Born in 1929 – Myron Cope, American journalist and sportscaster.

Long time voice of the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cope played a large role in the invention of the Terrible Towel. Needing a way to excite the fans during a 1975 playoff game against the Baltimore Colts, Cope urged fans to take yellow dish towels to the game and wave them throughout.

In 1996, Cope gave the rights to The Terrible Towel to the Allegheny Valley School in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The school provides care for more than 900 people with intellectual disabilities and physical disabilities, including Cope’s son who has severe autism. Proceeds from the Terrible Towel have helped raise $3 million for the school.

Born in 1935 – Alexander Men, Russian priest and scholar.

“From the very outset, the coming of Christ represents the fulfillment of hope. From the very beginning the Gospel story means victory arising out of catastrophe. Disappointment, defeat, despair, confusion – and all of a sudden, an unexpected display of the miraculous power of God.” 

Born in 1963 – Hakeem Olajuwon, Nigerian-American basketball player.

Born in 1908 – Simone de Beauvoir, French philosopher and author.

“Representation of the world, like the world itself, is the work of men; they describe it from their own point of view, which they confuse with absolute truth.”  ― Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex

Born in 1864 – Alfred Stieglitz, American photographer.

Above:  Stieglitz’s Georgia O’Keeffe in pencil on the reverse, 1918.

Born in 1959 – Paul Westerberg, American singer-songwriter and guitarist.

Listen below to “Swingin Party” from the 1985 Replacements album, Tim.

Born in 1901 – Marlene Dietrich, German-American actress and singer.

In 1812, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published Kinder-und Hausmärchen (Children’s and Household Tales).

Václav Havel, Czech poet, playwright, and the first President of the Czech Republic, died on this day in 2011.

In 1986 he said, 

“As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.”

It’s the Feast of Saint Lucy.

Lucy was a martyr in Syracuse during the Diocletianic Persecution of 304 AD. Her name is found in the Greek inscriptions from the catacombs of St. John in Syracuse.

“For Saint Lucy, even when her persecutors lit a fire around her she still would not burn. They gouged out her eyes, yet she still would not die. They attempted to kidnap her for nefarious means, but they could not move her. After her death it was found that her eyes had been miraculously restored.”

Above: An icon of Saint Lucy by Raphael Winters.