December 10, 2023
QUOTE
Two things people throughout history have had in common are hatred and humor. I am proud that I have been able to use humor to lessen people’s hatred.
--Richard Pryor
BIRTHDAYS
1851 – Melvil Dewey, Librarian, created the Dewey Decimal System
1886 – Victor McLaglen, English-American actor
1928 – Barbara Nichols, Actress
1946 – Douglas Kenney, Satirist, writer, actor
1952 – Susan Dey, Actress
IN MEMORY
1896 – Alfred Nobel, Swedish chemist and engineer, invented Dynamite and founded the Nobel Prize
1909 – Red Cloud, Tribal chief
1944 – John Brunt, English captain, Victoria Cross recipient
1967 – Otis Redding, Singer-songwriter and producer
2005 – Richard Pryor, Comedian, actor, producer, and screenwriter
2021 – Michael Nesmith, Nusician (The Monkees), songwriter, actor, producer, and novelist
IN ON THIS DAY
1520 – Martin Luther burns his copy of the papal bull Exsurge Domine outside Wittenberg’s Elster Gate.
1684 – Isaac Newton’s derivation of Kepler’s laws from his theory of gravity, contained in the paper De motu corporum in gyrum, is read to the Royal Society by Edmond Halley.
1768 – The first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica is published.
1817 – Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state.
1901 – The first Nobel Prize ceremony is held in Stockholm on the fifth anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death.
1906 – U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in the mediation of the Russo-Japanese War, becoming the first American to win a Nobel Prize in any field.