian
1954 – Phil Bryant, American politician
1955 – Otis Birdsong, American basketball player
1955 – Chamras Saewataporn, Thai composer and musician
1956 – Jean-Pierre Thiollet, French author
1957 – Donny Osmond, American singer and actor
1957 – Peter O’Mara, Australian jazz guitarist and composer
1957 – Steve Taylor, American singer, songwriter and record producer.
1958 – Rikk Agnew, American guitarist (The Adolescents)
1958 – Nick Seymour, Australian bassist (Crowded House)
1959 – John Martin Scripps, English murderer (d. 1996)
1960 – Terry Moran, American TV reporter
1960 – Stefen Fangmeier, American director
1960 – Dobroslav Paraga, Croatian politician and editor
1960 – Juan Samuel, Dominican baseball player
1961 – David Anthony Higgins, American actor
1961 – Joe Lando, American actor
1962 – Felicity Huffman, American actress
1963 – Dave Hilton, Jr., Canadian boxer
1963 – Masako, Crown Princess of Japan
1964 – Hape Kerkeling, German actor, TV presenter and comedian
1964 – Johannes B. Kerner, German TV presenter
1964 – Paul Landers, German guitarist (Rammstein)
1965 – Joe Ausanio, American baseball player
1965 – Vecepia Towery, American reality TV contestant
1966 – Michael Foster, American drummer (FireHouse)
1966 – Kirsten Gillibrand, American politician
1966 – Montserrat Gil Torné, Andorran politician
1966 – Dave Harold, English snooker player
1966 – Toby Huss, American actor
1966 – Dana Murzyn, Canadian hockey player
1966 – Spencer Rochfort, Canadian-American actor
1966 – Julio Alberto Rodas Hurtarte, Guatemalan footballer
1966 – Mateo Romero, Native-American painter
1966 – Gideon Sa'ar, Israeli politician
1966 – Kadyrbek Sarbayev, Kyrgyzstan foreign envoy
1966 – Shane Scott, American producer and director
1966 – Martin Taylor, English football coach
1966 – Natee Thongsookkaew, Thailand footballer
1967 – Jason Dozzell, English footballer
1967 – Joshua Bell, American violinist
1967 – Gheorghe Popescu, Romanian footballer
1968 – Kurt Angle, American wrestler
1968 – Brian Bell, American guitarist (Weezer)
1968 – Brent Price, American basketball player
1969 – Jakob Dylan, American singer (The Wallflowers)
1969 – Bixente Lizarazu, French footballer
1969 – Allison Smith, American actress
1969 – Sebastian Spence, Canadian actor
1970 – Kara DioGuardi, American songwriter, record producer and singer
1970 – Lance Krall, American comedian
1971 – Petr Nedved, Czech ice hockey player
1971 – Geoff Barrow, English musician (Portishead)
1972 – Reiko Aylesworth, American actress
1972 – Tre Cool, German-American drummer (Green Day)
1972 – Backhouse Mike, American composer and producer
1972 – Fabrice Santoro, Tahitian-French tennis player
1973 – Fabio Artico, Italian footballer
1973 – Bárbara Padilla, Mexican-American soprano
1974 – Aloísio da Silva Filho, Brazilian footballer
1974 – Canibus, American rapper
1974 – Wendy Dillinger, American footballer and coach
1974 – Rahat Fateh Ali Khan,Pakistani singer
1976 – Chris Booker, American baseball player
1977 – Saskia Garel, Canadian actress
1977 – Shayne Graham, American football player
1977 – Imogen Heap, English singer-songwriter
1978 – Gaston Gaudio, Argentine tennis player
1978 – Jesse Metcalfe, American actor
1979 – Chen Hao, Chinese actress
1979 – Olivia Lufkin, Japanese singer
1979 – Stephen McPhail, Irish footballer
1980 – Ryder Hesjedal, Canadian cyclist
1980 – Simon Helberg, American actor
1981 – Mardy Fish, American tennis player
1981 – Dia Mirza, Indian actress
1982 – Tamilla Abassova, Russian cyclist
1982 – Nathalie De Vos, Belgian athlete
1982 – Ryan Grant, American football player
1982 – Bastian Swillims, German sprinter
1983 – Jermaine Beckford, English footballer
1983 – Dariusz Dudka, Polish footballer
1984 – Leon Hall, American football player
1984 – Angel Guirado, Spanish–Filipino footballer
1985 – Wil Besseling, Dutch golfer
1987 – Kostas Giannoulis, Greek footballer
1987 – Mat Latos, American baseball player
1988 – Kwadwo Asamoah, Ghanaian footballer
1989 – Lindsey Evans, American model
1990 – LaFee, German singer
1991 – Prince Joachim of Belgium, Archduke of Austria-Este
1991 – Choi Minho South Korean rap artist (Shinee)
1993 – Laura Smulders, Dutch racing cyclist
1995 – McKayla Maroney, American Gymnast
2001 – Ronnie Paris, American child abuse victim (d. 2005)