Today's Birthdays English physicist and mathematician Sir Isaac Newton, considered one of the most important scientists of all time, was born on this day in 1642. Newtons Sleep by Ursula K Le Guin On a future Earth of environmental devastation and political instability, rapidly mutating viruses have caused billions of deaths, and the future of the human race is in jeopardy. When a select group of pragmatists take residence in an orbiting habitat, the occupants begin to see visions of the unfortunates they left behind, and some fear that the environmental deprivation has bridged the gap between reality and hallucination. 1991 1907 -- Activist journalist I. F. "Izzy" Stone, US journalist, lives to tell it like it is, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Washington editor of "The Nation" magazine & founder of the legendary "I. F. Stone's Weekly", Stone specialized in publishing information ignored by the corporate media 1913 -- "The Italian Hall Disaster." In Calumet, Michigan, striking copper miners & their children are having a Christmas celebration; strike-breakers outside bar the doors then raise a false fire alarm. In the ensuing stampede, 73 (roughly half are children) are crushed or suffocated. http://www.csufresno.edu/folklore/BalladIndex.html http://members.xoom.com/elstongunn/1913.html 1914 -- Wilderness advocate John Muir dies, Los Angeles, California. 2001-dec 30.Tim May savaged to death by own security dogs. Buried at sea.no flowers.