December 15, 1892- J. Paul Getty, oil billionaire, philanthropist

December 15, 1916- Maurice H. Wilkins, biophysicist, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA

December 15, 1933- Tim Conway, actor, comedian, “McHales’s Navy, “The Carol Burnett Show”

December 15, 1942- Dave Clark, musician, leader  of the “Dave Clark Five”

December 15, 1949- Don Johnson, actor,  ”Miami Vice”

December 15, 1968- Garrett Wang, actor

Carlson was an engineer who couldn’t get a job in his field during the Great Depression, so he took work in the patent department of battery-manufacturer P.R. Mallory. A bottleneck in the work was making copies of patent documents: You had to copy them by hand (time and labor) or send them out to be photographed (time and expense).

Carlson set out to make a dry-copying process. He got his inspiration from the new field of photoconductivity: Light striking the surface of certain materials increases the flow of electrons. Carlson knew he could use the effect to make dry copies. Project an image of the original document onto a photoconductive surface, and current would flow only where light stuck.

Four years of tinkering in his kitchen and in his mother-in-law’s beauty salon in Astoria, Queens, in New York City finally produced results in October 1938. Carlson’s research assistant, Otto Kornei, put a sulfur coating on a zinc plate, which was rubbed with a handkerchief to give it an electrostatic charge. A glass slide with the words “10-22-38 ASTORIA” was placed on the plate in a darkened room and illuminated with a bright incandescent lamp for a few seconds.

Lycopodium powder (made from waxy moss spores) was sprinkled on the sulfur and then blown off. There it was: a near-perfect mirror image of the writing. Carlson and Kornei heated wax paper to fix the image.

Carlson had taken law courses at night while working at the Mallory patents department, and he protected his new invention with a web of patents. He needed development money to make the process commercial, but World War II made funding tough. More than 20 corporations, including IBM, Kodak, General Electric and RCA turned him down between 1939 and 1944.

He finally struck a deal with the nonprofit Battelle Memorial Institute in 1944. Battelle gave Carlson a 40 percent stake in the invention and assigned physicist Roland Schaffert to work on perfecting electrophotography.

Battelle licensed the technology in 1947 to Haloid, a Rochester, New York, photographic-supply manufacturer founded in 1906. Battelle and Haloid publicly demonstrated the process Oct. 22, 1948, precisely 10 years after Carlson’s first successful experiment.

The photocopiers introduced in 1949 were a logistical mess: The user had to follow 14 steps, it took 45 seconds to make one copy, and you couldn’t make more than a dozen copies from one exposure. More work was in order.

Haloid also asked a professor of Greek at Ohio State University to coin a better name than electrophotography. He devised xerography from the Greek for “dry writing.” In 1958, Haloid officially changed its name to Haloid Xerox, more than coincidentally parallel to another Rochester firm, Eastman Kodak.

Haloid Xerox had its first big hit the following year with a pioneering automatic photocopier, the Xerox 914 — named for its ability to handle paper up to 9 inches by 14 inches. The company simplified its name to Xerox in 1961. Revenues reached $60 million that year and $500 million (about $3.5 billion in today’s money) by 1965.

The Xerox machine and its eventual xerographic competitors had a profound cultural influence. The machines increased the efficiency (or perhaps the paper-wastefulness) of offices around the world, but cheap copying was also an early step in the democratization of publishing. If you wanted to publish a fanzine or any of the new generation of zines, no longer did you need to run the copies on the sly on the school, church or office mimeograph, or take them to an expensive print shop. Likewise for posters announcing band gigs, political demos and missing pets.

On the serious side, the Soviet Union tightly restricted access to photocopying machines lest they provide a new technology for distributing forbidden samizdat (self-published) literature and nonfiction. On the lighter side, in less-controlled societies, before there were office printers and before there was e-mail and internet humor, there was xerox humor: Copies of unofficial and often off-color cartoons and jokes circulated hand to hand and through postal mail.

Xerography also presented a serious, pre-digital challenge to the practical enforceability of copyright laws. Why laboriously hand-copy the terrific summary page from a library book when you could just photocopy it for a dime? Why indeed pay $8.95 to buy the 72-page monograph your prof assigned, when you could get a copy photocopied on 37 pages for just three bucks? Using a cassette recorder to copy your friends’ LPs was just around the corner. The floodgates were open.

Chester Carlson collapsed and died while walking on New York City’s 57th Street in 1968. He’d earned an estimated $150 million ($950 million today) from Xerox and had given two-thirds of it to charity.

Singer-musician Paul Simon is 67.

Musician Robert Lamm (Chicago) is 64.

Singer-musician Sammy Hagar is 61.

Producer-writer Chris Carter is 52.

Actor Reggie Theus is 51.

Marie Osmond is 49.

Actress Kelly Preston is 46.

Actress Kate Walsh is 41.

Actress Tisha Campbell-Martin is 40.

Olympic silver-medal figure skater Nancy Kerrigan is 39.

Actor Sacha Baron Cohen is 37.

Rock musician Jan Van Sichem Jr. (K’s Choice) is 36.

Rhythm-and-blues singers Brandon and Brian Casey (Jagged Edge) are 33.

Singer Ashanti is 28.

Actor Steve Forrest is 84.

Actress Anita Ekberg is 77.

Actor Eddie Barth is 77.

Writer-director Robert Benton is 76.

Singer Jerry Lee Lewis is 73.

Actor Ian McShane is 66.

Jazz musician Jean-Luc Ponty is 66.

Lech Walesa, the former president of Poland, is 65.

Television-film composer Mike Post is 64.

Actress Patricia Hodge is 62.

TV personality Bryant Gumbel is 60.

Rock singer-musician Mark Farner is 60.

Rock musician Mike Pinera is 60.

Country singer Alvin Crow is 58.

Actress Jill Whelan is 42.

Rock musician Brad Smith (Blind Melon) is 40.

Actress Erika Eleniak is 39.

Actress Natasha Gregson Wagner is 38.

Actress Rachel Cronin is 37.

Actor Zachary Levi is 28.

Cat
01 - 05 February
24 - 31 Mar
25 - 30 Jun
27 - 31 July
15 - 27 September
17 - 30 November

Mouse
10 - 24 January
16 - 23 Mar
15 - 26 April
01 - 03 Jun
01 - 09 July
16 - 25 August

Rabbit
01 - 09 January
01 - 03 April
15 - 20 Jun
10 - 15 Julai
28 - 30 September
01 - 16 Dicember

Lion
25 - 31 January
13 - 15 Mar
22 - 31 May
01 - 16 November

Pigeon Bird
06 - 14 February
14 - 21 May
16 - 26 July
01 - 14 September
26 - 31 Dicember

Turtle
15 - 21 February
27 - 30 April
04 - 14 Jun
26 - 31 August
16 - 27 Oktober

Monkey
01 - 12 Mar
01 - 13 May
21 - 24 Jun
01 - 15 August
01 - 15 October
17 - 25 Dicember

Cheetah
22 - 28 February
04 - 14 April
28 - 31 October

Rabbit

This person is categorised that have a good apperance and normally popular among his friends.This person is a friendly with his friend and your attitude make your friend easy to communicate with you with no boundries of ages or races. Your cool attitude is suitable with you and you will be always responsible for leading any type of group or task.

Cat

Very shy and cute, that is the main character that are suitable for you.Sometimes this person like to follow other people and does not much to make a first talk or discussion to someone he did not know.This person also a very carefull person for selecting his new friend.This person always kind to anybody he knows.

Monkey

Your attitude for this category is the most attractive people attention around him.You have the cool and aggressive attitude.Because of your attitude,many people around you want to be your friend.Its normal for this type of person have a lot of friends and you also can suitable yourself with many kind of people.Sometimes you love to gossip other people and sometimes hurt other people feeling. Your gospel is easy ” Life Must Happy”, in other words also you like to make people attention and you will be always want to be a leader when doing some activities.

Cheetah

Your mystery attitude make people around you always worrying about yourself.In other words, you have many friends. Your emotion sometimes changes a lot and always take a careful step when you with your friends.You also always been a victim for gossips.Refer to your attitude you are suitable to be a leader for great responsibilities.

Mouse

“Sneaking Freshly Tuber” that is the real pictures of your attitude.You are well knowned and efficient on every task or duty that was given.But unfortunately you are too shy, you must decreased you shy.You are very funny and cute with the people around you.Even you not so in famous people, but you still a well known person.

Lion

You are born as a leader. The people around you will always be safe when you around them. You have a good attitude and good appearances.You are very friendly and kind person, that is the reason why people will always like to be friends with you.It not weird thing if you have a lot of friends around you everyday.

Turtle

You are very soft and kind person.By the way,some people around you not feel so good about you because sometimes you like to make an evaluation about your friend.You mostly like to make you own evaluation about other people.In other words, you are very kind person and you have you own attitude and you dont like to be “double-faced” among people around yourself.

Pigeon

You are too easy to fall in love.You are a cool person.You not a very shy person but sometimes you love to isolate yourself in everyday of your life.

Actor Robert Blake is 75.

Senator Robert Bennett (Republican, Utah) is 75.

Actor Fred Willard is 69.

Singer Frankie Avalon is 68.

Rock musician Kerry Livgren is 59.

Actress Anna Deavere Smith is 58.

Movie director Mark Romanek is 49.

Actor James Gandolfini is 47.

Singer Joanne Catherall (Human League) is 46.

Actress Holly Robinson Peete is 44.

Rhythm-and-blues singer Ricky Bell (Bell Biv Devoe and New Edition) is 41.

Actress Aisha Tyler is 38.

Racing cyclist Lance Armstrong is 37.

Actress Jada Pinkett Smith is 37.

Actor James Marsden is 35.

Rapper Xzibit is 34.

Actress Alison Lohman is 29.

Actors Taylor and Brandon Porter are 15.

Actor C.J. Sanders (”Ray”) is 12.

• Dan Marina, 47 - He’s a famous NFL player who played for the Miami Dolphins. He’s also been in movies like Ace Ventura Pet Detective and is a spokesperson for NutriSystem.