Notable Birthdays for February 12
Peter Cooper (1791-1883) - Founder of Cooper Union.
Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) - The 16th President of the U.S.
Robert Ransom Jr (1828-1892) - Major General for the Confederate Army.
Stephen Wilcox (1830-1893) - Inventor of steam generators for power stations and ships.
John L. Lewis (1880-1969) - A highly influential figure in the coal mining industry.
James Scott (1885-1938) - Acclaimed Ragtime composer.
Lincoln LaPaz (1897-1985) - Astronomer and known UFO investigator.
Olivia Hooker (1915-2018) - The first Black woman to enter the Coast Guard.
Dom DiMaggio (1917-2009) - Known as "the Little Professor" in MLB and the little brother of Joe DiMaggio.
Norman Farberow (1918-2015) - Psychologist who is one of the founding fathers of modern suicidology and co-founder of the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center.
Judy Blume (1938-Still Living) - Author of children and young adult books, including Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.
Ray Manzarek (1939-2013) - Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the rock band the Doors.
Phil Zimmermann (1954-Still Living) - Computer scientist who created PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), the most widely used email encryption software in the world.
Cliff Bleszinski (1975-Still Living) - Video game designer (Gears of War).
Memorable Events for February 12
1878 - Frederick Thayer (Harvard player) patents baseball catcher's mask.
1908 - Anna Jeanes bequeaths $1 million to Swarthmore for it to become an all female higher education institution.
1909 - The NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) is founded.
1948 - Nancy Leftenant becomes first Black in Army Nursing Corps.
1965 - Malcolm X visits Smethwick, England, following their racially-charged general election.
2001 - The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft becomes the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.