Yoshifumi Tajima, Godzilla actor, born 1918

Yoshifumi Tajima, born August 4, 1918 in Kobe, Japan, appeared in many Godzilla and Toho Company films.  His first kaiju film was Rodan in 1956. He went on to star in Mothra (1961), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), Ghidora, the Three-headed Monster (1964), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), Destroy All Monsters (1968), and The Return of Godzilla (1984).

He passed away in 2009.

 Yoshifumi Tajima

Celebrating Pride Month: Les Mouches Fantastiques, first LGBT magazine in North America

 

Les Mouches fantastiques (The Fantastic Flies) was the first LGBT publication in North American history, being published between 1918-1920. It was an underground magazine based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It started from a writing circle established by Elsa Gidlow (poet) and Roswell George Mills as its primary contributors. It included poetry and non-fiction about gay and lesbian issues, such as identity, politics, and editorials.

Only five issues of Les Mouches fantastiques were ever published, but it had a wide distribution, receiving correspondence as far away as Havana, Cuba. It was discontinued when Gidlow and Mills moved to New York City in 1920.

Patty Andrews born 1918

Patricia "Patty" Andrews, the youngest of the iconic Andrews Sisters, was born February 16, 1918.  Although the last born, she was the lead singer of the group.  They have sold an estimated 80M records.  Their first #1 hit was "Bei Mir Bist Du Schon" in 1938.  

She passed away in 2013.

Celebrating Native American Heritage Month: Ernest Childers, first Creek to win Medal of Honor

Ernest Childers, born February 1, 1918 in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, is the first Creek (Muscogee) to win the Medal of Honor for his actions during WWII.  

He joined the Oklahoma Army National Guard in 1937 and was assigned to the 180th Infantry Regiment, 45th Infantry Division.  In September 1943 in Italy, he single-handedly killed two enemy snipers, attacked two machine gun nests, and captured an artillery observer.  For these actions he was awarded the Medal of Honor in April 1944.  

He attained the rank of lieutenant colonel before retiring from the US Army.  He passed away in March 2005.

Celebrating Black History Month: Lloyd Ferguson, first African-American to receive a doctorate in chemistry

Lloyd Noel Ferguson, born February 9, 1918, is the first African-American to receive a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1943.  He took a faculty position at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College and then moved to Howard University about two years later.  There he founded the doctoral program, the first at any black college.

In the 1960s, he became an advisory to the Food and Drug Administration.  In 1972, he became one of  the founders of  the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE).

He retired in 1986 and passed away in 2011.

Celebrating Black History Month: Lloyd Quarterman, Manhattan Project chemist

Lloyd Quarterman, born May 31, 1918 in Philadelphia, earned his Bachelor's Degree in chemistry from St. Augustine's College in Raleigh, North Carolina.  He was hired as chemist on the Manhattan Project during WWII with Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi.  His chief responsibility was developing a system for purifying large quantities of hydrogen fluoride.  HF would  then be used to separate Uranium-235 for atomic bombs.  The U-235 accumulated was used to make Little Boy, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

He worked at Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago for 30 years. 

He passed away in July 1982.