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American slave owner, lawyer, military officer and politician Richard Mentor Johnson died on this day 173 years ago, aged 70. He served as the ninth vice president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841 under President Martin Van Buren. He is the only vice president elected by the United States Senate under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment. Johnson also represented Kentucky in the US House of Representatives and Senate. He began and ended his political career in the Kentucky House of Representatives. He campaigned with the slogan "Rumpsey Dumpsey, Rumpsey Dumpsey, Colonel Johnson killed Tecumseh". He fell one short of the electoral votes needed to secure his election. Virginia's delegation to the Electoral College refused to endorse Johnson, voting instead for William Smith of South Carolina. The Senate elected him to the vice-presidential office. Johnson proved such a liability for the Democrats in the 1836 election that they refused to renominate him for vice president in 1840. Van Buren campaigned for reelection without a running mate. Johnson tried to return to public office but was defeated. He finally was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1850, but died two weeks later.

Jonnie Irwin is 50 today.

Danish physicist Niels Bohr died on this day 61 years ago, aged 77. He made foundational contributions to understanding atomic structure and quantum theory, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1922. Bohr was also a philosopher and a promoter of scientific research. Bohr developed the Bohr model of the atom, in which he proposed that energy levels of electrons are discrete and that electrons revolve in stable orbits around the atomic nucleus but can jump from one energy level to another. Bohr founded the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen, now known as the Niel Bohrs Institute, which opened in 1920. During the 1930s, Bohr helped refugees from Nazism. After Denmark was occupied by the Germans, he had a famous meeting with Heisenberg, who had become the head of the German nuclear weapon project. In September 1943 word reached Bohr that he was about to be arrested by the Germans, so he fled to Sweden. From there, he was flown to Britain, where he joined the British Tube Alloys nuclear weapons project, and was part of the British mission to the Manhattan Project. After the war, Bohr called for international cooperation on nuclear energy. He was involved with the establishment of CERN and the Research Establishment Risø of the Danish Atomic Energy Commission and became the first chairman of the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in 1957.

Martin Scorsese is 81 today.

Hungarian footballer and manager Ferenc Puskás died on this day 17 years ago, aged 79. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest players of all time and the sport's first international superstar. He is a forward and an attacking midfielder. He scored 84 goals in 85 international matches for Hungary and played four international matches for Spain. He became an Olympic champion in 1952 and led his nation to the final of the 1954 World Cup. He won three European Cups (1959, 1960, 1966), ten national championships (five Hungarian and five Spanish Primera Division) and eight top individual scoring honors. He is known as the "Galloping Major". In 1995, he was recognised as the greatest top division scorer of the 20th century by the IFFHS. With 806 goals in 793 official games scored during his career, he is the seventh top goalscorer of all time.

Guillermo Lasso is 68 today.

Henry III of England died on this day 751 years ago, aged 65. He was King of England, Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine from 1216 until his death in 1272. He is the son of King John and Isabella of Angouléme, Henry assumed the throne when he was only nine in the middle of the First Barons' War. Cardinal Guala Bicchieri declared the war against the rebel barons to be a religious crusade and Henry's forces, led by William Marshal, defeated the rebels at the battles of Lincoln and Sandwich in 1217. Henry promised to abide by the Great Charter of 1225, a later version of the 1215 Magna Carta, which limited royal power and protected the rights of the major barons. His early rule was dominated first by Hubert de Burgh and then Peter des Roches, who re-established royal authority after the war. In 1230, the King attempted to reconquer the provinces of France that had once belonged to his father, but the invasion was a debacle. A revolt led by William Marshal's son Richard broke out in 1232, ending in a peace settlement negotiated by the Church.

Aleksander Kwasniewski is 69 today.

American actor and film director Lionel Barrymore died on this day 69 years ago, aged 76. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in A Free Soul (1931), and is known to modern audiences for the role of villainous Mr. Potter in Frank Capra's 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. He is also particularly remembered as Ebenezer Scrooge in annual broadcasts of A Christmas Carol during his last two decades. He is also known for playing Dr. Leonard Gillespie in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's nine Dr. Kildare films, a role he reprised in a further six fims focusing solely on Gillespie and in a radio series titled The Story of Dr. Kildare. He was a member of the theatrical Barrymore family.

King Charles III is 75 today.

American educator, orator, and adviser to several presidents of the United States Booker T. Washington died on this day 108 years ago, aged 59. Between 1890 and 1915, Washington was the dominant leader in the African-American community and of the contemporary Black elite. Washington was from the last generation of Black American leaders born into slavery and became the leading voice of the former slaves and their descendants. They were newly oppressed in the South by disenfranchisement and the Jin Crow discriminatory laws enacted in the post-Reconstruction Southern states in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Washington was a key proponent of African-American businesses and one of the founders of the National Negro Business League.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is 70 today.

American professional wrestler Eddie Guerrero died on this day 18 years ago, aged 38. He was best known for his tenures in WWE and WCW. Guerrero performed in Mexico and Japan for several major professional wrestling promotions, and in the United States he performed for ECW, WCW, WWF/WWE. After the death of Art Barr, Guerrero received his first mainstream exposure in the United States in 1995 by joining ECW and winning the ECW World Television Championship two times. Later that year, Guerrero moved the WCW, where he became WCW United States Champion and WCW Cruiserweight Champion and also led the Latino World Order. Guerrero went on to win the WWF European Championship and WWF Intercontinental Championship before he was released in 2001 due to addiction issues.

Anne Hathaway is 41 today.

American comic book writer, editor, publisher, and producer Stan Lee died on this day 5 years ago, aged 95. He rose through the ranks of a family run business called Timely Comics which would later become Marvel Comics. In collaboration with others at Marvel he co-created iconic characters, including superheroes Spiderman, the X Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Ant Man, the Wasp, the Fantastic Four, Black Panther, Daredevil, Doctor Strange, the Scarlet Witch, and Black Widow. Following his retirement from Marvel in the 1990s, Lee remained a public figurehead for the company, and frequently made cameo appearances in films and television shows based on Marvel characters on which he received an executive producer credit, which allowed him to become the highest grossing person in film of all time by a large margin. Lee was inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1995. He received the NEA's National Medal of Arts in 2008.

Leonard DiCaprio is 49 today.

Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat died on this day 19 years ago, aged 75. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization from 1969 to 2004 and President of the Palestinian National Authority from 1994 to 2004. He is an Arab nationalist and a socialist. Arafat was a founding member of the Fatah political party, which he led from 1959 until 2004. He fought alongside the Muslim brotherhood during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. In 1994, he was award the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres.

German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany Helmut Schmidt died on this day 8 years ago, aged 96. He served as the chancellor of West Germany from 1974 to 1982. As chancellor, he focused in international affairs, seeking "political unification of Europe in partnership with the United States" and issuing proposals that led to the NATO Double-Track Decision in 1979 to deploy US Pershing II missiles to Europe. He was an energetic diplomat who sought European co-operation and international economic co-ordination and was the leading force in creating the European Monetary System in 1978. He was re-elected chancellor in 1976 and 1970, but his coalition fell apart in 1982 which the switch by his coalition allies, the Free Democratic Party.

Scottish politician Ramsay MacDonald died on this day 86 years ago, aged 71. He served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, the first who belonged to the Labour Party, leading minority Labour governments for nine months in 1924 and again between 1929 and 1931. From 1931 to 1935, he headed a National Government dominated by the Conservative Party and supported by only a few Labour members. MacDonald was expelled from the Labour Party as a result. MacDonald, along with Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson, was one of the three principal founders of the Labour Party in 1900. He was chairman of the Labour MPs before 1914 and, after an eclipse in his career caused by his opposition to the First World War, he was Leader of the Labour Party from 1922. The second Labour Government from 1929 to 1931 was dominated by the Great Depression. He formed the National Government to carry out spending cuts to defend the gold standard, but it has to be abandoned after the Invergordon Mutiny, and he called a general election in 1931 seeking a "doctor's mandate" to fix the economy.

L. K. Advani is 96 today.

American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell died on this day 45 years ago, aged 84. His works have a broad popular appeal in the United States for their reflection of the country's culture. Rockwell is most famous for the cover illustrations of everyday life he created for The Saturday Evening Post magazine over nearly five decades. Among the best-known of Rockwell's works are the Willie Gillis series, Rosie the Riveter, The Problem We All Live With, Saying Grace, and the Four Freedom series. He is also noted got his 64-year relationship with the Boy Scouts of America, during which he produced covers for their publications Boys' Life, calendars, and other illustrations. These works include popular images that reflect the Scout Oath and Scout Law such as The Scoutmaster, A Scout is Reverent and A Guiding Hand, among many others.

Rudy Boschwitz is 93 today.

American actor and racing driver Steve McQueen died on this day 43 years ago, aged 50. McQueen received an Academy Award nomination for his role in The Sand Pebbles (1966). His other popular films include The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Nevada Smith (1966), The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt (1968), The Getaway (1972) and Papillon (1973). In addition, he starred in the all-star ensemble films The Magnificent Seven (1960), The Great Escape (1963) and The Towering Inferno (1974). In 1974, McQueen became the highest-paid movie star in the world, although he did not act in film for another four years.

François Englert is 91 today.

American actress Gene Tierney died on this day 32 years ago, aged 70. She is acclaimed for her great beauty. She became established as a leading lady. Tierney was best known for her portrayal of the title character in the film Laura (1944), and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance as Ellen Berent Harland in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Tierney's other roles include Martha Strable Van Cleave in Heaven Can Wait (1943), Isabel Bradley Maturin in The Razor's Edge (1946), Lucy Muir in The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Ann Sutton in Whirlpool (1949), Mary Bristol in Night and the City (1950), Maggie Carleton McNulty in The Mating Season (1950), and Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God (1955).